MSAD #51 School Board Meeting, October 23, 2025

001Wait. Oh, I get to bring that up. >> Good evening and welcome to the MSAD51 board of directors meeting Thursday, October 23rd. Um, it is now dark by 6 PM. It'll be even earlier soon. Um, we are happy to kick off this evening with uh, Principal Monte Selby um, joining us to highlight uh, things that are going on at GMS. Welcome. Yeah, I know. Right off at the start. See how efficient I can be at connecting here. Oh, was up just a minute ago and now I'm seeing a middle school. That's not working. Let's try show more geer room. >> Got it. We in action. And I have to hold still, don't I? Okay. Try to stay here. All right. So, I think in your agenda it says teaching and learning and um I'm really

002going to play off of a couple things. Teaching and learning at the middle school along with tying into the that tagline about Rangers Lead the Way. And usually if you're talking about teaching and learning, you're thinking about the kids. And usually the kids and the photos catch your eye. But tonight I'm actually going to focus on the adults and the photos and uh to talk about teaching and learning from a standpoint of as a staff, how do we keep being taught and how do we teach other adults and how do we keep learning and what's the value of that? So, we'll play with that just a little bit and along the way to recognize some of the 68 staff and for you to see some familiar faces. Um, so how does a great staff get

003better and and how do they lead the way and why does that matter? And this group is part of our group that the Friday before last were at the main association of middle level educators. So we were at Thomas College. So that's that's part of the crew getting ready to head down there. And um so one question would be you know why attend to something like so MAML is the main association of middle level educators and go to those sessions and you know gaining some perspective outside of your own building I think is important and you pick up ideas and I I also think sometimes we process things when we're away from our work environment just a little bit as opposed to as soon as I can step in my room and grade some papers.

004I'm going to do that as opposed to you're walking to lunch on a college campus and just the how that can be different and to talk about how that might apply. So, but one thing I want to draw more attention to is in addition to going to sessions of things you're curious about, actually offering presentations, and I'll show you in a minute some of the staff from Gley Middle School that were kind of leading the way by sharing with other educators in the state some things of what success can look like. Um, but when you're preparing a session for your peers, if any of you have ever done that, which I'm guessing most of you have, how you consolidate the best ideas that you have and you're thinking about how do I convey those in

005a way and how can this have meaning to the other person? It causes you on any subject to come to your very best thinking which causes you to reflect on the very best of what you do and what you have to offer. So I think the amount of growth that can happen in a present of preparing to present can be a very powerful learning tool in and of itself. And then you go present and most educators in sessions will say, "Do you guys have any questions?" or "What are you doing in your schools and you walk away a lot of times with more than you came in with?" um on the very topic that you're the most interested in. And in that way, I think you're kind of leading yourself, but also um you're you're

006leading other people. And I think the more the more we grow not just within the district but within the state you just you just raise the level of quality of everything and to be part of that I think is very powerful so why ride the bus well partly if you could have heard the conversations on the way down and have you read this young adult literature and I'm going to go to that session on this and are you going to go to a different one I got to catch you later all of that building is happening on the way down including with people that like some people just in that little part of our group don't talk daily because some of them are always teaching when the other people are not teaching because kids have

007to go somewhere. So then on the way back that was as noisy as most middle school buses I've been on with people are like did you what did you think about that rural education initiative and whatever else was going on. So that's one reason why I I was so happy we were we were able to make that trip. So while those 30 educators were there, 30 other people were doing something else and I'll get to that in a minute. So sessions on MTSS, collaborating with your librarian, um building an inclusive school, that was that was our staff sharing with other people along with some things like JC talking about artificial intelligence and what is, you know, where are we with that and what are the benefits and what are the struggles and uh modern language.

008That last one I was in that session moderating on why teachers love our school climate committee. And again, I think Jason shared great stuff. I think we walked out with more than we could have thought we were going to come out of because people are talking about the very topics that we're already working on, if that makes sense. So then you get back on the bus and you talk about that on the way back and you're that much closer to initiating change that may do something good for kids. So again, while that was going on, there's another 30 GMS staff who are in the building with a professional learning day that was designed around, you probably can't read it from there, but at the top, goal one and go goal two. And that would relate

009to our SIP or our school improvement plan that you guys saw from us a few weeks ago. and and so those sessions were led by people on staff and I don't I don't know if you can read that from there but things like the writing revolution or deescalation strategies um approaches to differentiation and uh so a couple things about that like how do how do you have a great staff get better and and I was like it's not just magic you know so there's one little bitty research thing I want to throw at you that actually comes from sociology. But, um, so, you know, you're trying to keep learning and you're trying to improve. Um long time ago I got into a a research project that was and this relates to that word explicit in

010there that the study was when you're looking at across the country and a new initiative and why is it that in some schools you come back two years later and you see it in action and another school that had similar presentations it's not happening And one of the powerful pieces that came out of that was the level of explicit conversations. So if you think about when you go to a movie and I'm like hey how was the movie? And you're like or like well you gave me feedback but we had no explicit conversation about the plot or or how did they how did they grab our attention with the humor or anything else. And that can happen with PD as well. It can just be like I heard somebody talk about this. Cool. But if

011there's time built in, which is actually in that schedule, that there's time to work, there's time to learn, there's time to come back together and talk about how what would this look like and explicitly how would we plan for that? Um the schools with the explicit conversations that carry on over time is where the powerful impact happens. And in other places, we learned about it, but it faded away. It may seem obvious, but we have a tendency on a staff development day to want to pack in all the stuff we can get in and not allow for that explicit conversation. And and that's something that we're working on. Um, so what does that have to do with leading the way? And when our own staff is presenting to other staff in our building, you're taking

012away those same benefits that you get from presenting to a larger audience. You're still like, "Wow, these are my buddies here and I've got to I want to do a great job. I want to bring my best stuff." And that puts our best stuff at the front of our minds. Um feedback. We'll go to that in just a second. Um something else I just if you're not aware um science is a great example of where because of the kind of growth we had in science scores at Gley Middle School last year we had Marshwood Middle School asking at the state level well who's making you know who's actually having results from this stuff and so they came and they want to have those explicit conversations with our science teachers but yeah but how do you

013present this and how do you connect that with the assessments and what they're looking for? Um, and again, that's leading and that's raising the bar everywhere else the way I look at it and that benefits all kids and it actually benefits us. Um, so two stars in a wish is just one strategy where you say, "Well, here's this day that we had. What are a couple things that made the day great for you? And what do you wish could have happened or could happen the next time that will make what we do more powerful? And throughout that, which I I know you can't read that, but throughout it is, wow, the times that we had to process this and start thinking about application and could we have even more of that next time? and uh

014what if we came back from a conference and then it was like well actually on a Friday at five o'clock I don't really want to process more but how could we build in followup so we did that at our following staff meeting um yeah and then why do all this stuff anyway and you're hoping the payoff is with the experiences that kids have in a classroom so where are we going now so learning and leading what happens next And I didn't realize this till I got here. The word execute looks a little dramatic when you put it in a slide presentation, but yeah, we're we're trying to execute in a good way. Our our SIP plan that you guys have seen for this year and a lot almost well basically all of our PD that

015is actually professional development relates directly to that SIP plan. Um, so yeah, we utilize our PD days, uh, like the October and the March day and our early release days. And I I put every minute in there just to point out a couple things. One, on those early release days, some days we're doing like hardcore training like you kind of think of PD. Um, sometimes we might be following up on another PD or we have content teams or we're prepping an advisory or we're um thinking about how we're going to influence something on mastery or something new comes up like the strategics and you got to build that stuff in and it just feels like you start the year with that time plan to the minute and then you try to put more in there.

016and where we're headed next year is to have all that stuff in there plus how do we even come close to the kind of time that we're going to need to have explicit conversations about GMS 58 and the 202728 school year. That part is daunting, but um I think a lot of good things will happen. So, but if you ever hear principles saying, uh, give us every minute we can get, that's that's what's on our minds. So, um, yeah, that's it for tonight. >> Thank you. And yes, I'll give you >> I so appreciate this was about staff because we often have conversations about you know what what happens during PD days or how are uh how is the culture being cultivated amongst the staff and you know what can we do to better support

017staff. Um, and so it was really nice um to to hear that from your perspective about what's happening at the middle school. And I think that really helps us um you know, place some of the the conversations we often get into whether it's around budget and time or or contracts about what what does this look like? Um how is this happening to really illustrate what's going on and I love the presentations amongst staff. Um, that's such a nice feature for them to, you know, present to their colleagues. >> Probably more than ever, next year will be the year of the, yeah, where every minute counts kind of thing. Um, and one last thing I might mention because everything I just realized everything I had up there was a connection to goal one on that MTSS

018kind of side and the staff development things that we think about. But the other half of that MTS or not MTSS, but our SIP plan, our school improvement plan has to do with building community and the importance of climate and kids feeling connected and cared for and relationship building. And sometimes on a PD day, if you come in and we're all handmaking smoothies for each other or whatever else it might be, um, in the same way that you build connections with kids, I believe staff do their best work when they also have time to be on that bus connecting with people as as individuals as well as educators. So if it ever, you know, if you ever show up at somebody's PD day and it looks like we're just kind of having fun, that's on

019purpose because that matters, too. So, anything else? >> Thank you. Any questions, comments? >> Great. >> Thank you so much. >> Y >> Okay. Um, we're going to move to approval of minutes. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the September 25th, 2025 meeting? So moved. Thank you, Megan. Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Sean. Um, any questions, comments on the meeting minutes? Hearing nothing. All in favor? Great. And then we have a couple extensions. The students um were not able to be present. Okay. Now, we're going to move on to public comment. I believe everybody >> um who wanted to sign up did since my my numbers uh my numbers on my sign up sheet align with everyone we have here. Um I'm just trying to find

020okay all of my papers. >> Where's your binder? >> Um the board welcomes and recognizes the value of public comment. And to ensure public comment is fair and orderly, we follow procedures outlined in board policy BEDH. And then we ask that all members of the public do so as well. I am going to abbreviate this evening because I know everyone um who's coming up to do comment is well practiced. Um so I'll invite you to the podium. Please just state your name um where you live. Try to keep it under our three minutes and be kind. I know that won't be hard for the three of you. Great. Um, Bill Young. Great. >> Right. I wasn't going to speak tonight, honestly. Um, I met with uh I met with Jeff today uh for about an

021hour. Had a really great conversation. Um, some of you might know I'm not a great public speaker, so just hang in there. I I got to get going. Uh, some of you know that, um, as far as me being a paramedic, I went beyond that and became a tactical paramedic. And a tactical paramedic goes beyond and that there I was assigned to a team, Southern Maine SRT, which is a special response team. And and uh, through that I I trained Virginia, New York, uh, was at Sears School in Rangely. did all that kind of stuff, higher level trauma care and and in part uh when I started last year, I started writing posts about um doing higher level trauma care for teachers and administrators and um through emails and you know pushing a little bit.

022I guess I wasn't satisfied with the answers. So, I needed to find some answers and uh so that's why I met with Jeff today and we're pretty much on par. I wasn't surprised, but I do understand about uh the way administration works, the way the school department works a whole lot better and and the trials that you have to go through to get where you want to go. And it takes some time and I understand that. The thing that bothered me most about all of this and and I expressed that to Jeff was was uh we always train when we train we train for being on the X and the X is where it's happening right we know that somebody could get in the in the school you can't stop them no matter how much

023security you have if they get in that's it and stuff starts happening and you know within a minute and a half or two of a more of a of exanguation or a bleeding injury, somebody can die and that cavalry is not coming till the school is cleared by PD and that means then EMS comes in and it it's a long drawn out affair. I've been through it. I trained with it. We did an old orchard a number of times. It takes 20 minutes to get EMS to the scene time. Everything's cleared. So people, just be blunt about it. People are dying. And so the training that has to happen has to happen right there. And it's hard. It's a mindset more than it is gauze pads or anything else. It's a mindset. You can't train

024that, but you can practice that. And and I think that going forward, I think we need to realize that. And I know that it's hard. I've seen medics freeze up and not be able to do the job. So, I just want to say I I know you're progressing. I think I hope you progress faster because I only got 18 seconds. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Bill. And yeah, I think good timing this evening as we have the um safety and security presentation. So, thank you. Um next up, Bill Sweat or Bill Michael Sweat. I'll just like combine your names going forward. >> I think I have an uncle named Bill. >> I know who you are. >> Yeah, no problem. Michael Sweat from North Yarmouth. I didn't know Bill was going to be

025speaking tonight, but I also want to speak on safety and security just briefly, and it's just some experience I've had. Um, I have two offspring, I use the offspring word now instead of kids. My kids are in their late 30s, uh, who are pharmacists, both of whom were robbed at gunpoint, knife point, or some other situation, a threat of harm, uh, inies locally, not in Portland or what have you. And I have a brother in Portland who retired recently as a deputy police chief in Portland. And so we've had some conversations about safety security. And one of the things that astounded him was the lack of adequate cameras. Cameras that are appropriate resolution and appropriate number of frames per second. They would go in to investigate. They couldn't see the face of the asylent. They

026couldn't see the face of the person who came in with a gun or or a knife. and also the angle that they came into the building. So, I just want to put that out there because there are so many opportunities. You you there was a whole rash of them as you know and I think a lot of them slowed down because they were being charged federally with these crimes and and things slowed down in terms of robbing pharmacists. In fact, my daughter was was robbed twice uh in her pharmacy. So, the safety and security of the staff, the students, everyone that works here, there's nothing more important. And I would I would ask you to verify that you have the the most sophisticated, newest cameras. They're in the right places, the right angles, the right

027lighting, the right height. You'd be amazed at when they're not at the right height. It's useless. We can have tens of thousands of dollars of of security equipment, and it's not giving us the information to really find the perpetrator or find the asalent or find uh the pieces of information that we can instantly go back and and track people. So, I would encourage you to make sure that that's all done. If it's not done with the police department here in Cumberland, it should be and you should get samples of tapes, videos, and make sure different times of day, different seasons. Right now, it's dark. There's still people coming and going from school buildings. Do we have the adequate video equipment here to secure our students and our faculty, our staff, and administrators? That's all. >>

028Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, Shirley. Story King. >> Good evening. Shirley Story King Cumberland. My question is, was a teacher driving the bus? You had such an opportunity. I have been a part of those kinds of presentations and I would concur with everything that you said. It is a tremendous experience when you get to teach other teachers. Um, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to talk about public comment and um, I've had this conversation with Kim before and many others um, about public comment and I and I spoke to the North Yarm Select Board about the same thing. And I've had conversations with Tig Filson, the chair of the town council about public comment. at the Karland Town Council, public comment is a practice, not a policy. They have something

029written down on their agenda um that says what they're going to do in practice, but it's not a formal policy. So, a new chair of the school board of the town council could be more flexible or less flexible or um whatever he or she wants to do. So when you put something when you create a policy, it's almost like you're cementing um the lanes, you know, and that then it gets harder to be flexible when you need to be flexible. So that's just a little piece of advice for you to consider. I also think my comment right now should come right after you introduce the item number. So, um, if you've ever watched a town council meeting or attended a a town council meeting, public discussion at the beginning of the meeting is for items

030not on the agenda. So, if I wanted to talk to you about Gley football, yay, I would come and talk to you at the beginning of the meeting because it's not on the agenda. However, if I wanted to talk about public comment, which is two or three items down the agenda, then I would sit and wait until then. What that does for you is it gives you something to think about while you're considering how you're going to respond to the item for action. At MMA, main municipal association suggests that every item for action have a public hearing. Um, and I don't know, I haven't attended enough schoolboard meetings to know if that's the case, but um, I strongly experiencing that protocol for 18 years. It was very efficient. And I could count on one hand

031the number of meetings that went till 11 or 12 at night. It just it just didn't happen in 18 years, maybe five times. And those were for things for should we buy Broad Cove Reserve, you know, down on on Cumberland. Those were long meetings, but in general, not. So, those are a couple of things I'd like you to think about as you discuss whatever policy you come up with tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Shirley. I appreciate it. Okay, so now we're actually going to move into that uh safety and security presentation. All right. Good evening everyone. Um, tonight I'm here to provide um, this is an annual update. I provide this uh, each year around this time to the board of directors and for the public. also was referenced in our district newsletter this week

032and we actually linked in the agenda and um and how to watch these meetings as a reminder to the school community and anyone who subscribes to our news our newsletter and I also just want to put a plug in for the district newsletter that is our primary we have many communication vehicles and we've talked about the communication vehicles the district newsletter has all the information you could ever need including how to access YouTube and how to access social media um for the district we have multiple ways of communicating um information out to our school committees to keep them involved. And we just kind of reminded people this week in the newsletter, but as a primary vehicle. So, I want to talk about um there's two parts of safety when we're talking about school district safety

033or any sort of safety of any organization. And part one is physical and then I'll be talking later about emotional safety. just want to start and I've um I've used this photo before and for those of you who've been on the board um you know obviously Sandy Hook um was an incident that happened in 2012 in December of 2012 one of the most horrific of um school shootings maybe the worst they're all bad but um this one was particularly difficult I think for many people in our nation um to understand because of the um the ages of the children and the numbers of children. Um and there were staff members as well who lost their lives that day. Um I did have I was down in Connecticut um visiting family friends just a few days

034after this incident and I was only a few minutes from this community. I just it was a it was a coincidence. We had planned to go down there and I um did um go down and visit and took these photos while I was there and I can tell you that just what it does to a community. Actually, Bill and I were talking about that just for a couple minutes today as well. It can be absolutely devastating and catastrophic. Um and obviously it, you know, you put a human face and you put human faces on these kinds of things when we talk about safety. It's not just something that's up in the air. It is certainly um a horrible situation. We don't focus on school safety um just out of the air obviously. Um this is

035part of what has been our strategic plan for the last seven years and we're going through a renewal of our strategic plan obviously that the board is commissioning. Uh but this is still part of the current strategic plan which students cannot learn and teach and teachers cannot teach unless schools are safe. And part of the original uh strategic plan back in 2018 uh dating to 2018 was to have an entire um threat and vulnerability assessment done for all of our schools. So at that point in 2019 into 20 um and into 21 we had Homeland Security. We worked closely with them um and uh where we were meeting with them on a regular basis. They provided an assessment of all of our schools and then did a complete gap analysis for us and our safety

036planning. Our safety and security committee has been working off of that report for years and been filling those gaps. So, it's a very important milestone in the district's safety um basically approach to what we've done. So, just as a reminder, and I've I've also presented this before, I'm not going to go through these, but there are 10 essential actions to improve school safety. Um, and this was um a few years ago, the US Department of Justice commissioned a complete report on this. And, um, looking at these approaches and basically the summary is that there are two types of safety that we're talking about when it comes to schools according to the US Department of Justice. physical safety and emotional safety. And on the physical safety side, we're talking about making sure that you have an

037assessment. That was just referencing the homeland security assessment. That was a best practice assessment. It was under the opaces of um Department of Homeland Security obviously works very closely with the Department of Justice, campus building and classroom security. That has been that's infrastructure security and we've been uh working on that off of that homeland security report since then. Coordination with first responders critical, critical, critical. Um, we have a safety and security committee uh in our district. Our two uh our police chief and both of our fire chiefs, the fire uh the police captain and our SRO's are all part of our planning on a regular basis. School-based law enforcement, school resource officers. Uh we have two school resource officers who are Cumberland Police Department sworn officers who work in our schools on a daily basis.

