3/10/25 School Board Meeting

001e e e stand and say the [Music] Pledge United States ofer the stands Nation indivisible andice all and our mission is creating a better future one student at a time and public comment no one has signed up for public comment is there anyone that didn't sign up that would like to have okay all right so we will start with our recognition and once again it's always nice to have lots of things to recognize our students for and is going to help me with that uh first we'd like to recognize the Optimus Club oratorical contest winners that was Jacob Richards Richards and uh Brady Ryerson are both um PCS students and they spoke on how optimism has guided me through trying times and our third place uh winner was Noah Skelton from uh Min school and

002we'd like to congratulate our class of 2025 valadi dict Toran Hunter gagon could you [Applause] [Music] stand congratulations H and our class of 2025 salutatorian Ian Yugi and we'd like to congratulate Sarah Robinson and Steve Holbrook they are minet for the minet school board election that will and they're term will begin on July 1st and this is music in our schools month so we want to thank our our music educators for the outstanding job that they do Max thank you um at the state champion Championship indoor track and field meet Alysa Mason a freshman got first place in shotput Brian Kelly a junior got sixth place in high jump C de a junior Ethan casting way a junior Ryan Kelly a junior Mason Dorth a junior and Mason Dorth got fifth place in the 4x2

003200 meter um Dylan Cobb got first in the Gs at the Western Main championships Class B skate Class B skate ski championships fifth in the Gs event and second place for the state in the Gs um cam Lau got fifth place in the 50 meter freestyle and 100 meter freestyle and second place relay Damon Martin and Nick J Mo um got on the WMC second Team all conference Lucas barell WMC all defensive team Charlotte Grenier and Phoebe parody WMC first place all conference I mean first team All Conference um at the 2025 special Olympic Winter Games Gabe tote th got two gold medals Hannah Mishu got one silver medal and a fourth place ribbon kobby in court B Court got one gold one silver medal Donovan peir got one silver medal one BR medal and

004Dalton Aon got two bronze medals the P the PS uh cheer team placed second at the WMC competition fourth place at the B South first place at the class B south regional competition and All Conference cheerleaders Gabby Lenahan and Megan Webster and our Tri toown Optimus student of the month was from prhs and that was Elise gagman our Visual Arts contest winners of first place with Addie Coen from a minet school second place to Hannah case at PCS and third place to Elizabeth Crump Crump from [Music] PCS so in our first presentation I'm gonna have Max do the introduction for that so for our first presentation we have Jason gar Jason has been a great addition to the speech and debate team this year he's a hardworking student and challenges himself which led him to

005having such a great year on speech and debate Not only was he the state championship in dramatic interpretation this year he's also a national qualifier so [Music] [Applause] Jason hello guys my name I'll be recing my piece that was titled sudden acceleration by the author John Tri warning this does involve very sensitive topic matter [Music] child December 14th 2024 HED man assassinates the CEO of United Health Care in America eventually he was caught andain but the question in my mind still lingered on why what would cause someone to even think of committing such a horrible act such as assassination in my peace by Don titled sudden acceleration we explore the story of a man telling a similar story to the eyes of a therapist in the office we may even come closer to answering the

006very question of why [Music] yes so I remember the day that my wife brought home the new car something cheaper would have done us just as well trust me but she had the money and she wanted to surprise me she's always been a very considerate and loving person you know a little boy was excited as well it smells so nice I guess to me new cars they smell like God's study always it was a pleasure to drive it handled beautifully and if I'm being honest there were no problems at all so imagine my surprise when on a bright spring sunny day such as this very one here I get in the car to go to the store because we needed flour so I get in the car I turn the car key it turns on

007right away and it starts right away and then suddenly like a creature from a nightmare launches forward into my child and it just pins him against that garage wall now as soon as I felt the car jump forward like it did I I jammed my foot on the brake but it was no use it just ignored me ignored me completely and as I screamed it kept ramming itself again again and again into my child who now remain pinned between me his father the car in the wall he later died in the hospital and I remember his face so innocent like he wanted to say something but I knew he couldn't daddy why would you do this to me you love to me why yeah oh so the police the police call an accident my wife

008couldn't let it rest there sued the car company and it was a trial I had to sit there telling my story again and again reliving it each goddamn time it was [Music] horrible but I don't know I guess we figured it was the right thing to do because I mean I'm being honest this could happen to anybody right anybody's husband wife sorry and in the course of all this we met hundreds of people all with the same upscale cars and the same thing that happened to us happened to them to one lady's car launched forward violently keep in mind foot was on The Brak the whole time went through two fences in a tool ship broke both her arms another man's car launched backward in Reverse finally we went through a neighbor's front window no

009[Music] injuries there were a series series of further tests and investigations but I had to sit there telling my story again again oh yeah the car company they hire a battalion of very famous and expensive lawyers to try and prove that they're not at fault here a commission was set up yes but by this time we had lost all of our money to litigation we lost our house our money our clothes child everything everything was gone because of them meanwhile the car company what do they do you ask let me tell you they whine and they D these commission members every day of the godamn week money changed hands backs were rubbed favors were done the big boys take care of each other I guess I'm not done no I am not the commission ultimately

010ruled that there was nothing wrong with the cars to begin with that tragic accidents like the one mind you that had caused the car I was driving at that time to Ram repeatedly into my God damn child simple Act of human error but I had mistaken the gas for the break it was my fault now car company declared blameless my wife she started drink every on TV the company they hired yet another battalion of famous actors in beautiful pretty spokes people that I had looked up to that I had admired to drive their cars and tell me how safe they were me how safe their damn cars were I watched the television I sat there while my wife's stop talking to me all [Music] together no longer you slept the same room [Music] anymore then

011then I figured out what I was going to do get in my car drive down to the corporate headquarters of the car company sit in my car and wait for that president to arrive he does he will when he does step on the gas P Ram this man into that wall again again till this man cut in when it's all over when it's all over and the police come and they ask what happened here sir I will simply go whoops so sorry officer oh I must have mistaken the gas pedal for the break again who knows the get their high paid engineers and their lawyers spoke be to put this four gentleman back together again it certainly is not intentional it was just another [Music] example sudden accelration [Music] [Applause] Jason do you mind if

012we ask you a few questions Max did a great job introducing you but maybe you could tell us a little bit about kind of what your your interest in public speaking and debating and then how you see that um in your future yes so I'm not gonna lie my first years of school greatest student one of [Music] mys join and ever since then it's been a of life for me since my dad it's been a deacon of life for me to be on stage speaking be sharing my story through a different person's eyes the way um I love being on stage I love I love speaking to an audience you know I've always LED politics I'm love just I love the idea of sharing stories in front of people and sharing ideas in of people

013and doing my own perspective of what I see Life as in my future IDE college for Administration um a safer route if you will for the theater um genre of jobs you know it's focus more on business and in that business you can they teach how to actually do public more and second College Go on stage on stage and actually share a story tell um in the future I hope gos through debate and through speech and through um can lead me down the path of um hope and courage to maybe you know come back here one day provide hope for the students who are you know not I guess recognized as well as they want to be or students who are graduating to college scared to come um I like you know sharing stories I

014love you know telling my stories I love sharing ideas I feel like do that as a society as a world thank you Jason you have great aspirations yeah I and I've never really been a part of anything like this but I feel like I'm looking at like a pre started and from a very persp because I I'm a and I'm like over here and I'm like what is this car thank you and Robinson um would you like to talk a little bit about your outof state travel request which is to attend the national speech and debate tournament in Chicago yes ASAS weekend [Music] so we want permission to go so that we can show there is y and this is like really the [Music] same um I think another [Music] greats them to see that

