November 5, 2025 School Board Business Meeting

001All right, good evening. Uh, it is 6:30. I'm going to call this business meeting of the MSAD 15 school board to order. We have a quorum. We are missing Sharon. She is feeling very unwell today. We hope she feels better soon. Um, if everyone will stand and join me for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Thank you. So, a couple of upcoming meetings to remind folks of. November 12th, we have personnel committee at 5:30 in the Dun School Library, followed by facilities and policy, a facilities and policy combination meeting at 6:30. So, this will um explain this a little bit. This is a policy committee to which the facilities committee is invited to do some joint work around some um policies we need to have that are really directly

002related to our facilities. So we are doing a little bit of a atypical move there. We hope you join us. November 19th there will be finance committee at 5:30. We'll be back here at the high school library. a schoolboard workshop to follow at 6:30 and I believe a tour of the high school. Yes. No. Okay. We will start um or somewhere in there will be a tour of the high school if you would like to come and have a tour of the high school. November 26 we do not meet due to Thanksgiving. Um, so that is it for the calendar and I would hear any uh consider any action relative to additions or adjustments to the agenda. >> Yes. Um, I move that we are going to move the agenda item six recognition as well

003as the agenda item 8 a new business hiring of a teacher to be um the next two agenda items taken out by the board. Do I have a second on moving up some items that involve visitors? A second from Gary. Discussion. Does that make sense to folks? We'll um do our recognition with visiting students. We'll do the hiring of the teacher. Um then we'll pick up from there in order. I'll keep reminding folks where we are as we jump around and then that also will get our public comment probably closer to the topic folks actually want to talk about. Um, oh, sorry, I got excited. All in favor. All right, we're good to do that. Thank you. So, um, without further ado, I will turn it over to Dr. Turner for some recognition. We have

004a very big recognition section today that I am very excited about. Um, our first item, um, is going to require a little shuffling. We have um Patriot Players, which is our high school theater group here um at the high school, is getting ready for their performance of Fiddler on the Roof. That is going to be on November 20th, 21st, and 22nd. Tickets available at the door, and they are here to perform one of their pieces. Um this is really, I think, the first dress rehearsal they've had. They haven't even gone into tech week yet. So, um it was so kind of them to try to to be willing to show us something this early. Um it is a huge honor. So, we are going to ask the board, we have reserved seats for you in

005the front so that you can see better. We're going to ask the board if if you want to. You don't have to, but if you'd like to take a seat where you can see better and we'll turn it over to Mr. Walker and the team um to put on this little piece for us. Um I will just let everyone know we are going to have to cut the live stream for the performance part of recognition. um we have to pay a license to use musicals such as this and part of that license does not allow us to broadcast any any parts of the performances. So we will be um taking a pause from our live stream just during the performance when we come back to talk to the kids and the rest of recognition it

006will be right back on. >> Oh and while folks are moving feel free please enjoy the new chairs that we have been talking about for a long time. Uh, huge thanks to Tom, Ray, Steve, who was here just a second ago, and the whole high school team. It is a lot of work to move all of this cafeteria furniture out and these chairs in, but I think it's going to be a huge addition to our theater experience here at the high school. So, um, I don't think we can say enough thanks to the crew for that. Do would you like to say a few words, Mr. Walker, before they begin? Hi, my name is director in 2004. I've been doing play here since 1988. So I'm old, but um I I love this show. We're

007going to present to you the um opening number tradition. We have 44 students involved in the play, 16 in the crew, and 28 on the cast. I have a wonderful production team. Miss Emily Wallace, Adele Bell, >> and Val is my assistant. She's somewhere back there, I think. Oh, is she over there somewhere? Nope. Over there. Just kidding. >> Nope. And um also Penny Collins is my poster and she's got a lot of help. I don't know all the names, but we can look at the program together and we'll get them all organized in two weeks. Well, enjoy the show. I I know I hope you Oh, music. The piano player couldn't make it, so I'm running a computer over here. So, any mistakes, blame me, okay? But they're going to be awesome. Thank you.

008All right. Lights out. Did you build the set? >> 30 pounds. >> Awesome. You guys, thank you so much. We cannot wait to see this. Thank you for being ready, frankly, a little earlier than what you normally would have. So, I know that took a lot of work from a lot of people, but it means a lot to us that you were willing to do that. Thank you, >> and we can't wait to see it in a couple weeks. Sorry, Lauren has a question. >> The performances are November 20th, 21st, and 22nd >> at 7 on Saturday. >> And Saturday has a two o'clock show also. >> Awesome. Make sure you make your costumes. Okay. Is this working? Yeah. Okay. Uh so moving on to our second item of recognition which is also um in

009recognition of a super talented and dedicated high school student. I'd love to ask Olivia Gallagher along with Miss Grey and um Miss Lamaro of M Mrs. Lamro and um I'm having such a hard time not calling you all by your first names. It's like not coming out naturally, but we have our librarian for the middle school, our librarian for the high school, and our high school principal here. Um Olivia has published a book at Barnes & Noble, and Satie and Olivia are here a little to tell us about it. Good. >> Say what? I Yes. Go ahead. >> Can you hear me? >> Okay. Hi, I'm Olivia and I'm the author of Echoes of Menthy. And I'm really excited to share a bit about my creative process and journey as a writer. Echoes of Mthy

010retells the story of Pphanie, Minthy, and Hades, a lesserk known thread within the Greek mythology sphere. I initially decided that I I would write this book when I was in a bookstore wondering why are there not any stories about Mthy. You see so many about Hades and Pphanie, but what about her? I wanted to bring a new perspective to these characters, especially Minty, who is often misunderstood. Many pre-existing stories portrayed the relationship between Praphanie and Mthy as an initial girlhood rivalry. However, I never truly agreed with this. So, I decided that I would have to be the one to write out how I believe their story goes. I started writing my manuscript in my junior year and finished it this June. I would write when I came home, after going to school, after finishing my

011homework, after going to dance, and sometimes even after going to work, I would spend so much time typing away on my laptop, but then it was finally finished. I then sent my manuscript to Barnes & Noble Press, had some of my friends as advanced readers to provide feedback, and it was then approved for print, meaning it could be published. And my novella is now on sale online through Barnes & Noble. Stories shape how we see ourselves and each other. And this journey has taught me that every story deserves to be told, even if you are afraid to be the one to tell it. Thank you for having me. And we are so incredibly proud of Olivia um and what an amazing accomplishment and it shows her dedication, hard work and creativity. So we will have

012her sign a copy of her book and for both the middle and high school and hand it over to our library specialists. We're very honored that both the middle school and the high school will have author autographed copies um for students access and to know that a student that came through these same buildings is the one that wrote it and published it. And a huge thank you to our library media specialists for coming out on a Wednesday night when I was like, "Hey, neat idea. Do you want to come spend your night with us?" So, thank you both for being here. >> Oh, and Olivia's parents are here also. Would you like to take a just a little >> W? >> Liv, if um any board members would care to purchase a copy of your

013book, can we send it in to have it autographed? >> Yes. >> Um does anyone have questions for Olivia? >> Do you plan to write any more books? >> Maybe. I have ideas. >> No, it's more of a hobby. >> Liv, what are your plans for next year? >> I want to go to college to study art history and helenic studies. >> All right. Excellent. Thanks. >> Did I steal your question? >> Where do you want to go to school? >> I want to go to school at the National Encapagian University of Athens. >> All right. I think you might have known the answer to that. That's wonderful. Well, we can't wait to hear uh what's next for you. And I think I know someone who could bring in a copy of the book for

014me to have you sign it. So, >> I think so. All right, thanks so much for coming in. Well done. >> Okay, and then our third huge recognition um for this month, I'd like to invite Lisa Nedler to come to the podium. Uh Lisa Nedler, I tried to come up with a nice way to say this, Lisa, but I did say longtime teacher at G&G. >> I I noticed that, >> you know, it's hard to say that well, but an experienced teacher. Um Lisa has been at the middle school and at the high school. um and was recently named by the main department of education as a teacher leader uh fellow. And so main department um picks a couple people each year to be a teacher leader in a couple of different areas. They have

015to apply. It's a fairly competitive process. And this year they selected Lisa to be the teacher leader fellow in the area of career connections. Um which is such a huge tie to what she's been doing for us over the last couple of years as our advisory coordinator and RIB coordinator in teaching. um some career and college ready courses here at the high school this year. Um so I wanted to invite Lisa and just talk for a quick second about her process and and what that's going to mean for her for this year. So I I've developed over the course of probably the last six years a great interest and actually goes back I started a master's degree in adult education a long time ago. Um so there's always been a thread there. But about six

016years ago, I started um really kind of diving into that career readiness for students and the pathways that they can take to get there. Um I worked with um Hub 8. It's the adult ed program in uh the Cumberland County area. Um and was the first college and career access coordinator for Southern Main Community College and worked there on campus at night after I worked here during the day. Um then COVID hit and um funding went away. So, I was back in the classroom, which I also loved all of my time at in the classroom. A few years ago, Craig asked me to Craig King asked me to um write an advisory program with some connection to uh the career standards that are in the main learning results. And it was just an opportunity for

017me to really get into that work and learn more about what's available to us and evolving into the IB coordinator and jumped on an opportunity to teach a dual enrollment class to our students here at the high school through the University of Maine. They earned two credits to kind of figure out what their path is and where they want to go. And it doesn't have to be college. It's career exploration and development. So, if they want to go into trades, they want to go straight to work, they want to do a gap year, they want to go to a two or four year college, we plan it all out and it's such a fun and interesting class. So, um I saw this the advertisement for this teacher leader fellow position and it just felt like

018it was the right time and the right opportunity for me. Um I I jumped on it because there I'm passionate about helping our kids here. So it was a little selfish in that while I'm tasked with doing work for the state, I'm working for the students here in our community and as well as students beyond. So there are four teacher leaders uh fellows for the state this year that I work with. Um there's an arts integration teacher leader fellow, a civics fellow, a financial literacy fellow, and mine is career connections. uh they've actually decided that they want to evol that they want to have this position go for two years because by the time you really get into what you're doing it's a year is up and they um we're actually finding that mentors are

