001it's very competitive so I have a lot yeah that's the dream happy Rainey Monday to everyone I'd like to call this uh school board meeting to order um it looks like everyone on the board is present so hello welcome great to see so many people out here today thanks for coming um we're going to start with some recognitions um first is Corey Muncie [Music] thank you everybody and thank you for coming to recognize our secretaries we appreciate it um for for tonight uh Mallory my sister principal and myself wanted to take a second to recognize our amazing secretarial staff Amber Deirdre and Lori can you wave to everybody up front I know they're very excited about it for three people who are in the front of our building and interface with students staff and Community
002all day I think this is the last place they want it to be right now so thank you for coming we appreciate it as you know miw is almost always our students and parents first experience in msad 51 this means we often feel a lot of questions over routines structure supports where's drop off all of those sort of questions that our new parents come and luckily for our families their first point of contact is usually one of these three individuals and every single person they talk to on the phone it sounds like they're talking to a close friend or a family member they're so kind so patient so caring I really can't say enough positive things about them Tim where's Tim I know you love some data so I have some data for you every
003year they process between 150 and 200 new registrations which is a very time consuming process every day they handle around 40 to 50 dismissal changes where parents call or fill out the form to say my kids going somewhere different today I believe there's over 100 phone calls a day that come into the office between staff and outside the building every afternoon they confirm between 5 and 15 parents identity to make sure the right person is picking up their kid they consult between 12 and 30 different schedules to make sure they can find kids and are they on the playground are they in an Allied art and they also hand out between 10 and 30 snacks per day for Hungry kids who come to the office they also do a hundred other things that's a very
004small snippet but you know everyone always jokes that secretaries run the building and I don't think it's a joke they are amazing and we are so fortunate to have them and somehow they always do it all with a smile so just wanted to give them a big round of applause and thank them for everything and recognize them [Applause] thank you so much what a great way to to kick off today's a board meeting we so appreciate I know every time I've ever walked in that building and I usually don't know where I'm going and so I so appreciate all the things that you do for our school so thank you great so we'd like to move on to the second item of recognition Steve Moriarty thank you madam chair and good evening everyone on this
005uh rainy early fall evening I'm Steve Moriarty from 12 Oak Street in Cumberland I currently have the incredible honor of serving this Cumberland state representative in the May legislature and some of you may have heard me say this before but one of the most enjoyable aspects of the job is the ability to come back to town and to recognize individual and group accomplishments and sometimes special events in the history of the district and so with the uh so it is tonight that I'm here to present a legislative sentiment in recognition of the girls uh state championship girls lacrosse team in the state championship late last spring I'm joined tonight by my colleague in the legislature state senator Teresa purse whose District includes both Cumberland and North Yarmouth my colleague in the house and Graham couldn't
006be here tonight she is away she represents North Yarmouth as well as part of Gray so again this is a tremendous pleasure to be able to make this presentation this is known as a legislative sentiment and I'll simply read it to you it's mercifully brief state of Maine be it known that we the members of the Senate and House of Representatives join in recognizing the Greeley High School girls lacrosse team of Cumberland which won the state B state championship we extend our congratulations and best wishes and be it ordered that this official expression of sentiment to be sent forth with on behalf of the 131st legislature and the people of the state of Maine the sentiment is signed by the president of the Senate as well as the Speaker of the House it also contains
007uh senator purse's name representative Graham's name and my own unfortunately I understand that the members of the team could not be present this evening so in their absence I present this to the board and certainly trust that will be conveyed to the appropriate individuals and my personal congratulations and best wishes to everyone involved in competition in coaching and in supporting the team so thanks so much tonight [Applause] thank you great so that concludes our items for recognition and we're going to move on to approval of minutes can I get a motion today we're in the school board packet I move to approve the minutes of September 7th 2023. second great thanks Tom any questions comments Corrections okay can I move to a phone all in paper great thanks everyone okay so the next item is
008public comment um the board recognizes the value of public comments on school and educational matters to permit fair and orderly expression of public comments as board business meetings while still allowing the board to conduct its business efficiently the board has established procedures that is defined in policy be e d h so that our public comment period if the time is limited to three minutes per individual speakers I will recognize speakers and the comments should be addressed to myself the chair please use the podium when making your comments last board meeting we we tested our three minute timer which is up now on the other board for everyone to see and please state your name and address at the beginning of your remarks and residents and staff members will be in priority over non-residents within the
009allotted time and so at public comment it's not a time for discussions with the Border speakers and the board will generally not comment on remarks made by speakers so I'd like to invite anyone here for public comment to approach Larry or Fiero from Cumberland Center I will make just two points tonight first point pornography destroys studies from UNICEF and the College of Pediatrics reveal a pornography is a gateway to destructive sex habits and often leads to addiction it increases the perception that casual sex is fun and exciting and abstinence is abnormal it has led to many broken marriages statistics show it increases the infidelity rate by 300 percent and is involved in 56 percent of divorces it increases the risk of minor on minor sex crimes and the list goes on my second point is
010unbelievably we have hardcore pornography in our libraries it's so insane but if I were to say a sentence from one of these books you would probably try to stop me most parents are not aware of this problem and parents if you're close to your kids and you teach them right from wrong don't think you're safe when kids are exposed to pornography studies show they typically do not go to their parents but they do go to their friends and siblings we here are not bigots we are simply concerned parents who until now have been quiet we just want our children to be educated not sexually hypersexualized or hypersexualized I'm a retired math professor I've been an educator for over 30 years I've always stood Against Racism Prejudice exclusivity inequity but we have a serious problem here
011on page 166 in the book genderqueer right here in our library I quote and this was also said on the senate floor I can't wait to have your in my mouth I'm going to give you the of your life then I want you inside me it gets worse but I'll stop here what in God's name does this have to do with Reading Writing and arithmetic what does it benefit a child if you educate his mind but you corrupt his soul this is grooming an indoctrination pure and simple to quote Edmund Merck all it takes for evil to Triumph is for good people to do nothing so good people we have to do something we must be the change that we want to see we the people must do it call the superintendent the principal the
012librarian fight as if your kids lives depend upon it because it does [Applause] thank you Larry next speaker my name is Amy Hale I'm from North Yarmouth and I am here on behalf of foundation 51 for the past 25 years Foundation 51 has been a volunteer-run non-profit that supports teaching and learning within our district it has done this by awarding grants to teachers for Innovative projects and ideas that cannot be funded within their budgets there are two Grant cycles per year one that just opened on Friday so any teachers out there or anyone who's listening September 15th to October 15th is when our first grant cycle is open and we have funded projects like purchasing desk bikes and outside sensory path a climate science project at the high school and most recently a book vending
013machine at miw we also work closely with administrators guidance counselors and social workers behind the scenes through our Student Assistance committee to discreetly support any acute needs for families and students these important initiatives are funded in multiple ways and one very fun way is coming up next Friday September 29th Foundation 51 fall fling will be held from 6 30 to 9 30 Under the Tent at Skyline Farm tickets are now on sale and the link is on the website foundation51.org on social media and on posters around town at this giant group of people here to support our schools I am certain that this is going to be the best fundraiser ever so I do have a QR code I will be around so I hope you all can come thank you very much thank you
014[Applause] thank you good evening thank you my name is Mike Timmons I live in Cumberland and retired after 47 years in education I also served in the House of Representatives and served on the committee on criminal justice and community service uh I'm here to talk about uh the book John declia but my request would be to the board and the whole community to do what many many districts have done it's just banned that book that probably wouldn't take care of all the problems because it's other books that would be bad as well the book genderqueer does have sexual explicit images this book is the number one book banned by any many districts as inappropriate for students under age 18. my question is genderqueer used by the staff K through 8th grade is genderqueer used in
015grades 9 through 12th grade I hope your answers are no is this book genderqueer in the library throughout the district available to all students is that correct some districts have up to 65 books that have been appropriate and inappropriate if they were sexually explicit 59 districts have banned these books the book John declare is the number one book band in the state and all over the many places have the parents with students in our schools been informed that these sexually explicit books have been banned by districts how many books how many books like this do we have in our district if answers are yes parents could get together and just have a class action suit saying let's help the board ban that book banned other books that's their privilege I hope all those parents school