015kind of arure just and take them to Institute which is um so these are approximate costs of course the kids will do their [Music] and does anybody have any questions I would entertain a motion um to support that mov we approve the trip as requested by Robinson in her email to Eric Anderson second have a motion and second any other questions or comments I've see none all those in favor have a great time how are they going to what are they going to do to raise money oh what are they do money [Music] well when they decide what they're going to do let us know that oh yes well the other thing too is we very Che ons of people and his King Master gave us $500 so I last year truthfully I just that

016there's probably not a betters to do skills thank thank you for your ongoing dedication to this it's let me know because I'd like to make it help them yeah oh I'll take all the thank you I something sure um I'm a former debater and I can attest to what DRC just said about passing that on because that is the only reason I can stand up in front of a group of strangers in a room full of people and talk and you know with coherent thoughts and not just battle so yes thank you debate and I'm very happy to be and again Andrea thank you for all the support you've given them this [Music] year uh and our next presentation is rsu16 technology director Mark I [Music] oh you guys oh that I not my best

017so you guys have all been getting myly kind what's going on techology this is a good opport for me [Music] to the things I want to you guys that's loading is just some of the cyber security Brands we've gotten um try to keep the district safe most so we've got Cloud flare I've kind of preached and some about this all the emails that come in all the statistics that you guys see um and all the filtering that we're doing but we also got web filter as well as we recently got a School's library security BR um guys probably all got an email from me about um these are an alternative inste your phone you just plug brought them up something like this into your computer or one of these you can also tap on your

018phone and they just they go right to your computer and they do that extra step of security um but part of that we got no uh area one is what we used emailing all those reports you guys see um last 30 days we had 365,000 emails com in and 11,000 of them are actually atts so we are getting left and right just email as we were getting warmed up started I had fishing emails from Principal other people that were coming in that for some reason today they hit pretty hard um but we're able [Music] toing hey technology director send this email to reset your email password coming other address um that's 6em but a little bit of this big that we have talked a little bit it's hard to kind of betray what we're actually

019getting a newslet um it's a cyber security Grant of the state has worked with to provide this for for us it's providing those UNS that extra level of authentication and a training called no um no before is going to take that fishing training that you guys got from my pressor um it's GNA modernize it as much as cons subscrition service state provid so it's something that techology changes every it's going allow to do some things too but the UV Keys um are something that we just plug into our computer allow us to use multi appications they'll go to anybody uh any staff member or School Board member uh that has an account if you want them um we are going to push for wealthy of medication which is something that will hopefully get us discount

020on our Cy SEC insurance as well that's something that we for our security so a lot of our attacks that we've got sh in the district and they've gone from internal um user account attack to external attack and now the emails you see external person so an email came today from Mr of butail said external so [Music] they the tax are shifting and this is just to us another way secure but this is know something actually exced it's a whole training so it's for security training um I can send test fishing emails to staff students um get reports on that data um where do we need to Target the the training specifically we need to do like a little presentation to the students we need to do something more for administration that's just clicking on

021the emails the most um but also has these trains that can be enroll staff so it's giving us the option to not only identify a problem but do something about it um as well as password management tools and anything for the auditor for compliance management and then gear the staff uh there's been a little bit of a shift in the staff in the tech department personel wise but they are so Mr Haley Dave you guys may know the high school central office and Middle School uh and Miss vanesse has been here there everywhere she's running around like chicken without her head on um and what we've done is worked with her she's established office hours at schools essentially M has been a victim of all the snow uh for three Thursday in a row U

022but she made up last Last Friday but we have her at at the schools every pretty much every day um it gives her a home and it allows her to build of the relationship with the staff and stuff I'm hearing back from teacher somebody text and even what's going on school actually allowing us to spread our wngs a little bit intact something that we may not have had the full opportunity to do us um my last slide and then I'll be done and move on is one of the things I've been working real hard for is trying to create trans parency between not just Administration but staff as well um I feel like that's super important with st like trust if teex tell you to do something you're going to trust that's going to be

023the right thing to do like hey they always to my computer but I don't know if that's the actual fix and feel like building relationships and building these trusts with our staff telling them what's going on what we're doing why we're doing it uh has helped a little bit and we're sending those newsletters out not just the staff I started the kids too sure you guys I just tips just things and kind of be a um and I actually get some funny responses from the kid which is great um just about like web filters and what they're what they're doing um and then we''ve been some remote tools to help ruce to help fix things faster you guys have seen dig one report seenu we have these W like points but they're in every school

024testing websites testing things across the board just to make sure that we try to find the problem for kids and students kids and the teachers do um try to make sure we our on uh we replaced a firewall here you know that came up a while back we were having some issues with [Music] overloading reping the firewall round two [Music] we're doing em filtering part we're working with our Tech Partners Improvement techology [Music] theology more I know this kind of an opportunity sure this is if you guys have any questions for me um can you give us a best guess on when the UB Keys might be widely available hoping very soon before break um that's probably my best gu we're starting to roll out I had to train a one out I trained today

025so once we get our St my crew out um they're going to be able to enroll them and then we'll be able to uh just a quick question like what's your biggest worry about in the tech world right now in moving forward with how fast AI is moving technolog is moving and all that sort of stuff so the the AI crunch is kind of like had a weird Point uh where AI is still it's growing but there's like the big three uh chat GPT is one of them Google Gemini is another big and then there's all these other little ones kind of squished in and they're mainly with like ca cana's using a chat GPC back end they're all kind of using the the open AI platform it hasn't really been a problem here yet

026I know there are some expansions with it Matthew has done awesome job School actually on the AI implementation guide for the State uh just say that we put our AI training and thanks to her for that like she's awesome um she's the charge of that but it hasn't really hurt us yet um kids have not really creative with it but our fig thing is more like um kind of in the network as we have more devices um you may have noticed the guest network is actually secure um the passwords on all the boards uh the guest network with the password it helps kind of keep the outside out and it also helps keep our Network safe and allows us to expand we have some birders that are going into the middle school that we can

027actually attach the network now use it as it's stem project so that's going to allow us to connect those devices I guess that work but as we move we're adding more and more there's not any taken away everything that you have on you like your phone your watch airpods they're all connected to the network they all had a little bit just checking in it's still something thank you other questions for mark thank you it's a big job we appreciate it moving on to our consent agenda and within the consent agenda are the February meeting minutes there are some new hires Rob white uh Middle School softball coach Karen Knox Adult Ed literacy tutor including bilingual Learners there are no retirements um there are a couple resignations uh ala Harvey who is an ESS at Tech

0281 H Kaylee yon who is an ESS teacher grade six and that's effective at the end of the year uh subcommittee minutes for February personnel and finance and February uh uh educational policy do we have a motion to approve make a motion we accept second from Andrea are there any questions none all those in favor unanimous and our superintendent's reporting good evening everyone and happy spring ahead season is here remember being in the library and the Sun is usually like I don't know I feel like I was always sitting next to Emily and the sun was in our eyes when we were in the library but I'm happy for the additional sunlight uh so I've got some highlights as I my last board report I felt like I just jumped into all of the workings

029I just wanted to make sure that I that I am having fun and uh you know I was at the NHD the National History Day here at woodier and saw so many of you saw really great projects and the teachers putting forth such a tremendous effort uh really good training session and just interaction between community and students I was at the umf job fair today in Farmington meeting uh all of the student teachers and some of the second year and I think that was probably the best lift right there is uh I am a member of the umf advisor Council and been talking to them about how to Branch out student teachers into districts below Farmington and so was able to meet some second years and talk about our schools and to think about ways