019very helpful in making the process smooth. So two of us will stay on for a second year while two are um will sunset after their second year this year. So, I am meeting with people um in all kinds of areas that are related to careers. Um on Friday, I'm meeting with the Maine Career Development Group. I've been to with Maine Sparks. Um I've been with the main development foundation. I'm going to Educate Maine, which has all kinds of connections to extended learning opportunities in JMG and um career um exploration. I've met with leaders at DOE. I've made such amazing connections that I know are going to develop great opportunities for our students here while I work on projects that are going to be um available to educators across the state. So, um it's five hours

020a week. It could be a full-time job. Um so, balancing that here um is is a challenge sometimes, but it's also very connected, so it makes a ton of sense. So, I'm just excited to um to help our students plan their futures. >> Fantastic. >> To always check um questions um for Lisa about this role. Anybody? We're super psyched to have Lisa representing G&G on the on the state stage. >> I have one Teresa, >> you said Sparks. Can you just tell me what that is? I don't know what that means. >> So, Main Sparks works with employers um to make they do long range goals to set up programming to help with whether it's pipelines or pathways, connections, um whether it's with colleges or with schools to students ready or and it's not just

021students, it's anybody entering the workforce, but it's um it's a connector to um to employment. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, the work you do in produce as part of this project um both comes back to our students but is also creates things that presumably schools use across the state. >> That's correct. So, one of the projects that I'm that I'm I have four areas that I'm thinking about working on, but two of them actually were grassroots here. So, the middle school through their advisory program spent they spend a month learning about careers and opportunities that are available to them. Each of the grade levels at the middle school has four lessons that they do over the course of a month and it's it's um culminated in a career day. At the middle school last

022year, we had over 50 presenters and the kids had four different sessions and they could pick which areas they wanted to go to meet people in different professions. Um, so I I want to make a playbook for other schools to be able to replicate um and remember some of the finer details. I've been consulting with a woman in Camden whose um children are in their 30s now, so she's kind of forgotten what it's like to be a middle have a middle schooler. And so just reminding like more structured the better and and what does that look like in a career day and so just sort of like the tips and tricks of the trade to be able to replicate what we've built here and go out. um a couple of other projects that I'm thinking

023about too. >> Um I love career day in I think that's great for the kids but also has become a thing in the community where people are presenting at career day and comparing notes and last year I knew so many people presenting at career day that I had some FOMO and was jealous that I wasn't presenting at career day. So it's a nice opportunity to get um community members into the school too. It's a great opportunity for people to see the good work that's going on in our schools. So, it it was a fab it's a fabulous event. It's just it's so fun to watch the kids um and just the the vast array of opportunities that are available to them, >> right? >> So, please sign up for next year's career day and um

024bring swag. They really if you just give away anything, they love it. >> Um any other questions for Lisa before we let her get some dinner? >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Lisa. Congratulations. >> All right, so for those following along as we jump around the agenda, that completes item number six, recognition. We are going to jump to eight, new business a um to consider Shan. Sorry, I did not practice ahead at Susi. Practice ahead of time. Sean Susi for one year only. First probationary contract as a teacher at the middle school. >> Yes. I move that we hire Sean Susi for one year only. First probationary contract as a teacher at the middle school. >> Second. >> Discussion. No, we >> discussion. >> But don't we hear the um thing

025first? >> Yep. Um, so sorry we haven't we haven't nominated a teacher in a while. So Sean, why don't you come on down? Um, Mr. Benoy, Riley Benoy, and Miss Do usually are with our friends. Um, Christy, why don't you come stand so Sean doesn't have to stand up here all by his poor lonesome. Um, they unfortunately were not. Um, Mr. Benoy is out today. Um, and and Miss Do's husband is out of town and I could not make her trot those little babies out on a night to be here. I told them I'd be happy to introduce Sean and and Miss Lamaro uh volunteered to be here so that he wouldn't have to stand there by himself. Um which we appreciate. So um what you are going to see later in our agenda tonight

026is that Cindy Worcester, who has been an art teacher at the middle school for um a few years now, uh retired in October. she had some um she decided to retire um and so we had the opportunity to go out anytime we're looking at sort of a mid-year retirement we do try to hire a one-year only if we can um we often cannot but um in this case we had a fully certified freshly graduated and window's been trying to get him if they could find a place uh person come forward and so we're so excited um as I shared in the agenda The um Mr. Susi has a uh both a bachelor's degree and a master in arts. He has um a a certification from the main department of education to teach art education K12.

027Um he's been student teaching as well as long-term subbing at Windham High School uh for quite a while. He has a really interesting array of skills he was sharing with me around, you know, we I was kind of explaining to him how we do our snow days and our remote days and he's like, "Oh, well that will work great because I've done some work with like 2D and 3D and digital and that would work so great on a remote day." Um, so it was exciting to hear those sorts of skills that he that he held. Um, he also uh is a distance runner and we're always looking for coaches, not you know, so just he had a nice little nice little um nice little resume that we enjoyed very much. um he was interviewed by

028a team at the middle school and um selected as the top candidate and um was willing to come on as a long-term sub. So he has been subbing in the position for the last two weeks and he's still here. So we we are so delighted that that is the case. Um so I am asking for the board support in um hiring Mr. Susi for this position at the middle school in the art position. questions or further discussion from the board. Um I was just pulling up the calendar on my phone to verify. Um in just two weeks I have already heard rumor of your incredible artistic talent um rippling through the neighborhood. So very excited um to have you Sean. Uh >> so retirees So sometimes we'll hire one year only teachers when we have

029teachers that take a year of parental leave. So we'll only have a a position open for one year. Um when we have teachers leave midyear, we will often hire it as one year only. That gives the candidate flexibility for a mid-year hire. It also gives the district some flexibility as we go into the next budget season, but also as we go into the next hiring season. Um, so we can kind of have that flexibility to um, address it. It's it's a fairly rare occurrence that we have a midyear um, like we do here. Anyone else? All right. All in favor? Great. Um, welcome Sean. Thanks for coming in and >> um, meeting us in person. >> Awesome. Nice to meet you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. Feel free to step out, head home because

030I know you have students in 12 hours. Thank you. All right, we always like hiring teachers. And now we are going to jump back to where we would have normally been in the agenda, which is item five to ask for comments from the audience. So um we have continued to improve our setup here. We have a podium now. Step right up. Um, oh, and I know you know the drill, but just want to say at the beginning of public comment, if you can please state your name, the town that you're from, and um, if you see me waving at you, I don't want to interrupt you while you're talking, but it means you've hit three minutes. >> Okay. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Susan Fuller and I am from Gray and I want

031to thank the Grey New Glouster School Board for this opportunity to speak this evening about a proposal that I believe is crucial for the future of both Gray and New Gloucester. Re-examining how our two towns fund the local share of education for our students. The current cost sharing formula has been in place for nearly 50 years. When it was first adopted, the property values in both towns were quite similar. However, as we all know, the past several years have brought unprecedented increases in property values. Changing changes that no longer reflect the realities of the student population or the balance between the two communities. This outdated model has created understandable tension between the towns and made it increasingly difficult to pass bonds needed to improve our schools, enhance our curriculum, and modernize our facilities. What we

032are proposing is simple and fair to move toward a per student funding model. This approach more accurately reflects who we are educating our children rather than relying on fluctuating property values. There have been some misconceptions suggesting that this change is intended to make new cluster pay more. That is not the case. Gray's growth rate is significantly higher and with several large developments already proposed, it is entirely possible that Gray could end up paying more in the future under a per student model. This the gold is fairness and sustainability, not favoritism. Many residents in both towns have expressed frustration that school improvement projects repeatedly failed at the ballot box. By creating a more balanced funding approach, we believe both towns will be better positioned to come together in support of investments that improve education, enhance the

033safety, and strengthen our shared community. Consolidated, efficient schools benefit everyone, the students, the taxpayers, and educators. This proposal represents the first step toward doing what's right for our children and for the future of both of our towns. And I want to thank you all for your time, for your service, and for your commitment to our students. Respectfully, Susan Fuller. >> Thank you, Sue. Appreciate hearing from you. >> Hello, my name is Judy Simino. in Grey Mine and um just wanted to touch base a little bit about the process that incurred for getting getting the petition sent to you. Um I know last meeting I wasn't able to attend but there was some uh confusion about how the process went and I just wanted to make some clarifications that when we first started out to do

034the petition we thought it was only 10% of gray resident voting that we needed but when we sent in the signatures we were advised that it wasn't just Gray's numbers that we needed. we needed to include new Glouester. So, we were short by I think it was 80 signatures. So, when we sent our petition uh signatures in, um Shanda had advised us that we were short and um that we hadn't included everything. So, we remain aware of that and we advised her that we would quickly get the remaining signatures that we needed and we did that pretty promptly. I think maybe within a week. We didn't need all that many. Um I think we only needed like 80 or something and it was pretty quickly to get those. So, we did go and get those

035and we passed them in and let her know that they would be coming shortly. So, those did get uh brought into that office, but then there was some confusion about we needed to make sure there was no duplicates on those in which we did make sure that they got sent back to a third party and got corrected. So, I just wanted you to know that the process that we took, it was kind of foreign territory for us and we kind of learned a little bit along the way just like I'm sure you have in this process as well. So, I just wanted to say I so much appreciate that you didn't throw those signatures out and make us start from the beginning. We really do appreciate that from all of you that did that for

036us. So, um the other thing is is we want to make sure that um there will be people chosen from the school board uh to be on the committee, one from Gray and one from New Gloucester, and then there will be two at large from each town. And all that we really ask is that you make sure that they're unbiased because what we're looking at here is we don't need somebody that really wants one way or another. We want somebody that just wants to look at the information and determine what's the best avenue for both towns. So we would like to make sure that you do it on a basis that's not um so somebody is really set on not having this pass or whatever. I know there are a few people that didn't even

037want the signatures passed. So I think it we need excuse me to be a little more conscious of that. We do like um we do want to recommend that maybe for the gray person that Jim Manzer uh be your your representative for gray. And the reason why I say that is is I have seen Jim at a lot of these meetings and Jim actually takes information. He asks a lot of questions and he's not he's very um across the board with stuff. He's very open. He makes good decisions and I think that he would be very unbiased and I hope that you would recommend Jim for the gray side. So once again I wanted to say thank you guys for not throwing those signatures out. It does mean a lot. We work very hard for

038those so we appreciate it. So thank you. >> All right. Thank you Judy. Um very well done. Three seconds to spare. You crushed it. Hi, my name is Vincent Pangi. I'm a member of the town of Gray. And I'm sure over the last several decades, the way that you teach your children has um evolved and changed. And so as Sue states, I think this is a good time for what we're doing with the way the two towns work. We should be looking to evolve that as well. Um, and as one of the members of the town council and Gray, we look forward to receiving the information for from you and we appreciate your time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Vincent. >> Any other takers? All right. Well, thank you very much for your public comment.

