001yeah Eric Lewis what's up all right welcome to the board of directors meeting for msad 51 for Monday November 24 21st 2022. uh first order of business call to order and we have everybody one two three four I said yes very good uh well Jeff is missing um unfortunately but Scott is going to fill in with many things so moving on there is no recognition tonight and uh approval of minutes will be postponed to the next meeting um and then that brings us to public comment so if anybody would like to speak stand up introduce yourself yep please hi everyone I'm Graham shove president of the ms8051 Education Association nice to see you all thank you for being here tonight um I'm here tonight to talk about our esps secretaries and Ed techs there are
002these are the district's lowest paid educational staff and ones that are often overlooked however the role in the district is crucial whether it is managing the massive flow of people through the doors or on the phones by the secretaries or it is edtech's delivering important tier 2 and tier three supports of our neediest students without these professionals our schools could not function I don't think I'm telling you anything new here though and I'm confident that you all are aware of the importance of the end of the importance of these educators what I'm not sure you're aware of however is the crucial crisis that our esps are in the economic chaos brought by the pandemic has brought generationally High inflation the rate of monthly inflation averaged well over eight percent this year that means that the
003price of goods are about eight percent higher this year than last year 2021 also saw abnormally High inflation averaging about five percent that means that compared to two years ago we all are paying about 13 percent more for things like groceries this year than we were in 2020. high inflation unfortunately hits low wage earners much more than Middle High wage earners this is because a large percent of their monthly income goes to necessary Goods like groceries the people under our ESP contract feel this acutely we can see their difficulty in the amount of people leaving the profession our district still has unfilled ESP positions we have seen Private Industry raising hourly rates to entice workers the district is now often paying less than large businesses like Hannaford and even Boutique shops while Educators have always
004been paid less than their peers working in other Industries the Gap is widening Educators educate sorry Educators stay here because we care deeply about this community and your children but is becoming harder and harder for esps to keep afloat more than 60 percent of esps in this District do not make a livable wage for this area according to MIT economists I'll repeat that again more than 60 percent do not earn a living wage the good news is that you all have the power to change this you can raise ESP wages at the district and take care of these Educators who in turn give so much to this community in addition it will not cost the district all that much compared to other District cost centers the difference between a salary increase of three percent and
005a salary increase of six percent for all under the ESP contract is about 0.1 percent of the District budget again just 0.1 percent of the entire budget our esps are looking to the district for support most have never experienced inflation like this this is not business as usual I believe the district has an opportunity here to become a leader in this state in supporting esps in doing so we will become a place that ESP professionals seek out we can fill our vacant positions while also supporting our current staff by agreeing to a strong contract now is the time to show our esps just how important they are to the district thank you foreign thank you Graham other people that would like to speak public comment okay seeing that I'll bring it back to the board
006um Graham thank you very much so moving on uh there are no presentations and items for Action the first one that we have I will entertain a motion for 6A foreign I'll move uh that the computation and Declaration of votes dated November 21st 2022 and attached here to be approved it has further voted that the computation and Declaration of votes be entered upon the records of Maine school administrative District number 51 it is further voted that a certified copy of the computation and Declaration of votes be sent to each of the municipal clerks with the district thank you Mike I'll second seems appropriate thank you I was wondering if nobody made a motion no I won't finish that I thought about asking that question okay so uh does everybody clear on what we're uh voting
007on and reviewed the item in your packet um it basically declares that the EA votes were 35.99 and the Nays were 44.46 for the two uh Two Towns combined so the referendum failed okay everybody's signature tonight yep okay we need signatures before you guys take off tonight so okay uh further discussion okay all in favor all opposed and abstaining okay eight to one thank you Vanessa okay moving on four Six B approved professional positions um and I'll take those as a group if there's no objection do I hear a motion foreign move thank you Christina is there a second I'll second thank you Leanne uh Scott you want to take us through those briefly sure the first position is the speech language uh pathologist position at uh pre-k through three and there were five candidates
008and we interviewed one of those and the position is part of the ongoing uh change in our model in special education with the hiring of professional staff so that's one of those positions that is being filled the second position is the uh is the occupational therapist um which is uh Courtney roach and I'm sorry I should have mentioned the name of the previous individual is um Ali Ballard and Courtney roach is occupational therapist grades pre-k through three and that is a position that was vacated by a previous employee and so that was an opening that we had in the district so those are the two positions and that one there were 19 applicants of which three were interviewed thank you yes questions comments concerns for Scott okay all in favor all opposed unanimous motion carries
009thank you okay moving on so um I will take a motion as a group if there's no objection for six C D E and F is that allowed um since they're all very related so don't hear a motion so moved thank you Tom is there a second thank you Vanessa um so Jared um was there any further feedback or anything between readings one and reading two okay nope all right any questions concerns comments on these four items okay all right so this is the second reading for policy JK JKD j k e j k e r which are all very closely related um and um pretty much where we ended up just follow state law so okay all in favor all opposed okay unanimous motion curious thank you so Jeff is not here um to