030to get them to consider coming to rsu16 to do their student teaching I also had the opportunity to attend the sixth grade learning Expo and woo might it showed up I that parking lot was full and I think every student in there had multiple people uh looking at their learning from their mini NHD projects that prep them for NHD when they get here to some self- selected projects and those students who are ready to chat with you and share their learning as well as uh read the feedback you were able to give them so that was a fun time and I continue to go to a new superintendent school and this past month was two timely topics budget and um negotiations so uh I was I was reaffirming that the procedures and the processes and

031the system that I've put in place are are good and uh some minor tweaks potentially next year but it's always nice to have some time with uh seasoned superintendents and our attorneys just to to walk through those processes and then received some good news this week if you remember that you did support lrtc and the cost sharing for that um for our students we typically send around 69 students to lrtc and it is on two campuses it's at Lewiston and the newly open Auburn campus and we did set aside $34,000 for that because that would be worst case scenario because lrtc also receives the the state subsidy the 279 and so we had 34,000 in our budget and the costs above are only going to C well only going to cost but um it's going

032to cost rsu16 8,218 so I was able to have Stacy take $26,000 out of our proposed budget which was great and that uh Rob Callahan he's the director of lrtc just wanted me to pass along that that uh those those above and beyond costs are made up of three items it's the equipment and supplies for the new auto collision and composits program opening in the fall of 2025 uh as you can guess the increas is to Wood steel wire and pipe budgets to keep Pace with inflation and there's going to be a uh student service position on the Auburn campus now as well as that person will oversee because some of our students do go to Central Main Community College so really it's it's uh expanded out to three places so Leon Auburn and Central

033Main Community College and then just wanted just to have a brief conversation with you and with our our viewers at home about where we are with the federal um government and executive orders and you may have seen that I did send out uh an email to our staff when we returned just updating them of where we are I think for me part of mine is my my own self is not to underreact and not to overreact is what I tell myself and we just take it one step at a time but I will go through sort of the three executive orders and things that are on on on the plate right now um you do not that there's executive order 14151 and that's ending radical and wasteful government Dei programs and preferencing and that was

034coupled with a February 14th dear colleague letter from the US Department of education's office of civil rights and that emphasized that schools receiving federal funds which rsu16 does must see race based preferences in areas such as admissions hiring promotions scholarships and disciplinary actions and note in there rsu16 does not have any race based policies or preferences in those areas as you may have heard the Title Nine guidance has shifted on January 31st 2025 the US doe Department of Education announced that effective immediately Title 9 will be enforced under the provisions of 2020 Title 9 rules and that was issued during Trump's first Administration and with that Trump did a executive order that overrides Biden's executive order that included gender identity and sexual orientation in the definition of sex under Title Nine Title Nine still means

035you can't discriminate based upon sex I just want to make sure we're we're clear about that and the current executive order says that there are only two genders however the bowo 2020 Supreme Court Case established that you can't um discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity and that's a Supreme Court case and that decision established that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is sex discrimination so we've got some work to do with Supreme Court cases and as well as executive orders and what is Title Nine ruling and so part of that is going back to our you know our history classes as well as uh thinking uh doing our own research and an executive order can't can't overturn a law currently and so what does that mean for RSU 16 well uh

036all of our policies on Title 9 and discrimination is under letter A foundations and basic commitments and so you might be thinking you might be hearing other districts are reverting back to their their previous letter a title n policies in RSU 16 those those policies uh were were made set to be changed in August of 2024 in August of 2024 you had a new superintendent you were passing a budget and we prioritized really looking at the bullying uh block there so we didn't quite get to change our our previous Title Nine policies the ones that were that were under Trump's first Administration to what Biden's rules were in August so uh there's no need for us to revert to risten back to those because ours still now align with those Title Nine rules um another

037executive order um defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government has raised questions about implementation at the state level main schools including RSU 16 remain obligated under the main Human Rights Act which provid prohibits discrimination based upon protected classes including race sex sexual orientation which does include gender identity and expression disability and other categories at this time we're obligated to follow the main Human Rights Act that's main law and I do know that there's a bill being introduced to change the Human Rights Act but um at that point that needs to go through the process through our our our state of mime and I also know that there's the the legal questions about um in the questions and discussions about potential Federal funding implications of of have said that

038our federal funds will be withheld and that's really at a state level it's not at our district level I was able to meet with the commissioner of M Department of Education last week she called all of the superintendent and assistant superintendents to try to answer some questions and to give some feedback as to where her understanding and where where things are at the state level and uh we're budgeting like we are receiving our title funds for next year I learned from that meeting that uh our title funds and our our federal funds are are forward funded for 18 months so uh I know things can change fast at the federal government but at this current time 18 months puts us out till next June so that gives us potentially some breathing room maybe um to

039think about that we'll be be receiving those um title funds because we do receive title one two four and five funds and we do receive idea funds um I will say this is super uncomfortable limbo gray area right now but um like I said we're budgeting like we're receiving those title funds and when that changes we'll like try to live my don't underreact don't overreact we'll we'll uh cross that bridge when we get to it and you'll definitely hear about that and I'll bring you along as well with the a team and we'll figure it out as a state of Maine as to what we're doing because those are big amounts of money main receives $65 million in idea that's special education funding and 70 million in title funds so that would that's going to

040be a a state problem that we'll be working on um depending upon how things go so that's a a glance at as to what we're looking at sort of those three categories of of pieces um and and um I I just wanted to update you as to what's going on in my world and this the school funding side and sort of the the laws and the rules and the executive orders that we are obligated to follow so you any questions or comments for me thank you yeah and for old business um last time there was the wrong month on two of the uh policies that that we approved so those are just going to come around for our signatures they are now correct and under new business uh first we have a motion to approve

041the financials is reviewed by the personnel and finance committee at their February 24th meeting do we have a motion to approve move okay we have a motion from Sarah and a second for Mike any questions about those those who are with in our packet see none all those in favor Mike is that a vote in favor of yeah um and uh the superintendent is now going to do a presentation around budget and following that if there is anybody in the public that's here that would like to make comment we would certainly welcome that Mark yeah you're G to pull that over so we get the full full effect [Music] um in front of you you do have the slides and just as Mark is looking to fix that uh anyone who's watching at home if

042you are looking for the slide presentation you can go on to our our website rs. org and click on the budget and you can find the materials packet there uh to be able to follow along um tonight and uh there's a couple of packets on the table where Lisa is sitting so I know we have got some people in the audience in case they wanted to have those here we go thanks Mark so first up is if you pull out your packet I do think it's important to start backwards for a moment and at the front at the front of your packet is a look back at fiscal year 25 and the three budgets that we went to before our third budget passed and I do think it's important for you to remember the things

043that we have lost in that budget cycle and how we've adjusted we're still feeling the impacts of that on on staff and students um but we've managed managed to get through March and we're we're doing okay and and we will be thinking about Cuts coming to our budget and I'll take you through that but I do just want to make sure that you go through there on our first budget uh we were looking at 380,000 to even get to budget one and then we cut 551 in budget number two and then there was 388 reduced in budget number three which passed um and that was a total budget of 28 um 28.4 million so now I'll get into where we are today and this is this is just to bring you along the process we've

044got a team working we have the budget committee working and uh we also have finance committee at the end of the month which I hopefully have a more uh a more firm budget to be able to present and we're definitely working through it up here is I never miss an opportunity to say thank you to our staff and our community and our families and just the supportive School climates uh for our students and our staff to show up every day we are doing amazing things as we saw by Jason and DRC taking our students to out of state trips um and all of the lists that Max read and we're doing it on a fiscally responsible budget but let's pop into uh the full presentation just a reminder you do have a new strategic plan

