001order. If we could stand and do the pledge. One nation under God, indivisible, justice [Music] and our mission creating a better future one student at a time. Um, do we have anyone sign up for public comment? Okay, so we can move right on to recognition. We'd like to start by congratulating uh Julie Pertie on being recognized as Rosen's Publish Publishers Northern New England School Librarian of the Month for April 2025. And uh May is a month where we have an opportunity to recognize those people who support our students every day. So we want to say a huge thank you to them. It was National Principal Appreciation Day on May 1st. Uh it was school lunch hero day on May 2nd, teacher appreciation week May 5th through the 9th, and National Nurses Week May 6th through
002the 12th. So again, a huge thank you to all of them. and our PR students and staff. We want to thank them for their commitment to excellence and the celebration of learning and sophomore exhibitions which were May 1st and 2nd. And then our National History Day Main Junior Division Teacher of the Year, we want to congratulate Jamie Karafa. She's here. Do you want to say a little bit about that? Oh, about I'll put you on the spot. National History Day or the award itself. Award? Oh, yeah. They choose a representative for both junior and senior um so there's like a basically middle school and high school teacher. Um and we knew months before um that we were chosen and they asked us to do this full application process to consider us for the national award
003as well. So, that'll be decided at the national contest when they do the student awards as well. Um, and they just released this huge press release of all the names and there's a lot of people. So, congratulations. A welldeserved recognition. And also, we want to recognize our NHD main competition in Oro, our second place group exhibit, Lauren Fuller and Olivia Pinkham. First place junior individual performance which we'll have a chance to see again later is Braden Benton. Second place junior individual performance Juliet Zenant Zantier. Uh, third place junior individual documentary, Isla Southwick. First place junior individual paper, Josie Rona. First place marine history award, Llaya Rose Pitman and Megan Gagnon. The Oer Library Ctography Cography Award is Bryson Woodbury and Colton Boule. So congratulations to all of them. I don't know Jim if you want
004to say a little bit about that that competition. Uh yeah, we had about 30 students go up there. Um it's a very long day, an intense day. Uh it's really awesome experience for those kids. They sit in a room by themselves with judges and talk about their projects or perform it or show it. Um and then at the end of the day they have a big awards ceremony and Whittier got named the loud group um with lots and lots of cheers uh because people are very very excited. So we usually have about I would say one to 10 kids placed and this year it was a it was a really high number. So and they're all headed to nationals. Everybody that's first or second place um is has decided they're going to n the national
005contest. So that's six. And then Isa has to wait a couple weeks to see if her first and second place people are going. And if not, she will then be invited to nationals as well. So we have a very good showing going to nationals this year. Good. And I did have an opportunity to go to that. My both two of my grandkids were in it. So again, I'm I was amazed at the projects that were presented, but also the level of support um for our students both from school staff and and parents, community support. So thank you for providing that for them. Appreciate that. Um and our presentation. Would you like to introduce our presentation? I think I'm gonna let Braden introduce himself because Braden it's we saw you a few months ago you're before
006your your uh your presentation in Oro and now you're back. Can you talk to us through a little bit why you're back and and what potential changes are we going to see from your presentation? [Music] Hello Braden and the reason I'm back is because I got a chance to I placed regional and then I went to state and thought of go to states. I did have to make changes so I could um qualify for states and place. Um one of the things we noticed is I did a good job um talking about before the ADA, but I really needed to find more information on positive changes and the impact today with the American Disability Act. So I did that and I I interviewed um Christy Gardner and she's from Oxford. Um so that was really
007great to for her to come in and you know have an interview with her and to put her into this performance which you will see later and yeah I added and then I added something states like to see the judges as states like to see the opposite side of it someone who doesn't want it. So, we have Donald Payne who addresses the concern why people didn't want the Americans with Disabilities Act and you'll see a quote from him in this performance, too. We're super excited to have you back and for you to request to come back so we can see your changes because we are very impressed that you wanted to show us again as to how you took your learning which was very powerful and made it even stronger. Yeah, we are ready. Hello,
008I am Briten Benson and the title of my performance is the Americans with Disabilities Act, also referred to as the ADA. The date is March 12th, 1990 at the Washington DC capital. As you can see behind me, over a thousand protesters have gathered from around 30 states in demand that the Americans with Disabilities Act be signed its law. This is Patrick from BP News signing out. What do we want? When we want it now. What do we want? When do we want it now? Let me take you back to the history leading up to this monumental event. The Greek Empire beginning in 800 BC. Society justified the ill treatment of people with disabilities. For example, part of hearing individuals were excluded from learning because they couldn't hear. The Roman Empire started 27 BC. Throughout the
009Roman Empire, they called people with disabilities monstrum, meaning mythical monsters, since there was no latent word for people with disabilities. The Renaissance 1400 to 1600 saw the first improvements. Religious organizations and mocks started to care for people with disabilities, but still often they were mocked in society. In the 1700s, wars left people disabled, and it became even more of a struggle with poor medical options. Those who weren't able to work were often left destitute and without any options aside from begging. In the 19 1800s, those who lived with a physical and intellectual developmental disability lived in the uttermost poverty. Change began arising for the disabled like housing and schools. But this only benefited families who have the means to pay for these services. And at last, in the 1900s, life was difficult for most people
010with disabilities. Let's hear from Mary Ellen Hider from Utah who was involved in a farming accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down at the age of two. I remember when I was in elementary school, I used crutches. My parents had to walk me down to the bus stop and physically lift me onto the bus since there was no such thing as a bus lift. When I arrived at school, there were no doors designed for the disabled. I'd wait for someone nearby to open the doors for me. And when I got to high school, there were no elevators. I had to climb the stairs. And you can imagine what a struggle that was. I was late to my classes and I even missed the bus. In 1988, the National Council on Disability drafted the
