MSAD #51 School Board Meeting November 27, 2023

001it's a beautiful stretch all right good evening everyone welcome to the msad number 51 board of directors meeting Monday November 27th I'd like to call this meeting to order um I'm really excited to kick off tonight's meeting with recognition of the gy high school theater program under the direction of J fox um we have some uh performers and theater members here who'd like to talk about their upcoming show this weekend so I'd like to welcome you to the podium to talk about Alice and Wonderland wh whomever well uh hi everyone my name's Jack Ary I'm the president of gy drama this year um and yeah like they just said I'd like to let you all know we have a show this weekend Alice in Wonderland as you guys may or may not be able to

002tell from the front row there um to me drama has always been a really big part of high school it's been a great experience for me and in particular our new director who joined us last year Jen fox has been absolutely amazing she's done so much work to make sure that we always have the best shows and really just encouraged everyone from high school to join whether you have a theater background or not and it's just been such a great welcoming Community um so would anybody else from drama like to come up and say a few words about the show or their experiences yeah okay hi folks uh my name is Henry hail I am not president of drama um but I'm play I'm in the show as an actor and I'd like to also

003highlight um the great space in drama for all different types of people all different types of um creatives whether you're uh an actor whether you're into set design lighting design sound design we even have um costume designers and um it really creates a great environment for all kinds of people to thrive and work together um it's been a very welcoming environment for me and many others I think Julieta is a senior in her first year in drama I'd like to note and she's had a great time in Drama and I think uh I'm also new to gy drama not acting but this is my third play um as a part of gy drama and the community here is really great and I'd like to encourage anyone who's not in drama we'd love to have you

004not a lot of kids here but a lot of people who do have kids so tell your kids please join drama we'd really love to have you thank you hi I'm Julieta and um I this is my first year at drama and um I was very scared to do it until I met Miss Fox for the first time and she was very welcoming and encouraging that includes every person a part of drama and I um did an audition for the very first time and I was supported by each and every person and um I got a role in this play it's my very first play ever and um it's a really good Community Miss Fox like is very really good at what she does she teaches us really good lessons and like um we have

005a lot of fun times and team bonding and I think it's a good thing to try out even if you have no experience like I haven't had any and I'm like this is a what I I look forward to at the end of the day so I think people should try it okay as you all can see I in costume so I was given the role of Alice in Alice in wonderlands and I was as surprised as you were as you all are because I have never done gly drama before this year and I really put myself out there this year and luckily I had the chance to take an amazing class by Miss Fox uh acting one where I was able to realize that I love doing this and I talked to her and

006she really encouraged me to get involved uh even though I had Sports and I was doing other stuff and I ended up auditioning kind of on a whim and then I got the lead so I think that just shows that even if you think oh like I wouldn't be able to do it like you can and I just think that everyone should try at least in their life to put their put themselves out there and try something new like I have with Alison Wonderland which has been amazing and I couldn't be happier so I think you should all consider like talking to your families about gy drama coming to our show and supporting us thank you hi uh I'm Maddie atates I'm the vice president of gy drama and I've experienced the same thing that

007everyone else has mentioned I'm a senior and I've always felt that gy drama has been a place where I can go and just relax I've always got tons going on I know Henry can attest to this because we're both full diploma candidates hi Tommy and um gly drama has always just been so welcoming so freeing and uh very flexible with my schedule so very thankful for that uh and I'm so proud of all the work that everyone's done this year whether it's their first year their fourth year I feel like everyone's put so much into this show myth fox has put so much into this show it's amazing it's funny it's very shiny and pretty uh if you care about that but I feel obligated to plug it please come watch us Friday Saturday or

008Sunday this weekend I think you guys have the link it went on the ranger report to buy tickets so uh it's great for all ages it's a super fun show and it's going to be a really great time if you come I know that you guys bring the best energy so please please please come share that love with [Laughter] us hi my name is VI Walsh sorry I'm recovering from a cold so I might cough a few times um I am a junior here at gly drama and these past 3 years have been some of the best years because of gy drama it has always been a place that I can come back to and just be myself and I'm the queen of hearts if you can't tell and it's just been a very fun

009and inclusive way to express myself and you should definitely come see us Friday Saturday Sunday Link in the MS 51 website I believe and thank you I'll just say quickly thank you so much for recognizing um gy drama and all of the efforts it's a very different kind of thing than Sports um it's team building yes but like you mentioned it's a lot of different people that come together to create theater so it's not just actors it's actors and dancers and designers and Builders working in the scene shop you know using power tools and making things out of wood there's something for everyone to do and um fortunately I'm passionate about all of those things and since you've made the decision to add theater classes to your curriculum I think it's been very beneficial for

010the club as a whole um for bringing them together for teaching them specific skills like sewing the making these costumes and these dresses that they're wearing um so the work that you're going to see is very student focused and it's tied together with the classes that they take during the school day which is phenomenal and uh I just appreciate you all so much I have to scoot up because I have to go program lighting now um for this weekend but um thank you so much for having me and for recognizing uh the drama club and and for just giving me at the absolute best best job in the whole wide world love it thank you great that's a wonderful way to kick off tonight's meeting I hope to see everyone at the shows this weekend

011I know I will be there maybe maybe all three shows can't wait um so we're going to move on to approval of minutes can I get a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the last meeting actually is there I don't have anything in my Blue Notes there's no there's no all right look at that we're already moving down to item number four public comment so tonight's meeting um I want to welcome and recognize the value of public comment and to ensure public comment is fair and orderly we'll follow procedures outlined in our board policy BH and we ask that all members of the public do so as well we follow this policy to keep the meetings civil respectful and productive we also hope this allows for all community members who would like to speak

012to be heard we ask that speakers use the designated po podium when making their comments and speak into the microphone if you're interested in speaking please wait until recognized by myself the chair comments by individuals are limited to a maximum of 3 minutes a clock will be visible on screen to help keep track of time after 3 minutes the timer will go off and 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 allotted time frame our policy allows for 30 total minutes of public comment although that can be modified at the discussion of the board as a reminder public comment is not a time for discussion question and answer or debate between the board and

013the speakers rather is it a chance it is a chance for members of the public to express their opinion on school and educational matters the board will not comment on remarks made by speakers during the public comment period please know 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 all neighbors here please 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 communities I do want to note that I will stop any comment that is contrary to these rules and that individuals who

014disrupt the meeting may be asked to leave all right on that note I welcome anybody who's here to speak for public comment uh good evening uh my name is Annie Graham and I live on farms Edge Road in North yth I also happen to be the state rep for all of North armouth and about two-thirds of gray um and I just want to thank you for for letting me speak on public comment um and it it's really nice to see all of you many of you I know um in many different ways so um thank you again so um you know first and foremost I completely and fully trust ms51 Educators Librarians administrators and our school board to educate all of our children and underline all of our children I urge the board not to

015be swayed by a vocal minority attempting to force their agenda on our schools and our communities I suggest that if you pull our two towns the vast majority of our citizens support the excellent work of our school district and do not want any Books banned put three kids through this school system and I've been very happy with the results they're all doing okay um and we just celebrated Thanksgiving so um again many many thanks to the teachers Librarians and staff for their commitment to teaching and nurturing our children our future thank you anybody else wishing to speak good evening um my name is Shauna Mueller I'm a parent of two kids in the school district um and I am a North Yarmouth resident I'm here to support school librarians and the school administrators who are

016working with them as they undertake their professional responsibilities to create diverse book collections that act both as mirrors for students stories that reflect themselves and stories that are windows that teach about new things and ways of being I'm also here to Advocate against book Banning and finally I'm here in support of the lgbtq plus community members in our school district thank you very much hi my name is Rob hail 977 North Road in North Yarmouth I have two children in this High School uh I stand today in support of the book gender queer and having unlimited access to it in our high school library uh this book has been mischaracterized as pornography something which is famously subjective I think it's possible for us all to anticipate exactly what everybody's Kink is going to be I

017think we can agree that pornography is supposed to be titillating and this book is an autobiographical comic book about somebody's struggle with gender and sexual identity so there's nothing titillating about it some people here may find that objective however I think this book will help exactly the people who need that kind of of help there's already a mechanism in place if you don't want your child to read this book I don't need other people to co-parent with me thank you very much Larry O Fiero Cumberland Center I wasn't uh prepared to speak tonight I wasn't going to speak tonight but the first two people who got up here um talked about how they are against book Banning wonderful I have a book for you it's a book about how to make a bomb at home

018I have another book that explains how to get past school security and Massacre some students and some faculty there's another book that explains how you can become or join the Nazi party now the third person who spoke said he does not consider jender queer a a pornographic book interesting I can't wait to have your in my mouth I'm going to give you the of your life and then I want you inside me on the very next page we read boy my first orgasm is still one of the most Vivid lovely experiences of my life so you've got adolesence preens reading this junk the very reason the very purpose the very definition of pornography is to titilate to cause students cause people to get excited to become sexually aroused this is a pornographic book by every

019definition and that is why it is the most banned book in the entire country for three years running I guess everybody else in the country is wrong and you're right so forget about the idea there's no book Banning one of you mentioned the librarian is should be responsible of course that's their job responsible to keep certain dangerous material out of the library pornography is dangerous that this book is pornographic is irrefutable what kind of world are we living in you know hell is a place where reason does not exist and I and I'm thinking we're living in hell we're at the precipice you don't want anybody interfering with your student with your child in terms of what they should read or not read well when when your child is in the library you're not around

