RSU 16 School Board Webinar

001friends experience and our mission our mission is to prepare and support all students within a child care of Excellence to do their best and to be their best can be a successful contributing citizen able to adapt to change to successfully respond with future uh sadly in the the last month our G6 game has lost two beloved indicators um it would be Cheryl Walters who was a retired leader from PCS and Whittier for many years and Sarah McKinley from Palm Street school so last week you can join me in a moment of silence thank you um moving on to our public comment in the RG 16 School Board welcomed you to this meeting and appreciate your in person and remote attendance during the public comment period of our meeting we'd like to remind you that we

002are here to listen and that the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion please don't expect the board to respond to your concerns this evening we will respond to Future meetings or have the appropriate staff members respond to you if your comments address an agenda item the board will consider them when we get to those agenda items the guidelines for public comment include remote and in-person speakers must sign up before the start of a meeting speakers should State their name and their town of residence the meeting agenda allows 15 minutes for public comment comments are limited to three minutes the comments should be addressed to the board not to the audience an on-screen timer will provide a notification at two minutes and indicate when the three-minute limit has been reached uh no

003comments or complaints about RSU 16 employees that are allowed um the public comment will end if guidelines are not followed and we want to thank you again for attending our meetings so we have three people that have signed up to speak so Vic do you want to come back like a padre go first if that's okay that would be fine I'm right here in the middle there well good evening everyone my name is Matt Garside I'm the town manager of bowling and uh later tonight you're going to be voting on moving the school budget referendum to April from June and uh I urge you not to approve that change and there are several reasons for this uh at last week's election uh Poland voters approved changing our town meeting from an in-person early April event

004to referend them to be conducted concurrently with the state election in June all the reasons for doing this was to eliminate one election in the municipal election the date prior to the business portion of the town meeting to make that change Poland had to revise its Town Charter and that's been the process that's been going on for since last town meeting it'll culminate at the June meeting there's only one set of election workers now most are retired now their appetite for working multiple elections is limited and recruiting and training new election workers is problematic Poland is getting close to requiring two polling places due to the increased number of registered voters when we reach that we're gonna have to hire a whole new crew of election workers your April budget referendum would be a standalone

005election by Statute the stool has the authority to call Oracle at election you know that's not yet we're not contesting that but they only pay for the ballots and speaking of costs for elections really two components to that cost one is monetary the other is Administrative a monetary cost the day of the election Poland spends about maybe two grand on the election that does not count work prior to the election done by the municipal staff members in the town clerk election rewarding registrar voters Deputy town clerk Southern election workers that come in to help process absentee ballots pardon me but that's not the most important cost in my view uh the most significant cost is the administrative burden of conducting an election whether all elections are the same whether it's an RSU Standalone election presidential

006election or the June primary the steps to conduct those things are the same and uh the difference is in volume so it's it's a big big administrative burden for us to do that and would rather not take that on particularly a light that we have gone through this Herculean effort to uh make our our Municipal town meeting line up with the June election the uh I'm sure the school budget failed the April election you'll be required to hold a follow-on election to pass your budget and if you tried to hold that prior to the state election in June that would be an administrative challenge of quite large proportions so you know given those reasons I would ask you not to improving the budget referendum to April [Laughter] thank you hope I can pull this off

007folks let's give it a whirl good evening I'm dick Hodgkins I live in the town of Paris I am the Mechanic Falls Town manager and I thank you for giving me a few minutes here this evening I'm here tonight to ask that you please reconsider the March April budget schedule and return to the traditional May June schedule where one election gets it done but the way I see it where we're all in this together everybody in these three towns and we need to or one great big family sometimes family don't always agree but we need to think of each other as family through this I also understand as a former board member myself that you as a board member want to give the district every possible Advantage where you can however in this situation the

008modest Advantage has huge consequences to your three talents the risk reward does not compute putting on an election takes time money and people I want to speak about the people tonight our people in Mechanic Falls Nancy Peterson's Michelle Emery Steve Turner Jacqueline Preston Sarah Jones and our town clerk Janice Berry and Mechanic Falls these are the people that serve you many of you know these folks personally some may be your neighbors or even close friends this extra election will not only be a burden on them but also for every taxpayer that will now have to come out on two separate occasions instead of just the one the traditional June vote during March and April the town of Mechanic Falls will be busy with final touches to our proposed budget and warrant our town clerk who

009is also our elections registrar will be getting ready for second half tax payments she'll also be in the middle of putting together annual award-winning Town reporter a very time consuming effort as well as their many other duties and now you're going to you and now you're going to ask her to put on a whole new election on top of all of that when the district could simply advertise these positions as anticipated openings and again respectfully this does not compute if altering your budget schedule had no or even little impact to the towns that make up our issue 16. I think quite frankly you would not have received the three letters for the leaders of the three various towns that make up this district and Matt and I would not be here tonight however the truth

010is your March April budget vote will have a huge negative impact to your talents and time money and most importantly people I again respectfully ask that you reconsider the March April budget calendar and return to last year's May June calendar after all we're in this together thank you thank you good um Whitney and it's like public speaking uh contest Whitney King new car uh my nickname and thank you Ken just ahead of time for your service um I know this box down to the wire for that but appreciate it um as a parent Community member as well as a former student as we all are not I'm not a student of Poland formally but in general I reflect on my years of learning and I think about what my children are we'll learn while they're

011in the care of our school district what life skills are taught Reading Writing and arithmetic where government and history are presented in an unbiased professional manner where age appropriate still applies this is not College where families student make the conscious financial decisions for a student to attend this is public education where Community pays for educator and administrative salaries where all local children deserve appropriate skill sets and knowledge to allow them a foundation for the Working World I just want to say you know it's tough because it's like as a parent you have to speak up for your kids because I know it's tough because nobody wants to hear me talk but we have to do something as a parent because otherwise if we don't do anything or say anything then we are just a bystander

012so I just wanted to just speak that my piece there thank you thank you recognitions and acknowledgments what if we'd like to say congratulations to October's Optimus student of the month and that was Jason licorno a sixth grader from Poland Community School congratulations to the district Q honor cores um from Whittier that was Bella Hartman uh Scott Scarlett Cuomo and Olivia Snowman and also um from prhs the district 2 honors course was Alex Picard Riley Smith nolanieri Audrey Freida Sophia Dolla Kayla Massey Cheyenne post Emma Morrow and Emma dagnostics and also congratulations to Kayla Massey who are in a placement in the Maine State Jazz why are they here we'd also like to say thank you to our three fire departments Who provided a lot of support during Fire Safety Week we'd like to say

013thank you to the Whittier staff and administration for another successful tri-town family 5K which took place um yesterday and principal Sean Vinson said I'm so grateful for the kindness and the generosity within our communities I also gave a shout out to 8th grader Dylan Cobb who was the first to finish from davis hill who is the first female student who said everyone got across the Finish Line without getting stoked it's very good and I would like to conclude with a certificate for one of our own and this one goes to Steve and it was presented at the msma Maine School Board Association Workshop conference and it says Stephen Holbrook RSU 16 School Board in recognition of 27 years of dedicated service to education in Maine thank you Steve thank you pass that down again thank

014you Steve you appreciate you yeah 27 years you don't believe it's for him so we do not have a presentation tonight but we'll be on our agenda for next month under our consent agenda we had to approve the third regular meeting minutes uh on October 3rd approve the First Federal meeting minutes uh October 12th there are some notifications of new hires he has Deanna Lilly nurse at PCS Hunter default uh theater Tech director at prhs Rebecca bear Mann secretary at PCS there was one resignation Jennifer Bartlett and Tech stcs you'll find minutes from operations personnel and finance and to educational policy committee meetings also the minutes of the superintendent search committee of October 5th and October 5th and the minutes of friends one second discussion we're going to opposed um acceptance of the financial summaries

015and as it says here it's basically isn't here tonight uh she will report out in December but the personnel and finance committee did get a detailed overview on that financial report of their Museum you can see that in the minutes of nearly one superintendent report um I'd like to see if we could go to Amy first because I do have one other person who's going to assist me if they show up I tell them about seven o'clock I didn't realize it would be this quick okay then if not then I'll go without it okay um hey Amy sure didn't superintendent report good evening everyone so our three overarching goals and themes this year are tier one curriculum that's the the curriculum that all students access based upon uh state standards and it's designed and differentiated

