001all right might check mic check mic check all right welcome everybody gathered here tonight at the hampton academy library um tonight we are missing rob jessica hamilton and jane dyer you have a forum so go forward everyone join me for the pledge of allegiance the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands our nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right uh i would like to have a motion to approve the minutes from the february 9th meeting i have a motion in the second discussion seeing young all those in favor opposed or abstentions all right tonight we have some adjustments to the agenda under new business we have discussed an act on the acceptance of the newberg school closure referendum results we have discussed under item b
002we have discussed an act on rethink remote education ventures grant award and under item c under new business we have discuss an act on election of board representatives to a board of representative to united technology centers we also have under executive session to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the legal matter the last one we have item 9 being one student athlete recognition in order to allow them to get back home tonight we're going to move that to right now good evening uh it's pleasure to be here to recognize some student athletes for some accomplishes we had some great accomplishments over the winter sports season we want to focus on the sportsmanship theme tonight because we did have a team and an individual awarded a sportsmanship award so we're very proud of
003that so if i could have coach cash and ray brickle and coach farley and members of the boys basketball team please come out so first we'll start with the individual award the ann norton sportsmanship award is given to one male and one female athlete from the 16 teams that make up the eastern maine indoor track league each season the recipients are voted on by officials meet and league directors and their voting is based on the cooperation and sportsmanship exhibited by the athlete throughout the duration of the seasons practices and competition this year ray brickle was named the male recipient recipient for the league and is the first from hamden academy since 2016. congratulations i'll have coach cash say a couple words i just want to further congratulate ray i think it's really a testament to
004what ray can do to really be seen in the midst of all the area schools as a standout and what he can do just not in supporting his own team but also in supporting all the competitors in all for all the area schools is really just a testament to the job that he did this later and congratulations ray on the team level this winter we were very fortunate to have our boys varsity basketball team named the class double a north region sportsmanship team of the year coach bartlett uh we have four athletes here with us tonight we've got adam pinkos landon gabriel brandon butterfield and brennan tiensville that all represented our program obviously in a real positive way a couple of just quick things i'll mention is you know throughout the years here i feel
005like one thing we really emphasize is character and demeanor and uh you know i think this is the fourth time we've been fortunate enough to win this award uh through the years and i think that this is a testament to the culture within our program that it's pretty consistent year and year out depending on it doesn't depend on how many games we win uh you know the kids carry themselves in a real positive way the end point for us is the seniors going to be successful men when they leave and i feel like you know the two that are leaving today are going to be successful men so i feel like we've got a nice job thank you very much thank you guys really appreciate it just we brought this up in an earlier board
006being that we really put an emphasis that we want to win two banners every season the championship banner sportsmanship so we want to be very competitive and do do it right as we do that so thank you very much [Applause] mr miller we had another recognition thank you very much coach cash i remiss if i didn't mention and i didn't find this out till today because coach cass was keeping it from me but we also had a coach named the easter main indoor track league male athlete coach of the year for this winter congratulations [Applause] congratulations and with this adjustment of the agenda for the recognition in this section we also have the recognition of national board certified teacher stacy labrie i'd like to ask mrs labrie to come up to the podium she was
007unable to join us last month for the formal recognition so we've invited her this month for those of you who have had the pleasure of having a student go through mrs labrie's class it is absolutely a year to remember and relationships form that last for so long the number of students that come back to visit mrs labrie is quite something and there's a reason for it so i'd like to thank you for taking on national board certification and congratulations on that success and i know you're not one for a lot of words but is there anything you'd like to share with the board about the process and the outcome um and this is um [Applause] all right that brings us um to those folks wishing to address the board before we do that i'd like
008to read our policy all meetings of the board shall be open to the public all actions of the board shall be taken openly and deliberations leading to board action shall likewise be conducted openly the public is invited to attend board meetings and will be given limited time to voice opinions or problems the board recognizes his responsibility to conduct the business of the district in an orderly and efficient manner and will therefore require reasonable controls to regulate public presentation to the board the primary purpose of the meeting is for the board to conduct its business as charged by law spontaneous discussion as well as disorder and disruption prevent the board from doing its work and will not be permitted a person wishing to be heard by the board shall first be recognized by the chair he
009or she shall then identify him or herself and proceed with his or her comments as briefly as subject permits the chair is responsible for the orderly conduct of the meeting and shall rule on such matters as the time to be allowed for public discussion the appropriateness of the subject being presented and the suitability of time for such a presentation a speaker in violation of these rules may be required to leave in order to permit the orderly consideration of the matters of which the meeting was called persons who disrupt the meeting may be asked to leave and the chair may request law enforcement assistance as necessary to restore the order speakers will be asked to observe the following in the case of a large large audience the speaker may be at the speakers may be asked
010to sign up for a meeting so that they may be called on expediently speakers may be asked to keep their comments to three minutes confidential personal information will not be shared in public session no complaints or allegations will be allowed at public meetings concerning any persons employed by the school system or against particular students personnel matters or conflicts concerning students or staff issues will not be considered in public meeting but will be referred through established policies and procedures all speakers are asked to identify themselves gossip deflammatory comments or abusive or vulgar language will not be permitted speakers must address all comments and questions to the chair comments will be heard and considered requests for information or concerns that require further research may be referred to the superintendent to be addressed at a later time generally
011the board does not not discuss or act on items not on the agenda speakers are asked not to be repetitious of comments already made to the board in the interest of the most efficient use of time the chair has the authority to stop the presentation that violates these regulations or the privacy rights of others a person wishing to address the board may be permitted to do so only during designated time for public comment i just want to take a second to go back to one that i think is very important no complaints or allegations will be allowed at board meetings during concerning any persons employed by the school system or against particular students gossip and inflammatory comments or abusive or vulgar language will not be permitted so i think those are important important parts of
