001So, it is 6:31. I'm going to call this meeting to order of our December business meeting of the school board. And we have a quorum. I know everybody is. And please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Light housekeeping. We have had some feedback from folks doing our meetings in person and trying to stream online that our use of the new microphones is inconsistent. really effective. So, please be sure that you have it on um you're holding it or wearing it and maybe worry less about just have it on. All right, meetings. We have December 10th, personnel at 5:30 here in Dun School Library, followed by facilities committee. Now I'm off. Now I'm on. December 17th, policy committee at 5:30 in the high school library, followed by finance committee at 6:30 in the library. And
002then for um that's it for December due to the holiday. Um any action relative to additions or adjustments to the agenda? Great. comments from the audience. All right. And that will bring us to recognition. All right. Um I wanted to start by talking about the main mobile biolab. And um I was hoping Mr. Lamro was going to be able to join us tonight and share some pictures and stuff, but I'll be sure to um get those to you. Um but to just kind of share if you follow our social media at all you were able to kind of see some of that but the main biolab um comes through educate Maine and it is a literally a mobile laboratory that offers um STEM so science technology engineering and math activities to middle school students around
003the state. And so they come in, they provide lessons for us to use in our classrooms um ahead of their arrival. um they facilitate activities with our students the week that it's here and then there's some um follow-up that happens as well. So that is a um application program. We've been applying actually for a number of years to have the lab come visit and um this was the first year that uh we were approved for that. So we were very excited to have them come. Um huge shout out to Mr. Lamo. Mr. Lamro is the one that handled all of our applications, all of the coordination. It was quite a bit of work over the summer. You have to commit to doing the lessons and preparing everything and making sure all the teachers at the
004high at the middle school had what they needed. Um he came on um the holiday Monday to receive the delivery of the lab because that was the day it was coming. Um so he just really was um the champion for it. You have to have someone who can be able to handle all that. And u Mike who is our technology integrator um really took that on. So, I just wanted to have an opportunity to um celebrate Mike and how much we appreciate the work that he did um bringing the biolab to our schools. >> Okay. Um the honors music selections which happen every year um around this time of year are out and we wanted to make sure we gave a shout out to those um kiddos. The All New England Band Festival, which is
005uh you know, you have to be like the in all of New England to get selected. It's a very big deal. Uh Liam Lereck was um named to that festival. Uh the district 2 honors choir um band and orchestra are auditionbased. Um so all of our our kiddos have to audition in order to get a place and uh we have a number of kiddos that were accepted. Um, in the choir we have um, Alex McVicker, Ellie Escobar, Kalista Stratard, Ian Abu, Isaac Colby, Asana Bell, Ivy Newberry, JD Varela, Kaylee Anne Marty, Lucy Collins, Michaela Gil, Marcus While, and Wyatt Ronak. District 2 band, we had Oliver Hill and Liam Lorre, and District 2 honors, we had Alyssa Disore. Um, so congratulations to those kiddos for for that wonderful honor. Our athletic awards also um have
006wrapped up. Uh the awards ceremony was um a couple of weeks ago at the high school. Uh we shared with you a a full um list of kind of all the honors that were received over the course of the fall sports. Um we had a number of students named to the Western Main Conference all conference teams both on the first team and the second team which are wonderful honors. Uh we also included for you our seniors who are named to the Western Main Conference all academic and that means that while playing their sports they also maintained a 93 or higher GPA. And then finally uh we wanted to give special recognition to the cross country team who got the team academic excellence award. It means that they were the athletic team in the fall that
007had the highest overall GPA. Um they averaged with a 94.27 27 and it was hot competition this year between our sports trying to trying to take that title. So, um good job to everyone. Uh but cross country did take it this year. >> Fantastic. Paz student of the quarter. A number of kiddos uh that are green blaster kiddos attending the technical high school um have been named as students of the quarter. Uh Owen Taylor for automotive, Zabo uh Roman for carpentry, and Riley Montine for um the career technical exploratory program and Zabi. We've been working on that a long time. Nice. Zabi, sorry about that. Um, and then lastly, I wanted to um after particularly our conversation we've had uh in the last couple of meetings about um food insecurity and just being worried about
008making sure our kids have what they have um have what they need and our community has what they need. I got a really nice email um last week from um a person who is involved in the great community pantry about our schools um giving a special uh thank you to the middle school junior honor society. So I just wanted to um share that email with you. It came from Beverly Dowy. Um she's also known as Narnie in our school. She's a big G&G sports fan. Her children and grandchildren have come through our system. Um and as an aside, she and my mother and my mother-in-law taught together. So, she's known me since before I was born. Um, so she sent me a lovely message saying, um, last week she arrived at the parking lot for
009the great community food pantry and a group of SAD15 students were there jumping for joy. They could not contain their excitement as they announced that they were there, vehicles filled to the brim with donations from their SAD15 middle school Junior Honor Society food drive. They were supported by the adults who were equally as enthusiastic, and I was completely overwhelmed. They proceeded to lift every single heavy bag or box and practically run down the stairs to our pallets. Volunteers had just nearly emptied those pallets with very generous donations that had been coming in previously. They shared announcements of the numbers from the various classrooms that exceeded last year's collections. And I heard how they carried the donation boxes from class to class. They related how supportive their teachers were. And she mentions that because she was
010a longtime teacher and so she was very impressed. Um, in all the time I have been volunteering with the Gray Community Food Pantry, I have never seen one small group deliver such an amount of supplies. They covered our pallets. I had to find new portable shelves to hold the overflow. Their smiles and enthusiasm assured me that they were pleased with their effort. I thought it was important that they hear from others just how profound their outreach is to our many families. Some are homeless, elderly, battling health issues, or victims of other circumstances beyond their control. Some walk, push baby carriages, or have case managers as their only mode to get these services. At this time of giving thanks, all of us at the Gray Community Food Pantry say a huge thank you to all who
011were involved. >> Society is working to Do I have to do this? That feels weird. >> I keep creeping it up higher and higher. How's that? It's like if I'm not looking at it. Should I chew on it after the stern talking to I gave everyone to. I want to make sure I'm doing it right. How's that? Is that better? Okay. I feel like I can't look up. Um, so old business to I would hear a motion to take action uh relative to accepting the minutes of our November 5th business meeting. >> I make the motion that we take action relative to accepting as printed the meeting minutes of November 5th, 2025 regular business meeting. Second. Anyone see anything in there that warrants addressing? Great. All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Um, and this reminds me
012in our first voting item, um, we're trying out a new setup. You'll see Maggie is really in line with this arm. You You got everyone. Okay. Just want to make sure that you can see us. Um, all right. Great. And now we have some >> Can I clarify? >> Yeah. >> You You weren't at the meeting. at the last business meeting. >> Correct. >> I wasn't actually. So, I need to >> Sharon was not >> in the I'm just saying in the minutes it says that Sharon was absent, but it says that you were present. >> Okay. So, you were at the meeting. You don't have comments. You're not You're not prepared to Okay, great. So we have two obstensions then. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Um and now um an update on our strategic plan
