MSAD #51 Board Meeting, May 22, 2025

001Welcome everyone to the Thursday, May 22nd, MSAD51 board of directors meeting. Um, we got in right before the downpour started. I I did bring my umbrella just in case when we leave. It's a little late for a noraster. At least it doesn't look like we'll be getting snow, just the rain. Um so the first part of the agenda is our recognition highlights. Um and our first item is to recognize our outgoing senior Sophia. I can't believe it. Um what a two years it has been. Um it has been such a pleasure getting to know you as part of the board. Um and I've really appreciated all your contributions. Um, I know this sitting here is just one part of it. I know you do a lot of work on committees, too. Um, and I know

002that Kim has also served as your board mentor over this period of time and she's also wants to share a few words. Yeah. So, I was so excited to be your board mentor and then realized you there was like nothing I needed to teach you or at least you you learned it pretty quickly. So, I very much enjoyed the times that we did sit down to talk. I learned from you. So, I don't I would not consider myself a mentor. I felt more like a colleague. Uh, and I'm so excited that you're going to UCLA. That feels like a further connection. The Los Angeles thing. I see your name constantly. This is this is a person who gets things done and we are going to continue to see your name constantly because we know that

003you are not leaving Gley and going off quietly into the night. You were going off to something really exciting and we are excited to see what you do next. So, thank you for your two years. Thank you for um being with us and putting up with a lot and we are we wish you nothing but absolute best. Thank you. Yes, we have a little something for you and um Sophia does need to leave early because it's IB graduation tonight and yes and just so proud to see um all that you've accomplished not only on the board but in the many other things that you're involved in in your leadership. So, thank you. [Applause] All right. So, I am really excited to have Carol MacArthur, the GMS45 principal, join us for a wellness update. I think

004that's the win. All right. Well, good evening, Carol MacArthur. Uh, I am the principal of Gley Middle School, grades four and five, and I'm also the facilitator of the district's wellness committee, uh, since 2017. So my uh presentation tonight actually has uh two purposes. The first is uh recognition um which is why I'm in this part of the agenda uh for all the hard work of of our committee uh and then the other is just to give a brief update about the work that we have done this year. So, uh this is uh a list wh I thought I was making it bigger but not. Uh there we go. So, uh this is a list of our committee members. Uh you can see that there are a variety of stakeholder groups represented. Our board policy

005uh requires that we have certain stakeholders part of the group. Um, and it's been a really incredible group of committed people who um are passionate about our students behavioral, social, emotional well-being. Um, so there's the recognition part right there. Shout out to all these individuals for their work. And now for my brief update. Uh so for starters um I think it's always important to remind not only our committee but also those uh who we talk about our committee with about uh the role of the committee. Um and per the policy there are really two main aspects um or main responsibilities. uh that is to serve as an advisory group on all things student and staff wellness while ensuring we're meeting all of the federal and or state requirements as it relates to our goals, strategies,

006and plans. So our work is mainly focused on sharing our perspectives, offering our expertise, studying topics and making suggestions for uh what we can do to address our goals. Uh this year uh our focus has uh been guided by the district's strategic priority uh which is to review or which was to review the measures for addressing what was the most recent uh MIAS data. Mas is the main integrated youth health survey. Um, you may recall that last April, Peter Scott, who's one of the high school social workers, and Eric Brown, who is the district's mental health and risk assessment specialist, presented a summary of the 2023 MIAS results to the school board. Uh, those results are what led to the district's strategic priority goal. And so, the first thing that the committee needed to do

007was to learn what the survey is and what it measures. We then reviewed the data that was shared with the board and identified strengths, needs, and uh questions in the um we then cross-referenced our observations as a committee with those of Peter and Eric's. And at a subsequent meeting, we learned about what risk factors and pro protective factors are, and we analyzed our district's resources for gaps in what we offer. Uh the committee was actually pleasantly surprised to learn that we have a lot of resources in our district to address our areas of concern that were illuminated in our data. The two main recommendations that surfaced were being more systematic with how we leverage our uh excuse me, how being more systematic with how we address certain topics such as substance use and its accessibility

008and how we can leverage systems and structures that are that already exist such as library, health course offerings or community partnerships to again be more systematic in the way that we address topics. So given that further study of these recommendations falls on our district, uh the committee then shifted our focus to next steps. Uh the committee recognizes the importance of sharing all of that we've learned with our stakeholders. So again, this presentation kind of being the first step. Uh the committee also spent a meeting brainstorming content that could be included on wellness websites for students, families, and staff. So, one of my uh goals for the summer, a summer work project, is to um get those websites developed. And at our first committee meeting next year, uh we would review uh the contents uh to

009see that it reflects what we had brainstormed that it meets the needs that we've identified and um then be ready to publish and share those uh websites out with the different stakeholder groups. Um subsequent work for our committee is really going to depend on the direction that our strategic planning process goes um and goals that might be established through that for uh our students and staff's emotional well-being and safety. So again, the intention was a brief update um and especially recognition for the group of people who's been um terrific in terms of their commitment and their collaboration and really digging into uh the work that we've done. So thank you. Great. Thank you. I have a Can I ask a quick question? Notice I didn't walk right around. I know, right? Um, and I I'm

010I'm sure others might have them as well. I had just heard something recently that it was was sort of new in my thinking about um students, you know, mental health and things that they were concerned about. Um, has the impact of like climate change and environmental factors come up at all in the wellness committee? It has not been a discussion at all for us. Okay. Yeah. Any other questions? But Carol, I think is it a point on the MIAS survey? I think that there is a question about about sort of environmental effects on your health. I did that ring a bell? No. No. Doesn't mean you're not right. Just doesn't resonate with me. Um yeah, there's there's quite a bit in that survey. So, um we could certainly look at that. Um I had a

011quick question. Um, since I think you said you've been doing this since 2017, so 8 years in this process, have you what have you seen for gaps that have come up over time? Do you think we've successfully filled those? And what do you see coming up? That is a big priority from your opinion? Yeah, that's a great question. So um when we started this uh the wellness committee it was in tandem with our very first strategic uh plan. And so uh we had u six different goal areas that we were working on things like homework uh mental health substance use physical activity and fitness. Let's see if I can rattle off the other two nutrition and one other it'll come. Um but anyway, those we had ad hoc groups that worked specifically on goals uh

012for each of those areas. And so we have updated policies. We have um you know analyzed our instructional practices, offerings within the schools, uh professional learning. Um and so uh we've we've met Oh, digital citizenship. I knew it would come. Um and so we we met all the um the action steps that were established for each of those priority areas and some of them are just ongoing right so digital citizenship for example you know as uh technology continues to change and evolve connection to Marie's presentation tonight on AI um you know we we need to respond to that but in terms of the action steps that we set in the strateg strategic plan we met those um those topics are iterative um you know as new and different things come around and so um the

013Maya survey really it does while I don't specifically remember the environmental um you know connection there it it really does um help us to understand uh the health and well-being of our students and what they perceive as the the things that we need to focus on. So, I would see us continuing to use that data um to help us uh develop goals and and action steps moving forward. Um I could see us developing a new wellness plan um potentially with the same idea around ad hoc groups that are really digging into uh specific topic areas. Um and you know, I think physical and emotional safety is a constant conversation for us. So, how do we look at the connections between say what the district safety and security committee is doing and how that relates to

014emotional well-being and whatnot? So, I think there's some crosswalks that could be done there as well. Um, so yeah, it's definitely been a journey. Um, I think I I personally I've shared with Jeff I I've felt just slightly untethered um in the last year and a half with not having a strategic plan to kind of hang our hat on and um you know the the pandemic slowed us down a little bit. we delayed on some of our work and and so I'm actually excited for us to do some new goal setting and um you know look at what um uh you know work we can do moving forward that is aligned with the district's goals and the needs that we've identified. I have um just a question about um and it's more of a cross

015reference of digital citizenship um social media as well as digital learning and how much digital learning and is there is there any pie that hits that? Um so every school has a technology um leadership committee or a teacher based tech team. So I know um that every school is sort of talking about digital citizenship, digital learning, digital footprint, digital safety um you know all of those things. And now you know this year's focus really has been on AI and uh the implications for education. Um, so we had in previous years we've had a district committee that's kind of done oversight of each of the school-based committees um that we didn't really have a need for it for a few years. So, you know, potentially, I mean, we do have this district group that's been working

016um around AI. So, you know, potentially as we work into the future, that might be an area that we determine as a need. Um, it could be a subgroup of the wellness committee. It could be something that happens through the technology. um group, but um I know the work that we do at 45 on our committee um is is really uh centered around um kids being safe um understanding ethics um and um balance, right, of educational technology versus um gaming and screen time and all of those things. So, yeah. So I am having trouble recalling and so this might not be a brilliant question but when when they uh presented the results as I recall so there there are definitely specific questions that are asked and it sounds like that's what you're going off of

017of the questions that were asked and answered right um so for example cell phones which might kind of fall into digital citizenship was that discussed as something that even though it wasn't on the survey um parents have expressed that they are concerned about it. So is it is it just like what the kids were concerned about based on the questions or did you bring in other We mainly focused on um the the most significant um risk behaviors. Um, and I was just kind of quickly scanning our notes from our meeting. Um, [Music] to see if I could answer that much more specifically. I know I have it in here somewhere. Um, but um, yeah, we really did focus it in mental health and substance use were kind of the two big areas. Um, obviously there

018are huge connections between those things and technology, cell phones and whatnot. Um, we did look at a sampling of the questions, but we really relied on the Eric and Peter's summary of the data. Um, you know, it's all aggregated information anyway. You're not really drilling down into um specific questions necessarily. So, um I'm sure there's there's a analysis that could be done there, but that really wasn't our focus. You guys did a lot of work and thank you for for doing that, for focusing on our students and communities health by extension. So, I was just curious where where you targeted that. Yeah. Great. Anything else? Thank you for your leadership on this. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now we'll move into approval of minutes. Can I have a motion to

019approve the minutes of April 17th, 2025 as presented? So moved. Thank you, Megan. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. Any questions or comments about the minutes? Okay. All in favor? Great. Abstaining. Anukica obstaining. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the May 8th, 2025 meeting as presented? So moved. Thank you, Kim. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Anukica. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Right. All right. Yes, Katie. Katie is abstaining. Great. Now we're moving to public comment. I don't doesn't look like we have anyone here this evening for public comment. So guess we'll move to the next item, presentations. All right, Mari, it's all you tonight. Welcome to the podium for profile of a learner as your first presentation. Right. Give me just a moment.