045that has helped guiding the road map to our future our future hopes and our future goals uh we've got our mission statement and our four Focus areas at the beginning of the Season we um set our budget priorities so it's important to always set those so when we come back to the hard times we can say okay does this fall in one of these categories and really highlighting the Staffing and support as one of those categories and really focusing on retaining and growing our employees and making sure they have the the professional training that they have to do their jobs with confidence we also have our space facilities and Equipment making sure that it meets our current needs and that we're also Forward Thinking so that the people that sit in the seats after us

046um uh can can take it from there and make even the the facilities even better and then we also know that students are are growing adapting and changing and we are needing multiple Pathways uh it was interesting I was I was doing a little reading this weekend and uh one thing that really stuck with me that I'm still sort of mulling over in the back of my head I think I need a good run to think about it is uh the fact that when like we went to school is really like a factory like you all sat in your desk you all did the same paper you did the same 50 math problems you turned it in and you went on to your next piece and really how school is adapted to be customized per

047per kid and and so that's really been thinking about me parents really want their experience customized per student and um how our structures allow that and how our structure structures really limit that so that's something in my mind um back to our budget development presentation we are here at our uh getting into the nitty-gritty and so really showing our our overall budget in RSU 16 and Through the Years you can see that it does start off in 2008 2009 and that's when we were Union 29 and then we Consolidated with the law and 2010 was when uh that first year was of RSU 16 and then you can see the budget Through The Years uh with our budget in 2025 as I previously said around $28.4 million quickly that what you just talked about this

048transition from9 RC is that why there's no bar for 2011 well 2011 is Stacy and I couldn't find that exact number and if I can't find it and we don't have Stacy's number then I I need to still find that one so so here's where things get tough right so this is school funding and school funding funding is probably one of the hardest things to understand because there's multiple buckets right like if you go back to our Masterpiece of that pie graph we had the pink we had the green and we had the blue so it's super complicated and I know you have lots of questions and our public watching tonight has lots of questions um it is hard if you're not in it every single day so every March we get excited because our

049279s come out our 279s are running through the EPF which is the essential programming and servicing State funding formula the state does that that's why Stacy and I said there like when when are they going to be um published because it tells you what you're going to receive for State subsidy so now this is where things get hard because the EPF says this is how much it should cost to give your students in your District an adequate and fair chance to receive education to meet those common core or those Core Curriculum the main learning results and they say that we're going to share the percentage of that and I think we all know that right you've heard before that the state has committed to 55% education and they have they actually fund 58% in rsu16

050but they go hand inand the state says Hey in RSU 16 for this fiscal year coming up our share is is the 13 million which is fantastic news for us last year we were behind by $750,000 that's last year if you remember that they reduced our our state share so we actually received $300,000 more this year that's really great news for me for you um and that's part of the the economically disadvantaged our free and reduced numbers going up through that meal application and our prek numbers rebounding so with that there's a required local so again the state shares and their funding for uh every District so they say that we'll give you the the 13 million but you as a district have to raise the $9.5 million and that's 41% just under 42% and

051you can see on there you can see through the years of what those those amounts have been the state contribution for mechanic fall minet Poland and the total again EPS tells us the state will contribute the 13.2 million but the local has to raise [Music] 9.5 so then we go digging into the EPS to find out what that means for each one of our towns in RSU 16 again this is the state funding formula this is not the cost sharing formula that's being worked on right now this is that P pink portion of that graph that was still in the EPS from the state telling us so on this one this is our required local and it's done and I have a graph there by town so you can see what that has looked like

052from 2021 through present and you know by now our required local is $9.5 million or just under 42% and that's the amount each Town must raise according to EPS in order for us to receive that corresponding State subsidy of $13.2 million so if you look at that bottom part of the chart the 2025 you can see that our required local is up $638,000 so the state has determined that there is an ability to pay the state has determined not Amy Heder not the school board not the budget committee the state has determined that the ability to pay is is higher in our towns and actually all three of our towns because if you look at each Town it has gone up you've got Mechanic Falls by 50,000 or 51,000 you've got minet at around 880,000

053and you have Poland at half a million dollars between from last year to this year so again we have to raise that 9.5 to get that 13.2 for a total of 22 .8 million for our education in rsu16 so you might be saying well where is the state get these numbers like where is the state saying that we have this ability to pay well you can probably finish my sentence because we've talked about this multiple times but it's always good to repeat with everyone especially if we' got new Learners out there is it relies heavily on valuation so if you look at the slide up there you might be going Amy did you use the wrong bar graph like did you just copy the bar graph from the required local over to the valuation and

054the answer is no um that's how heavily the EPS the state relies on valuation and so valuation has gone up in all three of our towns and on the bottom chart here you can see that um and this is based upon um main State Revenue Service again it's not me it's not you it's mainstate Revenue Services where the the state gets the valuation so Mechanic Falls is valued at $238 million minet is valued at 291 almost $292 million and Poland just crossed over the 1 billion Mark so that's why you can look at those bars and see that discrepancy now I'm not saying I agree with the the with the EPS funding formula about ability to pay because we all know uh that valuations and all of our homes have gone up but incomes have

055not gone up so there is ability to pay coupled with uh willingness to pay and and so I think that's an important part to know that this is all through the EPS funding formula and that's what the state has told us also you might be going well wait a minute doesn't enrollment be part of that I always hear Stacy say enrollment is part of that EPS funding formula as well as as as that additional local and the answer to that is yes and so I I I put this in here for you because I know you're going to start having conversations out there and maybe you throw this in your wallet or you throw some other things so you can pull this out at polling Provisions when you're having a conversation with somebody say like

056hey this is how our our student population has been for the past five years uh it's remained fairly steady uh and that's the makeup at of each one of our buildings the the graph on the bar graph on the right I put there because that is one that the cost sharing formula team is review team is using so they're looking at uh enrollment over time so you can see that there's different there's some older 2016 and 2010 on that just for some historical comparisons next up is our per pupil funding so there's also that part of like you are spending we are spending a lot of money we are but that's the cost to educate students and so part of this is what is the per people spending per district and this is an important

057one too it's be able to say okay you can pull this one out of your wallet and say well like let's look at at some districts that are around us and so you've got rsu16 there and the First Column the first and it goes back four years and right next to us is the state and then you've got Auburn RSU 17 which is Oxford Hills 52 which is Turner or levit 73 which is Spruce or Jay lore Falls and limore and then rsu5 which is gray rsu4 sabatus litfield and Wales RSU 10 Rumford and RSU 51 I just put in there for additional comparison that's Cumberland or gy high school so you can see uh RSU 16s per pupil cost against the state and against other surrounding districts and this one received some some positive

058feedback at the budget committee and they're like really need to talk about this one so uh on the next slide I took rsu16 and the Statewide um the feedback of you can see it better when it's the bars are are horizontal versus vertical and did put in there the the per pupil expenditure by district and this is an important one too because uh this is for fiscal year 24 and in rsu16 the per people cost was 1,62 and the state was $2,139 so in fiscal year 24 which was last year that's a difference of of $2,500 per pupil we would have had to add $4.3 million to our fiscal year 24 budget to get at the state average so again to Circle back around our staff are doing an amazing job uh with a per

059pupil expenditure that we do have and I'm actually GNA bring this point into another another piece here as we go into something else we also hear about um and another one to throw into your wallet to be able to talk about is our our schools and the state of our schools and the perspectives and opinions of of some of our community members so when Jill was here in December she did talk about our assessment scores and and shared those with you and this up here allows you to look at our scores over time from 22 23 and 24 and it also allows you to then if you kind of go diagonally stepping down you can see cohorts of students so there's like this like excites me right like I can look at this stuff all

