MSAD #51 School Board Meeting- April 1, 2024

001e believe we are all right good evening everyone it's so great to have a nice full audience hello I'd like to call to order the msad51 board of directors meeting Monday April 1st welcome um we are going to kick tonight off with some very exciting recognition I'd like to welcome the athletic director David Shapiro and State Rep Steve Mor Ari to the podium well thank you very much you have someone else to to welcome tonight and that is state rep an Graham oh hi hi nice to see because we have two sentiments to present tonight Annie and I have decided to do one a piece wonderful it's only fair and only fitting so uh I'll I'll begin I'm State Rep Steve morard I live in Cumberland I represent Cumberland in the legislature together with shig

002Island and Long Island it's house district 110 and I'm out of breath because I've just raced back from Augusta where we had a longer day than anticipated we're doing some cramming because we know we're going to get snowed out on Thursday and uh we don't have time for a snow day so but it's good to be here tonight and you've uh seen I think both of us do this before when uh when gy teams win state championships we present what's called a legislative sentiment to the team members the coaches the parents it's really for everybody and the district itself so uh it's kind of a small script but it comes in a nice gevy maroon biner which is white on the inside so school colors and all um and so I'll just read the text

003for you and and present this to I guess to coach Ding and uh and his and his uh his team members so it reads state of Maine be it known that we the members of the Senate and House of Representatives join in recognizing the greedy High School boys indoor track and field team of Cumberland which won the 2024 Class B state championship we extend our congratulations and best wishes and be it ordered that this official expression of sentiment be sent forth with on behalf of the 131st legislature and the people of the state of Maine and this is signed by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the house together with the leading officials of both bodies and uh this is jointly sponsored by representative Graham Senator Pur and myself so I'm thrilled

004to be able to make this presentation to all of you tonight but particularly to the team and its coaches this is your chance to be on stage and screen so come on forward fellas and if one of you would share uh with the group here and TV Land uh some of your experience yeah introduce yourself and your teammate hi I'm Charlie um had no idea I was speaking until five minutes ago um so I just want to introduce you to some of the guys that came here tonight um they are the life of the team and I would say probably the captains um so I'm going to first we're going to start with Jonah gbo he placs for the 4x1 hurdles and 400 um scoring a a lot of points in States was a big

005contributor Bez he sadly couldn't make States but he was a big contributor all season for the 400 meter um he ran the 800 meter 4X two um just a a great guy to be around with uh we got got Sam Kim uh placed for the 4X two uh 200 and that's it and and uh Sam and Ania pval and I myself high jump and 4 by8 um these guys are great to be team teammates with um coach ding has always said if you show up and you work hard you're going to succeed and that's exactly what we did um and I'm really happy to say that we won States so thank you so much uh good night congratulations guys so next up so hey I'm Annie Graham I'm the state representative for all of North

006Yarmouth and two-thirds of Grace so my loyalties get a little split sometimes right so no not really being the wife of a coach and the mom of former athletes my heart is here so um so yeah um so I want to thank um Steve um where representative Mor Ari for um for putting this all together he was really the one that that put it all together and said Annie come and present one of them I'm like sure and often this happens we invite you guys up some of you may have been up to the legislature and sit in the gallery and we recognize you're there so um so actually I think I like this better so so I have the honor to present this legislative sentiment to the girls notic ski team so um so

007I will go ahead and read it so the state of Maine be it known to all that we the members of the Senate and House of Representatives join and recognizing the grey high school girls Nordic ski team of Cumberland which actually in North Yarmouth too which won the 2024 Class B state championships we extend our congratulations and best wishes and be it ordered that this official expression of sentiment be sent forth on behalf of the 131st legislature and the people of the state of Maine again signed by Senator Troy Jackson president of the Senate um representative Rachel talbet Ross who is the speaker of the house um and also signed by the secretary of the Senate and this Clerk of the house and again I want to thank uh representative morard and um along with

008uh Senator Pierce who was um sponsoring this so my friends come on up I have to say that you know many of you know I only have boys and I'm looking over at my my good colleague uh coach colleague uh coach andron so um I I live and breathe soccer as we just noted on the way in and unfortunately my kiddo didn't ever get this honor but you guys you ladies certainly did so thank this is great congratulations and any one of you want to speak really quickly you can do it all right yeah just like uh Charlie we had no idea we're supposed to be speaking to like five minutes ago um just now actually but um uh I just wanted to recognize all the hard work um the Nordic team has gone through

009we had no snow this season we had dry land every day and we really had to put in the work and keep the Spirit Alive so yeah we'd also just like to thank our coaches coach D coach Cam and Coach Emily and our parents for everything they've done for us and then also just the ski team because they've just an amazing community and I'm going to really miss them for since this is our last year oh yeah so we have we have Lena Ava Evelyn Ella Riley and Rowan on St Harvey the triple winner and also Eve 11 but she's running late and she might pop in the door in like 30 seconds so yeah we just want to thank everyone um for this amazing season and I'm glad won yeah thank [Applause] you great

010congratulations thanks everyone so we have one additional recognition this evening I'm GNA um welcome Pathways coordinator Andrew F up to talk about the Ken we project and Carl Francis I'll welcome you too you're right uh the multiple Pathways coordinator is the star of the show tonight uh Mr F and uh the students that he works with on a regular basis and today tonight I wanted to recognize one program in particular um which was gy High School's first year involved with it um I don't was it last summer or was it this fall um we were approached uh summer we were approached um and invited actually to participate in a pro a program called the Ken we project um and we received a grant and we saw value in it and we decided to go for

011it uh the Ken we project is I'll keep it brief so he can explain it is a way to revitalize uh democracy really it's uh it's the ability for a diverse group of students to be together in a room to Grapple with um topics and concerns of our day and to um have the ability to really listen and learn from everybody's different perspectives in order to formulate their own personal decision um in the process which I think is is super important and I'm very proud of the work that our students have put in this year and the work that Mr F has done to organize this so let me introduce Mr first to you thank you so the can we project which is a a under project of the third thought which is a larger

012organization focuses on the idea of developing skills in young people to engage uh in dialogue across differences which is um a thing we possibly are finding challenging in our society these days uh with the hope of of fostering meaningful conversation and thoughtful Civic engagement a group of 10 gy students participated in several daylong workshops and one Retreat this year where they practiced these skills uh it was really wonderful to work with these thoughtful and committed young people and it was inspiring to see how much they deeply care about making the world and even more specifically their Community better uh just like Mr Francis instead of me talking about it we'll just quickly have a few students come up so two of those terrific people are Brady and Audrey who will share a little bit of

013of their experience with you and thanks so [Applause] much thank you um they both just talked about the kenry project so I'll skip that part of my speech but basically um overall it was having conversations with other people without it without it entering and like arguing or hating each other in the end which is great but the kenry project was an amazing experience at first Mr F brought it up to me and I said said yes because I trusted him but if I'm being honest I was a little scared I didn't know what I was going into or what to expect so over over this year we had three meetings two here in the Geer room and then one in Augusta and if I had the opportunity to do it to do it again I

014totally would my favorite part was talking with everyone and sharing our stories and opinions while yes we share some of the same opinions we have different reasoning one of the things we talked about was how you need to hear all sides of the argument if you only hear one side or don't listen to other people you won't get anywhere and you don't have to agree with the person in the end but it's good for understanding so we talked about one thing that like the quote being you don't have to agree you just have to accept so an example of this is I am a distance Runner my brother's a sprinter I think distance running is harder than sprinting but my brother thinks sprinting is harder than distance and so I can see where he's coming

015from on that but I don't have to agree with him and obviously we're going to take this to a larger example but running yeah so we can we can apply this to other conversations that we have in the real life I've taken so much from the kenry project and I use it every day in my life and I would full-heartedly tell you that if you can be part of the kenry project you should and I have a really great example that I wanted to share but Audrey told me I wasn't allowed to share it so you're going to hear it from her in a few minutes but um if any of you are never able to take part in the kenry project I would say do it so thank you okay so this is abouta

016be my story my favorite story to tell people about what I learned at the cany project so basically this is is an extreme but let's say you're in a parking lot right and you see this perfect parking spot right front row perfect and someone cuts you off and they take the parking spot you're going to be upset you might like you know have a little bit of road rage right but what if you find that out that the person in that car just got a devastating phone call that the person like a loved one in that store needs to go to hospital so the reason they cut in front of you wasn't because they just want to steal your spot or they're like screw this guy like I want this spot not them it's because

017they needed to get to their loved one so taking this back to what we learned at the cany project you never really know what is causing someone to have this opinion you can disagree with them but if you take a step back and see all sides of where they might be coming from you can have a much well-rounded a much better well-rounded perspective Ive So yeah thank [Applause] you thanks everyone okay we're g to move to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of meeting minutes can I get a motion please for the approval of the March 18th minutes so moved so moved Christin okay thank you CHR cha can I get a second a second okay thanks cam everyone's like on different sides today and it's throwing me a little off

018where is everyone okay um any questions or comments on the meeting minutes hearing nothing all in favor of approval approval unanimous thank you okay so the next um part of the agenda is public comment I'm going to read a short summary let me get my huge binder out on the right order okay so the board welcomes and recognizes the value of public comment and to ensure that public comment is fair and orderly we follow procedures outlined in board policy BH and we ask that all members of the public do so as well we follow this policy to help keep the meeting civil respectful and productive we also hope that this allows for all community members members who would like to speak to be heard we ask that speakers use the designated Podium when making their

019comments and speak into the microphone if you're interested in speaking please wait until you're recognized by myself the the chair comments by individuals are limited to a maximum of 3 minutes at a meeting a clock is visible on screen to help keep track of time after 3 minutes the timer will go off and the comments should be wrapped up please state your name and town of residence before beginning your remarks residents and staff members will be given priority over non-residents within the allocated time frame our policy allows for 30 total minutes of public comment although that can be modified at the discretion of the board as a reminder public comment is not a time for discussion Q&A or debate between the board and speakers rather is it a chance for members of the public to

020express their opinions on school and educational matters the board will not comment on remarks made by speakers during the public comment period please note that this does not mean we are not listening and it does not express any agreement or disagreement with your statement lastly please keep comments respectful and civil we are neighbors here be kind that includes members of the audience please do not interrupt or respond to a speaker's comments we also ask that comments are addressed to myself the chair please do not direct comments at or about individuals in our schools or Community I will note that I will stop any comment that is contrary to these rules and that individuals who disrupt the meeting may be asked to leave so this is the general public comment we also have u a public

021hearing on the school budget later in the agenda um we'll if if people are staying for that item they're also welcome to speak specifically about the budget at that time so I welcome anybody who is here for a public comment sure okay I'm not used just speaking to a bunch of people be patient with me I know we got a three minute clock the reason why I'm here is this proposal on the new Elementary School room and the prek and the turf I'm disturbed that those two are linked they are separate issues in order to be viewed on their Merit first of all I'm also concerned about language Turf is defined as grass and surface layer of Earth held together by its roots it is not artificial past Turf regular Turf promotes diversity grass absorbs

022carbon artificial turf does not I'll tell you I also do not know the cost of the turf and maybe I'll find that out tonight the community has a right to know the cost of that Turf on that that field over there and putting past into our community why I'm so concerned I think we all know past effects andren system liver thyroid as well as neurotoxicity immunox toxicity the women in this room I'm sure are aware that past is in the placenta and this is as good as we can do we're going to put this out on this athletic field and put this known toxicity into our Community it has been banned in the EU Quebec several German cities recently in October new California law laws allow towns and communities to ban it for its toxicity

023other other communities in Florida and Connecticut the same there were those who thought they were at an athletic disadvantage without artificial turf here's a quote from the NFL medical director last fall if if it were your brother's son or father exposed to these um chemicals would you take the risk the NFL has been trying to get rid of artificial turf one because of the injuries and now two because of their toxicity and I don't think they run around worrying about their advantage the US national soccer team will only play on natural G grass I don't think it's hurt their competitiveness I am deeply concerned Mercy 34 seconds huh of where you're putting it you're on an elevated spot the drainage is going to go down it's going to go through the elderly housing and those

024condos as someone who's elderly we have enough health issues it is going to go down on the playing fields of our Junior High School students our ele school students now our PK students who wants the responsibility for passing past toxic chemicals onto those children third it's going to go into my neighborhood we have enough cancer in our neighborhood baloney um can you your name that I I want that water that's going to accumulate that drainage that's going to come down there who's going to test it who's going to pay for it and who's going to stand up when the lawsuits come down around can you just share your can you share your name and town of residence good okay I apologize guys um think it's that important I'm I live in Cumberland 15 Meadow Lane

025my name is Glenn Morini it's nice to see some of you and uh I appreciate your patience uh tonight thank you thank you Glenn is there someone else who's here to speak thank you hi my name is Melissa gatin and I am a resident of Cumberland I live at 325 Main Street and I'm here as a neighbor uh And in regards to lighting so I have approached the town about this issue um but it is in regards to brown tail moth um and the impact that light has on attracting the moths to the area um and as somebody who is very reactive to brown tail moth I'm asking the goal to consider the amount of light that is on on Main Street during the peak time of brown tail moth activity um and there is

026actually documentation on the State website about the impact of light pollution and the increase in Browntown moth activity um I actually have pictures from last spring of the oak trees on Main Street on msad property with brown tail moth uh activity on them and so I would be happy to share those with you as well um I will also make a plug for the birds while I'm here because lights do affect migration um and so again I would just like the school to consider uh reducing how much light is happening um During certain times of the year in particular so thank you thank you is there anyone else here to speak for public comment great thank you Bruce sh and Blanchard Road in Cumberland I'm here to talk about the referendum I think this uh

027Turf proposal and the school should be separate referendums I personally am going to vote no on the turf and if it's part of the school thing I will be voting no on that when I'm really in favor of the school I know we need the school we don't need the turf field in fact we just went through this with the Town Council a little bit here in cumin $3 million is what the price tag is for the tur little over three million it's the same number that the Town Council was throwing around for Little League fields you're putting up new schools for people that are very young they're going to need Little League fields we already need them I know miles hunt I coached him in basketball he's complained to me for the last five