016board members and school officials and guests here tonight agree they have responsibilities for what is right for our youth thank you Mike Timmons thank you Mike [Applause] good evening Scott Jordan Cumberland I attended a school board meeting on July 17th a precedent was set that evening Mr Robert Vale Town counselor was given six minutes and one second to speak yet I was interrupted multiple times and told I could only speak three minutes my question Madam chair is why was I interrupted and why was that precedent set so people can go to war fight for their country but we get three minutes to come to a school board meeting where you're not going to engage us we paid taxes we pay you you work for us not the other way around that evening Madam chair you
017contacted our Police Department and you said a group of us were standing outside that door and would not leave you lied I have the police report to prove it tax paying citizens were saying goodbye to each other outside this door Jeff Porter superintendent was asked a question by one of those taxpaying citizens and the rest of us had a conversation with them you lied multiple times Chief Rumsey provided the report why would you do such a thing because people have an opposing opposition Madam chair can you please ask Megan lichter why at the end of the meeting when I stated there was pornography in our libraries she stated that was my interpretation that's page once under queer which the author States is 18 and over this is in our libraries can you tell me what
018that is Megan because I'm going to stand here for another one minute and nine seconds and let you look at that lets you process that that's what our kids are seeing and you're okay with that you're a mother and you're okay with that this isn't our libraries folks are you okay with that as tax paying citizens you're okay with that seriously okay with this and just so you know this isn't two boys this is two women with a strap-on engaging in oral sex you're okay with that you're okay with that why are you okay with that please because I want to know from an educational perspective why you're okay with that because as parents you should be teaching that not our schools so you can say yes but you can't answer the question I'm lost
019please do I have I have I have a copy of it right here [Music] sure how about I read it and Charlotte sure Senator Kennedy read it on the floor of the house thanks thank you for your time we're not done I'm not leaving let's get back there I'm not leaving this podium okay no no you took my time can I get my time back Madam chair thank you for your time no can I get my time back Madam chair our Congress and our Senate allows it why can't I to engage are you are you a board member I I will give you 30. I'll give you 30 seconds I was asking a question thank you I'll give you 30 seconds can you hold on just one moment while the students adjust the timer thank
020you I respectfully ask that we don't have any crosstalk in the audience thank you thank you you can go thank you fast forward we've been dating for two months we've made out we've had sex we've moved on to sexting at work I got a new strap-on dildo harness today I can't wait to put it on you and fit it perfectly in my mouth are you going to look so hot welcome to the library I can't wait to have your in my mouth I'm gonna give you the of your life then I want you inside me holy this is the most turned on I've ever been in my life I'm dying this has been the visual I've been picturing all day but I can't feel anything this was much harder when it was only in my
021imagination let's try something else of course you want me to go on and on seriously you're okay there's books Lawn Boy that's in our Junior High School 13 Reasons Why you want these in our schools you talk about diversity Jeff thank you is the Bible is the Bible in our schools yeah thank you Scott Jeff you're a Christian you're a man of Faith stop being lukewarm and step up as a leader since our town manager won't do it our police chief won't do it be a leader excuse me do something about this please I would like to invite our next speaker please back to the podium I'm coming back when she's done here why don't you take a look at the book [Applause] wow how exciting uh my name is Katie Simpson I live in
022Cumberland on Sturbridge Lane I am the parent of two children I grew up in rural Maine in a time when it was not safe to be a queer person anywhere that I'm aware of but especially not in rural Maine there was nothing including publicly out people that made it safe to be someone like I am and was which is a bisexual person living in rural Maine I am all for uh parents teaching their kids sexuality I'm also well aware that a lot of parents don't so having something in the schools I don't really care what book or which books but having something that shows different ways of being in different possible lives is really important to Children my 10 year old when I told him about this book in particular he has not read it
023but he is aware that books are being discussed and the words book Banning have been thrown around which side note I'm pretty sure that's not what that quote you read meant earlier that was referring to not this specific book um his response to Banning books was uh I don't he he did not think that banning books was the way for us to um make people feel more comfortable and to make people feel um supported in our communities he was much more interested in asking he asked me like won't parents explain what it means and I said If the parents are concerned about it they will explain what it means and so I would respond to that way if you're worried about your kids seeing material that you're not excited about talk to them about it
024that's what we do when we have thoughts that maybe conflict or disagree with what's being taught whether it's in schools or they see something in the media that's what school's for introducing kids to lots of different ideas so I would say book Banning makes me pretty uncomfortable I would urge the board and the school not to engage in that and to support the libraries and Librarians in engaging with students and including books that show a wide variety of different ways of being in the world see maybe I'll just stand here for 30 more seconds and see if anyone else wants to stand up besides Scott oh looks like someone's behind me anyone else besides Scott want to speak you spoke already go ahead and get in line it's public comment though it's a three minute
025limit s all of you not to have crosstalk I would like to recognize the person at the podium three minutes per individual once at the podium we have public comment each meeting there's other ways to engage with the school board we have public emails we only have one opportunity at the beginning for public comment at each board meeting we do have a lot of board business yes your time's up and you did say the words book ban for the school the new school is more important than the actual kids hey Sarah I'd like to recognize I I'd like to recognize another speaker to the podium please came at a fun time uh I just have a few quick comments and thoughts to share uh I also want to welcome the new members of the board
026to this thankless task of dealing with everyone's complaints uh and Leanne we are so happy to have you as board chair I'm so sorry that your first meeting had to be rudely interrupted that is no way to show the respect that you so rightly deserve can you please introduce yourself uh yes I am Zach Bouchard I am from Cumberland thank you Zach uh in regards to Banning any of the mentioned books from the library please don't let the belligerence of the so-called silent majority call into question the ability of our students to learn a diverse set of ideas which is what education is about in the first place if we could only include books that every single person in the community agreed on all together there would only be about seven books in the library
027uh there are lots of books in the school library that I completely wholeheartedly disagree with but again asking the school board to ban them is just a non-starter uh and also the true way to uh to tell a silent majority is is by voting voting is by definition a silent private way to determine the majority and as we can recall Mr Jordan wasn't even able to get a third of the vote when he ran for State Rep so you got 31 he ran against someone who was completely against Banning books when running for Town Council he was only able to get 38 of the vote again run against someone who is also against Banning books my guess is that of the people who did vote for him only a small Fringe of them want to
028actually ban books so this silent majority is in fact by definition in the world of reality nothing more than a very loud and very small minority we all voted for who would be on the school board and to my knowledge none of you were expressing that you wanted to ban books the vast majority of the people in our community don't want to do this and we all voted accordingly while the idea of banning books should not be completely ignored as diverse ideas and freedom of speech should be protected in Democratic Republic ultimately know that in this town the suffringent radical idea that should not be taken seriously I do have an idea that should be taken seriously as it pertains to dealing with school board meeting General belligerence there has to be a way to
029draft a set of bylaws to prevent or shut down this embarrassing Behavior consider the following if a child would act belligerent in class to the point that he or she refuses to let the teacher uh in class continue teaching he or she would be removed from the class if they happen again they would probably be suspended if it happened again they would be expelled given that this is happening at a school and this behavior is that of a belligerent child we should have rules in place to respond accordingly I know that it's complicated legally so internally you have to get involved and make sure the district doesn't get sued and I know this is an unfortunate waste of taxpayer money but at this point I think it's still worth it we've been through this before
030and now we have a new actor these people are looking to score big points on their social media feeds by disrupting meetings across the country so being escorted out by a resource officer a local police is a win-win the community gets to discuss matters importance and disruptors get to get the dopamine hit while sitting their political silos I have more but I think that's my three meals so thank you so I'd like to welcome anyone else and just a reminder please don't speak without being recognized I'll recognize people when they come up to the podium and please know more cross talking while people are are making public comments thank you Madam chair can I also request that commenters don't speak about other people in the audience or anyone else on stage I think being respectful
031to people who are here and not directing comments hi everybody my name is Sandra Lee Porter I live in Cumberland Foreside I've lived in Cumberland since August of 1989. I am a mom and a grandmother I'm very thankful that my children received excellent educations from our public schools here in Cumberland and North Yarmouth at that time North Yarmouth they both graduated from Greeley they went on went on to be college graduates they went on to professional careers in successful marriages I'm here tonight to give my opinion about certain books in the school library these books have already been referenced you know I think you folks know what I'm talking about I believe these books to be pornographic and I believe they need to be immediately removed from the school not in one week not in