060day and talk about it all day but if we just take the grade five students in Spring of 22 you can be like oh we were at 1493 and the state average was 1500 I know that those those those teachers in schools were probably working on math especially at the elementary level at grade five to really think about how do we come out of covid at that point in time provide interventions and get our kids to where they need to be and then you can look at that same green box or if you drop down to they were sixth graders and and 23 you be like oh okay well they they bumped up and the state bumped down at 1495 and the state was 1496 okay so some of that teacher work is working and

061then you start to look at Spring of 24 when they're in seventh grade and they're at 1496 where the state was at 1493 so we've gone ahead right of the state but then you're probably like oh why is the State bumping down like because if you look across seventh grade in the state you can be like oh one year was 1497 the next year was 1496 and then it's 1493 the state the state has uh want may want to look at seventh grade math scores but for me if I look at that then our 1496 in the spring of 2024 for our seventh grade students really aligns with how kids did the previous two years so our kids even though they were behind in in grade five really made some good gains over the years

062to be where they need to be and so it's always important to look at the I know we want to fix things and have things uh right on right right away but uh it does take time and effort and a lot of work and a lot of lifting in order to get our kids to where they need to be and then the next one is reading and you can do the same sort of thing of looking at our reading scores and comparing them to the state standard we take that grade five again they were at 1510 as graders you know one point above the state average they dipped down uh in grade six but to 1507 but so didn't the state and then they maintained their 1507 as seventh graders on seventh grade material mind

063you and the state at that point time dip down to 1504 then if I look back seventh grade our seventh graders scored what they scored in 23 and and 22 so we're doing okay so those are some of the the things that we look at in District in in our buildings uh and Jill looks at and I look at as how are the cohorts of students doing over time but I wanted you to have that just in case you need to to talk about that with stakeholders the other thing too that we hear um is that these school rankings that are out there that we're a C+ District or we're so low on the US rankings of of high schools why is that our schools are failing and so tying all of this together is

064I pulled up two when we looked at two niche.com and US News rankings because those were referenced at our last District budget meeting and and the breadcrumbs are here if if you want to raise us on raise our rankings on niche.com from a C+ above or USA ranking from where we are above then there's some Key Parts in here but listen to what they're how how they score they rank it's based upon test scores you know we're doing okay there we're doing State average graduation rates we're doing good there college readiness I'd have to dig in more to that advanced coursework availability is one of those so in a time where we're thinking about pulling back the budget if we pull back Advanced coursework availability then that automatically drops it starts to drop us on

065these rankings you look at the next one of how we're ranked it's through teacher salaries will you know that we've always been average or slightly below average when it comes to teacher salaries uh you look at the schools that are highly ranked they're you can probably guess what what one of the biggest factors is is teacher salaries is is much higher than what we have in RSU 16 student teacher ratios we got pretty good ratios here uh teacher tenure uh our our teachers are an average uh experience is 14 to 16 years Steve excuse me did you say the scores are higher when the salaries are higher there is there is a correlation there not all of it because you got to look at that um in other words our teachers ain't doing a good

066job ain't getting paid enough well teacher salaries is one of those their teacher I would say our teachers are doing very well on the salaries that they are making but if you compare us with the schools that are high on that list they make more than our teachers do to their best no I'm not saying that at all because of money I'm not saying that at all I'm saying these are rankings no our teachers are not are not slacking off our teachers are putting forth a tremendous effort every day and then just so I can make sure you understand what you're saying here yeah is it that the assessment when they're looking at it they're looking at what teachers are earning it's not necessarily there's not necessarily a correlation there is that does that make

067sense what you're what I'm there is I mean if you start to look at some of those US News rankings of the schools that are that are higher on the list they do have more AP courses they have higher teacher salaries so there is that some of that correlation there thanks I haven't dug in completely but there's other there's the different percentages there um there's the racial and economic diversity um there's the reviews and ratings from students and families that uh that I'm not sure how they're getting that those ratings and reviews and then one of the other parts is the availability of Sports and student engagement another really important reason that we have not traveled down and we've talked about it in personnel and finance about the pay to play because again those rankings

068are based upon availability of club sports and student engagement so and then if you continue on down there funding per student just showed you that we are well below State average when it comes to funding per student another one of those correlations where you go back to looking at teacher salaries plus per pupil cost access tech technology and facility quality and then discipline chronic absenteeism and parent student feedback and that's for both of those rankings so you know there is some pieces in here of we're going to do the best we can with a budget to bring forward one that is fiscally responsible and I'm going to take you through what that looks like now but I want to have this because this is gonna this is going to come up if it hasn't already

069come up that our schools are failing or our schools are behind or the way down on the list well here's an insight into why they're down on their list so our our current budget I don't have a percentage right now for you because there's still quite a bit of work to do on that uh our at meets tomorrow to make some reductions uh we're also have uh three more budget committee meetings so like I said at the end of the month for finance committee I'll have hopefully a firmer budget to bring forward to them to get some feedback before it comes back to you in the April board meeting but right now what we're working with is we have our known contractual salaries and benefits and that's at $1.2 million over last year in contingency

070right now we are um negotiating the support staff contract and then support staff will also be starting to pay into Paid Family Medical Leave which we are exploring a private option which could potentially lower that 1% and our Anthem rate we budgeted 10% and we got worst case scenario last week and that is uh just at right below 18% so that was an additional $39,000 uh Stacy and I had to add to the budget for a worst case scenario from Anthem so if you're doing your math uh you don't have to I did it for you on the side right then and there with those those two pieces that's $1.8 million over last year's budget we have our priorities that are coming up next and um so with with um our that we already have

071in our budget that we've committed to lrtc is one of those gave you the good news that that's $821 uh our financial software has also been a reduction so if you're an eagle-eyed viewer you'll be like I saw a different number at budget committee you are right uh we've got a a a a better number um because we're only be starting to use that software U beginning January 1 so they're able to PR rate that to a lower rate um Mark will talk about the network upgrades at the budget meeting on Wednesday we do have our Capital Improvement plan our CIP and uh two of those three things you've committed to and that's the m at boiler stabilization at 43,000 and the PRS wer roof at about 300,000 and part of that is because you

072uh approved that uh a few months ago in order for John to be able to set that work up so that way we have the materials and the people to be able to do that and the final project right now in our CIP is the heating controls at PCS the CIP and all of John's lines will be at Wednesday at our budget meeting we also have in there a halftime administrative assistant to the superintendent and our k6 math program uh you've known for that for past few years even when I was serving as assistant superintendent that we were looking at uh it's time to upgrade our math program uh our math program is 22 years old and it is time to uh put forward a a program that meets the needs of our Lear earners

073so if you look at that that's about $390,000 um which brings our our budget right now to 2.2 and Amy I I would like to say for anybody at home that that as a board we are really committed to the the0 five administrative assistant to the superintendent that that's a position that has been vacant for a year and uh Amy has picked up a lot of that um more probably than we would like to see her spending her time on so as as a board we really are committed to putting that back at at just a a halftime but it's uh essential that that position be in our budget I think that [Music] was it was full time in the past and in conversations with Amy she's felt that a half timee well we'll meet