016for all of our students that's our first goal the next one is our SEL which is our social emotional learning and then finally uh staff retention with a focus on professional learning opportunities so those three things guide all of my work and so first I wanted to report out on two of our newly formed committees the CCC and the bplc yes education is filled with alphabet soup the CCC is a curriculum-based one it's our curriculum coordinating Council and that group is focused on our refresh of Atlas which is where we soar our tier one curriculum so our teachers are working to look at Clarity and focus on what they're teaching in their core classes so they think about what the enduring understandings are and essential questions and content and skills and have common assessments for

017our students and our goal is to have Atlas available for public viewing in June so we do have a council that's overseeing that and we were able to travel together well six of the members of the team to Woburn Mass last at the end of October and do a training directly with Atlas and that was proved to be a really fantastic training not only to for bonding for the group but also to really help clarify our procedures in our next steps so it was a great trip and then our other team is our district professional learning committee and that again is made up of people from across the buildings and they're looking at our professional learning opportunities that we provide for our staff not only on Wednesdays our early release Wednesdays but how else are

018we providing trainings forced Staffing able to meet their certification needs in within our district because as you know we have a grow your own model here on RSU 16 where we take our substitutes and make them long-term substitutes we make event text we make them teachers and then teacher leaders and or administrators and so our dplc is led by Jill Matthew who's doing her curriculum internship with me and I'm just her support and um the the team created a survey in which they sent out to their individual buildings and from there the team looked at the themes from the survey and actually sent out a follow-up survey to really look at where the priorities lie according to those themes and they're also doing a book study to ensure that all of their practices are grounded

019in the most current research uh two fantastic committees we've got really great staff here in RSU 16. uh our next one is our seld and that our CLD is a k6 position and that's Esser funded and that will be for two years for this current school year and next year and our scld really supports that tier one classroom management so that's all students we want all of our students to feel as though they belong and they understand their classroom and and uh how to do the routines of school and uh Lacey was able to present to the Friends of RSU 16 because we want to really make sure that there's an understanding of what SEL means in RSU 16 so that was a really uh to it there wasn't more people at the friends of

020RSU 16 but it's our first step in getting her to be able to present and I know she is looking at later on in the year to come here uh to present National open folks um professional learning is our other piece in a part of our contract is there's five thousand dollars set aside for staff to be able to access for whatever their needs are for p um for professional learning in addition to money already set aside through grants that are housed with me as well as do's and B's in the principal line and that five thousand dollars has already been used up so that's really great news number one that conferences are returning to in person we're able to get our staff out even though we have the sub shortage of and we were

021able to get uh our staff out to conferences that they feel will benefit them or meet their own professional goals and so that's expired uh obviously we used that up so now we'll rely on what we have through our grit funds and through the office of the principal and then our final piece is our c-stag team so that's our comprehensive uh school threat assess assessment team we've undergone uh this 21 of us and we've undergone a huge amount of training the first part was a six hour course that you had to take an exam at the end and pass and then after that it was a two hour course where you did some role-playing and uh really looked at all of the fine details and there was an exam at the at the end of

022that and then wait a minute wait a minute [Laughter] and uh then we also had to do a suicide prevention course so all 21 of us are trained and we're actually the first team in Maine to be fully trained and so our next step is I did talk with Karen Barnes who does work with the Maine School Safety Center so she congratulated us on a large team being fully trained is we'll learn how to use our system to input our threats called navigate 360. that's a grant through the state of need so our team our administrators will learn how to use that next and then we're also looking about how do we get out a PR team so we'll look at forming a smaller group so that way we can start to train people not

023only our students but our staff and our community members what third assessment is and what it isn't so that is on the horizon for our next step for all of our three cool areas of tier one curriculum SEO and professional learning for our staff and then just finally I'll close with um thanking Fred and the transportation department uh they go above and beyond every day they're facing staff shortages as some of you know as parents or you get the robo call where you need to transport your your own child to school but uh to see it on the other end where they're they're they're covering for each other or saying I'll pick up this for you or I can do that well what do you need Fred is pretty remarkable and they really do need

024a shout out as does our food service department too Ellen door is our food service director she's doing her position as well as one of the food service manager positions that have been unfilled so she's got white the team too to serve all of our our breakfast and lunches to all of our staff so I want to make sure to give them a special acknowledgment tonight any questions or comments if anything all right as of today November 14th our population at Elm Street is 247 students it is up to from our last report minded Consolidated School is 219 students it is down for from our last report Poland Community School is 437 students it is down one from our last report uh 437 thank you you're welcome the Middle School is 284. and it's up

025three from our last report it was in them again please 284 who the high school is 527 it is down 11 from our last report we have a total of 1 714 which is down 11 from our last report the good news of course is we have our October reporting which was 1007 what 1725 students so yeah uh since our last meeting I I was able to participate in the national bird assessment training I was supposed to do it first in person but I ended up having to do it remotely on October 5th uh it was very well attended but it was also really good information for us probably some of the best we had the Secret Service where we presenting so they did a nice job uh how did our town managers uh monthly

026breakfast on October 12th and October 9th we continue to to enjoy it as soon as uh as everybody has the ability to get there there are a lot of a lot of fun and I learned a lot about the times during those diagrams uh also went to my uh Western Maine superintendents association meeting on October 12th uh where we did have the uh the deputy Commissioners one of our speakers uh and uh he uh he boarded it with me he didn't anticipate any Personnel or policy changes out of doe as a result of the election um and um and I think I've been pretty happy with he's pretty happy with the results uh also attended the uh the many school management association annual fall conference on October 27th and 28th uh it was uh I

027think well attended we had some board members with us which I thought really cool uh and uh I'll let them talk about their experience um and uh so one of our ongoing issues have been going uh happening at my net is we haven't had uh a regular heating because we had a boil that went out uh that had a crack in it and the subcommittee asked that I give you a update on it today um and I will tell you that as of today we do have a temporary solution of all days to have heat in the building was today uh so and uh very very happy for that I want you to know that everybody in the operations and Facilities have been working really really hard to try to find a solution and quite

028frankly I had to resort to at our last in our conference I ran into Tom sakens who was president of EMC who has done work for us in the past uh and and I think out of desperation and the sad look at my face uh he uh he said that he would help me as an outside consultant him and his uh partner came in and did an evaluation of it and as a result of their Consulting we were able to get this this boiler that boiler in the Box uh Heating and the Box whatever you want to call it uh and it is we put in over the weekend uh and as far as I know right now it's working uh pretty well it is not inexpensive it's very expensive and I want you to

029know that because of the situation and the urgency of the situation I did not I would not have had the opportunity for us to go to bed we didn't have anybody bidding on the parts that we wanted to start with anyways so I just wanted to let you know for this whole Endeavor if it lasted five to six weeks or eight weeks it's going to be about fifty seven thousand dollars hopefully insurance will cover most of that uh but uh and we'll have a semi-permanent solution for it with the bees coming in and replaced but what I'd like to do where I've asked the time has been kind enough to help as a consultant and I need to let you know this consultant if everybody wants to know how much it's costing nothing uh he's

030uh just really likes the uh to help out us and I'm grateful that he's willing to help me out especially for our kids so what I'd ask Tom to do is if you could if you come up uh and do a brief presentation of what uh all entails in this temporary solution but also what potentially will happen uh as we're going forward in trying to resolve this foreign schools uh we were hired by our Siemens to do all the calculations and install of the equipment and um so they hired us to do the actual work there under their project but uh this is Joe Griffin he's uh the boiler expert he's licensed in oil gas Refrigeration just about anything he likes to spend heat pumps vrf and um as Ken said he got himself in

031a situation that some people do and it's obviously no problem answer the administration you have one boiler um which I had been uh working with seamless for about 20 years in schools in Maine looking at boiler rooms and coming up in plans and organizing running the Energy Group so um I'm now the president of EMC and of course I'm a consultant standpoint we essentially bid out the projects we do the analysis a bit on all the projects after examples make sure we came up with a scope that everyone can easily been on and show all the numbers and come up with a solution for whatever the case may be whether it's boilers controls and lighting whatever um and then talking to Ken about some of the projects coming up that he had mentioned that the

032uh my school boiler has sprung a leak and there's only one boiler there as some probably know Steam not ideal uh while they went down and Joe and I started calling around everywhere that we know um Joe being a boiler person has connections for you know Boston all the way up to Rhode Island actually all the way up to Port City mechanical who is the one that we actually went to because there's only a few boilers in a box that are actually steamed like they're almost impossible to find but actually Joe built one for Port City mechanical before I recruited the EMC so he knew that there was one available and then we just kind of reached out to Port City and said in the event we can't find the section to replace that boiler