038drills. That includes not just fire drills, but we're talking about safety drills. We've adopted the Alice program years ago in this uh district or Alice approach. We have Alice drills as well on the emotional safe on emotional security side of things. School climate. We've been working hard on school climate. I've updated the board on on different occasions, especially during COVID and postcoid. um knowing that that is absolutely critical. Uh making sure that all of our students are plugged in. Anonymous reporting system. We have the Sandy Hook anonymous reporting system now. That was something that started a couple of years ago. Behavior threat assessment and management. We have the states uh we've adopted the state's threat assessment uh and behavior management. Our SRO's are involved in that. School staff are involved in that. And so when

039we have a threat that comes up, we have um a protocol that is used that is state um that the state recommends and we use it here and we've trained our staff to use it. Mental health resources, our district is well resourced in this area. Thank you to the board and the community for supporting uh counselors, social workers, mental health specialists for our district and making sure that we have those resources for our students. And then social media monitoring and that's all part of um what we do also through the anonymous reporting system. Some of those complaints that come in are social media. U we also have a digital citizenship uh curriculum in our district that goes all the way through the grades and helping our students navigate social media. Um what are healthy habits

040for doing so? So, our current practices, and I'm going to just say right up front, this is not exhaustive, but these are some of the highlights um for physical safety in our district that again, we have a safety and security committee um in which we have about 15 to 18 people involved in that uh annual basis, many first responders serving on on that particular committee. Um our emergency operations plans um were completely overhauled. of the district one and all school level plans were overhauled um over a two-year period 23 to 25. That was an initiative of the safety and security committee and we have 25 people that have access to that plan including many first uh responders that need to have access to it. We have one and a half position FTEES for school resource

041officers. We work with the Cumberland Police Department on coordinating that. Our Alice um approach was implemented in September uh 2022. Um Cumberland Police Department was incredibly involved in that. Um in fact um Officer Owen and Officer Cluki um do multiple trainings for the district, five trainings a year um on Alice and um for all of our new staff and then any incoming staff so that we're not we're catching everybody within a very timely manner. Cintig's crisis alert um was just implemented this month. In fact, two weeks ago um is when we went live with the crisis alert and I'll be talking about that in just a moment. Sandy Hook Promise Anonymous reporting system uh was implemented in the 2324 school year. Of course, we've had lock facilities for many, many years and remote building access

042and controls um that can be handled centrally and monitored. Internal and external video surveillance um we've been making a lot of um upgrades to that and I'm sorry, surveillance isn't spelled correctly. Um upgrades to that over the years. Um and our first responders have access to our cameras um in the event of an emergency. Behavioral threat assessment teams, I've mentioned that. That's the sea stag protocol that we use. Building and classroom uh numbering was completed at the end of last year, spring of 2025. That had been an ongoing project of the safety and security committee. I'm really glad that we were able to get that completely finished. And we also have silent alarms in all of our facilities in key and designated areas for key personnel. That's completely tied to 911. Other practices that we

043have, I mentioned the the threat and vulnerability assessment that we did with Homeland Security that we're still working off of, lockdowns and mass evacuation drills. I'll talk about that in just a moment a little bit more. We've reconfigured offices in our district because of Homeland Security's recommendations um that our personnel couldn't see um and or didn't have view or sight. So, we made those changes. Um, double entry doors again was a Homeland Security um, recommendation that we make sure that we have not just one set of locked doors, but we have two sets of locked doors, uh, heavy duty doors in all of our, uh, main entrances. Alarms on infrequently used doors so that we know when people are coming and going, those are alarmed. Uh, physical deterrence in certain areas. Again, these many so

044many of these were homeland security recommendations where they found vulnerable areas and we've put physical deterrence up in those areas and have uh continue to do that when we see them. Intercom and phone system upgrades. U we have a new phone system. We are we have completely bought new intercom system at MIW. Um we are going to be looking at doing that at the high school for the next budget cycle as well to get that one um updated. safe promise clubs. That's part of the Sandy Hook initiative in the anonymous port reporting system. We're required to have those clubs at the middle school and high school levels in order to continue with Sandy Hook um as an affiliate. We've done some staff training on first aid um and we've also done stop thebleleed protocols for

045interested staff. And right now in progress, the safety and security committee is working on reunification site planning. Um, we've been working on that for a while, but we have some uh new sites that we've been working with. Um, we've had a group that went down and met with one of the sites outside the district. We also have sites in the district that we've been working with um to provide those alternative locations. Working on stop the bleed kits this year. It's in progress actually right now. And um we also have a meeting um next week um and this was a safety and security initiative with our uh all three chiefs uh the police chief and both fire chiefs to start talking about um tabletop exercises involving incident command. And that's been a initiative of the safety

046and security committee that we don't want to just say that what would we do in an incident but we actually want to go through and run through and practice uh with groups of people what would we actually do with incident command in those situations. Um first responders have those but now we're getting involved as uh school leaders in that in that process. So new this year's crisis alert again it was activated two weeks ago. It actually we had a planning group that worked on it and I'd like to give Melissa Porter, my administrative assistant, a lot of credit for that because she has been so involved in it. She was the project manager for all of this. Um there were 15 planning meetings that started back in May or April or May um that um

047saying that um strategics requires to actually implement this whole system. And there's a badge uh alert activation u which has um three if you actually Scott can demonstrate. He's got it right there. There are buttons. Every staff member um has that. I've got mine in my bag. I wear it when it's during the school day. It's a badge uh alert activation for three basically hit it three times and there's a staff team that will come to your assistance. Um on the phone it tells the responders exactly where that staff member is down to a foot. um their location and then um multiple times it would go to 911. So any staff member they see something that's very dangerous, they can hit their badge multiple times and it goes to 911. There's redundancies built into the

048system. It's digitized. It has its own platform. We know when badges are low on battery. Um all that's built in. There's alerts built in. Strobes in every single room. There's a strobe in this room already. And if we needed to activate it would start lighting up. Um different colors um mean different things. Um and those are all programmed in. It's also programmed programmed into our PA system. Uh just like you would be in a hospital or an airport and start hearing an audio pre-recorded message that would come over the system. All of this is part of the crisis alert system that we have. There's also a visitor management system. This is very important. Um in addition to uh maps, digitized maps with um uh assets that we have whether it's fire extinguishers, AEDs, but there's

049also visitor management. So now we can take someone's ID when they're coming to pick their child up or on behalf if their name is on the child's records to pick them up. We can plug their ID in. We take their ID, put it right into an apparatus, and it will kick it in and do a quick background check and verify that this person actually is who they say they are. Um, very important for the elementary grades and, uh, certainly was something our principles wanted um, in our in our office of staff. So, I've talked about most of this. Um, again, this badge activates. We have it activates in two ways. There's each school has its own team. Um, usually it's made up of administrators. There's the SRO, a school nurse, and then a couple of

050other uh designated people that the principles have decided are part of that small team um that if a staff member needs a team in the school and their help, they would activate that badge three or four times and then many more times they would get 911 and it goes right to dispatch. Um and that activates police, EMT, fire, etc. Part two is emotional security for current practices. um many of these things I've mentioned, we've had a mental health risk assessment specialist who um handles all higher level um mental health issues in our district, Eric Brown. As you many of you know, we've had this position in place for probably seven or eight years now. We were the first district in the state of Maine um to have this and we're still one of only a

051handful of school districts in the state that has this position and it's it's been the most critical position I can think of in terms of mental health and making sure that we are are catching anything that social workers, school counselors, school administrators, teachers are concerned about at a higher level. Our mental health specialist does direct service all assessments in this area. um and I get all those reports um when there's a higher level um issue that's going on. So, it's um been really a critical critical part of our infrastructure for mental health. We have 11 social workers in our district and eight school counselors well resourced for a district of our size. Um we also do mental health universal screenings for all students K through 12 in our district. Um, and this is something that

052we've been doing for years, probably six, seven years now. Uh, we do it three times a year. This is a quick screener. Um, there's it's very quick. There's a few questions and it just it gives us a flag if there's an issue that a student has said something that we might want to check, follow up on, and check. We have a PhD level school psychologist who is on staff full-time. There are some districts that do not have that. they have to contract out. We have our own person on staff who works very closely with our social workers, our guidance counselors, our mental health specialists. Um these are all seamless positions that work together um in ensuring that we're working with students that have extra needs. Numerous programs around safety, bullying, um we have curriculum in

053these areas. We've worked with the ADL, Camp Kiev, the ecology school, and we have civil rights teams in our schools. advisory programs. Um obviously you're very aware of those um at the high school and at the middle school. Restorative justice um that is something that we've trained many of our staff on over the years using restorative circles. Um suicide prevention training is a state requirement. Uh we provide that training. Every single staff member must do that training um every five years. Um or we have some staff that do it more frequently that are more involved. universal mental health screener. I think I actually already mentioned that. Make sure I got it in there twice. We also do stakeholder surveys. Part of the purpose of there's many purposes for these surveys, but one of them is

054to get a general um pulse of where our students, our staff, and our parents are in relation to how they feel about the schools. And some of the questions are related how does your child feel about the school for parents student initiated college club um at the high school. I think you've heard that about that a lot. Um, that came from students. It's one of the biggest clubs at the high school. I think it has 60 or 70 students. I know Caitlyn, you are the vice president, right? So, you can speak way more about it than I can. U, but college is incredibly active club, incredibly positive. They've been recognized by the as as probably the leading chapter in New England on different occasions because of how active it is. that is a a mental

055health club that was started by students, run by students, incredibly active um in this community. We're very fortunate to have that. I'm not going to obviously click on all these, but I have done this safety series in the past. Um I did it a year ago. Um and I'll provide those links in this presentation when this uh presentation is linked out, but there's links and it talks about u more specifically about safety practices in our district on different topics. So that is the update um for this evening. I'm happy to take questions or comments or anything like that. >> Great. Thank you. Um and it's extensive. I know the amount of work especially since we got that evaluation that has happened and really invested in um so many changes and updates. Um we did have

056a question come up about cameras. I know that we did just have some camera upgrades that was budgeted last year and they were installed um and we had an update that was part of the some of the projects. >> We'll have Scotty answer that just to give a little more um information. This is something we've been working on for years and years for years. Yeah. >> Yeah. As part of our capital projects um and summer work that was a lot of work that was done and upgrading of a lot of cameras in areas and actually adding cameras in areas where there wasn't visibility uh around the entire district. So, >> do you think that will be coming back to finance again this year for more cameras? I guess >> absolutely. There'll be some more upgrades

057across the district. Um, but we did quite a bit this summer. Okay. >> Upgrades, but there's still some areas that we could upgrade. >> Okay. So, we'll hear about that um through finance. >> Absolutely. Okay. >> We've had some uh we've added some to the exterior as well of the buildings so you can have more looks into the parking lots and and basically some of the dead zones that we had. >> Okay. Great. And then security like of that nature for May Wilson has been included and thought of as almost like I think an ad alternate and see how we land with Maylight Wilson for some additional security measures like that too as part of the one campus but we have to kind of see where that progresses but that's been part of it too.

058>> Sure. >> Great. Other questions Lauren? >> Um oh go ahead. >> Got it. Um I'm not familiar with the what the Sandy Hook anonymous reporting system is. Could you explain what that is? >> Yes. Um essentially um so at the middle school and high school 68 and the high school there is a school team that's um that's part of that and they are work they work with Sandy Hook. So if somebody has and we have um we've actually trained all of the students at the middle school and high school as to what this is made them aware of it. All of our staff obviously are have been given this information and we've when we went online and live we did that training. We also do it annually. So we did it again at the

059beginning of the year. Um just remind students that we have this remind staff that we have this and they can report something anonymously. It goes to the Sandy Hook Center um in Florida that um and then we who are on these teams and each school has their own team. There's a district team. we get an alert that there is a there's a report like we've had two or three this week. Um and they often come in after school hours. So they're I I'd say 95% of them come in after school hours if not more. Um and they Sandy Hook alerts us. We get a um a text message um if we're on a team and then we're able to respond in real time to Sandy Hook. uh at least half of the time um the

060police are then they're also on on our SRO are also part of this um these teams uh we there's a dispatch of police because it's a a serious incident or it's an imminent or someone is claiming something could be imminent um and so we have the police hooked in right away right on that on those um messages that we get so we can see that I can go in in my role I see I get them all um often I'm not responding but at least I can what is going on and I know what's going on and I can see if it's been resolved or not. But I would say we average two or three a week. Right now we've been averaging two or three a week um that we get. >> And do the

061children know that that's the consequence that police come? >> Well, there's it's not necessarily a consequence. So usually what we have is a student or a parent who is saying I'm concerned about this student. Sometimes it is the student and they're they're reporting themsel. Um but most of the time it's it's a student or a parent reporting on another student. They're concerned about their safety. And if um Sandy Hook believes and they're trained, these are dispatched people who are trained on their own. But also our team, we're concerned. We'll say maybe police should be involved. Sandy Hook usually will say on they'll air on the side of caution and say we need to dispatch um a member of the police department. The police are on these messages. They see that in real time and then

062we're they're dispatched. >> So there's some discretion. It's not automatic. >> That's right. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It's situational. It's all situational. All situational. >> Great. >> Um, go ahead. >> I had a question. Going back to physical safety, would you be able to give an example of what a physical deterrent would be like in the high school and in the school? >> Sure. I think I think I will without actually saying where they are. Everybody can probably figure it out. Um, flower planters. So, there's certain flower planters that you can purchase that are deterrents if someone were to take a motor vehicle and and go near a door or a window. Um, the Homeland Security flagged um several places on the campus where we needed to purchase those and they helped us make sure that

063we got the right ones. Um, so that that would be an example of a deterrent. Another example is that um, Homeland Security flags certain windows, doors where we needed to put security glass in that would um, deflect a bullet. Um, and we have been working on that and we have several locations now that we have secured not just doors, but there's actually an area of windows that was very vulnerable and we were able to secure those windows as well. So, >> um I'm just curious if any planning or thought has gone into doing trainings among the school with the sentics cards. Um is that how you pronounce it? Yeah. Um because I know that some people are like, "What's that on this teacher? Like, look at this huge thing. Like, what?" >> Yeah. Um and

064Yeah. And also those things. And we were informed like on our way out of school one day that there was going to be like a training simulation with staff after school. So like we knew something was going on. Like we were learning something new or practicing something new. But I don't know if other people know too much about the cards. And I think that at least at the high school kids would really benefit from knowing that there's an extra layer of protection. Um just >> I I I'm guessing that some of the teachers probably have explained what it is, but it we've done training with the staff. >> Yeah. >> We just haven't done it with students because it is a staff tool, >> right? for safety. So, we didn't feel like we need to

065go the extra mile to talk about students. I'm sure there's some teachers that have and that's fine, >> but they've got this, you know, extra layer now that they're using, but we did not feel it was something that we needed to >> Okay. >> train students on. >> Yeah. >> Since they wouldn't be using it. >> Yeah. >> But the the lights go off and for one part of it. Okay. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> And we know they work. We know because we've had a couple of um tests already where staff have asked for assistance. >> A okay >> Sarah. So, I have um an immediate request would be that the list of things that we're working on in line of um updating and upgrading windows and that that safety piece that that be

066part of the um finance committee have that information specifically and the facilities commit committee have that information specifically so that we can understand as we're considering add alternates as we're considering um different parts of the budget that we're making sure that we're putting those things forward. >> Do you do you mean >> did I make myself I >> do you mean like the windows and the doors? anything we um you had mentioned that there's a list of things that we've been working on um and implementing with within doors and windows um upgrading those pieces and I guess if we're still working on it the the your teams need to know so that we can make sure that we're moving them forward. >> So the safety and security team has managed that list over the years

067when that was provided the board did get a highle summary uh presentation at the time. by the Homeland Security consultant who works who worked for Homeland Security. He came and did a presentation for the board years ago and then that list all those reports was were taken by the safety and security committee. That list has been worked on for years pretty much gone through most of it. Okay. >> At this point um so it's been exhausted. I guess the LA if there's last few things especially we could get those things >> yes completed >> and we bring them we bring them forward every year they have a a running list of things that they need we've you know even down to like the strategics piece has been something that was brought to finance committee was

068brought to the board last year as a budget item it had actually been brought to as a budget item the year before didn't make it through the budget process then it was I brought it back safety and security committee felt very strongly about it was brought and then went through the budget process with finance. So that is we make sure that we're doing that. >> I just was feeling like if we have a list that we should be working on that we should be aware of the list. We should >> we help with that list and it's basically we're through the budget process when I'm putting a draft together and we have all these initiatives that's on a list. Anything from safety and security that needs to be brought forward. >> Gotcha. >> Other questions?