012that policy so that being said who do we have we have five people signed up this evening i'm gonna begin with david cassidy thank you and uh mr chair thank you very much in the past there's been a timer i don't know thank you very much for your time i really appreciate and both my wife and i appreciate and thank you for your ongoing efforts over the past months you've been asked to remove books from shelves and also just last month been asked to create safe spaces i'm here tonight to actually discourage you from supporting either position there's a specific intent so with regard to risk removing books there's an intent and what they seek to accomplish is to shelter students for what some consider to be harmful material but with regard to safe spaces
013it's also the requesting intent to shelter students from speech and seeking a shelter explain that place for the expression of identity you know both also interfere with certain freedoms so with regard to removing books you're interfering with intellectual freedoms students and parents can elect not to read the book but it is off the shelf someone doesn't have the resource publicly available to them through which they can freely pursue matters of intellectual interest creating safe spaces it can tend to interfere with regions of speech and association people can elect not to be in the area where the speech is occurring and can associate with whom they choose in reality this is two sides of the same coin they represent extreme positions of a divided community and a country and that coin is a bad penny i
014would encourage you to throw it away if you consider this to be a multifaceted construct then it's really like loaded dice and loaded dice depends on who has control of the dice we need to throw away the dice what we should be doing instead is with regard to removing books you have policy i j i j j r instructional library materials and selection librarians are charged with building collections in accordance with the standards established by the policy and there are procedures in place to challenge any particular material with the opportunity for thorough consideration of materials in light of those standards that you've established with regard to creating safe spaces really the intent should be to foster a community-wide approach that advances community impactful discourse not self-censorship it involves speaking and listening with the underlying skills
015base of critical thinking self-reflection and cultural competency if we are clear in our thoughts and not persuaded by the extremes we can find positions that build common ground and community that truly meets the needs of all students within rsu 22. again thank you for your time listening to me and i want you to thank you and i want to thank you for your efforts and services [Music] my name is amy gellman i am a resident and parent i have children's children at both greensboro and hamlet academy and i'm very happy to say that botha had a fabulous year this year i want to take the time to thank everyone for making the in-person learning possible it took a lot of hard work planning and compromise and our family is very grateful a large part of
016what has made it my students years great are they have great teachers we know that student enrollment at hand in academy has gone up but teacher numbers have not gone up or not kept up with expanding enrollment i looked at core classes for english and math uh some of the schools across the state um and i was even even thinking what i was going to find i was shocked what i did was took the enrollment and divided it by the amount of english teachers or math teachers for bangalore high school for example there are 1200 students and 14 english teachers so that comes out to 86 students for english students three league which is always ranked high in may have 61 students per teacher a columnist 84 students per teacher and an academy is at
017113 per feature math math has a similar story where bangor has 92 greely has 68. nokomis has 74 and hamden academy who has 117. i strongly believe that we still have good schools today but i have significant concerns that we are declining and our significant risk if we continue to starve our students with their teachers teachers are the true foundation of school and they're simply not enough to withstand the weight that they're being currently being asked to dare i ask that administrators and planners and board recognize this and dedicate time and resources in the future to people rather than programs thank you my name is student and qha graduates i'm here to say thank you first and foremost thank you for coming despite how difficult it sometimes may be to sort data from this information
018thank you for coming despite the intimidation the threats and the disrespect that you endure month after month thank you for your service to this community in this district i know it's not always easy i hope you and our faculty will soon have the legal protection you deserve public servants but for now please know that you're appreciated thank you for giving superintendent nichols the opportunity to keep the school open by using the science and data to put useful so admittedly some strategies in place despite the small but robust opposition my kids did not thrive in a virtual learning environment in 2020 and if you did thanks to pool testing vaccination and masking we missed very little tool this year so far due to code with our cover quarantines and i am so thankful for that i'm
019thankful for the continued monitoring and tracking to ensure that decisions continue to allow in-person learning no matter what the next few months bring thank you for working to create a space where all voices can be heard thank you for supporting a curriculum that recognizes the importance teaching critical thinking and how to evaluate sources of information then an op-ed is not the same or as strong as data collected scientifically that not all studies are created equal and peer-reviewed data is stronger than raw data push that onto the internet without review even if the findings are repeated loudly or written in all caps thank you for allowing an encouraging discussion to conflict resolution how to disagree without because we need our students to be better than some of the adults that income thank you for allowing the
020teachers to present history in a way that recognizes the diversity of experience within each event and importance of giving those experiences equal discussion thank you for supporting access to accurate age-appropriate and up-to-date information about human sexuality and gender identity without electing unnecessary barriers that prevent assets thank you for letting students recognize the normalcy of the variety of loving relationships within families and households thank you for providing a curriculum that allows teachers to use books and other resources to present a window for our students to learn from the experiences of others like that or different from them while also providing a mirror so that each student can see their work it has been suggested from this podium that discrimination doesn't exist because it's illegal and we'd all assume that happened i challenge you to ask any
021person of color most women particularly those in the traditionally male-dominated profession any member of the lgbtq community or any member of a non-christian religious group whether discrimination still exists you will uniformly get told that it does often with colorful language and anecdotes it exists in this country in the state this community captain collins please my name is catherine collins and i have six children two of whom are in uh human academy the hyper sexualization of students in rsu 22 is completely unacceptable to immerse children most of whom are under the age of puberty in an atmosphere where they are bombarded by sexual messages leads to early sexual experience confusion about their own identity and increases the possibility of abuse by adults sexual orientation instruction is completely improper this type of instruction is not about the
022birds and the bees instead children are taught that you can be anything you want to be therefore you can change from a boy to a girl and vice versa that there's more than two genders that you can be addressed in any way you desire and so on this instruction can and will psychologically harm children who are just beginning to grasp the facts of reality and now are getting the message that reality not only is unstable but that they can change it at a whim how can a 5 to 13 year old child feel anything about his sexual orientation when he is too young to have a strong sexual attraction for someone he loves what is this part what is the purpose of this emphasis on sex and sexual identity in this school district signs above