033um in that boiler can we get your boiler for RSU 16. so that's basically how it all and it's a fruition it's quite an Endeavor to do that I mean you have to sell a whole new flange pipe right into the header of the Steam Plant you have a boiler that's literally in a box outside um heating the school from external piping that goes into the building so thanks to for Joe's connections with the Port City mechanic we're able to get that and again this is nothing that EMC did we just got everyone lined up Joe made a few visits and got them lined up with you guys of course it wasn't under EMC it was directly with Port City mechanical so we have nothing to do with that it's all just set it all

034up because we have the knowledge of it so glad to help out we have done a lot of work in this District um but clearly and I and I had done a report before about that boiler plan and as well as Elm Street because they're about the same situation actually just Elm Street has two boilers but equally as bad and uh what we're finding out now is that the cast iron where steam or hot water boilers um I think if you reached up to anyone which you did I think you actually contacted about 10 different mechanical companies to try to help you guys up with the situation but everybody found the same situation where anything with cast iron is 20 to 25 weeks out to get a section and as Joe dug deeper into it

035found that they're not making it at all anymore and companies like Hearst and HB Smith and Juan McLean and Peerless and all those old manufacturers that did the cast iron boilers they're simply not making them anymore because they can't reach efficiency standards so it's going to be an even bigger problem moving forward so when you have no redundancy in your boiler plant it's a real issue right you lose a boiler you saw what happened by the skin of your teeth you got to boil that a box over the weekend or I'll see what it had even bigger issues throughout the building so thankfully we're able to do that but clearly there's another solution you gotta you gotta come up with a whole new boiler plant and ventilation um because mine really has no really no

036mechanical ventilation outside of the Erv in the gym I know Dave and you guys have put in some temporary things that are unitary in the classrooms but that's not really enough a certainly not actually standard but it's almost impossible to put new ventilation in put a boil a plant the way it is so you kind of have to start there and then move your way out and uh really and then control it effectively as well there's enough old electronic controls there um it's no surprise that from an energy use index standpoint that building is right up there with all the rest and it's about half the size of all the other schools so you know the person they're putting so to speak but anything you want to talk about with the mortgage on how do

037we how we did it again in the marriage yeah essentially it's a it's about it's a 50 horsepower um scotch Marine boiler um that's literally an attractor trailer and it gets quite from outside to inside the existing pattern so you're using all the existing controls that are in the building and then we're just using the pressure controls and Supply the steam to the building um right now at HB Smith uh which is it's a Smith 28 that you have existing in the building um is able to cast intermediate sections so middle sections the section that you guys have correct it's the rear section they're not casting those right now there's there's boilers in Boston so we were able to potentially get one get a rear section in six weeks so hopefully we're out of the

038rental boiler phase within six weeks and we have a new section in there and they would keep the building of that new section [Music] um so the efficiency standards that Tom talked about um I don't know if you guys have heard of new standards across the board with key pumps they're coming up with new new testing more stringent testing to be able to more accurately show the efficiency of the units as you guys probably know when you when you have ideal conditions 40 degrees to keep them super efficient but when it's zero degrees the efficiency drops well they want to be able to reflect that and it's across the board which includes boilers and those efficiencies that aren't changing uh January 10 2023 and that's why you know we we looked into getting a new

039boiler just to put in and and they're just not making them right now because they're they're struggling to meet the new standards and it's not just the standards it's the testing um so the existing standards might might qualify but but as the the testing gets more stringent no standards draw which put them below the minimum standards to be able to sell the boiler so that's where we're running into we did we did do some research too though so there's a there's a funding opportunity now it's a fund notice that Efficiency Maine often does uh and when they do that they they're incentivizing of course it's not a grant program it's in a set device program to do things like heat pumps brf um you did check to make sure that this extra actually not everyone

040in the state qualifies is only a short list of school districts that qualify for they're enhanced incentive for heat pumps and brn and this District qualifies for that so it's it's a much bigger incentive to go electrification of the around Financial resource so that could be something to considered but clearly I play in needs to be established to fix it because this is I mean there's no telling what we talked about before with cast iron sectional boilers receive our hot water doesn't make a difference when you break them apart to change that section Humpty Dumpty doesn't always go back together the way it once intended and often times and adjacent will crack almost immediately when you do put them together to stop pushing the water or receive whatever through the boiler it'll crack so there's

041no telling that we're hoping right when that section comes in according to Chuck in six weeks um that there that won't be the issue but there's just no Talent we can't guarantee that no one can right um so that's obviously going to be hope and pray situation but um because getting that section was nothing short of a miracle in six weeks I mean you guys checked how the company besides us it was 20 weeks on the minimum right basically yeah yeah and that's that's part of the reason why we didn't we chose not to go the route of an existing boiler that's been running and taking the rear section off of that moving it over um because we don't know if the base of that boilers pitted and now you're down two boilers um so

042that's specifically been completely inspection no kidding um we went all over all these options we can yeah making his head spin a little bit about all that gentlemen I really really appreciate your Consulting with us uh but I need to tell the board just this concept we have to have a plan to correct this long term okay uh not only will we export uh additional funding but probably during this budget season we will have a plan to improve uh and or take out the the bad boilers in all three of the elementary schools uh and we'll be looking for uh either the funding and or possibly bonding that Improvement but we'll have a plan for you during this budget process to make that accomplished yeah yeah and when that time is ready you just let

043us know from a from a Consulting standpoint to help get those competitors together organize it I have plans for all the buildings ventilation um controls steam hot water plans for everything um some of it has been you're as a heat exchanger so a portion of the building which is the gym main office kitchen is hot water so that wouldn't have to be converted there is a heat exchanger in the boiler room so that's good news right that can all be reused um but the remaining all the fast runs are still all steamed they should they will be very hot water at some point you really have no choice at this point so um we really appreciate you being here um thank you for sharing the information thank you for the support and for helping us

044understand our situation as we move forward does anybody have any questions Patrick uh worst case scenario say one of the pipes adjacent to the back section does crack does the boiler will the boiler in the Box get us through the winter or is that going to be it could something else and this is again absolutely but this is us not making a dime on this thing because it was so darn expensive we looked at the numbers we were like oh my gosh it's crazy expensive to get these things because everybody wants them there's only one so everybody's trying to get this boiler and he had told us if we got to fix we got it fixed and didn't need the bowl in a box he's like just so you know that's gone that I already

045have other people that wants around this thing so it's going to be hard to find um so it will get you by for the winter it's just gonna be really expensive uh what was the cost of this 12 500 a month yeah so that's the rental fee that's just the recipe installation was done that with that and also uh correcting the or putting the extra part on right now if it takes about two months speed it's 57 000 over uh over that time frame now that runs off oil right number three yeah that 57 includes the cost of installing the new section right and that on average by any local mechanical shop should be around ten thousand dollars so it's you know the remaining portion of say it's forty thousand forty five thousand forty seven

046whatever it was um that's all the bulletin box quite a bit of setup yeah and I I do want to say Port City mechanic get a great job I mean if you guys go to the school uh there's a shed behind the school uh that's the complete the trail is located between the shed and the school they fight from there into a maintenance closet and down the hall above the ceiling you get into the boy in the room and then they also had uh Wipe Out the condensate return for the steam system back to the trailer they had to do all the line voltage which could get done in two days and started the boiler yesterday but you had to eat today's it's a substantial amount of money if that you said you've got a

047new section coming correct if that fails what are we looking for cost to replace the systems well um exactly so if the section would fail another section were to fail you're just going to be stuck with a hole in the box with a remainder of the winter right but to replace the ball on that they ain't making that money yeah we placed it we get it the school running with a new boiler estimated cost well if you're going to be looking at it's right around 33 000 square foot building we've just kind of looked at Rough numbers and drop numbers have been presented before but they were extremely high admittedly um new ventilation of equipment not counting efficiency main incentives which they will up to 90 of the equipment they will pay for if it's

048the right installation and right application for them and it follows all their qualifications I want to say that that's you know you've got a chair for those incentives because the advertisement says up to 90 but as you get into it it's not really 90 but new automation controls because you really should have that um in a new boiler it's it's probably a million dollar project I would say it clearly for one not enough an entire School compared to be converted but just mine yeah 1.5 million which was high and that would go a year and a half ago yeah so and that's with that being competitive we've been out by sloth by contract why there is no ventilation really and we have to put it in oh yeah yeah I mean based on ashrae standards