011first version of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Congress. In Congress, there were arguments as to why law should and should not be passed. Donald Payne from the Congressional Black Caucus in support of Americans with disabilities delivered the following information to counter the concern that protecting people with disabilities was too expensive for businesses. While cost alone is no reason to deny people their civil rights, there must be incentives and assistance for small business owners to meet their responsibility. To this end, I will soon introduce an amendment to the tax code of the express purpose of improving the financial burden on small businesses of complying with the ADA. When we want ADA when we want it now. When we want ADA when we want it now. I'll climb up these 83 stones for these a thousand
012activists gathered from around 30 seats in support of Americans with disabilities. I pull partisan want my civil rights. I want to be treated like a human being. [Music] Some of the positive changes in CADA are adaptive support tools, equipment, and services designed to help people with disabilities participate fully in life and to achieve greater independence. ADA changed the definition of disabilities and extended protection for people with disabilities in many aspects of life including employment, education, transportation and public spaces. Future other laws that after the ADA were the individuals with disabilities education improvement act of 2004 that made it so children have the services they needed to access public education. The AD and future have done good making positive changes, but there are still definitely inequalities that exist today. Facilities need to be maintained better and
013fit better to fit all people with disabilities. Business owners need to be held accountable and educated when things need to be adapted. When things like an elevator breaks down that only serves a few people, they don't consider it a priority to fix it quickly. This means a person who must use the elevator has to be either carried up or can't access them. Let's hear from Christy Gardner, a double ampute army veteran and the founder of the nonprofit Mission Working Dogs. [Music] One of my passions is service dogs. Service dogs are highly trained to make your disability easier to deal with. I've created mission working dogs due to my own experience and help people get access to a service dog through my training facility. This is Deb. He is my service dogs. He can fetch things
014that I drop, turn on and off the light, open and close the door, and even get water and medicine for me. But there are still definitely inequalities with service dogs, too. Even though the ADA protects Dougie, I was recently told I couldn't bring him into the main mall and was held in a room for 2 hours while they waited for the police to arrive. I'm currently taking this matter to the courts as the mall violated my rights according to the ADA. Things like this happen all the time to people with disabilities. The most important thing is keep educating others so that they can understand the inequalities and advocate for rights. Isn't that right, Deb? Thank you. [Applause] Yes. What year is that suit against the main law? Is that going on right now? Yeah. So
015she so she went um yeah uh when we I interviewed her she was it was a Friday I interviewed her um I don't remember the exact date but and then that Monday that following Monday she was going to the courts to deal with it I don't know how it turned out I didn't follow up with her but [Music] so the overarching theme for all of the projects this year was rights and responsibilities right so how did Did you address those themes? Did you have a lot of questions from judges about them? And how did you address those two themes? Yes. They asked me how does my performance fit into the uh category of this year which was right responsibilities and I told them you know the ADA um the president he he took on the
016right and responsibility to and everyone you know to promote ADA and people with disabilities deserve their rights they're humans you know I mean it's not okay to make them any less because they're the same as us. They just, you know, they they went through something that we haven't and we could go through that day. Whether they were born with a disability or they got it through life, you know, it can happen to anyone and we need to include everyone. So that's why I did this for rights because people with disabilities deserve equal rights and equal opportunities that we have through services, transportation, school, etc. and responsibilities is all these people promoting it. You know, I took on the responsibility to help people with disabilities and to promote it and you know on behalf of them
017and to educate others so you know we know how we can best help them and how we can you know help them fit into the school or any in many aspects of life to you know to make them feel included. Thank you. Good explanation. [Applause] I just want to say to her and she's local and I think the guy with the title was new. [Music] Yeah. And your posters are sharper. [Music] cheering for you. Yeah, it'll send pictures. Okay. Okay. And our next is the out ofate travel request. Sarinetu, that's a tough act to follow. I have no changes. Um, hi everyone. I'm Sarinto. I teach social studies here at PRHS and um, last year I requested um, permission to do a trip to um, Washington DC and I was all excited for that trip
018and unfortunately I did not have students. Um, in fact I had one person tell me they wanted to go. Um, so I we decided to change the trip um the agenda and itinerary of that trip is in front of you. Um this trip seemed to generate more student interest. And what I did this time rather than saying, "Oh, let's go to DC. It'll be so great." I put out four itineraries, DC being one of them, and had kids um just make an X on the paper to tell me which they would be interested in. And um this was one of the trips they selected. Nobody voted for DC. So I'm actually here to get permission to um take the kids on this trip through the EF tours which um Max can attest to. They just
019went uh with EF tours um to Europe um and had a great time and um they're a good company so I feel comfortable doing this through them. So that's mainly it. I just want permission to change from PC to this for next April. So about 11 months from now. Okay. Does anybody have any questions for Sarah? Okay. Just any thoughts on your [Music] generous city. Um, so my thoughts for the future, I was just talking to um, Mr. Anderson about this is, um, the person that I had who was helping me the last time was was not, um, very helpful, I should say, and was not, she would like send me a QR code, hey, I have kids sign up. But they didn't have anything to help me promote the trip. And I only get
020my students, I don't get the entire school to try to promote trips for. So now that I have a very helpful, good person and if I had um you know two years to promote it, I could hit a lot of kids and really put the word out there and talk to them in class about the things they would be seeing and doing. So my hope is that more people would be interested in doing that trip because it's a good one. Jess, I know we have other trips going on next year. Is this one scheduled the same time as Ireland? No, Ireland is in June. Any other questions? If not, rather than have Sarah have to hang around, uh why don't we take action on that? Do we have a motion [Music] on this? Okay. And