023the entrance to schools curriculum choices books in the library clubs and teacher instruction all emphasize the topic of sex and sexual orientation it can't be the children who are not developed enough psychologically to really understand the topic apparently it must be the feelings of those in the lgbt community the prevailing thought seems to be that lgbt people are erased because they aren't allowed to talk about their sexuality with young children who have no knowledge of sex or of its role in human life since when are teachers and other instructors allowed to talk to children about their sex lives when i was growing up adults who did that were considered predators the act of interacting with a child with the object objective of sexual abuse is called grooming children have become targets because many people in
024the lgbt movement define themselves by their sexual orientation rather than their sexuality being a part of their identity it is their complete identity they feel obsessed with gaining approval and converting more people to their lifestyle by going after children and trying to sexualize them this behavior is sexual abuse there are many books in the school libraries in rsu 22 that are inappropriate and could easily be construed as sexual grooming children i did recently meet with the principals at wetherby and reed's brook and had one such book removed from the shelves one rsu 22's teacher recommended book list includes all boys aren't blue i quote you told me to take off my pajama pants which i did you then took off your shorts followed by your boxers then you stood in front of me fully erect
025and said taste it at first i laughed and refused but then you said come on matt taste it this is what boys like to do when they like each other i finally listened to you then you got down on your knees and told me to close my eyes that's when you began all sex on me as well this is a book recommended by a human rsu 22 spends over 13 000 a year per student your time for that cost only 42 percent of students are proficient in math only 66 are proficient at reading the teachers and administration of each school should be focused on education one more time not sexually grooming them thank you john mcbride sean mcgregor and i sent an email on 3a providing a formal concern and complaint which you've yet to
026address i requested agreements on the hypersexualization of minors and pushing the crt and appeal for the complete removal of the reedsbrook free list where do you stand on his formal request chairman miller don't i'm not going to respond you already know these porn books uh they're being forced on curriculum through reedsbrook to 11 year old students with daily announcements and incentives and prizes now it's pure malfeasance on your part chairman ignoring it won't go away so what do you think would happen if a middle-aged man brought these sexually graphic books from stewie nova's list to the rsv22 playground started reading them to a group of 11 year old students or maybe a mississippi assistant principal reading to them in class that's an allegation against the personnel in the school but it's okay for an rsu22
027teacher principal to push that johnson keep that i'll be submitting some 16 challenge instruction materials forms to you this evening just a few the art of the protest at weatherby for eight-year-olds looking to join antifa or blm monday is not coming about violence towards women and dick sucking the infinite moment of this a book that's right over here about graphic sex in the book boy all boys aren't blue that was just reference so i emailed you actually all of that last book and that one response from this table so you're all invalidating your oaths of office she's doubled down on grooming child porn to students regardless of age pushing intellectual freedom she also stated in her testimony on ld 1930s you're talking about a a member of our staff i am how do you know
028that because you said her name has been national in the news damaged your reputation to spread misinformation i'm asking you to stop talking about a staff member during the morning sure so dolly sullivan from educate maine what a misnomer that is stated one of the detractors emailed someone at school and requested a meeting we urged her never to meet with this person alone and to always be vigilant when leaving school and aware of her surroundings great advice on vigilance i never asked for anybody to meet alone in fact i asked this person last fall for coffee in a public location so she could try to provide me more insight to her plagiarized book list goes on to say this is the first time we are taking a different approach because of concerns for her safety
029so to be clear no one should have concerns about this society and i asked you to stop talking about i'm guessing i'm the only one person in this room chairman miller who had a local resident say he was going to rape my wife because i've been providing factual information about pornography books now we're going down the line of gossip no it's true it's actually police important i'll just go back and forth so either either finish up within our publisher or so you chairman miller superintendent nichols principal thibodeaux and kelsey solinova are now violating about a dozen rfc 22 policies i'm also responsible for breaking local organizations and state and federal law parents of rsu22 please system now because your time is up anyways i'm going to ask you this cool i'm going to walk over
030to you chairman miller and hand you these reports these are the actual uh challenge of instructional material forms you can give those to your employees and i look forward to your lack of response thank you that concludes tonight's public comment thank you [Music] all right that brings us into my report um we have uh for your viewing tonight the ford governance and governance bg uh school policy process it's in your uh folder for your review just take a little time to look at that on your on your own um the second thing that i would uh like to bring up tonight is um the week before um february um superintendent nichols and assistant superintendent boone were recognized for the completion of their national board uh superintendent board certification um and i would like to ask
031them to give us a little overview of what that meant to them and uh thank you i'd like to start off by saying that we appreciate the board's support in our pursuit of this national certification um i think uh assistant superintendent boone has said it well that national certification for superintendents is a parallel to the national board certification for teachers they are in completely different programs but they are built by peers for the folks who work in those positions and certification programs are very strong because you are actually focused on the literal work and the expertise and competency that you need to develop every day in moving through in our case superintendencies or the national board teacher program they are teaching so i'm very pleased to let you know that the completion comes on the
032heels of of course hard work but incredibly relevant work that has really moved our district forward while we're doing it so i'm very pleased tonight and i'll turn it over to assistant superintendent boom to tell you more i too am very grateful for this opportunity would like to thank everyone for allowing me to do this as an assistant as you know i enrolled in this is in the superintendent certification program when i was a superintendent in bloomberg and asa allowed me to continue as an assistant and this board did as well and the hands-on project-based learning that we have in our strategic plan for students because it is best practice is what is mirrored in the process for the aasa national superintendent certification real world application of the skills with an excellent mentor hours with
033sherry cammy who is the next aasa president-elect and has one of the top functioning districts in the country can read about her bio in my board report but it is the parallel teacher the nc national board certification for teachers the four teacher by teachers and this is four superintendents by superintendents um and so it did make it more valuable than the philosophical conversations that you have in a in a lecture hall and we are grateful for the opportunity hope that you like our capstone presentation so one thing i'll pass around is the program for the conference that we also attended in conjunction with completing our modules for the national program so we'll pass that and you can see the number of programmatic choices we had and i know in assistant superintendent's report to you this