069>> I have just a comment if I can make a comment. Thank you Jeeoff. I think it was really super helpful. really appreciate you making the presentation. Um, I think one area that I brought up last year and I will definitely bring up again this year is is 1.5 FTE for SRO's enough um for the size of our district and for a fourth building? And I would argue that no, it's not. So, um, what is it called? What is it called when you tell what you're going to I'm like disclosing my surprise. >> Um, Uh, telegraphing. Telegraphing. >> No, it's whatever. Um, just heads up. This is something that I'm acted out. >> Um, foreshadowing. >> Thank you. Oh, that's >> that um I I think this is something that would be coming from me

070and to finance and to safety and security that I think we need to consider upping our SRO. So it is actually the finance committee received a preview list of what is needed in 2728 and 2627 for budget items related to the one campus project. So it hasn't gone through any further than that. It went to finance committee uh because it's a preliminary list to u provide information. On that list for 2728 there is an additional SRO um that is on that list. Um the chief and I have talked about this in the past. Uh we're both feel very strongly that we should be adding and I don't know if the board feels strongly but I'm hearing from one member of the board right now um that we need to add that uh into our budget

071and planning especially with another facility coming online that's a lot of >> real estate and um obviously we have a growing student population. >> So would that bring the SRO number up to 2.5 FTE? >> Um from what I proposed it would. >> Okay. Yeah, from what I proposed. >> Thank you very much. >> Yes. And um the town the town of Cumberland pays 50% of the expense of an SRO. We pay the other 50%. The SAD does. >> Sorry, Sarah. >> North Yarmouth doesn't pay anything. >> The SAD through North Yarmouth does through the SAD's 50%. >> All right. >> Good point. >> Um >> you pay a percent of the percent. >> Gotcha. be part of that and this is just my understanding because they also provide services to the town when they're

072not like when school is not in session or whatnot and that fills out their position. >> They do patrol work. Both SRO's are assigned a patrol um when they are not um in the schools. >> Yes. And they don't patrol North. >> We need to do our share. I have a couple of um detailed questions and if I I'd like to ask them and if they need to be answered in a followup of an email, I'm okay with that >> as opposed like I know I recognize there are things that we cannot disclose. >> So, um one of my questions was what kind of mass trauma training have we done on campus? I remember one I want to say it was 2012 2013 that there was a training and I recognize the training is not

073done specifically by the district it's done by the emergency personnel but has there been one done more recently? >> You mean like stop the bleed or related to that or something else? >> Um like like a training exercise where you're actually going through responding to a mass trauma situation. >> So we obviously all of our staff are trained in Alice, which is a mass trauma situation and it's not just they have to do refresher training every year, but everybody has to also go through a physical training, every staff member. Um, and that's why um, Officer Owen and Officer Klooie do them five times a year so that we're getting every single new person in. They actually have to do the physical um, on-site. It's a twohour training. Um, in addition to all the other training

074that goes with Alice, there's a lot of prep training um that they have that staff do, but this is actually an in-person. You're in front of you're with two police officers doing this training. So, that's required. We also have done in the past, but it has been a while um an evacuation a full staff evacuation um training where we had a staff day where everybody um we evacuated the district as if if you had students, what would it look like to do that? So we've done that training. >> We've also done first uh you know the I mentioned earlier the um stop the bleed but that was open to interested staff only. >> That is an area that we are the safety and security committee absolutely knows that we need to work more on and

075that's been a goal of that committee. And so, um, I come at all of this from a very personal basis considering I'm a child care provider and I am the first line of defense in any situation. Um, and so I care very passionately at the level of the teachers and the support staff and the bus drivers and the maintenance people who become that very and the administrators that all become that very first line of defense. and and just feeling very passionately that as a child care provider, I'm required to have a plan. I'm required to know what to do. I'm required to have several options available at all times and being one the lone woman on on site. Um, and just have wanting the teachers and the support staff to have the feeling that they

076know what to do in the light of a horrible event. That's an area that we're working on more. And I will say that's an area that we we're not quite where we want to be. Safety and security committee in terms of addressing uh an event where there's somebody who's wounded and what do you do to take care of that situation? That's an area that we need to continue working on. I would ask that the further training be offered again. >> Yeah, I think well I think we're also considering does everybody get this training? >> Yes. >> Um but we certainly you know we started with people who are interested but I I think that's the security I don't want to speak for the safety and security committee. I sit on that committee, but I believe

077that is their intent. >> And and I recognize that this is I'm expressing my wishes and that may not be um something that happens at a district level, I guess, is my um and that was my that was generally you hit the other questions. So, thank you. I I also something I didn't say earlier and I had meant to say it is that um obviously you know best practice is to have layers and layers of protection. You cannot rely on one thing. That's why the safety and security committee has been so diligent with the um homeland security recommendations that you have these multiple layers of protection in things that you do. Obviously, we know that in the world that we live in, things do happen and um you try to prevent and mitigate as much

078as you possibly can with these things and that's why we've done that. Um we live in a real world where real things happen and um we have to be as um we can't prevent everything, but we can certainly deter and have these layers of pe of pieces. That's why we keep adding things every single year. Not replacing things, but adding certain more layers of things. many things people will never see, but we have them. They're behind the scenes. Um, and that's okay that they don't see them. There's a bunch of us that know that they're there. We know what to do. Um, and our first responders know what to do, and they know that those pieces are there. There's others that are more visible because we need everybody's involvement in these things. Um, and so

079I just want to say this is a topic that never goes away. It will never go away. We would never stop thinking about it. It's something that I think about literally every single day. Okay, I know our administrators think about it every day. Um, we don't want people becoming obsessed with this topic, but we also need to know that there's a lot of things in place. Um, and um, we do our best to make sure that if something were to happen that we're mitigating um, that we have a a way to prevent um, any sort of worst case scenario. >> So, you actually just touched on u something that I wanted to ask anyway. Uh, is there a an emotional safety component to this in terms of or or I know that there is, but

080can you speak to that? Um, for kids who are participating in a scary drill for um, you've talked about this with Alice, but is there any kind of a threshold where having too much emphasis on it actually creates >> more anxiety? Right. Um, and thinking about Bill's point and how there are certain things you need to practice over and over again, but I also imagine that there are certain things that you just kind of can't um over do. You can't afford to overdo. Does that make any sense? >> So, the most visible just off the top of my head right now, I can say that the most visible safety approach for students in our district is Alice and that it's all age appropriate training. So, for example, at the elementary level, it's mostly teacher le

081and there's certain um language that is used during those drills that teachers are using. When we get to high school, and I know that both of our students could speak to this without me speaking to it, um where there's Alice drill, obviously you're brought into almost every component of Alice, um you're able, you know, you can barricade a door. Th all those pieces we enlist students because they're older at the younger grade. So, it's age appropriate. Um, we wouldn't be asking a first grader, for example, to, you know, but a teacher might say, "Can you help me with this?" So, there's different language that's used at each grade level. I'm not sure I'm answering your questions. >> Sorry. And my stomach turns a bit when we say age appropriate because like it just kills me

082that this is >> when I say age appropriate, capable of doing something. >> I know. I just like what is at at the heart. is, you know, what we're um we've normalized as something that happens as schools that we have to put this much training and attention on. And >> yeah, we trained for a nuclear war. >> Yeah, those were our >> Can I also Oh, I I want to hear from our students because I figure they can talk to us. >> Um Caitlyn and I can definitely speak to how much training we get. >> I think that it's a good amount. I think that we like I know what to do in a certain situation. and my peers know what to do. But I think that almost more than the drill that we have

083to do and like the practicing and learning about it every few months is the fact that like our adviserss are really cognizant of the fact that we don't want to talk about it. >> And like we'll get into advisory for the day and my adviser be like, "Okay, like we do have to do Alice today." And we're like, "Oh my god." Like we don't want to talk about Alice. We don't want to think about >> They don't either. >> Yeah. like they don't either. None of us want to worry which door we're in, which room we're in, whether the door swings in or out. But that's what we have to learn about. That's what the process is. And we understand like our teachers do get that we don't want to do it. But we kind

084of just take like a community approach to it, think about the hard questions, kind of question the hard things. And I actually wanted to bring up another thing that student government is trying to do right now, which is to get some sort of signage in every room at the school that tells you whether or not a door swings in or out. Because while it may seem obvious, sometimes it's not. And like that one we know will swing out because of the um like crook at the top. And we all know that because we watch this video every few months that tells us to take your belt off and wrap it around that top so that the door can't be opened. So, we know little things to do and like even like a sweatshirt would work

085in the same way. And so, I think that it would be very helpful if students knew, but I do get what you mean, Kim, because I think that it is hard that like we do have to worry about it. But I think if we didn't worry about it and if we lived in kind of blissful ignorance, I think we'd be much worse off. I think we're okay about it. >> I agree. >> That's really helpful. Like just to know like every few months you're having these conversations. >> Definitely. Yeah. And especially um I think that my like it's awful, but like my favorite part about it is the fact that I know whenever we're doing like a drill, it is very well vocalized that it's a drill and that this is a practice situation and

086that there's no like strobe lights going on or like there's no like this is a situation like we need to evacuate. There's nothing like that because we're very well informed that it is a practice event and that we can all just like take a deep breath and realize like this is a learning experience rather than a let's go hide in the corner. >> So I think that that's very well done. Do you agree? >> Yeah. Like >> wiggle the door handle. It's like not >> they literally just >> it's like they say an announcement and it's like Mr. Francis is gonna come around and like wiggle the door handle or like say, "I'm the police. Like, >> can I come in?" And you just have to like react to the situation knowing that it's a

087drill, knowing that the level of professionalism that these teachers are bringing into this >> like is for our safety. Um, and so I think that means a lot as students and it it's definitely impactful. So, >> it takes a layer of stress away from it >> definitely >> knowing it's our like happy principle. >> Yeah. As as much as I know this topic is concerning on multiple levels and also just alarming on multiple levels, um I also want to say that it has a another usefulness that is critical. Um and as much as you know I'm I appreciate hearing directly from both of you. Um this is also uh much like we were doing when we we were younger and had to drill for the nuclear you know possibility which obviously exists but um this

088is this can carry over and this is Alice is meant to carry over to other parts of society. you're in a grocery store, this training actually helps. And I having gone through this training myself. Um, and also my own children. I've talked to them about it, made them watch a video about it because their schools didn't do it um when they were in school. Um, I wanted them to make sure that they knew what to do. If you're in a grocery store and something all of a sudden happens, it's happened in Maine several times over the years. Um, someone comes in with a an arm is armed. What do you do? The first thing you don't do is run out the front door necessarily. you have to be situational, you're in a restaurant, these things

089happen. And so I think as much as it sounds alarming, it's part of the world we live in and it's also carryover and it's useful to other settings. It's not just for schools. Um, super important and that's one of the things that Alice really talks about is this is um this is something that you can use in other venues. So >> yeah, the know the knowing which way door swing seems like very important. the smallest things that you might not think about just being situationally aware when you walk into any public space of any kind. Where are the exits and you know there's a whole bunch of things that that training goes through but very important. >> Yeah. Let can finish to you Jesse. >> Oh okay. Sorry. >> No. Um, so just a follow-up

090comment though more than anything else is um I am very proud of our district and um to Mike's point about you know places where cameras were not placed correctly and you don't know that until it's too late. Um my mentioned before my brother is the disa uh director of disaster preparedness and emergency response for a major city in Southern California. And he'll send me stuff and I'll say we actually do that and he's like wow that is fantastic. It's all really expensive. It is really expensive stuff. And and Sarah, like you said, we we have these discussions every budget season and it's tempting to say, you know, this doesn't pertain specifically to learning or this um you know, not every school has this. Do we really need this? And and we sit back and we

091say th this will make a huge difference. And it and it leads the way. other schools see what we do and they learn that they can do the same thing and um makes others other districts safer by extension. So, um it is it's a lot of money um but it is absolutely worth it and I'm I'm really proud. Um and as you said, thank you to our communities for approving our budgets that have included new positions like the risk assessments and um new cameras and intercoms. I mean, it's a lot. So, Yeah. See, >> yeah, I appreciate everything that we're doing um to be prepared. I think we're giving short shrift to uh the school climate piece. I think for me, most of these systems are systems, God willing, we never will need. Um but

092school climate is something, right, that is influencing all of our students, making sure they don't get to a place where they're snapping and doing something, making sure that bullying is not happening. Um, and I know I'm really proud of our our schools and the interactions I've had. Um, yeah. So, yeah, I think we need to give credit to our teachers and our administrators for leading the way in creating safe spaces for our kids, teaching the kids to be kind to each other, to be inclusive, um, and not getting fully wrapped up in the worst case scenarios. But also, I would love to hear more about what goes on in our schools cuz I only hear from my kids. I've seen it in the hallways when I've toured the schools. But like, there's so much going

093on with teachers leading the way, administrators leading the way, making sure that all of our kids are okay so they don't get to a place where, you know, they're doing anything and maybe we're more worried about people from the outside. So, I don't want us to get lost in the expense of everything we're doing for the worst case because every single minute of every day, I know our teachers and our administrators are doing the work to make sure our kids are okay. Um, so I'd love to hear more about that because that's something positive and those are positive things I've seen when I've toured the schools, the messages in the classrooms, the messages on the hallways, when I see sports games like the football team. um you know having having the that inclusive moment at

094that at the football game. Um I think those are really important and those lead to a safe physical and emotional school and so I think celebrating those is just as important as knowing about strategics and everything else. >> Yes. And I agreed and that's that's part of um that pres obviously we can't talk about all this in one presentation but the emotional security is incredibly important. In fact, that's always what you want to make sure you've got complimenting every other physical thing you're doing. You got to make sure you're complimenting with every emotional safety piece as well because you can't do one or the other. And that's why the US Department of Justice years ago decided we got to put together all this research and all this information from the Secret Service and studying all

095of these incidents. And that's what they discovered is that you can't do one or the other. You have to do both and you have to do them pretty well um if you want to have any sort of impact in this area. So 100% agreed. I think that's a great point to drill home. You can't do one or the other. >> You got to do both. >> Yeah. >> And yeah, sports makes an important impact on that, too. And it was just lovely hearing the chatter on the sidelines on Friday. Um, families who never thought they'd be football families just saying how incredible their kids felt connected being part of that team. And so um yeah, all all the things. Yeah. >> So I have two things. Um though it's kind I follows up kind of

096what Jesse is saying but on the other side of it. Um so I think that this totally demonstrates and what I've seen in the school is right what Jesse has said is like we have that culture that we need. I am curious about like from that standpoint of school climate what we have for and like operations around that to give teachers and staff and students the ability to kind of track student progress and emotional health and that could be like oh there's a bullying incident there's a fighting incident there's something positive or I saw something like a student depressed for some reason or I saw something like some kind of behavior management system that teachers can use to discuss around to alert have early signs of alert and be proactive about. And I know that

097like each school kind of has their own unique system, but I'm wondering if you could kind of talk about how you monitor that in a way that's a little bit more operational so that we can react to things before they blow up. to kind of Jesse's point because right now I see a ton of art to Jesse's point as well of like what we do well and I just wonder how what tools and operations do we have that kind of enforce that art. Yeah, I don't want to put Monty on the spot, but he can certainly as a principal can talk about the operational. I will just speak generally and broadly if if Monty you don't mind coming up and just talking just for a moment about it at your level, but on a broad

098level. Um, so we have many team obviously we can't do this without our staff. So we have staff teams that meet and we have students um that might have been flagged for some reason that are concerned um not only just the the mental health piece of it, social workers, counselors, etc., But we have team meetings um where staff talk about a student or more than one student at a time that they are concerned about what are we doing. Um and that's why you have to again have multiple layers so it's not just a universal screening for mental health or you have the sea stag for students that you're really concerned about where there's a team that's talking about a student and doing an assessment working with the parents um of that child to make sure

099that everything's up in place. But you've got team meetings that are where we're flagging students and talking about them, having staffings, etc. Communicating with parents on a regular basis. That's all part of that approach that we have. I don't know if you want to go a little bit more than what I just said, Monty, and talk about from your perspective as a school principal, but >> and if you don't, I'm sorry. >> I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm sorry, but um >> nobody following along at home would be able to hear you. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, well, the timing is interesting because the SRSS screener that Jeff just mentioned is a chance for teachers to actually have a process for that to just take a it's quick, but it's a

100quick look at our are things jumping. And uh, ironically, about a week ago, I had another district reach out like, how do you guys do that? And um as a district, if you're this big, how do you even collect that data and figure out how do you even go through it? And and this district does has a process for that. I won't go into that. Um, another thing that happens is just like every week, um, the social worker, counselors, principals, um, we we get together and it's just a quick chance like who's popping, what what kid is frustrated, who just got removed from foster care, and is a different placement and um, so almost like on the other side of safety that mentioned you you build in layers so you have just the almost casual

101level stuff of uh I think we ought to pay attention to this kid to this kid's really needing some attention and who's taking the lead on that and again that's happening every week if not more often because if something really pops you're on it immediately um and uh gosh and then from there. It it goes into team meetings and then a systemwide thing called kid talks that can be a number of different type of interventions and next Thursday I think is when we do like a student support team thing. Um yeah, the layers are pretty intense and you go from there to we we have a behavior specialist and then you have um like other referrals that can happen and and then from there as Jeff mentioned too we our teacher of the year person

102last year is not only extraordinary it's extraordinary that we even have that role in a school district this size where most people are contracting out. So, >> I see I see him around on a daily basis. >> The thing about having the staff who have that level of expertise is the great ones like the person I'm mentioning is also being constantly proactive. >> So, um yeah, it's more than enough. I guess my my push would be and this might be a curriculum or budget conversation is that I feel like so many of those conversations go on and so much of that work happens but in various different silos or spots and so if a parent comes with concerns or there's an incident there has to be a ton of different mechanisms to collect that information

103of what occurred whereas like if you're able to respond back to that parent or respond to that incident or respond to that staff member who might be seeing something with some kind of data that's being collected. It's just a much more efficient useful tool to be able to do that. And so I would encourage us to look at some kind of behavior management program whether or not that's through powers school or something that keeps some of this monitored because so much of this stuff that happens kind of goes like I feel like we lose a lot of the benefit or effort if it's not somewhat recorded or tracked or used. Um so there's transparency between staff members that work with those those students. So I encourage us to look at that. Yeah, we do track

104obviously on a broad level and it's through our data um on our data page. Um we track things like um how many mental health assessments were done in a year things like when a broad level we track that stuff but I don't think that's what you're referring to. >> No, I think that's more they're more detailed stuff that you don't necessarily have to report out to the state. It's more of like yeah we saw this in the hallway. We saw these convers like things like that. Um the second thing is I'm really thinking about what we heard from public comment about just how fast we're moving um or like the speed and so I I trust the safety and security that like you know I think that is something for them to kind of think

105about and look at and just efficiency around it. Um but that I think is a interesting thing to consider where things like how long it kind of took to get labels on the windows. what were the decision process to get things like that done? Things that can be fast should probably be fast and things that take a long time we should all kind of address. So, I'm I'm really thinking about that speed conversation and I hope uh I encourage the safety committee to kind of think about what red tape is in front of them whether or not that's budget or operation or policy so that we can expedite some of these things because it is it a priority of our >> there's stories behind some of that and >> yeah I imagine I believe >>

106I would talk about out loud but I I could obviously fill you in if you needed to know >> oh I know it's the number one priority for you that wouldn't like stop anything but if there's any kind of barriers that we wish weren't in the way for safety is like one of those things that we don't want to wait on. Right. So, >> I hear you. >> Great. Thank you, Sean. >> I just wanted to kind of respond a little bit to what you said, Tim, just because I asked almost the same question during one of the meetings and I feel like I got a really good answer and a lot more detail that's obviously not going to be shared here >> about process. And I think there's >> a lot of people on

107that committee that aren't just there to check a box off or >> um go through the motions. There are people that are very committed and very passionate about it and bring up some amazing ideas every time we have that meeting and obviously in between them and I'm really proud of everybody that's on there and what they've accomplished and what their goals are and especially the tabletop exercises that are planned. I think our local partners are really passionate about it and excited about it. So >> yeah, this was um one of the most important committees that was started in our district about 10 or 11 years ago. Great. Thank you. Good. Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you, Monte, for coming and adding. >> All right. So, now we have some items for action. We