021a second from Andrea. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. [Music] And now Randy from here from PCS. I'm the principal at Community School. I brought back up and I'm the assistant principal. I taught the students assistant means helper. I'm caller. So, I'm gonna kind of brag a little bit about some awesome things that are happening at Community School. All right. So, you're a helper. So, right now we have 412 students. Um, we still have prek to six as well as our two functional life skills, 28 teachers, four specialists, and 17 support staff or you'll hear them um called ed techs. We have three student uh three teachers paid with and uh with title one funds and collectively we counted up that we have 1,000
022years of experience more than a little bit over um and then we started to look at degrees and training and um 44% of our teachers have an advanced degree or have enrolled in other programs. So um one of the things that the RSU does really well is um provide opportunities for taking classes and um to continue their education which benefits the students. Here is our leadership team. We have representatives um and as you can see they have different spans that they communicate back to the teams. So they help with our um input on the budget if there are issues in um in one area. We talk about those. They help plan their PD and um they actually will help present. So we try to do some shared leadership. They also kind of they help us
023facilitate some of our bigger events when we have our grandparents day and our field day and those big events that require a lot of planning. Um they help share the load and help facilitate most of these are MVPs. So, if you look, this was um our staff versus student um dodgeball recently. Um guess who won? It's it's debatable. Um we had one grade that um wasn't exactly about going in or coming out and there was some loose so we just called in a draw and so that we wouldn't have any issues for the rest of the day. But um great group of staff. Um they come to school, they love it. And if you look closely, some of our guest teachers jumped right in. So um we have some real dedicated people. And um yeah,
024it was a great day. They're competitive, too. Very competitive. Um so why don't you go? Okay. So Brandy and I background is intervention. So I was a title one literacy interventionist and she's a math. So sometimes we joke that I do like the reading side of the house and she does the math and numbers but this is proof positive that I too can do numbers. So I'm going to share some with you today um about our goals. So the ones that I kind of look after um were our attendance and behavior goals. So last the last two years um we had a behavior dean and anal dean and they did a lot of work with our staff and with us kind of targeting some of those um behaviors that we were seeing all the time
025giving us great tools inventions for those students and the staff members that are dealing with them. They helped create plans for them. Um and so this year we set goals to just kind of maintain our progress without their support. Um just to kind of be realistic and see can we hold our status quo um because we have made some some great progress. So so this is our three-year data. So our first year we averaged about 5.7 os per day. Um, and then the next year, which was last year, we got that down to 4.1. And this year to date, we're averaging about 4.3. We have 21 more days, 21 more weeks. So, we might be able to tweak some of those numbers a little bit, but I feel really good about that. We were able
026to to hold strong there. Um, our attendance rate a couple of years ago was down to 91.7. Last year, we're 948. We had a nice week off. We did a lot of hard work there. And this year we weren't down. It's it's still 932, but better than what it was. But I want everybody to look at this number here. We today have one trillion student compared to years past where we had eight and 11 year. And so I think what this speaks to is the work that we've done as a community communicating with parents. We know where our students are. They're not missing. We're not wondering. we're not, you know, struggling to make contact with those families. And that's due in large part to the many different resources that parents have to be able to
027communicate, but it's also due to the relationships that we've all made with those chronically absent um families. And I will also say the profile of an absent student also includes kind of a different population. Um, a lot of times students are missing because they're having enrichment opportunities and vacations and family experiences um outside of school and outside of the designated vacation days and they have taken advantage of that. So, I'm really proud of the work that um our school has done that way as well. One of our other goals this year because it was our second year to implement the box. Um it's our second year to implement the whole bar program. And the first year we were really focused on u times and small blocks because those were our grade level planning blocks and
028those were easy to build into an elementary school schedule. We really struggled with a big block meeting in team because in an elementary school when our teachers have planning time, our specialists have those students and we the few blocks that were able to have last year, we saw such value in including those specialists in those meetings. The perspectives that they had and were able to give to their bigwa team were invaluable. They were seeing sides of students that classroom teachers may never see. Uh you know, you give a kid a musical instrument and suddenly they have a confidence that they'll be seen. Stu give students paint and suddenly you see a creativity you might never see. And there were some times where it was the specialists that really cracked the codes of these students that
029were difference makers. So we really wanted to strive for fidelity and to really create the opportunity for the specialists to be part of those big blocks. So with increased building time, which we are so grateful for, we were able to really build that into our Wednesday afternoon times more frequently. We also did a little tweaking of our big block teams. Last year we had four teams, two prek to two teams and two race three to six teams. And this year we merged and we had three teams prek to six. So we had the entire span. Um and this really ended up being such a positive change because you got to have staff members on teams that had real historical knowledge not just of students but of their families and were able to kind of build
030the picture of that student for the present year teacher in in a way that was so valuable and there was a lot of things that had been tried before that we didn't have to waste time on again this year. So that ended up being such a good change going from four walks to three and including the whole stand. Um and we were able to serve and speak to and review over 62 students in our block meetings this year which was a big jump from last year. Um, it really strengthened the sense of community among our staff, especially when I think about being a new teacher and having time where everybody from grade prek to six with most experienced to the newest. It's a time set aside to sit at the table and be vulnerable and
031open and honest about your struggles and ask for help. And that's become part of our culture and part of our practice. So, it's really strengthened um our our staff and the cool thing that happened having that big race band is some of the strategies that we used incorporating older students working with the younger students and creating mentorships um just because they had access to the other teachers in those big black teams. So, that was great. And then, yeah, I just I included some some feedback. I did a feedback survey with staff because this was our targeted goal this year. And one of my favorite um pieces of feedback said big block meeting broadens the village to high mind. It was a good array of experts across age groups and specialties for wisdom of the crowd.