034month she outlined some of the sessions that we went to and just a glance we had so much learning going on but what was also very important is that we had a capstone project and it did relate to our strategic plan and as we move into that i'd like to recognize and thank a community member who was a critical part of the capstone completion and he's with us tonight and that is mark mason so mark if you could stand up or come up to the podium that would be great um i really know mark because of course he's a parent and he's someone that we see quite frequently but he also has been critical at our graduation ceremonies for making sure those get live streamed and out for our communities and he volunteers like nobody's
035business and has made just such a difference so we needed to have a video as our capstone project and we chose it to be related to the strategic plan so that we could share with the community and we turned to mark for our expertise and void and given space and you're going to get to see that tonight it's the unveiling of the video that we will be sharing with our community and so i'd like to give mark a chance to just talk about what he did to help us out and maybe an anecdote or two because mark's got those but i also want to take this opportunity to express our thanks to mark and just offer you a little token and we appreciate you thank you my wife said uh are you talking and i
036said no i'm not talking i said i think i'm just going to do the princess wave and like be good with it like that's it right and then she said come on um i got a call one night when i was i was making coffee in the kitchen and i got a call from reagan and so i had this idea and she didn't really know exactly what it was going to look like yet so for three months three months we had regular meetings uh i would meet with her and tina and we would work on the first thing we did was trying to organize what did they want to say with their video and what was the purpose of the video the first step is obviously for the certification which was a success but they
037also wanted to make something that had a foundation that they could then edit and use later on in smaller bits to help communicate the strategic plan to the community maybe something that's not as heavy as the full 15 minute version but something that's in smaller bikes so we broke it down into digestible chunks that we could decide where we wanted to put things and what we might want to be able to take out of it and then it was just a matter of i kept giving them more homework if they had to write a script and then we record we recorded the script and then they had to source some video and some and some pictures and then i just took what they what they decided they wanted to look like and i made it
038look like that so there's no magic there's there's nothing it is just taking their idea and putting it into a 14 15 minute video that will continue to have legs throughout the next year that they can then use in smaller bites and be able to repurpose to help tell the story of rc22 that's it he makes volunteering a full-time job and we're grateful for that a lot of the capstone projects we all had video to do and ours was a very high caliber and he volunteered his time to do that and other classmates who had such a high caliber video did not have a volunteer like mark to help bring it to life so we are very grateful so i hope you can find a seat where you can see this because it will be
039about 15 minutes and i hope that you enjoy what you see and also that you can recognize what we really hope for our communities that's our goal here we go in the future i want to be a a soccer player that is in the olympics straightforward and in new working wizard work are the four towns that form rsu-2222 high quarter women's work are located in waldo county in the nuclear army conference additionally several communities tuition students to ourselves brightport was incorporated on may 16 1789 and it's the oldest towns at obamacare frankfurt gray and white granite has been shipped worldwide since 1896. it can be found in washington monument the tomb of the unknown soldier the peters of the brooklyn bridge in new york and the base of the paul bunyan statue are all made
040of beautiful fried fork granite from mosquito mountain and mount waldo at different times through the years frankfurt tuition students to hand an academy and in 2013 the town officially joined our 222 to serve all pre-k through grade 12 students travel further off the knobscrop river and winter portland comes here before the days of icebreakers all goods and travelers had to be off holder from ships and transported to bedding work and point stores by wagons or sled because the river was icebound beyond this point this porch was a true winter forge giving winterport its name many people earned their living in activities related to river transportation many ships were built here and this is the reason why the middle school chose the clippers next we travel inland to newburgh settled in 1794 and incorporated in 1819
041newburgh maine was built on farming and forestry this large agricultural presence included cattle dams on furlough brook provided hydropower for various manufacturing companies through the years businesses have changed in newburgh from sawmills cheese factories and a carriage factory to larger carpentry and now construction companies farming still has a place in newburgh today newburgh once boasted 10 community schools these one-room schoolhouses serve students of newburgh well on november 13 1961 the town joined camden to form school administrative district 22 now r222 rsu 22's flagship high school camden academy was founded in 1803 nine years after the town was incorporated camden was first known as riosboro after its original settler and then renamed hamden after english patriot john hamden hamden academy was the first school of advanced learning in the area to offer perspective this was less
042than 30 years after the signing of the declaration of independence maine was still the district of maine and a portion of massachusetts indian academy school grounds were the site of a serious military battle in the war of 1812. the battle happened near reed's brook the same for which reedsburg middle school is now named in 1843 a new brit hampton academy was built because the fire took the existing wooden school in 1842 the hampton academy we enjoyed today opened in 2012 with all the latest technologies this technology includes geothermal heating and cooling thus living up to the hamden academy motto westigia nola virtuorsa meaning no footsteps backward it is likely derived from the town namesake john handen's homeland in england since that's been the hamden academy motto since the school was founded in 1803. to date
043our issue 22 has produced a united states ambassador four main state senators or representatives and a state senator in minnesota four united states congressmen including one representing kansas and one wisconsin the ninth governor of california frederick lowe is from winterford the superintendent of army nurses and famous mental health advocate dorothea dix was from hampden and united states vice president animal hamlet was also protected this does not include numerous national military leaders as we honor the accomplishments of past residents we look forward to watching our current indian academy students benefit from our new strategic plan and transform into successful contributing citizens just as those who have come open communication is a primary ingredient to connect with stakeholders from this priority a listening tour was born previously our district has had only three superintendents in 50 years
044it was deemed essential in the most recent superintendent transition that we hear from those who experience and affect the system our district's desire for engagement and communication with key stakeholders has been a key feature in the development of our strategic plan our district listening tour started in the fall of 2019 sought opportunities to meet with students districts staff parents and community members to discuss the status of district goals initiatives and practices these conversations allowed us to learn about the strengths challenges and areas of improvement for rsu 22 from all perspectives listening to her key takeaways have been presented time and time again to the board of directors administrative team the strategic planning ad hoc committee and schools and community as the strategic plan process convened and progressed the listening tour format included 11 key questions