108have a motion for uh approval of policy BEDH, public participation at board meetings, as presented. >> So moved. >> Thank you, Anukica. Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Jesse. Okay. Um, so yes, this is the second read. Do you want to Jesse just kind of review? >> Yep. Um, so the policy, I won't say it was a massive overhaul, some tweaks around the edges. So there's that new first paragraph preamble. Um, we removed uh a couple parts about written comments submitted just to the board chair and superintendent and broadened it that people can email uh and superintendent or any board member. Um comments are still limited to three minutes. Uh we added the language about not relinquishing a portion of your allotted time to another speaker. Um added some language in

109in uh number two there about uh the folks that we prioritize. Um adding students and parents and guardians recognizing that some folks may be in split families where parents and guardians aren't actual residents of the school district. Um uh yep. And that was about it. Instead of address, we just said town or city of residence and affiliation with MSAD 51 if if applicable again for that divorced parent living out of town scenario. Um yeah, section three instead of just uh referring to the superintendent or appropriate board member um that we're we welcome comments um through emails or outside of board meetings uh to any board member or the superintendent as appropriate to bring up comments or concerns. And those are those are the changes. >> Great. Thank you, Jesse. And I did want to just

110note one of the craft references is to a policy related to the agenda structure. Um I know that was asked earlier and we actually have a policy about how the agenda is structured and where public comment sits um within that structure. So that is a separate policy from public comment. But to be clear, this is about not just that public comment. It's about all like any that could be public comment after action for actions or budget stuff. It it covers all those, not just the initial public comment. >> Uh do you mean the policy be DB covers that? I'm just trying to make sure. Yes. Okay, great. >> Oh, yes. Yep. >> Thank you. So, uh, to to Shirley's, um, other question about, uh, policy versus procedure or practice. Yeah. >> Are we required by

111the state of Maine to have a policy on public comment? >> I would have to I'm not going to be able to answer that. I have to check into that. I believe it's I don't believe it's a required policy, but I do need to double check that. >> Okay. I mean, we I'm just looking at the dates. Um, so each time it was adopted and revised is at the bottom of the policy and it was adopted in 1970. >> This is as old as I am. >> I was like, predates some of us. >> I'm not I'm not sure, Kim. I think though that um and we'd have to ask Melissa on that. She's the expert of what list. I'm sure Jesse's looking at it right now. Um, but I'll say that. So what we

112wrote and I said this last time but it's worth repeating that what the policy is what our like minimum use would be for that. So there is a lot of room for practice. So we believe strongly in public comment. So we think it's worth a pol a policy. So for example if we're long gone 10 years from now and this policy still ex exists the board is still under policy supposed to public comment because we believe in that. It's protecting it. It's the same thing as so like in uh we followed kind of Sherry what she was talking about in terms of practice. These are minimum stuff. So it's very clear that we think you should get at like three minutes should be kind of the standard but there's room on either side for that

113based off of the the chair's discretion or the board's discretion just generally. Um so there that's that policy is really the bare minimum that we want the practice to hit. But there's a lot of different practices that we could kind of have um every year we can kind of revisit what we want for a public comment um uh practice. So I think we approached it as this is the basic framework. And then I just had one other more of a comment or observation that um for 3A I think that that I like the way it's worded and madam chair I I I think that that's an important followup that um there's some sort of maybe verbal acknow this is a practice not policy um but that there's a verbal acknowledgement like you know thank you

114Mike for your comment about cameras. We're going to make sure that the security safety and security committee, you know, knows about this comment or or gets back to you. Like I don't I don't know if just even that eye contact >> and saying their name and just like so you're not necessarily responding to the comment or answering the question, but just individually like >> this is going to go here. I I think that could go a really long way. Um, so we did look it up. It is a required policy >> through the main school management association. Um, and I guess I would just say I really appreciate the work that the policy committee has put into this. It started um when I was still chair of the committee at the end of the last

115academic year. Um, and there was some really good discussion. And I felt like at the committee level, good kind of digging into what um other districts are doing. I think really good conversation at our workshop um over the summer where we discussed this as well and really trying to collect um a fair amount of input. And so I really appreciate the amount of time and conversation that has gone into coming to this point and I know that there were different ideas considered. Um and I think just also you know one thing that hasn't necessarily been mentioned tonight but certainly that we talked about a lot was and as Shirley brought up tonight as well was kind of you know town council select board setting um and how that may differ from a school board setting

116as well. And I think to some extent um that opening paragraph that is suggested here in talking about you know the primary purpose of schoolboard meetings being to conduct the business of the board related to board policies, programs and operations, encouraging residents to attend meetings to become acquainted with the operations and programs of the schools and also obviously you know the value of public comment and how that contributes to these conversations. Um, but I would just I guess want to recognize that as well that we do see some differences in the operation of town council or select board and the school board and those are certainly things that we can continue to discuss as community members as well. Um, but just that we do have that understanding. >> I think it's also I I I've

117been the one I've been a board member that has wanted us to revisit this. So, I really appreciate the fact that we we did that um to look at it. I think it's important for us to see what it says and also be very clear of what it does not say. So, there's a lot of again things in here in terms of like board response like we tal about there's nothing in this that says either way. Um and so that is again up to the board every year's board's discretion or the chair's discretion. Um, and so I think there's a lot of room uh I think there's just a lot of room and flexibility in this which is aligned to the rest of our policies, but I do want people to read this and really

118think about what it says and does not say because we were super intentional about this with the wording, super super intentional about it. And I think it can be inferred because you'll see something quickly like 30 minutes or three minutes and not see really the words around it because there there is a lot more flexibility in this. and um because it had to be because there a lot of different types of public comments than you might think. >> Yeah, it's been um quiet. Uh we've have our our lovely um members today who came for public comment who are used to coming um and and commenting. Um, but we've also had some other times where it has been hard and we've been challenged and our consistency with public comment has been challenged. Um, and so for

119me and I try to communicate with my fellow board members and administrators what to expect from me as chair. Um, and as far as how I I run the meeting and I've run public comment. Um, and I' I have tried to be more flexible this year, but we've also been challenged on, well, last meeting so and so was given all this time and now you're not giving it to me. Um, and so I also um have reflected, you know, on that and just just trying to be consistent so people everyone knows what to expect. Um, our fellow board members know what to expect when they come into a meeting. Um, and I just also get um want to make sure that we're offering lots of opportunities to engage with board members and that public comment

120is just one of them. And it it is more structured than most others >> and yes, thank you for all the work and conversations that have gone into this. Thank you. Um, the one thing I I've never been to, well, I think I may have been to one Cumberland Town Council meeting, but um, I really like the suggestion about the opportunity for public comment at the items for action. I don't know if there's any interest in um it's often that the people in the audience I know we have so many people here there's just a few chairs extra um but they have things to offer that we might not know or might need to hear to understand and it's nice to have that viewpoint at the point where we're going to look at it and

121vote on it. >> We talked about that and I love it as a practice, but again, let's say that you wrote it into policy and now every action you would have to have like a public comment afterwards and that could just get like >> Yes. >> that ex we go to 9:00 anytime. So like it depend I think it's again dependent on the action item and if we're like because we have done that even just two weeks ago. >> Yeah. And I would like to have more workshops because honestly if we're at the point where we have a vote on something, I don't want to hear something new from the audience that's going to disrupt all of the decision making and input um that has gone into that part because I'm not a teacher. I'm

122not an administrator. Luckily, we have students on the board. But in the moment, I don't want to react to something that if we've done good process for the things that we're voting on, we should have had opportunities for the important votes to have that information brought to us earlier. And so that would be one of my concerns. >> And if you look at policy BED regarding agenda, there is a very specific format. So we would have to change that policy, right? And at the same time it does allow for additions and adjustments to the agenda. So it is possible that you could say you know for this particular meeting >> we we feel really important even if it's on a workshop. So I I like that there's that little bit of flexibility and that policy.

123But I think to your point Sarah we'd have to go back and also revise BED. >> Yeah. And I think we've provided some flexibility, too. Go ahead, Lauren. >> I just want to recognize that Shirley shared that the council did that and it didn't seem to prolong meetings. Um, so I think it might be worth an experiment. And if it goes off the rails, we go back to the way we did. Um, and you utilize the discretion that's allowed in the current agenda policy to do that. Um, and give it a try. I think it's a great idea. >> Hand raised to be a >> Come on. >> He raised his hand. I'm just saying. He raised his hand. >> You want to test this out, Bill? >> A record for me. Um, so look,

124we've been at our group has been at this for god two years trying to understand what this whole three minute thing is. And it's almost become laughable. It really is because this give us five. You know, if you give somebody five minutes, if you've watched the town council meetings, you'll see that they have time enough to get it out. Some people are slow starters. We've been saying this at every meeting, not just yours, but the other two entities, too, that if you give us five minutes, we don't necessarily have to keep going like this and try to spit out everything we've been waiting to see because, as you can see, there's only three of us. And God, sometimes there's only one of us, right? So, we spend the time to try to come up here

125and and have some and have some sort of comment or or have an issue that we're we're concerned about and we just need the time to say it. That's all. And I think if you gave five minutes, that's fair. It works at at at the Cumberland Town meetings, at the council meetings, um people have plenty of time and they don't feel like they're rushed and they feel like they're trusting you again. And that's what this is all about. This is all about building trust. It's not about 11:00 at night. Oh my god. Two times a month. That's what you signed up for, >> right? That's what you signed up for. If that's what it takes, it's what it takes. But think about five minutes and go with that. Okay, that's >> Thank you. Was that

126three? >> Can I can I respond to that from the policy committees? >> Sure. So, we discussed that too a lot the time. Um, and we were very we thought about all different types of public comment. And one of those that came up was the book challenge that we had a couple years ago when we had a number of people that wanted to come and speak. But we needed to be like if we had done five minutes for each of those people, the meeting would have gone on forever to a point where we wouldn't have really had a good discussion. We wanted to give as many people the opportunity to speak as possible. So if you look at it, there are opportunities where we have talked about even internally if it's 30 minutes and there

127only three of us, we can be a little bit more le like there there's leeway for us to have longer public comment. But if there's a ton of people, we want to ensure that everyone's expected like like everyone knows that they get at least three minutes and that's what the standard practice is. So you can prepare for that three minutes. The policy is you can't do two minutes. Policy doesn't really allow for that unless we vote for it, right? But like we're giving three minutes and it's always there's an ability to flex to more given the amount of people that we have. So that's kind of to the practice, but we wanted to ensure that at least it's three minutes and and for those long meetings or those random things, we we we're still following

128policy at that point. >> No, I So no. So this is the this is my challenge. >> Okay. So this one more time. So, we're playing this out. Go ahead. >> So, so what you can do with some long thing like the book, right? And this is what they do at the planning board meeting in North Yarmouth. If you have something that people are, there's a lot of people lined up and it's repetitive. Just say if there's somebody new that has something to add, could they come up to the mic? And then that eliminates probably half of the audience that is just going to be repeating the same thing. It's simple. So, I want to honor the work that's gone into getting us to the second read. Um, and sorry, Jesse. >> I mean, if

129people want to vote it down, that's fine, and I think we can vote on it. I I just want to say I think we were very intentional about this. It was very well researched. I mean, we could have chosen different time periods, but like this is well in line with almost every other school board in the entire country. And you know, for better or worse, we're going to operate uh in a similar way. Uh I recognize that there are people who have a lot to say and like to come to a lot of meetings, but I I think we very intentionally put things in this policy to make it very clear that outside of these meetings, uh we want to make ourselves available. We don't want to run everything through the superintendent or the chair.

130We want to give people opportunities. And in my experience, the people who have had the most impact on either the turf field or other issues or people who have spent the time uh to connect with me outside of a meeting so I could bring something to your attention or Jeff's attention or to the policy committee or anywhere else. Um, so I would encourage folks who are interested um to reach out outside um you know to to be willing to meet with a school board member and not to uh you know use profanity at them and and tell us that we need to you know tap dance. Um we're here and you're right we're showing up for these meetings. I'm showing up for coffee with people. I'm talking with someone tomorrow who has a concern because

131I really care. But these meetings are focused on, you know, addressing agenda items often for work that has been done in the safety committee, in the curriculum committee, in the policy committee, and folks are welcome to show up to those. Those are all public meetings as well. So, you know, >> but Jesse, even to the even we I mean, you could test the because we're specifically talking about policy. You could we could do within that policy what what was just suggested. The policy would allow exactly what Bill just suggested. >> That's the chair. Yeah, >> that's the flexibility of it. It's it's that same kind of thing. It's it's holding us to at least >> it's a minimum standard that every other school board across the country has. >> So even that even that test

132against it, you could still do there. The policy wouldn't prevent you from doing that. So I think again read what it is and what it doesn't say I think is really important. >> Well, there's also the the human element. I mean there are clearly people who do struggle to get the words out or or speak slowly by nature and that's where common sense comes into play and it goes 15 20 seconds over you don't you know take the giant hook and pull them off stage. Uh, so I I think that the way the policy is written, if it is clear that the person just needs just just that last little bit to kind of get the last out and you can always say, you know, we we need to stop it there, but I really

133want to hear more. So that's how you're following up. Um, so I I I think within the spirit of the policy, we're not going to be total jerks, but like you said, you also have to be careful because other people will abuse that sadly. And it's it's not just about the folks who need that extra little bit of time. It's the folks who are going to take advantage of it. >> Yeah. And I just want also, you know, well functioning board as we've all made agreements to each other um about what that means and what that looks like. And I think that's also one thing that um we've talked about trying to do a midyear um like retreat again and so we can revisit some of these practices and how it's going. But for me

134personally when you know I agreed was voted in to be chair again. Thank you. Um we talked this summer about you know ways then in which what you could expect from me as chair and I don't want to change that without you know conversation in agreement with how I would then you know run the meetings because there's enough unexpected things that we deal with on a day-to-day momentto moment basis as it relates to this and so I just want to make sure that um the board members and administrators know what to expect when they come in to these meetings. So Jesse, to your point, um, second read, our vote tonight is to adopt this policy. I haven't heard that yet. If there is an amendment on the table, so if there's no other questions, do

135we want to do a vote? >> Okay. Sure. >> All in favor? Great. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay, next policy. Can I have a motion to approve policy BEDH? Broadcasting tape >> J. >> See, somebody else needs to read this. BeedJ, broadcasting taping of board meetings as presented. >> So moved. >> Thank you, Jesse. Can I get a second? >> I'll second it. >> Oh, thanks, Kim. All right. Do you want to present this one? >> Yeah. So, this we're striking uh one paragraph. So, uh, I think we were advised that we could basically get rid of this entire policy if we wanted to, um, because everyone has cell phone cameras now, but we thought it'd be useful to keep it, but we're getting rid of that paragraph about um, the chair having to announce

136that something's being recorded because in these meetings, we're being recorded already. And so if somebody else has a cell phone out and this policy uh when it's originally originally written was more for people with video equipment like news stations and such but everyone has a video camera in their pocket now. Um so yeah striking that paragraph. Um and then that little change in the last paragraph the chair will enforce the provisions of this policy. Um, yeah. So, if somebody's being disruptive with their recording equipment, we can tell them to to stop. But otherwise, you know, basically anyone can record our meetings at will, >> right? I mean, not great, but >> here we are. >> The expectation, I guess, is that we are being recorded in these meetings, >> right? >> Um, any questions, comments?

137>> Get in there. So, a question which I already um brought up with Jesse, which I'm sorry I actually it only occurred to me when I was reviewing this for the second read was around committees because we had this conversation around how we're being broadcast here in our full board meetings. that's not necessarily the um practice in committee meetings and you know so just wanting to have some conversation around if someone was attending a committee meeting and recording that meeting are there considerations that we need to make um with regards to this policy. >> Yeah. So as written right now if somebody comes to my policy committee meeting they don't have to announce to the chair which I guess is me of the policy committee that they're recording. So, I think as written, basically someone

138can show up to any of our subcommittee meetings and just be recording and not have to announce it. Um, and if their equipment and cords and microphones get in the way, I suppose you could kick them out. But, >> um, I don't know, Tim, did we talk through this hypothetical when we were going through this? Okay, please refresh my memory. Uh we did and because and I think that that was essentially it that if we wanted to have it I if someone came and wanted to record it like it was public and so we were open to that and fully like that was the expectation that that was a possibility but we also didn't see that as like a very common thing that would occur. Um so yeah. >> Okay. >> So >> if we

139offered an amendment would it fix it? Is that what is that where we're at or we're just saying no? >> Sounds like maybe it's a non-issue. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> No, because in the policy it does say meetings of the board and it subcommittes. So basically >> you can record any of our meetings and you don't have to announce it to the chair ahead of time. So anyone can pull out a cell phone at any meeting and record that meeting. And unless they're being disruptive like we're just saying they're public, you can record any of our meetings. >> Okay? But if your cords or microphones or things are getting in the way, we may ask you to stop, >> which probably they're not corded. >> Okay. All right. And Oh, Sean, go ahead. >>

140Maybe I should spend a little more time reading this, but I read it as any members of the public. Are we identifying ourselves as member of the public when we state that? So, a board member could record. I just wanted to make sure. >> Yeah. >> All right. I didn't know if there needed to be other language to identify individuals on the board. >> I mean, Ma Maine's a one party state, so if you're a part of any conversation or meeting, you're allowed to record anyways. So, >> you know, great. Okay. All in favor? >> Great. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay. So the next motion is to authorize the superintendent or designate to formally invite the town of Cumberland and the town of North Yarmouth to collaborate on issuing a joint RFP for an enrollment

141projection study and to coordinate the scope of work cost sharing framework framework and vendor selection process with the participating municipality. See I can't talk tonight. Um, >> did you make a is that a motion or use? >> That is a motion. Um, >> second. >> Oh, actually, yes. >> Yes. Perfect. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, as we discussed at our last meeting, we um had discussed wanting to have like a more of a formal like invite going into the the joint meeting around um this enrollment projection study. And while in the past um we've used this wonderful resource, we don't think they're really available to do this work. And it's probably a time as the new legislation is passed and you know the town's looking at more

142um developments that we really would like a a further study that engages um maybe other firms who who who've done this work in the past and put out an official RFP and invite the towns to to be part of that process. Um, and you know, I was reflecting back after our last meeting that even the end of Rebecca Wendell's presentation in 2024, the last slide literally said, when your your projection numbers seem off, it's time to do a new study. And I think that was what we reflected on during our last meeting where some of our numbers seemed off um from projections. um and especially as we're continuing to look out at the growth of our district and um reopening these various buildings that we want to do do this a little more formally with

143the towns. Um and so going into our joint meeting in two weeks um we wanted the the board to go in with something a little more formal to that. So, I don't know if I should make a motion or just ask the question first, but um I would love for this to be worded slightly differently so that not only is the RFP done jointly, but we're putting into this that the followup is done >> so that we know that the towns understand what the report means as far as enrollment. ments and and therefore it's not just like you know oh yeah we've all looked at it does that make sense >> well I would want it presented to us as like a joint committee it would right would that get it what you're you're saying