020should they come home and tell you what they read they should but they don't always do that like I've said before I'm for being inclusive being tolerant and I hate Prejudice but this is not the way to go about it what any anyone else like to speak please approach the codium my name is Suzanne Hamilton I live in North Yarmouth and for 35 years I was a high school librarian 25 of them in local communities um I've worked in high school libraries my entire adult life in my 35 years of connecting teens and books I have never never known a student who was harmed by reading a book it's important that school libraries include books like gender queer in their collections not only for the kid who feels understood and seen in books like this

021but also for those who struggle to empathize with people who are different from them I commend our district for having clearly articulated and explicit policies on material selection and challenges by citizens of the district and for honoring the process laid out in its policy manual I commend the superintendent for employing a highly competent professional librarian to manage the high school collection and for trusting her to do her job school policy states that material selection should among other things Foster respect and appreciation for cultural diversity and varied opinions and provide a representation of the contributions of diverse groups and individuals to our communities to remove gender queer from the library would be a failure on our District's part to abide by its stated policy more importantly it would be a fail failure to live by the

022district's core values and Mission to treat all students with respect and fairness would anybody else like to be recognize to speak tonight my name is car chette I have three children in the district and I wanted to just add my name to the folks who are in favor of keeping gender queer in our library in our high school library um I think that it's really important to include this book and let people make their own choices for what works for their families if this book does not work for your family then by all means have that conversation with your children um I salute our board and our teachers and our Librarians for being brave and standing up to the idea of book Banning and keeping um many books available to our students that would appeal

023to a wide variety of students so thank you is there anyone else who'd like to speak tonight okay I'd like to oh sorry this is public comment good evening my name is Sarah Russell I have I didn't come prepared with a statement so forgive me if I'm off the cuff here but um I didn't really know that this was an issue in our community until recently I apologize for that but um I'm pretty shocked to hear that we are talking about banning books in our society um our kids go to school to learn books provide an a place to learn about other people and other ways other choices um you know if we those of us that have loved ones in our lives that choose an alternative path and others need to be equally supported

024and tolerance is only learned by discovering that through different perspectives and if we don't offer that in our school I don't know what world we are choosing to live in so I applaud the board for its hopeful support for this to keeping this book in the library um and that's it thank you would anyone else like to speak hi my name is Laura Doos I'm a Cumberland resident I have one child that's graduated from gy and another who is in the high school and I also wanted to start off by saying my understanding is this particular book jender queer is only in the high school so it's irrelevant that we're talking about pre-teens because it is only in our high school um I want to thank the board members for keeping all of our students

025safe as a parent there that is our number one goal I'm here to protect my child and all children from other parents deciding what they can and cannot read by Banning any books that we presently have in our library an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with me it's a fact book Banning overwhelmingly targets books about race racism racism gender and sexuality many by black and lgbtq authors our teachers and Librarians work hard to bring a diverse selection of books to our schools that support all children regardless of their race or their sexual orientation so let's allow them to do their job and leave the decision up to to our Educators and each parent as to what their child is allowed to read thank you hi my name is Harry Nelson I live in North Yarmouth

026we had three boys and went through the school system here they had a wonderful experience playing sports being part of the community um I'm totally against book Banning I love what Stephen King said if the school wants or someone wants to ban a book go out and read those books there aren't many students here but you know go read those books I recall when I was in 10th grade in English class in Mr thr's class I wanted to read a controversial book Catcher in The Ry Mr thefold said I could not read that it wasn't our library I got it out of the library but I had to get permission from my parents to read the book I read the book book about all about Holden callfield Dro there being expelled from um from boarding

027school and going to see a sister um Phoebe in New York City but that book meant so much to me I'm an adolescent I'm trying to figure out about life it was really really important for me so let's do ban Books thank you is there anyone else who'd like to be recognized for public comment Larry I see your hand is up I believe we already had your your time at the podium thank you I appreciate it um that yes that's public comment if there's no one else I'd like to call public comment to a close um so Larry public comment is [Music] over Larry public comment is over we're going to move on to presentations the next item on the agenda um we're going to welcome Rebecca Wendell to this to the podium who is

028going to give us our updated enrollment projections our much awaited updated enrollment projections I know we've had lots of conversations about um the new school that we've been talking about for a number of years um and how the numbers of our students has been changing and Rebecca has been working really hard to provide the projections for us to review tonight see if I can um yeah are you all set with to this connections yeah Ryan um she might me oh she got okay just ignore my pictures of my family all right drive all right so we'll start I'm G get my cat off here because I think I'm get all right so I have been doing enrollment projections for a little over 25 years um to doing sorry I'm not in this previous to doing

029this uh I was at a company called planning decisions and when the company closed in about 2016 I started taking over doing this as myself since I had been doing it for so many years previous um one of the things that I do i' like to kind of talk the basics you know where the data comes from how the projections are made and then I'll get into it uh I don't like to get too bogged down in the data because I think sometimes that kind of takes away from what the overall patterns are so the first thing that I look at when I do these projections is the resident births and that would be babies who were born to residents of your communities um that would be the mother so that's where all the data

030comes to the state it would be the mom that would and so look at that for each of the towns um one of the other things is we know that when kids are enrolled they are enrolled from it's like October 15th to October 14th so we don't look at a calendar year I get all of the information from the state by month so I'm able to break that out October is the one outlier because they can't give me individual it's too private to give me everybody individually so I just cut that in half and that gives me an idea of how many bursts that you had in your community um and then from there I look at the actual enrollment data the enrollment data comes from a couple of sources first it came from mdoe

031up until about 2018 then I started getting it directly from the district this is enrollment data that incl includes every grade so it's grade by grade it's also by Town um and then from there I look at housing data I don't have the data yet for that so I did want to mention that I didn't get into the whole housing portion of this so we're going to focus mostly on the the best fit um what I call the best fit too that's the other thing it's a bit of a misnomer it doesn't necessarily mean that I think that this is the best fit for projecting something it's really the statistical best fit so we look at correlation coefficients like how over time what does it you know correlate the births to the firsts and then

032your grade to grade migration as the kids move from first to second to third to Fourth it just goes into a model everything gets projected out there's no adjustments or anything it's just this is the projections um so first I'll I'll talk a bit about you see that okay there we go so first I'll talk about um resident burs that's if I let me let me get to my actual resident birth okay so um over time the resident birth in the community has increased significantly in the first five years of the period that I looked at and these would be the bursts that have influenced your enrollment over the last 10 years so the first five years of the period that would be 20078 um to uh 11 12 there was 81 births on average

033then over the next 5year period that it went up to 102 so that's an increase of 21 burs that right there is a grade level so you've increased over time every year on average by a grade level um when we look at the bursts that are going to influence your future enrollment that has also continued to go up it's gone up to about 113 and then the last three years 118 so there's been continued increase in the Resident bursts in the town um for the oh and that on average is 37 bursts additional per year so that's two grade levels that every year you're adding into the community um on the average I've used 118 for projecting forward one of the other caveats I'll say to this is I don't have the 2023 resident birth

034data yet from the state so I don't know what that looks like there is potential for it to go down a bit there's also potential for it to go up so once I get that I'm going to readjust this I'll send out you know the more updated projections it really doesn't impact too much probably what you're looking at though it would be prek to four six years out so there's some most of the projections are the kids are already in the system and then these would just be some things going six years out from now so you can see you just my little graphic you can see just very easily it's you know how everything has gone up over time um it it goes up and it does go down there are some years that

035are lower than others but um it does look like you're in a pattern of increasing bursts so back to here is where I look at the resident burst as what they compare to enrollment and from there I get what's called a preschool immigration level this preschool immigration level looks at that first AB burst and the reason I don't look at kindergarten is kindergarten can be a little bit tricky parents can sometimes hold their students back they can decide to send them to a private kindergarten um sometimes they move sometimes they repeat kindergarten there's all these different factors that go into it so we look at first grade and that's when kids need to be in schools by the time they turn six so I look at that as is like the starting class and what

036happens when I look at these births to your first grade enrollment I get a very ratio of immigration and I say immigration in this town because I don't think you have any out migration at the preschool level I don't think I've ever seen it and it's actually some of the highest in migration I think I've also ever seen in state of Maine when I've looked at different enrollment um over time it's ranged anywhere to 100% in migration and the lowest has been let me about 50% in migration so that means if you have a 100 kids at the lowest level you'd have 150 in your first grade class uh you have that extra you know 50% coming in so on average let me see my little thing average on average is about 78% uh over

037the first five years no sorry yeah 78% over the first five years over the last five years it kind of went down to 70 I say go down it's still 70% that's still a pretty sizable increase and then over the last three years about 73% this is really close to the 10e average so on average it's very stable down below you can see my little pattern of year to year that's a different story it goes up and it goes down there's some years that are higher some years that are lower um nothing that says oh that you know it's going to be low all the time one of the things I'll note is the little one down at the bottom that's really lowest is at 36.6% that's for next year that's my estimation for next