032And so our staff really grew to love this time and I think we really grew a lot to share this area. two. And then the last one we had was increasing the knowledge of um differentiation. And so um we had a couple of things going on K to2 um they spent a lot of time um differentiating on it. And then three through six we talked about how can we differentiate with what we're doing right now with our current programs. And so we talked about um you know how can we make sure with that we're responding to the students that we have for months right now. So um and this is going this is a two-year goal. We are by no means um done and I want to thank Eron um Anderson for sharing his materials.
033He went to a great conference so he shared a lot of resources with able to do that. All right. So data you guys like data. I love data. And so I just want to go over some really um pretty amazing things I think. Um so PCS historically had not used I'm ready. Um but when u qualified for title, we needed to have something to measure kind of apples to apples. So we um gave our kindergarten and first grade students the I Ready Diagnostic. And so for reading, if you look, we want the kids to be in the green. Um, and if you look at um I actually did numbers because I think it's kind of hard to see that. So for reading um in kindergarten we had um we had the uh we had everybody
034just about um meeting the grade level or one below in kindergarten. Although I must say and Caitlyn can say in kindergarten it is kind of hard to be below grade level. Um and then the red two or more we had um one student which is 2% in first grade. So when you look at that um our kids are doing well despite the need for a new math program. So um I'm really excited to see what our new math program new math program is going. Oh that's reading. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. And then it's down at the bottom as well in math. But um with that good math program and you'll see with some of the other data I think we're going to have um some even all right this is the latest and greatest
035as of this morning um our students are done taking the year assessment so if you look um our schools you can see that's the first number 155 we are right where the um average for the district as well as the state for three. So, yes. Can you just talk through like what the I can't pick the words for you. Talk through like what the color bar. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you look over where the cursor is right now, that's well students who are well below state expectations and there are eight of those within the third grade. And so, from on my dashboard, I can click on that and I can look at who those students are. So when we start looking and pulling that apart um as a staff um some of them happen to
036be our students um and we kind of track students that way and then the yellow is below state um expectations and it will tell you the score too because we have a couple but if they had just had two or three more points which is really a question or two they actually would have been over to the green which is at um at the state expectations and then blue is exceeding. So if you look at third grade um we had 54% that were at or above in third grade for reading and in math um we had 44%. And so when you look at 42%. Um but when you look at our math you can see that um we have a larger amount that are well below. But again this is why we needed a math
037program. Like holy moly. We've had this math program since um I think it was 1999 2000. Yeah. So um it's been a hot minute. So let's yeah fourth grade move on. All right. So fourth grade um they had 1506 for just a tiny bit higher than the district and a tiny bit higher um than the state in reading. And then we're a little bit higher um or the state a little bit higher um for me as well. And then um for reading we are just a little bit lower than the state but we're right where we need to be average um for our district. And then I don't know why. And then this is where it kind of starts to our mess. You can see where the longer we haven't had this program, the larger
038the gap. So, our school was 1,497 was our score, just one point higher than the district, but the state expected us to be at 149. Um, and if you remember last year, the gaps were a lot wider in sixth grade. So, in sixth grade, um they're doing great in reading for the district, but not so much for the state. So, we're going to have to work on that. And this would be an area um for teaching sixth grade. These people are going on to seventh grade. However, um looking at the curriculum, looking at um what types of questions they're getting on their next step. All right. So, here's my pitch. Um, schools are not what they were all school. And I think that you've heard this a lot over and over again. I think you've
039heard it from the community. You've heard it from teachers. Um, but we offer a lot of things that I didn't have when I went to school. You guys probably didn't have when you went to school. So, um, we collected a little bit of data. I won't read all of it, but I just um I just wanted to kind of point out a few things that our school counselors have had 1,163 student visits so far this year. So when you think about a resource and a valuable resource and that's only with one and a half schools and that's just that's triple our population. Yeah. And then you think about I don't know about you guys but um when look at the nurse visits over 7,000 visits she has had. We have one nurse and if you've
040ever been there during the day, especially recess time, it is full and it it she does an amazing job, but there's a lot going on in there. And I didn't have um I didn't get my teeth cleaned at school. They didn't have that. I don't know about you guys, but I cleanly at school. But again, that's a service that they have. Um and then we also didn't have um there was one other one um the restorative room. We didn't have a place to take time out if we did not behave. We went to the principal. Our parents got called and they dealt with it and then the next day some people came back with a store behind. Some people came back and they were like this had to pre apology. that doesn't always happen. You
041don't always have the support like I who made a poor choice. Um now we have kids who have needs and that's why we have speech services students with IEPs. We have um supplemental support with title. We have 504 so kids can access their education. OTP. Um, in this MTSS, this is a process that we have down to try to prevent students and identify the correct students who are special to save our resources. Um, and we have so far we had 45 kids go through the process to keep our numbers down instead of saying we struggle, let's give them special care. Um, and so what we do is we put in interventions to see if they're going to work and if they do, we know that they can learn and we found a way that they,
042um, sometimes prevent them from special ed because they're truly they just need a different way to learn. All right. So, um, PCS has amazing teachers. I would invite all of you guys to come in at any time um, so you can see some of the great things that we do. You guys know, we know this budget does not have everything that we want. Um the more we cut, the more of those resources we lose. Um and it's about kids. And um here's a very small example of amazing things that can happen um when you can maintain um and retain u you can maintain that morale, you can um retain teachers and people want to be at your school. So all right. So before you play it um in the back, what you can't see is