049you should have ventilation in all your school for sure mechanical actual mechanical ventilation I mean that's your that's your entirely a choice but if you're going to install a new you're going to put in a new NS Elementary School um I wouldn't for somebody to walk that mechanical ventilation to bring in fresh air in the classrooms you have to 15 to 20 CFM per student or occupant which is actually six and 2.1 that's what schools go by there's a million dollars cost one school the classrooms are all scheme though so to say that rear section you needed to upgrade you're going to be upgrading to public water so you're going to have to remove the scheme in that Wing anyway so you'd be able to learn the food ventilation with that wow upgrades yeah it

050would probably be a mental air situation there's a crawl space under the building it's not optimal of course you do have those old LP fired and the gas heaters and the Portables but most of them are not running and the RVs that are taxed to those are not running because they're so loud it is almost a buffalo Pizza there from the teacher survey done a year or so ago so it really needs to be a whole new system and the scary part is Elm Street is just as bad if not slightly worse it's a bigger building around 55 000 square feet um and that boiler room is so hot because of leaking steam traps that the the adjacent rooms the joining rooms are all extremely hot because there's no disbursement of the heat in that

051row because the live steam actually spills into that boil so it causes extreme heat issues so it needs that needs to be addressed but at least there you have redundancy in the boiler room so if one of the boilers will fail you have you know we're very low where it's minded you have nothing as you know yeah zero so this one lasted less than 10 years the other one less than 50. yeah and you know and the Elm Street School why they do have ventilation in most parts of that building you have 16 classroom unit ventilators which are just small mini hand owners in each room those are 60 years old so the asteroid standard for our unit ventilator in the classroom was 20 years that's the maximum that you should be you should certainly

052considering replacement of those after 20 years when they're 60 years old so of course they're dramatically control which is the most inefficient way to you know compound the compressor of all the road is the most expensive list of energy in the building so that will make that school's dramatic so it might be a situation we consider both getting them done at the same time than two worst in the district that's not going to decide really close yeah um so so what we're going to do is we'll come up with a plan uh we'll look at all the funding opportunities as well but you'll have that planned uh through this budget process for you guys to consider okay thank you again or anything yet yeah yeah don't take that as possible that was a shot of

053that okay so you get the numbers in the market changes right if you're building us five years ago it's quite a bit different so it's just money coming off CIP uh it'll come it'll come out of insurance first or CIP and or if we're able to shift some of our our Esser funds we will do that what funds the uh Grant funds that will expire next year so we'll we'll look and see hopefully it'll come mostly out of insurance we'll see well thank you gentlemen thank you thank you and Sharon that more love wasn't showing the whole building's insurance so when we have a catastrophe like that we do get insurance money okay thank you guys that's the end of my report yeah moving on to new business and the first thing on your new

054business is to approve the 2020.23 budget timeline is recommended by the personnel and finance committee at their 1024 meeting um and if you remember last month we did approve a budget schedule except for the day uh the district meeting which went back to the personnel and finance committee and I'm going to have 15 kind of talk about it from there as chair of that prison uh so perhaps here so the referendum we had moved up to April in consideration of how difficult it's been to hire staff and it makes it more difficult to try to retain staff who may be interested when hosting a position as anticipated so we were hoping to alleviate some of that by a referendum in April and having a budget passed sooner so that we could guarantee those spots to

055applicants and you know solidify a teaching lineup and staff in time for a new school year receiving their letters from the towns I see that it poses a lot of burden to them and I'm not sure you know if there is an answer I personally think that there's room for you know conversation whether that's getting the three towns together with the full board or getting the three towns together with the personnel and finance committee um I mean I don't think it's necessarily fair for us to impose such a burden on them um it's also a burden for us to try and adequately staff our schools so that our students can learn and I think there's room for you know more conversations to see if there is any room for common ground are there any solutions

056oh it's like between comment on that we have the recommendation from the personnel and uh the finance committee was that we put the the date that we were looking at was March 25th for the the district's budget meeting so whether we've moved forward with that recommendation tonight or are we have a different recommendation we need to decide what action we want to take when was uh vote last year in June yes well I've been in between for quite a while as an academy no uh we we've had it for the last three years in June as a result when our the first year I was here we had it in May foreign uh meetings of District budget meeting I mean I oh sorry go ahead okay first um so I don't know about any of

057the other board members but I would definitely volunteer my time having an April um referendum vote for the school budget um I think that's it's very important to get the school budget passed or not passed and as early as we can because because [Laughter] I think it'll give us the greatest amount of time to be able to hire and college graduates are graduating May 15th a lot of them have their positions already lined up going into the new year and I think that would put us I don't want to put a bad light but basically grabbing from the bottom of the barrel of applicants who have not accepted another position maybe it's because of their location where they live or not but I'm just saying that if we want the best of the best we

058should be able to get our um offers out there to them as quickly as possible and if citizens of the three towns really truly cared about the school budget they would come out regardless whether it was um an April Vote or a June vote and am I put in perspective that some of the citizens don't really care and we'll see what the turnout is here well I just want you to be positive questions but if if it fails it gives us another chance to then and uh this is a question that I had if we fail in April what our next vote be uh two months later in June and I think that can be a good compromise if it does okay uh have it line up in June so that we're not doing another

059election prior to referendum well prior to the primary um is there any I'm thinking of compromise is there any compromise we could do in terms of helping to support the the and I know that they talked a little bit about the uh the financial burden it is uh it's a little complicated to be able to to uh attach all of the costs uh but certainly if uh there was an additional cost that we would we would try to help them and bear that if possible um I I think that's not it's something we should do anyways whether it's a compromise or not in the past we've only um Finance the ballots themselves correct I believe so yes yeah I have a question but I will wait until you're done I was just wondering what are

060other towns doing that I mean if other towns are able to hire earlier and have their vote done earlier how are they reaching the compromise of their genomics around us most everybody does uh the surrounding communities don't do align it in June but we have Lake Region that does it in may we have Turner that does it in May and we have Spruce Mountain that does it in April so there are communities of doing it I I do remember in Spruce Mountain Town of Jay decided to align their budget with the schools to get it accomplished yeah so is that an option for the time just wondering yes um I attended the McCann Falls High council meeting last week and this was on our agenda as a talking point also so I was there to

061listen to them discuss it and then they asked me questions that I wasn't able to answer fully so can we talk about specifically the hiring because there were six some of them were suggesting that it's only new positions that need this funding it's not the actual like I wasn't thinking about staff retention um can you talk about why it's so important that we advertise and hire and why we have to have an approved budget in order to do so because I think there's that's where the disconnect is Amy or Ken do you want to address that certainly I mean obviously we had we had the distance as we just that uh and we end up um because of the the way we do it we end up having to hire during the summer time now

062I know the suggestions maybe you simply have to do it as anticipated uh sometimes people are not interested in the position that's just anticipated uh and it makes it a little more difficult um and there are a number of other things budgetable wise you know you never know um uh whether you actually have to do um you never know what the positions would be uh and it's really difficult to anticipate so it's better to have as Patrick said the candidateful well it's well it's full instead of even from April to June it it dwindles quite a bit actually any other comments questions yeah I guess what I'm kind of stuck on is I feel like um you know the mentality of our community is the the budget's just gonna fail so we need we're like

063almost trying to prepare for it to fail and that's really what we're trying to do is buy more time instead of what I think we should be doing is addressing the issue of the budget itself that we are I don't think that the timeline is what's preventing us from getting staff and retaining staff it's our pay you know because we are it's no secret that we're one of the lowest paying districts in the state of Maine you know so no matter when we do our budget if we're paying well they're going to come to us I mean just in my short years here we've I'm astounded at how many staff we've lost it was like staff like resignations is as thick as our packets and I you know it was scary and I get it

064but I think that trying to put a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound is not going to help us at all I think we need to like appease our towns appease our community and do it right by working and focusing on the budget and making it a competitive budget so that no matter when we run our vote whether it keeps it June which all three towns have expressed that they're not in favor that this is going to cause hardship then let's focus our time and our effort of let's get a competitive budget so that no matter when we do this we need to attract staff anyways like we need people regardless of whether we vote in April or we vote in June we don't have enough people and I know other districts don't either but they're