028years of not enough Little League fields I would rather see the 3 million in Little League fields I'm not in favor of the turf I can tell you out in West Cumberland where I live there are many people that will vote no on that Turf they are not in favor of it I'm not and uh I suggest that you split those two referendums so that you know how true it is if you get a know on the school you won't know if it's the school or the or the turf that was turned down and again there's going to be a lot of negative about the turf and and I'm one of them and I'm going to be campaigning against it I don't want to spend 3 million on Turf I am willing to spend three

029million on Little League I actually suggested to the council that the school take over the little league because North Yarmouth right now is not participating in the cost of building any new fields and if it was part of the school it would be split percentage wise by the school uh the Two Towns by school now there's some advantages to having the school take over the athletic complex make it part of the athletic complex so again the turf again I think you really need to think about whether you when you put that referendum out if you put them together and you get a no you're not going to know why it's a no really thank you is there anyone else here who would like to speak during public comment I am Sarah Rose North Yarmouth 107

030Hollowell um excuse me basically gonna agree with what Bruce said I think that if we put the turf field in as a line item to separate separate these two things I think that you can get a real feel on what whether the people want the turf or not but if you put it in with the school proposal it's going to sink the ship and I've talked to a lot of people and and that seems to be a real sticking point um I also want to put in a huge plug please consider the community model for preschool there is a pilot program that is going on we have less than 30 days to put it together um it is it has to be started by the msid and you have to approach a Community Preschool it

031can be a center base it can be a family child care one of them will pil it with the school we have to clear the application process that would be a Hail Mary but um it's possible it's a OnePlus One Grant so the first year would be paid for or by the Department of Education I believe it's the Department of Education and then if they the agreement is if they get the funding it will be a plus one so essentially the school would contract with one Community Preschool theoretically for two years um and then it would turn into a sustainability issue so it's it's a possibility I'm a preschool teacher and a school Age Care I've race a lot of kids here one right thank you is there anyone else here for public comment all

032right I'll close public comment thank you so now we're going to move on to presentations I'm excited to welcome back Andrew F uh to present on the pathways and Silo projects hello Andrew F Pathways coordinator I'm just going to Dive Right In It has been a pleasure working with a large number of gy students on their independent study Silo courses over the past two years and that's what a silo is it's an independent study uh which the work of the silos for me represents a large percentage of what I do but not uh the entirety of what I do over the past two years I have worked with over 80 students helping them create credit-bearing independent study courses based on their interests career aspirations and passions uh these courses which represent an opportunity to study

033something that is not offered at gley high school have run the gamut students have studied everything from disability rights to obstetrics from personal training to biopharmaceuticals from concert photography to drone pilot lure uh from Environmental Education to sports management and so much more students have interned a dozens of professional organizations received dozens of professional certifications have worked with several hundred professionals and fostered meaningful connections uh with local professionals and community members these courses provide one more way to offer students AG Greely an opportunity to learn connect explore and grow and many of them uh report that the individualization provided by these courses and opportunities has been transformative in addition to these courses the pathways office has been able to set up dozens of job chattering opportunities has provided programming such as the can we project

034on Civic engagement has supported a good number of senior projects uh and has also engaged students in Regional and National competitions including uh solve for tomorrow where students were mainstate champions last year working with professionals uh in Portland and at eain on past remediation and Rural drinking water uh and National History Day where students are currently slated to head to States in just a couple weeks amongst other things instead of hearing from me I figured that having a collection of students share their experiences was the most meaningful way to hear about the programming so that you know how impactful it has been for students here at gy starting off Brady will share about their internship with USA swimming Lauren will talk about her work with main youth for climate Justice Khloe and Al will talk

035about their film making Silo Violet will share about the novel she wrote with the support of a writer in Portland and Audrey will share about her two medical related silos I want to thank you for the support of this programming and of the students the students you will hear from tonight have worked incredibly hard accomplished so much and they've truly only just begun it is my hope that Pathways programming will only grow offering even more opportunities for students to learn experientially while fostering meaningful connections with the community thanks go to the school board for supporting this programming for the incredible support and encouragement of the district and the gy high school administration uh to the hundreds of Community Partners who have given of their valuable time and expertise and of course to the students who

036is are the entire reason we do this and who have poured their hearts into the work so without any further Ado here's Brady thank thank you thank you I back already um deal deer school board and the Cumberland North armouth Community um I've spoken at a few school boards already but I am Brady hail a senior at gy high school and I'm here to talk about the multiple Pathways program at gy High School Mr for and I met around halfway through my junior year of high school I knew I wanted to do want to do an internship job Shad out or something similar however I had no idea where or what direction to head in after a few meetings with Mr F we decided to wait until my senior year to start any new internships

037so we set up a meeting at the beginning of this year and I still had no idea what I wanted to do I told Mr F that and he said if you could do any internship right now what would it be and instantly I said USA swimming so we started to get started to get to work in that same meeting I sent an email to USA swimming asking if they had any internship opportunities and a few days later they responded Yes it turns out that I was the first official intern that they have ever had and I would not have gotten that opportunity without Mr f with USA swimming I worked with the diversity equity and inclusion team and I've learned a lot about myself and Dei first I love podcasts I realized that I

038learned so much better listening to podcasts than I do reading a book or looking at a website online I learned that there's a lot more in Dei than I originally thought and I learned a cool word which is intersectionality which basically is all the pieces that make you who you are so uh an analogy with this if you think about the roads leading into an intersection all those roads are the different pieces of who you are for me it's swimmer brother twin Runner lifeguard and it goes on and on and on they're all the pieces that make you who you are make you unique I also got to Shadow the town manager Bill Shane for the day and I learned so much from him and originally I didn't know what I was also I didn't

039know what I I was expecting that day but I learned a lot about the town both Cumberland and North Yarmouth and the different projects that were happening around town when I first started talking to Mr F I had no idea what I wanted to do in life and while he did tell me that as a junior in high school it's okay to not know what you want to do for the rest of your life it still made me a bit nervous and after my internship and shadowing B Shane I have a better idea of what I want to do in the future as of now I want a dual major in political science and history I don't know where I'm going to college yet we're still figuring that out and I would not have known

040that without the work that I've done with Mr F I think silos and multiple path in the multiple pathway program is amazing on my paper that's in all caps too it allows you to get real world real world experience while being able to find your true self and see where you're interested in some people know that they want wanted to go into the medical field sports manage management or something similar but I did not so this experience allowed me to learn so much about who I I am as a person and what I enjoy doing so thank you so much and have a great rest of your [Applause] evening hi oh hi um my name is Lauren Hester and I am also a senior at gley high school um I interned with M youth for

041climate Justice over a span of I'm going to say late June to November December of this year I did many things there uh spanning from Grant research to graphic design both of things before going into this I had no clue about so it was great to learn a new skill but I think the most important thing I learned during this internship was about youth activism uh for example I was able to attend uh attend a pine tree Amendment event that took place at BO at Boden College um and there was a youth speak talking about her experience she's from Montana and she was talking about her experience of how she sued with a with a group of other young students who sued the state of Montana for violating their right to a clean and healthy

042environment and it was really inspiring me inspiring for me to see um people just like me who are attending High School who are scared about their homework or the big test they have coming up doing such inspiring things at the age that we are and I think that it taught me that situations can be scary with big audiences but that doesn't mean that you have to be quiet and that doesn't mean that you can't speak your truth because if there's one thing I've learned from this internship it's that I have a voice and that I can use it and it can make a difference and I wouldn't have been able to really master that idea without this internship so thank you hello my name is Khloe Schuman and I'm Alina Schuman uh as you can

043tell we're twins but we also happen to be doing a silo together um on film making and when I if you guys didn't know but you probably don't um alen and I studied abroad for our junior year in France but we were completely apart and I happened to be in a Northern Region where I was able to study French Cinema and I absolutely loved it and I decided that I would want to continue this passion in college but there I was able to direct my own short film act script write edit and I didn't think that at gy there would be a a platform for me to continue this passion throughout my senior year um but that did change yeah uh throughout my years at gry high school I knew stylos were a thing but

044I never thought I would be able to um have the opportunity to do one myself um but fast forward to my last semester of senior year and with Mr F's help um Chloe and I decided to do a silo on the pre-production uh stage of our short film which we will be making with our friends as our senior project uh this pre-production is the stage in film that takes place before the filming even begins and it turns out that film planning a film is harder than it looks um and as you may know Alina and I run GNN 10 which is G's News network uh that we film edit write pretty much produce um but turns out that this is completely an entirely new Endeavor as making a short film is much different from two

045to three minute segments that we air to the school through our um program in advisories and it was actually really uh inspiring to meet um an actual filmmaker Named Sam broen who showed us a little bit of the behind the scenes work that he was working on which Alina will speak on more but it was really inspiring to see all the work that actually is put into a short film yeah um like Chloe mentioned we had the chance to work with a local professional filmmaker about learning how to script write um script writing storyboarding editing filming lighting and so much more um we even got to spend a whole day with him working on finishing the script which we co-wrote um and learning how to edit on and color grade On Da Vinci resolve a

046professional editing software this semester we've also learned how to work with local uh companies like teensa trails and gear shares for costuming as well as wolf neck for uh filming locations and on top of that we've been working with so many gy students that each have their own expertise like musicians cinematographers and drone operators um without taking a silo I would have never been able to learn so much of the pre-production side of short short film making um and I'm so glad I got to do this at gy as before coming here as I my last time coming to gy was my sophomore year I really didn't think that there was a a platform for me to to learn more about this passion of mine and taking this Silo really has just been an incredible

047opportunity for alen and I to work together on something we love to do and since film is such a collaborative art medium it is just wonderful that we get to do this uh independent study together um as we finish our our high school careers together and go off our separate ways for college so thank [Applause] you Al righty hello everybody I'm Violet um so for my Silo um I wrote a 70,000 word novel that I'm currently in the the process of editing um I did so much writing already that I actually did not write a lot for this um all my words are going towards that right now um so it'll be pretty short um I'm trying to get my final draft finished um by the beginning of May so I have this month to

048be editing um after that I will work towards publishing and turning it into a finished product um even if I do not end up getting it traditionally public traditionally published it's still a good opportunity to learn about that entire process which is a whole separate thing than the actual writing process um I also had the opportunity to job shadow at a main Publishing Company where I got to learn about that whole side of things and how that you get from a a emailed manuscript to a book on your table um and I that's a great head start to what it will look like to work towards that um I've always loved writing and this was just a wonderful opportunity to have the motivation and assistance I needed to create a final product um that I

049can be proud of I worked with a professional writer as well to get guidance on how to write with such a large goal in mind as well as having a wonderful person to talk through plot lines and character development um so overall this opportunity was a wonderful experience I would recommend to anyone I've always loved writing as I mentioned before and this was able to just push me to actually finish this goal that I've always wanted to accomplish um I got to set my own goal and work towards it which was something that was wonderful because I never got to do something like that before and say I want to write this whole novel out and actually set the time aside and go through the editing process um and I'm already proud of the first

050draft I've written though it's going to be edited and edited um as all writers say you just keep making it better and better um and I'm super grateful for every person that has helped me to create this that's all I have thank [Music] [Applause] you hey I'm Audrey Cohen I'm a senior here at gy High School and like the other students here I've been fortunate enough to do a silo with Mr F over the course of this year I've done many silos summing to over 200 hours of medical internships job shadows and a variety of different things among many things I've learned I've learned two main things first my eyes have been open to what's out there and if what you can do if you truly apply yourself second is a sentence that Mr first

051told me in one of his emails bringing even the smallest bit of light to some who might need it is a is a gift greater than any we can provide first semester I had the opportunity to do a variety of physical therapy internships and job Shadows this second semester I've dove into the medical field both doing job Shadows at local clinics becoming a volunteer at M Med getting certified in Wilderness first aid and I'm currently planning a variety of card making events where the card the cards will be donated to patients at Barbara Barbara Bush Children's Hospital we have a goal of reaching 500 cards with the help of Mr F my eyes have been open to what's out there the opportunity opportunities that each and every person has with my aspirations of going into

052the medical field I truly have made connections and learned more than I can ever explain however more than just that something unique that each student gains through their course of their Silo is a sense of empowerment Mr F has shown us that each and one of one each and every one of his students that if they can dream something that they can find a way to do it never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would have these jobs shattered ing opportunities for us to send an email to Mr F or stop by his classroom and tell him what we want our goal and for us to for him to believe in us and our dreams is truly empowering I'm very fortunate that gy has this course for its students in this opportunity

053to do a silo at M Med I'm a volunteer at the Elder Life program many of the older patients in hospitals will come in for a specific reason but their stay will be prolonged due to Del delirium the volunteers job is to go around and check on them some of the things that you hear the patients tell you sits heavy on them heavy on you a tragic part of being in the hospital as an older patient is you're often forgotten about some of these patients rarely get visitors and are often in the room alone starting out volunteering this was something that I had a hard time dealing with naturally I'd always try to track try to crack a joke and make them smile or anything to improve their mood but this isn't always possible talking

054this through with Mr F I realized that taking a step back and and just being someone that these patients can talk to tell stories to or even just sitting there and reading to them so they have some company something he told me in one of our many emails discussing this was bringing even the smallest bit of light to someone who might need it is a gift greater than most any we can provide this sentence has stuck with me and truly encapsulates one of the major things that The Silo has taught me along with an important lesson that I would never have truly learned in a classroom prior to this school year I've been thinking about doing a silo but like many others I had no idea what I wanted to do I certainly had space

055for it in my schedule but I was hesitant due to the open-ended aspect there was so much we could do that it was hard to pick something but with that I truly believe that any student thinking of doing a silo should do it any parent of a high school student should encourage their child to consider it and any school thinking about adding this sort of course should 100% do it thank you for letting all those all of us students and Mr first come talk about this and have a great rest of your night thank you so much for bringing this program forward and sharing the experiences and stories really appreciate it so we have one other important presentation I'm going to welcome the district Mental Health Specialists Eric Brown and Peter Scott up to share