032one month or one year immediately in other words do it now I believe that our school teachers are Librarians our administrators have a duty to protect and to guide our children and when they make pornographic material available they are not protecting they are not guiding so it seems to me that some of you board members will say these books are just close to being pornographic or some of you board members will say these books are borderline pornographic and should stay available to our children I strongly disagree and I don't understand why even one teacher one librarian or one administrator would violate their duty to protect and to guide our children amen amen thank you Sandra and if there are other speakers and um and thank you for the good reminder comments should be addressed to
033the chair so if there's anybody you're going to address it's to myself the chair I am Mary bellino and I live on Greeley Road in Cumberland I was going to bring tonight with me a um three magazines Hustler Playboy and Penthouse and have them wrapped in plastic and put them alongside this book genderqueer because there's no difference there's no difference at all it's all pornography and anyone who would deny that to me is disservicing themselves this city our children and it's despicable I can't say enough I would I'll hold my comments about people but I I think it's it's just a way to get to indoctrinate our children and it's everywhere it's not just in Cumberland it's everywhere and we've got to fight back and I do think the silent majority majority will win thank
034you foreign [Applause] okay that ends public comment and now we're moving to presentations hey hi so I am here tonight I think Susie's gonna jump on and present for us um Carla Fancy's here is my assistant director of instructional support I'm Julie Olson director of instructional support and I am presenting on behalf of director of academic Services Susie Robbins and myself director of instructional support for our school Improvement plan or um uh District Improvement plan so we have a CO plan and certainly I am fine to folks start moving along should I pause for a second would that be helpful no yes that's okay thank you thank you okay so our code step really focuses on non-categorical supports for students our two departments really focus on supporting all Learners in the academic realm and we
035really look at the academic and social emotional learning for students so we're looking at the Strategic goal focusing on students College and Career Readiness and we are really identifying systems of supports under the multi-tier systems of supports RTI learning and both academic behavioral social emotional learning for students we've identified three areas you can see two of them there and then Susie will scroll down for the third one the first two areas really are a focus that is a carryover from last year the top area being around writing instruction and working with students working with administrators regular Ed and special education staff around identifying best practices in the area of writing so we want to really hone in on writing instruction and practices to improve our instruction grades K-12 and looking at Best Practices for writing
036and assessments the second area as you know the board really supported embedding our professional staff into our functional life skills and behavioral classrooms last year and really supporting that work and growing those teams of Educators this year on behalf of our students and supporting that work and those teams to grow those programs this year and then our third area is really around professional development and working non-categorically with regular and special education staff to really look at research and evidence-based practices for Reading Writing and math programs across the curriculum to support and train our staff to ensure that we have proper training and instruction happening both regular Ed and special education for students who may be struggling in some area so those are the three areas that we're looking at both in the director of academic
037service realm as well as instructional support for our goals this year any questions I was just curious a little if you could say a little bit more about mtss and RTI and kind of the uh similarities or differences or if there's some transition happening between the two there yeah there is some transition so I think some districts have just taken off from going from a response to intervention and they've just decided the state has taken on the model of mtss and some districts have just said we are now in mtss school and we're just going to call it mtss instead of RTI and we've been very thoughtful to want to grow into an mtss school and we've taken that very seriously instead of just naming an mtss which is why we've put that slash there
038on the top of our document to make sure that we're really hitting all of the components of mtss before we're truly identifying ourselves we want to make sure that we're being thoughtful and strategic we have a three-year plan around developing all of the components of both response to intervention and molding that into a thoughtful mtss plan of hitting our students in all of the areas of Reading Writing math and behavior social emotional learning and being thoughtful around all of our Learners who those who need additional help as well as those who are having extension activities under GT thank you sure any other questions any other questions okay awesome thank you what's up next um I won't be projecting mine up on the screen it'll be too small to read anyhow so I'll put it up
039on the screen but uh for the site Improvement plan in finance human racism resources and operations I've listed five areas that would be of importance and uh all of these tie to early childhood education which is one of the board's goals and the first one would be in the areas of Finance which is the successful plan and financing for a referendum and bonding of a new Primary School which should come as no surprise at this point uh the second areas in human resources which would be the retention and recruitment of staff and that would be working through our administrative team also looking at things differently in terms of how we retain staff and and how we recruit staff right down to advertisements that are now in movie theaters on movie screens and uh much of
040what we did this past summer personal reach outs in the advertising piece we actually have had success in that area uh to where we're we're almost fully staffed at this point compared to other districts uh the other area would be to continue to build um capacity in the Human Resources specialist position which we added last year in the operations area one of the areas uh that we've tried to work with and tried to get going uh Denny's actually been part of this with us is The Greening of transportation and if we can ever hit trying to get some funding around electric buses that's an area that we'd like to uh to look at even if we need to start budgeting in our general fund budget to start moving that direction facilities area we're looking to
041assist in the oversight and the planning and construction of the new Primary School which would be a major piece of work in that area also continuing on the short-term plan for space which we've talked about recently Continue to update the five-year Capital plan along with our long-range plan continue to prepare applications towards a revolving renovation funds and also work on an energy project at Greeley High School possibly at least purchase to help increase the um you know climate control and air handling in that building and all of those areas have to do with space and um uh capital projects and the final one would be in Food Service which is looking at Food waste recycling which we've had conversations about recently and we're hoping to also move in that direction and all of these areas
042will cross between finance committee facilities committee DLT and the towns so that's the areas any questions questions for Scott this guy can I ask what our current teacher retention is and is it differs significantly by school or is it pretty much Universal same rate I don't have those numbers right in front of me I have to take a look and get those from print so so and see where we're at with our staffing but but right now I think believe we are fully staffed in our teaching area so one position Julie says so we've got one position but we're fully staffed in that area yeah I mean I'm just wondering if we have a goal if that's our goal what are like what are we trying to get to and are we trying to get
043to 80 we're trying to get to 90 just the thought of like where we're currently at and what we're trying to get to 100 retention there you go how's that that's good all right so question for the Food Service Recycling and I read the email that went around and people interested in it so is Scott are you spearheading that or Leanne is there going to be a subcommittee or I can tell you where I'm at with it um we actually had a parking lot conversation the other day as well on this and uh that involved Chris baldeck and I'd had some conversation with Denny um we're looking to work right now with the two towns Cumberland and North Yarmouth and one of the areas is the pickup of the food waste in a timely fashion
044so that we don't end up with rodents and bugs and other things and so we're going to continue to work right now I've had several conversations with Chris boldick so so we're looking to just kind of work on that with Staffing I'm not looking to have that be a full board committee if that's what you were looking I just know that student groups are very interested in being involved and are you guys all hooking up I'm sure we'll as we get some kind of start of a plan I'm sure we'll start moving in that direction to involve students at the building level as well okay okay so right now we just need to see what our options are in terms of uh people that are available to help do some of the waste collection and
045do the middle schools also have green teams still I know I believe there's still green teams around okay okay great yeah a lot lots of opportunities for existing student groups to have um communication and yeah and a lot of it'll involve facilities and food service and then some of the some of the students as well okay any other questions about Greening of Transportation what options are there other than electric buses well certainly are there options other than like what do you think about that shorter routes okay uh not using diesel I think there's been discussions around uh use of natural gas that's been one that's been out there is a conversation at one point um Christine um if we could add some Chargers perhaps I know we have three on campus for buses or for
046no for like students to encourage like hey you can charge your car while you're at school or whatever but we could bring that into the conversation to be great we have several that we were Grant funded for and we installed them around the district who that would be on the buses that's one of the options um in a couple of those but uh but looking at moving towards the electric buses that's been one of our real targets for some time do we know um I know it's early in the school year but approximately how full the buses are how many what percentage of families are taking the bus I think we have a high ridership on the buses if you look at the Elementary buses they're they're running pretty much at capacity at the secondary
047level less but but more at the elementary level they run pretty much in capacity and it's really not about the number of students on the bus it's about the distance that they travel oh yeah so from one end to town to the other but but most of the Elementary buses and are running pretty much in capacity yeah yeah it would be so great to somehow get our high schoolers to take more advantage of the bus and my kids I imagine it might be a little difficult though to tell to at the beginning of the year because we might have more biking to school and that while the weather's nice so that's true yeah sure Scott would love some more questions all right great so that's it for the the Improvement plan yep um so thank