043the board. So I don't know if anybody went to the forest concert. Um so we have 55 kids in forest and kids in sixth grade. Um Tony Orlando started that this year and then he had a bunch of kids who play instruments and they were like hey we want to start a band and if you know Tony he was like okay great. So during recess when they were done lunch if they had time he was like okay come together we're going to do it. And so these are they're called 67s. They are um all sixth graders. And um I just want you to hear what an amazing thing can happen when you have a dedicated staff. The stairs keep me away. It's the house you close your eyes. [Music] will be in [Music] I love
044this. [Music] just amazing to see like well and I told like I think any teacher's dream I don't know if you can see him but he just sat back against the wall and watched them do their thing because he's poured into them he's watered them you know what I mean the seeds they planted the love of music just that night. He didn't do anything that night because he had heard all of his work. So, it was really awesome. It was really cool to see. So, I think I I wish that the whole town could see this up because I think people forget like look at these kids. They're in sixth grade and the things that they're already doing because we're providing them with an education. And I feel like if everybody saw this, then they
045would think twice about like the amazing things That's it. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Questions? Questions? Thank you. Nice job. Thank you. Moving on to our consent agenda, which has our meeting minutes from April 28th, 2025 special board meeting. We have some new hires. Uh Ryan Cook, middle school baseball coach. Christopher Jardens, uh, middle school softball coach. Lindseay Mason, van driver. Scott Celely, van driver. There are no retirements. We do have some resignations and those letters were included. Uh, Georgia Harlo, ESS 4th grade teacher. Andrew Parker, PCS 6th grade teacher. Zoe Covert, um, MWS Ed Tech 3. Um there are no subcommittee minutes as we had the special board meeting instead. Make a motion to approve. Second it. Second from Mike. So we have a motion and a second. Any questions? Jess, are we going
046to fill these resigned positions or hold? We are filling those resigned positions. Any other questions? Not all those in favor? unanimous you and our superintendence report. Well, so certainly a great start to our board meeting with uh Braden and then then listening to the 67 band and I'm going to continue on with a celebration of learning and I'm sure Max when we we get over there we'll be able to have talk about the Europe trips. There's just so many awesome things going on in our district and I'm I'm just proud of everyone. Um but uh celebration of learning happened last week and I uh got to be a grader as were many of you too uh that were sitting here and felt very prepped with the consistency of the training model that Michelle Smith a
047teacher here at the high school leads all of the graders through. There's all of those behind the scenes things that Brandy and Dell were talking about with the teacher up there. It is about all of the the things that happen in order to allow our kids to shine. And I was impressed by the the the ones that I was part of of the connection to their career aspirations where one uh wants to be a general manager of a sports team and wants to be able to do podcasts uh and his future and also uh special effects and uh feeling like I might eventually see one of the one of the the senior girls on the uh awards ceremony and in 101 15 years from now. So super cool to be part of all of the
048awesome things that our our seniors are are doing. Uh is teacher appreciation week as Mary said and part of that one of my highlights was I uh was asked to go over to MCS to partner with Jamie Demir and she was fantastic. We were like the aunties and we got to uh do grade five lunch recess. Uh Principal Brown did tell Jamie and I that usually grade five lunch is not that loud but as we said we were the fun aunties for the day. There was no screaming, yelling, crying or throwing food. So we we felt it was super successful and had super fun. Uh and that was, you know, just a subset. There was just so many volunteers in there so the teachers and staff could have lunch together that day from the community
049club. So another wonderful uh uh event to be part of. The other part too that I'm doing here at the end of the year is one-on-one conversations. It's kind of like when you take your own kid out for that uh you know, morning or afternoon uh special date with mom or dad. And so one-on-one conversations are happening. Uh, I've done PRHS in Whittier where there's 15-inute time blocks and staff can sign up. There's no agenda from my perspective. It's come as you are. We can talk about how your year went, uh, obstacles and challenges, uh, things that I need to know about, some budget questions, and just anything that's on teachers and staff's uh, staff minds. So, I do enjoy having those conversations with staff. just it it it grounds me in in thinking about,
050okay, how do we end this year strong, but also starting to make plans for next year and what really matters most to our staff. Uh hopefully you'll get a chance to look at Jill's report. There's really great news in there. We did receive Title One summer reallocation funding for Title One summer school for Elm Street and Poland Community School, just under $66,000 for summer school. So that was a a sigh of relief for all of us. And so that will match up with our summer school that we have here and at the high school and our special ed extended school year which is locally funded. Those three are locally funded which will be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday starting after the 4th of July. So looking forward to starting to plan that. Um also too in Jill's
051report is the use of title funds as we continue to navigate uh kind of this back and forth of of of funding here in the state of Maine. Uh when I met with the commissioner of education and her team as well as the assistant attorney general right before um um vacation, they held a a zoom for all of the superintendent and and basically what one thing they told us is just you should plan on the same amount of title funds that you have this year coming coming in for next year. Um and so we typically by now have our exact amounts and and that way we can we can do what we need to do by alerting uh our our community how we plan to spend that and offer feedback. Uh so you can see
052in Jill's report too of of as you know all most of our funding goes our title one two and four funding all goes to salaries and benefits for our uh title one funding at our now our three elementary schools because mine does qualify next year and then uh Jill will have two small projects. One for um writing and then PD follow up for math as we adopt a new program Ksix and as we continue on with our literacy. uh as you saw our scores have increased over the years and we're really proud of that and the effort but we also know that that continues to need time and attention as we go forward. And um uh my final piece is tomorrow I'm excited to uh we're having a what we're calling a superized leadership team.