039It was well well considered. Appreciate it. And let me just get myself reset here. Moving into old business. We're back on uh item seven, letter A. Um, and looking for a motion on accepting the minutes from October 1st, 2025. >> I move that we accept the printed uh minutes of the October 1st, 2025 regular business meeting as presented. >> Second discussion. Anyone find anything in the minutes we need to look at? >> All right. All in favor? Beautiful. Next up is B. And now we're going to consider documentation received regarding the cost sharing formula petitions um with potential action to follow. So everybody should have received um a few pieces up front. Um just a little recap at our business meeting last in October, we had um considered the petitions that um came to us

040separately, asked the petitioners to bring those to a third party in order to to validate um the accuracy and that there were no duplicates and that otherwise um we considered that all one one effort. Um, we have received documentation in response to this um, vote from last time and everybody should have had a chance to look at the letter we received from Britt at the U the town clerk of Gray. I also did have a phone call with her to just to walk through her process um, verify that her letter was attesting that she personally was one who who did the comparison. She did find um I think four duplicates, removed those. Uh the numbers still met uh the bar for for the petition for the for the statute. Um and now we are all

041caught up. So from there, I think um what we would do is maybe get I would entertain a motion on accepting the documentation provided. I move that we accept the documentation provided by the gray grey town clerk as acceptable evidence of a neutral third party unduplicated count of petition signatures and therefore meeting the statutory minimum voter signature count required to initiate the cost sharing formula revision process outlined in title 20A section 1301. Second. >> All right. So discussion, thoughts, questions, how are folks feeling about the process to this point? Do we feel like this meets meets what we asked? >> Questions, thoughts. Do do we feel this meets the bar we asked? >> Frank, could you use your mic? No worries. It's already >> I think you might have turned it off. >> Is it

042on? I got it now. Thank you. I went the wrong way. Okay. Um I think ba based on um the uh requirement of the board that the signatures be verified and documented by a unbiased third party and seems to met that. Um I think there at this point we just need to move it forward for the um next step in the um process based on the state statute. >> Thank you Fran. Anyone else? Jeremy, are you trying to Yeah. >> I thought Miss Simino's uh background was helpful. I would would have loved to have known that at the meeting that uh they took into account they only took into account initially the uh the town of Gray. So that that would have I think that would have made that discussion go a lot smoother if

043we had known that background information. But I'm glad I know it now. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. So motion on the table then is we accept the signatures as passing um the bar for the statutory minimum on initiating the cost sharing formula. Um the I think the only thing I want to add is we are um asking to me this initiates in the motion states the process outlined in title 2a section 1303. So, I just want to be clear that maybe we're on the same page that this will trigger that process. Um, the petition also included some wording about a suggested outcome from the process and I don't think that that's part of what we're authorized to do. We we simply can initiate the the process. Um, whether or not that results in a

044change or a per pupil is is not ours to to state. All right. All in favor? All right. Easy. Great. So, so now we've got some next steps in front of us. Um we will notify um the both towns to through their council or select board to that they will be selecting two representatives to send um through this process. Um we will we also um would authorize Dr. Turner per statute to actually and I don't even know that we need to say this. The statute we're going to follow the statute. The statute states that Dr. Turner will in her role as superintendent identify um a facilitator from the list um maintained by the department of education as um appropriate facilitators. It's our understanding that this is a fairly short list um but we would um

045look to her to do that leg work for us. Is that am I on the right track with folks? Anyone feel differently about this? Okay. Um and then the piece that we need to do as well is that per statute we would also the school board will send a representative from Gray in New Gloucester. I would love to have some discussion on that tonight to not hold up um this process by saying hey everybody think about it. We'll talk about it in December. If we could select our repres if we were prepared to select our representatives, we could move forward um reach out to the towns, have some work done on identifying a facilitator and with any luck hopefully get a meeting on the books of this group um you know quite early in the

046new year and not you know add any further delays on getting to getting to the work. Are people prepared to have that conversation? Does that feel reasonable? Um, >> yep. We also could do it at the at the workshop. Uh, Fran, >> uh, that's that's basically what I was going to suggest because the the town council has to, you know, select somebody at their next meeting. And, uh, this was not advertised for tonight that we'd be selecting anyone. It wasn't on the agenda. So, for us to take an action without being on the agenda, I don't think we can do that. But, we can do it. you know, it'll be on the workshop agenda for for the next meeting. I just don't want any, you know, missteps, you know, um, as we go along. So,

047um, that's where I feel it's not, you know, has not been stated on the agenda. It's not that I'm ready to go. It's just that it should have been listed. I think we had the discussion prior to the meeting and I had suggested that it be put on the agenda and and it wasn't. Yeah, I we couldn't put it on the agenda because we hadn't voted on whether or not we were moving the process forward. So, now that we've essentially triggered the statute with our vote, um we know the tasks. We've all been reviewing the statute, I think, at length over the past few weeks. um and a workshop. Well, we could wait to select folks at a workshop that is not a business meeting um with voting items on it. That's generally not something

048we're voting at. Um I'm actually not sure if it requires a vote or um consensus on who I suppose we'd have to potentially put it to vote to say that's who we're sending. Um I would entertain opinions from other folks on moving forward with this discussion now. >> Hi. Um I'm not sure I don't know if it requires a vote or not. The statute doesn't say anything about a vote. It just says that school board will appoint a member from each community. Um, and I don't know of any kind of policy that we have in place that covers something like this since it's only happened once in the last 20 years. Um, so I don't know why we couldn't do it at a workshop. And I I agree with Fran. I think I think it

049it'd be nice to have it on the on the agenda so that the public knows it's happening. It might have we might have had more comment tonight had we they been aware that we were going to do that. more comment and and perspective of who we >> uh maybe local enthusiasm about who they'd like to see if they knew what's going to be on the agenda. >> Um I hear you. I don't actually think that it's the public's jaw. I think it's up to us. I don't think we want to make this a um >> No, no, I'm not suggesting that they have a voice in that. >> Yeah. Um, I'm also not I'm not sure that we need to actually go vote on it. Maybe something that we might want to ask an opinion

050by someone who has experience with this process, but I don't think the statute doesn't doesn't specify that. >> The statute actually does specify. I think it states that the board will select the rep, you know, essentially I think each the board has to select their folks and it could be as pointed as the new Gloucester folks pick their person off of the board and the gray folks. >> Okay. >> Um Sam, >> that's what I was just about to say. The way I read it is one member of the district board of directors chosen by the municipalities directors. So it seems like the gray board members are supposed to pick the gray person and the new Gloucester board members are supposed to pick the new Glouester person. The mechanism for that is not outlined necessarily.

051Uh we could caucus I suppose. >> Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Um, you know, I' I'd welcome discussion um or suggestions of course from the whole board. We are one group and then you know perhaps caucus in the in our towns. Um I was certainly prepared to work on this tonight having read the statute over the past couple of weeks. Um folks who haven't weighed in yet, do you want are you comfortable working on this tonight or do you want to table it? The next workshop is November 19th. Um, is there anything pressing that we that's happening at that meeting that we couldn't do it then or or for time sake, do we need to move it forward faster according to the statute? >> Yes. So, um, delighted that you asked. We actually have

052left the agenda open for the board workshop anticipating not specifically selecting our members. I I actually thought we might get after that tonight, but um doing some education around what what is this process? Um it's not going to be we won't all we'll put two people forward, but I think it's important that the board understand what's happening, what we're looking at, how how does the statute work. Um we were hoping to maybe get um a speaker more educated in the topic than us in that night. And then if we move forward with that, open it. Of course, all our workshops are open to the public, but also say to the public, hey, we're going to learn about this process if folks want to come in and also learn about this process with us. Um, >>

053well, and then in the workshop, you know, if if we wanted to, the people from Gray could chitchat and the glosser and kind of figure it out amongst ourselves in that workshop. And however we after the speaker, I mean, there's lots of opportunities to learn more. We don't know what that process is going forward, what our responsibilities are going to be as that person if you're chosen. Um when how many meetings are we going to be going to? What's that time frame? How long does this span out? There's so many questions that are unanswered. So having some time to figure that out before the 19th and learn more about it then I think is a good good choice. >> Okay. And I know uh Dr. Turner has a thought. Uh my suggestion to the board

054would be um that we that we pick this back up again at the workshop. As Penny stated, it's sort of planned as a topic anyway. Um I I believe that the statute does not require a quorum vote of the board because of what Sam was pointing out. The the municipality directors are the ones who select their folks, so therefore it already isn't kind of isn't a quorum of the board. Um however, what that gives me the opportunity to do is just go double check that um with our council, make sure that's correct. If it turns out we do need a formal vote of the board, we could announce we could just switch this workshop out for a formal business meeting and then we can we can make it we can make that announcement. My intention

055would be to announce that before the end of this week if we needed that and otherwise plan to do it in workshop because if we're not taking a formal vote then that would be okay to do anyway and then we can know for sure. Brent, >> I know we're not supposed to ask questions of the audience, but we happen to have I don't know when the next uh town council meeting is and if that's going to be on their agenda. And so, I mean, anything uh I mean, it's not like so if we knew that we could decide, you know, if they're going to be meeting next week, we really maybe want to push it forward. If then I meet for a few more weeks and we have our other meeting then you see what

056I'm saying. There won't be any um delay. >> Sure. >> And second of all um I'm not sure the school board is involved in this after tonight after we select the person. I'm not sure we're involved. The state this is um this is uh the new committee's um responsibility not the school board's. So we wouldn't be involved in any >> understand you know we don't need any understandings or anything like that. We got the law and we know what we're supposed to do. >> Yeah. >> We we don't have a a role in it but I disagree that we don't need to have understanding of the process because we will be sending two representatives to to work on this committee and I think understanding what they'll be doing um would be important for us to