048you to Susie and Julie and Scott um for the site Improvement plans um that rounds out all the site Improvement plans that the board will be hearing from now the district administrators the four principals last meeting so there are seven of them that we usually update the only two that we sometimes have brought forward is the athletic Sip and the technology so those are two that we could bring forward they work on those as well okay but that's it and they're all linked to the Strategic plan which we have been doing that obviously from the beginning days of the strategic planning process so which is great so I believe we're doing enrollment we're going to move to the enrollment update all right give us the numbers here's the numbers um so enrollment is always something
049that we look at very carefully at the very beginning of the school year we always have to wait a few weeks that's why I wait until this time to give you an idea planning decisions as you know some of this information is just old information is completed several studies for the district in the last few years 2016-19 and then March of 2022 we also have asked the same person Rebecca wandel who's been our external enrollment specialist to complete an updated report that she said she can have to the board an updated report that she said she can have to the board by the end of October and that was something that the board had requested in all three of these Studies have debunked the 2009 studies that showed declining enrollment so instead we're showing increasing
050enrollment so every year when we look at enrollment we always look at these categories what is impacting our enrollment in a particular year we have new kindergarten class obviously we lost the senior class from the previous year there's new housing starts turnover housing which just means people buying other people's homes in the community that are for sale private and Charter School enrollment homeschooling superintendent agreements which are agreements between two districts and two superintendents to either allow a student to continue in one District that doesn't live there or go to a different District transfers in and out are when a family moves in or out of the community that's a transfer the reputation of the school district obviously has some draw on families moving in or out economy in the housing market affordability of Housing and
051then the residual impact of the pandemic and I'll talk about that a little bit more because it has impacted the numbers that you will be seeing in this report we're continuing to see the the impact of the pandemic and that was a caution that Rebecca wandell had given the board when she conducted the 2022 report so with resident births I know some of the detail is hard to see from here but I put an arrow in the 2018 in 19 years this was again a from Rebecca's report her latest report in 2022 showing the resident births which is one factor it's not the only factors many factors obviously but this is a really strong indicator of enrollment for kindergarten especially and you'll see in 1819 there was a dip looks like pretty much a two-year
052dip in the Resident births in Cumberland and North Yarmouth obviously that is a strong factor in an enrollment this is 2023 that would be our incoming kindergartners at this point so you can see that that will certainly have some bearing on the numbers that we're looking at uh today uh in this report so looking at the entire enrollment again this is from Rebecca's study you'll see that she has different lines right near that arrow in 2023 is the arrow those lines are all pandemic impacted so in other words she was struggling to be able to forecast the enrollment for the community based on the pandemic and whether it impacted whether families stayed in this community or not and she made several coveted adjustments back in 2022 to account for exactly what would the enrollment be
053especially for kindergarten and you'll see that there's different lines and she had different models and that's really a huge talking point tonight when I provide these numbers to you is to show that this was not an exact science this time because of the pandemic huge Factor the Mabel y Wilson School enrollment um you can see by whether it was a covet adjustment or not the enrollment is starting to Peak and then stabilize so the arrow again is 2023 right now where we are and you're going to see that the enrollment is generally plateauing at that school after many years if you look at the green many years of increasing enrollment since 2016 going forward so we're beginning that that plateau of the primary school enrollment for grades four to eight it's a totally different story
054obviously the numbers from Mabel I Wilson School are starting to move through and again the arrow is 2023 or we are right now and you'll see that the enrollment whether it's covet adjustment or not those enrollment numbers are climbing so the left side is four five and the right side is six eight they share the same roof two different schools but you'll see that the enrollment in either case whether there's an adjustment for the pandemic or not those numbers are certainly climbing of course we have a lot more confidence in being able to project numbers based on numbers that we already have in our Primary School so our current enrollment um and I'll go back to 2021 you can see that the certified enrollment certified just means that the state has cross-checked our numbers all
055of the students in our district making sure that there's not one student in a different District that we're also claiming and vice versa and the state does that over a period of a month each year in the in the month of October so these numbers are super accurate Statewide and then I will sign off on it and then the state will sign off on it as well and they're called certified at that point it doesn't mean that our numbers don't fluctuate after October 1st or October 31st which which is actually when the numbers are certified but you will you know we we present this based on what is the certified number so we don't certify these numbers until later in October but you can see um you know 2102 students in two thousand 21 so
056two years ago last year at this time it was 2159 students in the district Rebecca projected in her report 2183 students today in the district we actually have 2 201 students so we're actually up 42 students over the projected amounts um the other part of the story is in the gray column which is the right hand column showing the one year change so you'll see again that covet adjustment in the birth rates from 2018-19 Rebecca was struggling and she cautioned the board when she presented her report as to exactly what the kindergarten enrollment would be coming in this year so you can see that Mabel I Wilson school is down from the projection of 779 is what she projected at Mabel I Wilson and today we're at 7 39 so we're down 23 students from
057a year ago so 23 students from October 1st 2022 and more than that based on the projection we're up 45 students over a year ago at grades four through four and five and we're up over the projected number as well Rebecca projected at 338 we're actually at 362. the Middle School six eight has been very stable over the last few years and we're just up three students over projections and three students over a year ago and then the high school is another story as well projected at 588 and the high school is actually at 6 19 588 would have been the lowest that we're going to see the the enrollment at the high school for many years and uh we're actually up over that number 619 so our 17 students over a year ago when
058it was certified in 2022 and certainly a lot more when you look at the projection so it just kind of gives you a story of the enrollment is hard to predict coming out of the pandemic we're now at least 18 months out of the pandemic but the numbers that Rebecca was working on she submitted back in March of 2022 and that's why we're asking her now that we know the numbers coming out of the pandemic can you please update those numbers and that's what she's doing so I think it's really important to note that we also track all of our homeschool private and Charter School enrollment numbers private schools this early in the school year we generally do not have a full return we put out messages to all the private schools that uh we
059have students at and we usually get back a partial amount at this point usually by the end of September early October we'll have a full accounting you can see it's been kind of all over the place with private schools 109 152 98 25 will certainly not be the number that's very low that's why the asterisk is there that we will continue Gathering that information homeschooling numbers are pretty stable once this time of the year hits we're at 56 students which is one student more than last year at this time and then down from the last couple of years which were the pandemic years obviously 20 and 21 and 20 going into 22. charter school students we've had numbers dropping for Charter Schools over the last couple of years not exactly sure why we only have
060a couple charter schools that students generally go to we have five students this year um there was a reporting issue last year with our Charter students so we're not sure if we don't believe one was accurate we tried to get the information and just wasn't given to us so we do have four students over last year but it really might be more the same as the year before superintendents agreements in and out superintendent Agreements are just agreements between two superintendents to either take a non-resident student or transfer a non a non-resident student and we have 19 superintendent agreements that have been approved to come into the district and we have nine superintendent agreements that were approved to go out of the district so pretty much the same as a year ago with the superintendent agreements
061there's a lot more movement during the pandemic where parents were moving which surprised me at the time actually that we had more parents requesting that based on health factors but there was a lot more movement during those two years so basically the summary is um you know from where I from my standpoint the overall District enrollment continues to increase this is now the eighth year in a row that I've reported that to the board our district enrollment is again up actual 2324 enrollment exceeds even the projected enrollment that's only happened a couple of times during the last eight years usually the enrollment is within two or three students on the projection but again I think it's because of the pandemic and it was hard to predict those numbers coming out of it K enrollment is
062lower than projected and that is the first time in eight years that the kindergarten enrollment is lower than projected but again it's based on the reasons that I explained earlier linking it to the birth rates of 2018-19 and then the the difficulty in really accurately forecasting kindergarten enrollment at this point the March 22 study that Rebecca completed for the board included a lot of models some showing lower Primary School enrollment at that time but not as low as the one we have right now and by the way our kindergarten enrollment is 145 students and we were projected to be around 190 at this time and we've been running in the 190s for a few years there's a caution around using one year's grade level data I think we've certainly all know that when you look