074we'll meet the need so I'm I'm ass seeing that this last page didn't get copied so another reason why I need a halftime to assistant um is just some of our our what we're working through now is with a new math program that does come training so there there is definitely use of our Wednesday time but that initial onboarding of Staff uh at $155,000 is our predicted amount right now uh we do have uh some commitment to Nia ask um Eric has talked about that at the budget committee meeting about really fulfilling that and seeing that process through and that guiding through uh the visioning work at at at PRS for the next 10 years and then we also have you've you've heard the pain points as well as the conversations about our multilingual students

075and needing a a multilingual teacher and that's a0 five and then a literacy leadership team at $88,000 for stiens for outside of work and part of that is we start thinking about positions and uh one of those is these will be have an offset in our budget these are not new costs that's why there's no number in the bottom right hand corner uh our literacy coach uh in discussions with her is is moving back to a classroom position at the elementary level so instead of instead of advertising and filling for that position we'll be able to reallocate those funds to multi-lingual literacy leadership team in the math program training Joe you just I'm clear multilingual teacher is for students that speak multiple languages not a World Language teacher correct yes yeah um and so right

076now then that's that's that's the end uh for right now my my next steps is we are we are going through to make some reductions you know there was a point of showing you the taking a look back we've trimmed cut and sliced and we'll continue to do that based upon really getting things down to what the actuals were spent last year um but at this point in time it's you know reducing Lines by 10% which is a couple hundred dollars and that's not going to get us to a budget that I feel as though I can bring before the finance committee before the board and before our taxpayers so really that comes down to um looking at how do we reduce our Workforce and so you may have noticed that we have not advertised

077for any of our retirements or resignations I have put a hold on all of those advertisements until we can figure out how many positions are we going to not fill and through attrition we will no longer have those in our budget and what that looks like and what the student impact is because we're we're teetering on that that that edge there of of you know we we need to make sure our schools can run and they can run safely and so we are we are working through that process of looking at reducing each one of our budgets and so need some more time with a team as well as our other directors and and we'll continue to work on making those reductions to bring forward a budget that uh we can we can all defend

078so that's a a lot of work and I will say that Stacy is is awesome and amazing I don't need to say that to you but I I need to say that to out loud of my out loud voice as well as our administrative team has really worked hard with the realities of of a of really keeping our staff like going back to those those priorities of our staff of of their salary increases we can get excited about that and excited about the staff we have uh we can get excited about making sure minet has Heat and that their boiler is working we can get excited about having Financial software so that way we don't have any issues with being able to pay our people uh and it's a safe system so there's a lot

079of of things that you know we there's there's definitely things that did not make the list you've heard the pain points but we're excited to bring forward a budget for fiscal year um 2026 okay questions and comments Joe so I'm going to say something that feels abundantly obvious and yet I'm just going to put it out there and I know that it's crazy and there has to be somebody that's watching this wondering why didn't we just do this because I'm looking at this large yellow highlighted rectangle it talks it's EPS right so it says the total between local share and state share what the state says we they'll pay they'll give us what we should be able to pay total is $22.8 million that's about roughly 5.6 million under what you're kind of flagging for

080the 26 budget so I guess that builds up to the actual question which is if we were to cut our budget proposal for 2026 by $5.6 million what kind of pain would that cost to this district and the students I I can't imagine to cut to I I'm looking to cut a m almost a million dollars right now to bring forward a budget to to you folks um and that is that is painstaking because that's just yeah you're going to start to look at class sizes being um you'd have to start looking at minet and in Elm Street as class sizes only having one teacher per grade level so that's the 28 36 students per per per class and you're not going to want you're not going to attract people to our district um you're

081going to end up losing a lot of those uh smaller class sizes it could be potential those AP courses and those specialized courses that really make um the multiple Pathways at the high school something that students look forward to it would be a reduction of of all Athletics uh all co-curriculars and and in order for us to really think about getting that to be real life I mean when you think about a teacher's salary when you think about salaries and benefits we we typically budget around like $88,000 so now if you start dividing that out by 5.6 million um I think in order to get to 5.6 it would take some alternative thinking like what else are we willing to explore or have we explored and bring that back to the table as a way

082to say is this are we getting to that point because um you know the valuation just keeps increasing there hopefully will be a time where that sort of levels out but I don't know I think I would uh I don't know what if that would look like Caitlyn at at 18 meeting to find 5.6 it would be 63.6 positions [Music] to be clear I mean yeah I mean that has been the goal is to really maximize that pink part of that pie chart is like how do we get closer to that being our total budget but um having the the three elementary schools and then the middle school high school having running separately in different Bell schedules as as its own Independent Schools I think would really limit us from being able to get to

083that point I mean that is interesting because that is a budget strategy to start the budget out at zero at some point they do recommend that I learned that at new superintendent school of every few every 10 10 years or so you should just start at a zero budget and build up from there which is a floating again in the back of my mind as a potential for a future but um but I can assure you that we have gone line by line and we have gone line by line again with each administrator looking for reduction and then we're going line by line again um tomorrow to to reduce that good job and I guess I would add to sort of that discussion is when I was um principal when we made the transition to

084from Union 29 to our isue 16 and you could see that that serious dip in uh spending that that Amy showed I lived those years those were the kind of pain that Amy is talking about if we make the kind of cuts that would get us there and those were years where we lost Specialists we lost programs our class sizes increased and and you can see we went up from there as we should have gone up um those were were rough years and um that's I think what we be looking at if we considered those kinds of cuts yeah at that point I think we have to also cons reconsider buildings and where we house students and that's part of what was happening in that transition also Christina had a question it's not really a

085question it's just a statement I think one of our biggest problems for the budget is going to be that Poland is paying the majority for all of this so if it was more even across the board it would be a lot easier but I think that when the poll and voters come out to vote that that's going to be a problem because there is a significant difference and we really don't make more money in Poland then M it does and I want you to know that I hear that um but but the state like they they've done their their their study on the EPS funding formula and there'll be no changes for this fiscal year um they're looking at potentially for bcal year 27 to make some changes to their EPS funding formula um and

086their their report echoed the same things of like you know ability to pay doesn't transfer to willingness to pay or you know and it doesn't take into consideration income levels but it's with with a formula that relies so heavily on valuation I me you look at the valuation up there of the three towns and and and that is in the state's eyes again not my eyes not your eyes it's the state's eyes the state is saying that there is the ability to pay in Poland more and that's why you can see even it's always been that that case through the years of as Poland has paid more because of the property values questions and comments go ahead [Music] our [Music] howal it is to students sta our to not support ouro I so prior to

087scho systemc [Music] we have to at some point put our children [Music] so I just hope that there's some way that we can come together you [Music] thank you Steve all the numbers up here that 222 million but that's not we request an ini this year budget is it request 28 million 845,000 in this year's budget yes uh our budget last year was 28 million and right now it does stand right below 30 million so I'm making reductions right now why using that number because that's our state subsidy that's what we received from the state we receed we have to raise the H of $6 million through the additional local that that yeah this year was $4 million so yes Christina so I to answer her um so I think that it's the problem isn't

088educating people we all understand what the issue is and we I don't think anybody wants to make the cuts it's going to be a thing about people not being able to afford it and we already had that last time with the budget this time it's going to be even worse and that's listen when I can't pay my mortgage I can't explain away why I can't pay my mortgage they're still going to do what they're going to do if I don't pay it doesn't matter if they understand and I don't think anybody in Poland wants to say oh we don't want the kids to have this I think it's just going to be become unaffordable because unfortunately what they're saying that we can pay does not reflect what people make and that's why I did not

089present a full amount to you tonight a full Financial that we usually do because at this point in time that maintenance of effort budget of just to maintain what we have is is I I I know that's not going to pass our voters and so we need to do some work on that Steve so we going to raise another 8 million above that 22 million so we got 9,000 required local so we got add that other 8 million on that so local is going ra $17 million yes if you look at the if you look at the math yes our required local is 9.5 and then if we have any additional local this past year was 4 million goes back to that that cost sharing formula that we have which is 90% valuation 10% why