057know but then we yeah we won't have an active role no >> in that process. >> Right. Good. Okay. from there. Um, do we and I think Dr. Turner is just checking the upcoming town meetings first. >> I believe Grey Town Council is first Tuesday of each month. >> 18th or 19th, >> whatever the Tuesday is. I believe it's the 18th. Let me check. and it and we also have to um secure a facilitator which is going to take some from what I'm hearing from my colleagues who have done this in the past that that takes a while. So I I don't know that we need to move our meetings up in order to by those meetings because the securing the facilitators I think it's going to take time anyway >> and we haven't even

058talked about nucleosa selectman. >> Yeah. So, I think we have the new Gloster. Thank you, Vincent. Um, I think >> Sorry to catch you on your way out. >> I think we have the new Gloucester calendar right here as well. And drum roll, it is uh November 17th. >> Oh, all the same week. So, I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to um bring this up at our workshop with some more information. will plan to have a a good oldfashioned caucus. That will be fantastic. Um and we will still be meeting the same week that um both towns will have their next opportunity to meet. So I I don't think we'll have lost any time there and we'll certainly invite um all of those folks to attend our workshop. M chairman, perhaps maybe what we

059could get out of this time is get a sense of who would be available for uh being on this committee from this body, who would be willing to serve or what have >> people do it all the time. All right, just for for our for our own knowledge because it's exciting even just to show a hands who would be willing to consider taking on this task. >> We're not on the agenda. >> It's a form of discussion. It's not a vote. >> Well, Right. But we'll just do it. Sam's right. I was just trying to bait him into talking tonight. I I I I wanted to get him to talk and I did it. So, yeah, we'll hold this for our process. We're not going to split it up. We'll e We're going to be

060all in or all out. >> So, we'll do this at our workshop. Um we'll learn more about what that entails. Um and we'll take it up then. Um before we move on, are there questions folks have that you could um give to me now that you would like to see us try to get answers for or have be part of the learning or the conversation at the workshop? Anything specific? I think the time frame, what our duties will be, um how how many how many meetings that we might be looking at attending. Is it going to be what night? We don't probably don't know what night of the week it's going to be. Um there's mostly I guess that is what's our time commitment going to be to to doing it. >> All right. Got

061it. >> I have a question for >> time committee of the committee members or 10 committee of the school board? >> Committee members. Oh, the committee members. Oh, okay. When you said we, I I wasn't sure. Okay. >> The two people that are chosen, what's our what's their responsibility is going to be in time frame? >> Yeah. >> Anything else? >> So, I guess when this whoever comes to speak to us, we really do need to find out like how long does something like this really take, >> you know? >> Yep. >> And it's totally new. I mean, as They haven't done 20 years. Been a long time. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Minimum of one meeting. You will attend at least one meeting. I can almost promise you >> more than one, >> but

062who knows? We don't know. >> We don't know. >> Um, okay. Anything else? We will uh work on putting that agenda together and finding out if we need to make that a business meeting or not or if it's fine to simply caucus by town and put forth our representatives. All right, thanks for that. And we're going to move on in the agenda to C uh review and discuss our schoolboard workflow, excuse me, workflow document that Dr. Turner and probably uh team have been spending some time on. >> Just launching. Uh so I we previewed this at the October 1 um agenda. I I have hesitated to make it public just because I think rare few can make sense of this other than myself and I make Maggie and David make sense of it. Um but

063I it is a tool we're using right now to organize the board's work. So we felt it was important to share it publicly. Um, and so this is a live document. So, or it's not live, but it is um you'll notice that the the stamp at the top has not only a date, but a time because the time's important. Um, as things um change and move, things are changing and moving in this in this document. So, for example, you'll see that as part of tonight's agenda, there were a number of policies that were listed out. Some of those policies um no changes were recommended. And so you'll see the striketh through because we didn't need it, but it's there to remind me that we did look at it. Um, so essentially this is month by

064month. You see your first meeting of the month starting at the left, moving through to the last meeting. Um, you'll notice summer 3rd, Wednesdayish because they move around a bit. Um, but it's just kind of mapping out that work as it moves through committee and to the full school board. This will change over time. um this is our best guess what we're going to need to be doing in May and June, but as you are well aware, it changes often and and so the in the intention is that each time we send out a board business meeting agenda, this document on the website will be updated with the most recent. So I'm not going to update it daily, but we will update it once a month to the most recent information. >> That's great. uh

065questions. >> Yeah, I I think you answered this once before and I just can't remember the uh the color coding. What's what's the color coding? >> It connects to our strategic plan. >> So, if you Okay. The um at the top of the document there's a link to the strategic plan deliverables for 2526. Those colors match. >> So, you don't necessarily need to know what a color means unless you're super interested. But what I might invite the board to consider is that when you see an item that's colorcoded, it means we're making progress on our strategic plan deliverables. >> So you couldn't have a key. >> I I could, but it was real long to start >> there. There is a note that the you know at the top there it says workflow items are

066colorcoded to align with strategic plan deliverables. And if you click on that document, it brings up those colors and it it aligns to what the goals are. Um, but the document's already pretty long and complex, so I didn't do that. >> I had a screen problem. That's why I couldn't see. >> Oh, we got to work on that for you. >> Other questions? >> This was a lot of work. So, thank you. >> Yeah, appreciate it. I like I know we have this information everywhere and there's always a lot of balance between like are we overcommunicating, are we undercommunicating, how many ways are we saying it? Um as a for visual folks I like how this helps you track from meeting to meeting um as we move through and what we um also just as

067importantly what we didn't get to um with the strike through. So was that something we want to look at in the future? um did it fall out for a reason and how much are we are we actually able to accomplish? Are we being reasonable um in what we put on the plate? So, and hopefully this is also a way for folks to see at a glance what's coming up at a meeting or where it's headed, where's it headed from this um facilities, is it moving on to policy? And then do folks want to show up at a particular meeting um because something on that bullet list is important to them. So hopefully people will find this useful. I have a >> So we we crossed out we had the workshop on the uh handbook. Is

068the handbook um ready or will you know >> not quite ready or >> It is ready and I was thinking we posted it but now that you're asking I don't remember if we posted it. So I'm going to look real quick while we're sitting right here. I don't think we posted it. Nope. We didn't post it. And I so thank you for bringing that up because I had lost that off my list. So we are going to post that on the school board web page um probably as early as tomorrow morning >> and and maybe do a reset maybe do a send around >> do a resend around to everyone. Would that be helpful? Happy to do that please. >> Great. Anything else? >> All right. Excellent. Um and closely related, a review of some

069progress on strategic plan deliverables. Um in particular, uh spotlight on our goal number one, priority two, what color is that? Um increase family and community engagement with schools. Um I had asked Dr. Turner to um put a little bit of a light on this and share the work that's being done because this was right up there with one of our number one priorities and I think there's been a tremendous amount of effort put into this already this year and um I wanted to get a chance to talk about it. So, back to you. >> Uh so, as Penny stated, we're we're going to kind of try to have a standing business item um here where we just give you a check-in on how it's going with some of these deliverables that we um that we're

070working on. And so, uh, family and community engagement was a big one for this year. Um, in particular, getting our social media platform off, uh, off the ground. So, we shared with you some, you know, kind of basic data, um, that, so the my newsletter was one, um, and and then the social media platform was the other. So, we've shared just some very quick data with you of um what kind of reach we're seeing with the newsletter and then also um with our social media presence um what our audience breakdowns looks like. What I thought was super interesting about our social media present are the towns that people are come from who are following and regularly engaging with our posts. Um I found that to be extremely interesting. Um that other breaks out to um

071folks kind of all over um southern Maine. Um, so that was pretty cool. Um, 86,000 Facebook views in the last 30 days is pretty good, particularly for a new page. So, we're pretty happy with that. What should not be terribly surprising for everyone is that um our Facebook page is much more popular than our Instagram page. If you kind of understand the demographics of folks who tend to use those two tools, um folks in the demographic of school age, parents tend to gravitate a little bit more, particularly the older like me, um gravitate a little bit more towards Facebook and the younger crew, more like our students, tend to gravitate a little bit more towards Instagram. Um so it's not terribly surprising to kind of see that playing out as it is so far. um

072as well as the age distribution and gender distribution of our fa Facebook um users and followers uh do tend to follow what we see for accounts like ours. So um fairly in line with what we would expect. Um I think the important thing to remember with both of these items is that this was the first step. Um, this this first foray into social media, the biggest thing we were trying to do in this first quarter is just get our schools used to sending things and having it posted because that is not um the the um the standard of the district for a long time has been antisocial media and not to be posting things on social media. So it is a pretty big culture shift to be asking teachers, staff, students and parents to be

073producing content to be put out on social media. So our first step was just to build some comfort with posting that. And so Kathy has done a fantastic job building a system that makes it very easy for folks to load things up for us to then um post. So that's been sort of um activity number one is setting those um expectations and setting those routines so that people are regularly um grabbing the content that we need. We're trying right now about 5050 of kind of good news, interesting um things that are happening in schools and 50% news, things we want the public to know. So for every picture um today's was a was the kindergarten at Wolf's Neck Farm. um you're going to see a and here are our school lunch menus. Um so we're

074trying to do a mix of those two things. So that's where we've started. Next steps in development is to start doing work with our admin and our staff around what what makes a social media post that draws in interaction. Right? So as we're doing the the I call it the cute kids and then the news, we want them engaging with both. then there are methods that you use that make it more likely that people will engage with with your with your posts um that social media savviness. So our first step was just send us stuff. Now we're going to start working on here's how you take a great picture, here's how you tell a great story, here's the great tagline. Um so those are sort of our big next steps. And then the other piece

075we have to look at um is sort of the role of the superintendent newsletter. Um, it used to be that that was kind of the only thing going out, you know, sitewide, but then I went to do my superintendent newsletter. Um, and I I do a section called Where's Shanda? Because people are very interested to make want to make sure the superintendent is around a lot of things. So, I try to take all pictures of all the places I go. Um, and I put it in there and I realized so many of those pictures had already been put on social media because either I or someone else sent them to Kathy and Kathy was posting them on social media. So, it felt very repetitive to me. We still did it. I get emails from people

076that they love it. So that's my sign that I should keep going with it. But we do need to kind of think as the year goes on, what is the role of that newsletter and what's our role of social media and just be thinking intentionally about how we're using each to its most impactful um in the most impactful way. So that's kind of where we're headed as the year goes on. or comments. >> First off, I want wanted to say I really like the superintendent newsletter. >> I think it's really well done and and um it's right here. >> Okay. >> Uh I think it's just really well done. It's really attractive and it's fun. I look forward to it. Um the other question I had is what is the the u process for posting?