045including things like what are you most proud of about rsu 22 what are the top challenges facing the district in the next 5 to 10 years if there was one issue if we dealt with it would improve the effectiveness of the school and district and what workforce focus should the district be paying closest attention to at some venues the slideshow was used to project the questions in a google form link was provided so that people could enter feedback simultaneously as conversation unfolded the list of questions was posed to staff and they were ready to talk about their thoughts we strive to keep it informal as we believe people have easier conversations that way in addition to staff meeting venues smaller focus group meetings occurred student representatives town officials and board members were all included the
046small group listening tour sessions between board members and the superintendent leadership team were an important time to prioritize the opportunities due to the many perspectives interests and questions surrounding the school reopening from gathering organizing and prioritizing the key takeaways rsu 22 got underway with strategic planning for the remainder of the school year our strategic planning process was one of setting goals deciding on actions to achieve those goals and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions back in 2019's employee listening tour stage it was clear that our issue 22 staff members appreciated being included and that we were valuing employee input and involvement the rsu 22 board of directors established a strategic plan ad hoc committee in late 2020 employees board members and community members were then invited to be a part of the strategic
047planning process a collaborative process was sought that would well facilitate visioning the portrait of a graduate design process was used this approach prioritized looking ahead to prepare our students for a successful future focused innovative education that assures our students will achieve at the highest levels stakeholders from throughout our community were sought to participate but staff involvement was key participation included attending the thursday afternoon and evening sessions or stakeholders could give input to representatives to be communicated or people may have been on the lookout for updates or the end product in whichever way people were invested in being a part of the work it was welcome communication was sent to ensure that stakeholders were well aware of how the process would work the strategic planning meetings were public and all staff were invited to attend and
048participate due to covert 19 the meetings were virtual by google me our first informational session was held to introduce the how what when and where and the process of portrait of a graduate which yielded five core competencies that our district will now seek to guarantee each graduate would master in rsu 22 be a critical thinker a problem solver collaborator an effective communicator and to show perseverance these core competencies prioritize the skills mindsets and competencies that learners in rsu 22 will need to maximize for their potential in the 21st century workforce and society learning experiences will be developed professional development provided and a common vision communicated so that all students participate in a progressive and aspirational educational landscape in december 2021 the rsu-22 board of directors unanimously adopted the strategic plan after a thorough rigorous and
049rewarding development process that included more than 60 students employees families and community stakeholders i am a mother of two children in the rsu 22 school system one in sixth grade and one in ninth grade i'm not in education i am a nurse i've worked in cardiology uh my whole career so i showed up at the first meeting not really sure what this was going to be about but um regen did a really great job laying out the pieces of the of what this was creating this portrait of a student and kind of guiding us through the process and describing what's really the end goal was that we were trying to do um it was broken down into pieces which was really great um at one point we broke up into small groups and had discussions
050which was good and um i wasn't sure what i had to contribute to it but after just the first session i could see that um and i appreciated uh the school system understanding that you know input from the parents is important we were building the portrait of a student of what we think a child a person who goes through the school system should gain and develop and have by the end of it you know what kind of you know productive person in society you want them to look like and as parents that's what we're doing with all these kids you know and so it's um it was really awesome that you know not that i thought the school system is just looking at um curriculum all the time but they understand these are people who
051are developing here and um you know helping find their way so uh my input as a parent i think was appreciated and um that felt good so yeah it was a it was a good experience um and to see that this is something that's going to be looked at for years was uh you know it was a an honor to be part of the rsu 22 strategic plan for 2022 through 2027 is comprised of four pillars these four pillars are student success professional excellence community partnerships and operational excellence the strategic plan's first pillar student success calls for academic excellence and achievement through increasing enrollment in pre-kindergarten programs consistently delivering rigorous curriculum that emphasizes high impact instructional strategies and the initiation of a restructured middle level experience that really focuses on the developmental needs of adolescents
052authentic project-based and aligned assessment tools will be instrumental in meeting the academic excellence and achievement goal the student success goals also require a focus on foundational skills such as literacy and numeracy fundamentals critical thinking and the application of those literacy and numeracy skills as well as the addition or realignment of curriculum that prioritizes preparation and readiness for life in general such as citizenship civics and personal finance the third goal within student success requires that we create and implement multiple models pathways and opportunities for every child so that the student leaves hamden academy prepare to engage in a diverse global society action steps range from improving attendance to ensuring the level of cultural awareness and competency in our staff and students the second pillar of the rsu 22 strategic plan is professional excellence no one knew
053the value of professional excellence any better than hand its own dorothea dicks when she stated the duties of a teacher are neither few nor small but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character rsu 22 will be purposeful and strategic in attracting and maintaining high performing teachers and educational professionals across all job categories we will retain effective and qualified staff strengthen the feedback and evaluation process to grow these staff members and prioritize student staff relationship development as an essential practice through this process we will foster the development of administrators as effective leaders of human capital provide focused ongoing curriculum-based professional development and ensure that appropriate interventions are implemented systematically for students national board certification will be an action step under professional development as it's one of the only professional growth opportunities that provides
054a direct correlation to improve student outcomes best practices are the third goal within professional excellence to bring this to life we will promote effective high-yield teaching strategies such as project-based learning flipped learning and other data-driven practices rsu 22 believes partnering with the community is a key to student success truly preparing students for life means engaging family and community in partnerships to improve student outcomes every opportunity for a parent to engage for a student to connect with a community and participate with a community organization either in the community or on campus provides a real world experience that transcends a textbook to partner in the rsu 22 community means to re-establish our non-profit partner the educational foundation it means that we develop a comprehensive communications plan so that through transparency and marketing the community and students can