056um the results of the 2024 um main integrated youth survey provide a summary of the results so thank you good evening um we've got to set up a presentation here or link it up so okay great with us got it your technological wizard is failing you okay here you go all right all right so yeah so my name is Eric Brown um the risk assessment mental health specialist for the district so K through 12 this is my esteemed colleague I'm Peter Scott I'm one of the social workers at the high school yeah we're gonna um present the main integrated youth Health survey um so we're going to we're going to call it the Miha so we don't have to say that every single time um would you Miha okay all right so we're going to

057try to keep it brief concise a lot of information um with the Mias I'm not sure if you have that in front of but it's a lot of details a lot of information there we're going to we're just going to take some Snippets of it and present their percentages of what's going on so with that said what is the miass well it's a survey that's been uh conducted every two years since 2009 it's uh supported and sponsored by main Department of Education main Department of Health and Human Services um the CDC it's a 45 minute survey um it's completely confidential students do not put their name on it and do not no date of birth or anything like that so there's real no reason for them to give false information great covers a wide range

058of topics from nutrition physical activity safety substance use and other risky behaviors uh the data is used for a variety of purposes in evaluating student health risk and behaviors and I'm that's why we're presenting to you for policym purposes and taking taking a look at the um these issues throughout the district helps to point out the areas where improvements have been made and the survey also helps identify where students may still be at risk and areas where schools can take action that's right so I'm going to cover uh the Middle School 7 through eight so there is a uh Mias um survey for five and six grades fifth and sixth grades but that wasn't we didn't op to do that this year so I'm going to focus uh specifically on seventh and eighth grade um

059so the following grades uh sth and eth combined is 278 students for the school years of 2021 and 2023 uh the Highlight data that I chose to uh focus on was bullying depression suicide substance use and school climate U and we're going to compare those percentages to the state averages which is a total of 15,220 students so our 278 students compared percentages to the 15,220 students before I get started I wanted to give a shout out I almost forgot about this a shout out to Rachel lauring who's an amazing um social worker in at GMS 6 through eight and she was instrumental in rolling out the Mias um to the school and um actually instrumental with help in putting this uh this presentation together so and before we again I just want to just note

060for those of you who have raised teenagers or twin teens our raising twin teenss there's a lot of information that may be like you might think that's a high percentage um I wish I could sit here and say well everything's going to be 0% for those at risk behaviors it's just not it's just not because we're talking about an important extremely important developmental uh period in life um this is the first time 7th and eth they're actually um they're searching for individuation Independence individuality uh they're trying to uh they're curious they their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed a lot of risky behaviors uh peer pressure separation from all this sort of stuff's happen so it speaks volumes to a lot of the percentages you will see it's not permission giving it's not saying I

061don't worry about it we're still focusing on it we're still trying to plan we're still trying to support our young people so with that said the first area uh percentage of students who reported being bullied on school property in 2021 it was 34.5% we've had a jump of 99.9% in 2023 um not specifically I wish I knew all the answers I think next time they do the Mias they probably should like have a little column of why you know U so we don't have the information of why it's gone but there's some of my things that I would like to you know kind of touch upon first of all we're below the state average which I think is which I think is key right we're we're worried about what's going on in our school district

062but still it's it's important to compare it to the state averages as well um something that's so that it was a this was the first question followed by the next qu question was have you ever been electronically bullied so I'm wondering if there may have been a little cross over there I'm wondering when this was first presented if they thought maybe electronically bullied it was it for me it's quite a jump um so electronic bullying is is uh in the last couple years been a huge increase in Social media and um in bullying in that way and the top five sites social media sites is obviously well Facebook even young people still use Facebook they're trying to get away from it but Tik Tok Twitter which is now X I think Instagram SN Snapchat those

063are the top five did I say Tik Tok those are the top five um social media highlights that has a lot to do with um electronic bullying so unfortunately sometimes social media uh bullying electronic buling can lead to feelings of depression one of those symptoms would be experience sadness and hopelessness for two weeks or more in stopped activities they once enjoyed so 2021 it was 25.6% in 2023 it was 30.5% so a bit of an increase uh for 4.9% still below the state average um yeah young people uh strong emotions happening at this age um and lots of things so it's it's it's it's this the first time they're trying to fit in they're trying to find their social group and it's developmentally as far as the brain goes it's the first time they're making

064comparisons to each other they're putting themselves under a microscope they're critiquing every little thing they do how they look body image all that sort of stuff so so there's lots of not one reason why students are feeling sad depressed overwhelms lots of reasons uh percentage of students who reported having seriously considered suicide uh this this may appear shocking but uh in 2021 it was 21 1% in 2023 we got 21.8% so which is an increase of 1.7 which is actually 1% higher than the state average which I found was was pretty interesting um and again trying to keep it brief but I found this article that was posted by The Washington Post and I'm not saying this it's this school district but there was it was the first time I read about a stat of

065higher achieving schools are linked to students higher anxiety higher depression rates higher suicide rates or suicidal audiation rates so I just wanted to kind of keep that in mind and you know for myself being a parent we as parents caregivers just to kind of balance that out a child's selfworth shouldn't be based on what they achieve so I just want to you know kind of note that subst use um have you ever had a drink of alcohol other than a few sips so current is 15.4 which is up uh 7 a half% from 2021 I thought that was a big jump um so so this is ever right ever had a alcohol other than a few sips if you look at the asterisk on the bottom it's last 30 days was only 4.2% so little

066bit misleading but definitely concerning alcohol is the number one um um drug that's used by Twins and teens it's unfortunately assessible within homes friends uh so uh but very important protective Factor parents and caregivers uh young people view that their parents or caregivers would view their use as wrong 96.7% that's huge that's big so good work parents and caregivers uh percentage of students who reported hav used ever used marijuana Uh current 3.7% which is a 1.2% increase which again um it's 5% lower than the state average last 30 days was 2.6 6% parents view is wrong again huge protective Factor 96.3% I'm actually is I don't how you feel about it but as far as the increase uh 3.7% I'm actually kind of I don't know what's the word um not happy but I'm actually

067I thought maybe it would be a little L um a little higher just based on legalization and based on basically every corner has a cannabis dispensary at this point um so in in in marijuana unfortunately has been um kind of catered towards the youth right the packaging you know the gummies the Edibles all that sort of stuff so I'm I'm actually kind of pleased to hear that it's not higher percentage of students who report have taken prescription paying medication without a doctor's prescription again uh a bit high 6.3% but lower than the state average of 88.9% last 30 days 4.4% the most commonly abused drugs opioids oxycon and bkin in uh the central nervous um system depressants would be Xanax valume and stimulant um adderal conserta and students View using prescription drugs as peer pressure

068trying to fit in um maybe a weight loss supplement um and maybe for study habits percentage of students who reported having Smoked Cigarettes NR I think I think I'm assuming that it was not rated and not reported or the percentage was so low it was not reported I'm not 100% sure what that's all about so but because it wasn't reported in 2021 we have an 1.8% increase actually the the um the trend of smoking has gone down the past several years because more education happening students are viewing it as not um as as actually a health risk now so which is huge uh lower than in Smoke and cigarettes lower than the state average uh vaping so 1.9% here in 2023 it's it's uh a bit of an increase by 0.1% uh again 3% 3.8%

069lower than the state average percentage of students who reported being offered sold or given alcohol drugs on school property in current is 2023 is 5.4% 2% lower than the state average of 7.4% now that's all combined that's all drugs combin that's alcohol that's cigarettes that's vaping so that's that's all combined so that's what's totaling the point of though percentage of students who reported feeling safe at school a bit of a dip 7.9% but to think about 86.7% of students that feel safe at school I think that's a huge number I think that's you know that's that's 87% that's that's that's enormous um it's a a 7.5% above the state average of um 79.2% a huge protective Factor students who answered that at least one of your teachers really cares and gives you help and support

070when you need it 73% that's big one of the biggest protective factors is actually coming to school and having support person present and somebody you can turn to if you're having if you're upset um so that's you know compared to State averages that's uh 3 7% higher percentage of uh students uh to identify at least one parent or caregiver to talk to when uh what you are doing in school about every day or about once or twice a week good job parents caregivers because this is huge open Communication open lines of communication a huge protective factor is what's going on at home so being able to keep those lines of commun uh Communication open so 1.2% higher than the state average positive highlights of the Mi house for grades 7 through eight majority of our

071students feel safeer at schools 87% that's big majority of our students identify protective factors of a teacher and care and parent caregiver majority of our students don't use alcohol cigarettes vape marijuana or prescription drugs obviously um but compared to the state average we're all lower than the state average healthy and there's some other questions so healthy student body um positive positively above State average for eating fruits and vegetables well above State average decrease in soda Sports energy drinks sports drinks there's been a huge decrease in that which is tremendous in physical activity we're well above State average on that as well so healthy student bance which was which is a healthy protective Factor areas concern percentage of students reporting having ever used alcohol has almost doubled that's a concern I'm worried about that one bullying

072remains a significant concern for our students something we're paying attention to we've been all rolling out you know a bunch of um anti-bully bullying U preventative actions including Mari triple coock and Jason leier um La Rivier going into actually all advisory classes and doing uh bullying presentations so depression and suicidality warrants our continued vigilance and scrutiny and there was also a decrease even though I said there's you know physical activity has uh is is way above the state average a little bit of a decrease with physical activity um with our student body so so that's GMS at the end we'll we'll allow some questions give me one second here to switch over and as Eric said uh we'll take questions at the end I wanted to also give a shout out to Tiffany mcfur who's

073my colleague at the high school who actually put the majority of the slide presentation together uh and presented it to our staff for discussion and review so here we go I'll try to be brief on this for you um make this little laser pointer here okay so today we'll look at the myos information from grades 9 through 12 we had 455 students participate um again this was data from 2023 we're going to be doing the survey again next school year um we'll highlight aspects of the data in areas of bullying suicide depression substance use School climate and look at how we compare to State averages look at some Trends and reflect on opportunities which I think hopefully that will be a valuable piece for you Eric and I are going to share that at the

074end so little bit different format we use part charts here but you can see bullying uh 2023 in the last 12 months have you ever been bullied on school property uh the people who answered yes at 19.4% that is below the state average in 2023 which is below the pie chart there at 21.9% um and you can see that that has jumped up from 2021 my only my my theory on that has to do with covid and the amount of time we were spending in school at that point uh we're back in business here and um those numbers likely have crept up uh for that reason at least in my estimation depression uh during the past year have you ever felt so sad or hopeless almost every day two weeks or more again this is

075um something from actually from the DSM when you look at um evaluating depression and you can see that 29.3% of our students answered yes that they had had a period of time during that school year when they felt depressed that is less than the state average of 35% but still very concerning um um I think as you know as a parent myself my kids are now in their 20s uh this generation coming up has a lot on their shoulders and there's a lot of lot of concern about that um a lot of literature out there on youth the youth Mental Health crisis and we can talk a little bit about that towards the end of the presentation um you can see that that actually uh that percentage actually came down from 2021 again I I

076think that probably has something to do with the pandemic and being back at school getting back to routine suicide um during the past year did you ever seriously consider attempting suicide uh 19.4% of our students did it's less than at the middle school age uh but it is a little bit higher than the state average this has been something that's been a passion of mine since I've worked for gy and something I care very deeply about um and I always would love to see that number come down and work hard to make sure that it does um we'll talk about some ideas a little bit later in the presentation as well that number crept up a little bit from 2021 as you can see students getting help from an adult percentage of students who answered

077they got help from an adult 37.4% and 20 23 got help from an adult when they had a problem that they needed assistance with uh 62% said no they did not um and that has crept up from 2023 actually nope that's the state average here this is not a this is not a comparison between 23 and 21 the state average is 31% so basically more of our students in the state average would actually reach out for an adult to get assistance it's still to me it still looks like a low number how hard many of our staff work all our staff work to really be trusted by kids and want to be U helpful and I also think this is just not school this is adults in in a student's life so um something to

078be mindful of and to work towards a little bit different format here um um my colleague put this in in this format I think to save you some slides but I'll run it through it really quickly I use my little handy dandy uh Magic pointer if you look at the alcohol percentages here in 2021 um by the way past 30-day use I'll start here at the top that's an important number as Eric pointed out to me what this means is that this would be students who are using something more regularly there are questions on there have you ever had more than a sip or have had you just a sip of alcohol this is these are students who might be using these U substances regularly which is probably um the statistic that's more important for

079us to take a look at as as many youth experiment um but here at ghs in 20201 uh about 22.2% um used alcohol within the past 30 days and that went down actually a little bit at the high school I know it was a big concern at the middle school as it as it did go up quite significantly High School it came down to 18.3% um and actually um in 2021 that number is a little bit higher than the state average marijana we are jumping from 2021 at 14.4% of our students who used within the past 30 days to almost 20% 19% of our students um I as Mr Brown said as Eric said I believe that follows Trends in our in our larger um communities and in our state and in our country um

080and has to do with accessibility and um um it becoming more acceptable uh to to use and you can see that those numbers like in 2023 our percentage is just slightly higher but not significantly than the state average if you look at prescription drug use much smaller numbers 2021 3.6% of our students and then 2023 4.5 and go over to vaping which um has been a big thing um within the last 10 years it's um been a lot of things that have come and gone in that regard in terms of Trends but that's still sticks for a certain core of our students and you can see that in 2023 about 12% of our high school students are using Vape uh on a regular basis and that's just basically a similar percentage to 2021 I actually

081think that's down from a few years ago when the whole Jewel craze hit um prior to the pandemic but that number slowly crept up again um um which is unfortunate and then this one uh was interesting to me I I don't I can't really explain it but it looks like in uh for cigarettes we've historically always been lower than State average as you can see in 2021 um 3.5% of our students had used uh cigarettes within the past 30 days that was lower than the state average and then if you sneak down here you can see that that has crept up 6.8% which is actually higher than the state average and in all the years I've been here that's the first time I've seen that number creep up it's definitely lower compared to alcohol and