013deliverables specific to reach my teach. Yes. So we're talking today about goal one priority two which is our work in increasing family and community engagement with schools. Um, I'm going to start by talking about reach my teach a little bit while uh we have our three elementary principles here. Jeeoff, if you want to get set up, I would say feel free to go ahead and do that while I go over this, which won't take long. Um, this uh maybe I should start with uh so reach my teach is is one of the systems we are rolling out um this year to try to improve our family and community engagement um as Okay. slow down. I can I will absolutely. It's okay. I'm also losing my voice which probably is not helping. I can I tend
014to go too fast. I'm happy to slow down. Um so looking at increasing our family and community engagement using um a new software tool. Reach my teach is one of our strategies this year. we've been rolling out. Um I say that um having provided this wonderful report to you of how we're using it, um I since have had to send a couple emails in the last 24 hours about how the system did not work fantastically yesterday and resulting in many of us having our phone ring and text it felt like 500 times in a very long period of time. and a message that was scheduled to go at 5:00 a.m. me then panicking because it was 5:20 and it had not gone out to families. So, um, a lot of craziness. We have been assured
015that it is a problem. It was not just exclusive to us. It was a number of other school districts that were impacted. >> I think the takeaway here is that everybody did find out it was a remote day tomorrow. >> And that's better than not finding out. >> It's true. It's true. Yep. So, we have been assured it's been fixed. Um, and so I'm going to talk a little bit more about how we use the tool. Um, there is a a handout in your packet. These are um, metrics that come straight out of Reach My Teach. These actual graphics. Um, it's not what's on the screen, it's it's in your packet. Um, and so there have been seven So this was taken um, the day before we sent this out. So it was a couple
016of weeks ago. Um, but so far since we've adopted the program this school year, we've sent over 7,000 unique messages. Um, and you can kind of see what this graphic is below. It shows the school and the home. It shows kind of how many messages went from an employee to an employee. How many messages went from were initiated from school sending home? How many messages were initiated from home to send to school using this specific system? Those messages when you actually then translate that into how many back and forth communications, it's been over 193,000 communications since we've started. The vast majority of those are email, but there's also text calls and WhatsApp um which is a a communication um app that a lot some families choose to use. Um mostly how the system works is
017that it's based on how parents choose to get their information. So we don't necessarily say we're going to initiate a WhatsApp message, but if a parent in the system has said I would like to receive these by WhatsApp, then whatever we send out gets sent to them through through that system. So it kind of shows how parents are choosing to receive the messages. As you scroll down a little bit, um a big feature of this system is it does um translation of um of communications both in both directions, both from us to a family. They a family can choose to receive um the information in a different um way if they want to um if they want to receive it in another language. And so you can see here that we've had families choose um
018primarily Arabic, a little over 600 messages um families have opted to have u put into Arabic for them. Um Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, Hungary, and Lao so far um families have used the system for. And then for engagement, um about a third of our staff have used the system to send a message. Keep in mind that's all of our staff. So it includes like custodians and those sorts of folks that we wouldn't necessarily be expecting to use the system to do communications. Um so we're we've been thinking a little bit about like what is a number we should be striving for for using the system. We're not sure what like a good number is. Um you can see getting close to half of our families have used um this app to send a message and
019um 100% of our staff and families have received messages through the system. So, our biggest successes as we have begun to roll out this system um are that all staff and families have received messages um they're using it to send and and we really feel like we've we're getting um better multilingual engagement hearing from our teachers. Um they're feeling much more resourced to reach out um to families who maybe English is not their first language and we're seeing more communication coming back from those families. So we we think that that um has been fairly effective as we move forward into the next phases of um using the system. It does have phone call capabilities. Um so teachers can use it to make phone calls. That just adds a little bit of flexibility to them when
020they want to make calls home or admins for that matter. Um if I'm at home and I need to make a call to a family, I don't necessarily have to use my personal cell phone. I could use this system. Um and then it lets us track those communications with families as well. you can see that teachers called um families in that way as well. So, we're going to start to look at expanding that capability. Um we're attendance, chronic absenteeism, and truency is a place where um having some data on what information is received by families is really important and we're finding that certified mail is not real dependable these days. Um, so this system allows us to see um how a message was received, whether it was opened, what time it was opened, what kind
021of device they opened it on. Um, so we've got a little bit more to work with to understand are these families that aren't getting our messages or are these families that are getting our messages and maybe they're not responding. So, um, we're looking to maybe try to use it more for our attendance chronic absenteeism and see if that can help us be more responsive there. We're also kind of longterm going to look into the coaching and athletics piece again that um we do have uh applications we use now to allow coaches to communicate with students. Um but Reach My Teach has a few more options for them. Um having the call and the text and the email, the WhatsApp where kids could choose how they receive information just would give coaches some more options. So
022we're going to explore what that might look like um and and potentially start to pilot that with some teams that may want to do that. Um, and then overall fine-tuning. We're still working on, you know, supporting making sure people are getting the types of messages they want when they want them, making sure we're sending them well, still learning, making sure those 5 a.m. calls go out to people on time. Um, but it has been um, I think overall successful. It's definitely been a learning curve. Um, and it has many more capabilities we're not using yet, but it's it's been a nice transition for folks um, over the start of the school year. questions about the reach my teach report. Uh do we know it's nice to see it's being used um for the language piece.
023Have we checked in with any of those families? I'm just curious about the quality of >> of the you know are they saying like yeah this is actually useful or >> I think >> curious >> I would say that the summary of what we're hearing from folks who and not just our multi-le families but our other families who do speak other languages is that it's not bad right I think anytime you have a system doing automated um translation it it has its fallbacks um but it's not that bad and what we're seeing because families also have the opportunity to write in their native language and have that translated to English and when it comes to us what's coming to us is not bad. Um it's it's understandable and and and from us communicating back and
024forth it it seems to be getting to the point. So um perfect. Absolutely not. I don't think there is automated translation software at this point that is um but it is much better than what um I have seen in the past. >> Great. >> It's not Google Translate. It's different software than that. And if we were able to move the um coaching and athletics, would that be potentially a cost savings from eliminating another system or not? >> It depends. We use that system also for our live streaming of our games. Um so I don't know if it would reduce the cost or if it's just kind of included in both, but it could it wouldn't be an increase. Um it could potentially be a decrease, but I have not looked at that contract at this
025point. We want to make sure that it really is anytime we're going to change something, we need to make sure that it's significantly better. So, we're still kind of playing with it to see is it going to be significantly better and then if it is, it might be worth changing. And then we'll we'll explore whether there is a cost savings. But we would do it more because it's better than as an opportunity for savings. >> Got it. >> Else, >> can you hear me? Uh, so when a a message districtwide goes out, what's sort of that process? Is it quicker than it used to be? Can we get district messages out a lot quicker? And then also on the back end, who's like doing that? Is it one person or, you know? >> Great question.