077How who's the gatekeeper? How does that just from my own experience somewhere else um it's hard to get people to contribute and then you don't want them to go straight to social media. You want to have a clearing house. How how are we doing that here? >> Absolutely. Thank you for asking that. So right now Kathy Martin who is our director of um curriculum and staff development is our primary gatekeeper to R2. So she has an extensive experience with doing social media for school systems. And so she was willing to kind of step in and and get it started particularly in the systems that we put forward to help people then post. So she is the primary gatekeeper at the moment and and what she did is she actually built um a Google slides that

078has a slide for each school and each department. And essentially what she said is she worked with the admin team and she said anything you have going take the picture and drop it in this slides. Because even dropping it in a folder sometimes people felt like it got lost but here's your slide. If you've got text, put the text on there to tell me, "Put it on this slide." And then when I put it on social media, I'm gonna take it off that slide and put it in this other section. So, you know, I've used it and now we're ready for new content. So, part of the routines we've built is part of every admin team, we give five minutes in the beginning to say, "Hey, do we have fresh content from you? If not,

079here's your chance. Go drop it in." Um the expectations from there in addition to that. So anyone who wants to send things um in has to go through the principal. The principal is double checking. We want to make sure we have media permissions on any children that we are putting in pictures or videos or anything that we're posting um and being respectful of that. So um our our principles are are a lens to be checking that. And then we do um particularly in those pictures that have kids up close um and we're identifying them, we're double-checking those permissions as well before then we put them out. Um, we do have people kind of the f for the first time in the last couple of weeks actually contacting Kathy or our office directly and saying, "Hey,

080here's this picture from my thing. Can I have it posted?" We go back through their principal or their supervisor just to make sure that everything's okay with that. And then we push it into the Google slide so that everybody everything's right there. The whole admin team can see it and they can kind of give feedback as we're moving it along. >> So, I assume Kathy is tracking how much time she's devoting. She is >> because I I I would guess it's going to grow. >> Um hope well I would love to see it grow. Let's put it that way. Hopefully it will. How does how do we populate the news sections on the website? How does when we put something up as recent news, how does that get there? >> Uh so our uh web

081manager, Jen Ta, puts news there. So generally speaking, she's watching all of the school news school newsletters as well as my newsletter. Um, and then any email that I send out or comes out districtwide, um, usually we're either telling her, "Hey, can you put that there?" Or she's checking with us saying, "Hey, this sounds like a news item. Should I put that here?" Um, she's really great about about even when I forget, and it definitely should be news. She's the one saying, "Hey, I'm going to put this on news. That's where you want it, right?" And I'm like, "Oh, yep. Thank you. I forgot." >> Great. >> Um, so Jen's handling that piece. And I think your point about Kathy's time is so important because I am trying to be pretty protective of her time

082and let her focus on curriculum and instruction um in a way that maybe we haven't in the last couple of years. So um she has launched it. Again, part of the process over the second half of this year is going to be kind of then sort of pushing responsibilities. Um, I'm seeing some of that coming towards my office and u my admin assistant who's so excited to get started with all of that. Um, and and sharing some of the responsibilities um within the central office team a little bit more. >> But for the launching so far, we just wanted to have one person at the helm who had who had experience with it and then um as time goes on, we're going to kind of share the responsibility a little bit more as it grows.

083>> Great. Thank you. Uh just to piggyback on that because I wrote the same thing down um tracking time sort of value of time on communication community engagement um training that's needed expertise like we have people doing stuff on the website we have Kathy on on social media um I know it's we talked about um alumni work you know we continue to talk about things around engaging the community and communicating well um And at some point there's potential tipping point for a conversation around if we're spending these dollars in all this staggered way. Are we taking people away from the jobs they're really good at? And um should we be funding um someone with expertise in a different way? So I'd be curious about that to keep an eye on that as well. I think

084has a question. Sam >> uh just want to put in my two cents that I would hope we would never rely on social media alone for our communication. Uh I think there are very valid moral objections to using the meta platform and I want to make sure that our community always has a non-meta way to access our information. >> Thank you Sam. Uh and al I was thinking the same thing when you were talking about the newsletter. I think for for many reasons repetition is not a bad thing and we we don't want everything in one bucket at any rate. So we probably will always have email users who won't >> be seeing that online. others. >> I I do I'm amazed um and how many people still don't even have computers and um and

085I mean I listen to them all day long and that's why I have a job. But the point is that you know um this is one source of communication and keeping in mind you know the audience that when you're looking at the numbers between um August and September, it looks like it's about the same people. Um hopefully it'll grow. I mean, but it could be limited because a lot of people don't have the equipment. So, the information getting to the public would be is always a problem no matter where I go. That's the that's trying to resolve that, you know, that a lot of people just don't have access. Okay. >> Gary, >> um small followup too. Um it would be good I just my own opinion that um we look to enhance the website

086to include more of this information too because ultimately what we really want to do is drive people to our website. If we had a choice between social media and our website if we could make the website be the key because that's where all the other information is about the district and if it's it's the kind of thing where you train you you train the public to look in a certain place and I'm a little concerned that if our social media presence becomes too good then they miss all the other information that is routinely being added to the website um that because they won't be seeing that they won't be visiting that for the same. So duplication is good is provided but I want I would hate to see the website not flourish because the emphasis

087is being put on social. >> Thanks Gary. others. Just like to put in my plug for the my favorite picture I've seen so far, which is the one of the school buses up on that lift. So if um >> if that has only appeared through that through that route, that might be one to >> to get out in my newsletter and on social and >> I did see it >> five share Maggie and I were looking at today like five or six shares. It's gotten more shares than most posts on our >> on our social. It >> was very uplifting. >> Yeah. Well, it's a it was actually a welltaken photograph and it and compelling and we've been talking about a bus lift and talking about a bus lift and it's very expensive and like

088what does that mean? And to see a full-size bus up in the air was like, "Oh, wow. That's that's what that means." >> I know. That's why you need a quality bus lift, Misty, because somebody has to go underneath it. Um, all right, moving on. Uh, next up, just wanted to leave a little bit of time for folks who um attended the main school management association's fall conference. We had um an an outstanding showing. Um, three admin members were there, Dr. Turner, uh, David, and Kathy, as well as six, um, of our board members for some or all of the, uh, days October 23rd and 24th. Um, we just wanted to open it up to, um, folks who attended, who might be interested in sharing maybe one or two things that really stood out to

089them um, at the conference. No pressure. >> Me, please. >> Yes, you. Um, this was my first one because last year I was sick and I couldn't go and I found it very informative. It was sort of energizing. I really appreciated the keynote speaker. Made me think of things differently because I've, you know, this is my in my second year of my first term, so I still feel like a newbie in a way. And I found the workshops really helpful and informative. And it was nice to be with other people doing the same work, you know, so you could hear what was happening in other districts. and I just really enjoyed the whole process. >> Great. Thanks. Anybody else want to share about their field trip to the conference? Gary? >> Um, this wasn't my

090first year there. I've been there multiple times. Uh, and I never failed to come away with something that was worth being there. I thought the keynote speaker was great and his workshop that followed his speech was really I thought was really well well worth your time to take. if for no other reason but it it makes you excited about the work again. Uh shows you what's possible because he I mean he's from a little tiny district. Um and uh to accomplish and that's possibly why he's able to accomplish the things he does because he has so few kids and staff to deal with in comparison. But u it was just it was really inspiring to hear all of that. The other thing I took away was how few things came out of the legislature compared

091to what I thought we were going to be looking at. When I went to the legislative review, you know, you kind of you're used to seeing 50 things that we have to pay attention to and suddenly there really aren't that many and there were very few items even on national that they were promoting. So, um yeah, I thought it was well worth attending. Uh collective bargaining was a lot of what we've heard before. Um, and I missed Tom Trenholm not being there. Uh, he he does a really good bargaining presentation. It was kind of too bad he wasn't there, but if I had a chance to go to Europe, I would too. Or or Caribbean, I would too. So, and I would not have been there. So, anyway. >> All right. Fair enough. Uh, anybody

092else? >> Fred? >> Yes. Um, okay. Um, I enjoyed it also and I did want to make a note uh the endnote uh speaker was a graduate of uh um went to attended school in gray and uh I thought that that was um good. I wish I had time to talk to her but um and she spoke about the A1 what's A1 uh >> AI >> AL A1 AL and what's happening in in the world with that. It was very informative. I thought she did good. Um so some of the classes I took because I think um the public should know what some of the things we we talk about. So one of the first ones I took was called early adapters and it was York and Kitery is committed to meeting the needs of

093children three to five improving educational opportunities and accommodations and services for children with special needs through the child find and referral process. And um number two, the headline of second one I took was headline of the recent court cases on school issues. So this case, Muhammad versus Taylor, which uh is from Meilin, uh probably most of the classes that uh dealt with the law, mentioned this case. And um basically it was parents, elementary students sued the school district under the free uh exercise clause for not permitting them to opt out their children out of instruction involving LGBTQ. theme books that they object to on religious grounds. So that was that was a case that was floating around most of the day, two days. The third one I went to, it was very interesting because the

094title, you've got to be kidding, the wild, wild world of special ed. That was the title of the course. So, of course, I had to go to that one. And the topics included, how long is the school day? That's debatable because of special needs students. Um some can't uh this particular student uh these are all court case cases by the way uh wasn't able to have a school in the during the day and needed night school instruction. So um that was interesting case also transportation duties um never end do school uh transportation duties never end for bus drivers need to enter buildings to pick up students at at the door um and enter two stories up and carry them down the stairs to the bus. Another interesting case and then uh so that was the

095law area I took. Then I took the first amendment and public meetings meeting and uh the question was can the public disrupt a schoolboard meeting which has been happening. Um so um so I forgot to use the big big um what is it big whatever the term is use your words um yeah use your words okay uh the next one I took was state school funding and that one she said this is it's very simple you know it shouldn't be difficult at all so I already already said why is this a two-part course you know and that had to deal deal with following the ED279 program everything and anything I want to know is in a a booklet that thick that she gave me. And um and so uh and she never got to complete