038year and part of that is because your kindergarten enrollment this year is interestingly low I can't find a specific reason for that so far I have looked at a couple of different things I'll get back to what I'm sort of thinking it might be um there's no indication any other grade level and let me see where I have my slide this is my ratios of grade to grade migration where I look at changes and see what's happening what's happened in the past is anything weird the little yellow is the kind of the change there's not a lot of change going on so kindergarten really is the only kind of outlier there's a little bit at grades 34 that's actually gone down a little bit in inmigration but it hasn't changed really significantly and 8 to

039n that's always a weird one because 8 to n that's where kids decide I going to go to a private school am I going to go to a charter school am I my family going to move where am I going to go so I'm not too worried about your 8 to9 um change there that's that is fairly typical everywhere else but the kindergarten one the kindergarten to First that that is intriguing um so that is something I just wanted to kind of mention so that you have an idea of where I'm thinking with some of this but for the projections the best fit model as I said it's the correlation so what correlates best and even though I look at this and I see that 36.6 potential for next year I have to use whatever

040the the best correlation is and that is still predicting going forward there being a pretty sizable increase um one of the things when I get that updated birth data I'm going to talk to the also for housing and see what's going on with that and I am already in my mind thinking I'm going to create probably a couple of other scenarios for you guys one being the you know what happens if we have this lower level um going forward or slightly lower level going forward what would that look like and then the housing will kind of tell me is there a lot of housing going development going on and should I do something additional to say well what if we have more housing happen in this community um and then see what the impact of

041that would be me get all right so one of the things really quickly I wanted to also which I find this little data person that I am is the the interesting little tidbits here so if you look at the blue you'd see that that's a pretty sizable class size that you had moved through this system it was about 195 kids by the time they graduated was 192 that was back in 2018 that was one of the largest class sizes every year after that for your your graduating class it's you know 134 157 somewhere in the 150 155 range um and then you look back at all the other grade levels like right now it's about 150 160 140 and then as you get back further and further prek we start to see kindergarten 2019 was4

042students that's the first time in some time that you've seen a class size that size it's pretty large and as that class size has moved on you know it's gone up and down the co year of 2020 uh you know stuff happened there where kids went to homeschooling or whatever but they started coming back so we see by 2023 it's back to 195 so you're looking at if the patterns continue with the in migration that 195 could be potentially in the 200 range um we see it also in the kindergarten class of 2021 there is 183 that's already up second grade 195 so just thinking about that you think about how that class moves forward you're seeing an increase in in your enrollment size overall but this is what I kind of look at to

043see what are these Trends what's happening in the community to make the the projections going forward um okay so future first grade class sizes um the best fit model does make some you know projections for the 2 my glasses uh 2030 on that's where we have that estimate of burst why you see kind of a flatline because I don't know where bursts are going to go I have to use an average but prior to that you can see kind of goes down 2024 that's that really low kindergarten year but then it's projected to go back up again and you kind of hit that over 200 100 level for enrollment in a class um the average is 195 students which is what we're seeing in the higher levels now and that's a 16 additional from what's

044been your most recent three-year level so that's almost a full class size probably a kindergarten it might be a full class size I'm not sure what how many kids you have in each class but that that's an additional add-on in on on top of what you've already been seeing for add-ons I also look at um the gr grade groupings which you have right now I know that there's some maybe discussion of changing that a little bit but right now for prek as you can see what's happened in the past and how you just the green just going up and with these projections it was oh this is a thing that just kills me 155 additional without prek in the last 10 years 155 kids in prek in prek 3 so that's a lot of additional

045kids in your school system coming in um looking at the future it does level off for a little bit and then it starts to go back up again and you'll hit that Plateau so that's additional kids that will be coming in and let's see it will go a little error there on that one but it's still it's 124 additional kids is projected coming in over the next 10 years so you finding a place to put all those kids could be um a bit problematic so if we look at an a a different grade grouping of the prek-1 of course the numbers go down because you have a couple extra fewer level grades in there but it's still the same sort of pattern going up going down a little bit and then kind of going back

046up again and plateauing off again that's because of the burst being an average um over time once the bursts come in and the real migration Trends well that will probably do the same thing of just in little ups and downs but over time this District really hasn't seen significant changes up and down it's been fairly stable looking at the 45 um it's it's a similar pattern not going up quite as quickly as your prek 3 but same thing going up and over time what's going to happen is those kids at the lower level where you're seeing the higher grades they will push into the 4 five and increase that and that will continue and you'll see you know was only 38 additional over the last 10 years that's going to go up to about 90

047additional over the next four years in those grades and it's same thing two the two four if you were to change your grade levels same thing everything would just keep going up um looking at the 68 this is where not unusual for a lot of other districts where the Middle School enrollment kind of levels off families do have a tendency to move make changes when their kids are at lower lower grade levels they want to get them settled prior to Middle School not always but that is a very common more common pattern and you can see there was was a time where the grade level enrollment in the middle school was a bit higher and it's gone down a little bit loss of 15 students so you know probably half a class size a class

048size there over time again as those higher grade levels come in this is going to go back go way up um I'm not sure if that's going to be even level that you've seen in the past it's you know up over the 600 620 students in the next five years as those big classes sizes keep moving in and then the projection say you could have an additional 215 kids by the time next 10 years out depending on what happens 5'8 again it's just a Readjustment of the grade levels but same pattern um was a little bit higher went down for a bit but soon as those kids come in it's going to continue to go back up again 9912 this is also very common in most gr most uh districts that I've seen it's fairly

049stable sometimes there's a decrease depending on you know where everything goes in the past but this has been fairly stable um M just minus 43 students not unusual but as those kids move in it will stay stable for a bit as those that 68 start to move in but then in about 2027 28 that's when things will start to bump up as you get the kids that are the lower levels moving into the high school and that will just keep going up up um and it all depends on what your patterns are for enrollment if you continue to have in migration at the levels how much that will go up that's going to determine you know what the end result will be here but you could be looking at a school with about 800 kids

050for for high school and right now it looks like it's around 6 620 650 somewhere in that range um this is the overall prek-12 same thing it's gone up very slowly um but over time it's going to just keep going up and when that those birth figures come in it could go up a bit more could be a little bit less I can't see them changing significantly from what I'm seeing but we'll have to see what happens when those come in um my big things that I always suggest districts look at when they look at enrollment projections they got to keep their eye on those resident bursts see if there are any changes uh watch preschool migration Trends to see if there are any changes see if any in migrations that's happening that's unexpected any

051decline like the kindergarten I think that could be a decline it is too soon to know whether that's a beginning of a trend or just a one-year blip um watch the grade to grade migration ratios which is what I was talking about for the showing that there's very very stable levels uh it's just one of those every so often you want to take a look if you find out let's say your fifth grade is extremely high you kind of go why did that happen um I don't know that that's going to really happen in this District but you might you know so it's just important to take a look at it watch for residential development changes I don't have the data obviously to show you what's going on there but if you have a big

052residential development project coming online that is potential to bring in students single family housing that's your biggest driver if you have a multif family housing product project that comes in as scar has learned if that has three bedrooms there's that's a single family home that three bedroom uh multif family unit is the same as a single family home so you just want to make sure that if any of these things happen in your in the community that you understand what the overall impact could potentially be on School enrollment um the last thing would just be is updated if things get beyond what you have seen in the past so one of the let's see if I can get back to where I was okay so one of the things really quickly this is I don't

053know if this is going to make heads or Ts for some people I was just sort of thinking about that the kindergarten enrollment trying to figure out why is it so low and I you know was it families that kept their kids back did the numbers not look right what could it potentially be so I looked at you know what your enrollment looks like is the boys and the girls and the both and what is it and then the actual birst that would have impacted and a few kids were held back for June July August September birthdays that's not surprising that happens every year and then if you look at 2018 because those would be the kids of going into kindergarten only a handful again were held back for next they'll probably come into next

054year but there was nothing significant saying to me oh there was a whole bunch of kids that weren't put into the school system this year in fact every um except for December that's kind of a bit of a quandry but every other month you see additional kids coming in so these would be new kids coming into the community and then from this kindergarten enrollment historically there's been a 6% increase in your kindergarten as they go to first grade so I would expect that number it's like 144 now I would expect that to go up another 6% for next year um so we'll have to see where that goes one of the other things that I have I why it keeps going back like that is I have all of the the different oh my goodness

055so the different um tables that show all of the the numbers if anybody has any questions about the different tables I don't know if you've had time to take a look at them but I will really quickly touch on the housing sales which is where my mind is kind of going with the with the kindergarten I don't think I'm saying anything that anybody doesn't already know right now prices of housing is a bit out of control um and if we look back on time we can clearly see how much that has changed this is your the top one I'm sorry it's too small this the top of the state of Maine then I looked at Cumberland County then I looked at Cumberland North Yarmouth and then the district as a whole so we can kind

056of see where the housing costs overall have gone 2017 the average median household price was about $447,000 now as of this year from the first of the year through October it's gone up to $800,000 this kind of prices out some of the families in the area not only has the price gone out but there's also been a significant drop in the number of houses both put on the market and of course sales so that could be a potential driver of the kindergarten you may just not be seeing as many families moving in with younger children um however looking at the past projections compared to the current projections or actually what actually happened over the last two years I mentioned this to Jeff was it was interesting to see High School fell on the plus side