020Okay. So, tonight I have two presentations for you. Um the first will be profile of a learner and the work that we've done to develop that for the district and then the second part will be AI administrative procedures update on that work. Um, and what I'd like to do is present one at a time. So, take questions just because I can't answer questions about both of them at the same time. I'm getting too old for that. Um, okay. So, our work to date, starting with profile of the learner. So, what is the profile of the learner? Um, profile of a learner is a resource that articulates the aspirational goals for each student in our district related to the skills, habits, and attributes needed for success at the next step in their development. It pertains to

021students at the elementary, middle, high school, and post-secary levels. So, it's really where a student is in the here and now and where they're headed next. Um, it serves as an anchor for what we envision all MSAD51 students will be able to do both amid their preK through 12 experiences and after they graduate from our system in whatever post-secary pursuits they choose. It includes big picture ideas and traits that describe our learners which can be used as a touch point for shaping developmentally appropriate curricular decisions across levels within our district. Okay, so that's sort of the what is it? Um so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how we've come to the document that I'll share with you in a few minutes. Um the profile of a learner committee was formed

022to include a broad group of stakeholders including parents, board members, district and building administrators and teacher representatives from each school, students as well. Um so bear with me. I do want to thank people by name. Um I want to thank the folks who served as members on the committee. They attended multiple meetings, shared their ideas, shaped the draft of our profile of a learner, took it back to their stakeholder groups for feedback. Um, and it was really a truly collaborative effort and hard work to produce the document that I'll share with you um on their behalf this evening. So, thank you to my predecessor Susie Robbins, our district consultant, Lawrence Alexander, former Gley High School student board representative Tommy Leget Bar, third grade teacher John Marlo, student board representative Katie Wallace, um MIW principal Corey

023Monzie, fifth grade teacher Rebecca Jerves, 68 principal Monty Selby, eighth grade teacher Marcia Fitzpatrick, parent and board member um excuse me, parent and board chair Lean Kandura. Um Gley High School French teacher and IB coordinator Kim McDonald, high school principal Carl Carl Francis, GMS 455 principal Carol MacArthur, parent and board member Anukica Hull, and director of instructional support Julie Olsen. And I think I got everybody, but it was a big group of people who were working on this. Um, and so thanks to all of those folks. Um, our process involved several visioning meetings beginning in the fall of 2023. During these meetings, our consultant, Lawrence Alexander, helped us understand what a profile of a learner is and walked us through a development process so that we could create a unique profile reflecting our community's priorities

024for our learners. Our focus was always grounded in naming the skills and attributes that we value for each of our learners and that they need to make their way in an everchanging world. Once we identified these key traits, we were able to think through the indicators for each trait. These are the attitudes and behaviors that can be observed in individuals who demonstrate a particular trait. From there, the teachers and administrators on the committee took the draft of our profile of a learner back to their settings and gathered feedback from staff to generate examples of those traits to show what it looks like in the learning environment at each level. And then we use those examples to build our final product, which I'll show you in a moment. It's intended to be a front-facing public document

025on our website. We intentionally kept it simple with limited examples because we knew that individual activities that happen in our schools can and do change over time and rightly so. Um so we felt it was important to retain the flexibility in our examples while setting settling firmly on the traits and indicators for each of the categories. And so then once we had a final draft, I shared it with the curriculum committee and now I'm here tonight to share it with all of you. So without further ado, I'm going to take you to this. Okay. So this is our profile of a learner. Um there are a few highlights I want to just note for you. Um, first we selected the Gley Institute as our image for the profile as it reflects our history and our

026community. Um, the document is interactive and I'll um, show you that in a moment. Um, when it's posted on our website, people will be able to click through each trait and see examples of how our students demonstrate those traits and the indicators in their school experiences. Um, and then we have, you can see, four different traits um, of a successful MSAD-51 learner. And so I'm going to roll through those now. So effective communicator. We want our students to know how to advocate for themselves effectively, how to be active listeners and to consider alternate perspectives, to share information clearly, accurately and respectfully, and to understand how and when to use different styles of communication in different situations. We want them to know their audience. And so when you click on effective communicator on the website, this

027is what will happen. So you'll see examples of how students at different levels in our schools demonstrate just one example per school, right? But an example of how they demonstrate being an effective communicator. So I'm not going to read all of those to you, but it gives you a flavor of what you'll see when you go to the website and look at profile of a learner. And then you can pop back out. And the next one is lifelong learner. So we want our students to demonstrate pride and ownership in their learning to acquire the requisite academic skills and habits of work they need to keep improving and to embrace and nurture a growth mindset and their time in MSAD51 and beyond. And so when we click on lifelong learner again, you'll see something that's kind

028of a universal or mostly universal experience at each of the buildings, just one because those things can change over time. And then we have creative problem solver. We want our students to develop new ideas and solutions to problems. We want them to show resilience and perseverance. We want them to be critical thinkers as they're making decisions. So those are skills that we're working on in a variety of ways. And then global citizen, we want our students to understand the interconnectedness of the world and people around them. We want them to empathize with others inside and beyond our school community and to be knowledgeable about and engage in issues within and beyond our school community. to be civic-minded and involved individuals. So, this is what we have put together for the profile of a learner and

029I'm going to leave it here so that you can sort of see those and take your questions about how it was developed, how it came to be, what it looks like. Hit me questions. Okay, I'll get us started. Um, and obviously being involved in the process, I um I I know how much went into this. Um and it was a broad group um very representative of the various buildings and perspectives and um I so appreciated being part of it. So thank you. Um and you know having students in the school like I I truly see and feel these things coming coming back home. So, for me, that's the outcome. Like, I I've experienced my my kids meeting um the the this profile. Um which has been fun to see. Um couple questions. I know we

030talk a lot about updating needing to update the strategic plan. How much of the work that went into this do you feel will help drive sort of the direction that we go with the strategic plan? Well, I think I don't want to steal Jeff's thunder about strategic planning, but I think that there is a very large event on our horizon that has to do with the opening of the new school and really what amounts to three new schools when you think about the new configurations. Um, and so, um, I think this certainly plays into it and can be an element that's considered for that, but I feel like that's probably going to be the biggest lift. That's just me projecting based on what's on our horizon. But I did I did want to you've you've

031made me um, think of something I did want to say. So, like when one of the reasons why we only have one thing per school here is because the schools are changing, right? So, we need a flexible document that's easy to go in and say, "Oh, right. It's not MIW necessarily that that's happening. It's going to be at the new prek through one school." So, we had to have some flexibility built into this. So, I I think it's connected, but I think the focus is certainly going to be on the the new school initiative. Okay. And then I just had one other question. And it's something you mentioned during your presentation that's come up a few times on the board. You mentioned like um things that apply beyond, you know, MS851 and post-secary. Um and

032you know, my my mind often goes to how how are we measuring th those outcomes, right? Um, and I would love to know if there's other schools and districts that do have a way to capture and report back like what what happens, you know, 3 to five years after graduation. Um, and I think, you know, a as a board member, I can be reaching out myself to other, you know, boards and seeing, you know, if if anyone's doing that or I would love to know if if other um if anyone here has heard of other districts that do have a way to to capture how these things, you know, follow kids postsecary. Yeah, I think um it's it's a great question. It's one that comes up often and we never have a great answer to

033it, right? It's always it always remains in question land and doesn't seem to get to answer land. So I have the same question, right? What what what happens with students when they're five years out, 10 years out, right? And and their experiences and did their did their MSAD51 education prepare them for the lives that they're living now, right? Um I think that there are probably ways that we can gather it. it it will be challenging to gather it um comprehensively, right? Because people disappear and and don't respond to the surveys that you send out and and that connection point. It's usually through alumni associations, schools that have robust alumni associations that they're able to gather that data. But it's it's a problem worth trying to solve and just um stop asking it over, you know

034what I mean? because I feel like I'm asking the same question over and over and I never get to solution space. So I I hear you on that. Yeah. And I can see that it's it's probably a skewed response because anybody who chooses to participate in alumni things probably felt more connected right to their education. Um and then also the complication that yeah you use your school email address. And I think maybe now that's changed. Mo I know my own kids have had a separate email address mostly because in middle school like you can't use your school email externally. Um so I wonder if some of that has changed um as far as people having email addresses that follow them. But I could see that as a challenge and yeah I would love if if

035anyone's heard of a school or a district doing this well. So thank you. So, kind of off of that, we were having a conversation about how we all grew up and have had like seven different phone numbers. Every time you changed a dorm room, you had a different phone number, whereas the phone numbers that our students are leaving with are probably the same phone number they will have for the rest of their lives. So, perhaps we can utilize cell phone numbers. Um, but also sort of off of that, my kids feedback who have graduated, one of the biggest things they talk about is that seventh grade year focusing on executive functioning and that that seems to be maybe unique to Gley or to our district. I'm wondering since I can't see from here, is that

036by any chance included or is that just is that something that uh in terms of the examples? Um I don't think it's one of the examples, but um I think it is captured here in lifelong learner where it talks about both academic skills and habits of work needed for continuous improvement. When we talk about habits of work at the middle level, that's what and teach that. That's what we're talking about is how do you just manage yourself in the world and get from point A to point B without completely falling apart, right? Yeah. Yeah. All three of them said that like they just felt so prepared from that one year from other things too, but that year in particular. Uh so my other question uh to quote Mr. Alexander, what is uh our strategy for

037socializing this plan and communicating it after tonight? Yeah, so it will be posted on the district website and I think that is the part that can become part of the next strategic plan is what is the way that we um embed this into our ethos as a community, right? So there's there's work to be done around that as well and just making it part of h all of the front-facing things that we have out there and talking about the importance of it's not just getting to graduation. Sorry Sophia, it's not just getting to graduation. It's what you do with it afterwards. Graduation is called commencement for a reason, right? So it's really about what do you what's next always? What's next for you? Can I ask a followup on that? Um, obviously these two know

038about this because they're here and I hear you saying it's going to go on the website, but I don't know if a lot of students spend time on the msad 51 um.org website. Is this ever sort of rolled out to the students specifically? I think it will be. It needs to be right for them to understand where they're headed, but it has not been because it's been in development. Got it. Yeah. And that that can be done in a variety of ways at the middle and high school level through advisories, through student government. Um and then at the elementary school, I think helping kids know that these things are are goals. Um I think the other thing that's important to to note is that each of these except global citizen um each one of these

039traits characteristics mirrors um the guiding principles of the main learning results. And so many teachers already embed this into the tasks that they're asking kids to produce, the things that they're asking them to do. And there's an element of okay, when we're doing this, you're you're showing me how you're a creative problem solver and it's it's embedded and and talked about explicitly within those tasks. So global citizen is is the only outlier that's not one of the guiding principles and this is not all of the guiding principles either, right? So we took some of the language that mirrors it, but it's not a carbon copy. I think it would be really interesting to see um if you present this especially to middle schoolers being the parent of a seventh grader if if they sort of

040start latching on like oh I get why this is happening because I have one of these seventh graders who is um I think becoming the person that you said before who can get from point A to point B. I think he's doing a great job. Um but I think it would be really interesting to sort of pull the lens back and say and this is how this is all fitting in right now. I think that would be really valuable particularly for that age. Absolutely. And in fact, I I happen to know that one of the teachers who was on our committee, Marcia Fitzpatrick, has um been embedding, she's been using the guiding principles as a whole as this was in development and and I'm quite sure she'll probably transition over to this if she hasn't

041already, but embedding this into um a year-long theme for students in her English class. So, as they're working, that's eighth grade. As they're working, they're intentionally students are reflecting on here's how I'm a global citizen. Here's how I'm a lifelong learner. Yeah. So, it does happen. But, um, point taken that now that we have a document like this, we need to we need to make it a living, breathing document for sure. Great. Can you repeat back that one point you made about um the only area that isn't reflected in the main standards. Lifelong learner, creative problem solver, clear and effective communicator. If you go to the main learning results, you'll see the guiding principles have that exact language. Global citizen is is a different term. There is one that matches it, but I'm extraneously I'm

042not going to be able to pull out which one it is, but it it's just different language for the for the title. Okay. It just made me curious because honestly like I went through main public schools 80s and 90s and that was like a place that was missing for me as I went out into the world. I I felt like um I could have used more of the skills that are in that area. So I was just like oh like is it not part of the main learning standards? Um but it may just be a different term. Now I'm curious. I might go down that rabbit hole. I think it's there. I I I do think it's there. I think this we chose global citizen because it's more intentional. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Um I

043see four main categories up there and maybe I'm just not familiar with all the other categories. Is there a category that you think just barely missed these four or you think these are the four critical ones and we didn't really cut anything specific to kind of simplify and condense it? Um, I I there are other members of the committee in the room with me. I I feel like we had good consensus around these four. Am I making that up? There was good consensus around these four, kind of capturing what we thought was important for MSAD-51 learners and the things that we wanted to see in them as they're developing and then also to set them on their way as they leave us. So yeah, I don't I don't feel like there was anything that was

044sort of dangling out there that didn't get included. Yeah, I couldn't think of anything either, but I just I felt like, you know, sometimes in those committees you you choose to omit a few things just to make it more condensed. What we chose to admit to omit were some of we had many examples of things that happen in the classrooms, right? Many many examples. And we intentionally chose to go with just one for each grade span because we need the flexibility because you know things that happen in school change over time. So that that was what we omitted. Any other questions? Can I just add one comment? Um, so Kim and I have kids the same ages, so um we have some of the same experiences, but one of the the hands-on was the journals,

