January 7, 2026 – School Board Business

001Are we good? Great. Welcome. Um going to call this meeting of our January school board business meeting to order at 6:34. Um you'll forgive our tardiness. You can't see them, but we have the lovely coffee shop from the middle school here um offering the board coffee and tea, and we're so glad they came. Um note from Maggie. Board members, please do not spill coffee on her new tablecloths. Um so, I have heard from uh Fran and Jim who are both um not unwell tonight, so we're going to move ahead without them. We still have a quorum. And please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. All right, our upcoming meetings. We have January 14th, we'll be at the Dun School with a personnel committee meeting at 5:30 and a

002facilities committee at 6:30 will be in the library. January 21st will be at the back here at the high school. Policy committee will be meeting at 5:30. Personnel will also meet at 5:30 in the conference room. and schoolboard workshop to follow at 6:30. January 28th, there's a finance committee at the Dun School Library at 5:30. Any action um auditions or adjustments to the agenda? Great. Any comments from the audience? All right. And I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Turner for the fun job of recognition. All right, we have three recognitions tonight. Um, the first Oh, good. You guys are ready. The first is for Crazy Cobb's Cafe. And I wonder if Miss Cobb and our friends might be willing to come. You You don't have to. I won't make you, but if you'd

003like to come over and say hello, we would love that. Um, Miss Cobb at the uh, middle school has been working with students to um, give them some real world experience. Right up at the mic right here, Kristen. Thank you. Um, and it is. Is it on, Chris? She'll make sure it's on. Um, so Miss Cobb is one of our occupational therapists in the district and she's been working to give our middle school students some realworld experience. Um, making coffees, taking orders, um, doing time sheets, all of that real great experience. It's been huge work that they've done. And as I said, we have two friends who came here tonight and made coffee for all of us, which is delicious, I will add. Um, and we're just so thankful uh for your work and thankful

004to the parents and the families who came out and brought brought their kiddos out here tonight. Thank you for doing that. It's really really special. Um, but I wanted to give Kristen an opportunity to just receive our thanks and talk a little bit about um the work you've been doing and give a chance for the board to ask any questions. Sure. So, um I am the occupational therapist at the middle school in high school. The why be behind the Crazy Cobb Cafe was I've been in the district for almost 10 years. Um very passionate about really helping kids transition outside the walls of high school. We all know for every other student middle school and high school flies. So, the one thing is is really trying to prepare these kids for the outside world is

005the first and foremost. Second one was really trying to apply what they're learning in their programs and classrooms to real world situations and then also recognize what we still need to address in real world situations. The third is that to really get them to understand that why we're here at school is to eventually have the skills to have a job that then can supply them with their needs and their wants when they get outside the walls of the high school. Um like us, you know, there's a need and a lot of employee opportunities for outside agencies. And so right now kids, a lot of kids are on waiting lists for these agencies to help them with the transitional skills. So if we can get that started for them earlier and then support them so they

006don't need to be in these waiting lists for transition services, I feel like then we've done kind of done our job to get them ready. So that's a kind of big picture why. What this looks like is this was my thought process last year. started to think about it a little bit with huge support from Holly Day and my administration at the middle school, Kristen Do and Rick Riley Benoy. They were 100% on board and were fully supportive. So, it's all I needed and just hit the road running in October. Um, what it kind of looks like is every Monday morning we have the coffee cart starts on Friday. We send forms out to staff on Friday for so because we try to be mindful that we don't interrupt the learning of the other kids

007by coming in and making this whole scene of like what do you want? Like so staff that want uh coffee, they put their order in, the kids make it outside on the cart, they deliver it in this the staff pays and it's an easy quick transition. There's some teachers that like to order on the fly which is great. So anyone that's in the hallways can order. Um the kids right now I currently am getting there and making the coffee eventually I would like that part to be part of it but to get this going and seeing how it works out. I make the coffee. The kids two kids every Monday they have a two-eek rotation. So they get two weeks of backtoback of skill building. They arrive at my room. They fill out a time

008card. They get their apron, their their um name tag. They count the money for the drawer and they um put their gloves on and we head out to the hallways. We go deliver the coffees that were ordered, take orders on the fly, like I said, in the hallways. Then it probably takes about two two and a half hours to get through the whole school. Um and then they come back to my room. They complete their time card. They then count the drawer again. Um you they do all the skills that you saw this evening. In addition, they also managed money. So that being said, the goal also not only to give the students skills was also to provide the teachers with a nice treat on a Monday morning coming back off a vacation with a

009good cup of coffee, not just a coffee from the cure egg. So I to keep cost low um we only charge a dollar for the coffee, hot chocolate, and tea for the staff. How we're able to right now keep that low is I've gone out to local main roers and ask for donations. I kind of tell who I am, what I'm doing, the the the point of the program. And um I've been very fortunate that Coffee by Design donated the first round. Then Good Life Market, the Swift River Roers donated the second round. Have a list of my go-to from the next couple rounds. Um but they've been generously donated seven pounds of coffee each one. So that's been getting us, you know, a good good amount of well up till now. So we're able

010to right now keep it only at a dollar. All the funds go right back into the cart. Like as you saw the creamers, the o creamer, the fun syrups and holiday, all the fun things like that that cups that all goes right back into to pay for those things. Um they then once they sign their time card out, they tally up their hours. Every two weeks Cobb store is open. They come, they add up all their hours, they get paid, and then they can shop in the store. So kind of bringing it big picture of this is what I'm here to school to maybe get a job to then pay for my needs and wants and really start to think about what they want to do for a job, right? It comes fast. We all

011know. So just gives them choice in the matter of what they want to do and have the skills to be able to do some things outside that is their choice. Um it's been a great we've had great responses. The staff has loved it. Um the kids I think have really enjoyed it. Not sure if they're comfortable sharing what they like, but that's okay. Would you guys like to share what you like working? Not right now. Okay, that's okay. It's hard. It's a lot of new faces. Even Mrs. Cobb's nervous up here talking to faces I don't know. It's okay. Um, but any questions? >> Uh, one last question. Oh, hang on. So, two kiddos a shift every Monday. How many overall students are participating >> so far? Oh gosh. Um, I think I've been through

012since October. We've only missed a couple Mondays. I probably a solid ten different kids have come through. Um, these guys are re, you know, are they have done it before, so that's why I've asked them to come. Um, and but we have probably a waiting list of 15 20 more kids. I work with obviously a certain specific population within our schools. However, I have offered it to other teachers to say maybe it's a a student that just needs a different way of learning, needs them connected to a different way of how to understand that big picture, you know. So, it's not just for um special ed students. It's also for students that are just having a hard time getting to school and, you know, being connected to learning. So, >> yeah, that's a great draw

013to get kids excited to come in. >> It has Yeah. Has a lot of meaning. Yeah. >> Yeah. Other questions, Adam? >> [clears throat] >> Uh you talked about being able to shop in the Cobb store. What kind of items do we have and how do they find their way into their >> How do they find their way in? So, uh middle school has a account with Roose. So, I shop Ruth often to get those. Um I I purchase a lot of different things to have in there. You know, I hit the dollar bin at Target. All of that stuff that um I know is meaningful and connected to the kids. So, I think embedded in Mr. Pop's question might be that um Kristen would never ask, but I'm sure she would accept any and

014all >> and I do I >> things people wanted to. >> Yeah, we know like people are always donating things but um it's anywhere from fidgets to slime to all the what the thing the mo motivate the kids like I you know I try not to just have a penc shop at something. So, I have accumulated some things. May or may not have stolen some things from my children's things that they no [laughter] longer need. Um, you know, so, uh, a variety of different ways. Variety of different ways. >> Yeah. I mean, we could definitely advertise like the youngest Uber Eats program in the in the state for sure. Uh, I thought you guys did an excellent job. Coffee is great. Good job. >> What do we say? >> Thanks for letting us serve you

015guys. Thanks for being here. >> Other questions? I was just going to offer that since [clears throat] everybody in a coffee shop works in a band, you should also be working on their skills, creating a flyer for their bad indie rock show on Friday that they could, you know, hand with the coffee, try to get the teachers to come, you know, >> integrate with our music program a little, >> you know, maybe learn some guitar, keyboards, you know, >> we typically, which they were reminded me, we typically have a little speaker that plays some cafe jazz music as we're going There you go. >> I forgot the speaker this evening. So, um they but they were reminded me there. >> Um I I think they've the students have blown me away with their skills. Obviously,

016you saw today um and with their money skills and just what it's brought out with a lot of we have a few non-verbal kids that really are motivated by the dollars and have really have done some great communication. So, it's been it's been fun. If I'm not wrong, a shout out is also deserved to Miss Nedler. Am I correct there? >> Miss Nedler um uh she and her she Cricut Skills did these we ordered the aprons um in the budget last year knowing that we were going to work on a few things and she made the help me design the Crazy Cobb Cafe. Awesome. >> And Crazy Cobb came from a former student that that was their mystical name. All the other teachers had mystical names. I said, "What's mine?" And mine was crazy cobb.

017So that's how crazy cop and I am known a little bit to be a little crazy. So >> wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for the great coffee. I'm very particular and this is really good. Really good coffee. And thank you to parents and family members for coming in um >> at the dinner hour on a school night to treat us. >> It was made a really good night. Thank you you guys. >> Thank you. >> Uh so we have two other recognitions tonight. Uh we've got some staff members who have received um some congratulations outside of our school district and we thought it was really important to to share that with everyone. Um the first on the list is u Miss Billy Lavali. She's one of our health aids

018primarily. She's at Russell School but she also travels to the other elementary schools. Uh Miss Lavali's been really involved with the National Kidney Donation Organization for a long time. She is an organ donor herself. Um we kind of bonded over that when she first came on board. um having a very personal experience with organ donation myself. Um and she uh has done so much work for them, particularly working with folks who are interested in being live donors and kind of helping coaching them through that process uh that they have awarded her one of the national kidney donation organization volunteers of the year. Uh we linked it in our website. You can see um the other honores nationally as well as a little write up of what Billy did, but we're very proud of her. Uh

019the other is uh we have two three people items um Pauline Bowie and Carrie Coffran um who we are beyond thrilled uh were nominated for Maine Department of Education. It's called the Rise Award. Um it is an award that um is is nationally but it it goes through our local main department of education. Um and they have to be nominated by someone in their community or in their school system. and um Miss Coffron and Miss Bowie were both um nominated and honored um as RISE award recipients. Um they the state then chooses a top 10 and then they send them nationally and then national um finalists are are considered as well, but we um haven't had uh too many folks on the RISE awards list in a while and it's something we're kind of hoping

020to change. So we're really excited to see um that direction. So congratulations Miss Coffer, Miss Bowie. We are very pleased to have um a couple rise award uh recognitions. >> Fantastic. Thank you and congratulations. All right. Old business. I would hear a motion to accept as printed the minutes of our December 3rd regular business meeting. I make the motion that we um take action relative to accepting as printed the minutes of the December 3rd, 2025 regular business meeting. Second. >> Any discussion? Folks see anything errors in there? No. Okay. All in favor? Perfect. Thank you. And moving on to strategic plan update. So this is our um sort of monthly standing item now where we try to kind of draw back the big work we're doing and report out on the strategic plan in an