065paying more so the ones that we're leaving they're getting from us just because of the pay like hands down it's pay I know it is so that I just wanted to throw that out there to maybe get some Dialogue on it if that's something we can do to like get this where because we are are a family we are the three of us have to work together and I've heard you know in my short time that the towns feel very separated from the school board and that's not going to build a cohesive community that will bring people on to trust us when we put out a budget that is you know chunky because of it inflation and everything you know so that's that's my two cents on it I don't I don't think doing it

066in April is going to uh and Patrick you know God love you buddy for the whole volunteer thing but I think like because I thought about that too but we have to be trained like there are certain positions that we can't just go in and say hey I'll help like you literally need to be trained by like a state course or something to do voting um so that that's my concerns on it so like Mike did you have something like that yeah I just commenting on and I agree with what you're saying but we have to take into consideration especially minor uh and I'm sick of being big actions we can't pay more if we can't get the money from the taxpayers and you know and you well know a good part about now is

067older people retired people or whatever can't get bought out and return it right but we've been crying yeah so I'm you know I agree with what you're saying you know that that is the problem been that way for uh years and years and years but you know uh and as long as there's you know fewer the old-timers at as long as we can get away with paying nothing that's what you're going to want to do so it is going to be a problem trying to convince the town that you know most of them well that isn't the way it was when I went to school but a lot of them wasn't even any schools when they went you know that's true to me that we're going to decide what action we're going to take if

068we've got a couple of choices that we can move forward with the recommendations from the personnel and finance committee which was just to deal with the district's budget meeting on March 21st and stick with the schedule that we've already established or we can go back have our personnel and finance committee go back and come up with a schedule that's aligned with the town um it seems that it would be a lot easier one of those things why would we have to go back to them we find out when the town meeting is and have it that day well we also would we have to we have to our District budget meeting would be at a whole different time they're all these days right but we we can make a decision right now if we want

069but we're gonna have it in June then we can yes and we'll still have we can't establish those dates yet because we've got to have Stacy establish those days through right but yes we can decide that tonight the main question we can decide tonight I'll make a motion remover the referendum uh the votes are driven five seconds yeah that was a second from Andrea if you had a motion and a second and it's to have a referendum in June aligned with our three pounds is there any further discussion married so we're going back to march with the we'll have to we'll have to look we'll have to move backward to figure out what the other dates are but with with excuse motion is that we do a referendum that is aligned with uh the three

070pounds so we'll do a roll trial and start with uh Andrea um I want to vote Yes that we have it in June okay okay yeah okay so Andrew yes it seems like it was one of those things yes yes no Mary um no Patrick no Angela yes Elizabeth yes Mike no Sarah no Steve yes Christine yes yes no Emily no Joe is absent uh Melanie yes you got the feeling thank you Amy you adding it up is it as close as it looks happens right okay all right the floors were 452 points and the against is 459 reports so the motion yeah uh yeah wow the the motion did not carry we should go back and um take some action on the recommendation of the personnel and finance committee to do the District budget

071meeting on March 21st I make a motion that we have that meeting matched with you and we have a second second a second from Patrick is there any discussion so that leaves the rest of the schedule as we delineated the last one so that's the question yes is it an option to table this like do we have to set this right now or is there a time to talk to the town and try to conflict Emily had mentioned you know try to come together and find a solution that works for everyone rather than them saying this and we do the opposite and then it just you know there continues to be a divide can we just pause this okay at some point we could okay but not now what's up we could have another motion

072right if this one doesn't pass [Music] yeah the March one so we only approved in March then we've done it yeah we wanted to see if um and there was a survey sent out about whether a weekday or weekend would be better and yeah I remember that yeah so so that's the only date that wasn't as bad all right okay so that's the motion or all those in favor yeah okay Andrea no Amber uh like no I think no I don't know say March 21st did that affect because the number of days is that effective it's then going to be if they're for end of the April or June yeah and finance committee that suggested we also have a point of clarification just to make sure that everyone is on the same page so can

073you explain 21st date for the um District budget meeting which the other dates have been set and so voted against that motion if you vote against that motion we're not accepting the March 21st date so that's where then we're back back again to an additional promotion yeah and what is our schedule then if this isn't our schedule excuse me one day in June I mean April no I just want to know if it doesn't yes it does yeah this would have to pass for us to have our schedule but there's extenuating if by saying no we're sending it backwards because this one's already okay so if we're trying to get this tabled and like communicate with the towns then we both know we have to vote no to this motion okay but we've already we've

074already approved the other day right definitely so we're looking right now is this why we're changing one day that's my question what about the April date okay so like it doesn't matter if we change the March one to who knows when if the April date is already approved is that date going to be changed if we change ourselves correct I agree with the compliment like that's I understand that part but what I'm hearing is this is 321 is the only date the but the budget meeting is the only date we're voting on because the others have already been improved yes right okay so if how are we if we've already approved the April date that's the date that isn't questioned for them they want that to happen in June so that to me seems like

075the date that we should be what's the point of moving the name we don't have any dates for this budget meeting okay and that and that was the recommendation from the personnel and finance good so we still if we vote this down we've got a hole in our schedule that's include that's true is that quickly the Israel if we vote no it just means we've been a holding our schedule wow so there's still no room to change the April date well we just voted to have it in June we didn't vote that April date in stone yeah at the October meeting uh all those are the dates we voted on Monday we have previously approved a timeline minus one detail that one detail is when is the District budget meeting we have had the town

076Managers from all three Towns come and express order to communicate to us this does not align with what they've asked me okay that is different than what our our thing is okay so Steve made a motion to to um align with them that was defeated right so the only thing that was remaining in the last motion we have right now is to adopt the additional day for uh for the District budget meeting if that fails then we do not have an even though we've approved the other dates we don't have an established budget line and that would give an opening for other discussions okay all right and Andrea we've had two votes against and Amber against and Jess no against yes okay correct um okay uh Patrick yes Angela no Elizabeth no Mike yes Sarah

077yes Steve no Christine no Ed yes Emily no and Melanie no yeah there you go now it started changing one day we got change every money I mean we we still have voted to have it in April we have one date that needs to be that we need to come up to and so we need to decide what action we want to take just can I make a motion to take all of these dates and table that to a future meeting so we have time to connect with our partners in the towns and come up with something another option I second thought there's a host of the table the scheduling of the District budget meeting Saturday the one and the one was just approved yeah great but we can't table something we already approved right

078we can kill it though we can outvote it no you not today you can't table it it's been moved well nothing has been approved as far as I'm can like understanding everything right previously but I mean we're an active board we can say we change our minds we don't like it we want it sent back to be redone why is that not allowed so that would be the March and the April dates on this somebody makes a motion that we want to send the whole thing back and we vote on it then that motion carries you might not understanding this correctly you've got steam coming out your ears how can we do this procedure emotion we can't move to table something that was just a huge so if somebody wants to pick up that motion

079again I guess at a later meeting yeah I suppose I suppose it can be I mean there's a slipper here I mean I was reconsidering the April date yeah that's it I guess I would I think it suggests that we send him Bounty or personnel and finance committee for that date and they could come with a different recommendation for reconsideration for reconsideration that so good news at Robert's rules that you would say I move we now reconsider our action relative too but not within the same meeting well we haven't been approve at this meeting so that's correct but tonight we approved the June right yeah so I was trying to try to yeah I'm trying to accomplish what you want to help us yet so I think um spend not not table anything just send

080it back to the supplement that we consider it right we don't have we don't have a District budget meeting date so send it back to you guys to find a date for that and to bring it back to us at the next time it's part of that you come back with a different recommendation about the April to join me then you do I'm right on that committee but um I I appreciate that um wording and I'll accept that change to my motion if that is permitted um but I would encourage the important part is that the subcommittee not just pick another date that there's Outreach or interaction with the towns that's the part that I was trying to yeah and I think that's yep I think yes yes I think so that motion would be

081that it go back to you the personnel and finance subcommittee and that there'd be Outreach to the towns um to try to kind of fun middle ground and yeah I'm not sure what happened they could come back and recommend if the slutman can convince the school board to Transit the Jews and then they come back for that recommendation yes I mean right I mean yes so I think sending it back to that subcommittee let them deal with it if they have a new recommendation I'll go along with that I need a second to Justice second Commander so motion kind of second ever any session in favor anyone excellent yeah thank you regardless of how all this comes out thank you for the great debate and considerations I do appreciate it sir thank you for making