063at one year's data we have to be really careful about that information and see if it gets replicated in the next year I think Rebecca's updated projections based on what we now know about the impact of the pandemic on kindergarten enrollment will be very helpful in determining this point for kindergarten going forward and then the the Wilson enrollment has increased and this will remind everyone has increased by 200 students 27 percent uh since 2016. so that is a huge increase um where you know well over capacity in that building we now have half of the students in that school who are outside the main building so that continues to be the narrative at Wilson school and we continue to have a major enrollment um in space issue at the Wilson School certainly the modular units
064that were installed and I want to thank Mr Poulin and Mr Foster for all the work and overseeing that those projects those came out very nicely but they are not a they're a temporary fix for a few years but certainly still is not a permanent fix and now the middle school will be needing work as the board has already approved for this coming summer as well so that's the enrollment update questions I have a couple questions one is the birth rate the birth rates are tracked are the adoption rates tracked or is that not a significant number or we have no way of knowing um that would be a question for Rebecca to make sure that that's in there but she she any sort of information and data that she's got on a cohort going
065into kindergarten she will use that information okay okay um so if she had that information she would have included it in the cohort models that she presented and my other quick question is the non-resident students are those all strictly superintendent decisions or are there other categories of non-resident students and can we affect that if we need to and certain age groups no they're all superintendent agree every single one of them yeah and I should have mentioned too we're inviting a consultant with Leanne inviting um Rebecca to come to the board once she's updated her numbers she's done that for all the previous reports and you'll be able to answer she'll be able to answer any questions she's very astute at the studies so she'll be coming back because yeah I had lots of questions about
066the first rates because they certainly drop to record those main everywhere else and then jumped back up the in 20 30 and 2020 so I was curious how much that impacted some of her models so and she and her disclaimer at that time when she presented this to the board back in 2022 is she says I'm just not sure and you're going to have to update these numbers because of the pandemic and it's the first time her number she was a little bit uncertain about the kindergarten numbers coming in we're still one of a handful of districts in the whole state that continues the increasing enrollment where the state is now declining overall it's been declining anywhere from I think we're at seven percent decline uh 10 they're projecting at the state and this is
067one of a handful of districts that continues to increase as the state is decreasing Monica um well I'm really glad that we will get to hear from Rebecca again uh the question that I had tonight is whether we are aware of any Trends in um who leaves for private school or Charter Schools or home school have we seen any Trends in that over time we have um homeschool numbers are up and I think prior to the pandemic they were in the 30s usually every year once the pandemic hit we were way above 50 at one point for homeschooling but then they went back down to those numbers that you are now seeing for a couple of years and I think that some parents that homeschool their children during the pandemic just kept homeschooling and did
068not that's my guess and decided not to send them back to school so that's when we saw the numbers shift from the 30s to the 50s for private schools it's often almost I would have to say 90 answer on this one would be families tend to choose a private school and their children go to that private school and it's a family decision the parents might have gone and then usually all the children go the trend on private schools 10 years ago we were seeing about 10 percent of the students leaving for private schools between 8th and ninth grade and today it's around five six percent so that's that's the trend and it is mostly high school that you're seeing those private school numbers yeah we do have definitely have students that attend in middle school
069but High School seems to be the biggest number thank you so I'm really struck by the decline in the kindergarten enrollment it was uh remarkable um what has the impact been of that on Staffing and uh class sizes so did you shift around the teaching load we did so we had we took one position um and and it was left vacant at that time and Corey Muncie and I kept watching that position we didn't fill it we had a vacancy and we have not filled that kindergarten position so we ended up transferring the money for that position to another position that was needed in the school for mtss at that time so it was not a kindergarten position right now the numbers in kindergarten are 14 students per class which is smaller than we usually
070have but again we weren't sure until registrations were finished the summer came and went we didn't want to cut a position just in case we had you know registrations coming in we usually have 16 students in kindergarten that's usually our our maximum so right now we have 14. okay thanks tell me similar to that question with grades how often and do they alter from year to year is that very significant and if so how do the schools kind of account for that change in enrollment between years like for example with the kindergarten being a lot lower than you expected so when we know that when we know our enrollment is going to shift and we usually do even with kindergarten it's been pretty accurate what the numbers are we will just not budget for a
071position or if for some reason we budgeted and we're still waiting and holding like what which we often do in the summer we will just keep the position vacant usually in this case we needed that position anyway in the school in a different place because of the enrollment just overall in the school but between grades we generally it's pretty consistent you know what we have after kindergarten we know we're going to have in first grade we'll pick up a few students from private schools in first grade after that we generally know how many students we're going to have we have students come and go but it's it's pretty consistent and so we budget based on that and we move staff around we move our teachers around based on those numbers so we know we need
072this many teachers in second grade we'll make an adjustment and move you know someone either to or from second grade to make it work and make our class sizes pretty consistent so we we do that all the way through high school is a different story high school it's all based on course offerings number of students enrolled in the school programming so high school class sizes tend to be variable above classes of 25 in high school and we'll have classes of five if we're trying to you know run an IB or an AP course and that's the only course we've got we obviously want to offer it that's important to offer it so that's been the philosophy of the district in previous boards is to continue with that Jeff could you possibly go back to the
073birth rate yes thank you because I just want to acknowledge that if we have two years where our kindergarten class is a little bit on the low side our second and third grade class classes are quite high right now correct correct and fourth grade well yes no I know I'm focusing for the moment so for for this year and next year we're expecting um kindergarten and then of course first grade next year to be a little bit lower second and third grade will still be quite high and then that jump um that's 2024 ish um no that's the jump starts I'm sorry in 2021 is when that the birth rate climbed so that would be sorry yes I'm picking the okay yeah because so then when our current kindergartners are second and third grade we're
074anticipating that kindergarten is going to pick back up again yes that's what we anticipate based on this Factor now this is not the only Factor but it is certainly a huge indicator right so we're alleviating maybe a little bit of the pressure on Mabel Wilson um because of low birth rate and then the birth rate picks back up and once those are current kindergartners have moved on to fourth grade we're expecting Mabel Wilson to be bursting at the seams that's what I anticipate yeah um it'll certainly go back to where it was if if these numbers pan out and if these models pan out yeah and that was what Rebecca had said back then she said I just can't predict for you whether there's going to be how housing you know people come in and
075more into the community or if truly the resident birth rate is it and people just stay put and if that's the case your numbers are going to look lower for during these two birth rate years and the state of Maine is projected to increase in population I just saw a study on that uh last week I think it was and finally can you just remind everyone what capacity Mabel will what what number of students Mabel Wilson is considered over capacity so we've been using 550 and that's based on you know straight enrollment and some programming adjustments but 550 is definitely at capacity and we are at 7 37 in last year we're higher than that 762 I think it was last year and so we're certainly been over capacity since 2016 in that building can
076get in getting more and more Megan um third highest growth rate in Cumberland County so that's entire population not just kids but it but it is sort of piggybacking on this this um this study that came out last week showing that our Trends are going up so I'll be anxious to see and interested to see what enrollment predictions look like with that in mind too yeah that was an interesting um report about the state the state of Maine and obviously we're outpacing the United States for the first time and who knows when in terms of rate of population growth uh percentage-wise and um but what was said was that there's still the death rate is still higher than the birth rate in the state of Maine even with that increase in enrollment or increase in
077numbers in Maine so that that's interesting to see how that plays out doesn't mean that there's necessarily more students or kids in the state of Maine it just means that more people moved in during the pandemic than anticipated means a very attractive State and people are moving here who knows if this trend will continue but Tim not the folk I I want to recognize the point that you put don't Focus too much on that one year um but I think one of my questions is so my daughter when she was in kindergarten was five and she had uh kids in her class that were seven at the same time right and so I wonder if Rebecca maybe this is more of a question for her but I wonder if you if when they were born
078during that year is analyzed because it could just so happen this year that they were born at a point where they weren't at that cut off and so next year we're going to have a much higher influx and so I think just being prepared for that or looking into that to see might be worth it um because I think it's a big jump of a kindergarten teacher goes from teaching 15 to 18 the next year and they're not really predicting it so has that been looked at age cutoffs so I did ask about that um because our wonderful secretaries who were here earlier they keep track of all those things on the ground and they hear every single bit of information about you know as someone calling to inquire but not really going to send