021ongoing way instead of just a couple of times a year. Um and we're tying that into our data dashboard presentation which we also have done um every year but you know have have switched it up a little bit evolved. Um so for those of you I think everyone's met Kathy at this point but this is Kathy Martin. She is our director of curriculum and staff development. um she previewed this presentation to our curriculum committee last month um and is now here to share with you our annual data uh report on how our kids are doing state of state. >> Yeah. So, thank you very much uh for giving me some time uh this evening to kind of go over the data dashboard. Um I I want to say that I formatted it to um similarly

022to how Dr. Turner had done it in previous years. So, uh, just a little fun fact, there are some slides that the data is the same on one page as the other. As I shared with the curriculum committee, um, sometimes people look at data in different charts and it makes more sense one way or the other. So, I'm going to verify um, as I go through my presentation, I will tell you which page I'm um, referring to. Um, but you can look at which one makes sense to you and and how you want to uh, break down the data. Uh, Maggie's my Vanna White tonight, so I appreciate that. Um, I'm going to go over a a few different assessments that our students um go through, especially when it's tied to the state assessments. Um,

023I'm going to go over specifically our literacy, our math, and then also our science. I will give you some supplemental data um that we do report um uh each year to the state. And then I'm gonna more importantly talk about our next steps especially as we're heading into our budget and and how we've been um pivoting based on this data. So um as this is tied to our strategic plan, it's really important that we focus on the mission and vision, right? So our student achievement is really kind of showcasing how are we doing and we're measuring up to our mission and vision. So it's always really important whenever we do that we kind of are always being mindful. are we doing what we need to do and are we creating that engaging environment? Um and

024so that's what we're going to talk about today. Um so the first thing we're going to talk about is the different type of assessments. Um more specifically today I'm going to really focus on those state assessments. Um you might hear your own students saying oh I've NWA assessments. Um so NWA for us is one of the um state assessments but it's also our local assessment. Um for us we have um the the NWA is coming back to um there's a there's two types in the fall and the winter. They kind of have a normed um criteria where the students are taking the assessment and are ultimately are kind of getting the student where they are and are then moving um and have a goal and we are measuring them on how they're doing towards that

025goal. Um in the spring they actually take the same assessment but it breaks it down. So half the assessment is normed. It's giving them a a score, a three-digit score um that's based on their own goal, but we also get a four-digit score, which is that criterion normed that actually gives us um how are the students doing based on the state assessments. So we kind of have it's like a BOGO sale. We got one assessment that gives us two scores. Um that allows us to see how are we doing against the state and also in our region and then also how are we doing um and in utilizing the local assessments is what our teachers are using day-to-day to inform their instruction. So, we really have um what I'm going to talk about today is

026the NWA, but we're going to understand that it really does kind of morph throughout the year of having some of it is just used for their um this the teachers in the day-to-day and their their teaching and learning. Um but then there's also this piece of the state gives us the assessment later on in the summer, sometimes in the fall of how we're doing against um the state. So, it kind of gives the same assessment uh multiple ways. So, as I said, we have the NWA growth. We're we'll talk about that the fall and some of our students take it in the winter. The through year is that criterion norm, which is that spring data. And then we also have the science MEA that we'll showcase tonight. So, when we're looking at literacy, oh, I

027should go. Yeah, one more. Thank you. Uh I will say though um through the process this past uh summer and I don't know did you talk about it being reormed at all with the board. Okay. You did talk about it. So the state um this summer has reormed. So it hadn't been uh reormed in since 2017. Um and how the assessment was done is I want you to look at um if if I were a student and I was like thinking about all the different grades. If I scored a 200, this would be kind of the bands, right? And every grade level is a different color. And before in the 2017, all the two the Ritz scores of a 200 would be all put together into one bucket. And as a student was progressing through

028the assessment, if it was getting harder or easier, they would just pull from that 200 bucket. And a fourth grader could technically get any color assessment. um item in the 200. So when they reormed it, I want you to think about if I was a fourth grader, I'm now only getting blue 200 question level questions. Um what does that do? Well, it makes it a little easier so that kids we actually know that um it's a little harder in terms of understanding like what the 200 is, but we can actually kind of I'm I'm hoping through this reorming we can understand that as a kid is a fourth grader. It will be a better predictor on how they're doing on the state assessments because now we're not just saying, "Oh, they're at a fourth grade

029rigger." Um you know, we can actually see that instead of just a 200, are they actually getting closer to that state assessment? it might help us to kind of see is that fall and winter really helping us get to um when we're doing the criterion at the end of the year, are they actually going to be meeting that standard or not? So, the reorming has been a little different because our our data is going to be different. So, I'm going to kind of show you where that there's not apples and oranges now that it's reormed. Um but I think in the end it will give us a better assessment um report for our students. All right, literacy data. So, I'm going to actually um have you turn to page seven and eight if um again

030the data is the same on both pages. Um it's just how you prefer to look at it. Um so on on what ultimately you're looking at again just for for ver uh in the chart you can see that the everything that's blue is in 2017 norm and then the green is the 2025 uh norms. You can kind of see that obviously when we uh look at our data in COVID we have those asterisks we are not reporting on those um pieces. If you wanted to kind of look longitudinally and look at a cohort you would kind of go diagonal. So if I was looking at the third grade in 1819 they were at 72% obviously during COVID they didn't then they're at 70 75 65 68 86. So you can kind of go through diagonally

031if you wanted to follow a cohort of students. Um, but you can also see like if I am a third grade teacher, I can kind of see how are my uh my students doing over the years. Um, so that's kind of what we're we're seeing on on this page. This is the norm reference. So, >> sorry, one sec. I think we have a question. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Just um what the percents indicate how many students are performing at or better than their peers nationally based on this. So this is normed nationally but not against the state. >> Yeah. Yes. But our state is is tied into the national data. So right. >> But yes. So this is just compared to the national. Yes. >> Okay. >> Yep. So this is the norm. This is

032not to the state and that's why when you get to the next slide you'll start seeing are we meeting state standard or not. This one is just our kids when they get their assessment, are they getting to to meet their growth goal ultimately is the best way to think about that. Where this one is um when you're looking at the state assessment, it gives us that fourdigit number at the end. We usually get the data way after school um finishes. Um when we get it, we get to see are we well below, below, meeting or exceeding. Um then it kind of breaks it down. we get this how are we doing as a district how are we doing region so Cumberland was the question then the state and then we get a determination obviously looking

033at literacy we're doing really well and compared to our peers as well as the state >> um I'm just going to ask you briefly expanding on what Sam's saying just so everybody's on the same page and for folks watching from home can you remind the difference between normed and criterion >> yeah so norm is think about like a kid is trying to get their own growth. I might start really well below and I'm I have a goal that I need to meet and I am doing everything I can to meet my own goal. How are they doing meeting their own goal? Where this is comparing if I am a fourth grader, I'm comparing to all the fourth grade and the fourth grade standards at the state level. Does that make sense? As I mentioned before,

034we're reorming. So, we're hoping that through this 2025 data, it will be a better predictor of if we're looking at our fall and our winter data in the norm, it would be then able to say, are we actually meeting the standard by grade level? So, our our norm data that we're using all throughout the year being a good predictor for our spring assessment. So, is our fall and our winter doing a great job of telling us, are we doing what we need to do? is our interventions, our our RTI work that we're all doing with our students and all the plans we're doing. Are we making a difference? We're going to have to see this. This is our first stab at it because we just saw the reference um and the new norms, but we'll

035get to see um longitudinal as we've um now have more data in this coming year. So, this is the comparison. We hadn't done this. This was the only new data that we didn't have before. Same thing with math. >> Just one sec. Y >> any questions on the literacy piece. >> Okay. In Sam, >> so you know if I see in 24 25 our kindergarteners 85% of them are average or better. So 15 >> 15% of them are below average nationally. Is that good? >> I mean we always say that if it's research shows >> can I have% 80% or better is showing that your instruction is working is usually the cut off. I would say 75 to 80% is typically what research shows that your tier one instruction is really um strong. So when

036we're starting to look at obviously um you know there's some pockets that we need to kind of like look at. Now it could be a cohort of students. That's why we kind of look at that diagonal piece. Is it a certain specific cohort? Is there different pieces when people talk about how do we do after COVID? Well, this is a great way to look at that, right? Because you can kind of see where we were at COVID and how did we pivot and kind of move. Um I obviously made it green just because it's a new norm. So, it's really hard to kind of compare till we see like maybe next year we can actually see um if there's a big difference between the 2017 norm and the 2025 because there are some bigger jumps

037as we can kind of see. You know, look at grade three, right? They went from 71 to 81. And that's not a typical jump. Grade three is typically not a grade level that typically has big jumps. >> The year before they went from 55 to 71. So they had a bigger jump. >> Yeah. >> Yes. But in normal normally grade three like historically or nationally grade three is not a typical um jump but our data is looking that it's we're doing really well. And that's why I would say like when we start looking at interventions and RTI our schools are doing a nice job of really getting strong RTI plans for our students. um and especially in literacy. Obviously, we we're going to talk a little bit about math in our next steps. Um but

038our teachers are doing a really good job. Part of that is because you did a great job of putting in professional development like getting our letters our teachers to do letters. Um and they understand the foundational of how to teach students how to read and you can see that through the data. other questions in literacy. >> Okay. And uh do feel free to if I don't see you raise your hand and um as we go. >> So now we're on page nine and 10 for mathematics. It's formatted the same just it's now math uh data. So similar to 2017 to the the 220 the 2025. Um you can kind of go diagonal as you can see. Um and then the next page is so this is the norm one and then here is the biggest

039difference. So when we're looking at our state assessment you know it's in I I think one of the things that we said at the [clears throat] curriculum is you know where we are at we're higher in some places than even the region in the state and then some areas if you look at you know grade six and grade four were higher than some of the other areas. um we're even higher in grade seven than the region and the state, but we're still below state expectation. Um [snorts] so it's just an interesting way to look at the data like we're still outperforming, but we're still below. So we have to kind of understand like how are we going to use this data to inform our instruction. Math is the same thing where we're looking at the

040normed and the criterion reference. um as I we'll go into how are we using this data and um what does that look like going forward but any questions and differences in the math data okay science science is um given in three grade levels so grade five and high school. Uh the curriculum committee actually just reviewed our science curriculum uh guide uh this evening that will be headed to the board. Um we had it's been a couple of iterations of science. Um they use uh the nextgen um state standards most of them. Um they've done a really nice job of reviewing it. We're having great conversations about what does that look like on grading and reporting. Um and I think the conversation has been um science is clearly our weakest point in our data in terms

041of MEA when we talk with our um our administrators. And so we're having conversation about what does that look like? How can we reinvigor prek4 into science? Um we're starting to use mystery science. What does those kits look like? Um I'm working on giving them some opportunities to u have outdoor learning that's tied to those mystery kits. um and kind of tie some of the wellness and the the phys classes. So, we're getting science in different places. Um so, we're looking at science in a little bit different way, more hands-on. Um and also then we were having the conversation. It's a big shift from having it like maybe once in a while to I'm having it every day and now I'm reading content and materials. And so we're having those nice um conversations about what