026So, districtwide messages, generally speaking, Maggie can initiate, I can initiate, and our district technology director can initiate. And frankly, any of our tech staff probably could also do it um as backup, but um those messages are only getting initiated from those places. I would say at first it was not necessarily quicker, but that was operator side. That was Maggie and I getting used to how this system works. Um we had some learning curves around making sure that we um had the right address books built so that when we needed to send something to everyone, it was grabbing the right people. Um so that took a little bit of a learning curve. So now Now that we're more confident with the system, I would I don't know that it's faster because it was fairly fast for
027us to do it through school messenger. I'm looking at Maggie to disagree with me if she disagrees, but um she loves it because I do it myself most of the time. I don't make I do make her do it sometimes like the messages that you get around like um the community caring um you know Thanksgiving baskets, those sorts of things. Maggie's doing the emergency like I need to get a message out. those I'm I'm doing myself and it's super user friendly. Um it works pretty quickly. Um what I did yesterday is I sent the message to go about four I did it at 4:45 and I did a schedule send for five o'clock which I think was our downfall because I know two other districts did the same thing. And so I think there were
028like six districts worth of messages trying to all go out at 5 a.m. and the system was like second what's happening? Um, so I might not do that again, but I might maybe I'll pick like 459 so that ours goes out first. Um, so that's the first hiccup we've had. Otherwise, once we send something within 10 minutes, like because particularly when I send them, we've got an A team text group and I'm like, did everyone get it? You know, and someone would be like, I got the text, I didn't get the text. So, we've sort of got like a good litness test of how it goes out. But usually it's under 10 minutes call, text, and email. Um, email is usually pretty instantaneous. question. >> Oh, wait. We had >> It's okay. I'm trying to
029find a policy before I ask my question. So, one more time. Um, >> I'm not that savvy on reach my teach as far as how it's received, but is it like the other ones where a general district-wide message that goes out, the recipient can decide how they receive that? So, they can get a digest. So they may not get it right right away anyway unless you you indicate in your message that it is to be distributed right now. >> Correct. >> Something that overrides >> there is one emergency button that would override everybody's settings. Um I have not used that yet. I would use that for something like there is an emergency and we are sending done school children home early. Right? That would be the kind of thing that I would override a parent's
030choice. I'm gonna make you get a phone call about that because we're sending your right. Um, so it's few and far between that we would do something like that. >> So does does a school closing >> so for school closing >> have an override of some kind. >> So in their ability to pick what they think so school closing and those types of messages are one of their choices and so they choose how they want to receive that. So I don't emergency override that. If a parent has decided they don't want to receive a phone call, like for me with my kids, I don't want a phone call. A text is just fine. I don't need the text and the phone call. So I in my thing I put that I just would like to
031>> Right. But that that message is not subject to them receiving a digest at the end of the day. >> No, I I don't think it has the digest. >> It has a priority that at least ignores that setting. >> I I don't think that is a setting. As a parent, you can pick text, email calls, but they're going to come through when they >> Okay, that's the part I wasn't familiar with because there are systems where you can >> where you can say I want to receive it once a day at 3:00, >> but has those systems also other ways to override family preferences. Okay. >> Did you find it? >> I did. Um so in the way that we have been considering um the security camera system policy which has rules around who
032can access what information and when I'm just thinking about all the sensitive data flowing through my teach I'm sure that they're you know covered with their above guides and all that sort of stuff in terms of their security but do we need any policies that guide like who has access to all that information like can anybody >> access you know especially logging phone calls all this sort of stuff you know >> so in our system so locally we lock things down in according to FURPA which furpa is need to know we go on a you don't need to know unless I say otherwise we default to you don't need to know >> like if you're you know if you're not teaching that kid >> you shouldn't have access to access that's what I'm saying is
033we have policies in that you know >> I don't know that we have policies in place but that's how we had that's how we implemented school messenger that's how we implement powers school that's how we implement the system as well >> okay >> if you don't have a reason to know the student's information you don't have access to that student >> right but programmatically but do we need any like policies to make it clear that that's not allowed or >> I I think I personally think Furpa covers it because FURPA is pretty clear about what we're supposed to do internally But if we, you know, start to run into a trouble, we can certainly consider it. >> I will add as well, um, any of these apps and sites that we use where student information
034is going into it, um, by state law, we have to have a signed agreement, >> um, with that company that they are going to protect our data. And this is one of the companies that has um, signed on with it. Otherwise, we >> I feel confident about them not letting the data out, especially like once you're in the system, where can you go? Okay. >> So, I believe Jim was not on his microphone, so perhaps I will um have it on. >> Yeah, it's actually um so I would be happy to bring the exact figures back to you. It was it was included in our budget presentations for last year. So, it shouldn't take a lot um to pull that up. Um there was some initiation fees um and then um the ongoing costs, you
035know, we can I can bring that um as a report back um later or during the budget process. Um at this point, it has not completely replaced the other system. Um, and good thing because yesterday I had an option to send like when the system wasn't working, I had a backup. The other two districts did not. They just had to sit around and wait for reach to figure it out. Um, so we're still we've still been maintaining that system. Um, once that uh once we sunset that system, um it should be a pretty close one to one. Um, and particularly because it was part of one of the um increases for this current budget year. Um, in theory, we could see it hopefully as a savings. I'm a little concerned that then the offset of,
036you know, gradual increases on things, you know, may or may not show it as clearly. Um, but it was it's a line item that's, you know, under 10,000 $10,000. We're not talking about >> Thank you. >> huge amounts. >> Anything else? Great. Thank you for that. And next, >> I can't hear anything anyone is saying. They're not, you know, my voice is coming across the microphone. Um, so I think I better leave tonight. And u you're not using your microphone. you come unclear when you're talking into your microphone, but otherwise >> how about now? >> Yeah. Well, I can hear that, but nobody's doing that. So, um, if you don't >> Well, if you can't hear us now, you're not going to hear us on TV because these are feeding directly into the TV feed.