144>> I think I mean yeah as long as there's discussion afterwards because the whole point of this is for us to sh to demonstrate to the two towns like this is what happens when development gets so unchecked we'll Okay. Uh, and so if if we have something maybe just a little more formal that it's not just that the stud is being done, but that there's >> like a joint sort of >> joint RP and and continuing work or relevant work or like following work like you know what I'm saying >> or followed by a dis a meeting to discuss the results or something. Yeah. >> Well, I feel like it needs to be more than the results or you think of what you're talking about too, right? It's like committee and then also >> it's

145like ongoing work, right? >> So like the the work that results from whatever the selection of the RFP is, right? Is that what you're getting at? >> Well, once once the stud is done, >> so not just the RFP, but once the study is done, right, >> that we're ensuring that it's not just okay, the study was done and we're the ones left with these numbers that there is continued Yeah. follow. Okay. >> Kim, do you envision this as like a comm like a committee, a triCom committee that sort of takes this information and meets I don't know a few times a year to re hash? >> I mean it could be exactly what Leanne said was that at our you know maybe we it's done by the time we have our joint meeting >>

146in the spring or >> it's in February. Yeah, >> it's in Feb. So it's not going to be done by then. So then how can we I it maybe it doesn't need to be in the motion but I am voting for this with the understanding that there will be continued followup and that everyone will then be on the same page of what development is going to look like in terms of enrollment. I just think those those conversations are so important. So I don't just want the study. >> Yeah. Would it be like aou with the towns and the school district about what we're going to do once we get the study? >> Yeah. Yeah, that could work. >> I don't know if we've ever had something so formal, but we are trying to formalize some

147of these things. Um, and this was like the first formal set, but like what is after that I think is just as important. I mean, isn't that going to be part if all three of us are parties to the RFP, then like if we move forward with the RFP, all three entities will get the report. But like we can't tell the town council or Norman Select Board what to do, right? If they get the report like >> well they get to make their growth plans. We have to >> figure out how many like we all have have our part to play. And like I don't know that writing down like Cumberland County Council you have to take this seriously like right they're going to get the report and then as a tricom meeting we'll be

148like hey that report did you guys read it like let's talk right like yeah it seems like because all three of us are on the RFP there's an implicit understanding that we're all going to get this report and we all better take it seriously in our own lanes like we're going to have to deal with the students that come in. >> Yeah. they're dealing with how many housing units are going up that are going to send us those students so that we're all sort of on the same page about yeah I don't like it doesn't seem like it needs to be in the motion but it's sort of like implicit that we're all part of the RFP and we will all maybe chip in for it so we'll all have a little skin in the

149game >> just tell you what happened before um so what happened before was that there was a joint meeting after the report was done and the there were several people that were involved in writing that report studying it they studied for months and months and months and they came and jointly presented that report to all three boards. Um and then there was a discussion among the three boards as to what is the next step after that meeting. But the people who actually did the study wrote the report presented it to all three boards at once at a joint meeting, >> joint public meeting. >> So I would I would suggest that would be >> so the results would be presented to all of us at the same time. It wouldn't just be like hey Cumberland

150did >> because there's a lot of discussion and questions every remember there was a lot of questions that people had they had points to make >> it was very well done and then we the SAD the boards after that decided to do their own um you know studies three more were done after that >> right >> without the two towns but that that first one with the towns that's how it worked and it worked really well I thought >> yeah no that I mean that sounds that sounds great if and as long as that's happens Yeah, usually like even with Rebecca, she she would have she's always come and talked about those reports. I would assume that whoever is doing this report would want to come and present. That's kind of the expectation and then

151take questions from all three boards at once. >> Okay. Okay. So just throwing this out there and credit to Michael Sweat I think from our last meeting for some of this language, but I wonder if we could put something like to collaborate on growth management planning starting with issuing an RFP amendment. I do kind of like that and this is very soft language that is just an invite right now to this like they can't commit to anything. So I invite them yes to be part of this collaborative process. But I like starting with that being like I I like that language. So I would just if we were going to put a new language forward, it would say um after the town of North Yarmouth to collaborate on growth management planning by issuing a joint

152RFP >> starting by >> but starting by >> starting with is this the time to mention the 110 acres in North A sold? God, >> did you did you want me to tell you that? >> Is this is this the time to tell you that Tuttle Road has water and sewer and that according to LD1892 or whatever that there's 3,000 buildable lots on that road? >> Oh, yeah. >> 3,000. >> If you divided them all up into the smallest smallest section, there would be three 3,000 plus new buildable lots. >> A lot of like large large parcels. But, you know, this is why, you know, we could we could have a lot more students in the future. >> If people sell that land and divide it to the smallest possible size, >> I thought she

153may have just said >> and she's done. >> She's done. Um, >> can I also just mention that on Monday night, Bridget Perry will be going over the implications of this um and answering questions. So, if you're interested in what this all means, come Monday night, town council. >> Yeah. And I think we um so just so the the board is aware the the chairs um and some of the vice chairs are meeting um I think we figured it's Sunday um to draft an agenda um for the meeting um and what we did um want to ask to have a bit of our session of the Tricom meeting to be to to learn a little more about um yeah um whatever it's called >> Jesse knows >> LD189. >> Thank you. Um so to have

154that as part of the joint meeting as well just so we're all hearing it. Um we thought would be helpful. Um but yeah, so we're working to draft that agenda. Um and it is a it's being hosted by the town of Cumberland, so it is like whatever their agenda format. I know some people had questions about comment and I'm like I don't I don't know. I don't live in the town of Cumberland. I may have gone to one council meeting, but I don't recall. Um, and I will unfortunately not be there that night, but I will watch it after and I will help put together the agenda, but I will not be at the Tricom meeting. I have another engagement that night, unfortunately. Um, okay. So, right now we have updated wording. Do I need

155to like stop the current motion and put a new motion? >> It sounds like Anukica already um put that as an amendment, so she already made a motion to do that. I would go ahead and vote on that. >> Okay. Do we Does that need to be like seconded or >> second and then voted on and then go back to the main motion? >> Okay. >> All in favor of adding the amendment. >> Okay. >> Great. It's unanimous. Thank you. >> Can we vote twice? >> Uh you're going to get a chance to. Um Okay. So, we now have an amended motion. Um, we're going to do a formal invite. I guess it would maybe be in the in the form of a letter that we would like send to them before the meeting and

156then we would discuss it at the meeting. Um, and that would be a good process. So, we're not surprising them with this. We'd let them have it beforehand and then have it discussed at the meeting. Okay. Any other questions? All in favor? Great. Awesome. Two weeks from tonight, Cumberland Town office. Okay. Superintendence report. >> Yes, here I am again. Um, this report's a little lengthy. I also wrapped in the Nest report into this. Uh, but I'll start with a few highlights from the schools. Annual appearance of Mother Goose. Um, that is actually our assistant principal at the Wilson school. She dresses up as Mother Goose and goes around and um and reads to students. Also, picture day has been in all of our schools. The grand event was actually held last night. And here is

157a still photo, I'm sorry, a video. >> You can see how many people come to this. This is a very popular event. And um so this was just set up to kind of show you how many people come in and out of here. And this is just the library um at the Wilson school that you're seeing. So there's people all throughout the building. >> Do we have a Tik Tok account? >> That's >> Do we have a Tik Tok account? >> No, but I believe that Melissa somehow brought that up there on Tik Tok. >> It's going to be viral soon. >> I don't see any dances. >> Actually, this is I'm sorry. This is from the PTO. >> Okay. >> Supplied this. So I don't know what they have. >> Maybe they Okay. >>

158So this is just it came from them. Anyway, it just gives you an idea. Um so October I think um it's been mentioned before um Mrs. uh Jery and Mrs. Rothbart's fifth grade students are excited they've been working on Socktober raise awareness about homelessness. This is something that actually they do annually providing opportunity to supply people in need with their number one item and that is socks. Lots of people do not have socks um who are un unhoused. So during the month of October, these two classes have done this in the past and are collecting socks, hats, mittens, gloves as it gets colder. Um there those are then delivered to Maine Needs, the local main organization that coordinates these items. Um so appreciating any donations um both for children and for adults for the project.

159Um and at GMS there are boxes um that those donations can come in. So, I know that word has gotten out at the middle school. Grade six science students completed a bridge building project at Granite Falls in North Yarmouth. It's great to see our students in the community and using the great resources that are available in both of our towns are just beautiful resources here at Gley High School. I'm sure that the students will talk more about this later, but it was homecoming week. Very exciting week uh annually. and also just recognition of some of the state championship uh teams over the last few months. Um they were recognized also during homecoming. Um as you can see here, youth leadership uh conference um was also held where several students attended that. Believe it was last

160Yeah, it was last uh I'm sorry, it was today. It was today. Today's October 23rd, college application season, so seniors are very busy. Um last Friday there was a I'm sure the students will also talk about this so I won't take their take their information but last Friday um every class did something different um and seniors were working on uh primarily their college applications um juniors um took the PSATs sophomores um went on college visits got on buses and went to college visits and then fresh uh freshmen were involved with camp Kiev and doing activities team building activities activities. So, it was a very busy day. Superintendent's notebook. Um, just some photos. I'm doing this with every every report now, but you also can go um to our website and there's tons and tons of

161photos on our one campus page. Um, concrete is progressing quite a bit now at the prek to one school. Um, it has u really I think doubled since my last report in terms of concrete placement. Um, and they're working at the Wilson School right now on attaching the addition to the existing building. They've been working on that all week. Um, and then finishing the concrete. Uh, steel should be coming in the next month. We'll have um steel that will be on site for the addition at Wilson School. So, lot of work, a lot of activity. the maintenance building um is also progressing um and is on schedule to be completed by the end of November by or by Thanksgiving actually that building. So just every week lots of activity for this project. Again a reminder

162we are get we have gotten a lot more submissions since the last report. Um we also have uh classes at MIW that will be submitting children are submitting um their ideas for the naming of the new school. So they'll have those in by the end of the month is my understanding. Um but we are getting more and more submissions as the deadline comes. But just a reminder again um please submit your submission for naming the new prek1 school and there's a process that goes um there's a communications and Megan I'm sure you'll talk about that or can talk about that more process that we go through and also just to put a word out in the district newsletter this coming Monday there will be a survey and interest survey. Um we'll be inviting um staff

163and parents um to be involved in our transition committees that will be starting in um November and into December. We'll be starting those. Those are 18-month committees. Um the principles of each of the new grad spans will be facilitating um those committees. Those committees will have anywhere from 10 to 15 people on them. Um but we are um inviting uh parents and staff to uh let us know if you're interested. Um the times, the dates, all of that will be in the survey so people can look at it and see that it's already prepopulated, see if they're available or not um to participate. Those are after school hours. SRRF, um I'm going to have uh Scott mention this since he's been heavily involved in getting this done. So, we have two projects that have um

164are being submitted. >> Yes. So, the school revolving renovation fund um we've had success with that on two projects so far. One was the major um window and door replacement at Mabel Wilson School and an HVAC uh program there as well. And the program affords the district the ability to go through the main bond bank and approximately 50% of the principal is forgiven and it's a 0% interest bond for 10 years. So it it truly is free money for a portion of this a large large portion of it. So what we're doing is two applications. Um, one is going to be for the chiller unit at Gley Middle School, which we've talked about at facilities and we've had some conversations through finance at times that uh it's a major cost item that's about $1.3 million

165and we're hoping to get that funded through the school revolving renovation fund um in which you know half of that you know approximately $650,000 would be um forgiven and um we would pay the other half of that at zero interest. Um, these require going to referendum in the community. If they are approved, they would go out to referendum. And the, um, the one I think we have a pretty good chance on this one. Um, I was a little leery from the last time that we applied for it and it wasn't funded. But, um, the middle school is the one building in the district that we have our extended year services in for um, and also tutoring uh, in the months of July and August. Uh, and we also use it in the district for uh,

166wreck and it's also one of the um, areas that uh, has the most use in like the gymnasium and so forth because it is the one air conditioned building in the in the district. So, uh, so it's really used by students. So, we're hoping for that one. And then the other one that we're looking at is uh, some ADA ramp improvements on the back of the high school. We had originally taken a look at which is um a little over I think it was $130,000. Um we were looking at trying to do an air quality improvement at the high school. However, um the air quality test came back great. So we didn't have an issue with the air quality in the math wing. >> So we are uh so we had already upgraded the uh

167or have a project to upgrade the science wing this coming summer. So, uh, so there won't be, uh, we wouldn't be approved for anything on that because we don't have the supporting documentation to, uh, support that. Um, the So, both of those applications will be submitted. um the school revolving renovation fund. The only thing that's being afforded uh for received applications in 2026 is for priority one, which priority one is health, safety, and compliance, which would include, you know, things like a structural roof repair, not a membrane repair, but a structural roof repair. Uh health and uh health and safety issues that might be deal with uh ADA um you know, issues on the building and also uh would be things such as air quality improvements. though. So, we're going to try to take an

168advantage of this. Uh, the maximum loan amount is 2 million per building every five years. So, we've already done a large amount at Mabel Wilson School. We still have some, you know, movement to that. If they do open up priority to maybe in next year's applications, we could look at doing some more window and door replacements possibly, uh, or some other, uh, window and door replacements across the rest of the district. Um the high school um we have room there to do a little bit more of a project and obviously the middle school we haven't done um any SRF projects at that building. So uh we're pretty wide open to do that one with the uh with the air handling unit. So uh so these are due on October 31st and we will be getting

169in these in. We've worked with um uh Steven Blad Architects uh because you have to have cost estimates etc. and and the project on that. And these would go out to bid um if approved uh at referendum, we would put them out to bid. So, I don't know if anybody has any questions on those, but that's uh where we're at. >> One quick question. Um how much money do the does the state allot each year? So, like should we get our hopes up or should we not? >> Uh I'm not sure what the total money is. I'd have to take a look at that. I'm not aware. I think that it's all going to depend on everything that's offered. Uh I don't think there's ever enough money to fund everything that comes through. Uh we

170profiled well at Mabel Wilson School and the the things we're able to do there. Um but we'll we'll see. We'll see what happens. And um I'm uh I'm really hoping for the chiller unit at the middle school and I'm hoping that that uh that'll be approved. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So I do have another part to this and this is the NASDAQ report. So, I'm going to go through some of the background. I know um many of you are aware of this report. Um but I'm just going to kind of bring everyone up to speed here. So, why um am I talking about this NASDAQ report? Um to assist the ad the SAD in future decision making related to an organizational structures best suited for a growing school district. This is something that the

171board of directors um about a year and a half ago um commissioned and flagged and said that we would like to have an outside group look at our organization our structures and so the board at the time um asked that um you know we we get an organizational study done NASDAQ were a member of NASDAQ um so they do this they provide the service uh to us for a fee but it's a reduced fee for providing this this service to us. So, this was conducted um from August to December of 2024. Um and again, it was done through NASDAQ, which is the New England School Development Council and consultant. Uh Christopher Malone, who was a longtime superintendent of schools in Massachusetts, uh ended up um being the person tapped by NASDAQ to do this uh

172study for us. And the areas that um Chris looked at are uh district HR operations, district administrative staffing, and district-wide special education services. He looked at a whole number of things. He started with a um kind of a desk audit of all of our materials, strategic plan, enrollment projections, annual reports, stakeholder surveys, website, and a whole bunch of other things. He asked us to supply to him so that he could have a background of our district since he wasn't familiar with it. He's an external independent consultant obviously. Uh he did an on-site uh visitation uh to familiarize himself with the district and also to meet various individuals um mostly in leadership. Um he did an initial survey, a written survey that was sent to all district leaders and supervisors um about these um three areas

173um or actually those three areas were determined through this survey I should say. And then he conducted follow-up interviews with 25 um members of the leadership team, operations supervisors like food service, technology, um transportation, um custodial and maintenance. Um he also met with um parent leaders from PTO, foundation 51, and the association or union leadership as well. So those 25 um interviews, he did those um individually for the most part. I think he might have done a couple of interviews with two people in them. the conclusion um he submitted that report to me um in December of 2024. I did um provide or share that report with the board um earlier. However, um I also mentioned that we were working the leadership was team was working on the recommendations um that he provided. There was

174a lot of recommendations that he had in that report and that I would get back to the board once those recommendations um were completed and so I am doing that now. So um the leadership team's been working on that for the for about nine months. They started working on that in the winter of last year after we got the report. So I am going to go through this and there is a lot of material in here. You also have the report in your packet. Um I also will be providing this presentation which was not um part of your packet but essentially mirrors everything that was in there um but with a little bit more information. So there's three recommendations for all three areas. So, I'll go through these fairly quickly, and I apologize if I'm

175going quickly, but um you can ask me to stop if or slow down if you need me. Recommendation one was to look at, and I'm not going to read every word, consider um a systems approach to human resources and operations. Um and actually look at things, what are your priorities first and then go from there. And again, as the district has been growing, and that's the purpose behind this report is that we've been growing for about 10 years now in the district. um and as we grow do we have enough supports in place? So he was looking at it from that angle. The leadership team uh in looking at this he recommended that the leadership team um look at these HR priorities and then start from the priority angle and then work u backwards. And

176so the priorities um that the team came up with was retaining obviously this has been a um a priority for a long time. Some of these are not new priorities retaining our staff. So, we want to make sure that we're retaining 90% or more of our staff annually. We recognize that we have staff that retire every year. We have staff that um resign or move on because of various reasons. Um but, you know, making sure that we have that um that we're retaining 90% or more of our staff annually is our goal. Reassigning 100% of our staff um by November of 2025 for the one campus shift. That will be happening in 2728. And obviously we want to do that in advance of the transition committees that will be starting shortly. And I can tell

177you that tomorrow all of our staff will be receiving that. Um uh we already have sent out messaging to staff um that we are completed with those assignments and they will be getting them tomorrow. Um so 100% of our staff that is our goal for tomorrow to have their new assignment for 2728 19 months in advance. jobs and stipens um posted in a timely manner. Um updating all job descriptions. U many of our job descriptions um were there but needed a a good update. Um continue reducing staff time spent on mandatory trainings um and really just looking at efficiency. We have a lot of trainings. Many are required by the state of Maine, but we know that we can do them um more efficiently and we've been working on doing that. continuing strategic planning um

178obviously for student enrollment and staffing which is something that we've been doing for 10 years uh but that continues to be a goal of our district and then consistent messaging um for all of our staff and I'll be going into some of these in a little more detail in just a moment. So the second recommendation uh from this report was considering a full evaluation of existing HR resources, protocols, policies, handbooks. And one of the things that we don't have or didn't have until recently is a handbook. And that was something that specifically when I talked with the consultant that was something that he really recommended that we have not just a handbook or um you know procedures at the at the school levels which we did but was to take everything and all of our