057the plus I usually give ranges like the plus 3% side whereas the lower levels fell closer to the like minus four so the housing prices could be bringing in families with older kids that could also be a driver of your your upper class your you know middle school and your high school um we'll see where that goes over time so those were just the basics I don't see what else I could tell you for enrollment um yeah there I do Supply the ranges that's the other thing so when you're looking at what to to consider for students um in a school I Supply the ranges so you can kind of decide what you think is going to make the most sense I do 10% at the lower grade levels because there's a lot more fluctuation

058there 3% um is another it's a more conservative estimate of what could happen for change so you can sort of say okay if we think that the enrollment projections could be a bit High you could go on the 3% 10% range if you think oh I don't know that that's really estimating enough you could go on the plus range but these this is where I'm seeing projections right now for residence students I just want to get to your attending because the attending to me is always the one that makes more sense one thing I'll clarify um resident enrollment includes both resident students attending your district schools plus those who are attend not attending district schools so when you look at a school building you want to look at your attending data and that's your resident

059students who are attending plus any non-resident students that are attending and there aren't too many but there are a handful at least so um this will let you see that the the overall increase in enrollment is a little bit scary uh it's you know going from about to 2200 and potentially go up to 27 2800 students in the next 10 years if things keep going as they are uh and it remains to be seen whether that kindergarten is a bit of a bell weather of perhaps lower levels of inmigration happening I don't know but it will be something that needs to be watched going forward and I think that is about all I have unless you have some questions for me that's all that's it yeah I tried tried to make it a little less

060there's you can get into a lot of the data and it it gets boring after while I get that but at least gives you something to go by and and look at when you're thinking about the future yeah and thank you so much I know that um we've been really awaiting this information as we continue to plan for for the future and and for the new school and I do want to assure the board that this won't be the only opportunity to ask Rebecca questions as we continue to digest the information um we just got shared I don't know a 47 page uh report um which I know I'm excited to continue to dive into but I did if PE if the board has some clarifying questions that they would like to ask Rebecca today

061um about the presentation but like I said this won't be your only chance to to digest this information but I just want to see what um the board has for tonight sure um thank you Rebecca uh so just a couple guess broad questions being a newer member on the board to um get to participate in one of these presentations from you and wondering in Broad strr as you were looking at the data again you know I know we've talked about the kindergarten class size this year but were there other things that stood out to you as you were updating the numbers in comparison to what you've looked at previously is it largely the same Trends um or was there anything different yeah that kindergarten really was a surprise and so when Jeff had mentioned it's

062unusually low I said oh let's take a peek and see if there's anything else and really there wasn't and that's the other surprising thing to me is that kindergarten is really it so it is perplexing um I've done a lot of projections and usually when I see something like that so unusual you see some other Hallmarks at some other grade levels that things are happening uh I don't see that so I I just kind of wonder whether it has to do with the market and and the families who would normally move in in the last you know between the baby was being born in some other community and entering kindergarten perhaps that didn't happen over the last five years and you know we all know why what's gone on the last couple of years so

063that's my only thinking of what it could be it's weird that it doesn't happen at any other grade level I I can't explain that one um but it is something I you know you will need to keep an eye on it could just be one of those weird things because it does happen in the past there were some other grade levels where there was low enrollment low um preschool in migration and then it went back up again so when I look at these figures one year is not a trend two years really isn't even a trend three years that's a trend so if it's if it happens next year I'd say well okay maybe it's going to continue if it if it happens you know next year and the year after that okay yeah you're

064in a new pattern um and that would influence everything else going forward it doesn't stop the kids that are already in the system that's already a large number so that's already going to move through if this continues though if you know if the the lower levels of people coming in continues and that would be you know You' be talking because we're already saying like six years out that would that would be you know in the next 20 years 15 20 years you'd see like some some big changes there as the kids move into the high school but some of them aren't even born yet and then oh sorry I'll just ask one more so I know Leon mentioned that we would get um more chances to ask questions and engage and um you mentioned the

065Housing Development I think that is kind of still to come in this but yeah other broad question would just be kind of what you see as as next steps to finalizing this update yeah so my next step on my side would be getting the data from the state for the the burst for this year to see where that's at and then I can fully finalize that that best fit model um and see if there's going to to be any changes with the burst have gone up the burst stayed the same burst gone down I don't know so once I finalize that and then I'll get the housing data and find out where that has gone the last couple of years um and I look at that at against the best fit and see does the

066best fit adequately account for any new housing my best guess is probably does at this point um maybe not we'll see but my also my thinking in that kindergarten class I do want to provide a a more conserv ative estimate of preschool in migration using that lower level knowing kindergarten is lower knowing that kindergarten goes up 6% to first grade um what will that migration look like and what happens if I consider that in say a three-year average so I'd probably look at you know that estimate and then the last two years to get an average migration and give you a more conservative I've already kind of played with it to see what it would look like and it would bring things down a bit um would it bring it down to what it is

067now no because the kids are already they're here they're already in there and they'll just keep moving forward I think the big question will be what happens oh my goodness what happens um if everything else changes if all the other grade levels change and it really is just it's a watching watching and see do you guys do um early prek registration in March uh we start um everything in February you do it in February we start putting everything because that'll be really good to watch those numbers if you have anything on that like every year I'm sure you do it every year like what does it look like year to year to year you know are your pre your that that registration looking low is it looking high if it's looking high or if it's

068looking like it has in the past not not last year but anything prior to that will kind of give you a pretty good idea that okay maybe this one year is just a it's a fluke move that and go ahead we got questions all hand up I'm assuming the best fit excuse me I'm assuming the best fit model is a multiple regression analysis if so what are the explanatory variables so it looks at correlation coefficients and I look at it all different grade levels so for preschool correlation coefficient of what to what the co so that that's the different things so first it's the first the bursts and then to the first so you have bursts and then six years later how many bursts or how bir and then how many first grade students you

069have so that you look at every single year for the last 10 years and then it goes through the the modeling of the the correlation to see where's the best fit correlation is it three-year Trends fouryear Trends fiveyear Trend I look at trends for every single so different it's a is it a multiple correlation analysis yes so yeah and if so what are the explanatory variables I'm not sure I understand what you mean the explanatory variables so I've never had that question before when I'm doing the projections it's just it's looking at just the burst to the first and then those and then what's the the best fit statistical best fit between the correlation between the two okay and do the same thing for every grade level as well and we have Tom and then

070Tim well I have a correlation question too so um do you find that um there are correlations between the housing transactions and the birth data like for example if you're following the life cycle of like a family say there's a housing boom is that followed then within the next few years with a bir boom yep and um it is is actually something we saw in scar brro when they started to have a lot of single family housing come in it you can actually line it right up if you have the two Trends so you'd have you know the burst go down and the housing goes down so during the 2020 or 2008 when all the housing kind of crashed and and no one was buying anything the burst went down and as that started going

071back up they started going back up again I also look at fertile females when I do a really detailed analysis and fertile females would be any female between the gr ages of 18 to 44 45 and then see what's the pattern of that from um census data and in the state of Maine that has been one of the things that has been driving down enrollment we've had a lot of change are demographics the females in the 45 plus category have increased significantly whereas the number of women who are between 18 and 44 has declined that will be a correlation right to the burst so one of the interesting things I found I haven't looked at it for I wasn't going to do a full thing I mean I can take a peek at it but

072one of the things I found in Scarboro is yes it went down but guess what those fertile female numbers were going up and there were a lot more younger families moving into the community so I can take a look at the census data and see what it looks like for these two towns and see if a similar pattern is H happening because if those fertile females is increasing that's definitely going to be a driver of your births going up um if your older women or you know 45 plus is increasing it may not be a driver of that um increase in births it all depends it depends on who's who's moving into the community but yes so anyways new new housing especially single family will bring in those additional fertile females into the community okay

073uh so one other question and feel free to punt on this because I'm putting you on the spot I I I had very little time to look at the new report but I was very interested in the bottom line and comparing that to what we saw back in March uh about March of 22 right um and that number is higher by 100 or so do you know what changed in the variables that caused that increase yeah the um it would be the average in migration at different grade levels is across all the grade levels except for there were a few that still had an out migration um typically seen between 11th and 12th grade there's some changes in migration there but every grade level experienced higher in migration and again when I look at those

074correlation coefficients anything into the details of the data but when the correlation is closest to 1.0 that's when the correlation is best with this community it's been 0. n and higher which is really strong correlation between one grade label and the next is that as those students move forward so I haven't seen anything that says oh you know something is way off it's just higher levels of immigration and it seems to be pretty stable pattern of of the inmigration here okay so it's really just those Chang changes on the grade to grade migration side otherwise things are are pretty steady yeah yeah yeah and that's I mean to me it so back several years ago the state of Maine did a projection for schools just to see you know where they would be one of

075the things that they did was they would just project everything forward and basically what that did was bring some some towns down to zero because their patterns were showing such a huge decline it went down to zero we know that's not going to happen I mean you're not you're never going to have that happen eventually it's going to go down it's going to be like a J curve or an L or whatever and I kind of Wonder I'm beginning to wonder because this this is a pretty significant increase it's going stra I just wonder at some point will there be a leveling and we don't know where that leveling when it's going to happen when is it going to level off and and you know not keep going up it's just going to end up