090are we why are we present the budget with then numbers way on the left instead of putting what really going raise local because I need time to do that I need you to understand where we are right now I really need our community to be updated I need our our board to be updated that this is a really hard budget season I mean them them numers are so miss leading it's not oh that's why it's not a full budget I'm not saying this is the budget right now I'm saying this is where we are in the budget stage in April you'll have a full budget with full numbers com the real numbers will come out yes yes I need time but I also need you to understand this has get busy uh Stacy's been very

091busy am's been very busy the principles have been very busy um but I I I need you to walk with me through this because I can't walk alone I can't I can't I can't tell the story of of this and how hard it is without the 15 of you and then all of our a team because this this this requires one-on-one conversations this requires us to be able to respond in ways that people understand the different buckets of money because it it is it is hard work because to go back to what you said Joe understand it's our kids like I have tried to protect the core which is the kids they won't be more than that 13 266 and I hope that's what it is because we're still in the works of passing the

092supplemental budget at the state of Maine so uh that's what I My Hope and I just what wakes me up in morning they don't tally up yes Patrick uh can I help you Steve a little bit so those are real numbers those numbers there are we have to raise $9.5 million to receive the state's funding of $13 million so yeah but we still going to raise 7 that's additional that's additional local yes that's not new that's not new no it's not no I you seem surprised by this but this is how we've done a budget for [Music] years I'm just a dumb F no you're not you're more than that no no you sell yourself far short well I think we've just cracked it open like we we really have talked about this and we

093had had went through three budgets last time um before we've had you know better news where it was we were adding positions right like there was years there where we were adding to the budget and that was great and and we're no longer there Steve that's why as a citizen voter and taxpayer and a school board member uh it is my duty to make sure our Representatives clearly understand and that the governor's uh Commission on funding uh School renovation and construction clearly understands that their um formula for estimating an ability of the community's ability to pay must no longer uh emphasize so much uh property valuations and therefore property taxes because that was a rough but uh approximate indicator at one time but it no longer is as we said to each other over and

094over now uh property valuations and therefore property taxes have ballooned people's ability to pay has not risen in step and our Representatives need to clearly understand that and do their job up in Augusta to find a new way to estimate our ability to pay to Pony up our share of the of how much it cost to run the schools Joe go ahead so I to this if you could just identify yourself and I am new to the meetings here um but after the last budget cycle I promised myself that I would be more uh I have two kids at PCS they're amazing uh and I'm approaching this from Super Common Sense taxpayer thought process I looked at the proposed bu budget it seems like there's approximately 35% 36% that is proposed for PCs 31 32

095for the other two elementary schools however it looks like enrollment is about 50% at PCS compared to the enrollment at the other schools so my first initial thought is what is going on at these other schools that's costing us a lot of money that is creating what seems to beate because I voted to support the budget um I want to support my kids I want to support all the elementary schools but it's very difficult as a taxpayer to look at those numbers and be willing to go forward and say yes I support this budget when there seems to be on the basic face value some type of disparity so then I look at okay buildings right go back to the future's tax task force and I know that this is controversial and I was new

096to this process and was like no I would never want my kids separated I have one in prek and I have one in third grade I would be a family that could potentially be impacted by that however I am now a family who's impacted by potentially losing teachers by not having Ed Tex in classrooms who my kids may not have the same services that other kids had before them and so if I have to choose between a building or services that my child can get that will put them ahead as they move forward in life then I like the people I like knowing that my kid is in a classroom with small ratios that they're able to do the extracurriculars and they're getting education so just as somebody who is listening to this and I've

097been observing for a long time that's kind of my face value take and I just wanted to kind of share with thank you and I would just uh like to say that I appreciate that Amy is having these discussions early in our process because one of the things that we have said as a board that it's important for us to be transparent That We Gather the feedback from our community that we know what their questions are and what their concerns are and there have been times when the first time that this board is having an in-depth look at a budget is about the time we have to vote on it and you know I appreciate that that Amy's digging into this earlier and it's bringing up some difficult some hard discussion but in the end

098um I think it will be uh a budget that as a board we solidly understand and that hopefully our our community has a deeper understanding of because what Amy's bringing us through is a process and part of that process is sort of the the narrowing and the prioritizing and that's the hard work that she has and the administrative team have ahead of them um so I appreciate that she's bringing us into that conversation Beyond just the budget committee um early on so that we can all have our impact input and she can see where what are those questions some that have come up tonight that that we need to think about how do we explain those things to our our community so they have a deeper understanding so like to say thank you welcome are

099there any other questions or or comments all right let's um move on to we have two policies to discuss um I don't know Emily if you want to do that or um I think the first one with JRA might be able to better clarify there were some changes you can see them if you open the policy up there's actually quite a bit that we had to add in to bring our policy in line with msn's policy sure so JRA is your student records um and who has access to those Student Records so really this is protecting student confidentiality and family confidentiality so I'll just use an example of like Emily can't come into the building and say hey Principal Brown I want to see uh Mike Downing Student Records right so that's just that's he

100doesn't need to know about Emily doesn't need to know about Mike's students uh and shouldn't really be looking at those records it also establishes like how do we talk about kids and where do we talk about them it's always about like who needs to know this information about how they're performing in class um and also just takes us through some of the pieces of like uh what is information that we can publish and so you'll see like sometimes when you come to like the basketball games you'll see like student name and their height and their position and their year so it's it's clarifying those pieces that are written um that we we can disclose as well as the um we can disclose information to military recruiters and like what is on the internet what's not

101on the internet how do we transfer records so when a student moves schools we make we wait until that transfer has happened and we get a request from the schools we don't just hand them over to a parent or a friend of a parent we follow a process for all of those so it's really to keep all of those educational records um um that you would see in their in in their file their file um um safe and confidential and I think in in addition it also um there's a tighter alignment between this policy and our student resource policy um student resource officer policy so that it's consistent and aligned so a couple of those on on the end you'll see the the references um both to law and to other policies have been updated

102I move to approve policy J as recommended by the educational policy committee for this first and final reading second second from Andrea so we got a motion a second any questions or comments all those in favor that's unanimous and our second policy is one that we have talked about um a couple of times and the at our last meeting the only um question that came up was around whether the uh personnel and finance uh chair would have uh the responsibility to carry out this the superintendent evaluation process with the board chair and the vice chair or whether that should be the Ed policy committee and the recommendation in this is for the Ed policy committee to chair to do that were there any other additions Emily I think those really than than what we discussed

103before move to approv policy CBI as recommended by the educational policy committee as this is our first final reading a second from Andrea any questions or comments I have a question clarification on something um I'm looking at under the couple different ones starting under February where it says superintendent Smits a written self assessment to the board but then back down in mid ail excuse me it says the superintendent may send out to others not listed above uh if applicable for self-reflection and assessment is that tied to the self assessment that would be happening in February basically I'm wondering if you know the superintendent decided to send out additional surveys to whoever what is happening with those I guess is that part of your self assessment that we would see or is that because if that

104were the case it seems like it's happening too late yeah if you look at the prior to the board meeting in May the superintendent Updates this self assessment as necessary so that would be part of that reflection process through March so I see so it would be potentially an addition to and then my other question would be um if you were to collect information in that scenario is that end up in the final assessment that the board is looking at or is that really just your own personal thing I guess my concern is that if you chose if the superintendent chose to include you know things Beyond us the a team and the uh ad office is what gets collected then also part of the assessment or is that really just really for the superintendent's