096the courses because there was just far too much. It had to do with hers. All the material was just almost impossible and everyone in the room had all kinds of questions. And the last one I took was called between a rock and a hot place and that is title nine. And um and so um the Supreme Court is now in session trying to make the Supreme Court decision and um the thing I got out of that was we should operate what is the best interest of our district. So that's pretty much you know letting public know what kind of things we talk about when we go to these these sessions and it could be interesting. Anything anyone wants any further information about of course I'd be more than happy to share it with them. Thank

097you. Thank you, Fran. Um, I also attended um I really enjoyed um the keynote speaker. I would encourage folks to just go search the crickets. Uh the go crickets tiny school district really talked about things that were not terribly expensive in just ways that this guy engaged the community that were a ton of fun. Um, for example, they have teachers sign like they have athletes sign, you know, a college commitment. They put down the backdrop. They give them a t-shirt. They are like they call in the classroom. The second graders run in like, "We want you to be our teacher." Um, they make a big deal of it. Um, you know, really fun. Um, not complicated, but but still takes some effort. Um I actually found it a little inspiring and then overwhelming and thought

098like this is just so staggering. And in the smaller session he did say this took 13 years to build. So I went from excited to I'm going to cry to like okay some perspective 13 years you know you're not going to do this overnight. Um but there were things uh his session he then spent a lot of time just saying here's things you can implement and just rapid fire. Um, the other thing I actually enjoyed the most was an opportunity to spend time with so many board members. Um, the weird mics and the seating and the cameras and the voting is feels clunky. Uh, it's not my best um, stumble over my words sometimes and to just sit around a table and enjoy some meals with board members outside of a meeting. Um, talk about

099what we heard, compare notes. Um, I we ended up really spending a lot of the time together as a group and that felt great. In fact, then Fran and I on the phone the next week looking up the Supreme Court dockets together and comparing our notes and what did we hear and what's going to happen next. Um, and it's nice. It's nice to do that. So, I appreciate folks taking the time out to attend. That is a a huge lift and I know not everybody um can break away for two full days. So, appreciate that. Um, moving on to new business. Um, I am going to recuse myself for this agenda item and ask that Lauren take the wheel. All right. So, the next uh new business item is to consider an exception allowable under

100section five of policy BCC nepotism. So, I would take a motion on this agenda item. >> I move that we approve an exception under section five of policy BCC nepotism to allow the superintendent to hire an immediate family member of a schoolboard member who has been nominated as a substitute school bus driver. >> Second. Any discussion? Seeing >> Oh, >> yeah. >> So, this is a Penny's mother has applied for a substitute um school bus driver. >> Fully she is a fully certified ready to drive the full big bus driver willing to be emergency on call a bus driver sick in the morning. Can you come in uh substitute? >> So, we went from fully staffed in transportation to we're down to bus drivers now. So, this is timely. And >> I mean, this bargaining

101unit wouldn't even come up for like two years anyway. So, it's not >> as a substitute, she wouldn't be part of the bargaining unit anyway. Yeah. >> She would be an employee at will. So, um, I'll take a vote. All in favor? So, I'll turn it back to you, K. All right. Next up is moving into some policies. So we have a batch to consider here. Um from the I section IHBAC, IHBA and JA. I move we approve uh policies IHBAC, IHBA and JA as a batch. >> Second. >> All right. Just >> Fran, >> I don't agree. I I I apologize. Um I would like to uh speak to the child fine policy individually. So, um maybe the other two, but I I need I I would like to speak to that one. >>

102Well, we we can still we can still discuss and take questions and speak to the policy with the with the motion on the table. >> Okay. As long as I >> Yeah. Okay. >> Sure. >> Do you want to start with that one, >> J? Yeah. Y >> has it been seconded? I'm sorry. >> Yes. Y Okay. Okay. So um I've been because of going to this conference and so many of the classes included what's happening now in education with uh having um you know from BERT to time they leave the school district um made me think a lot and do a little little research on it and I saw that you know the public law was created in 23 uh for three and four roads as we've spoken before at other board meetings uh

103for those who require special education services and we're shifting them from the CDES to local school districts. Also, two-year-olds in need of special services now. So, and that's supposed to go in effect between 27 and 28. So, this will remarkably increase the number of students the taxpayers will be paying for. MSAD51 is looking to that's in Cumberland I think is looking to build a new preK1 school. So it's not even K1 anymore now it's called pre PK1 I assume it's preK1. Scout Keegan has built a childare center attached to it school district costing millions that were raised through private and public donations. When I asked how much the first year of operation cost, I was told millions. The public should know what is going on in its district. Also I mentioned earlier York and Kiry

104has a similar program. I believe parents would be losing the care of their children to the state. How can we the taxpayers afford to pay for this? So these are thoughts that ran through me uh through my mind uh as we're approaching what seems to be um a direction that most school districts will eventually be going through. I I understand we're not but you know it it's right there in the horizon for us will be you know all school district will be at so I think it's a very important consideration it's not to deny but again education is supposed to be education and not you know um a lot of social work for ages and then the state legislature if they're going to do this and force this on the district that we not educating

105from two year olds on. I I would think that they need to pay for it. We shouldn't be putting this burden on the taxpayers as that now other districts are experiencing that right now. That's my opinion. >> Thank you. So the um version on the the table we have here is age five. >> Oh, sorry. Hang on. I got to get to my red line. >> Just kidding. It's like I thought we we'd moved on from that. So I need Hang on. I had to click on the right one. So Oh, I still don't have it. While I look for it, I'm gonna ask Dr. Turner to >> That's the one I keep clicking on. Do you want to speak to this while I try to >> I would be happy to. So um so

106yes, so everything that um Fran shared is is correct. This is part of the CDS process where the school district under state law is going to be responsible for special education services for children ages three and four. Um the 2-year-old is is part of a transition program we can talk more detailed about. Um as of right now that that will not live in the ED279 formula that is going to live in a separate formula that is committed at 100% funding from the state at this time. So uh we have already started uh we we engaged with the state to do a phased adoption process. So instead of kind of doing everything at once that we would start with just four year olds. We already have 90 um out of about 120 to 140 kids. You

107our our class sizes tend to be about 120 to 140 right now. 90 of them in our pre-K. So we felt like taking on four-year-olds as an experimental year might be a nice transition for us. Um so far the state has um reimbured the the money we are getting for the state at the moment is outpacing our costs. Um that may or may not. So that is we're taking more in than what this program is costing us. I don't anticipate that necessarily will be be the case long term. Um but our what we're hearing from our colleagues is that when expenses do become more than what they're getting from the state after they share that with the state they get an additional payment that the commitment to cover at 100% is to cover at 100%

108and they are seeing checks beyond what the agreements are when those expenses outpace the income. Um, can I so that so the law is stated that that fund does live separate from ED279 and will be covered at 100%. Um, could the law change? Of course it could. Um, and and I'm sure I will be keeping you all up to date as that as that is. But as of right now, the law is u the state pays for it at 100%. That is what we are experiencing. we have taken on four-year-olds um in an agreement with the state and therefore we need to update our child fine policy to change age five to age four as part of that process. >> So to be clear, we're changing our policy to match what we have already agreed

109to are contracted to do and are doing actively. >> Correct. >> Anyone else? All right. All in favor? Nope. Sorry, we're in the batch. I just It must be past 8 o'clock. Um, any other questions or discussions on all of the policies in this batch? Seeing none. All in favor? Opposed? >> Did you say in favor, Jim? >> No. Are you unable to vote? >> I just have a a fundamental conflict with the child. I just am a little uncomfortable of the state government raising kids at three years old. As I've been on the school board, I've realized just to what extent the massive footprint of state government is on raising on running the schools and I'm just not comfortable with the state government taking a larger role in raising children. I can't vote for

110it. >> So that would be a no. >> Be a standing over the whole vote. >> So should I I'll know if that'll make >> Well, it's just it just is, you know. All right. So, >> policy. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I'm going to redraw my vote because he's I I was thinking of the whole packet. I I don't I can't I I can't support the child filing program. So, that I only raised yes because it was the whole group. But if we're voting individually, that's why I said originally if we can vote individually, I will not be voting for child fine. >> Okay. So, hold up. Could we would anyone care to amend the motion? >> We had the discussion. Let's vote. >> You want to vote yes or no? >> All right.

111So, let's do this again. We had agreed to move forward as a group. If you have issue with anything in the group, feel you know vote your conscience. So, all in favor opposed. Perfect. Do you get that Maggie? >> Great. All right, moving into committee reports. Facilities. >> So, facilities met on October 8th. Uh, we went over our projects list. Um, mostly driveway patching and ongoing repair around our buildings. Um, over 147 work orders have been completed since the last meeting. Uh we got an update on our SRRF uh air quality project. Uh we considered having like a full board presentation from mechanical services. At the close of that uh we talked about the need for a new high school athletic scoreboard. Uh we've started receiving quotes um and exploring possibilities of local business sponsorships.