082the motion no I tried I mean um we're looking at approving the revised 22 23 school calendar is recommended by the educational policies and that was within our packet and it was a pretty simple explanation to that and I don't know how you can get it we can no longer have uh remote days during snow days because we're requiring we have a remote baby we are required to feed our students in the building so a slow day defeats uh having to go on we gave us up to school and we have to take them and pick them up here to school today and then we can send them home it defeats us so we cannot have a remote day we've got to remember that we had the covert rules that allowed us to have this

083exception where we delivered food and actually gave food to people prior to a snow day uh they're no longer relevant so we will have a legitimate snow days uh it will not exceed five of them for the senior class because we don't want them in freebies oh I'm very sad I know you are good I could say but unfortunately under the new rules you have to provide lunch and breakfast during the school day in the facility so and that's the only change who is the rocket scientist that come up with that yeah they made one yeah I made a motion okay any other discussion all those are fair and you want to pose and just a reminder of um for how they got here we started with our board self-evaluation we had that Oracle Workshop

084in which we work together to identify goals and to prioritize the activities that it was presented to the educational policy committee last month they were complains we just did Africa edits um we agreed upon the same three goals areas which were communication and engagement affected parent structure and function and strategic plan and then we developed some new activities underneath each of those goals so is there any questions make a motion approvement one second I have an emotions of Freedom has been segmented any questions all those in favor is there anyone exposed your opposed speaker yeah okay the next is moving on to policy and approve the final reading there are three policies there I think we probably need to be condom individually now they're going to do it as foreign I'd like to make a

085motion to amend policy ijj to include two additional subsections under criteria for selection um K not contain any visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts let us see where where you're talking again okay it's under criteria for selection okay they're completely maintenance they wouldn't be there yeah that's okay I'd like to make a motion to amend policy ijj to include two additional subsections under criteria for selection K not contain any visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts and L not contain explicit written descriptions of sexual acts five seconds emotion and a second you can give me that motion later any discussion yeah what about sex ed um we can absolutely make a an amendment to that policy to say um excluding like anatomical

086descriptions for science classes um yeah this is going to cover so many books and uh I so I can't I can't I can't support it or my understanding from Canada our attorneys don't support any click the language um so we'll go to a precedent for it uh there isn't a pro I've been on the board 11 years there's never been a problem with books so uh we have a processed over the challenge of course uh and I think we should not try to fix isn't broken it could be broke awful quick and somebody brought one of them books in the library and uh there's a process to you know continue with that um I just was that that that language can cover so many books which has a requests again well I I first when

087we first started this conversation I said my intention for putting these in our policy was to hopefully avoid um having books be challenged because we're seeing definitely a lot of that happening across the country in our state and I think if we had a an objective boundary in place that parents were able to see that teachers were able to see um it would bring a level of comfort to parents community members who might be concerned about certain books if they knew that we were trying to protect against some of the things that they might be concerned about um I think we're just gonna I understand that historically this is maybe not been an issue but I do think that we're in kind of a new territory um that Kenner just said the national conversation is

088changing a bit um I there's there's just books that are being published and presented that maybe wouldn't have been in the past and I think instead of thinking about specific books right now we just need to think about what is appropriate for our schools um and there's two different criteria here so one of them is about Visual depictions and then the other one is about written so I think that those both need to be considered separately um if you have concerns I don't think it's gonna cause many books to be able to be challenged completely legitimate folks to be challenged is no in the end there's really no objective criteria even though you're proposing language and I understand what you're trying to say that is subject to interpretation uh and you know 25 different interpretations

089in the U.S Supreme Court can't even Define pornography we know it when we see it I mean that's their definition essentially because maybe those it's it's very difficult so I think the process that we have in this District works well yeah I I don't want to be uh an agenda all the time with a list of books well I don't want to ever vote Sarah I guess my concern is we don't allow movies in the classrooms for students to watch the debate sexual activity we don't allow kids to walk around and perform sexual acts that those books are allowing that to be presented in is school saying and I agree that some of the terminology of that you know not being in a book just saying there's a time and a place for it this

090is for education or not anything else I mean if the parents want to go out of a boat they can go on Kindle or Library user I just think that we have to be very careful about the fine line of what our children are watching when I'm seeing and it was in the the policy that we currently have and within this it does it recognizes the expertise of our professional staff and that the books within our instructional materials and within our libraries do you have something professionals that are trained looking at those materials um just to go back yeah go ahead Andrea um I think we're making a problem and trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist if we we already have a really good policy for challenging books we have professionals that won't

091lend beloved to a three-year-old or you know a sixth grader you know we're not going to do that because we already have the mechanisms in place so if we just add language like that like Ed said we're going to open it up to start Banning individual Hooks and that is not right and if if parents have a concern it's up to the parents I don't understand why we need to push the onus onto the school when parents should be doing their job but that's my distance well the problem is transparency Elizabeth um I was going to say our current policy in place as written um when a book is being challenged the damage has already been done and this is in regards to visualization of sexual act in comic book form whatever pictures of that

092if that is a definition of pornography you would defy that as pornography that's my two cents written words on a page are very different than depictions in comic or picture form process for getting books and I don't think it's exactly clear so we can our our librarian can purchase books our SAT can purchase books we can also take donations of books um we have a school library but we also have classroom libraries the librarian who is the expert is the one who's choosing the books that are in this library teacher libraries can be put together by the staff member by um somebody donating books those books are not being vetted by the library um and so for me this being put in place is something that our staff and anybody making a donation can reflect

093on when they are choosing books for the library um it's and to just go back to what Elizabeth said especially when you're talking about a visual depiction which there are many books that do have visual depictions um if that is in a sixth grade classroom which it very well can be because none of this is set up by grade level we have one blanket policy for our entire District right now so a sixth grade teacher could you know hear on the news about a book that had been approved by another school board that maybe our librarian would not have even put in this library and then thought well that was okay for that school I should probably have it in my classroom Library um if there's just not a lot of Direction when it comes

094to some of these books I just think that the teachers deserve clear boundaries so that they don't they're not I mean I would like to support teachers here this isn't about you know making things more difficult for them it's about giving them clear boundaries of knowing what they can and shouldn't have in there yeah I don't I don't I'm hearing everybody's concern that we're Banning books and that this can be a slippery slope but the pendulum can get kicked both ways and it's a slippery or slope I think when we have no guidelines or boundaries this isn't about banning books this is about Our obligation as board members to do our civic duty to protect the children in our district to write policies that provide sound you know guidelines and governance of what can and

095can't happen of what we expect out of students staff our curriculum and everything and this I think is something that if we don't address it's going to be an issue because if people aren't paying attention things will come in and people saying it's not an issue it's a very real issue that's why our state is on fire right now and I think if we don't address this now and put a very simple guideline in that maybe uh you know would say not including materials with diagrams about Anatomy for science or content relating to classical works of art because I know that was a concern but we're not trying to ban books we're trying to put in guidelines in place that children in this District who are all underage there's very few 18 year old who

096are legal adults in our district are not exposed to these things the the world is a big bad place they're going to have plenty of years outside of these walls these facilities that we are uh you know in charge of governing to be exposed and to have these conversations and to do these things these are school age adolescent children that we need to have some sort of guideline to protect them and do our due diligence as board members we're not saying banned books we're saying we see the problem that's happening we have it like I agree we do have professionals we have certified people that are doing their jobs but you know what they're humans and they have agendas and we have staff in this District that have books in their classrooms that know that

097they are probably a little bit edgy and too much but they're there anyways and it's because if you're not watching somebody then they have full room to do whatever they see fit so we can trust them but trust has to go both ways and if we have to have some simple little thing in here saying like hey our district isn't going to tolerate this we want to protect our kids we want to guide our our kids and we are aware that parents will do their jobs but the problem is when we have a transparency issue with our staff and all of our you know school buildings whether they're teachers or libraries or whatever their title is that's a big concern because there are books in the district there are books in schools that aren't appropriate

098for children and there are book lists being sent out to parents that say Hey this might be risky there's some stuff in here like we do with you know when it comes time to health we send out a questionnaire saying hey we're going to show your children these things we're going to talk about these topics we need your permission to do that if you don't like it or you're uncomfortable please sign this and we will give them something different that to me is Apples to Apples if we're having sexualized content in books why aren't we sending out communication to our parents to our community members saying hey we have these books they might be around them it is what it is I think we need to do our due diligence as a board this isn't