042are those fifth and sixth grade teachers seeing and what do we need to do to um get the that content knowledge because obviously we're we're struggling um at the very beginning. So our students are are are struggling adjusting to a class that's only once in a while to everyday class. Um and so we need to figure out what are those skills that we need to build on. So we're going to work on that. Any question Oh, can you go back Maggie? any questions about so um I think the difference too in the science is the borderline um I I know uh this was added to the dashboard last year um it's about what is our percentage of kids that are just on the cusp of actually meeting the standard that's a big percentage um I

043think that's one of those things that we got to look at is how can we help those kids like hurdle help them get into that meeting the standard because that's a big percentage that would actually help us get to kind of meeting that standard or getting closer to it So, it's just another piece of data that's I think really important to inform our instruction as we're we do a lot of times a lot of interventions for math and literacy and behavior. we don't for science um but we got to start thinking about for middle school how do we still support and provide interventions um and whether it's a literacy intervention utilizing science content um so that'll be kind of bigger conversations that we have >> I think some important sorry you want to do questions

044first >> if you want to add context first >> uh just to kind of go the the percent borderline students that's a data point that's provided to us by the state they do not provide it for any other content area and It's so it's very interesting. So it makes me think that they are also statewide paying attention like I I suspect that while this is an interesting phenomenon to us because we're like wow that's a really big percentage to be borderline I suspect it is a phenomenon statewide because why else would they be reporting it providing it as data for us. The other thing um you know this clearly is our is our weakest area from a data standpoint um and needs some focus but we are not alone. Um if you look at you

045know like fifth grade 35 state average to a 34 school district that's not really even a statistically significant difference. It means we are basically the same as the rest of the state and that is below state expectations. So statewide, they're really focusing on um why are our students performing the way they are on this assessment and and does that mean, you know, what does that mean for instruction and how can they support us in those ways as well as just kind of continuing to tweak the assessment. So I think that's going to be evolving statewide as well. >> And I think science has evolved over the last couple years where they changed the assessment, they changed the access of how we get to the assessment. Um they didn't really do release items. they changed their

046focus on which content area in science that we were focusing on. So, it feels like a moving target that it's been really hard to help our educators not teach the test but at least get the units aligned better so that we can actually say like is our instruction making an impact um or is this even usable data? Um that's really helpful. But it is something that's as we're looking at our curriculum guide and saying okay here's our standards and now here's our data. How can we do this better? Um so it's been a good conversation starter as a new person in this district um coming in and saying okay what are you actually teaching how is it tied to the standards and now how can we actually make an impact um to our data because

047we really don't have we have a lot of teacher um made assessments we don't really have any common assessments that when we're starting to build those especially at the middle school >> Sam >> so uh last year we there was like two columns here for determination right it made me feel better that the entire state was determined to be below state epic expectations and then we also got the state average for each one of those things. Did we delete those on purpose? >> They didn't give it to us. All right. >> We got what we got. [laughter] >> No, I'm just wondering if we were choosing to show the data differently. >> Yeah. No, it's just the moving target of we one one year we get some data pieces and others we don't. >> We

048know well that the state changes the tests and data every single year. Uh it's never been the same way twice. >> Yes. >> Uh you know, I think we do need to make sure that we're looking at the data linearly though. I mean, >> uh we got worse across the board. Um in the science and especially grade eight seems significantly worse. Um so, you know, >> definitely it's really strong. It's helpful to see their literacy data is really strong, right? Because that helps us give us like an on-ramp for kids. are they reading can they read the content? Um and so now we got to start looking at is it engineering skills? Is it the higher level skills that we're really struggling on? And so we'll start working with um we I already worked with

049some of the high school and the middle school teachers to start unpacking this data like what is the content and the the rigor level or the taxonomy level that our our students are are are struggling with. Um the reports in in for science are not as um intuitive as our literacy and math. So, it's really hard um to kind of sometimes use the data uh to inform instruction. Um but it is a great starting point of what do we need to look for resources and our common assessments um really matching what we're doing. But, you know, for for special ed students and other science is a great on-ramp, right? It's on it's it's very kinesesthetic learning and hands-on and so we got to really leverage um those opportunities for our students to kind of get

050the engagement up and get our data up to. I think the other thing too to to Sam's point about the longitudinal, what's hard about science is because the kids only take it every three or four years, we're talking about completely different groups of kids. So when we talk about the group of kids that took this test last year, there's not a single one of them that's in this data here. So to look at like did our kids improve from fifth grade to eighth grade, we have to go back multiple years to see that grow. So it's another thing that's trickier about this particular data is you've got to extract it differently. You can't look at it like like because our other kids take it every year. We can look very easily at how the how

051the groups are growing. >> The other piece we need to note is our participation rate for the high school is is not great. Um, so when we do MEA science, it's around the same time that we're doing IB testing, AP testing, NWA testing, and they are tested out. And we're noticing that our optouts at the high school are much higher um than any other assessment. >> And science is the last of the state assessments and the state decides that schedule, not us. And it is a very long assessment. And so we're we're just we're seeing particularly at high school, families are opting to not have their children test. So it's it's just making it harder for us to use this data to really inform. But we we it's not an excuse. I don't mean it

052that way. It's just >> but it's it's an important thing to note of like when we're looking at percentage the participation rate is affected by that. >> So uh I think when we share this we it's nice if we can remind the context rate in this. I mean you see grade five grade eight grade high school but even a note to why you know kids only take it at these. So, this eighth grade group, right, has last taken it in fifth grade. Like you're saying, you can't they don't align. Um, I'm also, I guess, concerned and curious about the we talked in curriculum about that there is science content at the high school. There is rigor in science at the high school, but now it's not there's a gap here. So, are do we have

053the the curriculum and the materials and they're not getting it? are we not are the kids not showing up for the test? You know, what is why are we not only below state expectations but actually seem to be losing ground the older they get? And so is that real? Is that a reflection of the the issues that we're talking about? >> And I'm not sure yet as being new. But I think starting with the curriculum guide was a great on-ramp for me to have start having the conversation about what are we teaching first. Then we'll go to the instructional materials and then looking at the data like how are we actually doing um and is our common assessments because right now they're all teacher created. Um and we've had some turnover. We've had some really

054great hires in science at the middle school and so I'm starting to see some really um great movement into science but we don't see that in this data presentation because this is last year's data. So, we're hoping to see some movement. Um, but this is where it starts with the curriculum guide first and then we're kind of moving forward on the instructional materials. >> I I would say anecdotally and and we could put numbers to it, but I I would really prefer we don't. Um, the the students who are opting out of or their parents are opting out of the science data are the kids who are the most tested. So, I would invite you to consider who are the children who are participating in the vast majority of tests in the spring. And those

055are our kids who are taking the most advanced classes and therefore are taking AP or IB exams or dual enrollment and coming into their finals that when it when it gets to this one, which is the last of the three state, they're like, I'm out. I'm done. I need to focus on IB. I need to focus on these other things. And I think you see that in our above state ex like a is it statistically significant? It would take us a long time to answer that and it's probably not worth our time to answer that question. Um, but we definitely, it is a trend that the administration at this high school has noted for a number of years is that we do tend to lose our our AIP dual enrollment kids the most when it

056comes to this science assessment. >> The other thing to note too on the high school is that they may be assessed on a content that they haven't had in a year, right? because we they take, you know, a specific bio class or a chemistry class or that the standard that they're actually getting assessed in is not the year that they're actually the content that they're taking their class in because of our program of study. So there's there is some disconnect too on what the course that the student is engaged in to when we actually here's when you actually have to assess based on what the state says. So there is some disconnect there too. So um high school's a little harder to I think move the needle. Um, right now we're focusing on the middle

057school. >> It would might be worth noting our participation rate in our results. Um, Lauren had a >> that I was >> that was what >> the participation. Yeah. >> Yeah. Again, it's not we're not trying to explain away data, but we're trying to understand data. And okay, so what does it mean that we had low participation? Does that mean half of the kids opted out? Does that mean 10% of the kids opted out? because, you know, so I think that might be worth >> Yeah, the state definitely wants us to have 95% of our kids um we're going to sleep. Uh 95% of our kids getting assessed. We didn't make the 95% for science. Okay. Supplemental data. This was something that was also on our website that um wanted to continue to um do

058uh one we do reports like uh to the state or chanda throughout the year is going to be verifying data and uh Satie is also this is mostly high school so uh you know we were talking about the a you know your IB your AP what are your what are your other opportunities and um other learnings that are happening that our students have access to um so your CTE we talked about that alternative credits um so o opport opportunities. You have some really nice numbers um in and kids are accessing. Um so we always kind of talk about our are kids getting challenged. Um there's some really nice numbers of um continuously um giving rigor in all of the content areas in English, science, social studies, you know, mathematics. Um so I I was just

059it was really encouraging to kind of see your dual enrollment. Um, I know that Satie's kind of having a conversation about is it pivoting and are we able we're going to continue to look at participation numbers for our classes and our uh class sizes and are we able to offer all of the programming or are we going to have to change as things um kind of morph in what our kids are are choosing to uh to do? >> Significant uptick in the alternative credits over the past couple of years. Are we do you know are we doing something different? Are we capturing things we weren't reporting before? What? That's a big change. >> I'm gonna have to pivot to >> I got [laughter] on the happy to do. Um, so we have um, yes, we've

060had an uptake. So, we when we first launched our alternative credits and part of that policy and everything, um it kind of hit at a hard time because then we went out for COVID and then kids were coming back and it it sort of I think lost its lost its thunder a little bit for lack of a um and so as we came back in um we tried to ramp kids up from it and then we tried to also learn from and hear from kids about what was really working and what wasn't. we went back to the drawing board and updated our policies and we um streamlined some of the processes by which students um do that to make it not to make it less rigorous but to make like not make kids do paperwork

061in three different places like let's do it in one place. Um and then also with the advent of the advisory um adding it into the instruction so children understand all of their options um have helped kids kind of see how it is and then again our guidance and our administration working with kids saying hey you're doing that really cool thing you know you could get credit for it right like let's do this so um I think that is a lot of why you're seeing we've made it more accessible for kids we have um advertised it with kids more and honestly parents know about it a little more than they used to and in some cases it's the parents that are time with the kids to do it. Um, but that's okay. They they're having they're

062doing really cool things. I would say the vast majority of our alternative credits are awarded in physical education. Um, students are using their outside experiences um for part, you know, part of their credit towards their diploma on that. But, but we do have kids doing really interesting things in technology and STEM and and some of those other areas. So, um, yeah, I think it's awareness and then I think it's also we sort of went back to the drawing board and said, "Okay, how can we improve the protocol and the paperwork we're asking them to do so that kids want to take it on?" Because it was it was rigorous, but also then the process was super rigorous and that wasn't what we were trying to do. We were trying to make sure that the the