037So, um, if everybody could just hold your tiny microphone you're talking. Um, we'll just soldier on. All right. Next up is the update on the budget. Nope. >> The sec. So, the second part of the update on our strategic plan deliverables. We have our >> three principles here to talk about their family engagement events. >> I was trying to let you get get away with it, but sorry. >> There should be a microphone right on your thing there to talk from. Can you hear me? Okay, awesome. Uh, good evening everybody. Dave Blake, principal at Russell School. Um, and as Chanda started, we um we have been spending some pretty considerable time at PK to4. Uh, really working to engage families at each of our levels. Uh, bring them in and help them become a part
038of the work that we are doing. And we've had some really great results. So, we are happy to share those tonight. Um, a couple of events that we have here at Russell School. Um, we just a couple of weeks ago had our 2025 harvest festival. Uh, this is an event that our PTO started uh where they really wanted to just bring the community together, the Russell School community together in the fall so that families could get to know each other and sort of build those connections with each other. And over the last couple of the years, what we have really been thinking about is how do we engage families in the teaching and learning process? How do we bring them in as active partners in their children's education? So, this year we made a bit
039of a change and we invited our teachers to join us on a Saturday in October uh to help facilitate some learning as well as all of the the fun that was that we typically do. Um, at this event we had 116 students attend. Uh, so over 50% and we had an additional family members accompany those 116 students. It was a really cool thing to see. It was sort of multigenerational. So we had some families that came with um, you know, a mom or a dad uh, and other families who came with their mom, dad, sister, brother, and their grandparents. Um, it was a really great way to bring everybody together. Uh we did a number of activities and games. We did some crafts. We did some face painting. Huge shout out to um the high
040school uh G&G community service club. We had 17 volunteers who came to run those stations for us. Um the kids love the face painting um that the the seniors do, but they also help with a lot of our logistics like checking people in and that sort of thing. Um our teachers, we had about 20 teachers uh there that day. They were running literacy stations and math stations. So again, bringing students and families together, teaching some new strategies and helping them become involved in that learning process. Uh this was a really great day for us. We uh this is our fourth uh harvest festival. The first year it rained. Uh we had to move very quickly to the middle school and be inside. But since then, we have lucked out with beautiful fall days um and
041really great attendance. Another event, Mr. Robbins, if you would flip, please. Um that we are in the midst of planning for is our winter wonderland day. And this is something that we established last year. Um we hold this day the day before we leave for the holiday break. um that day, if you ever are in a school, especially an elementary school, uh is a little bit crazy. There's like a wonderful vibe. Kids are like super excited. Um and so what we said last year is like let's instead of trying to contain and squash the energy that day, like let's meet them where they're at. And so, uh, the night before I had a handful of staff who stayed late. We decked the halls literally, um, hanging, uh, stuff from the ceiling. Um, we had inflatables.
042Um, all of those, um, snowflakes that you see were cut out by staff members, by students or by families, uh, who volunteered to do that. Um, we split that day into two parts. the morning is uh like rotating through multiple craft stations. Students get to self- select some of the crafts that they would like to do. We schedule them and they move around. It's a really great opportunity. One of the things that we love to see was that we had second graders who were escorting kindergarteners to different parts of the building. Um and then we had these multi-age groups that were just like they came together and and they did some amazing work together. Uh here in the middle we've got a couple of friends who had made some sock uh puppet uh snowmen. Um
043and then just a number the other picture is just some of the other activities that we did. Um this is a really special day for us in addition to to the work that we do in the morning with crafts. In the afternoon we do a sort of free range across the school. Um so students can really just mill about. We have folks positioned all around and each room offers something different. So, one room might offer some puzzles and another room some blocks and another room some coloring. And so, again, we get that opportunity to have mixed age groups. Um this year one of the things that my family engagement team suggested is that in addition to this work we build on to that and provide some work that we can send home with kiddos to
044continue learning um with that winter theme over the holiday break where it's two weeks this year. We are hoping that we will see that we will not have as much uh regression when we come back from that break. um a number of family a number of parents have already volunteered uh for that day. We'll probably have somewhere between 20 and 30. We don't have as many parent volunteers at this particular day. I think really the timing right before they're about to be home with their kids for two weeks. Um might might play into that a little bit. Um not because they don't want to because they have to take two weeks off, right? Um, uh, some other events that we will be doing moving forward, our, uh, field day is a really popular event that
045we are able to get volunteers in for. Uh, last spring we had over 100 parent volunteers attend our field day. Um, again, really proud of that. And then we also do a a Russell school family picnic in the spring um, in June when things are dried out a little bit. Um, and last year we had over 500 people on campus for that as well. So, we are seeing some pretty big turnouts at the events that we're hosting trying to get those families involved in in the work that we're doing. With that, I'll turn it over to Memorial. >> Hi everybody. I love a microphone so everyone's in trouble now. Um, I'm Amanda Hennessy, principal of Memorial Memorial School, your K2 school here in New Gloucester. um talk about a couple of family engagement events up
046our way. Number one, on October 9th, we hosted our fall family night. This was, I think, our ninth annual fall family night at Memorial School. Uh we had 65% of our students in attendance, which is pretty typical for our fall event, and it's usually a little higher participation when we do the same event in the spring. Um so, it's really exciting for us to see so many families come out. A nice cross-section of students and families from all classrooms and grade levels. Uh so, we love to see that. It is a very busy night at Memorial School as a couple of you board members can attest as you've been there before. There's a lot going on all at once. Uh we have community partners on hand this year. We had um friends of the new
047Glouester Library had a station. The fire department uh came out with a touch a truck event for students outside so they could get into the fire trucks and the ambulance. Uh New Glouester wreck was there talking about their various programs in their afterchool program. Our nutrition program provided a meal for families. Uh it's always a themed meal. This year, uh our theme was Maine. Um and their meal was um red hot dogs and beans. Uh they we wanted lobster, but that was a little above our price point for family night. Um and we had some blueberry coll. It was delicious. Um so they always provide a meal. Uh and then a backpack program was there, too, and they provided 75 uh food bags to families who wanted them with more perishable items than we can
048send home in our weekly food bag. So, that's always very popular. Uh, big shout out to the backpack program for supporting that. We also had our book fair going on. Um, and then our staff, as you can kind of see in the middle picture, hosts uh literacy and math activities, so families can visit and do some different activities. That's Miss Colbert dressed as a cow. Um, so really fun. And we had some crafts, too. So, it is a lot going on all at once. Uh, we love to have our families get together. We hope it's an opportunity to share some of our programming, introduce families to some of our partners, but also let families spend time together. Um, you know, you always want to meet those uh parents of students that are in the same
049class so you can make those connections for your playdates down the road, your birthday parties, all of that. Um, and so I think it's really successful. It's kind of a casual mingly kind of night. Um, and it's always one of our favorite nights of the year um, at Memorial School, and we'll do it again in May uh, for spring. Thank you, Mr. Robbins. Um, the other event I wanted to talk about at Memorial School is everyone's favorite day of the year at Memorial School, and it just happened right before the Thanksgiving break, and that's our grandparents lunchon. Uh, this year we had 261 grandparent visitors, and that's remarkable if you know we have 163 students. So grandparents far outweighed uh students at Memorial School last month. Um and we served 430 meals um including staff,
050students, and grandparents and volunteers. Um out of the meals, there was 134 students that uh had a turkey lunch and it was delicious. By the way, there was 20 staff, 14 volunteers, mostly in the kitchen and 261 grandparents. So, a big shout out to Miss Julia and Miss Mallerie who are our kitchen staff and their host of volunteers uh because they really it's like a week-long project um where they're getting ready for this big event and they really do a fantastic job year after year. So, um this event is um very much uh supported by by their hard work. So, thank you to them. Um before grandparents join their grandchildren for a meal, we also do a classroom activity. Um so grandparents and sometimes the um students might not have local grandparents. So sometimes we'll
051have an aunt or an uncle or a parent or older sister or someone might attend. So not exclusive to grandparents but mostly grandparents. Uh we'll participate in the classroom activity which might be a craft um or it might be um readers theater. Our second graders did a little um theatrical performance for them this year. Uh so the teachers work very hard to put together a small program uh and then our our staff takes over. uh with the meal. So definitely a fantastic day. Love welcoming um all of these family members and friends to Memorial School. Definitely a day when you put your feet up at about four o'clock. It's a busy one for us. Um like Danny said, we have um several more events uh family engagement events planned throughout the year. Coming up in
052the near future, uh we have a craft day sort of s different scale than Danny's, but a craft day coming up on December 16th. We host a winter carnival um which is an outdoor event for Memorial School students that's going to be in January. And then along with the Memorial School Patriot parents, we are um planning a friendship dance for February. So those are kind of our our next events. All of those uh will welcome um I'm sure our wonderful volunteers will help us get the job done. So uh and then we'll have spring family night in the spring. So oh we have a concert too next week. There's a concert on December 10th. So lots of family engagement happening at Memorial School. and I will pass it over to Mr. Robbins. >> Good evening.