082marijuana but it is concerning nonetheless drugs on school property during the past 12 months has anyone offered sold or given you an illegal drug on school property you can see in 20123 16.7% of students had been offered sold or given illegal drugs on school property um I don't know why this one came from 2017 but this was be the two my house is back and you can see that the number has gone down maybe that's why Tiffany chose it um you can see that that number has actually improved and I I can say having been around the school I do sense that that number has improved and that's a nice thing to see um that's so that 16.7% over um you know more than a fiveyear period seems to have come down significantly School climate

083and culture do you agree or disagree with the following statement I feel safe at my school and you can see here that almost 90% of our students feel safe at our school very cool it's uh higher than the state average in 2021 it was close to 95% of our students felt safe at school again higher than State average do you agree or disagree that at least one of your teachers really cares and gives you help and support when you need it this one sort of speaks to the core of who we are at the school and I'd always love to see this number come up um I know we all work hard for it so uh about 74.2% strongly agree or agree that a teacher really cares and gives help um that's a little bit

084below the state average and then in 2021 you can see similar it's 71.6% again just a little bit below the state average school climate and culture how often does your school enforce rules fairly and 2023 51.7% of our students felt that most of the time are always rules were enforced fairly that's above the state average and in 2021 you can see that that was 54.6% um again above the state average almost there how often do adults in your school address conflict negative language and bullying in positive ways to help students this number concerns me it always has and it doesn't seem to move all that much um we are trying and we will continue to be there and I'd like to thank that students who have worked with our administrators and social workers guidance counselors

085and their teachers and families that U that we all form a team to really try to make positive impact on this um so how often do adults in your school address conflict um bullying positive ways at ghs in 2023 it was 36.7% of the time the state average was 31.5% of the time so we're above State average there and in 2021 we were again above State average of 42% of the time so that fell a little bit um but not too much okay and how often do you feel the people at your school care about students and encourage them uh 50.8% of the Stu of the time um was was the answer in 2023 above the state average and then again above the state average in 2021 at 51.4% okay so some positive highlights um

086and then Eric and I are going to share the next couple slides after this at the high school majority of our students feel safe in our schools the majority of our students don't use alcohol marijuana or prescription drugs there was a decrease in reported alcohol use there was a decrease in students reporting they have access drugs on school property less than one quarter of our students report vaping approximately half of our students report feeling they are treated fairly more highlights approximately half our students reported feeling cared for and encouraged by us when they needed it there was an increase in the amount of students reporting that they felt that at least one of their teachers cared about them and gave them support when they needed it approximately three quarters of our students and lastly there

087was a significant increase in the amount of students who reported that they talked to an adult when they needed support areas of concern at the high school there's an increase in past 30-day use of marijuana reported by our students again I think this Trends throughout our state approximately 16% of our students have been offered sold or given drugs in school property that amounts to about 72 students again that's number that's fallen over the years but still an area of concern for sure bullying remains a significance concern for a students depression and suicidality warrants our continued vigilance and scrutiny while reported vaping at ghs is below State average it's still happening more than half of our students reported not connecting with an adult for help when they were feeling depressed and less than half of our

088students reported feeling like conflict native language and bullying were addressed by adults in the school in a positive way so Eric's presentation was blue mine was gry maroon you can see in the highlights that we've combined we're going to talk a little bit about some of the things that we have at the school that are protective factors I'm going to let Mr Brown step in and yeah we've implemented a few things this school year so save promise club which is uh students against violence everywhere it's a it's a it's we have an adult um um adviser I'm I'm one of the advisers Melissa follows adviser in the high school we have one for the GMS as well and so basically it's a student Le um um Club to help identify students that may be at

089risk of um perpetrating violence acts and but but it's mostly about connecting it's about connecting peers those peers that are sit in a l home or at lunch alone trying to connect them up trying to um pinpoint students that may be kind of feeling left out so it's really about an inclusion sort of piece Sandy Hook promise reporting app is an anous anonymous reporting application if if any other students notify or notice any signs symptoms that a student struggling maybe said something maybe reported something to them that they can anonymously uh report it to this um to this app and that will get back to the uh certain team and we'll go ahead and check in on the student can I say something that yeah of course you can yeah so I just want so

090Sandy heck promise reporting really has just rolled out um in the past couple weeks it's working it is working there's been some really good things that have come in and it's not just about what you think it is it's about students who might really need help for some of these things you just heard about about students who might be depressed about students who might have a substance use issue about a student who might be feeling suicidal it's been very cool to see that work so I'll just put that out there and Kyle Caris is another student-led U again adult advisor uh but student Le um Club as well and that's about putting decrease in the stigma of mental health putting um U helping um to to work work against self harm to work against suicide

091anything like that so it's a club to try to more connections with students um Health classes sixth 7th and eth focus a lot on emotional health focus a lot on substance use um 10th grade yeah have a health and 10th gr we're going to talk just a little bit more about that before we close up um civil rights team here at the high school we also have at the middle school level uh always important a rainbow Alliance and genders and sexuality Alliance at the high school students who are lgbtq plus are particularly high risk for depression and um for suicidality it's very important that we embrace all our students and um uh oh something's going with the technology here there we go we're back Social Work positions I have to say and I think Mr

092Brown would say I honored to be here at the school district we've paid a lot of attention to student social emotional needs and we have staffed accordingly I talked to some of my colleagues when I'm out in the community um and particularly a year or two ago I remember being at a Statewide kind of conference on suicide prevention actually Mr Brown was there with me and Julie Elson was there I was talking to people from all over the state and as best I can tell informally we are in really good shape here in terms of how we're meeting need and we did it at a good time particularly a lot of that Staffing grew over the pandemic um it's been the growth matches the need so it's been we're very lucky to have what we

093have and we sort of listed out some of those positions that we have here and then I'll just speak for Eric and I'll let him take the rest of these so the mental health specialist position that's Eric Brown and as a social worker who's based at at the high school Eric basically um has been one of the saving Graces of my position while while the student Mental Health crisis has increased within the last 10 years um it the work has changed exponentially in terms of addressing suicid suicidality and depression to have Eric be able to come in uh during a student's crucial moment of need be able to assess the situation give it particular scrutiny come up with a plan and then also what he might not talk a lot about is he helps me

094he helps my colleagues case manage situations that require extra attention so as a student needs that extra attention at that critical moment they have the extra support in school um which also allows me to still work with other students because a lot of times during a crisis moment uh one or two students can take up a lot of your time so Eric's been very um flexible and supportive in that way it's just been great to have him it's but been nice to see that position come into friss yeah yeah thank you and then just student support team RTI process um so srss screener is basically focusing on externalizing behaviors staff actually roll that out um and you know any students that the certain criteria any students that meet that they would they would report it

095to Administration reported to social work so identifying those students and that goes all through uh Mabel ey fourth five six or eight high school we did that today at the high school rolled it out today yeah unified basketball best buddies Club so inclusion uh restorative practices U primarily at GMS this is this that's that's huge there assemblies so with specific focuses um digital citizenship and again bullying presentation ideas for consideration yep sure y so these are some ideas that we came up with um previous boards have seen at least one or two of these and just put it out there um and there are other districts that have this model so there's something something worthy in that I think uh right now if you'll see students if I'm correct they're taking Health most every year

096in middle school they get to high school they have it in 10th Grade so and you can also see some of our numbers jump up like think about alcohol and marijuana use jumps up from middle school to high school so to me that means we have a gap in ninth grade in particular where we don't get that particular attention in that particular way and I threw 12th grade in there too because in suicide prevention work one thing I know is that the numbers of Youth who die by Suicide goes up after they graduate high school they're entering a very risky time and becoming independent many of our students are heading off to colleges and needing um some road maps and ideas about seeking help for themselves and being self Advocates as they leave and there

097are curriculums out there for that so um I asked the board to strongly consider that um I I know that that's been there's been some conversation about that um and I think I think our health teacher in particular would uh join me in that sentiment um evidence-based mental health and wellness prevention program this uh Blues program actually came from the January issue of Scientific American they had a a study in there and an article about Teen Mental Health in particular this was an evidence-based program it's basically six hours of classes that run in a certain segment of time um that teach resilience reduces low mood and anxious thoughts we didn't talk a lot about anxiety tonight but um just something to think about there are other curriculums out there we could integrate that into our

098classes I'll let Eric finish up this slide oh sure yeah so real quick districtwide multi-disciplinary Substance Abuse Prevention program needs to be uniform across the uh the district uh District message and campaign for each building and then just re-education for staff on students social emotional health safety procedures and enhanced reporting so we've rolled a lot out in the last I don't know few years um and staff just need to be updated on those sort of things so what are the sign symptoms to look for in students that may be struggling and what are the safe safety procedures for reporting that so and thank you all right appreciate your patience that was a lot of information thank you so much I know that there's um some other board members may have some questions about the results

099great thank you thank you sure as I was telling you Peter as we were chatting in the U in the hallway beginning uh I I pay close attention myself to the essential programs and services model uh which is is the Baseline and we of course have been spending over the years more than that for and uh the analysis that I developed myself for this budget year shows that one of the biggest areas of increase is in student support three times uh the essential programs commitment is our our allocation would be $955,000 and we're spending 3.3 million I I think that's terrific personally if we had to pick a spot to spend money over and above essential programs student support would be the at least my choice of the of the first so I I I

100hope you feel in in in the in in the schools that this this is an area of support for your work yeah I'll speak personally and and have a little bit tonight thank you yes um and I do feel it and and as I articulated I'm feeling it at the right time I've I've been a social worker for 30 years and I don't know probably about 25 of that or so has been in schools and um I've seen Trends in mental health come and go and need um and nothing like and I'm just using this as a general um kind of time estimate but the last 10 to 15 years um things have changed changed a lot and uh it's nice to see us meeting that and I would hope that our model um particularly

101the model that includes our mental health specialist position as I talked about um you know ER Eric Julie and I had gone up to Augusta and presented this at this prevention conference with the hope that other districts would take a look at what we're doing and and use us as a model to u to replicate because it it feels fair to the kids uh and it's it's really an honor to be able to provide that level of Health here we're we're very lucky and I appreciate the that the board and um our district has really planned for that yeah not much to add to that but thank you dny I'll so I'll try to real brief but I worked so I've been here since 2018 I worked at a major medical facility uh Southern main

102here for for a few years before that and the trajectory has been increase in anxiety increas in incre in depression suicidal audiation so it's been on the rise since 2010 um and that correlates a lot with social media and uh but it's for this that's what caught my attention for this job is that is the is the risk assessment Mental Health Specialists increase in mental health supports emotional supports in the district and that's that that's really what caught my eye is just um helping to support our students so the young people just quickly so thank you um and also wondering if there's anything being considered for younger grades um you know four five currently together um and also 11th grade I know they have a lot going on in 11th grade and I don't know

103if that's part of or whether that would also be considered for expansion there yeah so as far as the younger grades they do they start to um to delve in a little bit into um uh some of the the substance use stuff emotional health sort of stuff so that's that's definitely happening at a able eye level um but also fourth through fifth is when they start introducing um different substances particularly cigarettes vaping things like that um so yeah so that um that Health education's happening and touched upon all those important so healthy lifestyle Choice choices so that's that's definitely happening in the younger grads as far as yeah I mean I'm a strong supporter as far as just to throw that out there is to offer more Health classes get them coming in to high

104school and get them going out of high school I would absolutely support something like that I'll say one one thing so um two I think two years ago now Casco Bay can which was an organization I I was on the steering committee and actually helped uh get that organization up and running many years ago sort of uh bit the dust unfortunately um it was a byproduct of Co and really not being able to hire leadership that stuck and the woman um who made that really happen retired uh that that you know their their motto was talk really talk often it was all about working with younger um grade levels and really work working with parents on an education piece to help prevent because we need that kind of partnership so there's a gap there right

105now um worth looking at and certainly worth um seeing what the community would like to do and joining with the schools on that because parents are such an important part of the equation 11th grade I'm into it I think I think a lot of it has to do with the budget and like what and and also just knowing schools it's like there's everybody here is very passionate about what they do which is really kind of cool to see if you go to any of our classrooms you can see a passionate teacher um no one is really in the business of trying to give up some of their time to make something else happen so it has to do I think it has to do with time and money um but yeah I'd say 11th grade

106um is if we could I think one of our suggestions was like taking a look across the curriculum multi in multi-disciplinary kind of way which might not have a lot of cost to it but what kind of um what kind of lessons what kind of lesson plan is going in that actually includes some of these subjects um and who's looking at that from the from the top on down to make sure that that's happening at each grade level um something to think about uh so first of all I want to thank you both this was excellent um I also want to uh commend you and your colleagues for doing such a great job of getting responses from students because this is a really really valuable source of data um and and getting good strong representation

107from our student body at two schools is is really important um so I do have one question and um to to frame this uh we're approaching the development of a new strategic plan and and health and wellness has been a key part of our existing strategic plan so looking forward to this next strategic planning exercise if you were to treat what we've collected here and and looked at as Baseline data and you really want to move the needle on one thing um what was what would be that thing that you would pick that a few years from now you look back and say we were really Su successful um in improving this through this next strategic plan yeah I Mr Brown and I probably have similar or different answers but the thing that jumps to

108my mind um well there's there's three things but I'll encapsulated and reducing the number of students who consider suicide in a given year I think that 20% number is unacceptable and very sad um and unfortunately I've gained a very nuanced understanding of what that looks like across the board of course every individual is an individual has their own story and reasons but that's the number I would love to see go down I'd love to seeb significantly below the state average on that that would be amazing um it hasn't happened yet we continue to work on it I mean there's not much not much more to add that's that's one that I would absolutely like to focus on but just overall mental emotional health right putting that emphasis on that and that's happening a lot right