076being a plateau or maybe small increases or slighter changes um but that does it is something that's in the back of my mind when when I see this huge increase happening in the next 10 years I think there probably will be a leveling I just don't know when thank you hi we're back I'm Tim oh she's looking that way where are you okay hi um Denny and Tom asked the really smart questions that I was going to ask but no um you won't get any correlation or variable questions from me okay uh tonight um so I I kind of just looking at the sources of data and just trying to understand that a little bit so I have two quick questions one do you see or do you do you ever consider school ranking so

077let's pretend something pretty drastic happened and our ranking system went bye-bye in the state of Maine or something like that do you see is that um anywhere in your calculations in terms of migration no because that that would be one of those things that would be already in a already in the average migration trend are already in the historical migration Trends I don't this District obviously it's one of the top I don't think that that's changed in many many years it's been right I mean it's been at the top several for a while who you ask I suppose yes yeah so I suppose if it totally tanked and something unusual happened yes you that would make a change happen in the trends it doesn't account for that now because that hasn't happened one of the

078things I have seen over time is if you build a new school the kids come the parents come they know that this is a new school it's a new school building perhaps new programming they just they just like it it's it's great to see a new new school being built in a community so that is something that I would consider um you know if you you're looking at the numbers where you want to go just to make sure that you do have enough space I always go back to my own hometown of Scarboro who built a middle school that was too small the day it opened uh they did not AC accurately project what they were I didn't do that one they didn't accurately project how many kids were going to come into that into

079that school okay so we should expect a bump if yes yeah ABS you would absolutely especially at those lower grade levels um high school maybe but yeah at the lower grade levels you'd definitely see more families decide oh this has got a new school they've got a great school system let's let's move there all right and then um you talked about town planning and this is not like that is not an area of expertise for me but we we do have two select board members that think at least in the in the house right now and it just it makes me think if we had conversations between the town between the school and you were kind of privy to what the development plan was or how much room we had to grow would that help

080in the projections or that something that's the my next stage that I have to get some I have to have a discussion with them or somebody there to find out what's going on are are there any large developments planned are there any multif family housing developments planned are there any large you know single family housing developments planned um what do those kind of look like if not I you know what's been in happening in the past do they think this is what's going to happen in the future I don't know what the average I I didn't have a chance to take a peek but you know if the average was 50 do we think that's going to stay the same um and then I do look at that and then compare that to what has

081happened and make the adjustments if it's been 50 in the past and there's been a correlation between housing sometimes there isn't and those would be in the The Districts that see in out migration immigration out migration immigration clearly housing has nothing to do with what's happening with that pattern it's just they're working independently of another but if you see that clear as the housing has changed and so exactly has that the migration I would make an adjustment to the model which I think I did back in 2021 I think I said okay what happens if if this level of enrollment did I also did another adjustment for covid since we had that weird year of people moving out there was just weird patterns um what I did see was that it looked like it followed

082the best fit the last two years all right good so you'll be a part of that process when that happens can you yes yes so that'll be my next thing is to kind of get that birthday to get that do we know when that might be because I I feel like those numbers and if we that that second phase is pretty important as we kind of consider the size of the school especially if you're talking about we're going get bump like I feel like we need to get as tight as possible on that yep so as soon as I get the birth data I can finalize that final you know best fit make sure I know that that's that's a good model and then when I talk to them I'll put it all in it

083won't take me very long I have everything set up already um and then I can just let you know I can do another note and say here here is the adjustments and here is additional model if I think you need it I do also have the the private school data that just came in today that's one of the things I try to exclude private school data because in the past private schools are not the best at reporting how many kids that they have so what that does if I don't take that out it looks like one year you have higher enrollment the next year low enrollment then again higher enrollment for overall residents um because people do like to look at how many kids are in private school if you build a new school maybe

084they won't go to private school it's hard to say but it's good idea to have an I you know how many kids are actually in those private schools so I'd have that I have to add that in I have to get the the new housing data so soon as I get the burst is really when I can wrap everything up and go through the rest of it okay thank you y others I had questions um except they've been covered pretty well so I won't go back over that okay I just want to say thank you very much I know uh this helps me a lot think about the new school and how many numbers are we going to have and I know we kind of we're rushing you to get us anything you had so

085thank you very much all right um again thank you I so appreciate you sharing this and I know we'll have continued conversations not only amongst the board and the administration but as we mentioned with with our towns as well because I know there's conversations about you know future developments I would be really happy helpful to have that information as we're thinking about the future but I also your point about our our home sale price now and the impact of families that might be able to move into our community especially with young kids I think is an important one too to to think about yeah and instead of seeing at the lower levels you might just see it at the higher more established families deciding to move yeah so thanks again y I just want to

086point out that Rebecca has done four studies now for us yeah in recent years 2016 19 March of 22 and then now for an updated report so it's very important that the same person is doing our um our calculations and looking at that and just gotten really I think um knowledgeable about our district and you know where those projections are going so it's been U very helpful and I know that you say this Rebecca but it's not to get business but we really just have to keep our projections going we can't just rest if it's not me somebody else I mean you you definitely want to keep looking at those especially if there are any changes anything happens that's unusual you're thinking about I mean schools aren't cheap you want to make sure that you

087know this and you're not and you're not building too small um that's that's the other thing you want to make sure that you you know you continuing to look at these different numbers to see what are we going to do and um how many kids are actually going to be here thank you thank you great okay so that wraps up presentations for tonight we're gon to move on to the book challenge item um so recently a challenge was filed to the book gender queer which is located in the high school library collection per policy JJ a Review Committee was formed met and discussed the challenge the committee's membership met the policy requirements of including a curriculum leader an administrator and a librarian a teacher and a Community member that committee unanimously recommended that the book

088remain in the high school library and the results were shared with superintendent Porter and the complaintant the complaintant then appealed that decision that prompted disa process which is being done following policy JJ each board member received a copy of the challenge book on the November 20th meeting and is requested to read the book by December 4th at today's meeting we'll hear both from the complaintant and the representative of the Review Committee we have allocated 10 minutes for each party to speak which also includes questions from the board board members can ask clarifying questions of both the committee and the complaintant the questions are one way and nature with the board asking questions only the board is asked not to answer questions from either the committee or the complaint this is an appeal that the complaint

089brought before the board and the board's role now is to understand the appeal listen and understand both sides and make an informed decision at our next meeting this is not a public debate question from the board should be specific respectful and focus on helping us make the best decision possible I also ask the member of the audience to allow the board to do its work please listen respectfully and do not interrupt or respond to speakers this will also help us move through this process efficiently and effectively and then after today's meeting the next steps are as followed at the next schedule meeting of the board on December 4th um which I think we're looking to have at the GCA and I will try to confirm that I know Jeff just stepped away the board will

090Reserve time for public comments specific to this book challenge the board will then deliberate in public and vote on the appeal the board is not being asked for a book report only to vote on the committee's recommendation so thank you all I now invite suie Robbins to present the work of the Review Committee and as I mentioned earlier um we're trying to limit each um to 10 minutes um and again that includes questions from the board if if the board has any during that time so we were going to use the timer again just to make sure everyone has the same amount of time that's fine good evening and um Leanne you did my job for me um as Leanne mentioned I'm Susie Robbins I'm the director of academic services and I was a member

091of our um Review Committee for gender queer also as Leanne mentioned after reviewing the book based on the criteria that's outlined in policy JJ the committee recommended that we make no changes in access to the book in our high school library and the decision was based on the following criteria that's outlined in JJ the book support student achievement of the content standards of the system of the learning results through Main's guiding principles it supports the goals and objectives of the school units educational programs through our vision statement it enriches and supports a social emotional learning curriculum it takes into consideration the varied interests abilities and maturity levels of the students served as the school library Journal says the book is appropriate for grades N9 and up the book stimulates growth and factual knowledge literary appreciation

092aesthetic values and ethical standards as committee members believe the book is a good example of a graphic novel it is also an approachable well-crafted book with strong voice and good storytelling we found the book is accurate and current as it speaks to many issues faced by our high school students sexuality relationship self-awareness the book also reflects high quality scholarship and presentation as it has been selected for several book awards and it finally it represents significant authors composers and works from diverse groups as the author of the book represents a diverse group and it identifies as nonb non-binary and asexual and finally committee members believe the book selection process used by the high school librarian that's outlined in policy JJ was thoughtful and thorough so that's how we came to our recommendation I don't know if

093anybody has any questions or clarifying questions great thanks Susie do any board members have any questions about the review committee's report thank you Susie um so as far as the overall content of the book uh and correlating that to each of of the the standards and policy igj where does a book cross the line that maybe might meet all of those standards but is considered lwd or um offensive inappropriate for kids is that only based on what the uh publisher or the um shoot I'm I lost it now I think the the library what what what do you use or it said that we use um what is the young adult Library Services ass Association is so if it's sort of passed that test then do do we then as a district consider that um

094anything that might be objectable material even in meeting you know these criteria we would assume that that uh that it is not lwd lascivious pornographic I guess is what I'm trying to say yeah and I can't answer that um except to say that our Librarians are well trained in exactly what this criteria means and they would have a better understanding of what crossed the line for their developmental age group thank you and Jeff I know you did a presentation earlier on the book selection process and I think yeah one of the things just looking at Susie's report for the committee is it just um I think you would when you had gone to the end of it um you had mentioned that Comm committee members are standing behind the selection process and it says um