053Um so what you'll hear is fairly similar to the other schools, but um the Dun School hosts in the fall of each year our STEM night, which um this year we had 246 students. Uh some of those were siblings um but students from the district. 202 parents uh and we had some volunteers from the high school. So um in this room kind of from these pictures we have the entire room set up with tables kind of on the perimeter uh and different stations that kids can go to. We do things like uh coding and robotics. Uh Ecomain was here doing some stations. Um we have some areas where they can build and practice their engineering skills with connects and ka planks. Um, and then we have uh some math games set up. Uh, so it's
054really a great opportunity for uh them with a math science theme uh to participate and it's a huge turnout, hard to move around. Patriot parents are big sponsors of that. They provide anywhere from 35 to 40 pizzas. Um, and we usually uh give all of that away. Uh, and and uh families have a great time. We do a similar activity in the spring. It's our literacy night. We often couple that with having a local author or illustrator come in during the day um to talk with kids about their either writing process or their um illustrating process. And then in the evening, we do a variety of activities kind of set up the same way around the gym um with uh stations around literacy. they might be doing a craft where they make some bookmarks or
055we have an app on the iPads called Book Creator that they can um do that or um things like uh drawing a comic strip so they're illustrating and writing dialogue. So all of those types of activities uh and things that they can do for um for literacy night. We also um you know as you can see we had some high school volunteers at at each of those evenings. Uh we generally have some high school uh kiddos that join us and help out. Um this year at the STEM night we had seven volunteers. Often Dr. Harvey brings her uh student some of her students down and they run some stations for us. There was a conflict for them this year, but two students came uh and worked with us and and ran some stations. Uh and
056then we had five students from the community service come down and and assist as well. And so we've we uh often have a number of kids um uh Katherine Larson in the past has come to our literacy night with students from American Sign Language and they have um run stations on American Sign Language which have been awesome as well. So we try and build that bridge to the older kids during uh these evenings. Um and then uh our prek um we feel like prek engagement is hugely important because oftentimes it's the first opportunity for parents to uh come into our schools and uh if they're a family that maybe didn't have a great school experience, uh they might uh be nervous about school and coming into buildings or um just not knowing um kind of
057how to be involved with their kids. And so, uh, our prek, uh, team holds monthly events, um, either by the classroom or as an entire team, and they're often, um, in during the day or in the evening and they do things, they participate in both literacy night and STEM night. Um, but they also hold their own events. Uh, the first picture there is transportation, a transportation theme night that Mrs. Gil has done. Um the second picture is applesauce making in the classroom during the day when parents come in and and learn and students learn how to make applesauce. Um and then the the other picture again is STEM night. So there's a variety of opportunities generally once a month for our prek families to come in and participate um with us. And then uh through
058the rest of the year um we have uh also a a Dun School family barbecue at the end of the year which is um a huge event. The place is uh packed and um and families have the opportunity to come in, have a barbecue lunch with their students, meet with teachers, talk with teachers, just kind of relax and see the community all in one place. So um a lot of great activities here at Dun School as well. And I think that's it. >> Are there any questions for any of us? >> I do. >> You mentioned uh the evening some of these events evening that's after the day of school and these events are they taking place during the calendar or is the other day? >> Nope, they are so like the STEM night and
059literacy nights happen in the evening. They're generally from 5:30 to 7 uh on a school night. >> Yep. So they're in addition to the school day. >> And with both during the school day, the rest of the events are taking place on a regular scheduled school day. >> Yes. So, um, like the family barbecue obviously is at lunchtime. Um, and then a lot of our prek events do happen during the day, but we try and mix the pre-k events with some in the in uh during the day and some in the evening. Yeah. So, like the applesauce uh making was during the day in the classroom. Um, the transportation evening that Mrs. Gil held was right here in the gym uh at like 5:30 at night. So it would seem to put a burden on
060those who are working right. >> Well, that's why we know someone >> I mean we try to to um we try and and have a variety of opportunities. So if a parent can't attend something during the day, there's other opportunities in the evening. Um, as well we also hold like a pre-K story night um where um all the kids come in in their pajamas with their families and we read stories to them. It's usually uh before the Christmas holiday. Um I'll come in and read. A bunch of guest readers will come in, the teachers will read. So we we try and and have a variety of opportunities both during the day and in the evening. Sam closer. Um, just wanted to say great job to all of you. I think during the pandemic, um, we
061sort of obviously had to get out of the habit of gathering together. So, it's great to see you guys getting people back into the habit. And just something you said about the sort of prek nights really resonated with me. I used to work with T-ball league and one thing that I was reminded of often is that we were usually the first time they had done organized sports and they had no idea how organized sports worked and where do you get uniforms and how to you know who coaches all that sort of stuff and so you know one of our jobs is kind of teach them how to do it and I think there's some lessons there you know anything that we can do you know how do you volunteer you know what forms do you
062have to fill out you know I I think volunteer for a lot of people it just means oh I show up and do this thing but in the schools you got to fill out this paper and you know get a pre-approval and all that sort of stuff and I think any ways that we can provide people resources with how to engage is great and so I was just really encouraging to hear that. >> Yeah. So one of the things our prek team does just to kind of piggyback on that is that part of the packets they send home to every family include the volunteer form. So every parent has the opportunity to send that form in because it's just part of the things that we send them. And that way if anything comes up during
063the year, they've already got that in and they're not hindered by that process of where do I find that? How do I do that? And and again, when you're talking prek students, you're talking about the next 14 years of their education. And and um getting parents involved in that from the beginning, I really think is is the key. So, this is for Russell school. Um, you had mentioned that there's a family engagement team and I'm just curious who is on that team. >> That's a great question. Uh, for us, we have um a number of family members. We put it out to everybody um in our newsletter and we say, "Hey, if you want to be part of this team, come on over." and we meet at this time, you know, on these days. Um,
064sometimes that is um just a couple of family members. This year we have our biggest team. Um, we have our most returning members, which is kind of nice. Um, and they help us do a lot of different things. So, they give us a lot of feedback. They provide a lot uh by way of a feedback loop. Um, things that we're doing, how we can engage families. Um, and they all come from different backgrounds, so they are able to help us sort of get out and access other resources in the community. >> Yeah, >> I think it's important to note too that all three schools have a team. Um, at the other two schools, it might be referred to as the school improvement team, but part of their charge is to um provide feedback and support
065uh to the schools around uh what kind of family engagement activities um they participate in. So, all three schools have that Uh yeah, I just wanted to say thank you again to to all everybody uh involved. It was um it was super refreshing, I know, especially for like um my parents to be able to come here and not have to go straight to the principal's office to pick me up. Uh so for them to come in and watch uh prek last year do laps around here on bicycles and I don't think anybody cried. Uh uh it was it was quite quite a thing. Um, and then this year at Memorial, um, you know, I think the grandparents, a lot of the family, uh, outings or whatever end up happening at the grandparents, so they can