109now we're putting for each so it's 6 through 12 we have advisory courses and we're doing more social emotional learning within those advisory courses so we're doing doing a lot of mental health Focus doing a lot of emotional health Focus that's the foundation of everything good mental and emotional health leads to better grades leads to better connections with your peers uh leads to lower suicide rates lower depression rates lower anxiety rates so yeah I think it's an emphasis that we've been putting on and I'd love to see it continue thank you b anyway any other questions great I don't have a question I just want to say thank you and I think presenting this in such a data driven way is fantastic and speaks to so many people I think in our community um so

110thank you for putting this together and I would be happy as a board member to consider your ideas for consideration particularly um anything that reduces anxiety I agree with you those numbers as a healthare provider what I've seen in the last eight years is that those numbers have just skyrocketed so really grateful for this and for you thank you yeah great thank you thank you yeah while we're transitioning I just want to say that um Eric and Peter are amazing resources for our community along with all of our other social workers and counselors in our schools um our mental health um we do have good mental health supports but it's also as good as our people um and so thank you U for your representation of all of our social workers and counselors um I'm

111really proud of a the staff that we have here and um so thank you for putting all this information out it's very important we've worked very hard over the last few years our staff has in continuing to focus on this area M and seeing what we do with the data is awesome so thank you thank you for your support app thank you okay so we have one item for action on the agenda tonight um it's a very important one to set a referendum date for the proposed school project uh mad chair I'd um I'd like to take the opportunity after a lot of discussion and thought over the last couple weeks um to make a motion to amend the 318 4 approved School plan with a project budget of 53,486 by providing an option for

1123 million less which excludes the turf Fielder a second okay hearing no second to exclude the tur field okay um I would like to ask for a another motion for the items for Action was there a second no there was no second there is a budget a public hearing on the school budget which is separate from the referendum yeah okay um would somebody like to read the motion for the recommended vote I'll do that I move that the warrant and notice of election of main school administrative District number 51 presented to the meeting be approved and that the referendum election for the district be called for June 11th 2024 for the purposes of approving the issuance of bonds or notes of the district for school construction project purposes as described therein further that the notice

113of public hearing presented to the meeting be approved and that a public hearing of the issuance of bonds or notes for school construction project purposes be held on May 20th 2024 at 6:00 p.m. as provided therein can I get a second second thank you so I will open the discussion on the recommended vote I'll go first great so I want to start with saying the focus of this topic has been called the new school the new elementary school which I think is appropriate because that is the majority of the cost and the whole Focus however I think it's been a disservice to the public and ourselves to call it that because in the reality we're the school board for the whole school not just the elementary school but for all the students and there are

114a lot of needs as we all know everybody knows there's a lot of needs all the time maintenance Improvement for the whole school Community not just mayel I Wilson not just elementary kids important as they are so on the facilities committee we've been very aware and long before I landed on that Committee of a long list of items the turf field as such artificial field whatever you want to call it is not new it's been on that list over 10 years I checked long before I imagined being on the school board so it's not a new suddenly showed up item I just want to be really clear about that so I want to make a couple comments um in general first regarding the health and safety of a turf field I have evolved in my

115understanding I think all the board members know from last year as well I was not in favor of a turf field I was very concerned about the health the safety of it it started with my own son's experience which when I counted back is about a dozen years ago now on a unnamed School nearby their turf field and he got a very small cut which within less than 18 hours became a very serious emergency room cut it was very small little cut but it had become infected and it was spreading like spider veins and that's the kind you know you get to the ambulance the emergency room right away so that was my experience and my view of what are these turfield things so since then my view has been negative about turf fields and

116I would Google Now and Then especially in the last year artificial turf and when I Google it many things come up and the Internet it's kind of weird to me they don't always say exactly what year what date they're referencing that article or that research whatever and whether it's what kind of research it is so I had to sort of keep looking at it again and again and again until I I finally started noticing that the more recent turf fields are are different they're not the crumb rubber well they're still out there the crumb rubber Fields but there are other materials that newer research is showing is nonpest which is better it's improved the pest and the board itself has said this several times certainly we've said it in the facilities meeting and Mr blat

117the architect has acknowledged we've said this we don't want past it we want a non-past material so for myself that's not an argument there's no argument with me I don't want a past field the infield is really important but again when you Google it you you come up with all sorts of alarming to me too reports on health and everything but when you start really looking at it it's from the earlier Fields the kind my son got injured on so my own thinking has evolved I completely understand the health concerns but I am not as concerned there's a second thing that causes health problems on these fields and it's drainage if the fields are not um properly um set up underneath the infill if they're not properly drained um yeah you're going to get yet

118mold bacteria etc etc I I have a lot of faith in the blat Associates they've done a lot of work on the campus over the years and I feel um I myself I haven't heard about flooding or damage on the campus or neighbors even in all these massive storms we've been having so I think for myself I I trust they know what they're doing with the drainage injuries also occur big concern I understand that um athletes themselves get injured on all Fields but I've heard about the injuries the field is faster Etc my understanding is there's different different fields you can you can purchase the material there's different blade lengths for different sports there's ones that will work for many different sports but regardless there has to be training of the coaches and the students

119it's it's like when I I first learned how to play tennis way back when and there were only um courts that were clay and when I started playing on hard courts I got injured because nobody told me how to move differently and I couldn't go back and forth between them so it's it's not the same but it's similar to that we all have to learn how to play on different services with a different kind of Racket the wood racket I still prefer but okay okay it's too heavy I use the others there's there's adjustments that need to be made that very deliberately the coaches need to and we need to fund the coaches so they can do that sort of training and the students need to be open to it there may be things we

120say like you need to wash up afterwards regardless of whatever that material is whether it's even a natural grass field they should be washing up more last thing on the health and safety I want to say is just the current field we have have the grass feeli I think there's an illusion we all kid ourselves it's grass it's natural I don't know think about all the weeds all the danels in the field in Hutchin field or don't because there aren't many because the pesticides have been poured on there for years it's not natural it's not necessarily safe for our kids so I don't think the argument that natural grass is um valid as a concern so next topic um sorry to hog I'll give you guys time okay so regarding need versus want I have

121also evolved I also began with this is a want they're saying they want this the neighbors have it the kids want this of course they want who doesn't want I I've I've listened to all sides emails the uh the students the teams the coaches I'm really concerned as a mom one of my one of my Terrors and I'm sure I've shared it I sure I share it with others who are parents that having your teenager Drive late at night is not something you want to experience especially when they're tired when they've practiced and you know it's winter sometimes when they're driving that's that's an accident waiting to happen and the rental turf fields the students are going to they're in Leon Auburn they're in bitterford they're in s as a mom that's terrifying to me

122I did not know that I didn't know that many nights during the week students are traveling like that the school's not paying for that the parents are I'm sure it's getting expensive and at some point they may ask the schools to pay for those rental so that that's a concern it's a huge concern for me the students are traveling like that even though we have really good driving ed teachers in our district I know that but regardless that's uh frightening and and a safety hazard the other thing I did not know is that many colleges our students are applying to going to if they want to seek an athletic scholarship they need to show footage on a turf field they're not legally allowed to do that footage on an opponent's team so they're pretty much

123left without any footage they can apply so it it hugely disadvantages them so that's a bummer it's only two pages don't worry so my feeling is it's our responsibility as a board to help out all the students and provide for their needs the maintenance and the cost of traditional Fields referencing the cost of this that alone um is a is a lot more than it used to be we have these Relentless downpours the climate's changing we all know that that's a huge cost that may be hidden and people don't realize the fields that they used to play on when they graduated from here whenever it was even 10 years ago it's not the same field there are new needs that the athletes have so in summary uh all this has led me to be in

124support of a turf field I wasn't in this place a year ago and I wasn't even last September when I became the facilities chair it was not my intent to support a turf field but I have learned a lot I know they're not perfect I don't think their wants I think their needs and I think that we need to help all the students we're not an elementary school board there's a huge list of items we have to address for the whole school and I think that we could do it with this referendum I think we could get a new elementary school and I think we could get a safe nonpest new athletic field and I think they're both needed so thank you for hogging the time but thank you for your attention can jump in

125um so thank you I want to first of all thanks for everyone that responded um this weekend and hopefully I'll I'll go into a little bit of a my comments here too and hopefully in the in the spirit of the Ken we presentation um and assuming positive intent with everybody so I know we've all put a lot of thought into this and your responses to me have been an indicator of that um but I still I can't help but feel like you didn't listen to the motion because the arguments continue to be about the turf field versus not the turf field I'm not arguing for turf field or not I'm arguing for separating it out um so for public knowledge late last week I I wrote the board an email requesting that we make the

126amendment um that I just made to this referendum language so to anyone that wants to see that email I'll be happy to share it in summary I believe that we should separate it for the following reasons Turf has a controversial history of failed attempts I understand the great emotion tied to it but it takes energy from the core part of this project which makes it harder for us to share and discuss the really important aspects of this proposal this isn't just in public we experien this during the tri council meeting earlier um I guess in the winter uh when the majority of questions that we got were about the turf and not about the actual School building as a board collectively here's the second reason we haven't reviewed quotes safety and other options for fixing

127um or other options like fixing the grass field as is and getting this information to the public to secure a vote takes time in energy away from our greatest and most pressing issue our solution to overcrowding that brings me to the third reason this field is not essential to solving our enrollment issue or impacted by current construction plans it provides space mostly for high school and middle school which Christina just kind of laid out but which is why I believe we didn't include it in the 80 Grade Road initially perhaps most importantly the fourth reason based on feedback from the community and what I've been hearing it's been overwhelmingly negative towards the turf field and so I believe we are decreasing the likelihood of the school passing so I want to be really clear that

128my argument is not about a turf field I understand the desire for a new field I agree with what Christina just said the kids shouldn't be going to practice at 9: to 10 o'clock at night we should be providing our students with a safe and reliable playing service that makes sense but for just 2% of the entire cost it seems worth it right okay but are we willing to lose more the the the most important 98% when there is an option to have the insurance for it here are the reasons I can figure you think the turf field will lose by itself and it's a good opportunity to get something you've wanted for a while if that's the case logically it shows a school is not worth doing unless it has a turf field I'm

129not sure any of us believe that but that's what our current proposal reflex the second reason is you think it's so popular that it will help the school pass check Facebook sit on one of these Q&A tables the engagement committee's been doing read your emails I spoke with one teacher at Mabel I Wilson recently who begged me to put in the two options because she was worried we'd lose the school that once again the needs of our elementary school would be sacrificed for the needs of our high school who would primarily benefit from this I don't have any official numbers to tell you but I think the the eye test would show that the Nays have this one and third there may be a sense that if the board reverses course that we somehow are

130showing weakness that we can't let some group win our reasons shouldn't be personal and we can't get defensive because people regardless of how they align with them on this issue notice something we put in and that we even question when it first came in and I think we've shown as a committee that when we've listened to our community when we've allowed their feedback to build buyin we've done better and that's what we've gotten out of this this uh Elementary School plan on campus and so the last reason is the belief that people that this is the right thing to do because it provides a little something for all stakeholders and I do understand this argument with Christina was just making I I do understand that but if the turf field is such a win why

131can't it pass on its own why is it more right than expanding the miw gym given that the building that's that's the building that's most tasked and currently can't even fit all of its students for an assembly or a plethora of other needs that we have so I'm still a yes on this proposal um and I appreciate the space but I I do hope that we know what we're putting at risk here what we've worked all year for right that it's it's not even just taking the turf off it's not School versus Turf it's just giving people the option to vote something they're most comfortable with for something that is technically not related to what we are what we came out proposing we would do so that's where I'm at that's why I made the

132motion that I did I'm surprised that no one even wanted to discuss it given the feedback that I've gotten um but um that's why like you know I support the school but I have to be a no on on the way that we've gone about this um and have are failing I think to listen to the community and giving ourselves the best chance to get to school which my kids my kids are most impacted at so um thanks for the time and I know it's an emotional space for all of us including me but um but that's where I'm at I I just do want to respond to that and I mean I wrote this in my email to you Tim I I don't disagree with anything that that you've said and maybe we're hearing

133from different portions of the community I've completely tuned out Facebook I can't just it is not a productive um outlet for me um so I know what I've heard from sitting here at these meetings and I recall two weeks ago having several dozen students coaches parents all talking about how this would have such a meaningful difference to to their experience um versus I don't know a handful of people who have spoken out against this uh and of course we've received emails from community members on on both sides of this um so I I find it difficult to have a real gauge of whether we're listening to people or not because I'm hearing from lots of people who are very much in favor of this um to me it really comes back to the fact that

134we are failing our student athletes because we're not giving them a place that they can practice we're shipping them off to Portland OR Auburn um at and from for practices from 900 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. which I think is completely unacceptable and a huge safety issue um what we're presenting is a a project to improve our campus in a in a multitude of ways the school is one part of that field is one part of that um updates to the high school and Mabel I Wilson um are all part of that it's really frustrating to me that we've spent so much time and energy talking about a field and personally I don't care if we put in a new grass field just as long as it's a field that we that our our kids can

135use unfortunately a new natural grass field will present many of the same challenges that our existing field does we would need several fields to be able to get the usage that we would get from an artificial um surface um but we need to do something to to rectify this issue and I'm sorry that it's become such a a lightning rod of of an issue but I think what we're presenting is a solution that solves many of the um things that we've identified in our long-term campus um campus plan and I I think it's it's really unfair to highlight this one thing um that we're going to pull out and and treat it differently so that that's just that's my my perspective on it I I think you've made some some really valid points um but

136ultimately I I'm I'm very much in favor of the the what's been proposed okay go ahead I don't know that I'll have too much productive to add um but um I certainly at this point am seeing this as making uh the necessary improvements to make the one campus function um and I also struggled with this over time um I think the turfield probably first came on my radar before covid when the one campus model was being considered the first time um and I was serving on PTO at that time and knew that that was something that was being looked at and that um at least the folks in the community who I was speaking with at that point were supportive of seeing uh included in the package so you know and then I think for

137many of us when Aaron Rogers was injured at the beginning of the football season it brought up some more questions or maybe there were other examples for other people um that started to bring up questions about the health and safety um of the fields and so I certainly as we've continued through this process been a big proposal component of making sure that we are using that language of past free um recyclable alternative infill um I really think that that's important that we see that through as a board um and I think that everyone has been on board with that and committed to that and I've been pleased to see that um the folks who I've been speaking with in the community there's no place to recycle it in the country it's a fact your facts