105personal use B basically that it's just for the superintendent use because you have your own survey that you send out to those groups well it would what what I'm looking at is potentially in we're talking about other groups outside of that basically is I guess my concern is that are we going to end up including groups or people that the board doesn't necessarily I don't know I'm not really saying this right but yeah I I don't think that it gets shared with the the board it just gets shared with myself and then I'm able to reflect upon that and and make my next steps okay there any other questions or comments [Music] we did talk about that actually one thing that we that came up in that meeting was that negotiations well that Personnel does

106not directly report to the school board Schoolboard members do have to take part in negotiations which does reflect Personnel so we thought maybe that would be a task that we could ask the personnel and finance committe to head up are there any other questions or comments seeing none we have a motion and a second all those in favor anyone opposed one opposed uh so that motion carries uh our administrative team reports are next and send those around the papers for policy um any comments or questions about the administrative team reports a couple of of things that that I noticed particularly in um the Ed Adult Ed one and sort of related to some of the updates that that Amy gave us is in terms of um the kind of programming that we are providing for

107students and she highlighted that they were recipient of a national Grant to build an entry-level construction program and that this is part of their Workforce programmingsoftware programs also I I know that they were looking for people to uh score on May 1st and 2nd for the celebration of learning days and the training for that is coming up fairly soon at the beginning of April so if that's anything that anybody is interested in um I know that uh they would welcome you and also they highlighted that um May 30th at six o'clock is graduation for prhs and that June 6th is the gradu ation for an adult dead and both of those are things I try not to miss what was the date it was the 30th uh May 30th 6 o'clock for prhs and then

108June 6 was adulted any comments others Patrick uh I just looked through uh John holl's operations report and something that jumped out the page to me was that uh just a reminder that they the two new buses uh were delivered over February vacation and uh John kind of highlighted that one was the replacement for from the insurance from the bus accident um then the other one was uh that Pusher bus um that we got with the the emergency uh the state emergency funds um and so after the installation of radios and camera systems on the bus a total uh local funds that went to this project uh $6,795 um if we were to buy these buses with just local funds it comes to just shy of $35,000 um so that's going to be really huge

109for the for the district as well with that Pusher bus it means that we won't really have to send multiple buses to events uh which is also going to se uh save the district a lot of money just transporting uh athletic equipment when um it doesn't need to um and then just a reminder for the operations committee um bims uh appears uh that they will be meeting with us at the uh subcomittee meeting um to go over their findings in the the three buildings um so look forward to that presentation anybody else okay thanks um reports to the school board uh the enrollment status was in our packet um our report of student representative Max oh yeah okay I'm gonna go back to February um back to Winter Carnival week uh it was amazing uh

110of course seniors ended up winning first freshman got second somehow uh then uh Juniors and the sophomores got last um the winter carnival dance was the 28th that was really fun um seniors did concessions and I think they earned some good money um um on the first the junior class did our cornhole tournament uh it was a success um I think something we could improve upon was advertising but other than that it was great uh first place went to uh uh Juniors Landon Cooper and Alex Mains um currently we are working with the sophomores on a spring of paloa which is a yard sale um fake sale and a car wash happening sometime in the spring so be excited for that um uh prom Committee just announced the prom theme it is Starry Night how

111exciting um and SRB hasn't really had a chance to meet due to the snow days and break so we don't have much to really update you guys on but hopefully in April I'll have more to talk about yeah hey so max we do appreciate your reports and also that you're willing to engage in the work of the board so we're going to give you some more work which I don't know if you're aware of yet um but at the Ed policy committee we did talk about uh a policy that we want to begin to to work on and it's the um student use of uh cell phones and electronic IC devices so we're going to kind of pull together uh a group including uh you and uh Mr Anderson and M hediger and Emily our

112uh Ed policy chair and possibly a teacher and see if we can kind of work through that policy together so yeah I'm looking forward we assigned you that that's what you get for being willing to work yes thank you thank you um I did want to follow up on last time we approved the the letter that I did send out to all of our Representatives which dealt with a a lot of uh what we talked about tonight and the challenges that our communities are facing in terms of of school budget and I did get an acknowledgement from all of them except one that they had gotten our letter um and encouraged us to continue to communicate with them so they don't need to say that again we will continue to communicate with them um also

113wanted to let you know that um I did get we did get a notice from Poland about when their um nomination papers are due which is the same as Mechanic Falls um and we've passed that on to to Melanie um so in Mechanic Falls Jess and Andrea have taken out nomination papers and guess I wanted to let you know that I'm not running again um and I want to share with you the reason why because you are part of the reason why um uh uh we are really I think in a good place on this board um you know we've got a board that's really engaged um and uh you know I have have seen the growth in our committees I think our committees are functioning well I think we've got strong leaders on our

114committees um I think we're in a good place I think there's a lot of stability I think that we have an understanding of our role on the board and we're willing to do that work um you know I I I when I was thinking about it I was thinking probably 50 years is enough time that's how long I've been in education and 40 of them have been here um 13 is a teacher and 14 is a principal and 13 on the board so 40 is probably enough but also I think not only are we in a good place as a board I think I think rsu16 is a good place and you know we've talked about tonight lots of challenges um and I have seen over the years lots of challenges but somehow we get

115through it and we get through it because we keep kids at the center of that and students at the center of that and I think not only as a board but I think in our central office and administration and certainly with our our leader that we have the right people in the right places so it's a time when I think I can say 40 is enough so just wanted to to share that with you so thanks um so moving on to our Kier committee uh has met uh twice and we had one more at the end of uh March and our budget Committee in our budget Committee just to remind you is Jess and Angela uh Andrea myself Mike Emily Amy uh and Stacy um I don't know if you have anything you want to

116add to those two the year or the budget committee no our budget committee we've revamped that we used to have that dayong 6 hour eight hour meeting and we revamped that into five meetings and we're actually holding it in a way that mirrors a mini District budget meeting so you know the District budget where you we hold up the little slips of paper so really looking at article by article so then that way we can dive deep in that to that article have an understanding and then also being able to answer questions about that uh throughout this the taxpayer seasons and and then at the meeting too and so we're able we were able to uh TA or tentatively agree to some of the Articles at the last meeting and then we uh moved some

117to the April 9th because we need a little bit more information about uh salaries and at that point in time we just learned about the increase in Insurance being not 10% but being just under 18% so we needed to do some work there as well as you know that we're making reductions so uh it's a great process good team and uh we'll be on it on Wednesday and that is uh the John's lines trans Transportation um operations and then also Don King's lines with the curric co-curriculars so Joe I I was thinking about saying something and then Randy said should we clap after you spoke about your years which I thought so I'll just say briefly I think for all of us to pay attention that um while you have your critics and not everyone

118agrees with how you lead you have some very vocal critics I know having served alongside of you as the even you and I didn't always agree what I will say is that Mary has dedicated immense time and effort to this committee beyond what she's done for the education in our in our our district so for any of us that would love to take on that role just fair warning huge shoes for any one of us to fil so not that we can't do it just know that that is I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear and I think it's important for us to just start thinking you're sitting across from me oh that comes later that comes later well well what I want you to do is find somebody to take my

119place and you know so if you know anybody in Mechanic Falls that encourage them to take out nomination papers because y it's important work and I think that's what what people need to know that yeah it's it's a commitment but it's important work in campaign iy [Music] Steve are you ready for to do an adjournment ready what an adjournment are you ready to adjourn I thought we had yes we have all right I'll make a motion we Jud a second all those in favor we CCH probably not J