079their their child this year send them the next year we did have a few families that you know at this point we predict will send their child to kindergarten next year could have sent their child this year but decided to hold them out we always have a few it didn't seem like it was more than normal I think I would say two years ago we did have more than normal parents saying no I'm holding my child for a year because of it probably yeah yeah because of that and the other thing the other wild card sometimes is first grade because you know my son was the same when he was in kindergarten we held him and he went to a private kindergarten for a second year and then ended up going to public kindergarten as
080well so I think a lot of parents do that I just we're not hearing that it's going to be you know this huge group out there that will extend these numbers so and I did ask that specifically because often the school does know or they've heard so but we'll see thanks any other questions and obviously as you heard we're we're tracking this very closely um and we were anxious to get some numbers over to Rebecca to start working from to to do the projections because it's so important for our community as we're we're looking to um to build a new school um and so having those numbers to understand what that pressure is going to look like over the next few years you know on one point it's a little bit of a sigh for
081of relief knowing that um miw has a few less students this year those common spaces aren't getting bigger we have the additional classrooms and so we're we're ready when the numbers go back up which we expect but we certainly want to better understand what we can be looking at based on these updated numbers yeah two more quick points I just thought of um the 145 which again is the lowest we've had in a long time is still higher than any of the numbers that we uh we're seeing prior to 2016 with our kindergarten enrollments there's 20 students more um so our our low is actually much higher than the numbers were previously for many years which is I think why people thought there was an enrollment decline of course among other things the other thing
082is I did check in with a couple of other superintendents Yarmouth and Falmouth and they both had projected numbers and their numbers also came in lower than the projections so we do think there's something with this pandemic with the birth rate year kind of mix it all together I think there's just it was very it's very difficult to project lower in other districts yes it's a low year for kindergarten or a good year for to have a kindergartner because you're class or something yeah right two students less right that's typical great well that concludes presentations and we can move to items for action can I ask for a motion on the superintendent's strategic priorities thanks everyone I'd like to make a motion that we vote to approve the superintendent's recommendations for the 2023-2024 Strategic priorities
083I'll second that great thank you I know you presented these last time and shared them um any updates since the presentation there's been no updates no significant updates um to the presentation everything is as it was talked about I am doing the staff dialogues a little bit differently I'm kind of phasing into them a little bit with the supporting staff plan we're working on two areas as I mentioned during the presentation recruitment Which Scott obviously mentioned a lot and our staff our staffing ratios right now were I think if I had to guess we're probably you know at the 98 percentile at this point two positions we have uh you're right we just have a handful of positions and we're being able to fill positions with applicants which is awesome that was not a year
084ago we had you know vacant positions many districts went through this a year ago with no applicants this year we have a vacancy not very many and we're filling them we have good applicants and we're filling them as quickly as we can so we're keeping it as close to 100 percent um but um so that was one area of the of the Strategic priorities that I'm adjusting a little bit is I'm actually going to each staff staff meeting at a school I'm also doing in a meeting with all the special education staff together in October and I'm going to go through the Strategic priorities and then also I want to get their input on the supporting our staff plan on the ideas especially around retention as Scott was mentioning our goal is 100 retention we
085you know if someone's retiring obviously that's not retention that's called you get to retire you earned it um that's attrition but in terms of retention and helping our staff you know feel like this is a place that they want to work at long term that's very important to us thank you any questions comments great I'll call for a vote all in favor unanimous thank you hey bring on to board goals we have a smaller audience for this I'm so excited can I ask for a motion so moved great thank you Daniel Megan great so uh every year at least in the past year that I've been on the board um I think many years prior to this the board itself has put together a set of board goals um we've worked together over the past
086few months on these goals discuss them at the retreat provided some more opportunity for feedback um I'm really excited that to to present these today we have I'll just go through maybe and read it this isn't posted yet we'll get it posted in the next day or two if once we we move to approval but I'll just take a moment for those following along to understand what is on our board goals this year so in accordance just a little Preamble in accordance with the policy ACA diversity Equity inclusion education the board is committed to fostering values that improve diversity Equity inclusion for students and employees this overarching commitment is embedded in every goal of the board and we have four main areas that we're focusing on this year address and enrollment growth and the first
087item under that is to provide a new school solution that builds upon the efforts of previous boards and committees aiming for a successful referendum passage in the 23-24 school year while addressing the community's needs and the next is develop a long-term facilities plan and collaboration with the towns of Cumberland and North Yarmouth the next area is focus on student achievement the first is support the equity leadership steering committee to provide a final Equity plan for board vote within three months of school start in order to fully incorporate action steps into other board and District goals for the remainder of the year the next is to actively involve and integrate student perspectives insights and feedback into school board discussions policy and decision making processes by creating more opportunities for students to engage with and participate in
088school board committees to use data and inform two informed discussions and discussion decisions on school performance and identify areas where achievement gaps exist and begin to establish plans to address any gaps identified next is to review staff survey feedback and hiring practices in order to fully support staff and improve retention and finally on this area to provide oversight of and support for the district's progress towards an achievement of its 23-24 strategic priorities that we just approved the next the third areas provide fiscal accountability successfully negotiate a new teacher contract before the end of the school year it's our first goal maintain a transparent and fiscally responsive approach to the school budget to ensure that community tax dollars are utilized efficiently and effectively to support the high quality education of our students and explore additional funding
089opportunities through state federal and other programs to support District goals and the last area is community Community engagement communication the first goal is to form a new committee focused on community engagement which we voted on last board meeting so we already achieved that goal the next is to increase the number of Outreach and engagement opportunities with parents and Community then it's secrete or utilize board-specific communication channels next is to ensure superintendent and town managers meet at least monthly to increase communication and then finally ensured ensure School Board Town Council and select board leadership meet at least monthly to increase communication so those were the the goals as developed collectively by the board and so I just want to open back up if there's any additional questions or comments on these goals before we vote I'll
090call for a vote all in favor of this year's board goals wonderful and I'm so excited to work on these goals as a board and to finally have them out in in public and not just working together in support and as I mentioned we're working to get these posted on our website this week they'll be on the school board page and we'll be continuing to provide updates one of the things that in past years we've worked on goals and we want to make sure that there's opportunities throughout the year to um check in on how we're doing against these goals so we're going to be probably at least maybe quarterly provide public updates on how we're doing on each of these goals all right next item for action can we get a motion for the
091approval of the state funding application I moved to prove the state funding application for temporary and interim instructional space well second would you like to present the state funding application just just yeah Scott's going to speak to this since he filed those applications even though my signature is on it but it's basically uh we're trying to get the district some reimbursed money on the modular unit so Scott will go through the detail all right so um the state will allow you to apply for temporary space applications on leased classroom space and what this application does is afford US get up to probably ten dollars per square foot reimbursed from the state and the state funding formula uh one year after you've actually made the uh payments on that so so it'd be one year following
092that um there was some trouble doing this earlier because we had taken full advantage of this back when we'd had the drown Road school and done leasing before and we weren't eligible because we had dealt with enrollment pieces then we've been able to convince um uh Ann at the state that this is a new event for us and I fully expect that this time to get State funding on these I haven't had those conversations and worked with her so so what that would mean for us uh just quickly what it would mean for us is if it was we're currently spending about uh five hundred and thirty three thousand dollars a year on the temporary space that we're doing and we'll be adding more for the middle school next year but what it could mean
093for us is up to about 000 uh in uh State funds coming back on that so the other reimburse it ten dollars a square foot or the actual lease cost whichever is less so so we're trying to take as much advantage of that as we can and uh last that I spoke with um uh amp and headed the state as she had approved these and pushed them onto the finance area Okay so so we're looking to get some money any questions great all in favor unanimous thank you can I get a motion to authorize the lease purchase of technology equipment I move that the resolution entitled resolution to authorize lease purchase of technology equipment in the principal amount of 547 thousand dollars 730 547 733 be adopted in form presented to this meeting second I
094think so so this is a reimbursement resolution which means that the district will pay we've paid for this equipment up front and so we do this every year is a tool so we can get the equipment here prior to the start of the school year and be able to put it in place and utilize it um what this allows us to do is to take about a 16-month period to determine if we if we want to take that much we usually use just the fiscal year to reimburse ourselves as a tool through Finance which Tom Munoz haven't been on finance and others here that are who are on the board we watch our fund balance as we get towards the end of the year and if we don't need to enter into a lease purchase