095they had you know the the librarian had done a review in all the professional journals as she normally does and there's a list of those professional journals I know that all of our library media Specialists do that they consult those um as they're making their selections and that's very important part of the process are there other questions yeah I was going to ask whether um because it's classified as a graphic novel I think some people have mentioned I think that they misunderstood that means it's for younger children or whatever but um my understanding is that's not true that it's for high school aged and my part of my other question confirm that and my part of my other question is um other other other different standards to judge it by because it's a graphic novel

096as opposed to fiction or yeah you know I think criteria for different um genres is important and that is part of what the Librarians have to take into consideration as they're making a selection because you know I think in the policy it's generic enough to fit any genre that they find but they are very familiar with the criteria that goes along with making something you know you know a good graphic novel or good non-fiction good fiction those kinds of things um so I I have a question um in the response you talk about how ultimately it's the it's the parents um decision um which I think we've heard echoed in some of the public comment as well it what's the process for a parent to proactively um make that decision for their for their kid

097so or is it just a hopeful that the kid talks to you or the student talks to you about it was that considered in that statement like how is it the parents decision did you want to say something Jeff sorry but I can if no I didn't know if you were going to I didn't want to step on your toes um Tim it's usually a conversation with the librarian so letting them know that they really the parent doesn't want their child to check this book out and that's really all the P it can be as private as that I guess is what I'm trying to say okay um and then so I think there's a big difference between a freshman who could be 13 I'm guessing that's the youngest freshman maybe 14 I don't know

098um and then 14 or 15 14 or 15 okay and then an an 18yearold so most when I did a search um for reviews I know you said you looked in the journals for um just age recommendations I almost in even from the author themselves saw at least at the lowest end 16 um and I'm wondering whether or not you guys discussed that in terms of you know maybe it's not appropriate for a 14-year-old or a freshman but upper classman um even as the author suggested as well like High Teens yeah that is not something we discussed obviously we discussed age appropriateness but we also stand behind the review that we read that says nth grade and up okay yeah I think I'm trying to get to the the maturity level and and because I

099think that's where this kind of falls under it that question so um okay thank you sure Susie we have a um prek through third grade Library yes um and we have a fourth through 8th grade Library although I think it is broken up four five and 68 so would you say that there are books in the prek through third grade Library where they're appropriate for third graders but not for kindergarteners I'm not sure about the appropriateness as much as readability and and that's what you usually see at that level but a book's not going to be put in the library that's not appropriate for that grade span okay okay so to Tim's Point yeah they have to take a look at all of the students who will have access to that Library okay and our

100last minute and a half I want to make sure if there's anyone else who has questions has them answered um I had just a quick question I know you had mentioned in the report that the committee members unanimously recommended that um there be no changes made to access to the book and I'm just wondering if um you could share any insight on to um the discussion process and um I I guess the um how how how well the the group worked together so um I think we worked well together but we really followed JJ and used the criteria that's outlined there to base our dis to you know form our discussion looked at each criteria what did people think um and we went down through all the criteria and there were some that didn't matter

101to us like was the book um expensive or cost prohibitive those kinds of things we didn't talk a whole lot about but we've looked at the criteria and use that as our basis for conversation does that answer your question yeah I realized when I said worked well together that wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I was just um drawing a blank on what I was trying to say and it was kind of more just like the process and how I guess if everyone felt if you could convey a sense of if everyone felt that um they had the opportunity to express them themselves and be heard for their opinion I would hope so um I think they did but I won't speak for them thank you Susie now I'd like to invite Scott

102Jordan up to the podium good evening Scott Jordan Cumberland so I obviously I'm the complaintant um you know it's interesting during public comment I heard a certain demographic of folks here tonight speaking out against the book I also think back to all the times that I've spoke out over the past year about this book but it wasn't specifically just this book nowhere during that time that I ever mentioned Banning books not one time go back and watch all the Schoolboard video because I don't believe in banning books believe the pro proper term is curate I also mentioned in my request for challenging the book I think my sentence was age appropriate what's not mentioned fully in the committee's decision when what the committee failed to leave out was the author's actual statement which is as

103follows when I was on a book tour in 2019 I was asked many times what age of reader do you recommend this book her answer I would generally answer high school and above but the honest truth is the readers I primarily wrote the book for were my own parents and extended family and older I think Tim you asked a question I'm sorry madam chair I think there was a board member that asked a question or was alluding to ninth graders may not be as emotionally developed as a senior or maybe a junior or sophomore I believe suie just mentioned something along the lines and please if I misstate I apologize you you put a certain amount of books in the K through3 Library kindergarteners shouldn't necessarily look at books that third graders should be looking

104at freshmen shouldn't necessarily be looking at books that seniors are looking at but it's not even about that where are your moral compasses people seriously have you looked at the book have you read the book Jeff I'd love it if you could do me a favor and pull up on the overhead kink.com the book is encouraging us to go to kink.com I wouldn't encourage anybody in the room as an adult to go to kink.com on your library I'm I'm sorry on your laptop your cell phone your iPad I certainly wouldn't encourage your children to go to that website but just imagine if you still have a moral compass what that's telling you to do and what you're going to see do you want to see animals having sex with human beings do you want your

105kids to see that a lot of the people that spoke tonight talked about they had children go through the school I'm just going to call it what it is your older folks your kids are not the age of these kids now we have a mental health crisis going on in our state Co showed us that and part of that is what we're seeing now with books like gender queer all boys aren't blue flamer I mean the list goes on and on you're buying these books but ultimately you're not knowing what you're putting in there you're trusting the American Library Association you're trusting that your librarian is doing her job she doesn't know all the books that are coming in I guarantee it she's not reading all the books like this I'm just asking use common

106sense this book is not appropriate vaginal slime anal sex I mean really do we want our kids looking at that really you know we had a we had a board member that stated when I mentioned in a prior school board meeting we had pornography in our schools and that was my interpretation is what that board member stated all I will tell you is this is two minors this is not two adults these are two underage children engaging in oral sex with a strap on am I making you uncomfortable because I know I'm uncomfortable knowing that our children in this community can have access to this and I hope you're uncomfortable looking at this because this is not right think about it just you you want to be welcoming and inclusive and diverse jef Porter you

107formed the committee it's interesting that one of our students tonight his mom was on that committee it's interesting that the high school principal was on that committee I've had a conversation with him I know where he stands on things you didn't have a diverse group in that group the board is not as diverse as it should be but elections have consequences we want to be welcoming and inclusive but if somebody has a differing of opinion they're bullied they're called a bigot they're racist I experiencing that running for the House of Representatives my oldest son is black my youngest son is Jewish I don't care what two grown adults do in the privacy of their bedroom but don't push it onto our children it's already Tough Enough with covid and then you're going to allow this

108mental illness to continue really just do your job that's all I'm asking thank you Scott are you ready to take some questions if board members have them I have a question okay Kim um so Mr Jordan thank you um yes ma'am in your um written responses um to the committee's decision as well as this evening um you have referred to page one 167 um you have that poster there correct as underage children yeah engaging in that um why why do you call them underage children the author stated it where the author stated it in multiple interviews in multiple interviews correct the author stated that the person who wrote the book and so the on page 162 when it when they identify themselves as 25 year olds can you um I I'd be very curious to

109see those interviews because everything that I have seen is is that these are to consenting adults and since that is an important part of your um uh the statement that you provided I I just wanted to clarify where you were getting your information sure I have page 162 here I don't see what you're I'll see you anywhere ass say that 162 in my book um in the interest of transparency you should know I'm 25 years old page 162 if you want to see it's a must be a different a different addition they're walking on a beach so I can't reference what you're saying though because I don't know what page it is okay um it's about four five pages before the um the page that you have the poster of of the the strap on

110thank you I can tell you what I've read in multiple interviews I can't I can't answer that question but I can tell you what the author stated in her interviews that it's two minors engaging in that those thank you for clarifying that and I don't mind finding those and sending those to you that that would be helpful yeah to the board or just to yourself um I know I we've had previous conversations where you've also made that statement and I know I've also gone back and and tried to verify that and I wasn't able to but maybe I didn't find the interviews so I'll repeat my question so am I sending it to the board or just to you um you can send it to me and I I'll distribute it are there other questions

111thank you for your time thank you actually oh I I do have a question thank um so it seems let a lot of your uh OB jection to this book is focused on pages 166 through 168 at least at least in our copies um they correspond with the the graphic that you brought um if those pages were not in the book would you still bring this forward no it's not just those pages I was just using those as an example that's not correct no I would I would still bring this book and this is just one of many books okay thank you welcome I can I jump on it add to that um if it wasn't it weren't a graphic novel and there were no pictures and it was just written as is it's a

112short story would you would your objection remain the same yes it would okay 18 seconds okay Tommy have you spoken with the high school library about her selection process I've asked not gotten a call back because I know that I've personally talked with her and she orders each book individually and reads through the description and looks at and chooses them methodically and I think that your description of how she chooses her books is not accurate reading a description and reading the book is two different things you can see something you can see one thing in a description and then you can see something completely different just like you could read the book and and interpret it one way Tim could read the book and interpret it a different way thank you for your time you're