055see and access all the opportunities that the school community can offer operational excellence which is pillar four includes a fiscal and facility management goal a budget development goal and a comprehensive planning goal the action steps aligned with these goals include maintaining a strong financial position through efficient and effective business practices which include sustainability practices enrollment goals and ongoing assessment of campus facilities are part of preventative measures embedded in this goal budget development will require ongoing review and re-evaluation of budget for expense redundancies and waste a per-pupil expenditure system which allows us to monitor and adjust as needed will be a product of this strategic plan to plan comprehensively the plan calls for an academic and financial analysis of middle school programming to assess the need for district middle level reorganization all four pillars collectively hold
056up the district mission rsu 22 is committed to the optimal learning of all students to achieve this mission rsu-22 is further committed to fostering a love of learning developing self-reliant creative and responsible citizens providing the necessary resources and creating a community of respect and caring this will be ensured through focusing on student success professional excellence community partnerships and operational excellence i love my school because it's very welcoming and there's a lot of nice people there and they're always willing to help and for example they when someone at the school might need food they give us food and that's why i love my school my teachers are the best because they're knowledgeable and helpful and my teachers are truly what makes school school and without them i would not be who i am today i love
057my school because it gives me a place to not only grow academically but it also gives me a place to grow as a person and as a board member i'm very grateful for my school because it has given me countless opportunities to serve my community and again for that i am eternally grateful 2022 marks 219 years of a tradition of excellence for and in schools and as we launch the new rsu 22 strategic plan we look forward to that continued tradition of excellence with a future focus so [Applause] well we hope that that gives our community a sense of where we're headed over the next five years and the commitments that we feel and the aspirations we have for all of our students whether they are currently with us or they are just thinking about
058starting pre-k here in the next year or two and uh to our high school students and jacob and stephanie right here with us i just can't say enough about how the feedback from our students who have been in our system for a while help us to set the sales for what comes next so thank you very much for your participation in that so from on behalf of the board though i do want to express our appreciation because you guys kind of made that about the school and less about you but um you know this was a lot of hard work that you both put in to better our school so thank you very much and we very much appreciate it [Applause] that brings us to personnel this evening i have uh several resignations to announce
059uh several of these resignations are due to retirements and for our teachers who are retiring we welcome them to come in june and be honored so you'll be seeing these spaces before you and i'm happy that you will because some of these folks are such long-serving veterans uh we want to give a shout out to them for their service so we start in this category with brad veach brad has been a science teacher for us here at hampden academy for quite some time he is retiring sean kimball also a science teacher here at hampden academy for quite some time he's also retiring we have deborah collins a long time literacy teacher in rsu 22 both specifically at mcgraw and smith school she's going to be retiring julie mishu is an ela teacher at reedsbrook also
060long standing she's going to retire as is paulo sloan an el ela teacher also at reedsbrook for quite some years she was retiring so to all of those retirees to come we thank you for all that you brought to the schools and to our students and we certainly look forward to seeing you in june also as a resignation we have sarah dernan spanish teacher at reed's book middle school and andrea patterson kindergarten teacher at smith school and those andrea's resignation will occur at the end of the school year then we will move on to nominations tonight i bring you one nomination uh catherine chaney special education teacher at smith school catherine has a bachelor of arts in psychology and community studies from the university of maine machias and a masters of science and special education
061from the university of southern maine and we are nominating catherine tonight at a salary to be prorated for immediate start at 41 543 dollars so we have a motion do we have a second we have a motion and a second discussion all those in favor opposed or extensions that is unanimous i just want to thank and welcome her because this is the perfect example of the grow your own program that we're doing in rsu 22 because she started with us uh two years ago as a paraprofessional and has received her master's degree in these last two years in special education and i had the privilege of interviewing her and it's so exciting to have a team member with the integrity and the skills and the training who wants to grow themselves in our issue 22
062so please stand to be recognized welcome we also have coaching nominations this evening with the start of the spring season i'd like to bring you reedsbrook middle school softball 18 coach daryl couliard at a stipend of 1 341.77 a softball 18 co-coach deanna hessert also at 1 341.77 and baseball b team coach louis martinez at 2 113 dollars and two cents at samuel wagner middle school we have softball coach rhonda lovejoy at a stipend of 2239.80 and track assistant coach brittany harrington at one thousand one hundred and seventy three dollars and ninety cents all right do i have a motion to accept them as a slate i have a motion do i have a second and a second discussion all those in favor opposed or abstentions that's unanimous and that brings us to your report
063tonight we have board member french reading the essential behaviors and outcomes proclamation education enables all students to learn the skills acquire the knowledge and develop the attitudes necessary for them to reach their potential as citizens who can meet the challenges of a changing global society we believe that all citizens in our community share the responsibility to educate our children and themselves our schools are community support systems and should welcome and encourage all members of our communities to participate and our schools will have a supportive and empowering atmosphere for all students and community members thank you so tonight of course we moved our recognitions to the front of the meeting so we'll move right on to covent's standard operating procedure update just to update you as you all are aware we did have our district move
064to mask optional that transition has been what i would consider to be smooth we continue though to track data week to week so our pool testing data is coming back to us on thursdays we do have friday reports that we are tracking we have had some cases of covet in our district but as you see the letters that are communicated out to our families we certainly are seeing those numbers as being low anytime we see that there are a number of cases and when i say a number we really look to the number three when we start to see that we're seeing pop-ups we pay very close attention and so far so good of course friday coming up we'll have another report that will show us our two weeks past the vacation time so we'll
065be reporting to you if we need to any questions about the transition to mass optional or anything we're doing with copic procedure now okay like to give a quick report on the public hearings that we held last wednesday night we held public hearings for two projects coming up one is a third floor expansion at hampden academy we are funding that through an arp america rescue plan grant there will be no new tax allocations related to the arp grant and if the project is passed by voters we will be moving forward with that construction to start as soon as possible supply ordering will begin as early as april because we have long lead times with materials that need to come in of course the needs that we have around the project here at ha really relate