099Banning books it's simply stating that we're willing to make a guideline that will allow teachers and staff to make good decisions saying that we will and won't tolerate certain things I'd also like to say that these books could be challenged whether or not we put this if this isn't going to create an epidemic of books being challenged and if a book is challenged if you read the policy it doesn't come to us it goes to a committee that's appointed by Ken that has like a district or a a building principle a teacher at that grade level it's I I don't want that responsibility I'm not putting this here because I want to be the person who chooses what books are in the school there is a process for that I think the opposite I think

100this opens the door for all kinds of challenges yeah if you put a definition on it I'm sorry I didn't break my hand yeah uh if you put a definition on it that means that somebody can come in and challenge that you need to be you need to have more trust in the system that we already have in place and yeah if you start defining everything then you're gonna get more and more challenges I think it's just going to make it worse Jessica I'm not on this subcommittee so I don't know what you guys I'm sure that on your agenda a couple times um we made the edits the policy that we have here has been updated based on the recommendation from State from our from Amazon Okay so we've had the state and the

101legal council recommend the changes that were Incorporated and those changes do not include this K and L and there's a reason for that correct yes thank you Christine I wholeheartedly understand the intent um behind what you're saying and I truly respect that um I also think that if you're aware that there are books in our district that may not be appropriate we do have a process and I think that if you're aware of that you should challenge that um I am not willing to jump on adding anything to the policy that msna and our attorneys don't think should be in there I am far more concerned with what our children can find on the internet despite our school's filter than I am with books that are in our schools Steve well look more Jay and

102whatever didn't it just approve all them books to school board they had two challenges to books and the school board it did go to their school board and the school board did allow those books to stay and neither of those books are in our library because we have to also think that our library here is a seven through ten so what might be appropriate for high school may not be appropriate for a seventh and eighth grade so that definitely guides our Librarians decisions who was Dave Joe wanted to have that box in this Library he's going to stop and recommend the way the policy written down I'm not saying you would joke he was going to stop you who's going to stop you can bring them in if you put that in there and then

103they have a right to throw them off the door I'm like so those The Librarian Is determining what books are here and a parent can say they don't want their their child to take out certain books but it's a librarian Joe I don't think parents check their kids bags for what books they bring home because they assume what books are in the library are safe so the books in the library are unsafe parents should be checking bags and that's a major concern Ed yeah we're gonna get sued so we're going to get sued repeatedly over this policy I've added I think we're more likely to get sued from parents exposing books in our district that we shouldn't be in here and I mean no offense but German and Woodson work for us so if we

104put this in here they're getting paid to defend us either way and they're also the law firm that is like I don't know some crazy 75 number that coverages all of these districts and they're also the law firm that defended that District who kept that book in their libraries so that to me says that there's you know some issues do we have a motion on the floor unless somebody has something new to add that's good notion Emily I don't have to ask you to read it again please um to amend policy ijj to include two additional subsections under criteria for selection okay not contain any visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts and L not contain explicit written descriptions of sexual acts is there Joe is that what the

105concerns over like scientific sorry yeah we can amend that if you would like um I think what we do is stick to the motion that's out there and if there are adjustments and they needed for delayed around we'll try to make them later on um approval of Emily's can we just double check Robert's rules on that because I thought if the person who made the motion whether it's seconded or not can amend it you can amend it we'd have to vote on the amendment you can go to that the original one yeah you'd have to vote on the amendment to add the scientific and then we'll go back and vote on the original Amendment vote on the motion that we have on the floor that has been said no Andrea no no she can make

106an amendment can we can somebody pull up Robert's Rules of Order you can make an amendment we'll have to vote we can yes we have to vote on the amendment first and then vote in the main motion right okay so so what is the amendment moving to make an amendment so that it okay um the amendment would be accept in cases it does not including materials with diagrams about Anatomy for science or content relating to classical works of art you have to take all the photos of you know Michelangelo's data you know how it was building out no that's what this looks like it's pornographic anyway my opinion is it makes it even worse more challenges more lawsuits [Music] because the other letters don't have like exceptions I just want to hear the wording of

107the amendment yeah like K is going to say no that's not sorry no you're not what you're asking for a reading well she added language to say accept winning blah blah blah so visual fictions there's a there's been emotion there's been except uh secondated she's made an amendment to the her original amendment to them all instead of working right and it has the exception of of science and art and classical law so that's yeah that we're we're voting on that element not on the uh the base level only on the amendment but that's okay that is successful then we can go back but we didn't need to go back and then vote on the original I don't know Andrea no Amber no Jessica no Mary no Patrick yes Angela yes Elizabeth yes Mike no Sarah

108yes Steve yes Christine no Ed no Emily yes personality no yeah what do you guys think well yes okay yes thank you foreign there's no no policies decide right wow yeah a little bit maybe maybe not all depends if they passed like um all right so those four were 351 points those that have yes we're 560 folks so the amendment the amendment now we have to go back to the original motion and we're back with Emily and our original we'll go through a lot of those sheets that means we're doing our job so is everyone clear about Emily's original motion Andrea no Amber no Jessica no Mary no Patrick no Angela yes Elizabeth yes Mike no Sarah yes Steve yes Christine no Ed no Emily yes Melanie no a good guy um I'm sorry to

109do this I'd like to make that same motion with the amendment and I'm not great at that but I want to say no okay thank you but that motion uh those four were 294 points it was against was 617 took that Amendment does lineups can I make a motion yes and we I've moved that we approve this policy ijj as sent to us from the educational policy committee sure explain discussion I think it would be wise for us to consider having um a policy that pertains only to elementary school um that may be some of the things that are appropriate and considered acceptable for the high school um that would just be my recommendation is that indeed I think that's what's in that body um it says the maturity levels of the students so that's

110to me that's what that you know I think that I've ever done because it seems very much more vague than what you guys were saying was vague and mad emotions on going off of that I think we also brought to my attention a teacher I didn't know teachers can bring include their own books without any vetting or anything of that nature so I think that in the future we should uh consider going through that process that the librarian has to go through to bring their drugs okay we have a motion coming with the second and then it is to accept the policy that's brought forward from the educational policy committee any other news for sure that's a question I like Emily's idea um how would we do something like that is that something that the

111committee would develop and come back with with a new letter like at a future meeting to delineate that further if if this policy passes this is we always have the ability to come back and make adjustments to the policy through our process of the Southern committee however that is okay okay I just didn't want to get into that motion we can't do that whatever second so in order to speak to that though so we would have to ask it to be put on the agenda of the policy committee right is that how that works and then they do whatever they're going to do and then it would go to this again is that correct or either yeah the Standalone policy or an adjustment to this policy okay um would it make sense then to maybe

112amend the motion to just send it back to them now and see if they're willing to add in a section specific for that we've got emotion and a second it would have to be an amendment to demolishing yeah we have a promotion and a second what do you have a piece of paper are you ready uh Andrea yes Amber yes Jessica yes Mary yes Patrick no Angela no Elizabeth no Mike yes Sarah no Steve no Christine yes Ed yes Emily no Melanie yes interesting foreign watch your mouth I'm a registered Republican and I'll tell you I didn't vote for many years I hope you like the price I guess you think this is the only country yeah okay the talents are those in favor of it yes 560 uh four and 351 boys I guess

113so this loads so we're moving on to our next um citizens Challenge and educational media that one has written second yeah and the only changes to educational policy can be made were adding the words and its entirety making sure that anybody that talented has read the material s [Music] there's a motion on a second and discussion all those in favor and you want to pose um exemptions from required instructions it's not gonna unfortunately second discussion all those in favor anyone opposed the unanimous foreign it feels like a temperature has dropped a little bit funny yeah all right going around and while they're going around about hello please um winter sports are starting soon Monday basketball and hockey start and hockey they didn't even know if they were going to have a season this year because

114of nothing struggles so it's a good thing that they do and um for the communications committee which is part of SRB we are doing holiday project we're trying to do hand prints for to make a big photography about what are things thank you for Thanksgiving and then what lights up your world which is kind of Lights um any represents of your holiday season one school and last year we started doing student-led announcements for the community too and I look into the energy with us here which is my name is okay great I'm on pause committee which is also part of SRB we've received a letter from some students recommending a change to the dress code and pass Committee created a set of guidelines and a set of recommendations that is going on to the next

115step which would be the whole SRB and then to Vision Keepers and admin so that process is moving forward this week because Paul's Community voted on it today senior celebrations are underway so some projects have already started summary had to be approved but so I'm not really approval and they've already started working I've seen some stuff up in the hallway um yeah senior class fundraisers we had a couple last month the biggest one being haunted hallways which was a very successful fundraiser um I can't say the exact number but it was well over a thousand dollars and we raised from that so it was a lot of money to grow glass which we very much need right now although not quite as much as the junior bus sorry um anyway um I also completed my