066understand what it takes to put, you know, a get together. So, um, for them to go there, I mean, I heard from multiple people like, "Oh, we never had this when I was in school." And, um, yeah, it was it was super. I uh I know I saw my father hug my 5-year-old twice, which was like two more times than I ever got a hug. That's a whole another thing. But every for this year, >> thank you, Misty. >> So funny tonight. Um yeah, so thank you. I just with with three of my kids being little uh one here tonight um all of the programs I've always been at all of them and they're all super well attended in and took Fran's comment despite them happening during the day parents leave work they take a
067half day the done barbecue during the day is packed I think every single parent comes that day with their kids they they leave work they make it a priority um I I'm always blown away by the attendance at um at all of the events events and now being at middle school with twins, I'm seeing like the dances and stuff. It's so exciting. So, um I'm just always blown away by the attendance. So, work doesn't interfere with that. Fran. All right. Um I did I actually have a question. Well, first comment and a question. Um having decorated our Christmas tree today, we put the tiny sock snowman of our high school senior is on the tree. So, it was fun to see that that those are uh heirloom items. Um on the participation looks great. I'm
068just curious, how is this year to year? Are we are we building? Are we holding? Are we declining? I know a lot of these are repeat favorite events. Uh I I'll speak for Memorial, but I think it'll be true. Uh holding and growing. I think like Sam said, we had a pretty big break there around the pandemic times, like a year or two when we couldn't host the events that we wanted to, but as soon as we started hosting them again, attendance was great. I mean, we hover 65 75% um attendance at family nights. And the number of volunteers uh that we have coming into Memorial now far out exceeds what I've seen in the last 11 years that I've been there. Uh, I will say one thing we're doing which hopefully helps working families
069is we're actually putting out volunteer opportunities for field day which is in May now so folks can kind of plan ahead and say that might be something I want to save a day off for and that sort of thing. So that's something else we've changed because we definitely want to make the opportunities as available as possible. But I think I think it's going well. I would say it's stable and if anything maybe creeping up a little bit but uh we we would love to see 100%. Uh so maybe we'll get there. >> Great. Thank you. Uh, anybody else? Awesome. Thank you for coming in and giving us so much of your time. Um, as always, we'd love to have you, but please feel free to sneak out and go have dinner. All right. And next
070up is new business. And we have an update on the 2026 2027 budget development process. that has come to us essentially through finance committee. So >> you want to do the honors stamp? >> Happy to. Uh nothing super revoly here, but uh this is uh Chanda's first time getting to oversee the budget development process and uh it was a good a time as any given uh last year's close examination of our budget um to just look at the process of how we develop it and see whether it might be improved. Um and I think the committee was eager to compress the process a little bit so that uh there wasn't so much time between some of the data that was presented early and some of the decisions that were made late. Uh kind of we
071had this sort of general feeling that uh things got lost in the shuffle if it took three months for that action you know that intelligence to be actionable. So uh what we are really is putting a lot of emphasis on the written annual department reports when those come in over the Christmas break which is coming right up. Uh it is on all of us to read those and to get any questions that they might engender to uh our staff as quickly as possible so that when they do give the presentations uh in our budget workshop um they are prepared. we're not wasting time with I'll go get that for you next time as much as possible. Obviously, uh everybody can ask questions uh as they occur to them in the f, you know, but if
072we could all just sort of make a concerted effort to um just be informed. Uh I think one of the other pieces of feedback is while we appreciate all the presentations we get from staff, sometimes they do get repetitive. They all tend to have similar partners. They have, you know, similar goals. Uh and so we're going to sort of get the highlights from those departments in a way that we sort of haven't in the past. We're going to assume that you read the report. The normal stuff is still normal and they are going to point out those things that are likely to be a delta in our budget in some way whether up or down uh so that we can sort of focus on the stuff that we're making decisions about. Uh and then otherwise
073I think it's pretty standard. Um but we're going to try to be a little bit more flexible so that you know we've typically had this sort of interstitial meeting where uh we vote to approve the budget one meeting before the business meeting where we have to issue the warrants so that uh there would be time to put the right numbers on the warrants. Uh the business office has assured us they do not need a whole extra meeting. They can just write those numbers in when we agree upon them and uh so that might save us a night out. Uh otherwise uh happy to answer any questions about the finance committee's deliberations or Chanda if you want to add anything. >> Questions. Great. All right. I think we have a a great plan and working draft.
074So, we will press on. And >> just one more thing. >> Y >> just want to emphasize for anybody at home that we have an excellent budget tab on our website. You go to msad15.org um and you go scroll down to the bottom there is a budget tab and you will see this process. So if you want to engage, if you want to have meaningful discussions about what we are spending on, the workshops are the best times to do that. That is when we are going to maybe answer your questions, where we're going to maybe engage with concerns versus at the very end when we're in a business meeting and we've done three months worth of work, it's much harder for us to incorporate that feedback. So the earlier that you can engage, if this
075is important to you, I want to emphasize, please come early. I might just jump on on what Sam said and and agree completely and add um February 25th is the day that we are going to be doing those presentations where you will sort of hear the highlights of what might be the deltas in our budget for next year. Um that's going to be at the high school um cafeterium, but we also plan to live stream it. So, um, we get that it's a lot of meetings and that was feedback we received that it's hard to kind of keep track if if there's a place you're going to you're going to key in if you want to know what the major changes are going to be um potentially to the February 25th workshop would be the
076place to to get the information and all the other dates February 25th. Um, this particular document is not up on the budget web page yet. We wanted it to come to the board first. Um but tomorrow that will be on the top of Hegy and my to-do list. >> All right, thank you for that. So we will go ahead and adopt this assuming as our plan moving forward. Um and now we will look at an updated principal job description. Um, so this was just the work of the personnel committee that was going on throughout throughout last year and continuing to do some cleanup this year on ensuring all of our job descriptions were um existed, were accurate. Um, and I think this one had gotten sort of sent back to to make sure that principal
077and assistant principal were well aligned. Um and now it's made its way through the process through a couple committee meetings and is on uh in front of us to uh formally approve uh the uh personnel's recommendation personnel committee's recommendation. Um so to get this in the right order I would hear a motion to um accept as written the principal job description. >> I make the motion that we consider um Approving the principal job description as noted here. >> Second. All right. Uh discussion. Perfect. All in favor? Wonderful. And similarly, I would hear a motion to accept as presented the assistant principal job description. I make a motion to accept the assistant principal job description. >> Second. Any discussion on that one? All in favor? Wonderful. And along continuing along this line, we have a similar
078one for maintenance and facilities. Again, this job um already exists. And I can't remember why this one came back to us. >> It was for the minor changes where we um >> switch some wording for >> the learning all learning spaces. >> That's right. Just sort of describing the facilities. >> Um so I'd hear a motion to accept uh the job description as written with changes from the personnel committee. I make the motion that we accept the maintenance and facilities technician job description as noted here. >> Second. >> Any question, any discussion about that? >> Uh just real quickly, this job title matches the job title in the support contract. >> These are non-bargaining position. position. I was like, I can't remember the line. Okay, >> these are the districtwide non-m bargaining. >> Got good.