138are wrong I'm sorry I'm sorry you'll have to be removed from the meeting if you can't respect the meeting rules thank you um and I I guess you know as I've been thinking about this too and talking with other people in the community I have seen changes of of opinion when people have heard the discussions that have happened um on this board over time not just tonight but the last couple evenings when this has been maybe more of a focus of conversation than we would have liked um but just understanding the need for it based on the usage um understanding the commitments of the board in terms of addressing those um health and safety concerns I think you know to Tom's point a little bit too any grass field that we were able to put

139in or make better is never going to be an NFL grass field um I think that we are going to have other injury factors involved for our players because we you know frankly as a school district cannot maintain a field in the same way that the NFL might be able to do um so that's a concern and then I think just the use with dominant times for us being spring and fall when we are seeing increased rainfall um and those kind of things as well I do understand that cost is a concern for folks um and I think that you know there's probably going to be some other parts of the proposal that we'll also hear about and you know the turf field has become um the focus for now but I think that overall

140is uh a package that makes those improvements to to really make this sustainable for all of our students and for those students for whom we're building the school for who will then be coming up through our middle school and through our high school um I do see it as a need that has been long unaddressed and takes into account our outdoor space as well as our indoor space um I guess the other piece that I would just mention is um you know we did hear about mental health of our student sense of belonging I think that um physical activity physical education participation in sports is a really good protective factor that we also want to continue to to encourage and by creating a place on our campus where students can engage more in that physical

141activity and not having to go off campus um makes a lot of sense to me so thank you so you actually um has happened so often I'm hit on something that I'll springboard off of which is the idea that there are kids who don't play sports right now because they don't have a ride to practice um that is a small piece of this but just to to affirm what you are saying it does open up more opportunities if kids can't afford to um spend that money on um the rental of a of what I have to believe is probably a less safe turf field than what we're going to be providing in um in this uh or they don't have a ride and and that does create some inequity there so I want to acknowledge

142that um Tim I want to speak specifically to um to a point that you made that I that I have heard um and for those of you who don't know I have been wrestling and grappling with this since our March 4th meeting this has been a really difficult uh decision for me did not come to this lately um the idea of why wasn't this in the original package if this was such a big deal why didn't why wasn't this addressed before simply because the cost of building the new school was prohibitive um it's my understanding that I mean certainly with ad Grey Road there was no possible way we were going to be able to improve the existing campus other than some things that would be needed to done needed to be done to Mabel

143Wilson to make it a school for um third fourth and fifth graders other than that there are a lot of problems on the campus that were not going to get addressed um and it's also my understanding that the ad80 gry road had space for recreational fields which I have to believe we would have um if we ever even got to that point would have entertained the idea of building tur Fields um that's that's more my conjecture uh going back further the oncampus plan involved moving the superintendent building involved um you know so much going on there that a turfield could not have been considered so I I have heard um from other people that this represents us being greedy and asking for more than we should have and I understand I I do understand how

144it can look that way I have come to the belief that we are we see this opport opportunity because this new school is so much less this project I should say is so much less it does afford US the opportunity to address other issues that have been there for so long like the maintenance shed like the traffic um issue on campus so I shifted my thinking to okay we now have an opportunity to not only focus on a new school but to look at these these other areas that have been an issue for over a decade um so I feel comfortable making this a sustainable campus proposal um and I have also heard that that um that that's a bait and switch that we are going from a new school to a campus proposal well

145we've had to change this course of Direction many many times so I don't feel that it is wrong for us to change our focus of what the referendum should be because we have this newer opportunity to do it so um I guess everybody please know that this is not something that we just said oh great we can we can add a turfield um I if I look at emails conversations I have had and people who have come to meetings and spoken not Facebook conversation those other things it's 7030 people in favor of keeping the turf field in um I H I have to consider that there are more taxpayers that doesn't even include the students who have spoken there are more taxpayers who have communicated to us through the channels that we have created um

146that they would prefer that this stay in the referendum because they do see that this is an opportunity to fix multiple issues on our campus so that that is why I did not feel um that the motion uh should be entertained or yeah well and and the motion as I heard it too to be to be honest Tim was just to remove it I didn't actually here to the the part that you had mention in your email but that's just what I her during today's meeting um were there other people who would like to make additional comments of of I would during this time great thanks Megan um Tim thanks for your email and for your thoughtfulness I I appreciate it when I looked back on it and thought about it over the weekend what

147I came back to was that I think this is a good plan I think the one campus plan is a really good plan I'm proud of this plan I'm proud of the school that's being proposed I think it's fantastic I'm proud that we're going to tackle some of the traffic issues on campus which are bad right now and would be much worse with more kids and more people in the configuration that we're proposing so I'm glad that we're tackling that that's a big part of this too I'm glad that we're looking at Mabel I Wilson which needs some serious love I think this is a good plan and I think it's a good plan with the turf field and the thing that sold me on Turf that I don't know that a lot of people

148in the community are hearing unless they're at these meetings or they're having conversations with us is that we've got tons of athletes who are driving to other turf fields I saw one of our Juniors um earlier today and he said oh yeah tonight I drive to the MAC at 9:00 for practice from 9:00 to 10:30 we usually go till 10:45 I'm home like around 11:10 and then I have another dinner and then I'm in bed maybe by 11:45 and this is night after night for him the practicing multiple nights a week and he's not the only one he's on a team with others he's not the only team that's doing this there are multiple teenage athletes that are driving from our community to Augusta sometimes to Portland to other places to use Turf that feels

149really unsafe and really really unfair to ask of those kids and the parents and the Guardians that are responsible for those kids that's not not okay with me that feels terrible I also was sold um by the idea that the kids get so much less time playing on the field as it is when um Mr shyro pulled up this spreadsheet that sort of showed how much time kids practice and play on the field versus how much time kids could practice and play on the field there was a big difference a huge difference and was across multiple teams for boys and girls and that's a big deal I don't think that we should deny our athletes the ability to play and practice here there are other teams that talked about the fact that they practice in

150the parking lot that presents major health problems too yes tur fields are fast and hard but the gravel parking lot at twinbrooks is not a safe place to practice that's just not okay so is the turf field perfect no no there are some problems there are maybe more orthopedic problems and happily we know about these problems um and we can train and condition our athletes to help prevent some of these problems and that's an area that we actually do know a lot about there's a lot of science behind that um can we commit to a safer past field well yes I think we're all saying that that's exactly what we want to do and that we will do our best we will ask our Builders to do their best in choosing the right field can

151I say to you that in 10 years we won't say oh we learned something about this field that it's maybe not totally perfect no because we're constantly learning every moment about the environment in which we live we're learning every day about chemicals that we're exposed to that we think are safe but now we're learning that maybe they are absorbed etc etc so can we say that we're going to do our best job yes absolutely um can I say to you it's 100% perfect no I cannot but we can commit to doing the best that we can do to avoid these problems like our kids driving around late at night and playing in a parking lot um so I think our plan is a really really good one I like it then there are people who

152are not going to be happy with this and our what I've realized through this is that we're not going to please everybody in our communities all the time maybe if it's not the turf then maybe somebody will say well did you really need the extra half acre or do we really need to add four classrooms onto Nei I think that there are potentially you know problems for certain people in our community with any plan but I think this is a plan that we can get behind I think it's a really good plan and we need it our kids are crammed into Portables and it is time to move forward with a good solid plan which I think this really is is there any Sophia so Tim I think you've made some really really good points

153and I feel like they've been really valuable to me and they've really made me think about I mean as a student I've always felt Pro Turf but I think what you pointed out really made me consider like the consequences of what might happen if we put the two together but I feel like for me it really comes down to my role as a student representative and from not hearing a single student which of course is a very biased viewpoint but none of them have felt opposed to a turf field even the kids who don't play sports so I just feel like as a student representative it's my duty to be in favor of them together because it presents it as a necessity which I think is the real kind of question which a lot of

154the both of the towns are considering about whether or not it's a necessity so um yes and I wanted to thank you as as well Tim I've been you know I share a lot of the same concerns that you've outlined and I did not intend for the last I don't know how many months um to instead of being talking about a new school to be talking about Turf um and actually I'm a little disappointed that that's where we are at again with this conversation but I think what we really should be focusing on is how incredible of an opportunity that we have on this campus and I've never really seen a school project that doesn't also include work on um surrounding fields and other supporting space um so now that we're looking on campus we're

155trying to address the things that have um I don't want to use the word neglected because we've certainly don't I I feel like using that word um makes it sound like uh we as a board and as administrators haven't been taking care of our things we've done a really good job at taking care of our facilities um I think when we one of the things that we've been talking about a lot is like around The Debt Service and you know what percentage of our overall budget and it's actually pretty low so we've been pretty fiscally responsible in that way but one of the things that I felt like I was asked to do when looking at the direction to go with this this new school project is also to look at the the list of

156things that had been not put out or in um part of referendums or bonds um that needed to be addressed um because of whether it's either having place for our students and student athletes to be able to to play on campus or addressing traffic issues or needing a a facilities building like there's things that um hadn't been addressed and to have the ability to have some Vision on what we want this campus to be and look like um and having usable space on campus again turf or not um there needs to be part of the budget that is allowing for space on campus and anybody I know who's asked any of the board members we are committed to ensuring that there is um you know P free and other alternatives to address the Environmental and

157safety concerns every member of this board shares those concerns and that once you know we're putting forward a budget to be approved what happens after the community hopefully approves that budget is we have a building committee we have we bring in experts to help recommend um what we want the materials to look to look like we put together bid packages that outline the things that we expect our vendors to be using as far as materials we put environmental Representatives on our committees to ensure that our you know we're able to meet our um climate goals and environmental goals with this project so we needed a budget to put forward with a vision for what this campus should and could look like for our students and our community that we could be proud of and so

158what we do from there involves a whole other of input um and so again this is not what I intended to be talking about um I tended to be focusing on the incredible school and campus facility that we're able to offer our community through this budget at what we think is I know when you ever talking Millions it doesn't feel reasonable but I know looking down the 80 plus million that the Grave Road Project became um working hard to get that back down and then not addressing anything on campus felt irresponsible and so I I feel that for me this is a responsible budget that addresses a whole set of of needs on our campus um for for all of our students and listening to our community members um and I know it's not going

159to it's not going to please everyone um but I hope it feels that we can be proud and feel responsible Christina you look like you want to say something I do I guess I want to reiterate what you said that I feel that again it's Millions we're talking about so that's crazy but I I think we should all feel very um celebratory in many ways because those of you who weren't on the board um last year whatever um we were at 80 million and it was huge and we went down to 74.6 and that was it went down but that was still high and we got the message that was way too much and we're at 53 million that's huge I'm I'm surprised people aren't jumping for joy honest to God if not on the

160board but in the public like you're giving us all this for this agreed not everyone's going to like everything that's in it but I don't know any other communities that have pulled that off to offer something so much more reasonable uh and responsible so thank you to all my fellow board members and the public that have supported us and all the questions but um 53 from 80 folks um some Smiles or tears or something please because I think it's incredible I I think our new I think the new plan is something to celebrate I really do I think what we've done in the last couple months is something really great to celebrate but I I do think that when we say down to the 53 million which I think is much lower I think the

161taxpayers would be much happier than with that I I I really I was on the other side of this um but I I don't know how much credit we should be taking for that and patting ourselves on the back I think us listening to the voters going back to the drawing board doing our due diligence for the um taking the advantage of the land that we bought passing that I think that's great but it's really the the voters that brought us to this level to make us reconsider we voted for 80 Grade Road in the fall again but then we did the right thing by doing due diligence and coming back so I hear you Christina I think we should be celebrating I think we should be celebrating with the town but I I I

162do want to be careful to make sure that we hit that messaging well is that like like we're really appreciative of the voters bringing us to where we got to because I think we do have a better product because of them um and the trust in that so um I hear you I don't mean to undermine that at all but I I I have heard feedback of that from us in the board have we haven't have we we keep celebrating that and petting ourselves in the back and I I just don't think it it sits well so um um I just want us to be conscious of that I I would say I'm conscious of that I'm not I'm patting myself in the back no I hear you I'm just saying we've done a lot

163of work and people need to hear that and we need to just be clear this a lot of communities don't have boards that have been able to pull this off so yes thank you voters for pushing us and thank yes thank the rest of us for for putting in a lot of hours to get here so let's move forward everybody voters and board we've got a proposal for 53 million so let's do this and to be clear pulling it off means are voters vote for it so I'm hoping that is the position that with this solid um plan that addresses the concerns um and the questions that have come in since the original is there any I I'd like to move to a vote unless there's anybody else who'd like to to comment so all

164in favor of um the motion on the floor for the referendum what was the motion again please a long in in layman terms um sorry your computer's open and mine went to sleep so the recommended vote is that the warrant and notice of election of main school administrative District number 51 presented to the meeting be approved and that the referendum election for the district be called for June 11th 2024 for the purpose of approving the issuance of bonds or notes of the district for school construction project purposes as described therein further that the notice of public hearing presented to the meeting be approved and that a public hearing of the issuance of bonds or notes for school construction pro project purposes to be held on May 20th 2024 at 6m is provided therein and so

165I call for the vote in layman's terms we're setting the date setting the date thank you we're setting the date date for the referend thank you yeah all right all in favor all opposed thank you so I'm a little bit confused because there was two different votes three different votes I just want to make sure that we just voted on the motion on the floor the main motion yes so it was a unan it was unanimous okay I just want to make sure thank you so signatures Jeff do you want yeah so uh now that the board has voted to send this to referendum um we have paperwork um just before the meeting ends we just got to make sure that everybody signs um these all have to be signed by each board member um