063learning was rigorous, the process should be user friendly. So, I I think we've accomplished great improvements there. >> Great. Thank you, Sam. Uh just a couple things. Uh one is just on this report um and I heard you mention you found it on the website. Um you know the report is the way it is on purpose. We spent a bunch of time in the curriculum committee whatever it was five years ago trying to normalize these reports because we were unable to compare year to year because each year we got a different set of data and we're like what's going on? So I just want to emphasize that were we to change this report it would be a big deal. uh and I would like to keep it the same year over year so that we

064can compare like it was very easy for me to go find last year's and compare it and I I'm just endorsing that we keep doing that. Um the second thing is uh while I am a huge proponent of the IB program my son and daughter both went through it are just really succeeding in college because I think of what they did at IB. Um we have IB senior candidates here. We don't have a report on how many of them are actually earning the diploma. Um, and I'm not going to cast any aspersions, but I've seen a trend where the kids are not earning the diplomas and are not doing particularly well on the exams. >> Um, again, not casting expersions, but that's not something that's captured in this data. And I want to make sure

065we are like, I don't think the diploma is the point. And I, you know, I'm not saying like, oh, that'd be terrible. But if we are consistently not earning diplomas or consistently not scoring well on those exams, I think that should be fed back and inform our instruction because there's some kind of disconnect there. So, I just want to make sure we're monitoring that because often you don't get the diploma results until like August or something. And so, I'm not 100% sure they are being fed back into our system. Like I don't think my son informed anybody what happened. You just get this piece of paper in the mail or whatever. So I think it's a piece of data we might want to make sure we're capturing and you know if we're at like 0%

066three years in a row or something we would >> I'm not saying we are but that would indicate we're doing something wrong in my opinion. >> I would say it would go the same thing with AP exams like our kids passing the exams but you know I just know the staff that are doing it like Lisa Nedler who is working with our AB coordinator like she's looking at that data uh for sure. But that that's good to know. Thank you. >> Just follow follow up to Samson. Yeah. Is that a data point that we'll we'll need when our next review comes up for IB >> when they're reviewing our performance and content? That whole big >> is that a piece of >> I mean I'm sure that's a data point they come to us with

067when they're doing our reviews, right? >> Um I don't remember where we are for the cycle of IB. I almost want to say we just finished one, >> right? >> So it'll be a little while before we do it again, but it is certainly something they look at >> something we must be capturing and is is somewhere to be >> yeah it it's data easy enough to pull together I don't think it would be so much and um not to steal Penny's thunder but we kind of talked a little bit about like as you guys are sharing questions about um you know the the written reports we did this is another written report we provided to you we you know we could feasibly use some of our time coming up here to to take some

068of those questions back and and bring an answer so I don't I don't see an issue where we couldn't bring some of this particular particularly this one back >> and all of this is on the website so we could easily just add a column and then um just bring your attention to it to us. Yeah, >> I think it's important. >> I do think we talk a lot about the benefit of these classes being the preparedness for college, but we don't then hear about how did they do so they did it to Sam's point then how how are we performing on that and is that tying to how are how prepared our kids are? So >> yeah, and even CT when you're CTE when you're talking about trades, like how many actually got a certificate

069or certification, you know, I think there there's always opportunities that we can drill down. I think this is kind of still like bird's eye views because when we're looking at like our community, this is still a lot of information that um they're not used to seeing. Obviously, you are seeing it year after year. So it's helpful um to kind of look at, but if we want to unpack that, we can certainly do that. >> Yeah. I wonder if we could get a hold of the um a lot of the kids at PASS, which I know we're calling something else here, the CTE. Um can we get our hands on the licenses, endorsements, etc. that these kids are leaving with? We have this this many CNAs or this many um >> because that will be variable

070too, right, of student interests and like you can't compare like, oh, we only had two CNAs this year or five. It's also about student interest. But I think it would be important, you know, as we're kind of like unpacking this, we can certainly do that and drill down a little bit more. >> Doesn't even have to drill down, but we do. We had 40 kids who left with a, you know, a useful >> um professional endorsement upon graduation. That is something we want to would think we would want to brag about. Um Lauren >> um talking about the IB program and just sort of experiencing following up actually with other parents that their kids went on. Um it would be nice also to understand I was I personally was disappointed in what UAIN accepts for

071IB. It's very very limited. And I think as we sort of examine these programs, if part of the goal is to help actually check off some of those classes at a college level, then sort of look at it as the AP classes, are they more acceptable at UMA or are Maine, you know, if the majority of our kids are going to Maine colleges, factor that into it. Um I you know personally I I know how prepared kids are getting going through the IB program but if it's not being accepted at the humane schools um are we missing something? >> You're not getting your bang for your buck. Yeah. And that's all those conversations that I know like Satie and Lisa and I have been starting to have as we're kind of examining like where are

072student interests? What is our programming look like and what is our capacity, right? um to offer like the different levels of of programming >> and and UMain does have that information on their website and in for the individual schools. So um >> had we known had I personally known about that I might have directed my kids differently. >> That's good to know. Thank you. thing we've been talking about for a couple of years now as we've watched dual enrollment grow um there's been some sensitivity um at the board level in recent years we've had some pretty robust conversations around you know are we you know what is the right thing to steer kids towards and and we mentioned at that time that Maine in particular was going away from taking not just IB but also

073AP you were getting placed at more advanced courses but they weren't necessarily giving you the credits so we had more kids kind of gravitating towards drool enrollment where you are getting those credits and no one can take them away from you. Um I'm am starting to see a little bit more of a tip back particularly outside of Maine. Um like New England, East Coast in particular, which is mostly what I look at. Um there are more schools now kind of tipping back towards giving kids some credit. Um the the score requirements have have gotten real real robust. Um but they are starting to give credit back. So, I like to think that Maine will then follow suit, but we have had we have heard from many parents and families that have been a little surprised

074when their kids have gone off to college how many schools are not awarding credit for IB when they used when they used to do that. And and it's very confusing because if you go to UMAIN and say, "Do you give credit for IB classes?" They will tell you yes. But the the true answer when you dr down it it depends on your major and it depends on the college you're in. So, you know, we really encourage kids to kind of do their research early. Um, which is hard, right? To think about what you want to do with your life at 14 is pretty difficult. Um, but we are trying to work to sort of guide kids in that way to make their best decisions. Um, you know, it's important they're taking those. We know that

075IB and and AP really help prepare kids for college um to do well when they get there. We dual enrollment also gives you some of that experience in a different way and you come out with credits. it the right we have options that create a right path for just about any direction kids want to go. So it's about just really coaching them to help them understand and then to advocate um you know that's something I know I know Kathy is involved at the at the post-secary level to advocate on behalf of our kids to say like hey they're doing this great work like why aren't you giving them credit for it? So, >> and we I'm meeting with the school counselors um each month and this is the conversation we're too is like what how

076are we guiding our students and what are those programs and what is it what's the right pathway. So, we're having those nice conversations. Now, >> I think we also have a broader strategic planning values conversation too about not jumping to the conclusion about what people want out of these. Is it we want college to take credit for it or do we want kids prepared for college or are we worried about that at all? You know, I'm hearing that the dual enrollment, sure, you can leave with some college credit, but is it how rigorous is it? And what is the children's plan? You know, do you want to go to college as a sophomore or do you actually want to go to college prepared or maybe I'm going to do this biology class again, but I'm

077not going to be totally overwhelmed by it. um as we continue to move through our strategic plan or get into portrait of a graduate or these kinds of things like what does our community of learners want to get out of these things other than we just have them. It's also forward thinking, right? Because we're looking at old, you're looking at old data. >> A student in 1920, you know, 1920 looks very different than it's going to be, you know, 2930. >> Sam, >> um, I'm sorry that I'm going back uh to page 17, but we didn't really talk about it and I had this question and uh, we kind of barreled through it there a little bit. Um, I just want to make sure I understand what I'm reading. So, this is our normed reference

078data. These are both using the new test, right? >> Yep. >> And so the kids are going it you would go down one like you go diagonally down one, right? So the kids in grade one are in spring 25, they'll be in grade two and fall 25, right? >> Yeah. Are you on literacy or math? Because I'll have her put this up. >> I'm on reading on this one, but it's the same question whether it's >> I just want to have every because the people at home, [laughter] >> right? So, so it's page 17 and 18, right? So, because we always talk about the, you know, the summer slide or whatever. >> So, page 17, >> these are just, these slides are just selections. So, that particular you're looking >> graph you're looking at is

079not in >> Oh, it's not on the magic machine. I gota So, it's only in our report. That that's why because I had this as a note to ask about and then I was like I didn't see it. So that's so go two more slides I think. Maggie. >> No, the other way. >> So just so every there we go. >> Yes. There we go. There we go. There we go. >> It's still not the same one. >> Oh, it's not. >> He's looking at the spring to fall. >> Spring to fall. >> He's looking at the summer. >> Spring to fall. Sorry. >> This one right here versus criteria. >> I have 17 in front of me. Go ahead, Sam. >> Okay. So, well, I mean, this is not going to make sense to

080anybody >> cuz I was looking at this. >> Well, it's on the website so they can look at it. Yes. And it's in the packet. >> Everybody has it >> because I'm always interested in this summer slide data, right? And we we've actually in the past invested quite a lot of money in summer school and stuff to try to avoid the summer slide. I was looking at this, >> right? And this is our new norm data. And I'm just making sure I'm looking I'm understanding it like for grade n the grade nine kids got so let's say for literacy on page 17. Yeah. >> They were at 68% in the spring. >> They come back in the fall and they rock an 83. >> Yes. >> Like that. >> They did wonderful things over the

081summer. >> For [laughter] me, it just calls into question the validity of the test entirely. Like that's impossible. >> What you're seeing there is a symptom of what we referred to earlier, which is that the percentage participation in the spring is significantly lower than the percentage participation. So when they come back in the fall, everybody takes >> many participate. I think I think the fall data point for high school in particular tends to be a slightly more accurate if you're looking at them as an entire group. >> Um but >> so that was the question. I was just like understand how this is possible. >> Yeah, it's also you know testing fatigue particularly at that high school level in the fall they're a little more geared up >> but even like grad quite lucky that

082they gave us the data from spring to fall reorm. So they actually went back and reormed all our data. I didn't go back to your point about how we've been reporting the same kind of report in the same way. I could have literally gone back to these um charts here and reormed the entire thing to 2025. I didn't want to do that because we've been showing our communities this is the data we've been having since 1920. It would have been really unfair to be like, "Oh, what Dr. Turner said was this percentage." Just kidding. It's actually this. I didn't want to do that. That's why I made a strategic plan to like, let's make it green and let's compare what we have going forward. >> Time out. >> 1920 would really be something. >> Uh,

083that would be amazing. I want to see [laughter] that. >> I think she means 2019, 2020. But yes, I love it. >> So, we're page 17. >> Yep. The Norn reference reading. I'm looking at the same thing Sam is and I have the same question. So grade six in the spring is grade seven in the fall >> is the seven in the fall. >> So it goes down kitty corner one >> from 70 to 84. >> Correct. >> Now is this one of these instances where we are looking at a different normed set between the lefthand column and the righth hand column or are we saying these kids jumped over the summer they all went to the library. >> They did the summer reading program. >> Yep. >> And they jumped. >> Yes. Okay. The