066to two prongs space needs we have programs right now that have already exceeded the space that we had allotted to them and we're having to have student programming occur in spaces that were never intended for such programming we also have new programming that we want to bring on board to support students in many of the areas that the america rescue plan intends so that is to build healthy engagement with students who are returning from covid and hybrid education and one of the most important programs that we're seeking to engage here at the high school is jrotc we know that we have a certain number of students 46 i believe that have an interest in moving forward with the program and we want to be sure that we have the maker space for all the different
067aptitudes you heard in the strategic plan career readiness is critical for the students of tomorrow and thus having the ability to maximize what that programming could look like is very important we also recognize that we have utc satellite programming that we would love to look into the future to bring here to hand in academy united technology center is wildly successful and i hope that you've seen on our boards out in the front that utc students have been featured very recently with their success and skills usa comes up this friday and so we'll be looking for our students to perform well there as well but it's very important that we continue to grow those programs so we certainly hope that our community will be looking for the flyer that we'll be sending out so that we
068are making sure people know the exact project details and we also hope that people understand that we do not have new taxes aligned with these projects we're very hopeful that people understand grant money is here and it's a one-time opportunity so we're very excited about what could come next principal tracy anything you'd like to add the opportunity to provide more programming for students just have two quick points i was at the main school superintendents association professional development last friday they invited the department of education and their for recommendations around engagement as a recovery tool when students are coming back from covet and talked about it at the hearing but i would want to reinforce that that was the data-driven method that they're talking about the lines perfectly with the programming that principal tracy has described
069described as a vision for aj and the second would be that you may have noted an article in bangladesh and now in a recent penobscot publication that referenced built-in desks at hand academy and that i want to make clear that that's not every desk every desk is not you know bolted to the floor at aj but the example that i offered for those articles was around not being able to remove furniture and the science labs specifically tables and desks are permanent build-ins and so that would not be the case for this third floor expansion any questions about the aha project or debrief you would like to have regarding the public hearing on the aha expansion all right our second public hearing was on reedsbrook and reedsbrook's masonry envelope needs to have some renovation we were
070assured the public hearing to display what some of the issues are and we have been fortunate to receive a school revolving renovation fund award and that award comes to us as 70 state funded and a 30 share at 265 000 with zero percent interest that rsu 22 would be responsible for paying over a series of years uh we would like to let folks know that that is a project that is greater than our award yet we recognize that we will phase this project so that we are able to accommodate what we certainly can afford to do with this first phase of srf money and that includes the design and concept thinking ahead about how you do phase the project and prioritize which parts of the building need to come first so we are very thankful
071for the very strong assessment report that we received and i do think that is responsible for the degree of award that rsu 22 has pulled down so we would like folks to know that we have certainly advertised we have posted the public hearing so you can view those we also have done interviews both through the news and in the bangor daily and penobscot times and we continue to go ahead and think about what flyers should be coming out to assist people and learning more about the project never be shy about calling us or emailing if you need more information we wanted to thank our municipal partners because we've been in contact with each town manager and they have received a 14 minute snippet where we first presented this to the full board so that people
072don't have to read through our hours of board meeting that would be highly entertaining but we did email the link thank you nate for pulling out those 14 minutes so that people could have quick and easy access to that towns have used that information in different ways i know uber put it right on the town website thank you for that and they're just helping us disseminate the facts around both of these projects a final comment i make regarding the public hearings is that there were really strong questions asked and i was very pleased to have that engagement so thank you to all the participants who came up to the public hearing to share their perspectives and i want to make sure that people are aware there is grant money that's being dedicated very specifically to
073learning loss initiatives tutoring intervention supporting students and all along through these two years of receiving grant money we have been putting thousands and thousands of dollars towards student support through technology staffing making sure that nursing and support staff hours are available to students along with coming up with some pretty innovative ways to respond to students in hybrid learning so we've felt as though rsu22 has been ahead of the game i did read that there are school districts who are going to be putting in air filtration systems for instance and we've already checked that box so i'm very pleased to say that i think our flexibility will lead to strong student engagement here with this latest grant opportunity now i'll turn to our monthly financial report to bring you context to the financial report this year
074this month excuse me we have 30.9 of our school year remaining and our budget is coming in at 35 remaining we're tracking very well overall you will see that articles 5 9 and 10 are below that threshold of 30 and as we've talked about month to month that is because those areas have very high summer expenses so we're spending the bulk of that money early so we're prepared for the school start and for debt service we make a payment in may for interest so that will all come out at once when that occurs so i would report to you that all's looking fine you can find tina's assistant superintendent report in your folder and we'll move on to our student board reports the rep grant has been moved as an adjustment to new business so
075our student dress code reform committee we've been meeting every tuesday morning for the past month or two um and a couple weeks ago at the last policy meeting we came myself and another student to discuss some of our revisions to policy j-i-c-a regarding the dress code we were ultimately trying to address some of the language used in part c i believe of the policy so in efforts to gain more of an idea of how our student body and the staff feel about the dress code as it stands right now we sent out a survey last week to the staff and yesterday we sent out a survey to students and so far we have upwards of 400 400 responses uh from the students which is great i have the feedback i've enjoyed looking at it's really
076i think it's really beneficial to what we're trying to do here and also uh so an idea that's kind of been in the making for like a couple months focus groups so right now we have two focus groups scheduled for march 29th and march 30th and this would really just be an opportunity for any student to come and talk to myself jacob he's nicole some spoon and potentially mr tracy mr crane it would be during the school day just to discuss anything really good bad and what needs improvement um all right so um uh today and over the past few weeks i've been working with a small group of seniors to ready a presentation for the um sophomores and oppression about re-establishing kind of a sense of community and mutual respect between the grades because
077i know especially with mass coming off things are starting to return to normal that things like pep rallies are gonna start coming up so we wanted to try to encourage them to get more involved build a sense of community back and kind of the understanding that we had between all the grades uh before the pandemic hit so that was today and i think it went pretty successful we got our message out and now we're just hoping to see if they took it to heart thank you both that brings us to questions of board members and then we'll do questions of committing chairs questions of board numbers first nothing all right so um you've all had an opportunity to read committee reports in your packet are there any questions uh that arose while you were reading