179practices and procedures that we have at the district level and put them into one place. So I want to give a lot of um kudos to Scott Puland and Melissa Porter um for putting this and I know there are other people involved in this. I don't want to leave them out but this is our draft HR handbook and I'm not going to obviously go through every page but there are so much it's a very serviceoriented model that was the goal is to make it serviceoriented so that we can provide our staff with all kinds of information including hey who's this um who works at the district office who's your leadership team and not make all these assumptions that all of our our staff know this obviously our new staff we do orientation and onboarding um

180But, you know, there's a lot of information that we're throwing at them and just having all kinds of stuff in one place. What do you do? How do you get a conference? What do you do for payroll? If you have a question, all those things um and this was a a an important recommendation um from uh Chris Malone is to get all this in one place in one document. So, we've not shared this out with our staff yet. Our our leadership team has just gotten this and this is actually hot off the press. So, this is something I'm sharing with you tonight, but it certainly is not completed completed. Uh, but it is is really um we're getting there and will be shared out with people as we get it completed. So, an important um

181I think huge upgrade for our district. A great recommendation. Recommendation three for human resources consider developing a more defined resource role for the district. Um and really where does HR fall into this as we grow as a district? um what is that organizational structure? So, we have job descriptions for um something that I've actually um introduced a year ago to the board and I'm reintroducing it tonight. Um this uh notion of a director of business services, which is Scott's role, and a human resources coordinator and finance manager is not on here because it's not part of the HR function, but that was part of the district reorganizational chart. just to kind of give you a visual of that and what I'm talking about. And this is not the whole org chart, but I took the

182org chart that is relevant in this particular instance. Director of business services right here um is responsible for these green areas. So the >> I really have to point that out because it's >> Yes, I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. >> I know you can't read it and you will be getting these slides too after this presentation. Finance manager, HR um coordinator facility supervisor, director of food services, director of technology, and director of transportation is under the director of business services. Um, and again, you'll be getting these slides so you don't have to pretend you can see these because um, and I'm just kind of giving this to you as reference as I go through this. So, that was recommendation three is that we update um, our structures and make sure

183that we have those structures in place and our admin org chart. Um, and where does HR fall into that? And again, I introduced this a year ago to the board, this idea, and thank you for your support at the time, uh, an HR coordinator, which was upgrading from a specialist to a coordinator in our office and also upgrading um, and having a finance manager who is dedicated as a finance manager who reports to the director of business services uh, in our office. Again, thank you for your support on that through the budget process. Uh both of those upgrades have been um made were made uh during the last budget cycle. So moving into administrative staffing um recommendation number one was first look around. Um and that's again you have this information. I won't go through

184all these links um but there is a a community comparison link in your materials. Yeah, I found that helpful. >> And and they're just kind of showing you how other districts first of all the size of the district for we often compare to Yarmouth and Falmouth, but we have Cape Elizabeth, South Portland, Westbrook, Scar Bro, um Freeport, RSU5 based, um Brunswick, and then Grey New Glouster uh MSAD 15. So, and how do we compare to them in terms of organizational structure? You can see that everybody does something a little different, but you can see the kinds of organization um and the structures that they have, the size of the district and kind of look at that and be able to to use that. We use that and I use that in informing um or you

185know making those recommendations about the the business side of things a year ago when I brought those two um upgrades around the HR coordinator and the finance manager to you. Um so that's kind of where that came from. descriptions. >> Yeah, I'm getting Yeah. Administr uh recommendation number two um administrative staffing um was around u considering developing a guiding focus um and that has to do with how do our administrators spend their time. So the recommendation and this again came from the interviews with leadership team with supervisors but especially leadership team that they were feeling um very much like they didn't have a lot of time in their day. Um some of it he acknowledged was the one campus model. Um our administrators are really essentially doing two different jobs. Um Chris um talked to

186me about that at length. He said a lot of the feedback he got from administrators is they were not just leading and managing the schools and their departments on a day-to-day basis, but for several years now as we've been talking about a one campus and then all the work that goes with it, they're acknowledging that they are spending a huge amount of their time planning for something that is happening in the future in 2728. So essentially doing two jobs. So a lot of what he recognized is that they were saying we are um we have too much to do and we don't know what to do about that. So one of the recommendations that he said is to go back to basics and actually have administrators uh map out their day and what are they

187actually spending their time on. And so each uh member of our leadership team completed their own individual assessment of their own time um and submitted that for next steps um to the group. Um like to give a lot of acknowledgement to Mari Trabelco. She has been doing a lot of leadership um on the administrative staffing end of it. And for recommendation three, Mari worked with the leadership team in uh over multiple sessions um getting to this recommendation, which they're all connected, which is a root cause analysis. So Chris um recommended that the leadership team do an in-depth root cause analysis um of the the the pieces and the components um around administrative staffing. And the group identified through their own individual assessment and then through group um conversation and assessment that there are two areas

188that were um really uh consuming their time as they're looking at leading and managing on a day-to-day basis and then all the planning that goes forward. Area one was around student uh behavior and the amount of time that they were involved in safety care um and in other behavioral issues and how can they u reallocate that time to staff members. Um we have a lot of very trained and competent staff and some of it was organizational behavior and how are we responding uh with students in real time. So, that was area number one and there's a whole protocol and of course I'm not including that in this report. That's all backend information um that was done over three or four different um lengthy sessions including two sessions this summer that the leadership team was involved

189with um while school was out. The second area was strategic focus. Um and again, you know, getting to and there's a whole protocol that we went through um and that you kind of go through to get to the root cause of this is what's happening. Why why is this happening and how can we actually start making changes in our behavior, not necessarily the organization's behavior, but in the leadership team's behavior and how do you handle these things? Staying focused on strategic priorities um and making sure that we're doing that without distraction. Again, I'm giving you the summary, the end result. There's a whole protocol that um that went into this um and multiple sessions to get to these um these places with our leadership team. But again, this was a recommendation from NASDAQ um to

190spend time on this and we certainly um spent time on that over over several months. The third area was um special education services in the district. Recommendation number one was to consider the means by which to continuously engage stakeholders around special education programming and promote those successes, challenges, achievements, etc. But really to kind of reach out to stakeholders. So you can see the um the areas that have been identified. Um Julie will be here in January, Julie Olsen, um to talk with you about um some of those pieces that the special education department or director or department of instructional support has been working on um and she'll be sharing that with you in January. There was an anonymous DOE survey that uh we participated in uh where stakeholders were um asked to give feedback about

191special education services. So she'll be sharing that with you. Um annual district survey. Obviously, there are questions in that survey um for parents and staff around special education. Um and that information, we'll be um putting that survey out again in January. Starting in January, you'll get those results. Um, and also the department will be working with schools more closely around highlights um that involve special education, students in special education and making sure that those are um put out in those school newsletters um so that we're not leaving a segment of our student population out in our staff population. And finally, um, you know, and you'll be getting a lot more information about this from the preK workg group that Julie leads around a pre-K survey that will be going up in follow-up sessions with stakeholders

192that'll be going on this fall and winter um, as well. And again, Julie will provide that more information in January when she comes to visit. Recommendation number two for special education was considering a more specific special education staffing study. So Chris and I talked about this. Um he had made this recommendation and and decided to keep it in the report even though even after we talked about it. There was a staffing um there was a study that was done. It was called the Apuda report. It was done in 2013. That report um yielded a lot of recommendations that were worked on for about three or four years after the report was completed. um and um we didn't feel that um we wanted to move forward with that in terms of commissioning another um study on

193that considering this has already been done once over the last 10 years. Um however, it's something that Julie can certainly discuss. She and I have discussed it. We didn't feel it was something we were recommending going forward. Um and um Chris was kind of on the fence when he recommended it. He recognized that we had done a study like this before. um and uh he didn't feel strongly about continuing with that or recommending it except to put it in the report. And then recommendation number three was considering additional training and criteria setting um for IEP teams um in making sure that IEP teams are shor up to have all the information and tools available to them in making decisions about individual students. Um and again, you can see the the progress and some of the

194ideas that are being worked on in this area. Um there's ongoing training for IEP teams. Julie will talk more about this when she visits. Um for um emotional disturbance, which is an important area of our district, um and making sure that we're in line with the new form that the state has um put out for this school year. Weekly training for instructional strategists. Um psychological staff and strategists meet weekly for training and alignment. U MTSS training districtwide. Um which is been a push. We have a new MTSS plan um that the leadership team has been working through. Dangerous behavior training for administrators. Um there's a dangerous behavior law in the state of Maine and continuing that training to make sure administrators um know how to respond when those um complaints come up. Um there is

195a provision in law where complaints can be made by staff members, internal and external staffing meetings um for students that are have heavier needs. Um, so those are all pieces that um have been taken from the recommendations and again you'll hear more from Julian on specifics on some of these things when she visits with you. So those that's kind of the summary of um the NASDAQ recommendations, what's been going on since those recommendations were provided to the district and I just wanted to give um the board that update. Um and again you will get these slides in addition to the whole report and the recommendation um sheet that was provided in your packet as well but you'll also get these slides. I think it's just I took everything and put it in a different framework.

196It's more of a public framework and this will be provided publicly as well. >> So it'll be posted post >> yes it'll be posted along with my superintendent report as it is. >> Great. Thank you. And yeah, as you saw from the date when we received this report, um you know, just to recognize the the board, I don't know, two or three boards. Were you here for the when we voted on the study? Okay. Um that, you know, this we wanted to do this in support of, you know, conversations around um are we are we um do we have the mo the best configuration of the administrative office to, you know, does fit a district of our size. Um, and then you know sharing all that you did tonight about what's happened since you got

197the information from this study at the same time that we've been going through this whole uh district um re revvisioning through the one campus project. I just want to recognize like wow it was a lot that you just shared that you've taken and tried to learn from this study and implement. At the same time, um, all of the one campus work has been going on as well. So, I just wanted to to recognize that. Um, I'm sure board members have questions. Any follow up on questions or comments about what um has been shared >> or either way. Go ahead. Um, so somewhat working backwards and this is maybe more of a request knowing that Julie will be speaking with us in January and one of my questions was around the DOE survey results. So I'm

198glad that will be part of it. But maybe even just using the information that was presented in the presentation or in what was provided to us uh with the stakeholder input plan and the IEP team training kind of using that as a framework for updating us on those things. Um, I'd like to think that I'll remember to refer back to this document to ask her some questions, but >> Well, and Julian, I've talked about she's going to be using uh some of this information from this report and recommendations when she's talking with you in January. >> Yeah. Great. Exactly. Yeah, exactly what I was requesting was just that we could um know that these were, you know, kind of be reminded I guess at that point like as you previously heard, these are elements of

199our stakeholder input plan. And these are this is our IEP team training that we were working on that was presented to you a few months ago and here's where we're at. So just a request for that that reminder as we hear those updates um and maybe also you know I don't know if she's planning to speak to that previously conducted report but um auda report. >> Yeah information about >> she can I can ask her to do that. >> Okay great >> because I don't know if I'm familiar with that report. It's a very old report because it's from 2013 and it I mean she can talk about the summary, but essentially what it said is you need to hire more specialists and teachers um for students that have the most needs in your district

200and not rely on educational technicians to do the work that teachers and specialists should be doing. That was a huge amount of the lift. Um again, we're talking back in 2014, 15, 16. Um, and it's a budget item and it's something that the embedded staff piece um, also if you draw it all the way back to the APUA report, there's a lot of pieces, but Julie can certainly talk about that. >> Okay. >> Um, great. You know, and I'll ask you to do that. >> Sure. Thank you. Um, and so I guess continuing my backward progression here on the comparators, I was curious, and this could certainly be a follow-up too. Do we know um what those organizational structures are within those other districts in terms of so those that do have HR positions for

201example um how those are structured within the organization. And I did see that some of them were directors, but also some of them had the coordinator or the specialist position. And you know, do those follow kind of the same um reporting structure that we are looking at or are there other examples there? Um and were we actually able to look at job descriptions as well and kind of compare those to >> We haven't gone as deep as looking at job descriptions at each of these. And I can say just anecdotally, it is really challenging to compare um some of these because I'm thinking of two districts right now that have assistant superintendent that oversee part of their responsibility of that person is to oversee human resources. >> Okay? >> So it's different people that are

202responsible for these kinds of areas. Some have a dedicated HR director that reports directly to the superintendent. Um, some have a model work, you know, that's like ours, business services or director of HR, but there's someone else that actually is doing the HR work dayto day, like we have a HR coordinator. So, there's it's all over the place. >> But there sounds like there are some examples of this kind of superintendent, um, business director, HR specialist or coordinator coming under that. the business manager for the district. There's different terms in different districts would have oversight over that area. Yeah. >> Um so just looking to see and then I guess the only other thing that I would ask at this point is um how the HR priorities. So what we saw was that there was

203also a list of like possible um priorities that so just wondering kind of how it was decided that those that those that were elevated were elevated and whether this will be revisited yearly. So whether we might see some of those possible priorities move up or how you imagine that working over time >> definitely they will shift because um if just going back to that slide for just a moment um so reassigning 100% obviously that's that's a very just timely one and it's so huge that we wanted to make sure you know the leadership saying that is our priority right now that's a priority immediately but it's this also was written a while back so we knew this was coming. So obviously that's going to shift um the job uh and stipens posted in timely manner.

204That's a practice that we just have to continue working on job descriptions. So if you actually and I know you don't have access to the HR manual, everything that's all the links in there, but all those job descriptions um have been updated are being finalized. So that will probably come off this list um as we're re revising. But I think your question is are we going to keep revising this list? >> Yeah. are those possible areas and I understand that there may even be some changes there but is the idea to continue revisiting and maybe elevating some of those things that were just under possible you know onto the priorities as you go >> yes I think that's that's an area that we have to basically this has to become a working piece where we're

205always looking at our HR priorities in the district and are these um you know annually they should be updated Okay, I've got a couple. They're quick, I promise. Um, is the HR handbook something that will be posted on the human resources page or is that strictly internal? >> Um, we have not discussed that yet. It's still in draft form. Um, I think >> I would think it would be under staff resources for our staff. So staff resources not >> I think it would be underneath our staff resources page and uh be posted there. >> Okay. Thank you. Um in the sheet in our packet the Nestec recommendations just the one pager the link for the administrative organizational chart is the same as the human resources job description. So >> I know I talked to Melissa

206about that. We got to update that. >> Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure if this was replicated that that that was fixed. I did. And then um because I do that um and then up there was an assistant principal for 58. Is that I must have missed it. Is that an additional >> Yes, that's additional to the assistant principal we have. This is all related to enrollment in one campus. >> So in 2728 um there will be we're forecasting there'll be 815 students in that school. a principal and assistant principal for 815 students is just not adequate um and very much out of line with almost every district that I can think of um for that many students in the school. So that's why um and right now just to give you an

207idea we for eight we have three administrators um for about 900 students. So that's not offline from what we've had and that number has grown and we haven't adjusted that administrative staffing. So we we've had we had 800 for many years before eight >> and you had brought it up at the finance meeting. Um but it might be helpful if it says in in that something about the increasing the number of assistant principles to two instead of because it almost looks like you need to hire an assistant principal. >> No, that's simply to respond to enrollment. >> Yeah. >> Great. >> And thank you for all the work. I mean I I am o overwhelmed by how many hours the HR handbook must have taken up just thinking about all the things that our district

208leadership team have already been doing and now to really see all of this all the work that went into this. It is it is staggering how they can humanly get all of this done >> in a 24-hour day. So, >> I give I give just the credit goes to the administrators, the leadership team for um they've really been working on this. Um we've been working on it diligently. Um Scott with the HR piece has just been so much that's gone into the HR handbook and getting all the job descriptions. I mean, that's why it's taken this long to get back to you because there's a lot of work and a lot of recommendations >> and this the structure just structuring HR in general, >> you know, and and those responsibil that whole new structure out

209the whole lot of work. So, thank you to everyone. >> Yeah, Melissa was amazing working on this with me. So, >> I bet she was. >> So, I want to jump off of that, too, because what Kim said, like the amount of work. It's like a full-time job what you did here and it's thoughtful. I love that you engaged the leadership team. I love how everyone's kind of started buying from here and you went beyond just the soft word of consider and went beyond to actually doing. So, I appreciate that. Um I given that I don't understand the not taking advantage of what was like one of the key recommendations from the report and what we've been saying for the last two years which is the this is separate from the individual in there but

210just from a an org structure standpoint having finance and HR still be looped together. And when you look at like I understand what you're trying to do with the HR coordinator, but if you look at that, that's like a daily task thing. And so like under the director of business services manages and resolves personal matters that require assistance beyond the handling of the school administrator. What we see in the report are people having issues of conflict of interest of going to their boss for HR issues or going to someone that's not necessarily or could appear not to be independent. And so I strongly recommend pulling that out like of like having a director or a manager of HR that reports directly to you and being at least having the appearance of independence and having it

211separate. I think the report was really clear that we needed to do that. I think the school board's been really clear that we needed to do that. So and I think the people want it. I think like what we get from one of the number one challenges we hear consistently is that kind of fear and we see that in the or concerns I should say and we see that in our culture surveys too and it just seems like such an easy win from an org um structure standpoint to get. So I'm kind of curious where why we fell where we're at and what you think about that or what the committee thought about that too. But I think it goes back to the what my recommendation or discussion maybe it wasn't a recommendation discussion a

212year ago and the support through the budget process of upgrading to a finance manager at that time and an HR coordinator at that time to upgrade those roles and have a director of business services still overseeing all the operations which includes HR. So what you're talking about, Tim, I think would be almost a different structure completely, which would then cause us to revisit some of these other pieces in the org um layout that we have. I mean, I I will tell you that I'm I'm only throwing this out. I'm not saying that this has been part of a discussion in previous boards where um you know, there's an assistant superintendent as the district gets bigger who might be actually overseeing some of these areas, for example. That's just another way of looking at these things.