112Uh we talked about food services. Uh there's a lot of momentum and enthusiasm due to the um staffing positions being extra filled this year. Uh looking into grant opportunities and capital plans for improving the nutrition. Uh we received a transportation report um going over all things transportation. Overall morale is good. Uh we talked about like how many buses, how many vans, what vehicles do we have? what's the expected lifespan? Where are they at? Where does this fit in the overall big picture of what we want that uh puzzle piece of our district to look like? Um uh we talked about legislation uh legislative impacts and covered with some job descriptions. Um and then ended with a policy about pest management. questions. Facilities, >> the transportation report is pretty interesting. It's in the minutes uh and

113in our attachments and everywhere. It's I had no I didn't know how many pickup trucks and trailers we had is Yeah. Go read it, >> Fran. >> Oh, thank you. Um I'm I'm just um looking at the um salad wrapper. Um I'm not sure how this this works. I know we have to supply you know um the bar and all that but I understand that um Henford is expanding and including that because of the students I heard you know because of the frequency um is the it's not to deny that we have it here as well because a lot of people a lot the students won't go to the init uh but um I'm talking about um have we looked at that factor in determining how much improvement we need to do with that bar

114area. I guess that's was that part of any conversation? No, I don't think what Hannerford is offering was part of the conversation about what we offer and um only juniors and seniors can leave during the day. So that leaves um fifth I believe they're um offering more of these options at the middle and high school which is fifth through 12th grade. So um and I it's not new equipment. It's sort of reopening things that we were not staffed that we have had in the past that staffing was making really difficult to have. So I think um that's how we came to have it back. Well, that clarifies um that I was looking at new equipment and stuff, but that's not part of it. No. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Anything else for facilities? >>

115Great. Finance. uh finance met on October 22nd. Uh we had a very substantive uh discussion on some big stuff. Uh first we gave feedback on the budget process. There's some desire to uh compress the time frame a little bit so that it doesn't eat up whatever it was 19 workshops. um uh try to get it a little bit more focused uh so that everybody kind of knows what to expect in uh each meeting and uh David and uh Chanda took that feedback and are going to present a sort of new timeline to the finance committee uh at our next meeting. If you are curious about that, you are welcome to attend. Uh we also uh discussed substantively the uh ED279 EPS uh formula report. Um it was great discussion. I think everybody learned a little

116bit. Um I would encourage people to read the linked document or at least the first 15 pages which is the policymaker summary. Uh it's EPS report. It's linked under uh item B in the finance minutes. Uh basically the legislature passed a law tasking a group of education experts at the University of Southern Maine to examine the uh EPS formula which is essential programs and services is what EPS stands for. Um, and it's the way that the state determines uh what the essential spend is that each school district should make in order to uh on the one hand earn uh the state money and then on the other hand uh figure out how much uh above what the state is giving is uh required from the local towns people. And uh these people did an excellent

117job examining the issues uh with the ED279 formula. Uh there's all sorts of stuff that hasn't changed since 2004. Um as you can imagine, the world has changed a little bit in the last 21 years, but our formula has not. Uh the opportunity is now to make recommendations using that report and our own experience to our local representatives uh who are going to likely be taking up the EPS formula in the next legislative session which starts in January. Uh so we have a draft letter that we're considering uh as a finance committee um that we are going to workshop at our next meeting and then forward to the board as a whole to consider if you'd like to get a head start on that. The sample letter is also uh linked in the minutes and

118I think there's an opportunity for us to uh you know try to get our representatives and state senators uh I think there's five of them that are touched by the district uh to represent uh our sort of experience on the ground. Uh there's a a few, you know, major things such as, you know, social workers are not considered in the EPS formula despite the fact that every district now has them and considers them vital, uh, etc., etc. There's all sorts of things that I think we have an opportunity to comment on and make sure that, uh, they hear our voices. So, I would encourage people to do that investigation. Uh, and then finally, uh, we looked at the expense reports and revenue reports. Uh also uh kudos to David in the business office for some

119great new ways of showing our spend over the course of the year so far. And uh we considered a number of D policies which are the ones that touch uh finance and we made some recommendations to the policy committee to consider at their next meeting. questions, comments for finance. >> Um, >> just a comment. Um, I I think that we should uh invite our legislators um in sooner than later and um um to, you know, um get this ball rolling and with the formula change because it is the legislator that has to do it, no one else. And um um so I would think that we would want to put it on our calendar at sometime soon. Right. Anybody else? Right. Thank you, Sam. And who's next? Personnel. So the personnel committee uh met October

1208th and we only had one item for new business and that was to review the legislative impacts. Um there were two of them. One was the uh EPL or paid leave and the second was minimum pay for reporting to work and um the conclusion is at this time uh nothing requires immediate action or attention from the school board. Then um we went into two executive sessions. the first um to discuss contract negotiations pursuant to um to state statute 6D and then um the second one was to enter to executive session um discuss the evaluation of the superintendent that's pursuant to MRSA 6A. So, and that concluded the meeting. >> Questions? Sam? >> Um, I'm assuming that the executive session regarded the upcoming teacher contract. Do we have a timeline for when we're going to try

121to start approaching negotiations on the next contract? >> Uh, yes, we do. We have um tenatively scheduled in December, right? Is our first um meeting to um kick it off. We if I could just add, we did have a um productive first meeting premeating checking in with um Dr. Turner and u myself and Lauren as head of personnel and the union um president on just you know getting the ball rolling and looking at the calendar and it was um yeah and setting a timeline for intent to bargain. So I think we're actually ahead ahead of the game even um by earliest standards. Anything else for personnel? All right. Thank you, Lauren. Uh, next we have curriculum and that would be last month because they didn't they didn't meet today. >> We met on October 1st.

122>> Yes. >> So, it's been a few minutes. uh the entire meeting and I assume that we'll have uh Kathy Martin come back and actually present this work uh from her department standpoint. Uh so I'll just do highlights for a moment. The entire meeting was around the curriculum review process, instructional program selection process, content area review cycle and looking to move from a five-year uh curriculum review to a seven-year curriculum review. um she has some pretty comprehensive information about why that would be beneficial and how that would work. Uh she reviewed the current curriculum review process. Uh it hasn't changed largely since October 2017 and did an overview on content areas that have been reviewed in recent years. Um and looked at the main department of education DOE process. uh presented us updated snapshot of

123where the district stands in comparison to the UE legislative curriculum. Uh noted science is the only content area not completed last year. Work on this area will continue in the upcoming year. Um so as a committee we reviewed the new the new cycle idea moving to seven years instead of the five. Um there's some ma and she's got some major advant benefits to doing that. Uh again this there's a lot of detail in this. There were several documents that she presented that um I'm sure she'll be invited back to present to us as a whole. But the the benefits as presented would be staff can see clearly what content area is the focus for every year. Elementary teachers who teach multiple content areas only have one area of new implementation at a time. Instructional material

124purchases be spread out over seven years instead of five, making budget forecasting more manageable. Implementation will be more effective, allowing time to teach new standards, collect data, and make informed decisions. And the district will be aligned main DOE review cycle, assuring consistency. Um, it was a lot of material presented in a one-hour meeting. So, uh, it was one of the heaviest curriculum meetings I've been to as far as content and amount of detail. So, um, it'll be great to have her come and actually present all this to you to you in person rather than have me try to explain and try to remember how she described what she described, but that was the intent. Uh, next meeting is was going to be tonight, but uh, it got postponed to 7. >> I'm sure she be

125would be comfortable with me sharing. Um, Kathy had a situation. she needed to be a parent um today and tonight and so we um were we opted to move the content of tonight's curriculum meeting to another night and and have her talk about some of this stuff another time. So she will be back with us very presently. >> So those of you on the committee might want to just keep an eye on emails because I did offer the opportunity to possibly extend that meeting and maybe start at 5 instead of 5:30 if we needed additional time to make up for the tonight's content plus December's content. Just so you know, >> questions, comments, >> I do um on the math um program. I thought once we adopted this new math program that um everyone was

126pretty much on board. All the schools were kind of united. Um but I'm reading that um it's a two to three year and then the middle school is beginning year one. I didn't that organized everything that program that we purchased or was it just for specific uh grade like high school or middle school? I can't remember what we did with that. >> Specific to grade level. So K2 adopted first followed by done school followed by middle school. So middle school is in year one. I have to look at I'll have to look at my notes. I I I I thought we were, you know, I'll look at my notes. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, that brings us to policy and Sharon is not with us tonight. Um, is there a member of the policy

127meeting who was willing to jump in on behalf of Sharon? I think mostly we passed policies. I think that were covered. Sam, do you have any thoughts that you'd be willing to share on policy? I'm not on the committee. Uh I would encourage people to take a look at the way that we're going to be reviewing uh policies going forward. Uh people may remember that uh we spent a good deal of time updating our policy book uh making sure that we had all the policies required by law and that we didn't have any that were out of date. Uh we have largely got our policy book uh in working order now and so our plan of attack going forward is a little more nuanced and strategic. uh trying to respond to the needs of the

128district as well as uh you know grouping like with like so that we can look at a bunch of things in a batch. Uh if you have any objections to the planning, now would be the time to make those heard. Uh other than that, we uh reviewed a number of policies. Um, a few of which we approved here tonight, but a few of which uh we did not put forward to uh the board for consideration because we didn't feel that there were any concerns or necessary edits. For instance, the HBA individual education programs um thea referral process like we capitalized child find but did not need to come in front of the board again. Um and uh we didn't there were a number of policies that were held over uh to the next agenda. Um

129the uh reviewing of policy uh takes a lot of words smmithing and sometimes takes more time than we would like it to but uh I appreciate the committee's willingness to be thorough and thoughtful. Anybody want to weigh in policy? All right. Thank you for jumping in with absolutely no heads up whatsoever. Sam, um, and nothing from me on schoolboard chair report. So, we will jump to a robust superintendent report. Tried to put lots of background in for you so I don't have to take a ton of time on it. Hopefully. Uh, the first thing that is not in the written report that I feel the need to embarrass him is tonight is David's birthday. So, please say happy birthday to him on your way out as he had a very long day with me today

130and maybe not how he planned to spend his birthday. So, happy birthday, David, to all of us. We appreciate you. Uh, so item number one, I wanted to just take this was a resend to um add to my report to talk about food insecurity. We've had some requests from a couple of board members on that and Penny had reached out earlier in the week or actually that was last week um about it. And so just to take a moment to sort of update the board um we do have a number of structures for food assistance for families in our district um that we have had for a long time. And so as the um federal government is is in shutdown and and people aren't getting their um food benefits that they normally would, we are

131activating those networks that already exist. So we're we're really trying to be strategic about not creating new programs or new things. We have people that do this work and they do this work very well and so instead we're just saying to them, how can we help you? Um so today you may see today. Yeah, yesterday. It's been a long week already. It was today. Um today we sent out a a district-wide this is information that has kind of gone out to each school through their newsletters. Our school has shared it with families. Um but we sent kind of a communitywide message um to help family to sort of like point families in the right direction if they need help but also to sort of speak to those folks who are asking how can they help

132because we do have so many people that are reaching out and saying how can we help kids? We don't want kids to go hungry. Um so we so appreciate that. So, in that document, um, which we did, uh, we're going to add to the agenda for tonight, uh, add to the, um, attachments for tonight, so it can be in in with the board record. Um, we talk about what we do here at school, which includes our free breakfast and free lunch programs. Um, as well as an extensive backpack program um, that was sort of originally started by Donna Skilling, and she still is hugely involved in that, and a huge thank you to her for all the work she does to help feed kids in our districts. Um, but that is a backpack full of