084instruction the last six weeks of school >> or you're assuming that they might be a different cohort of students is what Dr. Turner was saying. >> Okay. But we're not straddling this. >> Correct. That's why I put on the top spring 2025, fall 2025. That's why it's >> getting a little wacky. I want to make sure we're all understanding the same thing. >> And that's why it's hard to work with our teachers and kind of like look at the data and be like, "Oh, those second graders, you know, you know, like went from 86 to 75. Why did they go down?" you know, and so there's just all these other questions that we have that we don't have answers to yet because we haven't seen um enough data on this new norms, >> right? But

085part of the part of my point in pointing it out though is that like we know for sure they didn't go from 68% to 83%. Like that's ridiculous, right? So I just think when we look at these percentages, we need to have like solid error bars around these. like it's not, you know, >> like the plus minus has got to be five on either side at least, you know, and that makes 68 and 78 the same, you know, like so I, you know, I don't I just don't want us to get too caught up in like, oh, we went up 2% because it's really just >> doesn't this particular when I saw this, I was like, I have a hard time believing any of this data is very >> when I look at our stu

086when I broke it down to student level, the two like cohorts of students that I think had the biggest impact from the new norms was our stu our GT students. Um it looked like the band of like who would qualify actually would get bigger. Doesn't mean they would qualify but I think we would have a lot more parents saying oh I think my kid might be GT because there's just a lot more that exceeded the standard. There was a little big a bigger bump there. And on the other end, there was a um a cohort of students that at the end of the year, we said, "Oh, you need intervention." And then all of a sudden in the fall, just kidding, you're meeting the standard. So, there was just that that the cusp on both

087ends. Um the middle, if you were meeting the standard, you stayed right where you are. So, it was just really those two bubbles that I think had the biggest impact in our data. Yeah. I I I can't say that's the same for every every other district. And also don't take that to mean that I don't think we should do the test. What I've always thought was super valuable was the the kid level data, right? Like you can dive into it and see how the kid is changing. And I could always see that in my kids' own reports and it always really reflected. They always slid because they, you know, mostly >> screwed around in the summer, which what they should do, but you know, so that's, you know, because I know what these numbers look

088like kidtoid. There's no way it looks like this cohort to court. So just just wanted to make sure I was looking at the right thing. I'd like to keep going because I think the most important part is the now what because the so what is the data, right? We did this last spring and we've already done two assessments at that at this point. Um two more or one data analysis slide. Yep. Next steps. Um so how are we actually using the data and what are our next steps? So one of the things that we're already doing is you know I think one of the things to talk about in our community is we have this math data that we said is our weake you know a weak point. um but you have already done and

089invested time and money into this district by um adding and implementing the uh into math in the middle school. So that is happening this year. So our teachers have already had really good PD with um the company. I've been working with them on doing their assessments and looking at their scope and sequence and their pacing. Um so that's something that um we are already implementing this year. Uh we will have an update for the curriculum committee um later this spring just to kind of see how it's going. Do I expect uh data to already improve in middle school um this spring? Probably not, right? Any kind of new program, it takes uh three years to really see um implementation, but it's a good start that you've already invested. So I think when when we have

090the critics in our community saying like what are we doing? How are we doing our data? Our data is not good. you've invested our taxpayers money into a program to adjust and make um those changes to improve that. Um the other piece in terms of science standards, as I said, we brought it to the curriculum committee today um looking at our curriculum guide and now we're going to start looking at what does that implementation look like. Um update we're going to be um asking in the um new budget, we'll be looking at um updating to bridges 3. So we currently have bridges 2. It's not a new program. It's just the new version. Um so Don school already has bridges three so we'll be looking at K2 to be updating um to be a a

091better um transition. Um they have much better updates um in terms of our teachers have done a really good job of unpacking it and making some adjustments but the Bridges 3 has already done it for them. Uh looking at instructional materials again we're going to be looking at um mostly at the middle school what is those um teacher assessments. uh some of them already have instructional materials. So, we're just going to look at like what better aligns um to the the science uh assessment that we have. And next year, we'll be going through the instructional materials. They've already done the PD. We already understand what good literacy is. Um we there's a need at the especially at the K4 to start looking at what is um is there a program that we need to look

092at um in terms of putting it all together. Um so those are our next steps. Um in terms the other piece too I think we we kind of touched upon was the participation of assessments. Um Sadi and I have been talking about uh your policy IKF. Do you add a component there with um participation as a graduation requirement? So that's a conversation that policy committee can um discuss later on. Any more questions? Actually, before we move on, so before we move out of the so what I'm sorry because we can't see this, so I don't know where we're going. What's ne if I'm going to pressure everybody to weigh in on the what did I just hear and what's next? Is that now or are we moving to >> next? Is the web is that

093that's now? >> If you have questions, that's no. Yeah. >> Um so so these are the sort of key takeaways on what we're doing from that data. >> Um folks, what do you think? What do you want to hear more about? We will have a workshop coming up to dive into making sure we have a broad understanding of the district before we make budget decisions. I know Sam and I aren't the only ones who don't understand things or have questions or ideas. I know it. Gary, we're going to go right down the line. Your favorite. >> Oh, we we cheated a little bit in the in curriculum tonight. We already looked at the uh the new science standards, which it'll be in my report that you'll be coming to the board. We recommended that it

094come to the board for approval. Uh so we we've already seen that. We already discussed the update in the math program. So we had a little preview of that also. So uh uh that seems like the direction to go. I mean it's just an improvement as in curriculum we already have. Um I think the data data w with a grain of salt in some areas the data looks good. I don't have a problem with any of that. I think the pres I think the presentation's good. It's easy to understand. Great, Sharon. Um, to me, we've, um, it's kind of in the same I've been on curriculum now a couple years, so I've sort of seen the reports over and over again. I think we've acknowledged the areas that we need work. It's not up. Can

095you hear me better? >> Yes. Okay. Um, I think that we've acknowledged the areas that need work. Science and math have come up. Um, and we're putting in the work to try to make those areas better. I echo Gary because I'm on the curriculum committee so I sort of seen this stuff already so I feel like I'm well verssed in what Kathy's been talking about and I think we're going in the right direction. >> I understand I had a couple questions that mirrored Sam so he answered those. Um I was a little confused about science when I was reading it because I wasn't understanding why we're not doing science more often. like why isn't it part of the normal curriculum? Uh when I was in school, we did it as a normal part of math

096and reading. So why the big gaps in years? Um why can't we do it as a regular part of the week? Um and make it a part of the regular curriculum. Um I think it's very important information. Um and I just I didn't know why the big gap that was my main question. So this is MEA science data that and this is when the state says we need to assess students. Our instruction is happening daily. Um I think it's a little less frequent in the K4. Um and that's the conversation we've been having. I think um you know in talking with with Jeff and Amanda and uh Danny is during COVID we focused a lot on literacy and math and science kind of took a back burner. Um and so we're just kind of reinvigorating

097when science and how it can be embedded into the curriculum that we have. So instruction is happening. Um it's just not getting reported on this because this is the MEA science data. Um and we don't necessarily have a science assessment that does the whole span like we have um with NWA. >> Yeah. We're not allowed to use it more than 58 in high school. So that's sort of one of the detractors. So, and even as we develop our local and and start, you know, reporting it more longitudinally, um, as well as like, you know, as they progress through the grades, you know, cohort longitudinally, um, it will be just our kids. And so when you have questions about like, well, how are they doing compared to the state? How are they doing compared to the

098nation? We won't we can't really report that because 5, eight, and that's all we got. And there's no national. >> So like where like literacy and math, we do it multiple times a year. Science, we get it just in the spring on those dates. And by the time the teachers get the assessment, they have different kids in front of them. So it it's a little bit different on how we use the data or how we can use the data. >> It's impossible to read. [laughter] >> It's clunky. >> It's called job security. >> Okay. Yeah, that was my biggest question was science was really confusing. >> Yeah, the question. Um, I thought the presentation was good and there's a lot of work that went into this. So, good job everybody. Um, I'm struggling a little

099bit with uh maybe our best science students were tested out so they didn't do a good job. So this data point that we're looking at and talking about doesn't count or it's plus or minus or that's um it it either we should find a way to incentivize the testing participation that we want or just not put it in here. Um to go around and round about did they slide? No, they were tired. It's to me I'm I'm struggling to like get super invested in it when we not make excuses, but when there's five different factors affecting why it's lower that are out of our control, it's a tough data point for me to uh get into. Um >> and I and I think you're right and I think that's why Satie and I were suggesting

100that policy committee look at IKF and say is that really an important piece? Is this an important data point? Um you know obviously as part of getting federal funds we have to report out on our state assessment. So that's why it is included here. Um and obviously it's part of our dashboard. That's part of um so we want to make sure that you're educated into what it means. So when when parents or community members are asking you have that information. I think the participation is just a piece of that and it's just it's kind of when we look at all of the data and trying to understand it and unpack it, the participation is a piece of I I like the way that it's presented in in this format. I struggle with all the daggers

101we're putting into this data point. Um what I guess also um whether it's a testimonial or hard data around the results of IB and AP and CTE and and everything um that's super important. I I um hearing the credits kids are getting preol for college is is um definitely a story we need to be pushing. >> Um >> I'm at the other end of this where so to try and look miles and miles ahead that's that would be helpful to know. Um yeah, >> good feedback. Um, I really do appreciate your the presentation here. I I just had well two sort of qu quick questions on the high school when it says that they were tested in high school. What grade is that? Is that grade 11? >> Uh, science is for science. Science is

10211. >> It is grade 11. And >> literacy math is 10. >> Okay. And um the other question is when we say that we have low participation rate. I know you had said that the goal is to have 95% but >> that's the state goal. Yes, >> state goal. What what I mean I from have my own personal experience my that high school they're not wanting to take this. Um what is the ballpark participation rate that we do have for high school kids? >> I'll have to look and see what the the data is. I don't have that in front of me. >> Okay. Going back a couple of years, it ranges from 85 to >> I think we had one year we were as low as 80, but yeah, >> we're not far behind

103the measure. I think what's really challenging too though is when you think about when our groups of kids are, you know, 120 to 150 kids, we're talking about six. >> If six kids are sick and can't, you know, have the flu and they're out for three weeks or, you know, decide they're not going to take it, like that just isn't very many kids. or if it's multiple days and they only took part of it and they didn't do the whole thing, >> they didn't finish it. >> They don't consider a completed test. >> It's a very difficult and and to be clear, we are not the only people that struggle with this. And we we have done we have been more successful in our participation in high school than many of the area school districts

104to the point that we have people calling us to say calling Sadi all the time to say, "What are you doing and how are you doing it?" >> Yeah, that number you say is higher than I expected. But given where this test falls in the testing season, >> um, >> even if you've get 95% participation, you're not getting necessarily 95% of someone's best effort. >> I mean, it's just the reality of of stacking this behind all the others. >> It seems that that's the state is >> kind of setting and looking at what the sense the state average is so low. I mean when the state as an average is below the state expectation >> um that's the level it seems that you need to address how this is structured. We can't change the dates.