213I am not advocating for that. Even though both towns have an assistant manager, um we're a fairly large organization. A lot of districts of this size have flipped to an assistant uh superintendent. Many that are smaller. Yarmouth has an assistant superintendent. Uh Cape Elizabeth, which is much smaller than us, has one, but th those positions oversee other areas too um that you would say, for example, curriculum. Um so there's different ways of looking at this, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And to consider what you're saying, we would then have to go back and revisit, I think, this idea of a human resources coordinator, a finance manager. Where does that role fit into the organizational structure? Um, it just it it requires another conversation, I guess, what I'm saying. I'm not saying >>

214I think it's a worthy conversation. I mean, I think having someone that's in charge of finance also be in charge of like of your money also be in charge of human resources is a huge conflict of interest and not a best practice. And it's such a it's I'm just so surprised that we continue to go down that road when it it could just be a shift again for a human resources person to report to you and have job duties as described that they handle those personal issues. Doesn't mean that like the operations person can't oversee the handbook and stuff like that, but like for personal issues, Title 9, they should be separate from the person that also has control of finances. That just seems like an obvious thing. >> Title N is separate from the

215person who handles the finances. >> Yeah, Title N is handled by Julie Olsen. >> Under under your job description, under the director job description, Title N issues are in there as a job description to consult with. >> I'm just looking at the job description. I'm not putting a personal to I hear what you're saying. >> Yeah. No, no, it's I hear um there's an involvement there on some personnel matters. >> Yeah, there's always going to be overlap between the officer for title N in the district is um and it can shift from it doesn't have to be a particular person, but right now it is Julie Olsen happens to be the officer Title N. >> Yeah. And I think this um and Anukica, I don't know if this was also some of your questions before

216about the structures of these positions. I guess I I am familiar with a an HR reporting to a finance operations position. That's something I'm actually pretty familiar with like in in the business world. So I guess >> they can report to them but I think that handles handles the >> who handles the like the the the personnel matters and hold confidential conversations. So an HR person might report to a COO. That's super common, but not who handles the personnel matters and their salaries is not super common and is something that we hear complaints about all the time and something that we've addressed on this board and have all have often agreed towards that being a potential issue that we need to resolve. >> I mean, honestly, I thought that was part of what we did

217with revisioning the position. That's what some of the >> I think there's just I think what we're talking about there was restructuring you know a year ago and one of the the upgrades again I'm not trying to reiterate myself but was having a finance manager who's really dedicated to um working with the director of business services um who oversees that but is really dedicated to managing the finance office >> which is different from before >> and also um an HR coordinator who also is overseeing more of the day-to-day HR functions so the director of business services can look beyond that and it's not getting kind of bogged down in those things that an HR coordinator is doing. So that was a structural change. So, you know, I would suggest if there's going to be more

218conversations about it because now we're starting to talk about individuals >> in the structure that the board may Well, I know there's there's two ways to look at it. Could be individuals and structure. >> But, um, so structurally, I think >> I don't know. I'm not sure this is the time or place conversation, but I do think if the board's interested, we can revisit this. >> We absolutely should be reviewing job descriptions. And um that's I think I thought was part of um Scott's retirement um is that we're going to have to post a new job description and I think making it clear what the role of that position versus the the coordinator position and that it addresses the concerns that you know we've we've had and discussed over a few different boards. Um and

219so I think yes it's about the job descriptions and the structure not about the people >> right yeah I would absolutely want to separate those as much as possible that that's that is the biggest conversation that I have had from parents and staff and former staff and um just that desire for that separation of church and state other questions and so we will be sharing out job descriptions just as a followup right I mean there >> so the job descriptions for a couple of the positions are already available to you um go to that slide so it should be in that spreadsheet already. I think Tim was referring to he had already looked at one of them or two of them. >> PDF. >> So, these are current job descriptions. Um, the HR coordinator is

220also in here. We also have the finance manager. I didn't include that on here, but I've I believe I've shared it before. I can share it with you if you need to. But again, this is part of that restructure we talked about a year ago. I wonder if it's a not simple, but I feel like there's one bullet point under director of business services that kind of speaks to what you're talking about, Tim, and that's manages and resolves personnel matters that require assistance beyond the handling of school administration in coordination with the superintendent. >> That's it. >> Can that be moved to the human resources coordinator job description? >> We just move that one bullet point over. with that. >> Yeah, I think that is what that's at the heart of it. I mean, you

221could even add there there's that you could even add in that sentence beyond the like handling of the human resources coordinator, but you would have to add something like that on the human resources coordinator job description as well. The other thing that I would push for, but I'm not as pushing as hard as what we're just talking about, is for them to report directly to Jeff >> and that and that and have like because Yeah. So the Yes. >> So okay. So this is getting into we actually are getting into personnel and I'm not I'm not suggesting that everything you're saying I'm not trying to disagnowledge it but we are because >> some of my comments might be starting to get into that area. And so I I would suggest I could work with you,

222Le, and maybe if you we could set up a different meeting or it might be an executive session >> because there's things that I might need to say that involve personnel in our office. >> Yep. >> In order to really respond to these questions. Absolutely. If you know what I mean. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. Anything else not related to personnel? >> Not truly related to person. >> Come on. So last year uh at finance committee during the budget process, we you guys talked about adding a role. I don't remember the exact title, but it was basically to help with all the other paperwork with behavioral issues, I believe, or something in that vein. >> It was a compliance officer. It was just something that had been in the um it was just

223something, you know, did Title N investigations, affirmative action, um you know, any of those kind of compliance activities. That was something that was put forward. I think it was part of all these discussions from the NASDAQ consultant about administrative staffing. Um, you know, we've kind of looked at a different route than going going that way with some of this and looking at we need to shore up maybe some of our building administration positions as we're looking forward and felt that might be a better use of resources. So, that's kind of what came out of that. But, I appreciate you bringing that up, Sean. >> Yeah, because I was like I didn't see it in there and I was like, I know we talked about it. I just can't remember what it was called. >> Yeah.

224>> Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Committee reports. Oh, it's actually 9:00. We're supposed to officially by policy take a vote to continue um the meeting past 9 o'clock. Can I get a motion? >> I move that we extend. Do I have to give a time frame? A half an hour or 15 minutes? >> Do you want to finish the agenda? Maybe. >> I move that we finish the agenda even though it's going past 9:00. >> Okay. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> I mean, you don't you don't have to second it. There's no one for Okay. Uh, all in favor? [Laughter] >> All right. I I think it was I think Caitlyn voted no >> All right. Um just watching the clock. Um but no hurry. We just voted

225to extend. Um >> who do you want? Nothing. >> Okay. You want to go first? Uh who wants to go first? >> I will go first. >> Um because Caitlyn was busy getting a tan in Florida. I got to experience the homecoming week. Um it was so much fun at the high school. We organized our first pep rally in years. I don't even remember the last time I heard of one. So, we did a pep rally. It was super exciting. It was run by the Rangers Activity Council and we had just like a series of games. Um, a lot of school spirit, a lot of different like days that we all dressed up different things. It was super fun. Uh, there was also a football game. It was ski themed, which was kind of just

226like a play to get people to actually go and like go on theme and also be warm cuz it's freezing outside. But that was successful. Big turnout. And then um everybody saw I hope the big show of inclusion um for that player. It was awesome. I was so grateful to be a part of that and see that. And I was more grateful that it was on camera so that I could show everybody I've ever met. Um, we've had a couple of short weeks lately. It's been great. I think everyone's gearing up for the end of the quarter, but Yep. And then to stay on the to stay on the theme of inclusion, I don't know if you guys are very familiar with Best Buddies, which is a club at Gley, but it's awesome. Caitlyn and

227I are both members of that club, as well as most of our friends. It's really active. It's getting up there against Kyle Caris, but I won't say that. Um, and they I don't know if you guys are familiar with like the Best Buddies Gala, but it's like a big celebration that happens every year, and it's basically just an excuse to have a great time while you're fundraising. And I try to go every year. It's the best time ever. And I just kind of want to do a little plug for a student at Gley. She's a sophomore. Her name's Grace Till. and she is going out to be a champion this year, which is basically like making yourself more of a figurehead and then people donate to that cause and then the person who raises the

228most money out of all of the champions wins champion of the year. So, if you guys want to donate to that, I would strongly recommend it. And it's tomorrow night and me and Caitlyn are both going to go. It's going to be a great time and yeah, I think everyone's just gearing up for a good weekend and Yep. you want to go? >> Okay. Um, like Katie said, I was gone, so I don't really have much to report. Um, but like Mr. Porter previously mentioned, um, I'm the vice president of Kyle Cares here at Gley. And if you also haven't noticed, I love to talk about it. Almost every one of my reports has been something Kyle Cares involved. Um, it's really important to me. It's really important to I know a lot of my

229peers um a lot of staff in the high school and in all parts of the district. Um so if you guys aren't familiar with the club, it was started back in 2021. It's student organized. It's student led. Obviously, we have a lot of help from our from our club adviser, Melissa Fowler. Um she's great in helping us organize everything. Um, but I think that our students outside of just the executive officers do a really good job at keeping that club um, super active because mental health is obviously something that's not just going to go away. Um, it's something that we have to recognize. It's something that we have to support in our school and in our district. Um, so that is our suicide prevention and mental health awareness club here. Um, and as officers, we

230try to recognize events and days that um, show our support and all that kind of stuff. Um, to our students. Um, and so two Thursdays ago, I want to say it was, we celebrated World Mental Health Day. It was actually on Friday, October 10th, but students weren't in that day. Um, so we celebrated it on Thursday. Um, officers led a table. We had donuts. We had coffee, we had raffle prizes. Um, we did our green bandana project. Um, so that was super engaging for all the students. And then on Friday when the students were gone, the officers still went in to celebrate our teachers because our teachers are the root of where everything starts. Um, we value our teachers. They create the school environment where we feel like our emotional security and our emotional safety

231is valued. and we want our teachers to feel that same way so that they can support us. Um, so we thought it was really important that we still go in and we tell them they're valued. We care about you. We want what's best for you so that you can so that you can serve what's best for us. Um, so I thought that was really nice. I think I got a lot of positive feedback from my teachers about the donuts and the coffee. But um, other than that, just um, supporting their mental health, their mental well-being, um, recognizing that we care about them. we want what's best for them. Um, so yeah, that's what I got. >> That is so awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us and yeah, speaks so well to some of

232the themes from today. Awesome. All right, finance. Kim >> don't have much to report because we haven't met yet uh since our last meeting but um I have just personally been working on a budget analysis to understand trends and what um causes our budget not that we don't know this but just for my own satisfaction so that as we look over uh why our budget increases we we have a better sense of trends over the last several years. So, I'll be sharing that when I'm finished. >> Awesome. Thanks, Kim. Jesse, policy. >> Uh, we met, uh, this week, uh, talked about a couple more policies that will be coming for first read at some point. Tim wasn't there, so we got to give Tim a chance to weigh in. We didn't want to push things

233too quickly. >> It's the tip tax. >> We got We got a couple more things. So, we're keeping the policies moving. And we have two for first read today just to you know try and keep things moving and grooving. So I will go over those uh with you. So the first is policy KJA booster organization policy. Uh it was great. We had Eliza Miller and uh Dave Shapiro come and present on this. They were shocked to learn that this is not a policy that's in our policy handbook because it's written down and they've basically been using this as the policy for booster organizations. Uh but we've never voted on it and put it into our policies. So they were like, "Oh, this what do you mean?" And I was like, "There's no date on it."

234So >> Oh, so it was like an >> So it's a policy in practice. Yeah. >> Uh but not official. So we >> felt like we should move it forward. So, we asked a bunch of questions um about it. We didn't, I think, make any changes if I'm remembering that correctly. Um, so yeah, it kind of just goes over the the way the w in which the school interacts with booster organizations, um, about some reporting, uh, how they collaborate, um, what money is supposed to be, uh, spent on in order to follow district policies, um, some restrictions on on things. Uh, and then there's a bunch of cross references. Um, but if anyone has questions, we can try to answer them for you. Um, but again, seems like it if it ain't broke, we're not

235going to fix it. So, we're just trying to make a policy that's already in place, sort of official and published so everybody else can read it. >> Seeing none, I'll move on. >> I just Yes, please. >> Um, the restriction around boosters cannot pay any person directly for services rendered. I think that's like uh the football team couldn't hire their own masseuse. >> I think that's sort of right, Jeff. Is that it? Like they can't >> It's actually more than that. It has to do with labor law. So if somebody's our employee, the boosters should not be paying them directly. We also have agreements for stipens within our collective bargaining agreements. So we need to make sure that we follow those collective bargaining agreements for any type of coaching positions that might be hired or

236stipen positions that might be hired. So making sure that proper payroll taxes are taken out. All of those types of things that makes sense. Okay, so that's why boosters can't hire employees themselves. >> That's okay. That was really helpful. Thank you. >> All right, I'll move on to our next one unless anybody's got more booster questions. >> Okay, this was a hot one. Uh this is policy DJ bidding purchasing requirements. obviously brought to our attention that this policy was maybe not being followed to the letter earlier. So, we took a look and uh so since it had last been reviewed in or when it was adopted in 2013 um there have been not one but two brand new sample policies uh from MSMA. The latest was 2025, so hot off the presses. Uh so after

237much discussion um we thought it would be wise to just uh go with the new sample policy from whole cloth. Um there's one part at the end uh on federal procurement um that we have in there. Um and that there's a much longer section we could have had in there but we have our own federal procurement manual I believe. So we just sort of refer to that. Um and then the other thing in this policy uh is choosing the threshold. Uh so our last policy it was costs over and this is in 3A uh costs over $35,000 um had to be competitively bid or RFPD. Um and so factoring in inflation that has gone up to like would that 35 would be around 45 46. Uh and so we chose 50 as a nice round

238number. So for amounts under that the superintendent does not need to put things out for competitive bid or RFP. I mean still can um and that also is the threshold over which uh if the superintendent does not uh put things out to bid for RFP he needs to inform the board uh of that. Uh you may remember that in our previous policy there was a section where uh if the superintendent does that does not put things out to bid or RFP they need to go through the finance committee for a vote. uh and we took that out of our policy because uh we didn't think it was necessary given the current administration we have. Uh so I'm happy to answer any questions. We had a lengthy discussion about this. So >> So I think you

239answered my question that I had just paid it back to confirm. So this is the sample. >> Yep. Just that number. We had to select that number that $50,000 number. So some districts it's 10, some it's 100. >> Yeah. I mean >> in between there. So we we thought 50 was about right. >> Okay. Yeah. Cuz I guess I would we thought 35 was low and it was how many years ago? 50 might I was like >> with inflation it's gone up to about 50 which is sort of why we chose 50. >> Okay. Um >> uh and oh I will also note that there is now language in here about uh cooperatives, >> but it's mostly referring to the state cooperative using a place like Sourcewell. They use RFPs. So we could still use

240Sourcewell style cooperatives because they run their own RFPs. So through this we could still use co-ops. >> Yeah, I saw the cooperative section. Um so I guess um remind me if so you you guys discussed and chose 50. Um, how how many and I know you guys are working on a list of this things would fall under under this or be over 50 um that would then be subject to this. >> Yeah, we started running that through the district. There's there's mostly what that would entail would be if you had a lot of your contracts for service work during the summer and and things of that nature. So working with vendors over summer repairs, >> uh repairs to facilities, uh capital projects, uh you could also end up with textbooks that could be in that

241category, which um you know could hit that level. And so that would be something that, you know, I would assume, you know, we have certain vendors for textbooks. You can only get textbooks in certain areas. >> Uh technology would be another one. Technology is an area where a lot of that is actually going through the state because the state has a a lower level. Um, and we buy through the MLTI program. Uh, getting, uh, great pricing on laptops, etc. Um, other vendors, there probably aren't a lot throughout the district. If we run the the, you know, you look through those, I mean, um, you know, finance committee members see the the warrants now. So, if you go through, you won't see much that really reaches above that. Could be some service contracts and facilities could

242be another one. So like with Seammens and some of our other vendors, uh those might be possibility as well. >> Um but those are really the areas that it really isn't so much in our supplies and our equipment lines other than the ones that I just mentioned to you. >> Okay. And did you discuss Jesse like maybe 75,000? >> Yeah, we discussed all the numbers between 10 and 100 settled on some some people wanted it to go higher. Some people I don't think anyone pitched it to be lower than 35, but yeah, we sort of talked between like 50 and 100. I mean, then basically the policy says anything over 50 has to be bid or RFPd unless section 3B, the superintendent can forego that when they determine that quality, expertise, time factors, other considerations

243outweigh the possible benefits. uh in each such case the school board shall be informed by of the superintendent's decision and reasons in advance of entering into a contract. So basically anything over 50, we think it should be competitively bid, RF or RFPd, but if there's reasons not to, like we got to get it done in the summer, we have a trusted vendor, then Jeff emails us or, you know, in the case of the summer, he maybe does a report where he says, "Here are all the projects that are laid out for the summer. Some of them may go over 50, so here they are." So it's it's really just that communication piece, but that you know, >> you'll see them during the budget process, too. Things a little during the budget process. Um, and it

244we do competitively bid and we do our paid things that are even under 50. >> Yeah, >> we do that as well, right? I mean, you know, we've had a couple of things come up that we've we've done those as well. >> Yeah. And I think the spirit of our discussions was uh we want to be getting the best price for the items that we regardless, >> but we also don't want to be bogged down and spending too much time when like summer projects times are of the essence and we want to improve uh communication. So, we don't want to tie Jeff's hands in terms of getting stuff done, but also the board wants to be informed if you know we're going with totens, we're going with story brothers to get stuff done during the

245summer. Jeff just has to let us know and then you know if somebody has a question we can ask but sort of improving communication around those things. >> And to be clear, that's not giving Jeff the ability to just buy something for $49,900. It still has to be a budgeted item. This is just about the bidding >> competitive competitive bidding or RFPs which you assume maybe would get you the best price >> but that may not even be the that not is not even always the case. So >> bidding doesn't always get it. Construction management for instance the savings go to the owner instead of the contractor in a in a time and materials basis. We we did talk about like different ways that a superintendent could take advantage of this or what that could

246look like and Jeff kindly reminded us that he reports to us. So like it was a normal pattern of events like where we have other means to like kind of make sure that that is you know rectified. But I think given Jeff overcommunicates and I so appreciate it about budget stuff and what he's planning on spending and gives us a little time to consider and rationale that given where we're at right now. I think this is like kind of a give and take like he communicates to us but it's also there's some safety nets with a relatively low benchmark right for 50 grand is relatively low compared to others. So um it seemed like a good balance. Yeah, the state threshold is $250,000. So you could just say, >> you know, >> yeah, I guess

247that would be >> there's there's a lot of room between where we are and the state >> have concerns about I guess. >> And can you clarify um so when it's a competitive bidding versus an RFP, how it's awarded? Um because one of the things we talked about was that you can put something out for I think it's a competitive bid. You have to take >> competitive bid is like sealed envelopes and you take the lowest one, right? >> RFP is just like here's this thing we want to do. Get us proposals and we'll weigh a number of things. And so for example, source well which does RFPs in advance. They will say like for a turf field for example, what are what are your pricings? Who do you work with? yada yada yada. And

248you don't necessarily have to take the lowest one. You take the one that has the right mix of availability to deliver, timeline, price, etc., etc. Um whereas competitive bid, it's really just like exact specifications, low low envelope gets it. So you're sort of like with Yeah. our art to school project. >> Yeah. It could be um you know an RFP also would be more for like if you were looking for a particular service or let's say you were looking for a phone system >> right and there might be >> study >> there might be multi there might be multiple vendors that would offer you a certain type of would a phone system it would just have to meet the criteria that you put very simple criteria not necessarily the specific item right so >> and