133food that children can take home on weekends and nights when they're not with us. So, we make sure that they don't go hungry when they leave us. Also, um, also huge shout out to Karen Light and the um, community service group here, as well as the Excel program, all of whom are involved in helping to organize and distribute um, that food to our kids. Additionally, um, our schools all have mechanisms where they provide snacks for kids. Um, every single principal has a snack drawer. In fact, earlier tonight when I walked into Satie's office to drop something off, she opened hers and said, "I restocked. Are you hungry?" Um, so they are actively when when they see kids who need snacks, no matter whether they qualify for SNAP or not, they're putting food in their hands,

134usually out of their own pockets. Um, a lot of our folks will use the donations like you'll hear later tonight for those sorts of things to to fund breakfast things or or snack things so that when kids are showing up hungry. Um, if we don't have free breakfast or free lunch going, we have food that we can we can press into kids hands. So, um, we're really focused on making sure at least when they're with us that kids aren't hungry. Um, and trying to help provide that support at home. In our community, the great community food pantry and the new Glouester food pantry have been um, hugely helpful. uh they do a lot of their work with good good sheeperd food bank so it's important to kind of note their role as well as um

135you know Hannerford has a big role in helping um so that's kind of what is available our social workers and guidance counselors are working with families all the time um whether they qualify for SNAP benefits or not we we are able to connect with families who need support that's part of um the board support of our regular education social workers allows our folks who work with all families not just kids with IEPs to make sure that um we're aware families are struggling and to provide that help. So, they've been in constant contact with families through these structures and helping them get hooked up with the resources that they need. Our schools are doing food drives. They do them every year. Um so, you'll see those happening. I think um Russell School and Memorial School did

136theirs a couple weeks ago. I think Dun School is doing theirs as part of parent teacher conferences. Um so, we certainly encourage people to, you know, watch out for your school newsletters for that. Um, and then in addition, we're in constant communication with our backpack program organizers, with the Gray Community Food Pantry, with the new Gloucester Food Pantry to say what you what do you need? And that includes this morning talking with someone over at the Gray Community Food Pantry. This morning, you know, asking, "Can we help?" Right now, what they are telling us, and what I mean right now, it is 8:37 on November 5th. They're saying that right now they're pretty well resourced. That at this time of year, the last quarter of the year, people tend to be making large donations both

137of food um and of funds. And so right now they're pretty well resourced. Um the thing they may tap us for sooner rather than later is help storing because they have enough donations that storage is starting to be a problem and we said we can help with that. So um if you come in my office and there's you know a case of macaroni and cheese you'll know why. Um so we absolutely said we can help with that or kind of what whatever else they need. And we sort of stand at the ready because we know we have this army of our our boosters groups have come forward and talked to us. our parent um patriot parents have come forward. Uh we have so many people we have so many parents have just said how can

138we help? So if and when those groups the backpack program great community food pantry and Gloucester food pantry say hey you know what our stores are getting low and we need help we are ready to to activate those networks of people that have said how can we help um and see what we can do for those groups. So, um I think it's a really tough situation at this moment. Um I think we're meeting the needs of families. Um but that that could change and will change um as time goes on and we will keep you posted. >> Um by my work with volunteering at the Good Shepard um they are always looking for volunteers there because obviously they are from the top down. So the reason why our local food pantries are so stocked is

139because of the good sheeperd. So that's they the ones that get all the food to all of the 600 agencies across the state. So if anybody has time to volunteer there, that's the top of the food chain. Um so any time is appreciated. Their shifts are three hours, so it's not long. Um but I encourage you to go in and volunteer. It's very humbling. >> Thank you, Misty. Um, >> and in the handout we emailed out and and will be posted on our social media and our website, um, there is a link to the page where you can volunteer or donate to Good Shepard should you choose to do that. Others, um, I just say as a parent who's also a participant in the PTO and the arts boosters and I went to his athletics

140boosters this meeting this week. Um, these groups are chomping at the bit and they're doing the work. Um, the head of the PTO actually said hold your brakes and that woman has zero breaks. So, she says that they are they have things for now, then they absolutely have it. Um, another thing parent groups have been doing is getting food in front of kids. You don't need to identify ask kids to identify themselves. We had 45 kids here this afternoon to prepare for you from 2 to 6. I mobilized a bunch of parents and we had food for all of them. So if you feed all of them, you're going to get everybody who is hungry. Um so I think we're also seeing sort of an uptick in awareness in that which are things that these

141parent groups are are already doing. So um that was good to to learn. All right. Okay. Moving up. There we go. Moving on. Uh, so number two is to um share with you about a non-school sponsored outofcountry trip um as per policy that was uh proposed tonight. Uh but it's also in line with our policy before. Uh non-school sponsored trips are something that we uh make the board aware of, but it's not something that the board has authority over. This is um sort of every year it's through what's called EF tours, which is a a professional tour company that does student group tours. Um our teacher here who helps with that does a um essentially works with the kids to say, "Where do you want to go?" And so they pick where the tour will

142be each year. Um this is the trip for 2027 because then that gives a long time for families to be able to um save the money for their children to be able to go. So the the trip that is planned for February 2027 is Netherlands, Belgium, and France with an extension potentially to England. Um I will say my child went on this exact trip with EF tours um last year or two years ago and um it was fantastic and even in the middle of a um air traffic controller um strike in Paris and she got I'm going to air quote for you stuck in Paris for uh two extra days. Um, I can't say enough about EF tours and how well they handled that and the kids were great. They had to volunteer like half

143of them got to go home and half of them didn't and she was like, "Oh, I'm staying here." Um, so it was a great great opportunity for her and that was at no cost to us and she got two extra days in Paris. Um, so they do do a very good job. This is what they do. Um, so this is the proposed tour and um, the kids are going to start um, you know, earning their money to to go if they can. question. >> This says Paris and Amsterdam. You listed different countries, >> correct? >> Say that again. >> Yeah. So, this trip is going to um the Netherlands, Belgium, France with an extension to England potentially. >> What age groups go? >> High school. Okay, moving on. What else do I have today? Uh,

144transportation update. We shared a little bit earlier, but um, we have had some changes. We're now down to school bus drivers in the driver department since the start of the school year. Um, that has made things a little bit difficult. We did send a message out to everyone and the community about that. Um, we have made a couple of changes since I last shared with you. Um, we have switched around some routes. Uh, we've consolidated some routes. We're going to handle one bus route with vans. It means there are some kids that'll be kind of up and out a little bit earlier, which we don't love. Um, but it's going to allow us a little bit more flexibility. It before we were getting to the place where if two drivers were out, we were going

145to have to start cancelling routes. Now we can survive three drivers being out before we have to um cancel routes and four drivers if our new bus substitute will come in. So, um, we feel much more comfortable, um, with that. Huge thank you to to, um, John and KJ for for making that happen and to our families for having some flexibility with us. I know it is not easy for them. Um, but we're hoping to hire a few more bus drivers and and then this won't be a problem. >> Okay. So, um, this is I just kind of consolidated a report of grants and donations that we have received. These are ones that did not meet the threshold that require board approval. Um, and some of them are donations that we have um, gotten for

146years. So, I'm reporting the Hannerford Health Schools program donations. We've been getting those for years and they've never necessarily been reported. So, I wanted to kind of make sure that those got highlighted, particularly right now when so many of our schools are using it to help children with with food security. Um, so we've had an anonymous donor come forward um, and donate $2,000, a little over $2,000 to buy some performance robes for our chorus. So if you come to our chorus concerts um, hopefully you'll see that level of professionalism is really appreciated. Um, Retreat Us has adopted Dun School. Um, and that's going to help take care of our orchard up there and provide some orchard education. And then we have uh, most of our schools here have received Hannerford Help Schools. Um the high

147school just hadn't received their final um dollar figure when this was published. So we will um have that in the next agenda. They have since um received that but um Hannerford helps schools each school has gotten a little bit most of them use that um towards activities at the school um and and as I said like you know to fund like snack drawers and those sorts of things that um kids might need at the school. questions. I do um it says I'm sorry just a minute. Oh, okay. Yeah, I found it. Uh in the second bullet under four and um it it u I guess you're looking at um One, two, three, four, fourth line. It talks about um support including providing maintenance to the orchard and education resources for the school. What education resources

148would that refer to? >> So, uh, RERUS works with our staff. So, we have a staff person there who's also our district wellness coordinator who does most of our orchard education. So they work with him to provide um uh education tools like how to do lessons with kids about um life cycle of trees um particularly orchards um how you know there's there's lots of science lessons that can then go in and be used at the so they help schools kind of develop those lessons specific um to their school help kids participate in the care and maintenance of the orchard. >> Okay. others. All right, that is a really nice long um list of donations, new hires. So, we have um two new hires, Valencia Moral, an edtech 3 um working out of Dun School, and

149then Susanna Leighton, who's going to start with us as an edtech one. Um in Memorial School, it says self-contained. it's a a particular funding source. Um coding under um under our special education funding, it means that um they're going to be assigned to a classroom where the children are generally in a specialized setting all day long. Um and so Susanna is starting at Memorial School. Uh we have a resignation of Lisa Ingram, bus driver and transportation, which we've spoken to a little bit already. And then we have two retirements. One I already mentioned, Cindy Worcester uh retired as of October 2025. And we have the first of our endofear retirements. Karen Light is officially retiring June 2026. Her paperwork is in and she doesn't even seem sad about it. And um no, she is sad.

150She's excited and we're excited for her. So, um wishing Karen all the best of luck and we're we're just soaking up every minute with her until she's gone. been super generous of Miss Light to extend her time as to what had been potentially last year, but following an IB cohort, which are two-year classes through to completion. So, very much appreciate that. >> So, it had nothing to do with Lucy being a senior. >> Why stay? >> The seniors feel very much that Karen stayed on just to see them to to graduation. They feel very >> yes. Um any that is the out Jim. >> Uh if I may, I'd like to publicly make a shout out to Maggie and Ms. Koulam of your staff. I had a a letter from the IRS wanting some additional

151information and one of them was the W2 form and uh they turned it around almost immediately. I was very appreciative. >> All right. Noted. >> Thank you very much. >> Oh, here it is. Um motion to adjourn.