045the daily writing down, the weekly, the monthly, those are things that were really, really helpful and have gone on in my children. Um but also the learning about how the absolute basics of setting up a paper, setting up a persuasive essay, setting up a binder and a project and some of those things are just um number my daughter Hannah works with big brothers big sisters and she's teaching some of her um co-workers those things. Yep. And the time to do it is in middle school for sure. And it and those teachers were just so so wonderful with holding the line and teaching the flexibility. Um and how are we adapting with the digital aspect and the paper aspect and and wanting to keep both of those alive? Yeah. So, um I I can speak to

046certainly that the middle school still has they're still giving out the paper planners to students at the beginning of the year and still encouraging them to use them, actively teaching them how to use them. Um actively teaching notetaking, particularly in seventh grade. All of that is still happening um in middle school and it's scaffolded and supported. By the time students are in eighth grade, the teachers start to um give the gradual release of responsibility to the students to figure out how they want to manage themselves. So, at that point, you'll start to see some students using their Google calendar or an an electronic um way of managing themselves. Um but they still have the paper planner at their disposal. And if if teachers slash parents, guardians are seeing that their students are struggling with um

047the executive functioning management of their academics and their just daily lives, then interventions can happen, right? So, so they're not left to their own devices. Just fly on your own in 8th grade. But by the time students are in high school, it's I think fairly well expected that they will have learned some of those strategies. There are some students who still haven't in high school, too. And then there are supports for them. But the vast majority have so much instruction in middle school that they the most most students figure it out and manage themselves by the end of eighth grade. All right, we ready to move to AI? Okay. Can I mention one thing while Mari's transitioning? Um, so because we know that maybe you can't see some of this and it's detailed um it's

048going to be shared u with the board right um after this u presentation and um the board won't be asked to approve this um uh profile learner until the next meeting. So you have a couple weeks. We just thought it was important to have time. This is really important. Um and there are 16 really when you think about it 16 shared experiences for students um K through 12 that are embedded in that. So we wanted you to have a chance to really look at it before you are asked to give your stamp to it. So that's all I had to say. Okay. So, generative artificial intelligence, we've been working on administrative procedures. Generative AI, as you probably know, is already everywhere, uh, permeating our culture and as an extension in our schools. We know that

049we need to have defined procedures in place to stay in front of all the changes or at least keep up with the m the changes that are coming our way. And um we've been working this year to put administrative procedures in place so that there's consistency across settings in how we manage artificial intelligence in our schools. Okay. So there are three areas um that we need to think about with regard to AI in our schools. First, what are the boundaries for staff use of generative artificial intelligence? Then we need to consider what are the boundaries for student use of generative artificial intelligence. And finally, we need to think about what the professional learning needs are for our staff both in terms of sharing those boundaries and also in terms of their understanding of how they

050can use artificial intelligence in their work to enhance instruction. Similarly, we need to think about how we teach students responsible use of artificial intelligence and the boundaries they need to understand for their work in school. Right? So these were the lenses through which our team conducted our work this year. We're really focused on these three areas. So want to talk to you about how we developed um the procedures first. So, our process for developing the administrative guidelines began early this year with a committee made up of stakeholders similar to the previous presentation I gave you. Um, primarily centered around middle and high school because these are the grades spans where students are most likely to use AI tools. There are some age limits on using artificial intelligence tools. Um, so the committee members deserve lots

051of credit for their good thinking and efforts to develop reasonable and flexible guidelines for artificial intelligence use in our district. The following people uh were really instrumental in shaping our work on AI guidelines this year. So, Carl Francis, the high school principal, Monty Selby, middle school principal, Heather Perinson, Gley High School library media specialist, um Dirk Vancurin, technology director. Shout out to Dirk over there. Um Donna Green, the assistant technology director, Katie Wallace, student board representative and GHS student. She's a busy girl. Doesn't know how to say no to me, which is great. um and JC Moral Grley Middle School teacher. Um so thanks to each one of those individuals for their work this year. Um so the committee elected to use Drummond and Woodsum's proposed administrative guidelines as our launch point for our work

052together. By design, we opted to rely on the legal expertise and not make big um changes to the guidelines. Instead, we focused our attention on coming to agreement on the areas within the draft procedures that Drummond Woodson provided um that included flexibility for districts to tailor the procedures to their own settings. So, for example, one optional section spoke to procedures for teachers um to seek administrative per permission to use AI in lesson planning. and we felt that that was too restrictive and might stifle creativity in um lesson planning and so we removed that section from our procedures. It was an optional area in in the recommendations. So we chose to remove that. Um our committee has also made suggested revisions to two existing policies to include artificial intelligence as an acceptable use in our district.

053And so those policies have gone to the policy committee. Um they are GCSA-R employee technology devices and internet use rules and JNDB-R student use of district-owned technology devices and internet use rules. and they simply have a little bit of language to say that artificial intelligence is one of the acceptable things to use in our district with and it's an older policy that did not have that language because it's the technology is new. Um so it doesn't really adjust the substance of those policies. It just says we can use AI in the schools. um that we felt it was important to reference GI in our policies directly because it's pervasive and will become increasingly so over time. So we thought that was important and the policy committee will do with with it what they will but

054we made that recommendation. Um so then once we got our guidelines squared away, we shared them with various stakeholder groups including the district leadership team, building leadership teams and technology teams across the district. Also, student government had eyes on it um at the high school and our goal was to obtain feedback from our constituent groups who would be accountable to the procedures before we finalized them. We received feedback that the groups could live with the prec procedures as they were written. Um, and that they appreciated that they are administrative guidelines rather than policy because it's easier to adjust than policy. Um, and with the content being such a moving target, it makes sense to maintain some flexibility. Um, so our last step in the process is to share the guidelines with you tonight. and I

055gave you all a copy of them. Um, you should have them. I left them at your stations up there. Um, okay. So, some key points as you're reading through it are listed here. So, they're they're the procedures speak to staff use and student use. And for staff, it's really about protecting confidential information. It's intended to be an enhancement to your practice, not a replacement for good planning and preparation. We need to respect copyright laws. Um, the tools have to comply with data privacy agreements. We don't want to compromise anybody's personal data. Um, staff should be using proper citations when they're using artificial intelligence and we need to engage in ethical use. So, that's sort of the tenor of the staff side of that document. For students, it's similar. It's an enhancement, not a substitute for

056learning. Um, plagiarism and cheating rules apply. Proper citation is in order, and that needs to be directly taught to students. They can't just be expected to site sources without being taught how to do that. Um, they're expected to obtain teacher permission before using artificial intelligence. And there's an expectation that they will critically evaluate artificial intelligence tools as they're using them. And that again is a taught skill. You don't just automatically know how to do that. You need to it's it's about being a critical problem solver, right? Okay. So, more key points in the procedures. Um there's agreement among the committee members and school administrators that professional development needs to be an ongoing and tailored to each grade span because it the because the pace of change with artificial intelligence technology and the different needs of

057students at different levels, right? So it really does need to be tailored. There's a commitment to making that happen at each school that will be supported by the existing technology teams in each settings. and in fact it's already happening in our in our professional development this year. Um similarly the committee recommended and administrators agreed that learning opportunities must be tailored to the learning levels of the student. Um what what a sixth grader needs is different than what a senior needs, right? So they need to tailor the learning opportunities to the students in question. Um, and it's best done by educators who work with each age group. Again, the tech teams are already supporting student learning through digital citizenship curriculum. Carol talked about that in her presentation. We think that layering artificial intelligence instruction really makes

058good sense. Laying it layering it into what's happening with digital citizenship. So, it'll just become another component of our digital citizenship curriculum. Um committee also acknowledges that in the future it might make sense to include a computer science course of some sort at the middle school to make sure that students have the foundational understanding of artificial intelligence they need before they enter high school. Now this is expansive thinking right now, right? It's it's thinking out of into the future, but it's good to consider the possibilities for the future in the present. And the committee really we talked about that a bit and felt that that would be good for our students to have some instruction before they head off to high school where independence is more expected. Um and then finally there's acknowledgment this is

059that this is an area of rapid growth and change and what we know now will not be what we know five years from now or what we need to know five years from now. The administrative procedures are intentionally adaptable and open to flexibility um and change over time because of that because it's a moving target. So this is the key reason why we elected to work in administrative procedure millia instead of policy because policy is so much harder to move forward. Um administrative procedures you can revise as you go. Um and we just really need that flexibility. Okay. So next steps first providing professional development for staff. This has already begun in our schools and will continue into next year. Um providing school-based artificial in intelligence instruction for students to develop the foundational skills they

060need to navigate the world of AI. This is a big undertaking. Um it requires the development of curriculum um and lessons for staff to use with students. you can't just wing it and do it well. Right? So, we're at the very infancy of that work with our students and I expect that will evolve and grow over time, but know that it's very much on our radar that we need to be doing that for our students. Um, one way to attack student learning is to identify and adopt a an AI learning resource that can be used across settings as an instructional platform. Um, that helps with consistency and cohesion of instruction. Um, so Donna Green researched various platforms for this purpose and identified two to pilot starting this spring. We have a couple of teachers piloting

061this spring and then into next fall. Um we're committed to recruiting more teachers to do that and that's happening at the school level. Our hope is to make a proposal for the fiscal year 27 budget to adopt a particular platform um for students to use in our district. Um the benefit of that is that we we can have some safety asurances with it and it's it's intended for helping children middle school and high school students learn how to use AI in in a safe platform. Um so the two platforms that are under consideration are school AI and magic school AI. So you can Google those and learn more about them. Um they're both quite similar in their features and in their price. So, it's a matter of really getting into the weeds and um instructionally

062to sus out what we like and don't like about each of them. And so, stay tuned because there'll be more on that later. It's really just the beginning. Um but we recognize that if we're going to teach students how to use AI, it's probably a good idea to have a safe platform to do it. Okay, questions for me. Um, okay. So, just to um kind of put out there the student perspective specifically in the high school. If you were on the committee with me, you understand I spoke a lot about the specific topic. But my goals going into this were to educate not only students but staff on a cycle that's been kind of repeating itself at the high school, specifically in the English department. and that is that students will write their essays and

063then in fear of the punishment which comes with your essay being marked as like flagged as AI, you would then have to rewrite your essay. So in fear of that they will submit their essays to AI checkers online and then those checkers will say like oh like you did it like it's not none AI but then whenever you submit that and you you're basically handing over your essay to AI and then the next time that teacher might at their free will take that essay and put it into that AI checker or any AI checker it'll flag the essay as 100% AI. So then that student will have to rewrite their essay despite them knowing and having checked that it is an AI and then it kind of creates that cycle of like fear of submission

064and then they kind of have that essay and then what are they going to do next time they rewrite it? They're going to check it again because clearly they did something wrong the first time, right? And so then it flags it again as AI. It just becomes and then there's a cycle of distrust. And so I really wanted to emphasis that place some emphasis that the teaching time, the professional development as well as the student development and all of that teaching is going to really mitigate that because it's going to teach the staff that AI checkers are not accurate like at all. And I mean there are there I mean like we've talked about it's really fluid right now. Every AI system is moving up and down at all times. But specifically with AI checkers,

065they're really unreliable and with especially with students who are scared to submit asis, they're submit their essays as is, they're going to be putting them into AI checkers. So by telling students that you're actually kind of ruining your own potential with the essay by doing that, that'll push them away from it as well. So this is like really big, really great. And this is one of the things that I like ran on when I was coming to the board because students I've seen the sentiment growing especially last year just really like fear like fear of submitting your essay that you wrote all by yourself because of this new growing tool. So this is like really really helpful. It's going to be great. This is why student perspective is so important. Um and Katie, thank you

066so much because I do have concerns. This is a a culture that I feel like has been created. um that has we teach our students. We just went through, you know, what we look to our students to build in these skills and then I feel like we're then putting them in the position of like academic they feel like they're being accused of academic dishonesty and these of students who take this very seriously. Um, and so I so appreciate the fact that we have students participating um, in this to be able to give that feedback and I really hope that it's been taken very seriously. So Katie had um, I think she had an important and um, equal voice at the table and and I think a strong voice at the table and we talked a

067lot about this issue. I think at just about every meeting we discussed it. I'm sure in one in one form or another, right? And um so there are there are some things that are on the horizon that are happening. I double checked this with Carl Francis. Um so first he said that the English department at the high school are the primary users of AI detectors at this point in time. Um and they know it's not foolproof. Um, and they're going to increase continue to increase their knowledge and of the benefits and limitations through professional development in the coming year. Um, they do have department procedures for students that articulate that AI shouldn't be used in English classes. Um, and they do look at the edit history since we discussed it there. People are doing that.