116college applications so we'll see where that goes in the next few months because I should be getting some as soon as December keep us informed oh yeah good luck buddy all right that's it all right thanks um record a school board chair I'm going to ask for some help from some of our members as you know we there was the msma fall Conference October 27th and 28th and that's just a Civic Center which Amy and Kevin and Angela and I uh attended but before that was our our delegate assembly which is part of that but it was the weekend earlier Andrea did that for us so Andrea I want to tell us a little bit about the assembly okay um it was a half a day um real policy one can care it's just voting

117and voting and voting okay it was broken up into three sections we voted on new delegates and then we had um altered resolutions where they just changed their word or two and resolutions that we already had and uh three examples that are we had um they wanted to change the revised medication list to include sunscreen epipens and Narcan um also on those proficiency tests that everybody takes they want to include social studies and Civics instead of just mapping science news we want social studies in sync and that passed um they also want to make it easier for um psych people and social workers to get qualified so they're trying to make their qualifications easier like they did for the teachers because there's a real um dirt of those people in ballistic County and they're having

118big problems up there to get social workers and because you know yeah I think a lot so far so and um then the third section was new resolutions and um a couple examples they want to uh Define the public in public comment area as residents or taxpayers or immediate family of students and also employees and immediate family of employees and that's going to be their definition of uh um they also want to change the qualification for free lunch um so that it would also include the um Ami average median income of the area so say we'd get more money than family because they have richer people in family kind of thing um also they also wanted to add the funding of the universal School meals act to federal law so that it doesn't run out

119so they can keep doing it and that's that's the highlights of uh five and a half hours thank you for representing us because I've done it lots of years and summarizing and saying and what the Civil War Association will do is they will win things come up in the legislature that's the that's how they will vote in terms of supporting us as Awards so Angela do you want I asked Angela maybe to just give us a few highlights or something she learned there's one thing I know she's going to share with us oh well I I have more fun than just writing an electric school bus I wrote an electric school bus to say that I could and I did and that's it check it out my bucket list but um it was a lot

120of fun actually it was very informative I think it's a great event that our state puts on um I liked the layout that you get to pick your own schedule and so like every hour or so there's like 10 different options of um sessions you can go into on all kinds of different topics um because of the last couple of years they were pretty weighted with the controversial issues so it was like you just kept getting hammered and it was I was exhausted by the end of the first day where the second day Mary and I are both like we're done we just need to go and do something else and so we thought the great idea would be to go to uh Japanese class basically and it was freaking finances so it was like

121a little lost halfway through the class but um which was a relief from what we you know before but it was a lot of fun I would say a couple takeaways is I would encourage every board member to go if you guys can can get the time off it's work days mostly but um and uh kind of have a chance to sit in and peek in on kind of what's going around uh to just kind of be in the loop of what's coming down the pike um I did like their main speakers name was David horsehager I think and he did this phenomenal he travels International nationally and he does this phenomenal um kind of just basically a presentation and I think it's his company but it's called trust Edge and he just really talks

122and tries to promote trust with people uh businesses companies boards was his specialty like he's hired on by countless people to come in and like fix problems um and so there was a bunch of pillars kind of that he tied with that that he just highlighted the importance of trust with each other the admin staff community and the eight pillars were Clarity compassion character competency commitment connection contribution and consistency uh and they're basically all interdependent of each other you can't have one without the other um two other takeaways I took from different kind of sessions was the key work of a board is to ensure a community-wide climate of commitment respect and Trust um and then the other one was um they basically shared Amy might like this I don't know but it was basically

123they said if you are not sharing your mission or Vision everyone every 21 days and nobody knows it which to me was like astounding because it's like really every three weeks we've got to be like meeting people over the head with but they don't know because there's so much stuff so that was a cool takeaway plus my favorite cherry on the top was they had a ton of free giveaway stuff so I walked out there with like a big old bag of like everything racers yeah there were free things and then their people caused people not to get free things I recall oh I asked if they were all hanging around after the thing because they were giving you a bunch of prizes and I was told absolutely not I went home and my name

124was called twice wasn't it it made it three times or Mary wasn't it and you had to be there I didn't know because they were saying it was actually yeah I said Mary let's go get out all the free stuff and so we walked around and got all kinds of free stuff I did one and ask them so yeah it was like an Apple ID Apple TV something but if you guys go next year the trick is you go at the end because they know all those little raffle jugs they don't shake them up they just tape them right off the top so literally there were people so there was people who won like five or six prizes there was like four or five people who buy the lottery tickets there were people there were

125a lot of names and they just the guy was living like and it was like the same name you know I'm trying to even the playing field so if my Board Mates go next year or they have an opportunity to win and I would say I really appreciated I really did happen it was fun and the food was really good yeah I would say that the same as her that it was very much focused on issues challenges complaints um and much of it was presented by lawyers so it was sort of that legal perspective so I felt like we learned something but it definitely was um stressful the way it is yeah I'm going they were talking I went to one called Hot Topics in school uh litigation and it you know in a state

126and National level we're kind of all in the in the same boat there they were talking about the number of increases in Freedom of access requests and the increase in human rights cases and mostly in the areas of discrimination and harassment and there was one called leadership in a divided Community which was about how to handle difficult board meetings and you know we've all set through through those in the last couple years and I went to one called student rights in the classroom we talked about students First Amendment rights their their freedom of speech and rules around searches um and then one of the ones we went he talked about a governance leadership calendar which I was always looking for something that maybe that could enhance how we function as a board and one of

127the goals we just made was about um having some kind of board advisory committee that addresses um board how we function as a board so this governance leadership calendar was talking about just having a calendar that has those critical times and deadlines for the board things that we kind of know happen but when they're on a calendar for example it it might say in September board self-evaluation it might say in October goals Workshop so that we kind of get a picture of what our year looks like as as a board so I think it depends something that we can can work on they also emphasize um and said in this time of course personal and philosophical differences at board ethnic policies and board Norms are even more important and we have our board Norms on

128the back of here and maybe just calling attention to them and highlighting them more um I mean those are are the rules of rich and I think we do a good job following them but we we don't often just articulate them so I think that that might be something that we could do more often and or Amy is there anything from the conference you wanted to share I think it was great it was uh a lot of fun and I think that anybody who has an opportunity if they can do you should go I think you'll gleam a lot from it uh you'll get to see colleagues from the other boards and you'll see that you're not in this little moment where everybody has very similar issues and concerns um so I would encourage you

129to go and the other piece and Angela and I talked to them about it was the thing you walk away with is also that we're functioning pretty well for the work um oh yeah you know there there are some there are always a few questions that come up that we're alike wow um yeah so I think it's also confirming that you know that we've got difficult issues and we're working together to try to work works for them so it's also confirming um the other thing I had on my report was just to you even though the it was in our uh consent agenda just really quickly to go over where we are in terms of the superintendent search committee uh members of that committee are Joe myself Christine uh just Steve Angela and Ken and

130Amy are kind of acting as an advisory to us um we've met twice we met in October we met in early November um so we reviewed the job description we reviewed the policy on recruiting and hiring administrative staff we did advertise internally October 6th through the 20th and we didn't receive any applicants during that time we did review a cost and Technical proposal from msma they will provide services to to districts at a cost we looked at those costs and felt that we could um that we really didn't need to seek their services right now the position has been advertised on certain schools and school spring and msma has circulated the opening to all of their members and the staff and Community survey was distributed and our next meeting Steve paying attention I wrote and

131wrote it down for you here um our next meetings November 16th at 5 30. is that like Wednesday your passes down Amy told me um at that meeting we're going to review the surveys start to prepare for interviews applications or do you remember instead of December December 2nd uh interviews in mid-December and in January to ask the stakeholders to join our committee for second interviews and for stakeholders who are the parents teacher Administration central office so that we have um sort of a broader base foundation and then possibly if we have a candidate um to bring one to you on in January so that's that's best case scenario there are lots of things that could kind of be a glitch in that timeline but that that's a hope so moving on um administrative reports any

132comments on those or anything that were part of our packet okay um we also have the communications that were shared with us the three letters from our town and so now we are at a point where we could enter into motion enter into executive session regarding labor contract negotiation discussions pursuant under one MRSA and a second all those in favor can you imagine