053So uh Eric and PRHS are hosting uh all of the leadership teams from all the other four buildings including Jill and I. And so we're going to take that portrait of a learner, portrait of a graduate that Eric's been working on through NEASK and really think about how do we do that preK through 12. So some of you have participated in his events um that really looked at developing that for high school, but we have bigger dreams for that of like how do we unfold that because it's takes all of us to get our kids across that graduation stage. So that's setting our tone and our plan for opening day for August and then our work for next year. So I am looking forward to that. Any questions? Um not a question but a comment.
054One of the things that I have appreciated about teacher appreciation week is that it's called teacher appreciation but it really is about appreciating everyone in our schools and that everyone is a teacher and whether that's a custodian or an edtech. Um, as I've seen that celebrated, it really does celebrate everybody in our schools as teachers. So, appreciate that. Any questions for Amy? All right, moving on to our new business. And the first is to review and consider a motion to approve the financials. And that report was included in our packet. Um it um we didn't have an April finance meeting so there isn't any recommendation from the the finance subcommittee. Are there any questions or do we have a motion? Make a motion to conclude the financials for April. Second and a second from Mike.
055So we have a motion and a second. Are there any questions? I guess the only one I had Amy was um it's good to see that we have a healthy balance again in our food service. I know last year we used some of it for equipment. Are is there a plan to do that? Yes, once we have that excess that we're alerted by the state that we do have to make a plan. So this year um we did buy equipment the dishwasher at PCS two years ago. This past year is we had an insurance plan change that we did not budget for. So, Ellen, our food service director, used that to offset that cost of the the higher insurance plan. So, then she will have to plan for how to use that excess that the
056state tells us that we have to use. So, there's always an improvement plan for Ellen and and food service. Good. Because we seldom have an excess. So, we do we need to take advantage of that. Yeah. And I do appreciate her looking at not only the machinery but then also to responding to the need of a higher a different insurance package too. So there was that good balance of her being responsible. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor? It's unanimous. Um and then um you have before you the secondyear probationary teachers. So if we have a motion to approve secondyear probationary teachers to an annual contract as recommended by the superintendent. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any questions? It was Steve and Mike.
057Thank you. Any questions? Okay, we have a motion, a second. All those in [Music] favor? Unanimous. And the next is a motion to approve the first year probationary teachers to a secondyear probationary teacher as recommended by the superintendent. Second and a second from Andrea. A motion and a second. Any questions? All those in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. And the last is to uh approve administrators. Mark Politano, uh, IT director. Joe Matthews, curriculum director. Shelley Pride, adult education director. One move. Second. A second from Andrea. I have a question, though. Didn't we already do that? I mean, been working for a while. Yeah, they they had one-year work agreements. So, each one of these three administrators, um, they expire June 30th, 2025. So, the end of June. So, and each one is part of a different
058group. So we have like um Mark is part of the director's group, Jill's part of the principal group, and Shelley kind of stands by herself with a doll head. Sorry, Shel. Um so part of that is to have another one year because then all of the principles and all those other groups uh expire June of 2026. So then they're all on this that same cycle together. And yes, go ahead, Steve. Are they under the teachers agreement? They are not. So they have their own their they have their own work agreement and then that way that they would be on in alignment with their groups and so that way we can talk about their work agreements and they'd be part of where they should be. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Okay, we have a
059motion and a second. All those in favor unanimous. Moving on to our administrative team reports. anything anybody had any questions about or would like to highlight? Um, so I have a couple things in the operations um 18 report. Um, so I thought it was really cool that we were collaborating the town of Poland uh to get rid of the brown tail moths around the district as well as the town of Poland. I just want to highlight some of the collaboration that we're doing between towns um because I know that was one a lot of questions that get brought up are how are we leveraging the town's u use of manpower? Uh and then so I see that we uh have now hired a couple more van drivers in John's report. He said that we need
060some more. Is that in um over and above what we have hired or is it I think that puts us at even now. Yes. Yeah, we can double check that. And then we have ops committee on Monday too. So yeah, and I also noticed it in in John's report that it it was good news that there were um fewer than two six routes that needed to be cancelled. And if you remember last year that was a major major issue. So that's a significant uh improvement. and he reached out and thanked and said that's because everybody had kind of stepped up um um and that we haven't had to use contracted buses. That is a huge expense for the district when we have to do that. So, uh it was good to see that in his
061report. Um, and uh, Brandy mentioned attendance and that was something that was part of all of those reports and I think we can can see some some progress there. I think it was in the Elm Street one where Jess said it was sort of a return to the preandemic levels which is is great to see. Um, also one of the questions we sometimes get as a board is what are we doing in our schools to support financial literacy? Um, that was one that comes up often and it was uh the Elm Street one and Jess talked about uh the finance authority of Maine working with kids there in terms of financial literacy. Um, it was also great to see that our PRS band and chorus was visiting our elementary schools. Um, I'm sure that will
062inspire them to be more involved in middle school and high school. Um, anything else? Anybody? And again, we just thank our administrators. We recognize that's a lot of work to put those reports together every month, but they I mean, I could say at our our last forum that we are a well-informed board, and that is because you guys keep us really well informed. We thank you for that. Um, uh, moving on to reports. Um, our student representative, Max. Hi guys. It's been a while. Um, yeah. So, okay. So, this past weekend, the junior and sophomore class, uh, we did a little yard sale, bake sale, and car wash, but that kind of went down the drain with the rain. Uh, we were we were kind of rained out. Um, we didn't have much turnout. So,