068um you can look at the edit history in Google Docs and see where students are actually making edits to their work versus it being done by AI. So that's really helpful. Um and and they also talked about he also mentioned that they are having direct conversations with students about um the parameters and expectations for their assignments as well. So they're continuing to say you should not be using AI for this assignment and etc etc. I do think there's work to be done around understanding really the limitations of AI detectors. Um because I I I take what Katie says at face value that students who are trying to do the right thing are feeling caught in ways that they should not be. They're trying to do their work. So, but this is an example of the

069technology is in front of the humans and the humans need to be able to catch up and that we will do that through professional development. Have the teachers been asked to stop put a pause on using it at all? Have have they been asked to change how they're operating? I don't know the answer to that question. That would be a question to pose to Carl. Okay. I believe that it's I I do not know of middle school teachers who are using AI detectors in the same way. Um, frankly, when middle school students present something that's not their own, it's really obvious because the vocabulary is so far beyond what a middle schooler would typically have in their writing that it's pretty obvious. You don't really need an AI detector to to tell. But with high

070school students, it's less obvious. So I I believe that the person to talk to would be Carl about that for that because I think there's really important points that need to be addressed before another class comes in next year. Yeah. Um that was like I think I completely agree with you. That was my big question like is this allowed? Is it part of their rules? Because the English department at the high school has like she said their own set of AI rules and so like we don't touch on that. that's their thing and that's what they follow. But it's a comfort thing from what we've seen and what we've talked about that the teachers have this like discomfort and this distrust in the students that like there's potential that this really really great essay is

071going to be written by AI. And so whenever that essay comes in their their like own kind of like worry and fear will put it into the AI checker. And so like obviously like like I can see on your face like that's like it creates the worst possible situation for the student who's the most anxious. And so it like it creates that cycle and we've seen it. I'm I mean I've seen it in my own classmates and I think that I mean I've talked to Mr. Francis a lot about sitting with student government and the English department and talking about maybe like a new guideline list but I think that's a separate that's that's not for the school board. But um that's one thing that I was really looking forward to changing. But I also

072think that with comfort coming from the professional development, hopefully that will be enough for the teachers to kind of like, okay, we can handle this, we can adjust to this, we can adapt to this, and we don't have to be so worried that these moving parts like everybody's writing with AI, everybody's using it behind our backs. Like I think that will lessen a little bit as comfort rises and as it becomes more abundant. But um that's the hope for right now. And I think thank you Katie and I I think to your point there is more guidance that is available for teachers of how to maybe change some of their style to help ensure that there isn't as much of an opportunity for it to get introduced but I know Christina you had your hand

073up a while ago. It it fits in really well. Thank you. um the parent the the teachers the staff I'm glad to hear you're training them and I hope it's like just going to keep expanding because said kids are like way ahead of us I think all of us who are certified and up because we're older and I'm hoping that that everyone is very aware that we can learn so much from the youngers but I also wanted to point out are you thinking about did you mention it all or discuss it all like bringing the parents into the loop because parents are yet another group who really you know myself I mean I what is this AI thing and the more they understand the more they can perhaps help with the anxiety and everything else

074and I just think it would be huge if we could reach out to them as well. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. So, so I should say that um that JC Moral has been a parent in this district as well as a teacher. So, it's not that there aren't people from the community there. there were some folks on the team who were playing dual roles. But um yeah, I think now that we have the guidelines available, then you have something to launch from to talk to families about this is what this is what we're using for AI. This is how we're using this is how we're teaching the students. But we did not have the guidelines in place until now. So I feel like that's to come. But certainly parents need to be part of the conversation. And

075I would envision that happening at parent information nights and and through parent teacher conferences and all of that. Yeah. And I'm even thinking of the level like you know when you go into the Apple store and you like don't know how you screwed up your simple device and they just calmly respectfully explain it. So I'm even thinking at the point like even explain at the younger grades what AI is and then and then the rest that you said would be just the whole thing just deliver it. Thank you. Agreed. Yeah. Oh yes. Go. So wow what a big uh heavy lift this was. I admit that it had not really occurred to me to be thinking about how staff use AI other than using AI to catch AI users. Um, so can you expand on

076that a little bit and how also how that would be detected and enforced if staff members were using it um inappropriately? Did what do you mean by detected and enforced? That came out harsh. um if it's a administrative policy as you said that staff cannot use AI as a replacement for a teaching a lesson plan and things like that. So well they can use it for lesson planning but they should not be using it as the only thing that is Right. Exactly. Oh well I need a lesson today. What am I going to throw together? Right. That's that's not good planning and preparation. Right. So it shouldn't be a substitute for planning and preparation. It should be an enhancement of planning and preparation. And so, um, I was talking with Julie Olsen this afternoon and

077she I don't think she would mind me sharing this on her behalf that she's done some professional development with the special ed team this year around using AI to help write IEP goals. So, so teachers have a goal for a student that they need to develop and writing. The way that those have to be written is very specific and structured. And so, put putting in not information about the student necessarily, but about what the needs are in sort of a global sense. and then it can help generate a goal that might be then helpful to them or at least inform the goal that they ultimately write for the student for their IEP. The same is true for any number of activities that you might be doing in your classroom. Um, anything under the sun, right?

078You can put in what you're looking for the parameters for it and it will spit back out. You could try this activity or you could do that task. And so it we just don't want folks relying solely on that for for good planning and preparation, but it can be an enhancement for sure. Did did I answer your question? I think so. Yeah, I think so. So it's is that really more of a um I'm trying to think of a selfch check that teachers Yeah. are being asked to do. Okay. Yes. Right. because I don't think that anybody wants to be in the position of, you know, needing to check every single thing that a person produces, right? That's that's probably not realistic. And we do trust our teachers to, you know, put together great unit

079plans and great lesson plans. It's just that within the procedures, there's this nod to let's not have this be the end all and be all. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then also uh to like bounce off of that a little bit, there were a lot of teachers in our group and they would talked a lot about and like myself included like with like my students um like all my peers, there's a certain like anxiety of having an AI like thing up on your on your screen. Even when I'm like at home, I'm like wait and like wait no like it's not like you're you're good. It's not illegal. like it's um but teachers also expressed that that there's kind of like a oh am I doing something wrong if I'm using this or like asking

080it a question and now like you can Google something and with Gemini being piloted it comes right up and that is AI that's the first thing that comes up and so then you Google something it shows up and then you're still having that like fear it's like oh like I hope no one's looking at my computer like you're like you're you guys are adults like you're you're good and so I feel like this was one of the things that they were talking a lot about about that kind of like anxiety around it and this is meant to alleviate some of that. But also they I mean I think JC Moral like really talked a lot about how the teachers know their parameters and they know they know better. But I mean that's also one perspective.

081But I I think that yeah there's a learning curve for everybody is I think the that's the bumper sticker for you. There's a learning curve for everybody. Um, I know that it's more administrative guidelines uh that we're talking about, but I feel like coming from a perspective of using this on a regular basis in the business world and how effective it is to get things done quickly because it's not about how you do it. It's the end result you're looking for. And making sure that the students are ready for the future because right now we're using this every day all the time. I need a piece of software. I got it. I need to reorganize the spreadsheet. I got it. I know that they should learn the skills and I'm not saying that that's not

082the baseline, but we also have to make sure they are ready because I have people coming into business every day and new employees and they are nowhere near ready to use this. And I spend a lot of time teaching people how to use it. And it is extremely important for people to be effective in the business world today. to know the right prompts, how to use it, what you can use for guidelines, and like you want I feel like I'm almost telling you guys how to cheat because of how many things you can do to make it like, oh, write it like an eighth grader wrote it in this background with this ethnicity and this and it will tailor it specifically to that very very well. So I I just want to make sure that

083we're also aware that it is a very effective tool and we are teaching to that and it's used every day. Yeah, I I think that's a really great point, right? That that what we want going back to the profile of a learner is to develop critical thinking skills. It's it's about being able and and I think this is for all of us, right? It's about being able to use the tool effectively to get things done efficiently and done well. But that doesn't remove your brain from the equation, right? You still have to use your brain critically to think about what parts of this am I going to use and what parts of it am I going to set aside, right? So, but yeah, those those are skills to be learned that are very applicable beyond

084the time in school for sure. And quite frankly, it's kind of like um it falls into the profile of a learner, too. The global citizen or the effective communicator or a lifelong learner, there's always going to be something. And I think whether it's AI or it's the internet, one of the most important parts of these guidelines um was the citation. So I mean 20 years ago you still had to site site. When I was in school it was Britannica encyclopedia bratannica you were citing um belong to your neighbor because your parents couldn't afford the whole set. Exactly. Yeah. My grandparents handed me a set of old ones from the 50s and most of the information hadn't changed from the 50s to the 80s. Now it's changing every minute. But I think um cite citing your

085sources. So, you know, whether it's a student or a staff member, there's, you know, we shouldn't fear AI. And I think Sean's making a good point that some of these skills, whether it's AI, it's going to change in a year. A year ago, we were talking about this. And I remember, I think it was Tom McInness brought it up from the um college level saying, you know, you got to be thinking about AI and I was thinking, my gosh, we're probably behind on this. Um, and here we are with a set of guidelines a year later. So, this is really great work from this group. Mari, thanks for your leadership on this. Um, but I do think um, some of the professional development is how do we use AI in the classroom, not as detecting

086necessarily. I mean, that's certainly another conversation, but I know my son's um when he was in high school, um one of his English teachers did use AI routinely with the class um with his classes and he actually talked to us about it as parents um to look at and compare AI writing to um your own writing and kind of see where the discrepancies were and use it as a com as a compare and contrast um activity. And I think um the more that we can use it positively um you know and and look for those items for professional development I think is another one. So it might be I don't think the AI guidelines are probably done. I think they'll never be done. Um and it should be noted I think Katie you referenced it.