166and so I would suggest doing that prior to the executive session um going into executive session would a suggestion to do that great thank you okay okay so now I believe sorry my computer fell asleep so I left my agenda on the printer so now we're going to move to the public hearing uh with a beginning with a presentation on the school budget we don't have a presentation oh just kidding that comes next meeting the next meeting so now is I was like oops I don't have one okay so for the public hearing on on the budget then we this is just a public heing okay there any questions if there's any questions on the budget the time uh yes and I know you were here earlier I think the same rules apply do you

167okay oh you got it okay my timer here yes I think we'll have to bring the timer back up okay I didn't prepare a speech here so I'm going to wing it here I'm Andrew B I live at 325 Main Street in Cumberland I also teach here at the high school I'm a science teacher uh I want to thank you guys for all the work you're doing here I know it's very very tough work uh we had some heavy first I have to say I know I'm limited on time here but I really I really like uh Andrew the presentation earlier I'm really big fan of Mr Scott too uh I moved here to Cumberland about 26 years ago because my wife just had a baby and we decided we wanted a move moved to

168uh msad51 we're a big fan of this area this is where we wanted our kid to go to school uh so and when I started teaching I changed careers I started teaching about 15 years ago and my goal was to teach here at gy high school um I used to when I taught at Edward little I used to take a day off to come here to judge the science fair projects because I thought the science fair projects were so cool so that was my day off um I'm coming today to talk about the budget I'm a little bit concerned about the science department and and part of that is we have a teacher retiring this year and they've decided not to refill her position um I don't you know I don't have the numbers I

169thought somebody else was going to come here tonight with the numbers but um when I first started teaching here we didn't have the block schedule we had a different schedule and so I don't want the minutes were but like say you had 100 minutes of English class each week you'd have 120 Minutes of science class science classes were a little longer because we had Labs that we had to do uh when we went to block scheduling Science Department lost minute time with their kids uh and because of that we lost science fair we don't do science fair anymore uh because just wasn't enough time to cover the material and do it I that was a a real big let down for the whole science department because we really really enjoyed it I think it was

170a good thing for the kids to do science fair um since then I think we're losing this teacher I think we've lost another science teacher uh position uh and um I just want to make sure everybody knows that there will be an impact you know whenever you decrease dollar uh it it's going to affect things I I think that I have 78 students this year or somewhere around there plus my advisory and my study hall kids I think I'm going to be increasing to about 30 30% next year in students and uh that affects the time I have to focus on helping kids uh and it's not just the content uh uh but it's all the things Mr Scott was talking about you know I we I'm checking in on kids I'm checking their grades

171I'm making sure that they're okay I'm seeing if they're being bullied all these other things when my classes has got uh it's full the room is full it's going to be harder to monitor those things uh I taught at schools where that had full classrooms at 20 24 kids in them um there becomes more behavioral problems there's less time for teaching there's there's more times where you're managing classrooms and um it's it's uh it becomes a problem and I'm worried about uh the effect we'll have on our students having crowded more crowded they're not you know we will manage it we will deal with it but I'm just telling you there will be effect effects uh uh because of this oh that's it that I win a prize all right thank you very much thank

172you and we did receive an email of her public comment that we had shared from yes yes thank you um anyone else for public comment the budget question yeah I'm I just wanted to mention a few things on the budget okay You' like about the time so sure so um one of the things that we're still waiting on in the budget is our health insurance rates and we got preliminary rates or received preliminary rates that mentioned that our rates could be anywhere from 1.5% to 11.5 as part of the whole mea uh Anthem trust so that's the range that we'll be in uh we budgeted 7% um will know by April 10th what our rate is so sometime uh before them what our actual rate is about every percent on health insurance it represents about

173$63,000 so so that's what we'll have to look at when we get either way and when we get the rates um I'm hoping for the rates to be less than seven uh but we'll see what our experience rate looks like and where we land on that so so there may be some modifications to the budget depending on where we land on on the health insurance so uh and that's really one of the things that I want to mention we're currently going through through all of our salary lines and and just double-checking every every line in terms of our salar so so there may be some minor adjustments there but um but the budget right now is at uh you know almost 4% in Cumberland and uh just over 3% in North y so okay uh

174which Denny has reminded us uh is uh lower than inflation so is that was that a that was a promp that was a prompt Denny yeah no I I just think you know uh I've worked with these numbers before and and worked with Scott over the years this is a really Thrifty budget and I think the community should understand that we we're coming off a time when inflation was 6 to 8% and we're presenting a budget here this year which increases the mill rate in effect less than that and and uh I I I'm very proud to be able to support this budget I think it's extremely uh prudent and and efficient so hats off to the staff that put it together I attended a few of the meetings and I thought they were very

175well covered hats off to the chair who was a tough guy I can tell you so happy to support it great sure go yeah um Can Can we um address Dr bak's concern um how was that decided not to uh add or to to um replace the retiring science teacher could that be done with a half position um not that I want to add to the budget but it's it's a good agree yeah I'd love to know so there's two criteria yeah no go ahead I don't want to I don't know if you're saying I'm making U there's two criteria that we looked at so we we did a um review of all the class sizes in the school district in the fall of 23 so this year um post pandemic we had added several

176teaching positions um across the district um not necessarily the science department but um across the district so we did a review of all of our classes um in our class sizes post pandemic um and wanted to make sure that we're still in line with with what our class size expectations are so this budget includes three reductions of uh teaching positions two at the primary school level where class sizes are at the smallest in a couple of areas so we reduced two positions there um and one at the high school with science that's one criteria the second one was attrition we weren't going to riff anyone that was the second criteria um that we would do this through a natural attrition um if there was a retirement or someone was leaving we'd be looking at those

177positions and I'm just going to say this out loud and I know this is not popular but if there is another retirement or position that comes up at the high school in a different content area we're going to seriously look at that that position because when we looked at class sizes at the high school at gley high school um it wasn't the science department specifically it was across the board our class sizes are very small right now at the high school level um and there's a lot of different reasons for one of them is that the enrollment the high school is at the lowest that it's been in years um and that was a forecasted low we're going to be seeing increases later and when those increases occur we will act ACC accordingly but we're

178not going to fill positions right now uh when they're vacant uh with the class sizes that we have um based on that and again not it's it's going to be through attrition that was one of our that's one of my criteria no one's losing their job U but when we have an opportunity um to look at our class sizes and make those adjustments um when a school is low or high we're going to do that um we have two years of low kindergarten we know that right now this is we're going into the second year Rebecca wand Del's kindergarten numbers are spoton right now what we expected for registrations for next year that means we have two low years where we have too much staff too many teachers or positions I should say at the

179Wilson school um we know that those numbers are going to go up in the third year we're going to increase in enrollment again but when we have we have attrition we have vacant positions we need to look seriously at that and not just keep filling those positions when we don't need them and so those are things that I feel I've got to be responsive to the board uh and the community fiscally when we have those opportunities um and when the enrollment goes back up in the high school we're going to see in a few years the enrollment is going to be going up dramatically we're going to be adding positions to the high school at that point and we've done you know since I've been superintendent I've always done this I've recommended positions be removed

180when we don't need them and I've recommended many more times that we add positions when we need them in order keep up with enrollment increases class sizes keep them down um but when we have opportunities to to do the opposite we have to do that too um and so that's why those three positions were put uh forward and again I'll say this again they're at the high school level right now another if there's another vacancy I'm going to look very seriously at not filling that vacancy in a different content area because across the board we found that we had uh lower class sizes um than anywhere else in the school district except for the very youngest um students in our primary school because of the kindergarten um two years of kindergarten enrollment coming in low

181and those are adjustments that as a school district we have to make um we have to put those things out there and adjust accordingly um and look at all those those pieces when we're putting a budget together so hopefully I answer your question mostly yes I um I guess my concern is maybe less about class sizes and more um about the email that we got about science classes themselves that will be potentially eliminated can you speak to that so I can't speak specifically I mean I've had many conversations with the school administration with Mr Francis in particular um and making sure that our options are viable that we put forward something that you look across the Continuum is it viable um at different years we offer different electives in different content areas sometimes we're offering

182more electives sometimes we're offering less electives to students um in every content area across the board so um those things change depending on sometimes it's a preference we have a course a teacher is teaching and they retire and they don't no one picks that course up as an elective again um we also have um just interest of students a lot of you know the why courses are filled or not filled we don't run courses sometimes that are in our class um catalog um because there's not enough students who are interested in that particular elective and will not take the course so those electives will fluctuate from from time to time but um certainly not a necessarily a science department uh issue and as opportunities come up for the next three years the school is will

183remain at the same level of enrollment before it starts to go up if there's other vacancies we're going to certainly look very very carefully at those thanks it's up to you you're the chair sent you yeah I mean you're I also want to honor the fact that you're a district employee in the department that we're talking about so I know I've I've let um uh shapy come up and say really quickly I'm very frugal if you don't know me I I do believe in keeping the budget down I I'm a taxpayer in this this community so I agree that we should try to keep the budget down where we can uh one thing I you just mentioned that I think it's important for you to understand is that you know I I I I can't

184wait till the day we don't talk about Co anymore but uh I think that we increase Staffing because of covid uh we're still feeling the repercussions to co to covid I think my sophomore class uh development emotionally behaviorally development I feel like I'm teaching seventh graders right now my 10th graders uh they just didn't they missed some stuff when they did remote learning uh and uh it takes a lot more energy to to deal with them and you know sometimes it's not when you add like you have 14 kids you you go up to 16 it's not a line it's it's logarithmic you know the more kids there's more issues in that room so I just wanted you to know that that's still part of the problem is that the kids my seniors I I

185I teach two sections of seniors they're academically not where kids were two or three years ago when I taught the same class uh and and it just takes a lot more work and I just I'm concerned I think all my class I've got two classes that are 23 or 2 4 next year and then my sophomore CP classes are all be about 19 each year and uh I think I'm just concerned about behavior and being able to support those kids uh and I think part of it is still it's the kind of the covid backlash still that's it thank you Tommy just to provide a uh a student anecdote um and kind of a more personal touch to this with uh the removal of this position um AP Bio will no longer be taught at

186the high school and I've talked with students who are sophomores now Rising Juniors that um will not have advanced bio opportunities at the high school um and are going to be taking bio classes at USM uh next year instead of being provided with AB bio um and that is currently in place and has been in place over the past few years as well can I ask Tommy a question or it might be Dr iaka I'm asking the question to but is that so I haven't heard that piece yet that must be a recent development is that because of a teacher change and not necessarily because we don't have enough money to offer no yeah definitely I think it's it's who's trained to be teaching those courses I think the AP Bio teacher needs to cover

187more CP and honors classes um due to the teacher that's leaving not being able to teach those CP bio classes which then I think bumps AP Bio out I'm going to look into that a little bit more I think AP bio class had four students signed up for year okay so the first we we do offeres and so it sense to me that's the one that to go yeah that I appreciate that uh that because we don't run courses generally with only four students in them that's generally we we generally don't do that yeah what is the like how many it depends if it's uh there's courses that are required as part of a program or whatnot we'll run it um but we we don't run classes generally below five okay or six uh at

188the high school and we're really careful about those too I mean we're that that's a very low number for a class okay yeah for us to run that's helpful context thank you okay anything else on the um budget public hearing it all right great close that I would just add that on the 22nd the board will vote whether to adopt the budget or not or as it was presented or make adjustments Etc and there will be adjustments that I will present on the 22nd as Scott mentioned there's some things that we're still working through so there'll be some adjustments Min usually minor uh hopefully to the budget on the 22nd I'll present there'll be a whole another stack of paperwork that's there's another St warrant and calling the election I I have a question then

189relatedly um is that something then that depending on where our health insurance rates come in if they came in lower than we've budgeted could we reconsider the the high school science position so that's that's the board's decision um whether or not you would like to reconsider any items that are in the budget if you know you can reconsider even without that and and set a different percentage on the 22nd if you choose to do that I would also say though that the the valuation shifts in Cumberland and North Yarmouth too um we may want to consider what we add back to the budget and don't because that'll push us if we add that in and our health insurance rates are high you know it's seven or higher well that's certainly going to push us over

1904% in Cumberland so we'll we'll want to think about that a little bit we would have the information if if that was the case um yeah I mean the board has the right to adopt it as presented or make amendments and adjustments at that point as it adopts because it becomes the board's Budget on April 22nd okay thank you all right superintendent report all right um I actually have a briefer report tonight so at melai Wilson school um we had a principal for an hour the PTO gy PTO sponsors this every year and this year Bryson godette was able to serve as the mael I Wilson School principal for an hour um alongside principal Mony so um I always know that's an exciting uh hour for the student who's selected at the middle school 45

191the baseball and softball teams actually at the high school came down and helped greet the GMS 45 students as they celebrated Jackie Robinson day and as you can see sea doog Slugger also came to celebrate with the students um that day as well gry Middle School 68 spread the word for inclusion um and that's the um ending it used to be called end the word um it's now called spread the word for inclusion um so last week during lunch students invited um other uh invited students to sign a poster showing their support for and commitment to uh inclusion an acceptance of every student in the school community at the high school the best buddies of Maine held their second annual best buddies prom um I heard it was really exciting there was strobe lights and

192everything if I remember hearing about that and foot loose um yes it had to um carry over to another weekend because of the wonderful ice storm that we had um but it did u pull off with a great production I believe it sold out all three performances very close not without another hitch I know and then the lights went out again hour power outage but the show continued in in all three Productions uh were able to close the curtain so um just a fantastic performance I was able to see it as well I'm just really impressed with the caliber of the students um and just the the energy level um with this production it was amazing um so hats off to the student actors and actresses and to um Jen Fox uh the director March

193was women's History Month um and uh the high school civil rights team assembled minute of mom gift bags for main needs um and distributed those uh and that was something that the Civil Rights Club I don't know if community service Club also helped with that might have not included that right maybe can't remember and then joining us I know U probably Megan is going to talk about this so I won't talk on any detail but there is a there's several opportunities um for um particip in the school project and getting more information asking questions there are four online sessions each topical and there are three in-person opportunities the virtual opportunities uh will start the week after the vacation um there'll be one every week on a different day of the week with different topics including