105We can't change the frequency or any of that stuff. Someone else has to do that and address this problem because it's not us. It's a statewide thing. But I mean, we used to years ago when AP was the standard, everybody had we had like 97% participation. Didn't make our scores any better. All we could do is is show the state that yep, every kid came through here and took tests. >> U nobody was really looking into how the how the effort was. The DOE before uh the winter break did put out a survey that asked about feedback from administrators and um you know district level um to ask about NWA and the state assessment for science and our feedback for all of this. Um I don't know if they're in the cycle to then shop

106to see if NWA will become a different assessment or you know just in that natural piece but it was that feedback of is this the right grade level? Is this the right time of year? Is this the right assessment? It just seems if you're going to do science once a year >> that you could make it a better match for effort. >> Well, and I think our teachers would prefer it in the winter so that when they get the assessment data, they actually have the same kids and can um inform their instruction versus they're getting it in the fall and I'm working with a different group of kids. >> That would seem to be a self-evident given [laughter] that it would be really beneficial if you actually had some relevance to the result to the

107kids you're teaching. I would say that Kathy's professional organization, my professional organization among others, we have been very active advocates to talk about how the ways in which we understand we have to do this. I I don't argue that point. I have colleagues who do. I won't argue the point that we have to do it, but I will argue the point of I think we can do it better. Um, and and sometimes I feel like they're listening and then in a lot of ways their hands are tied also. So, it it's just it's a it's a tough challenge. And I know we we added feedback for MSAD15. We don't want to get rid of NWA. We have longitudinal data. Although it was reormed, we're hoping to see that, you know, that it will make sense

108that it's reormed, but we don't want to change to a different assessment. We know how that's gone um in the past, too. So, um that was part of our feedback as well. >> Um Lauren, you good? >> Yeah. >> Okay, I will go last. Hunter, >> can you hear me? All right. Um, no. I don't really have much because this is about my fifth time looking at it. I'm [laughter] unfortunately all the way down here and you guys got to go three in a row. I'm also on curriculum. So, I've [laughter] looked at it. I've discussed with Kathy my questions before we even met to discuss this. We then talked through it during our, you know, curriculum meeting. So, I I think I have a good understanding of this and it's still good to watch

109and and see this presentation. Um, you know, to me when I first looked at the data and I talked with Kathy, it was good to see our coursework participation in terms of dual enrollment, AP, IB, those numbers increasing. Um, especially as we're thinking about budget season. um it's kind of showing that the more that we kind of put money towards our um education more people are joining up and it's kind of goes hand in hand and then the other part that I've brought up in curriculum as well as I'll reiterate again is that we are certainly the data is showing that we're doing better than the region where a lot of to me oftentimes we're compared to our neighbors and I'm not gonna to say the narrative, but certainly it's not usually a positive narrative.

110And but then the data that we have says, well, in fact, we're actually doing much better than our neighbors who per chance are also spending more per pupil. So that's also another kind of important aspect to me, thinking about going in the budget of, well, we're spending a lot less than some of our neighbors, but we're testing a lot better, our students are doing better, etc., etc. Um yeah, nothing really new because >> I've probably talked about this five times now. So >> sorry. >> Thank you, Hunter. Sam, any uh >> Well, I just want additional >> just building on that, right? When we are looking at the norm data, every other school has the same problems that we have, right? So, you know, they have participation issues and they have tired kids and whatever.

111So, you know, I'm not too worried about trying to attach narratives. I think um it really what what I like about the data is that it says that we are doing the right things right we knew math was a problem we invested in math and we need to see those math numbers come up if they don't we need to pivot and we need to have these numbers available if the fifth grade is still 47% our average or above in three years we will know we did something wrong and we're going to have to pivot again you know like you know the middle school we've identified as where we would like to throw some resources to try to get those numbers up. That seems to be where we're soft. You know, this sort of still says

112that, but that's okay, you know. Um, so I I feel as though we have responded to these correctly. None of this should be surprising, any of that thing. Um, you know, I think if I'm sort of troubled by, not troubled by anything, like, you know, the the high school science score bothers me. You know, I think we have really good My kids have taken really good high school science classes. I've seen the work that they've done. Both of them went to college and rocked their science classes and I felt really good about how they were prepared. So somewhere there's a disconnect at some point of the student body where maybe they're not getting the IP chemistry and physics and there's a you know they're some there's something's not going that's the the one thing there

113I would really like to know more about. Why aren't we performing as well as we I like I know our science teachers they're great so something's not working for me there. >> Thank you. Um, I would echo that same curiosity and concern. And is it just a gap with this tiny cohort that's doing great and we just happen to know those kids or, you know, are we missing it on the participation or preparedness? Um, this is great. My only feedback is I would like actually more. We have access to you now and we had a great hour and we can get the contacts and we can ask the questions. My concern is that folks pick this up off the internet and there the context isn't in here. So, I do appreciate that the data looks

114um in terms of how we're packaging it. It's familiar. We know it. You can compare it to last year. You know how the charts work. Um but we'll want to get this presentation in our materials um for tonight. And I would like it as part of communication or in the community if someone goes and picks this up that um you know we do have some of that um context or narrative or tying a little bit of our okay where have we come what's next? What pieces are we tying it to so that um we can just make good use of it and not have folks, you know. >> Yeah. So, it's part of the packet, but it is um Maggie, if you can go to the next slide. It is on the website under the

115district assessment system. So, all of that it does show a little bit more of the local assessments and all of the different um components at the different grade levels, but your all the assessment the full packet or the full data pieces is also here, >> right? And I mean your context. Yeah, there is some description on each, but I can go back and make sure that it's really thorough >> and we'll make sure the slides are in the the materials and part of the minutes. >> Y perfect. The other thing I wanted to take a second to mention while you're on it too is um you know Sam alluded earlier to you know we made a really deliberate choice to do our reports this way and we did it because there is a state data

116dashboard and so there is great amounts of data available to the general public on a lot of this and so we chose to then say okay so then what is not available to the public that we're going to report. Um and then there ended up being such a delay we kind of ended up reporting the state data too. uh but we have linked on our website and if you just Google main ESA data dashboard it's going to come up and it is access to every school every district in the entire state science reading and math as well as actually many other data points. Um you can look at it by subgroup, you can look at it by total. Um so for folks who really are interested in a deep dive of you know how did

117we do andor their home school district or a neighboring school district you want to know it is all there and available to the public and I encourage you to it it's it it likes to think a lot you have to have some patience but it is all there and available to the public >> and I think we have a link right in >> we have it linked on this page the district assessment system as well as the title one in our agenda >> and it's in the agenda yes so >> and this was just as she that it's just one of the buttons out of all of the options that you have for the assessments. >> Go to improvement of instruction under departments. >> So department improvement of instruction and then you'll see district assessment

118system in the lefth hand column >> and you keep scrolling down you'll see a dashboard. Just keep scrolling. >> All right. It's I say I feel like it's not intuitive of how to get to that from here because I was looking at the district um at the bottom of the p our website. Yeah. >> Looking at the district column >> instead of the individual departments. >> Okay. We'll have to think about that. It it's hard because I think whatever we talk about in the moment it then it's then like oh can we have this as a pulled out but if we pull everything out then we've got so many things there people can't find it too. So, it's >> it's the exact same spot it's been for a long time. So, I just continued to

119update it from that way. >> And all of the improvement instruction um pages have been updated in the last um few months. >> Good. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Kathy. >> All right. New business. We are going to hopefully hire a teacher. Um, I would hear a motion to consider a probationary contract. >> I make the motion that we consider the um pro first probationary contract for Aaron Fron um an occupational therapist at Dun School. >> Second. Aaron couldn't be here today, but I just want to share a little bit of information with you. You have information in your packet. You see she has her bachelor's and master's degree in OT from UNE. Aaron stepped into DUN school at the start of the school year when our OT was out on

120FMLA and she just fit in immediately. Um and and everyone loved her and she was great with the students. So when the job suddenly became available mid year behind closed doors, we're all like, "Please let Aaron apply." And then we gave Aaron a job offer. we said, "Please let Aaron accept." So, we are absolutely thrilled um that she uh has accepted this position and will be starting pending your vote. Um and she'll be a great addition to the Dun School, questions, discussion sounds uh wonderful. All in favor? Perfect. Great. And moving on, we are going to take a look at approving our updated MSAD15 LAOW plan. Um, >> uh, we have Holly and Patty here who oversee our English language learner program. Sorry, you want to do a motion first? >> Yeah. So, let's just

121do a motion and then we'll >> Sorry, no worries. [laughter] I did I didn't say it right. Should have kicked me. >> All right. I'll make the motion that we um consider approving the updated MSAD15 loud prep plan. >> Second. >> All right. Now, we would love to hear more. Uh so, our district um every district in the country is required to have a plan and to ask a frequently asked question. Law is not an acronym. Um I that's the first question I always get. What does LU stand for? Lao is um the name of the person that was involved in the court case that created the situation by which we have to have these plans. Um and it is how the plan how the district will provide language assistance and English acquisition for students

122for whom their primary language is not English. Um this is something we update periodically. uh the special services department in particular, Patty, our assistant director, have been hard at work with our staff to uh get this updated and and just make sure it really is meeting the needs, be responsive to the data of how our um kids are doing and uh we have made some a little bit of reformatting and some minor changes and it's ready for uh and it's something that the school board has to adopt. So um it's not something we can just change and decide to do differently. It does require board action. So, we have brought that to you for action and Holly and Patty are here to answer any questions you might have about it. Questions? And I will also

123note this came through um curriculum committee. >> Oh, yeah. >> Already. >> So, >> um no. All right. I hate to drag you out to have no questions, but that probably makes it easier. Uh, all in favor? Perfect. All right. >> I have to state when I saw this, I'm like, are we having a luau? Like, what's going on? >> No, we [laughter] are not having a luau. Maybe next time. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thanks so much. And Okay, hang on. I have to turn the page. It changes everything. A report. We have a a lot of variety tonight. A report on the disposition of our decommissioned SRO vehicle. >> This is a real that's quite a transition actually, isn't it? Um so we this has uh gone through facilities committee and and come

124as a recommendation to the board um that we move forward with this and it is um the district purchases or or participates in a purchase um of vehicles for our school resource officers. Um and what that means is when we purchase new vehicles, old vehicles are decommissioned and and we receive an we receive a vehicle. So we have received a vehicle um and we spent a little time thinking about what makes the most sense to do with it. Whether it is something that would be useful to the district um or whether it is something that is most useful by uh by being sold and um used to to bring forward other costs. So um we provided you with you know a little bit of background. David is here with some additional background. Um some documentation

125on the approximate value of the vehicle that we that we have um finance committee. It came through finance committee not facilities finance committee. Um because of the financial pieces. There was some discussion around um what to do with the vehicle purchase expenses. Um we there was a conversation about potentially making a um I'm blanking. It's been a long day. a reserve account. I was trying to say fund balance and I knew it wasn't the right word >> to make a reserve account for future purchases of the vehicle. Um, we have not added that an agenda item at this time because we think it's important to know how much we actually are going to get for the vehicle before we're asking you to consider that piece. So, at this point, we're just kind of reporting to