087You AI has actually been around for probably 30 years in some form or another. Um it just we never really paid attention or called it AI necessarily a generative AI but it's been around um and you know it's been around ever since internet's been around really um and it's just about teaching the skills around citing the information that we're finding. It's another academic tool. It is certainly a business tool just like all many things that we teach in schools are business tool. This is yet another tool that we're using um or renaming as a tool and I think it's important but it's it is um you know it's part of that global citizen being a global citizen effective communicator. It's all related. Yeah. Yesterday my eighth grader told me that I use it too much

088and that it's ruining the environment. Generative AI is ruining your environment. Yep. a lot of electricity. Yeah, it takes Right. So, this is also what what they're, you know, what they're seeing and and and feeling is the energy that it takes for um artificial intelligence. Um, I I do have a couple questions about the some particular items on on this because it does say that it sounds like it's saying that teacher permission is needed for each instance where AI is being used by the student. Is that is that the case? Am I reading that correctly? If students need to if students want to use AI for an assignment, they should be seeking teacher approval for that, communicating with their teachers about that. Yep. Okay. Um, and I'm talking about generative AI. So, they're using it

089to generate something to Okay. So, so that to me feels a little bit different than when you hit Google and Gemini comes up and you can't you can't help that, right? like using it in their research for an assignment would that they would need teacher permission for that. Um so I think it varies depending on the teacher but so from my experience but um like for example um my friends and I like in our our history class we have to find these insane questions sometimes these research questions that we have to come up with and sometimes it's really hard to find sources. Our teacher lets us search uh sources through like AI website like I can ask Gemini what websites what are the most recommended websites for this type of thing and then it'll give

090me like 10 sources and there are like state-of-the-art like Jtore like these like really great websites that I could find on my own however it would have required some digging and so in that sense no it's okay but from what I've from my experience with a few different teachers but you shouldn't And if if you're going to from I mean you should if you're going to look up something and Gemini gives you a list of things you look three inches over it gives you the sources where it found that. So you click on that cite that go look at that read that and then site it. It's a different route. there's potentials that you can work around because I that's where I think it can get really confusing because it it's like you can use

091the tools to prepare you for an assignment but it's not necess like so is that in does that count as completing the assign like um complete academic assignments. So I just feel like it becomes it becomes part of their own workflow. I mean that's what has happened for me at work. it's it's part of a workflow. And are we saying that it shouldn't be part of an academic workflow unless you've asked for each specific assignment? I I think what we're saying in those what the spirit of those guidelines are is or what the spirit is is um you're not going to ask AI to write your essay for you. Okay. Yeah. Just making sure that that was the case. Yes, because I would 100% agree with that. Other questions? It's more about idea. It's more

092about getting a start on something maybe that you know, you just like I'm stuck. I just need a little bit of help um generating an an idea or direction that I'm going to go in, but it's not generating the actual content, which is different. So, it's a scaffold. And I think I think your question is a really good one, Leanne. And There's a lot of professional learning that needs to happen for for people to understand the limits and expectations and how to live within those guidelines. Yeah. Like an outline for an assignment. Exactly. Right. So So I think that I think the devil's in the details and that's what you're saying, but part of that comes with giving some professional development for staff to be able to to be in the weeds with it a

093little bit. Well, and the student anxiety piece for to support, you know, students learning without creating anxiety around it, too. Right. I think Katie's example was a great one about the history class that you were talking about where, you know, you could spend a lot of time, inefficient time, right, trying to find good sources on something that helps prompt you to do an activity, but you that's the part you're not generating content. You're just helping to find those good sources. And that's a great use of of AI or any other tool actually what whatever it is to help you refine the way that you're going to learn. Um and I think that's the difference maybe that we're we're talking about. I think there's so much to learn and there's a lot of professional learning about

094this about this topic for sure. I have a question. So does this group continue to meet sort of going forward into perpetuity? No. The work of this group was to develop the guidelines and and get the guidelines in place and now the work is at each of the buildings to provide the professional development and the student instruction and those things need to happen concurrently. It's started this year and it needs to continue into the coming year. And um the part about making a proposal for the future for a platform either magic AI or magic school AI or school AI is I think a really important one to create the conditions for both staff and students to learn how to use AI responsibly um in a safe secure um boundaried kind of way. Um, I asked

095just because I feel like this is a whole new frontier for some of us up on the DAS. I understand it's not for Sean, but it is for me. Um, and I appreciate Christina's question because as a parent, sort of knowing what the limits are. That's that's an important thing I think for for our parent and caregiver community. Um, and I would imagine some of these may change based on like what we actually see happening in learning or what we learn um, going forward with these. Um, but thank you. This is a huge lift. So, thank you. Yeah. I we went from nothing to a pretty solid footing. Um, which I think is very helpful for a lot of people. Yeah. What's then the role of the board with this? Is this for an an

096approval? What it what is No, for administrative guidelines. Um because of the topic, it was really important that we not only noted it for the board, but brought it right to you so you could see it. Um but because it's administrative guidelines and these can change tomorrow or next week. Um they are they live in our policy handbook, but they're not an approval item by the board. What the board will be asked to approve um is the um addition to the policy um the technology policies that we have for students and staff and Anukica will be referencing that when it those policies come up to the board. Okay. Soon. Okay. There is a section in those. I was just going to say I can speak to that briefly. So, we had a policy committee meeting

097earlier this week where we started discussion um and plan to continue that at our next meeting to hopefully bring um bring those forward. I think it won't be until our second June meeting just because our next policy committee meeting is after our next school board meeting. Great. Yeah. And I will say that um at the schoolboard conference this past year, they had Drummond Woodson put a really nice presentation together for AI in in schools and I found it really helpful um and and encouraged anybody uh to go next year to attend. And they also asked about like would we be interested in presenting um because I had an extended conversation with them them after. I still will say I have a concern um about the use of the AI checkers. Um I think I since

098you know the meeting the board meeting or the conference and I've done a lot of research myself around this I I do have concerns about how they can take student work um and and store copies of it. And then also that um if yes if a a student then gets accused of academic dishonesty. Can I add something on that because as a teacher I have done that on my students essays. Um and I'm sure this is different for different systems. But what I was able to do is enter when I suspected um something had been written by someone or something else. I could enter sometimes just two sentences and that was enough. And I don't know if now that would trigger like the whole thing is not original. Um but I would never like even

099scan in like the whole thing. So I don't know if that's a workaround that works or not. I don't know where the where it's at. Um so in any sense submitting any part of it obviously I mean we've talked even a little bit about during the meetings like the there's a section on the student privacy agreements and that's kind of I mean the submitting anything of a students to the AI checkers it's potential for violation of that in general. So that's kind of a way that you could work around it but also so they're just so incredibly unreliable. Like I could write an entire essay, like the worst essay of my life, just on paper, whatever. I can submit that and it could be like, "Yeah, no, 45% AI, like you, that was you. That

100was I mean, you cheated." And it's like, okay, like I didn't. But it's the power b imbalance between the teacher and the student. Like they submit something even I mean I've heard I've heard a lot of different stories from a lot of my different peers. But one time in specific, I know a girl, she submitted her essay. Her parents came in to have a conference with the teacher. Like, we watched her write it. Like, I promise she didn't use it. And in any case, it could be completely wrong. And it's the fact that the teachers, and Lean, you and I could talk about this a little bit more and we could schedule something, but it's the fact that the teachers can use it as a tool for punishing the student. Like, it can be the

101like hammer. So that's kind of the goal. That's like the change. That's Yeah. It just shouldn't be because it needs to be like a first step and not like the last the nail in the coffin there, right? And and I hear you. And I I just want to make a point that is that my mic? My experience is um that um train of thought. My experience is that as you as you noted teachers can figure out especially if it's handwriting but they can they can pretty much sense like that is not the voice of that student that I've seen before. So I doubt teachers are spending time like entering each students or even but you you get a sense you just get a feeling. So in those specific cases I would say we should you

102know trust the teachers. I'm not going to go overboard with this because there is like a hesitancy to use it as well. So, I'm I'm not worried too much, but that's just teacher perspective. Yeah. I I think the concern is that every student essay was being put in. It wasn't out of concern. So, I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but is there not a way to like like you said, you feed your paper that you've just done. There's not like a print out that you can attach that says here's what shouldn't have to be screenshot. Oh, I I'm not sure that's a good idea. I think that that could be really helpful. But even the use of any AI tool like I've kind of talked about a little bit, there's a

103little bit of a stigma. There's a little like fear around it. teachers might not like the the even admitting like, hey, I submitted this to an AI checker beforehand. That's it's a it's on the the edge of maybe a little too risky specifically because the it's like it's sad like the types of students who are submitting them are the ones that fear retaliation from their teachers and the ones that who will not speak to their teachers about this. And so it's like that specific group of kids that like need that advocation. Like the advocacy is like it's it's those ones. They won't they won't bring that first step. Okay. So I don't know. We talked. Yeah. Yeah. I do think it's it's just it goes back to um you know helping our staff but also

104our students. I mean it really falls into for me not just it's not AI, it's plagiarism. And we've had a plagiarism policy for as long as schools have been open. Um, and you know, it really goes around, you know, when you use someone else's work, whether it's through generative AI or it's through the internet or it's through Google or whatever, you know, whatever search engine or encyclopedia bratannica. Um, you cite it and it's just something you do. I mean, I've taken, you know, we've all taken courses, most of us at the university level. I also have taught at the university level. Same thing. I say just whatever source you use, cite it. Um, that's the important part. If it's not your original words, fine, cite it. That's great. Um, and I think that's really the

105most important learning whether you go into business, you know, okay, I used AI or I do whatever it is, but you you know your source, you can speak to that source. And for me, it's about a broader concept and not just like AI. It's about the idea of academic work. And when you're using someone else's ideas, even if it's a robots, you're citing um our 2D whatever in your in your citation. Um and I think that's the important skill that we're trying to use. And I do think um if you know in being a teacher in this sense you're also like I want people kids students to know that I'm not just you know checking on them all the time but I think um actually helping our teachers use AI in the classroom as an

106academic tool and saying hey let's look at this compare contrast that might help teachers also feel more comfortable with it. Um and uh if I was going back to the classroom today, it would be an area be like, "Oh, this is an area I need a lot more support in as an educator." Um as well. So, um I think it's Mari, how it's almost like the British prime minister who stands at the podium for hours answering questions. You have done an amazing job. I was going to say you've been up there I think an hour over an hour. Starting to hurt. So, any other questions for me? I'm good. I just wanted to make one last comment and it just when you talked about Christina when you talked about a student having a voice just

107some awareness here. If you kept all your papers from 8th grade till 10th grade and you fed them all into the system and you said only use this as your data set and I need to write an essay on this, it's going to be in the kid's voice. Like there is so many workarounds to this problem and so much honesty that has to come to light just on the individual and it a lot of the tools are broken and don't work. But there are so many workarounds it's it's unnerving. So to think that you you gut might be wrong and and is it if it's all their work and it's their data set and it's things they've written. Isn't that theirs? So, there's some weird ethical dilemmas. Sure is. Yeah. Just Yeah. It's it's I

108mean, it's all all is very interesting, I think. And um and hey, we're an academic institution. So, this is all academics and learning and learning about how do we do this because this is actually real world, right? We just found out from Sean, you use this in your business. This is the real world. This is what businesses use and this is what we're supposed to do is help students learn. We also help our staff learn. We help everybody learn. That's so I see this as a learning opportunity. So I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Mari, are your feet tired? All right. It's a good way to end. Oh, such a cutie. No, don't be sorry. Not up there. I know. Dogs love dogs. Okay, now we are going

109to move to items for action. Um, we have some approval of professional positions. Can I have a motion to approve the appointment of the prof professional positions as outlined? So moved. Thank you, Anukica. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Jesse. So, I think since we said professional positions, we can present them both at the same time. We have a GHS special education case manager transition specialists and an MIW special education resource room position. Yep. And both of these are um resignations of existing uh teachers in our district. Um, one of the teachers is a um long-term uh I'm sorry, one is a mental health clinician and one is a teacher. Um, but these are existing teaching positions in your budget. Um, and um both of the people that have resigned um not to

110get into the weeds, but are um have family circumstances, family changes, or have made changes in their personal life, and that's why they're moving on. Um, so I do know that for sure. Um and we're sorry to to lose both of them. Uh but we've hired two um outstanding candidates um to replace u both of these folks um and for special education. We typically have fewer uh people who are certified or able to do those positions. But we did have 10 applicants for the um resource room teacher at Mabel Wilson School and six applicants for the transition specialists at the high school that applied. Any questions? All in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. Next, we have our Can I have a motion to approve policy BEA, school board use of electronic mail as presented? So

111moved. Thank you, Jesse. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Sean. Anukica, do you want to walk us through this? Sure. And I know Jesse did a great job in my absence um at the last meeting when this came um for first read. Um but I will basically reiterate what was said then that um our reason for looking at this policy which uh will now extend beyond just the use of electronic mail which we will now be calling email and other electronic communications. um that this really came about as a result of the Supreme Court's Lindkkey decision and just how social media has changed over the last 15 years since the policy was adopted and the last time that it was looked at. Um and some of the important things that have come to