249that would be that would be what you'd look at in terms of an RFP or request for proposal um they' be propos proposing proposing Mel or something of that nature. Another vendor might you know go with a different phone system and and produce that and what the capabilities are of each. So that would be an RFP process. >> Right. Okay. >> Yeah. So it's best overall value to the district. Not the lowest price but like >> and overall value that's part of the summer projects, >> right? The lowest price might be a garbage product >> product that lasts longer maybe is a better value. So RFP is a little more wiggle room. just >> state that. >> Yeah. >> And of other districts of our size, is it 50,000? I guess who who else has

250it at 50,000? I just since we're revisiting this, >> so some of the like seven around us like some are as low as 10. They want like the superintendent to let them know anytime he doesn't use an RFP or competitive bid and some are up at 100. >> Okay. >> I think Yarmas maybe is at 100. Don't quote me, but >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I was so districts around curious of how they use it in some as low as 10 and some are up to 100. So it's like >> like are we comparing to one that we're like oh this looks good and if we talk to them they're like oh like yeah. Okay. Sorry I know I keep asking a lot of questions. >> I was actually wondering about the inclusion

251of the specific numbers under main law. I get the value to having that as a reference point, but also just wondering and it sounds like it's part of the um sample, >> but I know you know oftentimes we try to avoid being that specific so that if the law were to change then, you know, we've just referenced the law as opposed to the specifics, but just curious if >> I liked it better when you were rusty and you you were on the second read. Yeah, that's a good point. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if Jeff or Scott could speak to how frequently those maybe maybe those aren't numbers that change very often. I don't know, but we'd have to change our policy every time that changes. >> I mean, your policy

252your I mean, obviously a policy can't violate state statute. Okay. you're saying um >> I I don't necessarily see a polic a problem with referencing state statute in this because um I can't imagine that the state statute on this particular policy would go below 250 for another project or something of that nature. But I understand clearly what you're saying. So I think the language the way it's written would be okay >> on on this particular financial >> the 4,000 that was one that was like >> pretty loud. >> Yeah. subcontracting of transportation. It must that must be >> Yeah. >> referring to that, right? >> Yeah. Um >> like the bus >> school um transportation contracts. I would imagine that would be subcontracting trips, subcontracting transportation, not necessarily I can't imagine a an issue where

253it would be for parts or for, >> you know, things of that nature. So, >> oh yeah, just should we revisit just referencing the laws in this versus the amounts? I think it's a good valid question. >> Other questions over here? >> Glad that the vote of the finance committee is out of there. Just for reference, in the current policy from 2013, it's the same numbers. 4,000 250,000. >> Has anyone >> think it's something that's reviewed very often? >> We talk to our representatives about updating that. Um, >> we need a legal opinion on 4,000. >> Good lord. Okay. Any other questions, discussion, amendments? >> Our next policy meeting is November 4th. So, >> okay, I'll look at it. I I I haven't been able to look at it this week. I had a death

254in the family, so I haven't given it the same attention that I would have. >> Yeah. Send questions our way. >> Yeah, I will. >> Yeah. So, there's time. We won't have this wouldn't come to second read until >> after the track meeting. >> Yeah. So So you Yeah. Take your time. >> Four weeks. >> Okay. >> We're running a tighter list too of um and running a list of all the things that might hit 50,000. Jeff and I were talking the other day and he asked me to have the list run. So >> yeah, just so >> just to give everybody an idea of what those >> Yeah. I'm like I'm trying to imagine what >> we're looking at every invoice that we typically do and then looking at that whole list to see

255so that we have everything in one place so we can look at it. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Building facilities committees. >> All right. Well, um Jeff talked a ton about it said Scott in the superintendence report. So just the one campus um status. So I will refer you to that and save time. Um the we talked a lot we met last Friday. Um and we spent a lot of that time talking about the plan with the facilities move. Um and that included uh what we would do, how the our partnership with the historical society hopefully would go, timing and planning. Um Don was there so we were able to kind of talk about how much needed to be moved, where it would need to be moved. One of the issues is

256rate determining step is to have a building to move into. Um, and that right now is projected at the end of November. Um, so like I think how we tear that down or when when we disassemble the facilities building um, and the plan for like what like ceremonies we have with it, we have a tight window. Um, and Megan is all on top of that. So I I will refer to her for that. Um, just to kind of see what the latest status is. And if you want to jump in on that now, you can. But >> we actually meet tomorrow morning. So, um, nothing new to add. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, I think we're just trying to figure out a plan with the historical society and with like and also with Steve Blat

257and different methods that we could do to like honor the current facilities building while also making sure people are safe from any of the um unfriendly things that are in the construction materials. Um, so stay tuned for that community because it's it's definitely going to be soon. Um, the other thing I'll reiterate, we are getting more submissions. That's really good. Um, one thing is we do not you do you don't have to, although we encourage it, you don't have to do it electronically if you want to bring in paper like we have right now. Um, I just we got an email with a really moving story um from a student with over a hundred signatures to honor our swim coach and swim director. Swim Robert Hill. Yeah. >> Yeah. He's been here for a while.

258>> Oh, yeah. >> Um, yeah. >> Uh, daughter's my nanny. Um, so just to throw it out that way. But anyway, just a really nice story. So people are are sending them in. We encourage more and more. We're getting down to like a week left. Um, so please get your submissions in. Um, and then we meet three weeks from last uh Friday. So, what is that? I'll have to look that up. I usually have that up. Last Friday. Three weeks from last Friday. Hold on. >> November 7th. Thank you. We meet then after election. >> Yes, we found it. >> Uh, and that's it. I think just um did the the woman who came to that meeting is her. >> Oh, that's her. >> Is that is that it? >> Oh, good. Oh, good. >>

259We have it. Yep. >> Oh, good. >> With the picture to prove that >> Oh, wow. >> I might just take it home and the story. No, we'll submit it. So, you can you can drop by the um superintendent's office and there'll be people there to kind of collect the signatures um and the name. Mhm. Yeah. We don't want to create any barriers for getting those submissions in. So great, Kim. Oh, wait. >> No, not Kim. Anukica, >> it's getting late. I can't follow a list. Um, >> I don't even know what day it is. >> So, the curriculum committee met last week and went through a draft of our stakeholder survey for the strategic um planning process and got to a point, I think, where we were pretty ready to finalize that. Um, and

260Mari and I met afterward to make sure that we had uh captured any of the comments that came up in that conversation. We're now we've now added a meeting this coming week and are asking our committee members as well as Jeff and Leanne to complete um that draft survey as it currently uh is and you know kind of taking on the perspective of a member of the community or a parent or a student um who is outside of us in our roles on the on the board or on the committee. Um and just to address any final um issues that might arise in terms of are these questions understandable, are these headings understandable? Um and so in that next week's committee meeting, we will, you know, we want to make sure that we get this

261right. So we will put the final stamp on that hopefully and then spend the bulk of our time um discussing how we're distributing the survey and really making sure that we feel good about the channels and methods. um and timelines and number of times and all of those considerations for getting the survey in front of people and um having folks complete it for us. >> Thank you, Anukica. Something that's come up um is just some of the items sort of touch other um committees. Does it make sense to is part of your process during it with like other committee chairs? Well, I was wondering about that, frankly. I mean, particularly around like there's a facilities question and so I was Yes. I mean, I I'm open to that. We haven't we hadn't um yet done

262that, but certainly if I can share it out with the committee chairs and ask folks to take a look um and just see if there are things that you know interact with your committee or even you know if you have feedback outside of that. Um >> great. >> Yeah. So was kind of maybe looking for a little uh direction on that too. And if it's just committee chairs or if it's the full board, um we could certainly do that as well. >> Okay, >> great. Um >> Oh, it is. Thank you. I'm like I'm like crosseyed here looking at this list, staring at it like what? >> You're on it, Kim. >> I have nothing to report. >> Okay, thank you. made it easy. Um, Megan, communications, we meet tomorrow. We'll go over um submissions

263that have come in. Um, and then start figuring out how we're going to uh do something creative with letting people know more about like the names. We'll try to do something public so that um more people can at least just be aware of what names are being proposed um to just generate a little bit more buzz. Doesn't sound like we'll have to extend the deadline, but we'll know more tomorrow. >> Great. >> Um that's it. >> Great. Ad hoc committees. >> Can I just tell you about my ad hoc committee which is the main main school board association. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> As the delegate, we had um our vote this weekend. And it was very exciting to adopt the general guidelines and they passed. >> Oh, >> after two and a half hours

264there. >> Thank you. We know I know that's an extra commitment. Thank you. Um and as I mentioned earlier, I guess this maybe counts as an ad hoc committee um on Sunday um getting together with the other leaders uh for the tricom just to start putting uh the pieces together on that meeting. And I think for me it will reflect like all the conversations that we've already had here about what we're interested in learning more about the legislation that could impact the number of houses. We want to learn about the development. We want to ask to commission the study. Um so those are some of the the goals I guess. Are there other things that the board um would like to make sure that they see on that particular agenda? >> More in a and

265a a you know procedure versus policy. Um could we ask that each agenda of this meeting begin with that presentation of planning board? you know, what what are each town's planning boards looking at? What have they approved >> so that we're starting consistently with that new information >> or like a mechanism that Yes. And I would love like a regular like agree to a regular kind of schedule of information exchange, right? >> I would love that, but I like the fact that it would be done publicly. >> Oh, yeah. >> And openly. and um maybe we could, you know, get more public involvement. >> Great. Any other suggestions? >> I don't really know how to word it, but the concept is the idea that we have two changing communities and the idea of what the

266balance between what it costs to provide, what people want, and what how those wants are changing over time. Um has that come up in the um Cumberland comprehensive plan planning process? Just kind of the concept that I know it's only the one town school but like >> over time >> the development piece has definitely come up like >> okay >> basically any with the new law any water and sewer is a de facto growth area and growth areas you can put like four housing units on an eighth of an acre. So like all of a sudden both of our towns have areas where you can just put a ton of housing and so I mean that affects us but you know >> but we didn't we didn't talk about like oh if we do that

267then the school's going to get blah blah blah and the >> you know we haven't gone over the tax impacts or any of that. It's really just sort of looking at the like how much housing could you put and what do you want it to look like and where do you want sidewalks and like >> but there's no >> make sure they're white with black windows >> there's like yeah I mean we had an event where it was like I like this house I like this type of development but you know people can build what they want to build unfortunately and people will be able to build a lot more when the new law goes into effect. >> Do you um I know you sit on um the comprehensive plan committee. Is there something that's

268come out of those conversations that might make sense to present on during the tricom? >> I mean, I think it's really the LD1829 because that's that's what's going to could potentially supercharge, >> okay, >> the amount and rate of development. Um, which will directly impact the school because some of those h some of those houses love kids and they'll show up. the houses love kids. >> Houses and the apartments and the affordable housing that can be a story taller than your maximum height in the town. Like there's all of these things that just like there could be a lot more people in our town. Lean, I don't I don't I don't think this is an action item, but more of like an agreement because I I hear select board and town council often talk about

269how like, oh, well, we don't have control over 80% of our budget, >> which for me really is like, yes, you do because the actions you're making are impacting >> our budget. However, we also like impact their decisions because like as a tax base and if it's like they need to figure out more ways to fund that's less than school, they have to make decisions. So from a norming standpoint, can we just agree to the fact that like all of us collectively just is a recognition that all of us together collectively are working towards and impacting the towns and our work collectively. That's why we need to meet is because our work intersects >> rather than use language that's like, "Oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?" And you're

270you're the reason why we have this and your reason. Like, >> if some kind of norm around that and agreement to have a starting conversation could happen, I think that would go a long way. >> I mean, it's our fault, right? >> Yeah. I I like that. Um I like that idea. Did we decide to include public comment? I would like I would like to include public comment. >> Yeah, I I will I I think TIG will have that on the agenda and I'll definitely communicate that when we >> I think it's a unique opportunity >> their format. I I recall it might have happened last time we were over there, but >> don't remember. >> I don't I don't I don't remember. Yeah, I'm I'm sure there's an agenda somewhere. >> Um, and the

271other thing was will we have the shared services spreadsheet that was talked about that I have that there was there was a conversation about the a spreadsheet of shared services >> and shared costs. Is that >> the last time? Yes. and and having that having that conversation. >> So the last time we talked about the spreadsheet specifically, I think we also were reflecting on the ways in which we share services that are actually going to save the most money is around like employee. some of the things that are a bit bigger than maybe some of the things that ended up on that spreadsheet. I don't believe we've yet tasked with like an update to that. I know it was being managed and was part of conversations between the superintendent and and town managers. I know

272you guys continue to talk. Um, but I I can't say I don't know that the status I don't know if we've asked specifically of the three entities to keep it updated and I'll we can >> I think the spreadsheet Sarah that you're talking about primarily was one that Scott and Chris >> Yeah. >> BDOC had really been keeping. I think that's what you're referring to. >> Yes, absolutely. So I think >> making it um more widely available so that um others have an opportunity to shine. Stop laughing. It was a it was an agreement um that the each town leadership was having with their their leadership about getting it updated and keeping it updated. And I Yeah, I just can't say that that's happened to my knowledge. >> I'll talk with Chris and we'll we'll

273see. >> Yeah, I think it was also >> I'm sure Diane would be excited to be part of that conversation. >> Yeah, I mean we'll bring the spreadsheet in of what we have right now. >> That would be fantastic. >> We'll just take what we have and bring it forward. So >> yeah, I just was saying that we have Yeah, we haven't had a meeting to talk about it recently. >> Exactly. Exactly. only only speak for what I I know. Um any other ad hoc committee reports? Okay. Communications. Um I've invited Sarah to share her ideas around um community listening sessions. I know this is has come up um previously and share what Sarah would like to share her ideas with us. Uh, I have nothing formal planned. Um, Leanne was I sent her a

274text about a week ago and said, "Hey, what do you think?" Um, and I noticed several months ago that there's a counselor in Yarmouth that has once a week or once a month, twice a month coffee hour in a coffee shop. And I thought, "Oh gosh, that's just a great idea." you know, every Tuesday from 9 to 10, you know, he hangs out in the coffee shop and talks to whoever comes through. Um, and I was just thinking what a what an opportunity that would be. And I was thinking about doing it. Um and just literally making a plan to be somewhere posting it on social media cuz you know um and if available in the um district information and maybe have a session or two in a restaurant in before um like the select

275board meeting or the town council meeting where people are already coming and we could sit at a table or greet and say, "Hi, you know, do you have anything that you think we should know?" Not so much to answer questions, but to listen to what the community is having to say and be a more of a face that's seen regularly. I think it's a good idea. I think sometimes it can be helpful if if there's a focused question like this is being discussed, you have thoughts just because I think it can be sometimes difficult to solicit feedback. I know in years past the board I think went to the farmers market and sort of set up a table but didn't get a whole lot of action. >> Um but I think it's a nice idea.

276I think it'd be great to possibly join efforts like um I don't know if you'd feel comfortable just sort of being there by yourself before a select board committee or if you'd like a second with you but I think it's a nice idea >> and I and you know obviously we can't have three because that becomes you know a meeting um but having the opportunity you know if I'm scheduled for Wednesday from 9 to 10 and you realize you're available on Wednesday from 9:00 to 10:00 and you want to come sit and have coffee. What a great opportunity for, you know, two board members to be able to connect and then to be able to listen to the community members. But I like the idea about having kind of a focused question available. >> I

277love it. I mean, the candidate night last night was kind of a thought of like, hey, like that'd be kind of nice if we did it as not just candidates, but as actual members of being able to now that we know stuff, >> right? >> It's like a very different context to be able to sit up there in reality. I think the more the better. I think people have asked it. I I >> um feel it deeply with North Yarmouth especially. I see people all the time and have those conversations. I it's interesting to I like Megan's point and the communication expert is right in the sense of like people need to be almost in the frame of mind to be able to ask those questions. So if they come up to like tootses they

278just want like an ice cream they might not want to talk to me about like taxes. >> Um and I don't want to talk to them about taxes either at that point. But to your point of like I because I got the most conversation when I did the the new school conversations in May I Wilson. I got the most people because they're in that frame of mind. And so I I think this is a great opportunity, but how do like how do we do it in a way where people are expecting or ready to be in the right mindset and we are also ready to be in the right mindset to answer a bunch of questions or one that's guided. I I think Megan's right on with that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And the focus question

279part of it for me was also, you know, the fact that we are in this strategic planning process, your opportunity. >> Um, and wanting >> to knowing that there will there will be focus groups from that. Um, just like understanding the the goals of of this and if there's intersection or not. Um, and just having a plan around that. But I mean, I think if if people are willing to coordinate um and put out like a schedule, I do think it's helpful to have two people. Um I don't think it needs to be like, oh, if in North Yarmouth, it needs to be two North Yarmouth people. Maybe it shouldn't, right? Um uh because we also say we're not like we're of the um the state rules. So we're not Yeah, it doesn't have to

280be North Yarmouth people because we're not just saying that we're representing North Yarmouth. So having a mix of both. Um but yeah, I think just I know um everyone has a lot of uh commitments um already between the committee work. Um I know I schedule ad hoc meetings all the time um to meet on with people and topics but if people are interested in having this scheduled like event um that's I don't know how frequently you were thinking Sarah yeah I don't have a it literally was kind of a um is this something you know that we can do that we can do that I can can do. I'm not signing anybody else up for this. I want to make that point clear. This was more my desire um to connect with people aside from

281social media. And I know everybody's pushing to get in to get a seat at the board meetings, but um sometimes not everybody can fit in the room. Um and just having people have the opportunity to connect That's would be my goal to see that the school department is not a big bad silo. >> I'll be anxious to hear how it goes or let us know if if you would please. Yeah. >> When you're going to do it, >> okay? >> Um in case one person wants to join, but anxious to see how it goes. >> Yeah, I'd love to join you sometime. >> Okay. Yeah. I was kind of thinking um um looking at the the scheduled meetings in November to see, you know, what's what's already scheduled, where are people already going to be.

282Um, and then maybe picking, you know, Wednesday morning at Tottybrook going, you know, for a couple hours or an hour, whatever. Have breakfast, have coffee, see who shows up. >> Yeah. I don't Is there anything keeping from an individual board? I don't >> No, there's nothing. >> I'll behave. I promise. No, I mean like Sarah already mentioned the three three is a crowd obviously by state law. So you can't have through without noticing it. You can notice it, but the board would have to be involved in that. But other than that, no nothing that I know of prevents you from doing it. >> Okay, cool. Thanks. >> Great. Okay, thank you. Um I don't have anything else. Uh motion to adjurnn. So moved. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Megan

283Sean. >> Oh, I'm voting. >> All in favor? >> Megan was first. >> Megan. Yeah. Thanks. And it's unanimous. Thanks everyone.