063we're rescheduling to Friday of this week. Um hopefully during the track meet um as well as midm morning Saturday because uh the sophomore class is planning to hold a pickle ball tournament that day. So we're going to do a little pickle ball tournament as well as a yard sale. Yep. Um gosh, currently a few juniors and sophomores are working on when SRB underassmen are going to the eighth grade to talk about student represent representative body as well as high school life. Um chorus and band concert on the 22nd 7 o'clock. It's a Wednesday. Um and then okay, I wasn't at the last meeting because I was packing to go to Europe. It was so fun. Um, I went with EF Tours, which um is the group that Miss Neto wants to go to, uh, the
064Grand Canyon with. Um, I can attest, our tour guides were amazing. So, uh, there were two groups. Uh, the silver bus and the blue bus. The silver bus was my bus and our our tour guide, his name was Francesco. Ah, he was amazing. Oh, golly. uh the blue bus uh their tour guide, her name was uh Valentina and she had she had such great energy and it just made the trip just amazing. Um so we went to London. Personally, I'm not a fan of the food. I actually hated it. Um cuz Okay, so there's baked potatoes but with beans inside. I'm not a big beans person and there wasn't any butter to have the baked potatoes. So, it was kind of just bland. Um I I didn't like that. Um but the um we went
065to Paris. That was beautiful. Um the architecture in both Italy and Paris were just wonderful. I It was such an eye-opening experience. It was also kind of humbling in a way because I took French, but actually trying to put it into like my real life while in France did not go so well. So, I tried asking how to go to the bathroom or I tried asking if a restaurant had a bathroom in French and it oh gosh, I was just a blubbering mess. Um, but it was it was such a great experience. Um, EF Tours is a wonderful program and I'm hoping next year maybe I can go on more trips with them. But yeah, uh, that's my update. Thank you. Good job. Well, you're all honored. Well, and actually, I went on that trip
066too with my granddaughter. So, I know as a board, one of the things is when they come to talk with us about tours and, you know, as adults, we're always worried about safety. And I would agree with Max. This tour company is exceptional. Um the tour guides were um you know they everything was around around safety and I mean we were in uh St. Peter Square at the same time that the pope, the dead pope had just arrived and uh it was more than crowded and there were lots of situations like that and I never felt that they were unsafe. Um you know the the tour guides were great. It was great to experience it sort of through the eyes of of students and um you know I was also I was proud of our
067students. I was amazed at uh the teachers that were there and the community people that were there as chaperons that um you know there were there was there were two large groups. I was on the blue bus um the other bus and uh but they were always broken up into smaller groups. There was never anybody by themselves. Um it was a rule of three. nobody with. So, all of those things that we worry about as adults and as a school board in terms of approving um I'm sure that the other tours are as safe and as well organized. I don't know about Max, but I don't remember being that tired. We had a lot of short short nights, but full days. Max, did you see the Eiffel Tower? Oh, we got to see it glowing
068and glittering in the rain, too. So, it was just like it was amazing. We were on a boat on on the scent, I think. Yes. Oh gosh, it just started glittering and it was so beautiful. Like, oh my word. Crep. Yeah. Yeah. And we ate our way through Italy for sure. Yes. All the food. Yes. Max, apart from the fact that you don't like the food in London, what's what's one thing that you learned from going on that trip that you you know now that you didn't know before you went? Oh my gosh. Um, I should go to Europe more. Um, cool. I think I I've fallen I've fallen in love with European history as well. We visited the Palace of Versailles and we went on a guided tour and just learning about everything that
069had happened in and around that castle was just amazing. I gosh, amazing. And kind of the same thing happened to me when we went to the coliseum in Rome was it's been a long time since I've thought about Roman history and it did it was enough. So I came back and read some things that I hadn't read for a really long time. So, you know, I'm sure that that was the experience of everybody on that trip. So, thank you, Matt. Um, I have a question. It's unrelated to your trip, which I would love to talk about more because I love Europe, but I do have a question from our community forum the other night. We had one or two people ask about the school dress code and we directed them to SRB because I believe
070that you guys So I do want I just wanted to pass along that there were some concerns about the dress code and maybe something that if you guys want to like circle back and just discuss as a group and see if there's anything that you think needs to be addressed or if you think that you don't. Just wanted to share that that came up. Yeah. Was it just like a broad concern of the dress code or did they say anything specific? It was specific. [Applause] They expressed some some specific examples of what they felt was inappropriate. And thank you. I my impression was I I don't know if it was things that would have been permitted or if it's just things that are being kind of ignored, but we Yeah, there was some It was
071on the female side of things. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of like skimpier thing. I don't know. I just Yeah. Don't worry. I'll I'll make sure I'll make sure that we talk about it. Thank you. Thank you. Cole moves at school. We wouldn't all be here today. Okay. Moving on to our school board chair. Just a a reminder that our next board meeting is Wednesday, um which is June 11th. And the reason it's not on a Monday is because the referendum is Tuesday and we need to um certify the results of of that referendum. that'll be a full. So in order to do that um and not conflict with the middle school 8th grade promotion, it's our suggestion that we meet at 4:00 to recognize our retirements because that is the June meeting is always the
072one where we say thank you to our retirees. So to do that at 4 and then have our board meeting at 4:30. So hopefully we would be um concluded by 6:00 when the middle school promotion is. So I did send out sort of a reminder just to get a sense of if that was going to be a big issue for anyone. I didn't hear back. So I'm assuming that's the that it's not a big issue and that's the plan we'll move forward with. No news is good news. Right. Right. I think that's a good problem to have because we put it over and like Right. And and we had considered moving it to Thursday, but we don't want to ask our retirees to if they can leave at at noon time. Not we don't want