194um uh the school design turf field um there will be a safety session and there will be one on finance and um what it would cost you um the taxpayer so uh those sessions will coming up I'm sure Megan will talk about it just a reminder that there is a full day Wednesday this week and not a half day we have put that information out but just keep reminding people and on the 8th um it's an early release on Monday the 8th for the eclipse that's my report can I ask a quick question about the um going back a couple slides to the I know it's not technically an information session but should May 20th be on this flyer um for the referendum the one that I read the one that I made a motion

195for um yes you mean the public hearing on the financing yes that would be a public hearing on the financing of the project yes and so should that go on this list do you think so that was that's part of just the statutory process that we have to follow so we didn't include the these are just more if people want to get more information want to ask questions um they C people can certainly speak on May 20th about that we can put that on the schedule if You' like well I guess yeah it's a probably conversation for the committee but okay thanks add that yeah we can add that on do you have your solar eclipse glasses I have a stack of them if any I'm ready okay thank you so we're going to move

196to committee reports start with the students sop okay so this is pretty relevant to the student survey results that we looked over in the slideshow but today during advisory we had an assembly where we had a speaker come and talk about how the choices we make now matter and that was specifically talking about his story was about substance abuse and his journey through it and what he's done and how he's overcome it but I think from like my whole High School career this has been one of the most influenc like speakers that we've had it was I mean I had lunch right after and I think every single table was talking about what they thought and I think it was honestly like one of the most like it was just really meaningful and I heard

197so many students reflecting on it and yeah I was really happy and I would have been happy for him to keep on talking and I know that like other students were sad how short it was but it was I was really impressed with him um class of 2025 working on Prom very exciting it's really coming together we had our flyer get posted on our Instagram account so yay um and then also this is kind of less relevant but parking issues have always been a Hot Topic and on Thursday we had six spots in the senior lot open up and I got a parking spot from the raffle so that's very exciting very exciting yeah so the quarter also ended on Friday so with the end of third quarter that kind of marks the official beginning

198of senior spring um and in a lot of my classes today we outlined the uh calendar for the rest of the year of preparing for exams and what what the rest of the year will look like and it's kind of shocking how few days we have left in school um with April break coming up and also the spring season the spring Sports season started last Monday um beginning with uh the um a lot of IC conditions at the beginning of the week which um were made it off to a rocky start and probably going to be off to a rockier start um in the middle of this week with the snowstorm um but the play also concluded the last two shows um as in the superintendent's report and uh unfortunately the power went out out

199right at the end of Act One um on Friday night and um yeah that is my student report thanks Tomy all right we'll go to the community engagement committee this is very exciting tonight right we have the date for the referendum and now you're going to hit the ground running stuff is happening um the community engagement committee uh is very happy to to remind the board to please review the signup genius which has our in-person events listed and I would love it if everybody could sign up for one that they could attend or two or maybe all three for instance this Saturday April 6th this flyer is probably sitting right next to you we have an in-person event in North Yarmouth at the community center um from 400 to 5:30 snacks will be provided and

200we this one will be more of a Q&A we we will hit the ground running with some specific answers to questions and then open the floor up to community members to answer questions the next two in-person events include um May 4th we'll have an on-site walkthrough at 11:00 a.m. with Don Foster so literally on site here on the ground and Monday May 13th this is our last in-person event it's um at Valhalla at 6 p.m. Steve blat will be there to present the school project again and we'll open the floor up to Q and a um so as many of you as can attend and be support and answer questions would be incredibly welcome and appreciated do you mind sending that sign up Sign Up Genius sheet out again okay um Communications have already gone

201out big thanks to superintendent Porter and Melissa Porter for doing that we've got some nice things on the msad um Instagram account um on the PTO Foundation 51 is coming and in the crier more of that will come with a slightly different look but look for posts a couple posts every week um there as as superintendent Porter said there are going to be four online events and um they're on that slide um these are not necessarily these aren't inperson events that we want people to attend but if you can be there for part of these that would be wonderful um so we'll get that information out as well um Chef where is this slide can this slide this slide is connected to the um the graphic the full graphic I just pulled it out and

202and copied it do you want it somewhere else I think it's on the back of the oh good yeah oh on the back of the one page oh great thanks yeah okay there they are there are the inperson events uh the the online and in-person events and those will also be recorded and posted right so much more flexible yes yeah can I add something Meg yeah um I just wanted for those of you who haven't read the um the letter that went out from the board that was in the superintendent newsletter that went out on Friday right um it lists all the ways that we have created opportunities to communicate with us whether it's email coming to meetings these um session questions um and uh I know that this gets confusing sometimes people think that

203they have to copy and paste every single one of our emails and actually if you just do is it Schoolboard at ms8 51. org is that right or is it just bored isn't there just the one oh okay so the the community can't do it that way okay all right well anyway that would be lovely if that I I that was doable but either way um there are many many many ways to get a hold of us and to come talk to us and we recommend that you look at that letter to look at that entire exhaustive list great and you're bringing it up on on screen Denny it's not actually on this I'm sorry I'm Megan um so I I believe that that the number that people are going to be looking for at

204these meetings is what is it going to cost me how are you going to communicate that to them great question yeah if you if you can't give them a straight answer they will be very mad right yeah I think well the next uh committee update is is finance and I know that um that is going to be Hot Topic so do we want to move to that and the timing of when we'll have that information because I know it's it's going to be relatively shortly um agree Denny we need we need that number that we I received one communication uh at a citizen group that I mentioned it to the idea that uh if it weren't too expensive an individual mailing to each taxpayer is indicating you know what your valuation is and what the

205mill rate is would be a great thing it may not be operationally possible but I think it I think that it can be operationally possible and we do have um a mailer in the works um so I appreciate that I do I think you're right I think that people want to know what's the bottom online yeah and I know we've talked about maybe like a tool or something that allows people to do that as well but I think that's a great idea Scarboro uh school department which had a big push and lost their referendum by the way um and they uh had a website in which you could uh you know query your individual tax rate and find out what it was right there I don't know whether that's operationally possible though that's that's a

206great question and I and I'm not totally sure how that uh where to get that but I love that idea I think that we can look into that for sure I I think we can look into something like that yeah thanks for the feedback that's that's I think a great point because yes that is the question that everyone wants to know I yes yes as taxpayers us as well right um Finance yes so um I I confess we need to get a meeting on the calendar um Scott do you think it's feasible for us to schedule something this week or should we aim for next week this week I don't think we'd have the plan of financing in place so um currently what we're doing is looking to try and set up a joint facilities

207and finance meeting uh together um I think in order to have all the numbers and have what we need it'll probably happen after the vacation break in order to do that after the April break in order to get those numbers we just started meeting with councel and financial advisers um our financial adviser uh because obviously we just know what the number is right and coming up to that uh that number um we're starting to work on preliminary Debt Service schedules what the debt looks like and a plan of financing around that so so rather than put something out that's not accurate I think we should probably wait until following the break in order to um have that meeting and we should have that information available at that time okay so we'll aim for that later

208in the month and then we'll really need to move after that to get to communicate uh to the public all right um policy and um we met and um the focus of the last policy meeting was involving an update to um our AP policy because it currently um was so outdated that it did not address the IB offerings that we have and so um be working on getting that to a first read here soon great thanks Sam facilities so our next meeting um was scheduled for Friday um but as you just heard probably we are going to try to have a joint one with um Finance so we're going to do that after vacation so no meeting on Friday okay we be too too soon right and that was our regularly scheduled one but we

209want to do it joint with out any well was remote all right curriculum uh for curriculum we were supposed to meet last Monday but there was a snow day so we were um postponed uh we're we only have one currently scheduled meeting for the rest of the year and that's in June so we're going to try to change our our schedule uh there are a few um agenda items that we really want to address one is the how the new school configuration is going to um impact curriculum um and then the other one I I'm I feel so sad Sarah Rose sat here for like two and a half hours and I was excited to share that we were planning on talking about the prek um pilot um so that is the other uh agenda

210item okay thank you um equity nothing new since our last meeting we have a meeting this week if the snow holds off until 7:00 Wednesday night but yes it is our plan to meet this week we have an agenda out if anyone wants to look at it and one of the things that we will be talking about is um revamping our website so that we can update it and make it um make sure we have all the resources on there that people need and want great and then any ad hoc committee reports I'll quickly go um so we have our next Community Partners meeting with representatives from PTO and Foundation 51 on Wednesday and then also on Wednesday and forgive me but I'll read this from my phone so PTO is hosting an event called

211project uian which apparently is presented by Homeland Security um and is designed to inform students parents Educators and law enforcement about the risks that children face in the online environment and that is happening in this room on this Wednesday April 3rd at 6 p.m. they do ask that you register in advance if possible great thank you any other ad hoc committees regarding the GC he sorry go sorry we have a Dropout prevention committee meeting um on Wednesday at 2:30 in room1 um again I'm sure the snow is going to hold off so we'll be there great do you see I yes I just wanted to share a very um uplifting happy story um regarding the GCA I was there for the Foot Loose um one of the performances and an adult walked over to me

212and we started chatting about the one campus plan which he's very excited about actually and he kind of started to look around at the GCA and told me about how he had brought his son when his son was a middle schooler and the GCA was under construction and they walked around and it was really just Bare Bones at that point but they could see the stage and his son said I'm going to be on that stage one day and his dad said yeah you are and sure enough uh he's a senior and he was in foot loose and um it was just really wonderful a really wonderful reminder that these kind of decisions that we make are really tough um and they're always expensive and they're always um emotional and here we are however many

213years later I think he was in sixth grade um when it was being built and just the the absolute joy and the number of kids from all different backgrounds who were able to contribute to make this show happen that was one of the things I really loved those of you who went to the show Jennifer Fox talked about how you have kids who were building sets my son got exposed to tools that he never knew he how to use and he was so excited um and you had kids who had leadership opportunities as a stage manager as a dance captain and you had kids who were painting and very artistic and you had music kids and um it was just a fantastic very affirming night um for me as someone who had to suck in

214my breath when I um found out how much the GCA was going to cost and voted yes with my fingers crossed um it was a fantastic event than any other ad hoc committees okay so we'll move to our last regular um agenda which is Communications um we do have the 20242 Board calendar there's a copy of it in um everyone's folder this reflects the change in meetings from Mondays to Thursdays well it sounds like a better option now we'll see when we actually go through a year and see right and see see how that lands um but is this just for information only right now and just to see once everyone sees the dates if they have any questions um maybe use it as a marketing tool for anyone considering wanting to to serve on

215the board knowing what the calendar is um so that's available um in your packets any questions okay and I feel like Cur talking about calendars and how we were talking about the last day of school and now we we look down uh the weather forecast this week I think we yeah it's usually in main of course beginning middle or end and it's at the end it's at the end this year thank you I am going to put pass these around these are QR codes um we've been putting them up in different parts of the uh towns we've already got people putting them up um they're on our school building doors and stuff like that um but if you have places that you could ask somebody a public establishment to put them on the door um

216there QR codes on both sides so somebody can just snap their camera and capture it it goes right to our building a school building page on our website um is where it goes and um so it's an easy way to um to get to that page and navigate it it's on our website so it directly goes there and uh and you can see the information that is there in the most current information about the building School building project so um please you know feel free to take those and put them wherever you want great they're in the town offices right now I think they're in the library we've got one I believe hanging there if you don't see one please put it up thank you or ask it's a great idea to have that so

217thank you all right so um I would like to ask for a motion to enter executive session to consult with legal council regarding the legal rights and duties of the board of directors with respects to a grievance pursuant of State Statute 1 MSA 405 56e uh and also do you want to sign the paperwork now for the uh for the project yes I think we should do it before we lose people okay at the end can we still vote or we have to hold um no we have to hold off before you vote okay we need to hold off okay thank you um can we excuse students yes I'm assuming they don't sign okay thank you guys all right so the uh first document that I'm going to start at one end and the first

218documents that'll be coming down is the warrant is that oh it is no that's okay it's part of the public meeting okay yeah okay yeah so the first document that'll be coming down through for Signature will be the warrant and notice of election and if everybody could sign in the same spot on every one of these documents so we'll start at the end down here and if you can just sign in the same spot on every document the second uh document that'll be coming down will be the notice of the public hearing so both of these documents um the first set of documents on the warrants and notice of election will be countersigned by the select board in North Yarmouth and by the uh Council in cand and then the notice of election um uh

219or excuse me the notice of public hearing will be signed just by the board and both of these documents get uh posted in the community to notify the community of of the warrant notice and election and the public hearing so that's the purpose of these two documents and you sign in the same space on every single on every single one Finance chair on line okay there you go yes right there on the top yeah I have others and then Megan you can just sign right underneath okay and we'll just keep it going all the way down it's going to live this one they're they're folded honey yeah folded over and again same same place on every document okay okay everybody needs to sign on the same line I just realized I hope no one has

220a nut allergy over here I just realized I just started to eat some nuts and I have a really brief signature my married name is teer by the end there's a penmanship contest to see who has the best I appreciate it there's a lot of process in this so this next gr think just I just didn't flip them over okay something I can do that yeah that's all right isth glasses okay the next one um making its way down is just a notice of public hearing and you just sign on the front p [Applause] page M just SL over to sit down here much appreciated last one coming down are we G be able to stand yeah I think so uh well might probably and for women's basketball fans Iowa 82 LSU 71 with 3

221minutes too I was wondering thank you ex three minutes [Music] ago is D out yeah yeah that's that has a really grad I know right is it really yeah okay USC playing tonight too or uh yeah that's it starts didn't supposed to start at 9: well I really like the story of running this oh are we going to take a there we go terrific all right thank you all done be guys we still need to make the motion I saw you go when I was like Dar it and now K Scot can we still we're set procedures they're so important oh here it does stick but I I think that's locked no there's protein in that bar no not really okay so can we can I try this again yes okay um would anyone like

222to make a motion to enter executive session to consult with legal councel regarding the legal rights and duties of the board of directors with respect to a grievance pursuant State Statute 1 Mr RSA 4056 e mo moved Ana second okay thank you Megan all in [Music] favor thank you e