113welcome so as I mentioned earlier or the next step in our process is that all board members are um have been provided a copy of the book and we will be having during our next board meeting which is next Monday December 4th we will be having a board um just make sure I characterize it correctly we'll deliberate in public and vote on the appeal um I know we were looking at the GCA to hold that um and I don't know if that's confirmed but we'll need to we have a placeholder there I mean can it will either be in here or in that room okay we'll make sure we advertise that um the play will be finished by then so will be finished great okay um we're going to move on to our items for

114Action we have a professional position can I get a motion I mve to what am I moving to do I move to uh approve the appointment of professional positions as outlined I'll second thank you and can I get a description of this position jck yes this is an fls functional life skills teaching position at gley High School uh the position has been open for um some some time and um we advertised on different occasions we got um applicants um but none that the committee had been looking at they were happy with the applicants we have one teacher um as you know already but this was a second position that was put in because our numbers have increased we also put in some professional positions um for clinical support at uh within this program so we're

115able to uh continue um meeting the needs of all the students during this time however the fls program at the high school um generally fls has students that are need more academic um more academics and students that need more life skills and so we've tried to bifurcate this program in the second position which we've had before we had someone in the position previously um was more on the academic end of um fls and um it is important and we've been trying to fill it and we finally um have found a very suitable candidate uh who has experience working in the fls as a teacher fls area um so we're very happy to bring this person forward for your consideration tonight thank you Jeff any questions how long I know you said that the position's been

116open for a while can you give a rough estimate um I believe it's been about a year I'm wondering I know that on the employment checklist that was included in the packet it didn't I mean it it does State how many candidates were interviewed um but I'm wondering how many applicants we've received over that time period if there were any or yeah that should have been stated I'm sorry an it we've gone back and forth on this um I will get that information to the board yeah we've had more applicants than we had interviews put it that way okay I think that's what I was yeah getting at with this one yes we've had more applicants and interviews yeah just none that the the interview committee was pleased with sure thank you so that was

117the only one invited for an interview is that what you're saying uh no I think there's been other interviews but none that have gone forward oh okay yeah and it's it's happened over such a long period of time that it's been here and there and we've kept that position open for about a year right other questions okay call for a vote all in favor right unanimous okay now we're on to the superintendent report I feel like we just did this I know so just right before turkey time your thankful pie just going to be a picture of Jeff eating Thanksgiving that's pretty much it surprisingly things do happen over the over a week even with Thanksgiving and um third grader Sam Wilson um at Wilson School surprisingly I actually don't know if there's any relation

118there might be um help pick up and deliver new equipment for students to enjoy on the playground and also if you've gone up to the Wilson school entrance recently you'll see some nice painted rocks um I actually took that photo on't I good photo photo taker I saw it one day I was walking up and I was like wow I got to take a picture at 45 GMS 45 um volcano volcanologist Gary Lewis did I say that right volcanologist thank [Laughter] you um visited with students from grade four students made and erupted uh their volcanoes as part of their study of land forms and Gary has been in before but I think it's it was before the pandemic was the last time he's been in so it was really exciting to have him back um

119working with our four five students um this is a favored activity for a lot of kids is learning about volcanoes and what was how do you say that again an vulcanologist okay here's somebody who finished halfway through a PhD and still can't do say that um so also uh at Middle School um thanks to our librarian Dorothy Hall riddle uh and the Civil Rights team in 45 and the gy PTO uh for their collaboration we've actually um had this um author in before uh with other schools so it's it's great to have um Lisa WIIL back and Lisa is probably familiar to many people in the community um for being a um having been a parent here and she wrote a book um a dog and his boy actually about her son Scotty who went

120to school here at gley um and graduated a couple years ago now I think um and then Scotty's dog Spillway so that U book um has been out there and she's been in and it was just nice to have um a nice assembly and talk about the book that she has written about her son and Scotty certainly contributes to all that and comes to those um those book assemblies at the high school a new club has been formed many of you know this K cares which is dedicated to Bringing more awareness to mental health and ways to help those who need support and today I did ask um if there were a couple of students that can come in the next few weeks to the board to talk more about KY cares this is a

121really important club that got started um and um there's a lot of they've just done a huge amount of work to get this lifted and truly it is student LED and student run and it was student initiated um and so um I've invited some students to come and uh give you some more information in the next few weeks or so we'll see them also at the high school um we had some a lot of cooking's been going on recently I think it's Thanksgiving but students in the a P Spanish class um created L Salvadorian Cuisine and um this is a actually a project between some of these students actually go into the fls classroom as well if I remember correctly and work with students in fls um around cooking um and so it's it's a

122combination I don't know if any of these students in these these photos do that but we do have a group of students um that works um as mentors with our fls students um and it's really nice to see I've been in that class before Rangers Rock Edition this week we had a signing and I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of students that have had signings but this was the one that uh came across social media that I saw the other day um and uh Mary axelon um is signed on to play baseball at Bentley and Audrey Cohen has signed on to swim um and she is swimming at Penn State so those are the latest two that I know about um so congratulations to Audrey and Marky Sergeant shout out shout outs this week um

123this was a Photo Snap by somebody I think can't remember um at the 45 therapy dog Lou um therapy dog Lou is very popular at the middle school um and she is taking a snooze during independent reading at GMS 45 speaking of dogs my dog is visiting this week now my dog is not a therapy dog um my dog is a snooze dog so when I saw Lou doing that I was like huh that's definitely what my dog will be doing my uh my dog has been invited in to um meet with some students who earned a prize so maybe I'll have a photo of that in the next next Edition uh I don't think my dog really is uh up to any prizes she just wants a treat um in the superintendent's notebook this

124week the sad um I think uh Leanne the chair has mentioned this already last week but just reminding people that we continue this is now the fourth time in the last Mr pulin how many times have you applied for revolving renovation funds last two year three years waiting waiting for one more we have four that we've applied for and one's in the wings in in the last couple of years so uh great job to Scott and um for making sure that these these State funds continue to be a regular part of our application process and I also want to say something very exciting and I know everybody especially if you have a kindergartener coming in this year you will not need to fill out paper forms anymore this has been a goal of Scots in

125mind for many years it been part of a budget process the budget we've never been able to get it through the budget or it's been taken out uh because we needed room for other things but we decided to it was just getting to the point where parents were complaining the school schools complaining it's hours of ridiculous work doing paper and my word we got to get on board with the 21st century so we have online student registrations and if you have multiple students you're a new family to the town you don't have to go to each school and fill out these papers and packets and do it all over again so easy it's going to be really easy it was good to come out of the 50s job yes it was really great and so

126we are excited about this online student registrations I want to thank Donna green in particular from our tech department for pushing us on this for a while and she was absolutely right to push us and has also been setting all of this up with especially with Wilson school because that's where majority of our new registrations comes but I I am excited that we're finally doing this and it's in the works so any new families to our district including kindergarten new registrations will um not need to go through that process of paper registration is that why we had so few last year was that's it we it was the last time and people were like I'm waiting for the digital registration and I am not going to do the paper this year that probably is it

127that's my report great thank you question one question if someone is not proficient with digital registrations they can make an appointment or just come in yeah and our especially at the Wilson school where most of our registrations are done our um Administrative Assistant staff are great in the office they just take care of families and even with digital they take them right into their wing and very friendly um and we'll help and if you need paper they'll help you with it or help you fill it out digitally they do I mean they're great great people in the office or other languages maybe yes we also help with other languages if a family needs that we routinely do that as well great other questions well not a question but I know that um we obviously you

128know I mean in schools use a lot of paper but it's nice to be able to eliminate some of the paper usage yeah um and full disclosure I only know how to say vulcanologist because of PBS kids [Laughter] so I don't know how long I've said it that way long as I've been alive but um yes I it will save paper and I think it will save people time too which is even better and it you know we have um especially with with families today with different custodial arrangements and stuff it's all digitally so we don't have to keep updating it in paper all the time we get new information it can just be done once and then it um goes across the all registrations with all kids is this going to include other forms

129for example I know today I didn't have like one of those medication forms for my kid to have Advil we all had our vaccines yesterday and they had a little bit of a I can't talk about that but we're trying to digi digitize everything in the digit in the district right now I'm sorry I have a cold um and we're trying to um to do all of that I don't know if that will be a form that we are putting digital it's anything that goes into registration registration so that's probably separate okay yeah but there is a lot of forms in that a lot of forms guess we missed one all right great I think we can move to committee reports and again I know we just had a meeting a week ago and so

130the updates may be short and sweet but I know the students have probably still been busy you want to go sopia okay so yes not not a big week for the high school last week but um among many other things the KY High School community service Club has organized the food drive the high school has been participating in over the past few weeks and over 300 items have been donated to the Community Food Pantry in Cumberland so that's pretty good very very good um and then upcoming on Thursday Thursday will Mark our third enrichment and Club time during advisory um some of the options that students signed up for were basketball chess club history trivia origami Scrabble yoga and many more um I think students have really enjoyed and appreciated having this time every once

131in a while to be in smaller groups with varying grade levels to do a lot of different activities I know that every time we have one people are pretty excited to sign up so I'm excited great thank you got me yeah um and similar to that I I definitely enjoyed the break but coming back better than ever and excited to to to have to finish the last few weeks before um Christmas break um and one thing over the break that is more what that oh my gosh sorry that is um uh a yearly tradition that happens at the high school is the Turkey Trot that is put on by the hockey teams um both the boys and the girls high school hockey teams they it's always a great opportunity for kids who have graduated and