126you that we intend to um to put this out using our policies. Um, and we will come back to you when we have um a sale amount of that and and ask you and then sort of leave it to the board as to what we want to do with those funds. >> Okay. >> Yeah. To summarize, basically, we're going to get about 20 grand. We could either put the 20 gan right into the kitty or the finance committee recommended that the board consider when we have the money creating reserve account that we kick in a little bit each year with this 20,000 as the seed money so that next time we have to buy a vehicle it's not a zero to $90,000 delta in our budget. >> Adam, [clears throat] >> where does that where

127does that come from? Is that the funds for that? What line or where is that? >> When we purchased the vehicle, >> uh it's it's in our local budget. Um where we have been budgeting for it, we're changing to where it makes a little more sense. So that's part of what you'll sort of see as we come forward with the finance plan. we've moved it into um sort of the security article and section of the budget, but essentially that is where that expense would live. If we would opt to do it from a local fund perspective in, you know, but that would change if we went with a reserve account, then that would it would live outside that local budget. Did that make sense? Okay, further questions about that? We'll wait to hear more. Um,

128and there was some also just so folks aren't surprised if it comes back different. My understanding is how we handle these items would be at auction. And so the sort of uh Kelly Blue Book may not be um what we get for that at all. So, you know, depending on how that pans out, we might dramatically change our mood on the use of the funds. All right. Now, we move to temperatures. This has been a lot of fun. Uh the temperature standards for schools, if you can believe it, we have a policy tonight. This has been through a few meetings, a few uh committees, and so before we get into the nuts and bolts, um I would hear a motion to consider adopting policy EBBD temperature standards for schools together with the EBBDR procedures. >>

129So moved. >> Second. >> There you go. >> All right. um discussion on this um policy chair, do you want to tell us the story how we came here today? >> It's a long one. Um I mean >> short story >> the short story is is that this is a required policy. Um the first meeting was with facilities and the policy committee. Um there were some changes that were recommended. Um, I think the biggest one was to kind of split it out as to two to not have it all in one policy, but type of policy and procedure. Um, and this is how it worked out. All right. Well, if I might throw in a a little bit more context on the the big takeaway I think we had in in some of these discussions

130was can we make the policy as short as simple as possible to give that um to give the authority on the decision-m to the superintendent to keep school operations safe um and then put all the nitty-gritty into a procedure. But essentially our policy is saying we >> follow the procedure >> we follow and we charge the superintendent with maintaining a safe um school safe school which we already do. That's already your job. So um any sort of questions or discussions on where this landed? Feel good about it. All right. All in favor? Wonderful. And I think we're very cutting edge here um on getting this done among our peers. So well done to um policy for keeping us up to date on new and exciting legal requirements. All right. Further um security use another one

131where we'll um adhere a motion where we combine the um policy and procedure. I I make the motion that we consider adopting policy ECAD security camera use and ECDA-R security use administration procedures. >> Second. >> All right. Um this was another um joint effort. Who wants to tell us more? >> I would love to if I could do that. Um I I don't This one doesn't have as much of a back history. Uh this came recommended from our legal council to have since we have security cameras. Um we didn't make a ton of changes on this one, but it uh from the initial meeting with facilities, but um sort of fine-tuned it a little bit. Um that's my memory. I don't know if that's good or bad. Anyone who was at the policy meeting can

132certainly jump and tell me if I'm completely wrong on that, but I don't remember us making drastic changes. >> Anyone else? Adam, do you have any facilities insight to this recommendation? No, the [laughter] the big um probably the bulk of the conversation ended up being around who could view uh the images or videos stored in the >> process in which they would have access to it. Um >> yeah, >> great questions uh further discussion. All in favor? Wonderful. All right, turning a page. Um, pest management. I make a motion that we consider adopting policy ECB, integrated pest management, and ECB-E pest management school facilities and on school grounds procedures. >> Second. >> All right. So, this was a um update to an existing policy. Um Adam and or Sharon. >> Um Adam might be better

133to answer any questions. Um this came from facilities and we adopted we approved it as it came to us. >> Great. So, >> uh, so this is when I was in Canada, but, um, I think you shared this. >> Oh, okay. >> That's fine. So, >> we added a pest control >> policy. [snorts] No. So talking about a narrative that we don't necessarily want in our community would be air quote pests running around our school and also the sensitivity around pesticides in our schools around our children. So we got a little more um eloquent in how we're going to distribute those and manage them u through all of the state standards. Um, we also added a there was a job description around who is qualified that we had to add to handle all these. Right.

134>> Yeah. It is a very specific requirement. It isn't a job. >> It's not just anybody that's going to be >> and it's not someone's only job. It's not it's not Gary's only job, but it's part having the job description is a legal requirement. And then having that person's contact information in the policy is also required. So, anything else? Good. All right. All in favor? Great. Love controlling pests. Okay. Now, >> really has been a variety of topics. >> We're really covering all of it. Um, bidding and purchasing. So I make the motion that we consider removing policy DJ bidding purchasing requirements and adopting with policy DJ bidding purchasing requirements. >> Second. >> All right. So this just came up in regular review but finance committee um weighed in on that already back in October.

135Anything Sam exciting or pressing that you recall from this that you want to make sure everybody knows about? No. All we did is updated a couple of numbers uh to reflect current practice. Nothing significant. >> All right. Anything else? All in favor? Beautiful. And school property disposition. >> So I make the motion that we consider adopting DN school property disposition. >> Second. Thank you. Oh my uh >> Oh my gosh. [laughter] >> Another um just policy that's up as part of regular review cycle that has been through both uh finance and policy. Any u discussion on this one? >> Same thing. Very minimal changes. >> Okay, great. All in favor? Wonderful. All right. Oops. And on to purchasing contracting. >> So I make the motion that we consider adopting policy DJH purchasing and contracting procurement

136staff code of conduct administrative procedure. >> Second. >> All right. Um keeping with the theme. This was as just part of um timely review from October and then went to policy in December. Discussion. >> We're all just have a piece. All in favor. >> All right. And one more. Petty cash. >> I make the motion that we consider adopting policy DJC petty cash policy. >> Second. >> And uh same backstory on this one. Discussion. >> [snorts] >> I would just like to note that we have taken a system where we had a very specific amount of money that every single office in the district was allowed to have and we just said, you know what, they can all have the same amount. It doesn't have to be $100 at adult education and $200 at Russell

137school. That doesn't make any sense. >> Wonderful. I love that. All in favor? Everybody in? All right. Yes. Okay. All right. We did it. Now on to committee reports. Facilities committee was uh caught up in our last storm. Finance. >> Yeah. Uh you heard about the uh SRO vehicle and the policies uh that we kicked around. Um one thing I want to draw people's attention to is uh the report on our solar contracts. Uh Jim is not here. I'm so bummed out. This is like Jim's cause celeb and [laughter] >> uh you know he's ill so but he is in the finance committee so he has heard this already but you know uh we uh you just a nice little update in 2020 uh 2019 into 2020 we spent a ton of time uh trying

138to get more renewable and so we entered into uh some solar contracts um which you know there it was the solar boom and so there was definitely some promises made that were not delivered. Uh if all of the contract we signed had come to fruition, we would have been 80% renewable power districtwide. Um some of the projects that they promised to build uh they just didn't build. So we don't get quite as much energy as we had hoped. But 55% of the energy that we use is uh certified uh renewable, which I think is great. Um, but more importantly, uh, by, uh, entering into these contracts, we have saved the district $114,840 over the course of those five years. So, a little more than $25,000 a year. And, uh, that's a great savings while also

139helping uh, the planet. So, love it. >> I would say thus far it's delivering what we had hoped. We have 15 more years of these contracts. Um, and if trends hold, the savings should increase. Um, because, uh, it's funny because one of the things that people, uh, really debated a lot, Gary, you'll remember this, is what if what if power gets a lot cheaper in the future? Then we'll be we'll be really hosed with these contracts. And I personally was of the opinion that that was very unlikely to happen. And, uh, feel really good about my predictions at the moment. Unless your energy is getting cheaper, mine does not seem to be. you know, that that was definitely a crystal ball moment. >> I was like, I don't think it's going to happen. >> No,

140it seemed unlikely. Uh, but so we're getting more savings each year incrementally and um I'm really happy with the way it's gone and thanks to David and the business office team for putting the report together uh because it's definitely a good validation of some decisions we made five years ago. >> Great. >> Misty, >> uh I was part of that whole show. Um, and the 55% the what we're supposed to the 80% that we didn't get, is there a chance to get up to that to change things going forward to we have so we use more renewable energy or >> we would have to so our supplier is competitive energy services uh which I'm sure David is becoming uh intimately uh familiar with. what we would have to do is enter into yet further contracts.

141Um, and you know the there are fewer people in the business right now of building these solar farms because you know the sort of boom was five years ago and they've still a bunch of subsidies. But what we would have to do is find more uh power purchase agreements to enter into which is definitely something that we could do. >> Okay. Good. Do >> you have more? >> Um, was there I'm sorry I got so excited about this. >> I know. I know. >> Um Oh. Um, just that uh the ED279 uh feedback letter has been actually sent. Penny and I sent it and it is >> off to our representatives in the Department of Education where I'm sure it'll be uh roundly discussed and they will do exactly what we tell them to. >>

142Can't wait. All right. Any questions for finance? It's that extra coffee I got tonight from those cute kids. I'm feeling cheeky. All right. Uh personnel. Um we met December 17th. That was a rescheduled from the December 10th due to uh winter weather conditions. Um and the meeting was entirely composed of an executive session to discuss the um upcoming uh contract negotiations. Okay, we will ask you no more questions. >> uh curriculum met tonight. Uh we had two items on the agenda. One was we reviewed policy KBF, which is parental involvement in title one. Um we had a discussion about that and we've recommended that to go to policy with no changes. Um and we discussed the the new science standards. um which Kathy mentioned tonight and we recommended that come to the full board for

143review and approval. >> Excellent. >> All right. Uh policy. >> So we basically already covered everything from the policy meeting, but believe it or not, we did have a few more policies that we reviewed, but no changes were made. And those were DCA on the capital reserve fund, DI on the fiscal accounting and reporting, DB on the annual budget, and DJ D on school activity account policy. So, >> all right. >> It was a busy busy meeting. >> Got a lot done. >> We did. Okay. So, uh school board chair report. I actually do have a just a couple little things. Um, you hopefully saw my email with a reminder to please send any questions on the annual reports by Friday. Um, if I could expand on that a little bit, the the questions or

144the feedback that come to me, I'm going to channel along to Dr. Turner and that is going to shape who we invite to the workshop and what we talk about that night. So if I have zero questions from 11 people about any of those, I'm not going to invite a single administrator to come to that workshop because I'm going to assume we have nothing to talk about. Um so um what might be more useful is instead of just not looking just for questions for understanding or points of clarity, but hey, like we did tonight, I would like to hear more about this or I don't you know, you didn't say enough here or can you please explain to me this? Um the idea is we have a robust um an appropriate understanding as possible of

145all of these departments moving into budget season. So then when there's a budget ask or a change or an item, we can say that we understand what it is attached to or where it's coming from. um similar to the discussion we had tonight or even um open to including we certainly can invite Kathy to come back if people say okay I absorb that information we had tonight can we talk more about this or can we hear more on you know XYZ so that we really can make informed decisions with um our budget and so we are stepping away from having all our administrators come and repeat one after another all the information we've already been given. Um but unless we have questions and discussion for them, you know, I I don't want to drag them