112light since then are around individual board members making clear on social media pages and posts that they're speaking in their individual capacity, not on behalf of the board unless they've been explicitly authorized to do so. and it offers some example language. Um there was certainly a lot of uh conversation on the committee about um offering that language as an example and not as a requirement, but just to to give folks an idea as to what they might put on their social media pages and posts um in order to make that clear. And also um in the update pointing to the importance of providing links where information can be found on the district website so that that information if the individual is speaking on their own behalf is not seen to be originating with them when

113really it originates with the district or with the board itself. So thank you Anukica. Any questions? Yes, Kim. So, I am still struggling with how to engage on social media when I when misinformation is being spread. Um, and so I I did this last week and I I neglected to include that preamble. um which I can certainly go back and and you know edit that. But if it's if it's responding to schoolboard business and you're providing not your perspective necessarily, but a correction, should that still include the um disclaimer and or is that discouraged alto together? And I know I'm opening a big can of worms here, but it's a problem that I wish we had a better sense of how to handle. No, I appreciate you bringing that up because I think that obviously

114the practical application is what's most important. Um I question for you would be is there a place on the website or in a meeting that you provide links to the information because from my understanding if you are doing that um then you are connecting it to you know something that has happened officially through the board through the district. Okay. So I think if you're pointing to that information, it maybe becomes less important that you put any particular preamble or post about it being your your specific perspective because you're directing them back to an official resource on that topic. So I think to the extent that you can do that, that's a good way to protect yourself. Um that's a lot of what this comes down to is protecting yourself really. Um, and I do think

115that also if it's on Facebook for example, um, that having something on your page is also a nice kind of coverall. um that then you know it it does extend I think to those individual posts even though of course when you are very explicitly offering your own perspective and not directing people back to an official resource you would certainly want to note that um in the individual post but I think also just having it on your page can help make clear um that it's not an official page of the board. But yeah, if you can have those links back to where the information originates, that would go a long way from my understanding. Okay, thanks. And you didn't miss doing anything, Kim. This wasn't an approved policy yet. I want to be in the spirit

116of the policy and I set a precedent, too. So, other questions? Great. All in favor? Great. Unanimous. Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve policy JLCD, administering medication to students as presented? So moved. Oh, all right. I'll give Christina that one. Can I give a second? Second. Oh, Megan. Okay. Anukica, do you want to go through this one? Yeah. Um, so as you all might remember from a couple weeks ago, or I guess it's almost a month ago now, um, this is a policy that had been in process with the school nurses since the end of last school year actually. And so we had the high school school nurse um, join us at a policy committee meeting to review this in March. It's also been reviewed by Drummond Woodsome and changes are to

117language just in terms of updating some of the language statute updates and um related forms now being available on power school. So focused on a difference in process there for forms being obtained and submitted. Um thank you. Any questions? Okay. All in favor? Great. It's unanimous. Okay. Okay, now we're on to superintendent's report. We should make you stand up. No, sometimes I don't know why I enjoy watching the British prime minister take questions. I think it's a great exercise and people who are resilient on their feet. Um, superintendent report kindergarten screening um for the third time um third annual uh kindergarten screening event which was held during the day and is done for all students and parents. Um it's really a neat event um to go over and they have different sessions going on at

118different times. The entire Wilson staff is involved in this. It's all hands- on deck. Um so that occurred last week. So this was they were welcoming the class of 2038. Wow. Yeah. Special Olympics. Two uh Wilson school students went to the Special Olympics last week. Represented MIW amazingly. We're really uh proud of our students um involved in the whole Special Olympics um program. Third grade class held a chorus concert led by music teacher Aaron Gagden. Um and we've had a lot of concerts um over the season. So wanted to feature some of them. Wax Museum in third grade. I love the wax museum. I just love listening to the kids become their character and um this young student um did an amazing job. In fact, she many of the students memorized their scripts and she

119had memorized um her script on justice Ruth or the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So really did an amazing job. Sean uh Kamar is a master drummer from um the country of Guinea but actually in West Africa but also has another has a home here in Bath um and does a lot of um programming for students and was brought in by third grade teacher John Marlo. Um John Marlo also visited um the village in West Africa uh in Guinea, West Africa back in December. um took a one-mon leave of absent to go over there and then um did a lot of connecting via the internet with his students in third grade um and then brought in Scion to do um u this work with students. I think most of the students at Wilson School um

120had an experience with um Scion during the week. I would say probably 95% of the students had an experience um in during music classes at MIW. Really exciting. um to watch that um and to see that going on. Students in Mr. Lloyd and Mrs. McInness's classrooms voted to complete a community community service project for Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. They raised over $1,100 um for the Animal Refuge League. So, this is part of that lifelong skill of um service learning. Um and we have a lot of classes that participate in service learning projects. This was is an example of of that. Here's another example of service learning. Uh Mrs. Bogle's class, life skills class, participated in the clean earth challenge in honor of Earth Day, and they picked up 199 pieces of trash on

121the middle school, which I know the maintenance department was very happy because they're often the ones cleaning up the trash. And they've actually talked to me. It would be great if students did it. And um so it's it's heartening to see that our students are also involved in that. Many thanks to the PTO. Cynthia Lloyd is a children's uh award-winning children's New England author. Um I I can't remember if she lives in Maine. I almost believe she does live in Maine, but she has come and talked with fourth graders in the past and again came this year uh to talk to fourth graders about what it's like to be an author in the process of writing um and then talking about the books that she's written. and she's written many many books uh for children.

122Uh National History Day, we always have a great showing at the National History Day program. This year is no exception. We had 10 of our students um advanced to the National History Day National Contest um after the state competition. These are middle school students. Um it's an extraordinary accomplishment for all of these students. Um and their topics were always so interesting. um they always come up with the most unique topics. Chem experiments. Seventh graders um have been involved in chem experiments and their science classes to find out the right reaction to create a chemical thermal pack. Um I think these are our future NASA students. You remember we have a GRI alum who actually helped to intercept an asteroid um for NASA um last year. came graduated from Gley High School and credited teachers at

123Gorilly Middle School and Girley High School with being able to help NASA intercept a an asteroid so that if that ever occurs um we can stop an asteroid from hitting the Earth. True. That's a true story. And he came and talked to students here and his mother still lives here in the community. Spirit week fun. Um, spirit week is um, every school we do some sort of spirit week and the middle school had their spirit week. Recently um, twin day I think was one of them. Pajama day, career day, no twin day was the high school, I'm sorry. Um, tropical day, all kinds of days. And those pictures on the bottom are actually staff members who dressed up and surprised the grade six to eight students at an assembly. Um they dressed up as um

124charact car charact caricaturures um and um had a lot of fun. I actually was standing there watching when they came out. I was kids went wild. Spring fling. Um the middle school also had a an annual spring dance. I think they have maybe have two a year. Um this is their spring fling dance and um the light show is the big attraction at these dances. I guess from what I've heard. All State Musicians. Congratulations to our All State High School uh musicians for an incredible All-State festival. Um again, great showing. Always have so many students that are involved in um these uh musical festivals way beyond our borders. So, great job to our students. Congratulations. I wonder who that is. Congratulations to our JHS model UN team. So Jordan Young, Katie Wallace uh won the

125uh distinguished delegate awards and Stella McN won the honorable mention award and I guess you are representing the tiny nation of Luxmbourg. Tiny but powerful. They did not know we were that small. I don't want to steal your thunder, but they didn't know that. Huh. Oh yeah. Best delegation. Best small delegation for the state of Maine. Model UN. I'm sure you'll talk a little bit more about that. Katie, uh, class of 2028, pickle ball. I thought pickle ball was for people my age and older, but apparently it is for all and, um, it's been picked up by everyone. So, uh, winners for the class of 2028 was Calvin Okconor and Luke Klene. Senior projects. Um, one senior project that's being done, you can see the, um, project. I think it's it's completed. It's beautiful. I

126saw it when it was first going in. Um so to see this um being done is great. This will help with the athletics athletic program and having students be able to put their bags at the um at the end of the day and have a storage place. The storage area was basically on the ground or in the athletic trainers office and you couldn't get in there. There's all over the place, not organized. Um so this was really um two of our students um one of them the daughter of a former board member um really got involved in making this uh project work. So thank you so much. Um I think it's a vast improvement over what we've we've had down in the athletic area and Don Foster our facilities uh supervisor director has been super

127involved in that project as well. So thank you. Modern classical languages celebration night. Um we there all kind every night there's been a celebration of something. Tonight's IV um this was a a recent um classical languages um has an annual celebration. I I believe it or not I'm a photographer. I took this No, I'm not really uh I just happened to I was looking this was done obviously a year ago I think or maybe two years ago. Um the students um uh planted this from the Kyle Care's believe it was Kyle Care's club the hope garden um for mental health awareness. Um and this is the fruits of their work. Here you go in the spring. This is when stuff can really be seen. Um so that's a that's a great project for the for

128the um community. Filibus Filibelli. Um so this was a this is an annual tradition. It used to be in November. Now it's in May. Um and a lot of food was raised for the Cumberland Food Pantry. Um this was on social media as well. Congratulations to Coach Mike Andreasen. Um he was honored by Representative Graham um at the state house. Um and Coach Andreasen has been our boys soccer coach and he's also done girls soccer I think for 30 30 years, something like that. He's he's been a coach in our district for a long long time. and uh small talk here. His son was actually my daughter's math teacher in high school. So um interesting a lot of connections there. National Honor Society. Um big project for them. The Cumberland Community Orchard and Jesse Lamar

129Vincent. Would you like to read your own quote? Uh let's see what I wrote. Uh the Gley National Honor Society did an amazing job helping out at the Cumberland Community Orchard. So over 30 students. I think we had 38. Uh they showed up and got their hands dirty, potting up over 200 keystone trees that we'll give away in the fall into community and helping prep a large planting area for future gardens. And then moved mountains of mulch to all 150 trees there to add wood chips around every single tree. Um yeah, it was really inspiring to to see them out there getting their hands dirty and helping sort of build a community resource. And a lot of a lot of people said that they had fun at the end. They were like, you know, wasn't

130so sure about this, but every Yeah, everybody left enthused and happy and a little bit muddy and it wasn't raining. No, it rain it rained five minutes after we ended. So, um but that's awesome. Thank you, Jesse, for for helping with that, coordinating that. Employee of the year finalist. This is a um this time of year we celebrate. We're always trying to celebrate our staff, but this time of year we have a big one and it's the employee of the year. Um, and we got as many nominations as as we have in the past, maybe a little more. Um, Emily Banks Molton um was nominated as uh she's a science teacher at the high school. Kristen Benoy is a special ed teacher at GMS45. Eric Brown is our mental health specialist for the district. Janna

131King is a kindergarten teacher at Wilson School. and Ariana Rothbart is a fourth and fifth grade uh classroom teacher or fifth grade classroom teacher um at four five. So those five um staff members are finalists for employee of the year. The winner who I don't know who it is because I do not sit on that committee which I always like to open the envelope and say who it is but I like to be surprised. Um, we did go and do a lot of photo ops as you can see here. Um, balloons and interrupted classrooms. We even interrupted a quiz or test that was going on and had to convince a couple kids to put their test down and come and have a photo op with their teacher. Um, but it was a lot of fun.

132Um, going around and we had at the middle school Eric Brown. We had an impromptu group of kids coming down the hallway and they all wanted to jump into the picture. So, it was really fun and we'll be celebrating all five of these staff members at our staff celebration in June and then announcing um the employee of the year for 2025 and putting that in the newsletter and social media. Uh it's always a very festive event and we really appreciate all the staff members who take the time to nominate their own colleagues. Um we have every year I'm impressed with how many people really want to recognize their colleagues. I think it's great. Well, after a little bit of a delay from the Department of Ed uh environmental protection and thank I want to thank

133the D for working diligently to get us the permits and the VRAP permit. We got that late last week. Um and immediately those trucks roared their engines on and we have started site work for the maintenance building in the turf field already. Um the footings uh the concrete is uh footings were poured. Hopefully the rain doesn't take them out, but um I've been told they cure very quickly and actually the rain might help cure them. So, uh you probably have seen piles and piles of dirt and it continues. So, um and nobody seems to mind. All the students seem to be excited about it. Honestly, I've I've gone out there two or three times recently and the kids are just either ignoring it or they're looking at it, but not not uh bothered by it.