079Any other questions? All in favor, >> perfect. Thank you. All right, so that cleans up job descriptions. Um, and does that finish that project? That's funny. That was another We have so many jokes tonight. Um, all right. Stay tuned for more job descriptions. Um, moving on, we have a letter to consider submitting to the main department of education in our local legislators about the ED279 formula. This is um some more work from the busy finance committee. Um Sam, would you mind talking about this one? >> Be happy to um since I think it was my fault that we did this. Um, so, uh, people might know that, um, the legislature recently passed a law, um, that created a committee to look at uh, the LD uh, ED279 formula that the state uses to decide how
080much funding each district gets. uh it hasn't been looked at since 2004. Uh there is no mechanism in law for updating it on a regular basis. So uh many school districts have complained that now 20 years on uh it doesn't really especially the formula that uh defines essential programs and services and for instance how many librarians you should have per student. you know, all those sorts of things, uh, that they create a formula that all goes together and that decides how much you get. Uh, it has just kind of become out of whack with the way that school districts are operated. Uh, and so the legislature is going to receive this report that our committee all read. Um, and in this current next legislative session, they are going to be considering that formula. And so
081it is my opinion that this is our opportunity as a district to weigh in on this to our representatives and senators who will be participating in those discussions. Uh and so the finance committee asked uh Chanda and staff to take a look at where we have found uh sort of district frustration with the formula as we have looked at the money that we receive. uh they put together a draft. Uh we as a committee considered that draft uh in two consecutive meetings. Uh in the first one just sort of absorbing it in the second one doing uh line by line editing for each one of the bullet points. Uh and then now we voted as a finance committee to recommend that the board as a whole approve this letter which would be sent to our
082representatives to the department of education uh from Penny and I as the finance chair and the chair of the board. So we bring it here and I understand that it's a long and somewhat complicated document. uh if we want to carry it over uh to the January meeting, that would not be crazy because uh you know the legislature is not going to do this immediately. So if we gave it to them after our first meeting in January, I'm sure it's still fine. But uh I do think it needs to go either this meeting or next meeting in order to have any impact. And I just think it uh the report as well I think is in our packet or it was in the finance committee packet. I'm not sure if we included in this one
083or not. >> It's in finance. >> It's in the finance committee packet. Um that report is exhaustive. It's like 100 some odd pages. There is a 15page policy makers summary at the beginning that I found really really helpful for understanding uh a lot of the issues that are facing school districts across the state not just our own. So I would encourage anybody who's interested in school funding at all to take a read of that. U but so you know again happy to answer any questions. I really appreciate uh the work that Chan and the staff did uh putting into this because I think it really crystallizes uh some serious issues and it's this is not just uh you know wo is MS815. Many of these are not unique in any way to us, but I
084think it's important that we make sure that our representatives are are going into Augusta discussions knowing how things on the ground are being experienced. >> Thank you for that, Sam. Um and given how much work the finance committee did spend some time going through this line by line and felt quite good about it. Um I don't see any reason to delay um depending on how folks feel about it. So actually let's start with a motion to I'd entertain a motion to move forward with sending this letter um signed by myself and Sam on behalf of the board. I'd make a motion that we um accept this letter and um for you to submit um as chair >> second it >> okay so discussion on that questions thoughts feedback or advocacy to delay Gary >> um
085I don't think >> please speak into your puffy ball >> I've got it right right here >> I know that doesn't mean anything >> um I really appreciate the amount of that went into this. I think it's well written and well considered. Um, personally, I don't feel any need to delay. I mean, we've we've had it in our packet for a week. Um, so I mean, I took the time to read it, so I'm ready. >> Jim, did you have something? >> Yeah, I I I agree with Gary. Um, the only thing I would kind of like to see if I probably don't have time and I should have brought it up at the finance committee meeting is that it'd be nice if we could leverage it with u if it was co-signed by other
086another district or or two, but you know, we really don't have time for it. But that would be I think carry more a lot more weight. I can understand you know the situation of just submitting it by ourselves. >> Sure. uh also might be worth moving forward and then sharing it with other districts, copying other districts on the sending of it to, you know, maybe sort of prompt them to piggyback on that. Does that seem reasonable? That's a good idea, Jim. Other thoughts? We Yeah. Good. All right. Well, let's uh All in favor moving forward. Perfect. Great. So, we will go ahead and get that out. >> Thank you, Sam, for all your work on that. >> Yes. Thank you. >> All right. Next up is considering a change to policies BD bylaws. Uh there
087is a current policy and a redlinined in your packet. This was in response to a request from the facilities committee um in that with the sort of facilities and operations scope we had added um transportation and that left essentially the um district-wide nutrition without sort of a home. Um, Adam, do you want to speak to this change or proposed amendment? >> Yeah. So, the school nutrition was kind of identified as an area of board interest and bond interest and community interest and our all of our kids that still eat at schools interest. and um we just thought it would be a good place um for it to fall within the facilities. Um we committee report but we had talked about adding operations so and ultimately decided against operations as a committee name but the charge
088will read something like evaluate monitor districtwide school nutrition operations. So again, we're not trying to uh operate the school nutrition program. We're just trying to ensure that it's operated smoothly. That's where this came from. >> Yeah. Oh, here we go. How's that? >> Nope. It's in and out. I would hear a motion to a um Sorry, I got myself all scrambled there. To accept the suggested changes to policies BD bylaws. I make the motion that we accept the changes to policies BD bylaws. Second. All right. Discussion. Jim. >> Uh, the only question I had is, uh, these two functions, uh, who had jurisdiction before, what was, was they just sort of orphaned? >> Okay. >> Yes. >> So, yes. Sorry, I was gesturing. I should say out loud. Yes. The they didn't necessarily live in
089the subcommittee structure. So, um any reporting um you get in your those annual reports you're about to get um over the Christmas break, they were included in that and we had them come and present directly to the full board sort of every three years, but they didn't necessarily have a subcommittee um for a more frequent um interaction. >> Yep. uh much the same way that the committee started looking at transportation like what is the status of our buses what is our inventory what are the expenses what you know what do we need um nutrition has pieces like kitchens equipments equipment etc um and as Adam referenced there was a good discussion at in the moment about you know that this is not an operational we don't have an operational role here um but just uh
090to see that They belong somewhere and felt seen. >> Makes them more visible. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions or thoughts there? >> All right. All in favor? Wonderful. All right. Now we just have some committee reports starting with facil Oh, facilities policy. Who wants to do the honors? >> I can do it. It will. So, facilities and policy kind of ran up uh in conjunction meeting. Um there were three major policies that we were discussing. One we just talked about which was uh adding a charge to facilities. the other two where um basically the state requires us to have a policy around minimum and maximum building temperatures. It didn't really give exact parameters on what that needed to be. Ultimately, we tabled that one. Um and the second one was around security camera usage.