146all out after hours and stare at them. So, um if you can take a look or refresh your memory, I'm sure you spent your uh Christmas time reading those. Um if you haven't, please do so in the next uh day or two and send me your questions, ideas, or you know, I'd really love to see this person come talk more. Okay. Um And the only other thing is we got a card. Um I don't think the board often gets mail um and not um not good mail. So I thought I would share it. It is Pooh Bear on the front and it says how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. Um it's a a note to us um from Karen Morgan uh one of our middle school teachers who

147um retired >> um in the spring. And she says, "Members of the board, thank you for asking great New Glouester, thank you for making Grey New Glouster Middle School not just my workplace, but my community as well. I hope I did the district proud during my years there. I know I was proud to serve in MSAD15. I remain deeply touched by the wonderful evening of recognition as we retired and by the thoughtful, meaningful gifts you presented to us. Thank you for your uh service and for your support, Karen Morgan. So, it's very nice of her to um think of us and I hope um that Karen is enjoying her retirement very much. I will say Karen is um coming and volunteering in the middle school library um fairly regularly. So if you we don't we

148don't have to miss her too too much but um but we do still miss her miss seeing her every day. >> Yeah. So that is everything uh from me Dr. Turner. >> All right. Uh I wanted to provide an update on the cost sharing committee facilitator as well as um we now have some updates since we posted the agenda on the committee itself. So uh the board took their action Sam and Gary being the the board's representatives on there. Um the new Gloucester uh select board has selected Peter Braggden and Connie Justice to be their folks on the committee. And then um just this week the the Grey Town Council finished up their work. uh Bennett Ward and Judy Simino will be their folks. So we have a committee um that is new news, very

149recent news. So that's exciting. Uh it the um both of the two towns use slightly different processes and as I understand it the um Grey Town Council, you can find um profiles of all of the folks who volunteered there if you are curious um about who they are. New Gloucester I think didn't have any community like volunteers per se and so they had to select among themselves. So >> yes, slightly different experiences. >> Um and per your direction after the vote um to move forward and and um accept the updated um signatures um I move forward with trying to secure a cost sharing facilitator. um as per the statute, we are to reach out to the main department of education and receive a list. So, uh just after that meeting, I did reach out to

150them. Um and then I reached out again and then I I reached out another time with, you know, successfully, you know, working my way up the chain a bit. Um in the meantime, I talked with other districts nearby that have done this recently. Who did they work with? What were their recommendations? and and started um communicating with one person in particular who comes highly recommended and I was just hoping that they would end up being on the list. So um just a couple of days before the Christmas holiday I did hear back from the state. Um they gave us a list. There's only one person on it and it is that person whom I was communicating with. So that is great. Um that good news lasts about that far. Um as I've been communicating with

151this individual, she is the only person in the state. I think there are three or four districts undergoing this process at this time. Um she communicated to me last week that she has made the very difficult and long decision to no longer do this work >> for the state. >> Fantastic. >> So I reached back out to the Department of Education and said, you know, what are my options here? Because the statute says that we will use the state list. So if I go out into the and I'm like, oh, hey, I think this person's great. And I bring them to you and you all say, hey, this person's great. we're not really, as far as I can tell, it is my opinion that that is not following the statute because the statute says we

152will use the state list. >> So, I reached back out to the state to say, "Hey, this is my understanding. I want to make sure we stay in line with the statute, but I feel like I'm kind of stuck here. Uh, what thoughts do you have?" I received an email back actually just about an hour or two ago uh from the director of public school finance at the main department of education who said that they are having trouble getting people. They're continuing to try to get people, but in the meantime, um, she thought it was fine if I did just go find my own person. >> Absolutely no. >> We're a No. >> So, I have I have respond I have taken that response and I have gone to some of my contacts within the

153Department of Education to get some further guidance because that one's not going to really work. Um, but that is sort of where we are. So, um, I will be reaching out. My plan is to tomorrow morning send out um a message to to that group of people and include you know the town um managers, interim managers and Penny as the board chair just to update them on all of that and just where we are at the moment is until we can find a facilitator. I I feel like we really have to follow the law here we can't we can't get creative with it. Um just trying to find a way through that. So, I'll be looking for further guidance from the Department of Education and I and I may need to contact legal counsel as

154well to get some advice about how do how do we meet our legal obligation to do this process at this point while also meeting our legal obligation for how we do that process. >> Um, so awesome. You know, there's only following the law is the only way forward. We can't freelance. Um, but this is also what our state representatives senators are for. We need to involve them. Good idea. >> If we are getting like they are a government agency, they work for us. Our state legislators, senators, whatever they this is where we need to leverage them and they need to go make sure the department of education is producing a list and giving us something to work with. Um they are our advocates in Augusta and getting, you know, raise holy hell. That's just an

155unacceptable answer. >> Agreed. uh in addition to not being the law, um we can't just have a facilitator. We we can't just have a moderator. We need someone who can provide expertise from the Department of Education on the the formulas and the numbers and the laws. There there's just just not something we can do by ourselves. So, um I think we're all reacting the same way. And um it's a little tricky because we did not initiate this process. Now we do have a committee. Um but we're moving forward in my opinion that we move forward with Dr. Turner as sort of the uh secretary of um this action as this statute sort of uh empowers the district to get the work done. Um and we just take the time it needs. the the facility facilitator

156role in statute is very specific and it includes a the public may not realize it but it includes a lot of functions that are very specific to that to that job and the average attorney or whoever who might do school work is not necessarily going to have access or expertise in the area that that the statute requires the facilitator to have. So I I just don't I don't think there's an option That is my impression as well. But as I said, I will continue uh I will continue fighting the good fight. I' I've had to have some breathing to discuss it with this language versus the um thoughts and language I had when I originally got the email earlier today. >> So So that's that update. >> We can just do the best we can.

157um we've that has been the practice certainly as long as I've been on the board and the practice I inherited is that we follow the law all the 100% of the time. So um there's no there's no time limit on this process and until we can do it legally we'll just wait. Yeah. So so that's where we are. I will continue to keep you updated. Um the other item on my report that is not in the printed um agenda, I just wanted to touch base quickly um on remote day and and have the opportunity to provide a little extra context given we had one today and that we are all here. Um we do have a rule of thumb we use for after school and evening activities when we have remote days and storm days

158and that sort of thing. Um it it is posted Miss Greyish sent it out as early as last week um to folks to remind them. But essentially the rule of thumb is um when we have remote learning days we will not have co-curricular activities or athletic practices and but games we would consider. And so that's where like we came together and you know and said that we would let them know by noon whether we were going to allow we don't actually have any home games today. They were all away games. um but to consider whether we were going to have games, but that's why all practices um were cancelled. Um if we have a remote day that's not due to weather, it's due to something else. Like I was thinking back um back in COVID

159days when people had to get quarantined. We had a few days we couldn't open the high school because we didn't have enough teachers. So many were quarantined, but they were well enough they could teach remotely. So on days like that, we would still have all of our afterchool activities. So a lot of it comes down, you know, to the reasoning as to why. Um, I will always do my best to communicate with all of you about whether or not we're having a meeting and and Penny um does that as well. So, that's the rule of thumb though. >> And I think it's fair to say we will always make a call on um evening board meetings by noon that so unless something drastic happens at the last minute. Sure. The intention is that by noon

160you have that message from me. And generally speaking, by 5:00 am on store, I have had some panicked emails from people at 3:00 am and then 3:05 and then 3:10 and then 3:15 asking me why I haven't made a call yet. Generally speaking, you can expect to hear from me about five. So, um, anyway, >> 5 and noon. Those are the times. Those are the times. Um, and I and I do I I hear from a lot of people, why can't you make the call the night before? Totally agree with you. There's no one more invested to not be up at 3:00 a.m. standing outside. saying what is happening than me. Um, but it often the information just isn't good enough and we have to make that call in the morning. So, I appreciate people's

161patience with that. And the last thing I have, uh, we've got some, um, hiring and, uh, employment information. We do have a new hire, an edtech 2 at Memorial School, Rachel Olmstead. Um, Rachel is replacing I always like when I have resignations for you that I have hires right there. Uh Rachel is replacing Britney Britney Miller uh who left her position as an edtech 2 at Memorial School. Uh Devon Goyette has left her position as an occupational therapist at Dun School. You have that um you all acted on that replacement um earlier this evening. Uh Kaylee Sawyer, our school counselor here at the high school, has let us know that this will be her last school year with us. Um she and her family are relocating. we will miss her um desperately, but because she

162wanted us to be able to do what we needed to do, she um let us know early and we're really thankful for that. Um so she is, to be clear, she is finishing this school year with us. Um but she will not be coming back for the next school year. And then finally, um Dan Howard, a bus driver in transportation that I think many of you are familiar with, um has resigned. I I think I think there are still some hopes that someday um we'll be driving bus again, but for right now um for right now he he has resigned his position. >> We didn't have any transfers and then uh this is the month of the retirements. Uh January 1st is the deadline for folks to let us know to receive um contract bonuses.

163So that's why we always get a big big list here. Uh, so the list is Kelly Irish, special education teacher here at the high school. Eliza Eastman, who is our response to intervention teacher at Dun School, Julie Murray, who's one of our teachers at Dun School as well, uh, Pam Vandergr teaches kindergarten at Russell School, Andrew Whan, one of our social studies teachers here at the high school. Jackie Corkerin, who has driven bus for us. I looked it up and I meant to have it at my fingertips, but I don't. But I think since like 1986, I'm pretty sure, maybe even earlier. >> She was driving buses when I was attending. [laughter] >> She has been she has let us know she is going to retire at the end of this year. And then Jennifer

164Reber um who was uh a full-time teacher at Russ music teacher Russell and Memorial School. A couple of years ago, she dropped down to part-time and was teaching just at um Russell school and stayed on with us for a little longer. but she has let us know that she is ready to move into her retirement years. So, as I said to I think almost every one of them, I am delightfully excited for them and sad for us. They will all be missed. This is a this is a big group of big group of people this year. >> This is a big year um with the ones we already have. So, not too early to mark your calendars for that uh early night and that June meeting to come um recognize and appreciate these folks. That's

165it. >> That's it. That's all I have. >> All right. 8:40. >> Oh, missed the answer question. >> Just kidding. >> Any concern about us? >> Always. >> Uh, so always. Yes. Always. That's the answer. Always. Um, one of those positions. Um, we've been operating without and and for a while. Um and then as we spoke with the board earlier in the year when we, you know, posted some additional bus driver positions, it was in anticipation of um having a couple uh of openings. Um and and you're seeing some of those predictions come come into fruition. So yes, always concerned. Um but we're going to keep keep trying. And these are both >> uh the resignation bus driver um is is effective now. Um but I would >> doesn'tffect >> but doesn't affect current operations.

166>> Yeah. And then uh Jackie's retirement is is at the end of the school year. So we're okay right now. All right. Uh we will adjourn this meeting at 8:41.