134And then groundbreaking ceremony for the new school project. Um just a reminder that is coming and everybody is invited uh June 12th at 6 o'clock. It will be um a rain or shine event. Um and the committee that is working on I know um we have people right here in this room that have been on that committee Megan right um and uh we they're planning a great event um for everyone. know Melissa Porter who put this together, not she's on the committee, but put this information together um on the one campus project page. She wanted me to make sure that she um noted for the board and for the public that we now have a new item called the photo album. And so, as we're beginning these projects, um there are four um project areas.

135is obviously a couple of them have nothing yet. But if you click on the picture, she wanted me to actually show people. You can click on the picture and um there will be at the bottom a photo show that has begun. So for example, if this loads um you can start seeing and people from the public, we want to get this word out as much as we can. you can start seeing the pictures of the progress of these projects and we'll be continuing these this photo album for all of our projects um for the next two years as we it's not loading very well in this setting. Uh but if you go to the website you will see the pictures for example of the maintenance building and of the turf field. Um we'll be having

136those photos and being able to see those that work in progress um as it goes along. So anyway, hopefully you get a better uh feel for it on the website. Um but that is now available and she started doing them and we'll be continuing to keep that updated every week so that um people can see the progress if they don't aren't on campus. That's the superintendent's report. And please make sure you say thank you to Melissa. She does an incredible job. She does. Um and it's great having that information up on our website. So thank you. All right, Katie, you're first up. Okay. Um, quite the lineup here because we are lacking Sophia, but um, here goes. So, for starters basing a nice little anecdote for you guys. Um, I was at school the other

137day and I overheard a conversation about the turf field and I was just listening to some freshmen talking about why it wasn't getting started yet and referring to the arsenic. Someone said, "I'm pretty sure it's because of something about arson." So, I did swoop in and I was like, arsonic? Yeah. No, no, never mind. We're good. So, um, hopefully I fixed that, but it did make me laugh. Um, so things that have been going on, lots of concerts, that takes a lot of work, especially our very musical friends. Um, they're killing it and they sound wonderful. Now, National History Day. No one understands how much work these kids put into National History Day before you see it in action. I've never done one of the projects before, but all of my friends do it. And

138that is why I've never done one because the conversations that I've had with these kids, they it's like I'm talking to my friends and they're like, "Oh, like we got our 199th um source in today." And like there's there's that many sources out there about this niche topic that you chose. That's it's it it's really impressive. Um so props to them. Uh senior's last day of school. Heartbreaking for me. Awesome for them. They loved it. Did No tears were shed. Um but and then they swooped right into prom. Prom was so much fun. Um the junior class officers organized it perfectly. There were like great the venue was great. Transportation was great. Parking, everything. They figured it all out. It was wonderful. There was nice outside space if you wanted to cool off. Got a

139little hot in the barn, but we figured it out. um me Monk, Main Model UN, we all went um our whole team went and we had this goal because we usually the way that um assignments are set for uh certain countries is that usually a team like um a group of five or five to 10 kids will receive a large delegation which is like five or six um like China like you're all going to be China but then the as the country gets smaller, you get smaller delegations. And so, um, me and two of my friends got assigned the Luxembourg delegation, and we knew we would be the only ones with Luxembourg. And so, we made the goal to win the best small delegation. And it would have required us to all win like individual

140awards in our own committees, and then hopefully that that would tie it together. And we were able to. So, to pat myself on the back a little bit more, um, it's pretty cool. It's never been won by Gley before. Um, so our adviserss are really really excited about it. We gave them our awards and everything. They have our flag. Um, but that's pretty cool. And then modern and classical language celebration. Everyone's getting um having their inductions into the Spanish and French honor society as well as juniors are receiving their seals of biiteracy if you pass your exam, which is super cool. Fingers crossed. Um, IB celebration, I guess that's happening right now. Mhm. Maybe that's where Sophia went. Yeah, that's where she went. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, um All right, that's cool. And then while

141the juniors are dragging ourselves through finals, uh we received our senior schedules a few days ago, which is terrifying, but also so much fun. Um so, that's really exciting. And then we have a new representative coming. We don't know who, but like it's going to happen soon. And I'm so excited for interview processes and all of that because um I just I'm so excited to see like my my peers, my younger younger friends and get to see what they have to offer. It's so exciting. But yeah. Okay. Thanks so much, Kate. How's softball, Katie? Um we're winning. It's new for everybody. Um I'm not going to lie, it's it's been an adjustment. Uh but now priorities and um you know, expectations are high. So, we're hoping to continue. We're right now we're the two seed

142for class B. So, we were the top seed until yesterday, but we don't have to talk about it. But, um that's awesome. But yes, it's going well. Thank you. Thank you for asking. All right. Um we once again have a community engagement committee back on the committee reports. That was AI that put out. I mean, Megan, if you want to put another plug in, anything else about the uh groundbreaking groundbreaking ceremony June 12th, be there or be square. Um, we did a walk through in the space, which will be where the new school will be. So, you go around the old maintenance building and then walk into the presently absolutely beautiful, beautiful space. It's green back there. It's gorgeous. So, it's going to be a pretty ceremony. There will be food. There will be music.

143Um, there will be super cute kids with little tiny shovels. Um, everybody's invited. And a big shout out to Melissa who just gets it done. Melissa Porter. She is an absolute force. Um, she has been updating all the uh neighbors on the ceremony as well. So, they've been invited formally. Um, and then a little bit more about what Jeff said. The the photos will continue. She's I think working now with the clerk of the works who is sort of feeding her new photos as the work done gets done. So I think it's going to be a really exciting page on our website to go there and look at exactly what's happening in real time. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. Kim finance. It's been quiet. The bulk of our work is done for the fiscal year in

144the sense that we have the budget out there. So, just a reminder to everybody that June 10th the Yes, 10th, Tuesday the 10th, um please vote if you haven't already via absentee ballot, but Tuesday the 10th, uh you have the opportunity to vote on that budget. If you have any questions or concerns, um please reach out to to us uh to the finance committee. I neglected to do this two weeks ago, by the way, but I really really want to give a big shout out to Sean and Sarah because we spent a lot of time in meetings uh really probing. We did our research and made up our own spreadsheets on our own time. So, thank you both um for for all the work that you put in on that and I apologize again for

145forgetting to do that two weeks ago. Uh so anyway, um budget uh our the work that we have left for this year is getting our updates on the um the quarterlys. Uh we have some uh updating to do um to to look and see how our financial quarters have been going. um as well as where we're at towards the end of the year um in terms of our accounts and are there any places where we've saved some money. So, yep, that's about it. Great. Thank you. Then we're going to move to policy. I do have a question though that has motions for these policies, but since it's a first read, we don't typically do motions. Uh no, we don't. Okay. I'm not sure why those are there. Yeah. AI AI AI. Okay. I did the

146whole committee report. All right. Ar. Right. So, two policies just on for first read tonight. Um, so these will move to second read and items for action at our next meeting. Uh, starting with GCSB, use of social media by school employees. This is very similar to the policy that we just approved for board members and um, kind of the rationale for revisiting it is very much the same. um backstory. In fact, at the bottom of this policy, you'll see essentially the same language that we just approved in the board version of this policy applying to school administrator use of social media. So, that is the biggest um addition and change to this policy. In fact, it pretty much entirely mirrors it. The other changes that you'll see higher up in the document are again just

147language updates. So the um the stricken language is what was previously in the policy. That's what's in red. In blue were the um updates from Drummond and Woodsum. Um the blue that is crossed out is part of the was part of the Drummond Woodsome um sample policy but was not something that we had previously had in our policy and was not something that um that we wanted to put into policy. Uh so that's why you see that stricken but it's not that we're taking language out. It's just that we that was language that we decided not to adopt that was suggested as a possibility. Um we did have association involvement in and feedback from uh the association as we went through these discussions which was definitely helpful to have. Um, specifically under C, personal use

148of social media. There was quite a bit of conversation around um what you'll see crossed out, school employees are prohibited from friending students. Um, also understanding that friending is really just one social media platform and maybe not one that a lot of people are using these days or at least the younger folks. Um and we were able to draw on some language that is used in uh York's policy um which Carl Francis the high school principal had previously worked on and was able to bring to our attention understanding that we are in a small community where sometimes uh relationships between families and even with staff and students who are in our schools are not only based on the fact that they are in our schools but they might have other familial relationship. ationships or outside

149of the schools. And so, um, incorporating language that sought to recognize that is what you see in blue toward the bottom of page two there under personal use of social media. Um and we also had some good conversation around let's see trying to see where that oh the very next paragraph just in terms of employees being expected to keep their uh role in mind as public employees and um role models for students and that kind of thing. So really appreciated the association's input um in those conversations so that I think everyone could get to a place where seemed like this was again actually practical um and not just something that we would have in policy. Can I ask a question? Sure. So I yeah I respect how delicately this all needs to be handled. I'm

150just wondering um the paragraph about friending, should that include friending or following? Um I know that there was an incident at a school where a teacher followed a student on Instagram and that isn't necessarily engaging in an interaction, but is that worth specifying? My thought exactly adding following maybe to friending. Did you all discuss that or was that I feel like that language did come up and I don't Jesse or Jeff I don't know if you remember specifically. I don't think that there would be I don't think that there would be a specific concern with like we didn't say we shouldn't include that for some reason that I can recall. Um so I don't recall that. Yeah, I don't recall I don't recall that being an issue that we were concerned enough about to put

151it in the policy. Like I know there's a lot of student run accounts for high school things. Yeah. And I would assume that teachers would be following that. Yeah. I'm just watching watching watching the teacher. No. Or not following What about don't follow Rangers Nation, Mr. Albourne? Specifically, what about sports teams? Because some sports teams use these platforms to like communicate. That's fine. Did that come out? Yeah. I think it's because it says um it's not an individual, right? Yeah. Outside of school approved activities. So, anything to do with sports or clubs or Okay. anything else. Even if it's student run, it's not an individual. It's a Yeah. It's the establishing relationships, engaging interactions outside of school approved activities. So I mean you read that very broadly you could say that following somebody's personal account

152with your personal Instagram would be interacting on social media and therefore wouldn't be allowed. I think we just didn't want to spell out every single thing. But there was talk about why we're using the word friending. But it's it's in quotes. So friending or following or I think any of those things could be included watching. Yeah. I mean that's not just like engaging or like interacting because like I think if you say friending to me I don't use any apps where I would consider anyone like friending me, right? Yeah. I mean adding following requesting. Yeah. Establishing relationships, engaging in interactions. Okay. It's pretty broad. Yeah. Basically you just shouldn't be involved with students digitally outside of school approved activities I think is the gist of it. That's good. So Katie, are students I mean is

153it a is it a thing that you would be encouraged to keep your Instagram account private and if you were if a teacher requested to follow you I I don't know like if a teacher that would be scary. Um I'd probably I mean that I've never heard of it ever happening. Not really but um not here. I don't I have heard of it here. Um, I think that there would definitely I mean if someone if like one of my friends were to be like, "Oh, like this like person just like requested to follow me." I would be like, "Maybe we should talk about this." Like that would be much more of a conversation. It would not be brought up lightly. I think that would that would definitely be worrisome. Yeah. Like just Yeah. environmentally, globally.