091um had a good discussion about not only who has access to the cameras, but where are where is the information stored and who then has access to that um and around like our relationship with law enforcement. Um we ended up tableabling that one also. So um that just left the nutrition charge that we just voted on. >> So just one more thing I was going to add was Both of those policies are going to be reviewed again in a few weeks um at the policy meeting. And then we did also review in addition to the bylaws BD um board standing committees, but there were no changes made to that one, but we did review it. Thanks. Any questions about either of those pieces? Great. Finance Committee Sam, do you have anything left? Uh, no, I
092don't think so. Those were the two big items that we've already talked about. Um, we did some uh little account line item management which was very exciting and uh we looked at our expense and revenue reports which were unremarkable. >> Any questions Fran? >> Yes. Um, also at that meeting um when we were talking about uh the process, I mentioned that uh um and it's not in the minutes uh and I'd like to add it to the minutes that we should be looking into areas that we may need to start looking at cuts in specific areas. So, um and that will be discussed in finance meetings, but I introduced it at this meeting. That concept, I'd like to see it put into the minutes. U just as the chair of the committee um that wasn't
093an agenda item and we generally don't make a habit of recording everything that's Um, and I think every budget process is an opportunity for looking at cuts. Um, so I just don't know if we want to set the precedent of we're going to now all ask to have various inundry of our comments that were recently made inserted into the minutes. >> If we're going to sanitize reports, that's fine. Why do we have these meetings if when we're discussing items not put in? You know, it's going to be a point where who's going to trust some of the reports that are coming through if not everything not everything. I know everything can't be in there, but I think that's a critical statement and critical action item that needs to be addressed as we do the budget
094process and uh I like it be the foundation of going forward. So Fran I think your point is well made Sam's as well that we examining items that are areas for cost savings is part of the process and it is part of the charge of that committee. Um it also is recorded here tonight at our meeting. So I think we can take it as duly noted and move forward. >> I have a question Jim. Uh see that meeting was two weeks ago so I'm operating off my memory but uh on the revenue side there was uh uh nothing yet on the uh solar tax uh >> oh >> rebate is anything happened in the last two weeks? >> That is a great question Jim. at our next finance committee meeting um which is going to
095happen on uh December 17th at 6:30 PM in the high school library. We are getting a report on the solar credits program and what is going on with that. Right. >> So, uh that's what is called a leadin or a tease. So, well done. I appreciate it. >> All right, personnel. Um so the three items that we reviewed were the um three job descriptions that we have accepted as a board and our uh next meeting is going to be on December 10th. And as also um we ended the last meeting going into executive session for um two purposes, but the first one was the only one we were able to um get through for a time. questions about personnel. >> Great curriculum. Do we not have a meeting? >> Curriculum met tonight. That's why it's
096but we don't have any minutes available for your packets yet. Uh we met tonight and there were two items on the agenda. One was the uh multilingual learner plan, the Lao plan, Lau, and the other was the 2025 annual data report. Both were big discussions with a lot of data. So to try to give you a quick capsule without organizing thoughts would be really difficult. So um the annual data report will be on the website I believe tomorrow or sometime soon. Jen is nodding. I think Kathy said it was it was ready to be published. >> Yes. >> And shared, but I don't know when when that will be. >> Yes. And all of that comes to the full school board. I want to say we have that up for January. >> Oh yes. >>
097Remind me. So the full board will get a presentation >> board meeting. You'll get that. >> Um >> also >> so there'll be more next month when the minutes are actually available. anyone who's u super eager to see the report data, it it also is in tonight's curriculum um folder in tonight's pack. >> Yep. All right. Um any questions for curriculum? Okay. I have uh no special report to give tonight, so I will send it to Dr. Turner. Um, so we have um received some more grant funding that does not require board approval. Um, you heard from many of the other schools about the Hanford Help Schools program. The high school had not received their donation yet. They since have received it. Um, they got $2,431 that they're using primarily um to support the uh
098food pantry program, backpack program, school trips, and other school celebrations. We have a new hire in the transportation department. hired um a van driver um and rumor has it that a couple of our van drivers have started their um school bus driver training. So, we're very excited about that, too. Um so, that's awesome. No resignations or transfers since our last meeting. Um we have the start of the retirements. Um and this one's a big one. Jean Southern, the lead secretary here at Dun School. um this will be her last school year um with MS815, although we're already um booking her in for volunteer opportunities and not letting her go too far. Um but Jean um has shared and and officially um submitted that um she will be done at the end of this school year.
099Huge loss, but congratulations to her. Um and I believe slightly ahead of the schedule she had ever told me. So if you see Jeff, he's probably not okay. Um and be be nice to him. >> Where's my agenda? I gave it to you. >> All right. >> I had one question if I could. >> Yeah. I saw in the news that the uh uh the building report uh the school funding for buildings and so forth, have they put out a new list and is there any news related to us on that list? >> Um I can do my best to give you a report on this on the fly. So I think there are a couple of things happening. One is that the old um school replacement building fund um had opened up applications this
100past summer and or last I think I I can't forgive me. I think they were due last fall. Um Oh yeah, for sure. Because it was before I before I took over. So it was um last summer. I'm I'm getting that an SRRS. >> I don't want to put you on the spot if you don't think you know. >> So the point is we didn't submit an application for new builds in the most recent. So they did do evaluations. They have released a list. They are now working on what they will fund. So that's sort of that piece. There's then also work happening right now to re change how they do that funding formula. And that report is due any day now um out of the committee that was hired to do was actually due
101earlier this year, but it got delayed. And then the third piece is the school revolving renovation funds. Those applications are in. We did put in an application for the Russell school ventilation system, and we're supposed to hear about that before the end of January. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh so next we have a executive session on the agenda. before I hear a motion on that. Um, just for housekeeping purposes, we are going to adjourn to the library to do that executive session and we do not plan to return to the streaming. Um, the meeting will we will end our meeting after that. So, um, we will discontinue recording when we begin that. And I would hear a motion on entering into executive session. I make the motion that we enter into executive session
102pursuer to state statute 6D to discuss contract negotiations and invite our superintendent and director or operations and finance director. >> Second discussion. All in favor?