132also kids who um are currently in high school and just throughout the whole Community to come and run um I know I saw a few uh of you guys there and it was it was really fun um and I also saw a lot of my classmates and people that had graduated years prior there as well um and I would have talked more about the play but I think we got um a very very great and in-depth um discussion of the play from the from the people who are there who are in it but that is happening this weekend um on Saturday Sunday Friday Saturday and Sunday with the Friday and Saturday shows being in the evening and the Sunday show occurring at to great thank you yes I saw a few few people at the

133Turkey Trot it was really wonderful I think they almost ran out of bibs like it was I think one of the biggest turnouts ever and it was the first time my entire family did it willingly so that a pretty proud moment all right um Community engagement committee um we have not met since I last updated the board so I don't have any new updates but we are meeting tomorrow thank you finance uh the finance committee is meeting on Thursday the only update is that at our last meeting Denny had asked a question about getting a fiscal 24 update and that is on the agenda for this Thursday thank you policy um no big updates we last met on November 7th um discussing bed remote participation at board meetings um we meet again next Tuesday and

134hopefully we'll be able to um finalize some policies to bring um some for a first read I'm thinking at our December 18th meeting great thank you facilities we have our next meeting on Friday and we anticipate um speaking to uh two architects um regarding the potential on campus plan and uh we'll have an update after that great thanks curriculum uh we had a curriculum meeting this afternoon uh where we were joined by uh Gregory Greenleaf um who's a history teacher at the high school and Heather Perkinson who's librarian at the high school and we talked about AI uh and it was a really interesting conversation I think all of us realize that we have a lot to learn uh about Ai and how uh it's influence influencing education um Gregory and Heather are doing some

135professional development uh tomorrow for our teachers um and I think our teachers are in good hands because they are are very knowledgeable um about issues around AI um uh one thing I want to mention I wanted to get feedback from them is whether we need a districtwide policy about the use of AI uh and it seems like we are not anywhere near near that point uh yet we we are still in a a place where we have a lot to learn um about um how it is being used um uh and um you know the potential for for its use before we we go in that path okay Christine are you raising your hand over there no you did great summary okay lot to learn yeah no I'm good yeah I will just add Tom

136I know previously um last year at one of the regional board meetings this had come up um and so I had been in contact with Steve Bailey from um msma msba whichever one does the board words I don't know there's too many letters but um you know it's something certainly that I'll keep my eye out um for this year's Regional meetings and was the professional development also extending to the Middle School level for for staff or is it just being focused at high school right now I don't know Jeff do you know that it was just High School yeah just High School okay okay um Equity we have not met since uh last Monday night we will be meeting next week to continue uh finalizing the plan so that we can be bringing that forward

137hopefully very soon great thank you any ad hoc committee work between last Monday and now okay I I didn't expect that so great okay communication um we have an update on new school project I know Jee you had put together uh draft timeline um and were you planning on walking through that um I can yeah um so it's up on the screen I think also U Melissa put it in the packet for you as well um today I print I have a printed copy so she must have oh yes you have a printed copy um so this is just a suggested timeline um if the board um chooses um and this is assuming a June referendum June 20 24 and if the board chooses to go with the oncampus plan just giving you an idea

138what the timeline I I know there were questions about that um and the importance of knowing that so you know the Bas basically obviously Christina um spoke for the facilities committee um that this Friday um there are architect interviews on December 1st um and again this is all assuming if things move forward in this direction um that on the 4th of December next Monday the board um would be entering into a contract with an architect to look at the concept design for the oncampus option and again this is not um putting the 0 gry Road Project off it's simultaneously looking at whether or not a concept design can be um drawn up um for an oncampus option in order to inform the board later as to what decision it's going to make um so getting

139the information from on campus plan on uh December 4th as well um the architect um would start the process of you know if whichever architect has chosen and recommended to the board um putting together that concept design and again these are suggested dates and this would have to be in concert with the chosen architect um our suggestion is Friday January 12th um the concept design would be um at least conceptually completed um this is not a a real detailed uh abstract it's pretty rough and then on January 16th um at that board meeting the architect would present that rough um concept design again these dates can be adjusted these might be too ambitious um and so certainly can be looked at later um with the architect if that does not work um and then holding

140a public hearing on the 5th and these are again just U these are the steps that have to be done whether it's ad0 gray or on the campus um a lot of those steps have been done before with ad0 gray holding a public hearing on the public uh on the uh project concept design to get the Public's input on the 5th of February and then um the boort that night would also go ahead and approve the concept design if it chooses to do so um and it's happy with it what I didn't put in here is oh I'm sorry I skipped this part the facilities committee would be meeting with the architect um prior to all this happening so on the 12th of January um the facilities committee if there's a meeting that day Christina

141Christina I'm just putting that out there um with meet with the architect again these are suggested dates um just to show you and then School Board action item um that evening on February 5th uh also the board would be deciding on whether or not they want to pursue an oncampus plan or the 80th grade Road um plan and obviously the board can decide that it's not going to have a referendum in June and going at totally different direction but this is assuming that there would be one and that's that's how the schedule was made and then after that informational meetings um would be held U for the public between February and April um and then in April um we don't have the exact dates yet um we'd have to work with Bond Council on the

142exact dates but there would be referendum information prepared by drumond and Woodson which is our legal councel and then ordering the ballots for both machine and and paper um and obviously absentee um is the paper calling the election um the board would need to call the election again we don't have the exact date we'll get those um and then the hearing notices and all the other statutory steps that have to be done in order to get to a June 11th uh referendum if um depending on how those results go on June 1 there will be a certification of those results and then um Declaration of of the results by the board on that date which also by the way coincides with your budget so be so be the same last two steps at least with

143the budget so there would be separate public hearings for the budget separate dates we'd have to get all that um lined up but I think just kind of giving you a rough idea if you wanted to get to a June 2024 referendum um you know regardless of whether you know you're talking about on campus or 80 Gray Road plan this schedule can be adapted either way but really showing you what an oncampus plan would look like with this with the idea that there is no concept design yet or costs so we that would yeah so that would assume that we would have all that information by February 5th to be able to make a decision on the 80 Grade Road yes we have a cost too yes that would be public hearing as well great

144yeah Jeff can you share this with us yes I think um Melissa might have if if she hasn't it was late it was late we we sent it out or I sent it out pretty late board yeah we are still working on it today I'll I can send it again Megan if it if you need it Tim's gonna show me where it is so I'm sharing with you right now know thank you oh actually was where where did it end up because now I don't see it in the board folder either it's on my board fold I'm gonna send it I'm gonna send it to the whole board again and through email like because now I don't I somehow had a version because I printed it today but now I don't see it thank you

145Megan you're getting it twice he shared it with us special thank you Leanne he had shared it with us to make comments on it before he further shared so we had so I hadn't shared it with the other facility members yet either CU he was still fixing his volcanologist pronunciations and whatnot I worked on it all day too my word I've worked on it all day so that's you know that's a proposed schedule again it's all depending on what the board does what the facilities committee does um but just kind of giving you a layout um Scott do you have any I know Scott usually does the statutory steps and we can't do that until we know what the board really wants to do and give you those specific dates Jeff um leading up to

146the November referendum of 20202 for 80 gry road we had two nights one in Cumberland and one in North Yarmouth that were informational nights um is were those required or was that just something we it's not required there's no statute that says you have to do any of that um so it's just something that you know the board chose to do what we do have to do is have a public hearing on the on the financing that's a basic requirement right um so that public hearing obviously will Encompass the concept design and the financing and that's in May and that is required yeah okay but those informational sessions is up to the board okay um you know whether or not you want to do them and especially the community engagement committee we want to do

147so many so many good thing you're meeting tomorrow uh on that note I I am curious from the facilities team um I I'm I'm just a little worried about where the first public feedback session is and so that I think the community engagement committee um would benefit at least from the facilities team what type of input we should be looking for from the community and start now because I I don't want to skip that part of the process just to get to that election Point um so as much information we can get maybe Friday if there's some kind of feedback there about stuff we will want to hear from the community before anything get baked I think would be really beneficial yeah agreed that's your homework thank you thank you no thanks great thank you

148for drafting this it just at least gives us a framework as we're working through the next few months I think will be really helpful um especially since there'll be a lot going on so okay can I mention one more thing so we we've done this before as well when we're talking about the budget um coinciding with a large project um what we've done in the past Scott and I have put together even more comprehensive schedule that will show you both side by side and so because we actually have to do that for ourselves just to make sure that we're staying on track because there's a lot of steps you have to have public hearings for both you have to do this and that um so if the board goes forward with a June referendum we

149would also put together a schedule that shows both um so that the board can see everything that needs to you know all the steps one miss statutory step could could tank the whole thing could be a problem yeah thank you I know this is a lot of work okay any other questions all right right so we've reached the point in the agenda where there's an executive session can I get a motion to enter executive session to discuss land acquisition um I would like to make a motion to enter into executive session to discuss land acquisition pursuant to State Statute MSA C thanks an can I a second great thanks all in favor thank you great so this ends the public part um and thank you to our students look8