154Globally. Other questions about that one at this point? So again, we will come back for second read on that um next time. And then our other policy that's on for first read tonight is ECAD security camera system. And I believe so Scott did a lot of work on this right with a um subcommittee around our security camera system placement usage storage. Um and there was good discussion on the committee as well. Originally, this was kind of presented in two parts and the committee determined that we really did want to have it all um under the same policy heading that was pretty explicit about, you know, where cameras may be placed, where they cannot be placed. Um, but really appreciate the work that Scott and the folks who he um brought together did to bring this

155to the committee. Any questions about that one at this point? You can have another opportunity to come back to it. Yeah. Is um 30 days the uh the data picked up by the camera being kept for 30 days. Is that just sort of like industry standard? That is what is allowed by law. Um and we would not necessarily be keeping it for that long, but just you know to kind of cover the the basis of what is allowed. Okay. Under law. I think I have that right on that. We could keep it up for up to 30 days. I don't think we do. Yeah. But we could. We don't have the capacity right now. I think ours is 14 days if I remember correctly that we're keeping it. Um, so that's our software and also

156if we put it on a drive and keep it for a, you know, a particular reason. Yeah. And it allows us to keep it obviously for, you know, a reason beyond that. And is it kept locally or is it in some cloud that can be potentially hacked? Um, we we just moved to the we just move I think it's local, but we just moved our um Scott, do you know the answer to that? I believe we just moved um every we did move everything to the cloud, but yeah, I would have to get back to you on the specifics on that, how that works because we just purchased a new software. Yeah, I'm just it's probably secure. I'm just wondering about a scenario where someone may want to delete something that happened and so they

157can access it somehow. It's kept on a server. So is it local? It's local. Yeah, it's a local. It's local server. Okay, cool. Trying to remember and I know on the camera system. Okay. So it is a local server. Scott just verified that. Okay. Um, so then other than those two that are on for first read, the committee met uh on Tuesday of this past week. And as mentioned, we began reviewing the employee technology devices and internet use rules with the um generative AI edition there as well as the student use of district-owned technology device rules. So we do anticipate um finishing our discussion of those at our next meeting on June 10th. and then bringing those to the board um for first read on June 18th, I think that would be. And we expect

158to have a couple other things uh for the board at that time too for first read. Um and I think the only other thing that I wanted to mention in the update tonight, I'm just going to find um are a couple updates. Sorry, bear with me while I find this in my email real quick. Um, so just wanted to let the board know that so earlier this year, as you all probably remember, we were asked to look at our policies related to crisis response teams. Um and keeping in mind the role of state laws and regulations related to IEPs, the policy committee did discuss this request by reviewing um the board policies related to visitors to schools um policy KI as well as use of physical restraint and seclusion JKA and our physical restraint and

159seclusion procedure JKA R and the committee determined that no changes to those policies were needed. did. Um, one item that was noted in our discussion was language in the procedure JK R um, which states that staff may request additional assistance from other school staff, parents, medical providers, or other appropriate persons or organizations if attempts to release a student from physical restraint or seclusion have been unsuccessful and the student continues to present behaviors that create an imminent risk of injury or harm to him or herself or others. Um, and so, uh, you know, in kind of keeping with having policies that allow for flexibility, um, for our administrators and for our staff, we felt like that that um, that that offered that opportunity um, in our policies. And so, I just wanted to update the board

160on that. um as well as another request that the policy committee had been asked to consider around our public participation at board meetings, BEDH, and uh the committee did determine that we would like to take that up and are trying to figure out how best to do that potentially um over the the summer and I think still need to work out the details of how that could work, but ideally thinking that if some work could be done on that over the summer, it might be something that could come before the board at the retreat in August possibly. Um, again, I think just trying to figure out a way to be efficient with that work and not have to put it off to the next school year. But details DBA. Thanks, Anukica. Can I add a

161comment, suggestion, thought? Um the regarding the placement of security cameras and it notes like not having them in bathrooms, locker rooms, private offices of course. Um you might want to consider um also not placing them outside the access to bathrooms or locker rooms. Um, as far as who's going in and out, not having placed them or do you say not placing not placing them so that it's recording who's going in and out perhaps farther down the hallway so you can then observe there, but thinking of some things that are coming down the pipeline, you might want to have more um discretion about who is uh going in. Um, can you do you mind elaborating or can you elaborate on that? Who's using which bathroom and who's using which locker room? Oh, I see what you're

162saying. Um, yeah, our cameras honestly are wolffully inadequate in some parts of our buildings. Um, one of the things that has been helpful is if there is some sort of issue that goes on in a restroom or bathroom or something like that, um, being able to figure out who went in and what time. sometimes can be helpful to an administrator. So, very few people have access to these cameras ever. Um, and the people that have access to them would already know that information, already be aware of that information anyway. Um, so I maybe we can talk more. Mhm. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks. So, I also just confirmed with Durk that the uh cameras are backed up at each individual school and that the um I do know that the bus cameras do

163have some in the cloud activity. So, administrators can activate, you know, can basically uh draw it in from that thing, but but it's not kept stored longer than a period of time. If we keep anything that has to be kept for more than the 30 days, it's usually backed up on the administrator's computer. So that's good to know. Great. Thanks. So the next committee is our building committeef facilities. Um Tim has a very nice reason that he's not here tonight. Uh he added a future gre gley grad class of 2043. Um so exciting. No name yet, but we did suggest using AI to come up with a name. Not sure. So just really excited. That's great for him and his family. Yes. So awesome. Um and I do know that we are looking to get

164another facilities meeting on the calendar just to talk through summer projects, go through there's so much happening on campus and to look at the the long-term facilities plan. But I don't think there's been a meeting, Sean, Megan, I don't think there's been a meeting since our last board meeting. Correct. There hasn't been a building committee meeting since April 16th. Okay. So, there's not really much update from from that. Yeah. And facilities. We need to specifically talk about the revolving renovation fund at the high school. Okay. And the SRF project there. And it'd be great to meet. Yeah. So, it' be nice to um do some outreach to get a meeting on the calendar soon. That would be a good idea. Um because yes, there there's there's lots going on there. Um, curriculum. Christina, I'll talk

165about curriculum, but let me just say for facilities, I'm glad you said that. Facilities/building committee because I I skipped a heartbeat when I saw that on the list and I thought, wow, have I missed all my facilities meetings committee? Yeah, I'll blame that on AI slash. Okay, so um, no facilities for me curriculum. We had our last meeting on the 19th and there were two topics that we covered. Um the first topic was uh Mari went over very thoroughly with us about the literacy curriculum recommendation. Um the different schools um Mabel I and 45 have been the grades have been uh piloting some reading programs and for Mabel I they had been looking at specifically fish tank some programs they had been looking at previous year and CKL CKLA which is core core knowledge language

166arts and they they had different teachers um piloting them with different classes and they found actually by March that it was so impactful the CKLA actually um and where the students were were what they were getting out of it that they stopped the pilot on fish tank and realized that um the way to go really would be CKLA. So um skipping to the end that's their recommendation. The reasons they chose it um I just plucked out a few of her reasons. Um they found that the the core knowledge language arts really incorporates a lot of the foundational knowledge like you have to know something about a topic in order to be able to then really understand the words you can decode because a a child can be taught how to decode once they know the

167alphabet. But just because you know how to say a word doesn't mean you know what it is or what it means in context. So this program really incorporates that really well and it did result in the students being able to decode and read um and understand the meaning of words much better and faster and also it has a writing component. They can write on the topic using those words very uh effectively. And interestingly, um, this particular program includes handwriting, which Sarah may want to address more, but that is something that has been, um, cut out of many schools, partly timing and needing to teach typing, etc. And this, um, there's a lot of value to it, as Sarah could speak to, and perhaps this is a one way that our school can um, expand on

168that. So that's at Mabel Eye and at 45 they've been piloting ARC arc which I don't recall what that stands for but um that's ongoing. Um their priorities in these programs is to align um what align the new program with the science of reading and writing that they have. So it'll mesh together really well. It'll be cohesive across the grades as the key the kids move up. They won't be jarring that they're like suddenly doing some other program. It it fits in really well. and also the the experience of the staff and the professional development offerings have been great. Um they found them to be great. So they have chosen CKLA and more on that later as they as they take it on bring it on board. Um so that was the literacy curriculum recommendation

169that they've been working on and she reported on Maria reported on and then the strategic planning process. Um Jeff gave us a quick intro into that and he's going to be telling um you all especially in the fall a lot more about that. Um he went through the four phases that are going to be covered during the year. Um I won't go through those because you will be seeing a lot of that. However um I will note that the priorities that he identified is to focus on having one campus, one community as a theme. uh focus on college and career profile of a learner as you saw is already a lot of work's been done on that already and safety and belonging and it is during this um strategic planning that you all will be

170going through happily starting in the fall sorry I'll miss you um no it'll be a very important process and but it is the opportunity for you to figure out and start placing um new ideas into the um whole all the programs like AI, STEM, and I'm going to put a plug in for world languages at the elementary school. Um, you don't have to incorporate all those things, but I will haunt you if you don't start talking about it more. Um, so that's um some of our curriculum meeting. Um, and if anyone in the committee wants to um add anything to that, that would be there's the first haunt. I know um our ghost that would be um great. Great. Thank you, Christina. Um, equity, Kim. Uh, we have our last scheduled meeting for the school

171year next week where we will be discussing uh just kind of wrapping up the year, but also uh trying to get a sense of what next year will look like. Um, so yeah, there will be more to report at the next meeting. Great. Thanks, Kim. Any ad hoc committee reports? Oh, I'll just put a plug in for PTO about the upcoming Memorial Day fun run and 5K. They might still be looking for volunteers as well. So, great. Can you walk in that too? Yes. Yes, absolutely. That's more fun than the dog. Great. Thank you. Um, I had an athletic advisory meeting that got moved and we're meeting now in June. everyone. Sports are very busy. It was too busy to be able to have a meeting, so that was moved. Um, for communications, I just

172want to give a couple short updates. Um, we as our at our joint board meeting last week, we discussed a number of topics related to shared services. We're really looking forward to um updating that spreadsheet and the information around shared services and really start to explore a little deeper the areas in which we can expand um some of these opportunities. Um, and I think we'll be working and talking about that through the summer. And then we'll have another joint meeting with the two towns this fall where I hope that we're going to get into some more detailed updates and and plans for the future. So, really looking forward to that. Um, and then we only have two more board meetings of this board. I don't know if you've looked at your calendar, which seems hard

173to believe. Christina's like, "Yep, I have. I have looked. Um, and we also have an election. Uh, Kim and I are both uh on the ballot in our respective towns. I'm running unopposed. So, sorry guys. You'll be stuck with me again for another three years. And I hope we're also stuck with with Kim. Um and given that uh the way that board leadership uh has worked previously, so the last board meeting of this board is per policy when we vote for the next board leadership. The process for the past few years is that an outgoing board member has met with all the the current board members um to discuss uh upcoming leadership opportunities um and bring a recommendation based on those conversations uh to to the last meeting for a vote. Um, and Christina has

174agreed uh [Laughter] um uh to that process and pro she'll probably start reaching out to individual board members in early June um to discuss. So, I can't believe uh that's coming up so quickly. So, that's the updates I had on her communications. Katie, I have a question um regarding interview processes for the new rep. How does that work? I didn't realize there was going to be executive sessions, so I had some questions. But, um, do I get pulled out of class? No, we'll schedule it. Um, we schedule it with you in mind and all the students that are going to be interviewing as well. Got it. So, it's generally after 2:30 in the afternoon. Oh, okay. Thank you. I was like, do you want to be pulled out of Yeah. No, that that's fine. Okay.

175I think And so, yeah, usually a board member participates and I think forgot if we've confirmed that, but we will confirm that. Um, and yeah, and then we'll get a rising a rising a new rising junior, which will be exciting. All right. Um, can I have a motion to enter executive session to consult with legal counsel concerning the rights and duties of the board of directors with respect to a grievance pursuant of state statute 1, MRSA 4056E? So moved. Thank you, Christina. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you, Sean. All in favor. Great. It's unanimous. Thank you. Um and thank you, Katie. Thank you, guys. Hello, everyone. Um so, I think the process is going to be we're going to have a a very short meeting in