095we don't do it right because we don't want to take on another interest bearing note if we don't have to so so this is a way in which we have to vote on this within 60 days of having actually paid for the equipment and then if we find that we don't have to enter into the lease purchase we won't but we will enter into it as we is if we have to based on fund balance as we come towards the end of the year so it's a it's more of a financial tool what Scott's saying is that he's saving you money all around tonight [Laughter] and these are a good thing so in all seriousness you did a great job thank you you're making us tons of money here can you just tell us a
096little bit more about what technology was purchased I know Jeff gave us some information um to the board but just so it shared I expected that question so all right so there's uh one of the areas is we've spent about thirty thousand dollars for their projector and sound system in the new uh renovated Mabel I Wilson School uh multi-purpose space and cafeteria over there so that had an Antiquated sound system that didn't work any longer and so that'll be one of the upgrades for that area there's also projectors throughout miw and Greeley middle school for around thirty six thousand many of those went into the modulars okay as we had to bring in modulars and and on-site and then uh there's also MacBooks about 165 000 in MacBooks Mini Max and Apple TVs which are
097step staff devices for the libraries lab devices and many upgraded technology pieces is about seventy six thousand dollars in new photocopiers so that we were able to update those across the district and our print software for that uh and um there were Apple minis Apple TVs and laptops for the administration around twenty thousand those had gotten older and we'd pushed the newer devices to students and staff and it was we needed to upgrade our equipment and then there was about fourteen thousand dollars it had to do with um the network system in terms of battery backups Etc so that would be what we did across the district any other questions well and again so just to confirm so that was all those were all things that had been included in the budget paid for them
098up front and now we're doing this authorization just in case we need to do that the lease which we hope we won't have to yeah they're all things that we've talked about previously during our budget process great thank you all in favor thank you all right so that concludes items for Action we're on to superintendent report oh great um very happy to present the superintendent's report September 18th so at Mabel I Wilson school they had their annual open house we're an open house season and parent information night season many of the schools have both so Wilson school has had their open house they'll have their parent information session this week but over 800 people did attend that well attended open house at the Wilson School of grades four five grade five students who are modeling
099how the Earth rotates and obviously one of the learning tools that a lot of our teachers use is actually physically getting up and moving around and trying to figure things out in space so they're featuring themselves as the Earth and how the Earth is in relation to other objects in the sky this is something that we often start doing grades six through eight the annual ripple effect program at Cow Island for our seventh graders and those are some photos taken from both teams that visited the island last week so the one one of the favorites obviously is the um what is it called parasailing I always forget the name zip line that's right I did do it too once one year one time a few years ago but that's the only time I'll do it
100um I don't have that picture but um it's uh fun and you know obviously they have farm animals out there and all that kind of thing it's um they have kayaking it's just a really great bonding experience for seventh graders each year at the high school the madrigals sang the national anthem at a Sea Dogs game they're often invited to do that and it's been they do that most years but always such a it's a really great deal for them to be able to do that and to go to a baseball game and sing in front of thousands and thousands of people can I just add a fun note about that I heard one of the seniors went from singing at the game to playing in the football game that night uh well that would
101be High School Musical that's a different movie no it really happened yes we we have a lot of talented students who do more than one thing I would have to say and I'm looking at Sophia and Tommy and I think you you probably could vouch for that we have students that it's amazing what their talents are they're involved in so many different things but that does sound like High School Musical it's kind of trying to be a football game and then trying to be at the theater or whatever you can't do both the point is you can um and uh fall Athletics and I know I don't even want to look at Tommy right now because I know he's probably mad because it says under cross-country uh all I could find was Rangers trust me
102I am now in charge of social media for the next three months again and I scoured the social media sites trying to find a photo and I couldn't find one real quick so maybe you can help me yeah absolutely okay absolutely I figured you could help me I didn't know I only found one and it had nothing to do with really running or anything so um but anyway here's some photos from the seasoned girls soccer volleyball football cross country field hockey golf is another one there is an even one that I can even find in golf I looked everywhere for Greeley golf some years there is and some years there isn't um and then boys soccer so um did I forget any of them I think I got them all I was going through them
103in my head did I get them all yeah but anyway um so the golf team will need to help us out here and uh with photos so I can include it in my next report in in the cross country team will need to girls and boys will need to get a photo okay thank you but anyway um it is an exciting time of year and I know that um people just love Athletics I know the weather's not great but we're working it through so that's the report great thank you okay now we're moving to committee reports and we did switch this order up a little bit uh we would like to lead with the student reports if that's okay actually can I ask a question of Jeff before we belong yes so it has to
104do with the um the the Cow Island trip so half the kids didn't get to go because of weather reasons and I know a lot of kids and parents are disappointed with that my understanding is that because of capacity issues on the other end it's unlikely that it's going to be rescheduled is there any hope for for the group foreign I don't want to speak for the Middle School Mari trivellcock I know put a message out on Friday in her in her notes just saying that every effort will be made to give the team that didn't get the overnight um some sort of an extra something I don't know if the ripple effect program can be replicated for the overnight for the other team at this point they are they schedule way in advance and
105that's not us that's you know they're a very popular program so and they obviously have to schedule during the fall and the spring or when it's warmer weather and I think that's the problem we're up against with that so that's my understanding I don't know that for sure um you know I don't know if Mario is still working on that or not at this point but I know that it was very difficult when she was trying to reschedule and I and I know she put that some sort of no down on Friday about it they are trying to do something for that team to provide something extra I do know that part okay whatever that looks like I don't know I'm leaving it tomorrow and Jason to figure out but all right well if there's
106anything that we're on as a board I I know just know how disappointed some of those kids I know it was disappointing yeah I heard that yeah there's a few of us with seventh graders yes great I think Denny had his hand sorry oh no okay so we've moved to student reports and can you also share if you went on the ripple effect trip when you were in seventh grade and maybe a fun memory yeah sure I'll start I'll start ripple effect Cow Island um looking back on it it was definitely a fun experience I think when I was there was a little intimidating like spending almost three days with oh as long as the people in your grade yeah or maybe it was one night I don't really I think it used to be
107no no no it was it used to be two nights yeah you know your memory is spot yeah I definitely remember we did like a build a raft thing and I was one of the people who was sent out on the raft in the ocean so I don't think we won but it was still fun um moving on to the student report um I think everyone's finally getting settled back into school we have tests and quizzes now that's starting so definitely talk about that um today was our day where we decided an advisory what activities we would sign up for for our first ever um enrichment and Club time which will be happening Thursday during our advisory I think a lot of people were pretty excited about that and I think it's there's like so
108many options there's the basketball you can do ping pong math team you can do coloring I signed up to color um and there's like yoga and knitting and there's so many different things so that's really exciting I also think that'll also be happening monthly to my knowledge so that's that's very fun there's also a lot of Buzz about student officer work for the juniors because this is our year where we're in charge of prom so there's a lot of talk about like where prom will be and fundraisers and everything like that so it's my report okay thanks Sophia Tommy yeah um well in Richmond we are all very excited for um me and a couple other seniors will be running the the student government Club time where um the activity is secret we are we're
109not we're not divulging um what we will be doing yet but I think one of the most interesting ones that uh I heard about was Miss uh Dr Baca is turn is teaching people how to change a tire which is very useful and um I wish I could be going to that but um that filled up very quickly so um it's it's a coveted spot to get to go to Dr baca's room to learn how to change a tire but as Sophia talked about there's so many um diverse and great opportunities uh also like what Mr Francis said there's um there there's time to talk with him about um what's going on in the school and in advisory today we signed up and it was just it was like there were almost too many opportunities
110to choose from I like if we were if you're walking through the high school there's like a piece of paper that's this big two of them just filled with um a bunch of different rooms and opportunities to go to so that's really exciting I'm excited for the enrichment days to come um and as uh in the super superintendent's report the football game and just the the triple header that occurred last Thursday night was the student section was electric it was it was a lot of fun a lot of school spirit um yeah it was it was great to finally get back out there and one of the few football home games we've had since the team was reincorporated and yeah a lot of there was there was a lot of chatter about the game for