078those that you'd like to address with some committee chairs tonight uh john all right anything else okay that takes us to policy consideration to pay [Music] we have just one policy this evening for first grade it is policy ebca which discusses our crisis response plan in looking at msma's policy we recognize that there were several changes that needed to be made to our policy the way it is in your packet is you see that the top part is completely xed out that's the old policy that we had and underneath it is the new policy it gives greater direction we already do more than what's in the policy but this recognizes the minimum that we should be doing regarding our crisis response plan so i am recommending that we [Music] adopt for first reading policy ebca
079crisis response plan all right we have a motion and second discussion being done all those in favor to adopt our first reading policy ebca opposed or abstentions that is unanimous let's do old business which we have none so that brings us to set meeting dates we're missing something here the highlighted stuff wasn't crossed out it's new business here we go um so we have discuss and act on the acceptance of the newburgh school closure referendum results this evening i'm approaching the board for an action item and that is to approve the computation and declaration of votes in the election to close newburgh school and also in the motion to approve the superintendent to move forward to negotiate a lease agreement with the town of newburgh since the school is now going to be under their
080ownership so in order to do that i want to report on the election results so there were 69 votes to close the school of newburgh and 28 votes not close so the article did pass on march 16 2022 we are now certifying that passage so i would entertain a motion for us to move on the approval of the computation and declaration of votes i move to approve the computation and declaration of votes to close the newburgh school and to direct superintendent nichols to enter into a lease agreement with the town of newburgh we have a motion in the second discussion all right being done all those in favor opposed or extensions that's unanimous and now for your john hancocks so i'll pass this around and tonight you actually have a slot for your particular name
081so if you can search for that that'd be great it's marie so that brings us to discuss an act on rethink remote educational ventures and grant awards so this next item is also an action item and that is due to the fact that the board is going to be asked to an accept uh grant award in the amount of a hundred thousand dollars this evening uh rsu 22 has entered into an application for what we call rev and uh rev grant is around having options for learning that relate not just to remote learning but also having new opportunities to re-engage students in our environment and so what i'd like to do tonight is just welcome mr tracy and mrs giard up to the podium to just give you a snapshot of what the rev grant
082does include and i would say to you that if you picture this that we have a very small group of students for which this innovation would be a match and that we would be looking for a facilitator who can work with that small group so that they are given opportunities to re-engage in learning and have a very individualized pathway to do so and the facilitator will be seeking resources that's the plan right now and there's much of it still in development so i'll turn it over to you to add details that can help yes i'm happy to start off and thank you very much for the opportunity uh mary please jump in grab the bike whenever you're ready uh i just want to think about this if you know when we talk about opportunities for
083students we are going to be looking at students that fit this role for us again really we will have an application process for students to be involved we want students who have proven resilience in some way or another but also shown that maybe that online learning remote learning really worked for them and have struggled back in the regular setting so in the process of our planning we listed a lot of characteristics and and in collaboration with a number of other school districts in the in the penguins and hancock region have talked about what students really could succeed in that and the goal really is about that connection how do you take a group of students that in a remote learning setting really did well and then maybe struggle a bit more in person and how
084do you get them to stay connected to a school so our idea this chorale idea is that we are connected to the school yet the sky's the limit so thinking about how we get these students in still engaged in school i think the different part when we had remote learning is that students didn't come to school they were they were away and then when we did the two days in and two days out again same thing students were less connected so this person would be almost like a case manager but also a collaborator with other districts to look at some online learning program options so that students had a variety of things to choose from but that's not it part of the piece that we really enjoy is that we want them to be engaged
085in school still participating in athletics and extracurriculars and all those things we want them to do but also it allows them to go on field trips connect to communities so it fits really well with our strategic plan when we talk about community partnerships and engaging and linking students to those possibilities and again not just college but college and career readiness so really looking to find those links we're also very exciting things but three of us worked on the grants so we're pretty excited that we got this and it's going to be a great thing for our students here in rsu 22. as bill said it's going to be a great opportunity for kids to get out there have opportunities to job shadow and to look at what's available for them and to think through all
086the opportunities that are available not only in our community but around but also it's kind of a science i've been very excited i've worked a little bit with the adult ed person and there's many things that that program has to offer and in fact the other person that wrote the grant with us is taking class right now that will again have many other opportunities that can fold in well with not only this grant but um looking at what we're where we're headed with the strategic plan really giving kids lots of opportunities and pathways so we're really pleased to have this opportunity thank you very much so at this juncture we certainly be open to taking any questions and if there are none we would recommend a motion for acceptance of the grant award and direction
087to the superintendent to enter into a rev contract with the doe i just have a quick question i know it's for a hundred thousand dollars and that's to be used in what time frame again um it will be used for next school year but we might be able to carry over some if necessary if we don't use all of that so mostly we'll need to spend it for next school year thank you any other questions being done and entertain emotion and see if there's specific wording but i move that we uh accept the hundred thousand dollar rev grant from the doe with the state of name doe and allow weekend to administer the grant sorry i had to sign the contract just want to read it back the motion to accept the grant and allow
088superintendent nichols to sign the contract and administer the grant we have a motion in a second any further discussion all those in favor opposed or abstentions thank you the last item of new business is to discuss an act on the election of a board representative to the united technology center and if alan is so inclined i would nominate alan for that position second uh any discussion with that all those in favor opposed or abstentions thank you allen for continuing to do that right that does bring us to set meeting dates now is there anything that we need to set this evening all right seeing none i've entertained a motion to enter in executive session make a motion to enter into an executive session for the purpose of discussing a legal matter for one mrsa 405
08916. second we have a motion in a second all those in favor all right opposed that's unanimous uh we'll take a