073to require them to come back. That wouldn't that wouldn't be a big thank you. You want to be here? Yes. Yes. Um so and then we did have our forum. So, I don't know, Emily, if you want to just talk a little bit our our public relations committee. Um, yes, I we had I think a successful community forum. We probably had I didn't actually count like 30 people. Yeah. Um, so that was a better turnout than our first one. Um, I I will say we tried to keep the presentation short. It was a little bit longer than I expected, but I was surprised at how much prompting the community needed to talk. Um, it there were a couple of awkward silences. I was very thankful for a couple of people who had a nice long
074list of questions and topics that they wanted to talk about because I wasn't prepared for that much quiet time. So in the future maybe we need to be prepared with prompts um if we have a quiet group like that because once we started talking I thought that then it it started going a lot better but very positive really I thought that you know even though obviously people have concerns about the budget they really came to the conversation with a positive attitude and it was very kind and civil and I think that we maybe are winning people over like one little conversation at a time. So, it was good. And we did do a survey and Sarah brought some cookies and yeah, there was uh a lot of involvement from from the board. So, really appreciate
075that. Thank you, Amy. Thank you for sending your surveys back. It was great to get the feedback. Um I was a little bit concerned that some of them no matter what we're doing for a presentation are just not receiving it as informative. Yeah. And not really exactly. Yeah. But I think you know Emily spot on like you know Facebook posts create reactions where conversations starts that that like one-on-one starts the conversation. That's where we have to have those in order to have people to understand we're going to we're never going to have 100% of people voting for our budget. But it's how do you have that perspective of yes you and I can disagree. I still know that you're probably at the end of the day going to vote no on the budget, but at
076least you're you're you're one step closer and I'm one step closer to you. So, yeah. And it's good to have those conversations to see what they want in the budget presentation. And then, uh May 20th, it's coming right up. Um, we have the cost share public hearing first at 5:30, which is uh a requirement within our organizational plan. Um, is that we needed to have uh a public hearing. So, it seemed to make sense that we would have that at the same time that we were having district budget meetings. So, will that will happen at 5:30. Um, Angela's going to do an introduction and then I'm going to talk some about the the process and the the referendum uh question and then uh be followed by the district budget meeting and we said at 6:15
077since in case the hearing goes over a little um Sarah and I will do a short introduction um and then Emily is going to share some of the things from the forum presentation and then Amy and Stacy will talk about the articles revenue and tax impact and then move through our articles. So, any questions about either of those? And a reminder that Go ahead, Jess. Just before we adjourn, can the public relations subcommittee, since we're on track and we're earlier than usual, stay after this meeting just for a roof meeting because we have one more community form we need to talk about. Okay. Um, anything else? Andrea, can I have a couple of minutes at the meeting? Yeah, you can. Um, and I guess it's whether I I guess maybe you need to think about
078whether you speak as a board member or you speak as a citizen. Um, and I guess I prefer to speak as a citizen I think is so I guess the only thing if you want to speak as a citizen just to get up to the mic like any citizen would. Okay. Yeah. All right. And you guys are okay with what I was going to say. You looked at it. Okay. You're speaking as a citizen. So at that point in time Yes. I still I still I don't want to hurt the board or Yeah. Right. Y and I you know that's that's any of us can get up and and speak as any other questions. One more question. Sorry. Um at the budget meeting on the 20th. So this year has been our year of outreach
079and more conversation and trying to connect. You just had that forum that I felt went well. Overall, the turnout good conversation last question. Is this year's budget meeting going to be any more conversational than it has been in years past or we're just going to quietly like none of us answer questions. You're going to answer like take all the questions. I just want to make sure we all know what to do. Very involved this year. I think part of that because we're we're unfortunate because Monday night is also all of our three subcommittees. So budget talks are on each one of those to make sure that you feel confident and comfortable being able to go in as to the structure of yes the questions come in they come through Mary Stacy and I and then
080also being able to say I think having a I think you put it great like at one point like we shouldn't be standing there by ourselves right like it should be feel as though that there's opportunity for for the whole board because it is really your budget and I think this is like your year right like you feel I feel like you really know the budget and you know the ins and outs to be able to add to the conversation. too. So, yes, I want you to feel as though you can answer questions yourself. Right. Any other questions or discussion? And then everyone should have gotten the uh superintendent evaluation uh survey. Um so that's going to be open until Friday. Um close it. Um so just to give you all the opportunity to give
081feed Amy feedback. Uh, according to policy CBI, we are a little bit behind on policy CBI. So, Mary and I spoke with Amy about maybe tweaking it a little bit. Um, so it looks like we're going to be uh summarizing everything in a letter. So, once I close that, I'll send the PDF version of the survey so everyone has a look at it. Amy, I mean, Barry, myself, and Emily will then draft the letter for Amy. That will be sent out to the board, and then we'll present that to Amy, have a conversation with her, and uh fall sign off on it, and it'll be added to her employee records. So, it'll give people spend more time fishing, right? Yeah. So, is that going to be an executive session on June 11th? I don't think
082we're going to have time on June 11th before that because of the period promotion and I'm sure some board members are going to be there. So, when will that happen? It'll probably happen August. Next year. Yeah, we talked about having it just sort of being like a a Yes. Mary Patrick and I talked about that at our agenda meeting of giving ourselves some grace and some just a bridge a bridge year into moving into the full policy starting in August. Yeah, next year is going to be the full full on policy. You all remember we uh voted that in I think it was January so we were already well if them all come back I'll bring the tow you bring the post I move we journ all right you've got a motion to adjourn do
083we have a second a second from India all those in favor we are journed thank you [Music]