111um for day for for days and over the weekend and yeah we're very excited um that the football team is back at Greely and just for for an exciting uh fall Sports season ahead and similar to what Sophia was saying about the junior class having to plan prom the seniors are planning the homecoming dance which is coming up um in mid-october and we're planning theme days and uh just kind of like pep events to really celebrate Greeley and the high school and that will culminate around a homecoming game as well as the homecoming dance which will be Saturday night awesome thank you any memories from ripple effect from you oh yes ripple effect I loved it I also was someone who was sent out on the raft and um I don't know if it was
112purposeful um I I don't know if it was purposeful but um basically as soon as I got out there just the raft fell apart and I had to swim to touch the touch the dock while also holding all the foam and rope that that was supposed to put together the raft but um I love swimming so it was it was fun nonetheless um maybe maybe that was actually how I wanted it but um we definitely didn't win the raft competition but um yeah it was it was a very uh there was a lot of bonding and I definitely remember the the ripple effect time very fondly okay thank you all right so let's move on to our first official committee update from the newly formed Community engagement committee Megan the committee is indeed formed and
113we will welcome two volunteer members I know you're going to speak on that in a few minutes which is really exciting people who submitted applications were amazing so it's very exciting how much enthusiasm there seems to be for this committee and for engagement and our next steps are to bring the group together and start having our meetings so more to come great thanks so much Finance Tom I don't have any updates for finance or curriculum but I do have a question um so since Melissa's out on maternity leave and I did not tell her when I want to schedule my meeting do I get in touch with Fran no you just have to directly schedule that oh no that's your that's your consequence though no it is friend now um and that's for the whole
114board for Apprentice is really your go-to occasionally it'll be Trish small jumping into but for Apprentice is the primary yeah okay thank you she was talking about you when you're scheduling oh good Melissa on her way out or friend just kidding all right um policy and we have our first meeting scheduled um September 26th via Google meet and um as I mentioned at our last meeting the first policy that we will be addressing is ikf graduation Christina facilities oh sorry I have a question uh these folks who were here earlier have they attempted to follow the process at all I mean why doesn't someone in that group just start the process of protesting a book and and working it up rather than thinking that we can solve the problem unilaterally which which we can't does
115anybody is anybody putting a b in their Bonnet because in my experience uh when I was a superintendent I had a few challenge like that and the process itself is very settling because people feel they're being heard and it's not just us there are other folks and actual so I would hope that maybe uh one of those folks could you know get the ball rolling and if they don't then we know they're not serious yeah and that's why I did do the presentation at the last minute and then I put it out in the newsletter this week and it had all the information you know with the policy if you know there is a process for people that are disgruntled with something in our library if they have there's a process they can follow yeah
116and nobody's formally no no one has come forward yeah there's been no no form is it possible maybe to reach out to one that want ones that are who obviously they're people who seriously are concerned about this issue and uh I just think it might speed the process along uh and and make it more productive if they got going because then they would be doing things and there would be benchmarks and people they could talk to because it's foolish for them to come here and and ask us to do something because we can't act unless it's it follows the process if I'm if I'm correct but yeah that's right and I have said to individuals who've brought this up to me that there is a process and a policy and you should read the policy
117here it is I can send you the link so that information is out there maybe you shouldn't invite them in and and show them how the paperwork would start perhaps I don't you know just a suggestion any other questions Christina facilities facilities um we have set our um schedule for our meetings uh it'll be the first Friday every month um I did get to Melissa in time but I don't know if I told her it'll be on Google meets so I guess I'll have to Circle back to Fran on that one too so you have company Tom um and topics and priorities um that people have are coming in and I do have a meeting coming up with Scott and Jeff to find out um there priorities and plans so great great thanks Christina so
118Tom gave curriculum and then we're on to equity Kim uh well I Echo what Megan said um we had some amazing applicants so I want to thank everyone who took the time and offered their insight into what they would bring to the committee and um we have selected two members who you'll be announcing in a moment for those that because we we just to keep the committee efficient to members was the right number from the community but those who were not asked to actually be on the committee um all have a lot to offer and we're really hoping that that's not the end of you know or the last time that we hear from them so I think there are many opportunities for people to still get involved even if you're not officially on the
119committee and one of the ways that we are hoping people get involved as we mentioned one of our board goals is to get the equity plan finalized within the first three weeks of school three months first three months of school and so there's still time to offer input on the draft of the equity plan and we've gotten some great feedback um Tim and I have been reading over that and compiling it so we welcome anyone else who wants to look over that plan and make sure that you you'd let us know what what it is that you would like to see in the plan or or if you have any questions about it uh and that is through September 30th I believe so as long as we need it yes exactly uh and I would
120just like to point out that I was not able to schedule meetings because we didn't have the committee form so I couldn't do that but we will be getting that great um and I did want to say thank you to Tim whose transition from one of the community reps to the the board member who's serving with Kim on the committee um and all the work um that he and and Jared put in as co-chairs last year I mean it's it's amazing to have this this now draft document um from from that work last year that we're we're able to you know put the final last touches on through this feedback and it really set us up great to start this year thank you I'm excited I didn't have to schedule anything yeah is there any
121ad hoc committee reports I know it's still pretty early for some of these uh other committees that people are Liaisons I won't necessarily go through them yet maybe next meeting but if anyone else who's a liaison has an update in their liaisoning I know it's really um and um actually um any other committee questions or updates before I transition so in the communications item um as you may have heard the last meeting I was like what is this item what can we talk about so I started to add some things that I wanted to make sure we talked about under Communications and maybe I'll get some guidance from the community engagement Committee in the future about what to talk about during this Communications item but today uh as as you've heard we have our board
122committees finalized it will be posted this week um I was told with Melissa being out we may have things might update a little slower which is which is fine um it's been she was planning to do it from her her uh her new newly found motherhood I hope not speaking of communications is there an announcement I don't have one right now I think all is Mom but um yeah she did she had her baby okay it's so exciting um and so we have our 2023 2024 board committees finalized and these will be posted to the board of directors website um as I think we've we've kind of walked through during the committee reports as a combination of our our board committees um which we had invited community members and it was really wonderful to see
123like um Kim and Megan mentioned some really great applicants um and so those there's been two members uh selected from the community for the equity committee um and we have finalized that list and um thank you Sean Cook Mueller who is in attendance here today will be one of our two Community reps around along with Sarah Allenby for the equity committee we are also really happy to expand the list of um teachers who are represented on the committee we have Rich Taylor who will be the teacher rep from ghs Yazzie yazel will be a teacher rep from miw and we've also invited back some of the other administrators who served on last year's committee which are Mari trebleclock who is the GMS 6A principal and Katie Campbell social worker at gms45 so really rounds out
124representation from each of our buildings um and then we have a student wrap Jordan cool thank you I was gonna say I needed some help making sure I pronounce that correctly so we're really excited um that is the equity committee um finalized today with our community members and thanks again for everyone who expressed interest I'm looking forward to continue that work on the equity committee and then next with the community engagement um as Megan mentioned we invited two members um and the same is true for the equity each of the two members one is from Cumberland one is from North Yarmouth for both committees which is great um so we are we've invited Marjorie Hall and Anita cutter as our community reps um and we also have a Tommy will be soon serving as our
125student rep on that committee and all these will be posted along with every member of the board who's with all the Committees who the administrators are little Snippets about what each can committee is responsible for and there's also a whole list of board Liaisons for other activities both in the community at the school everything from Safety and Security to Recreation Department um to the athletic Advisory board so that is my board committee assignments it's really exciting um so much of the work of the board happens in those committees so really to get started and have so much great um people are represented to be contributing so thank you um next I just put another plug in for the foundation 51 fall fling which is September 29th as Amy Hale shared during public comment Foundation 51
126provides a lot of wonderful uh grant funding to our school community and tickets are on sale Annika and I just wanted to add and maybe this could have gone during the ad hoc liaison committee reports as well but um PTO also has an upcoming parent University on raising sexually healthy children with Jennifer Wiesner a mini workshop for caregivers of children from birth to nine years and that will be Wednesday October 4th from 6 to 8 here in this room the geiger room at Greeley High School great thanks Annika anything else that people want to mention under communication great I don't know if I guess I'm not sure if it's best under communication but I just wanted to um make it publicly known that I support our school librarians and the process that they take to
127review all materials that are available in our library um and I think it's important that all students in our district have books that represent people who are going through things that they are can I have so moved second Tommy no sorry all in favor not that I couldn't do that okay great unanimous thank you everyone