010do the superintendent's report so we'll have to hear all the good news next time we will move on to committee reports uh so first Finance Vanessa anything new no nothing new we postponed the first meeting because Jeff and or the second meeting I should say because Jeff and Scott had to work we worked the budget for the Portables and all that because of the no vote for the school okay right and anybody has any comments or questions as we go through these committee reports just jump in um so Jared moving on to policy anything nope uh I guess with the approval of the student disciplinary policies um so as we all just observed and nothing really new to report uh facilities Mike we're going to be meeting a week or so after Thanksgiving to start
011to plow forward coming out of the referendum on Space issues within the district as well as evaluating not reevaluate I mean looking at our facilities plan long-term facilities plan and you know cohesively putting our next steps with regards to how we deal with space there's a lot of discussion upcoming there there will also be just a heads up a presentation from the try group committee that was created the ad hoc committee between the school board uh the Town of Cumberland and the town of North Yarmouth that was looking into solar power for the school district uh there has been a recommendation made by that committee to go into discussion with a developer to start to think through what a solar power project could look like and so I think in the next few meetings or
012so in December potentially or January uh January we're going to hear a presentation from them so that is exciting uh but that's it right that's got anything to add on the solar thing uh the only piece of that is that we are working to uh do the presentation to the board and bring that forward in January um and then figure out how we uh work that through our process uh for the budget and through legal counsel in terms of how we partner with the town around that yeah so for the board that solar project we're just at the RFQ stage that committee did sort of choose to work with a vendor or recommend a vendor to this board and that'll be coming in January and there's some really sharp people on that committee and we
013can ask lots of questions but a lot of things are just still up in the air as far as you know how that moves forward even where it would be located but it's kind of exciting especially as prices of electricity go up it makes it more exciting we talked about some short-term too as far as putting solar panels on the roofs of some of our buildings as opposed to waiting for a solar farm project yep all of that's on the table and that helps with the payback as far as being able to get something going more quickly and that's going to be in January say again yeah so do that presentation in January yeah okay moving on to curriculum Tom so curriculum we are off to a slow start this year um Susie Robbins and
014I have met and proposed an agenda for the committee and we're supposed to meet today to discuss that agenda but we had to cancel because a few of our our members were not able to attend but we will be um tackling our first major agenda topic um on December 12th um Aaron Blanchette is going to join us and give a presentation on our standardized assessment performance to see how that has um has changed or you know how things have looked pre-pandemic during the pandemic and where we are right now so I'm expecting it to be a good engaging presentation discussion so feel free to join us December 12th thanks okay so Equity Jared has there been another meeting since we last talked about the last meeting I should say I'm not um I'm not sure
015if our last meeting was might have been right after our last uh Equity meeting anyway our next meeting is scheduled for December Tuesday December 13th we're waiting to hear back from a few people but we might move the meeting time from 3 30 to 4 o'clock and try to make that our first in-person meeting we're going to waiting to hear back from Jeff if we've got a room to do that in and apart from that we're just beginning to try to divide up our our priorities and think about how we can think about what needs to get done to put together a plan this year and continue to make progress on that front okay I did see an update for that meeting that it was moved to this room so I think that's good news
016oh there we go okay student reports Avery is missing so Tommy go for it there have been a couple events that are have been very important to the student body over the last week um specifically uh the play that occurred um over the weekend with a show on Friday Saturday and Sunday uh that was really exciting I wasn't in the play but I got to watch all of my peers and they did a really really great job um and on the athletic side the first day of sports for most of the winter sports teams was today I know Boys Hockey swimming and I think most of the other sports started today girls hockey got an early start a week or two ago but um I feel like just school spirit around the play and around
017Sports season starting is really good throughout the school and I think that the the school as a whole is feeling really ready to head into the winter season thank you Tomah so ad hoc committees um anybody want to add anything on any of the other stuff um I met with Parks and Recreation last week and it they have a couple exciting things that they're going to be trying to do or propose one of them is potentially a playground a community playground so they would ask us to get behind that those who would be in favor of that they're working through the details but um I think that'd be really great and I said that was something positive that we could potentially get behind um another note um Casco Bay Alliance they have the same meeting
018on December 5th which is the Rails to Trails and it's the same time as the school board I'm just wondering um how we can divide that or in December yeah yeah we can talk about it okay yeah December 5th is that the GAC and it's part of parks and recreation in terms of that we are trying to turn the railroad tracks into a cat bike pathway and such and it does Collide and I know Bill Shane's really behind that as well so just something to think about a concerned that they'll have to choose between this I will be choosing the Casco Bay Alliance just to tell you that right just getting ahead of things a little bit but I'm gonna favor that as well yeah the um the playground are they talking about Twin Brooks
019still looking but they're um presenting to the town I think the first week of December of they've done Pete and Patty have done the research and have looked at all the different playgrounds around and he's he's doing a really good job of getting something that's lower cost that you could probably build on later on so baby steps with that yeah that would be fantastic okay anything else for ad hocs this or that I'll just add for the GCA committee um I want to Second what Tommy said and just congratulate the cast and crew of The Invisible invalid um particular whoever did the costumes it just is so impressive so it really was an amazing show and very exciting to see the GCA I think they made their own costumes well was it they made their
020own costumes yeah I know that somebody coordinated it but yes to all of them who learned how to sew especially um so yeah it was very exciting to have the GCA filled for that those shows very nice um since we're talking about GCA uh just a note to the community we do want to use that space more so please reach out to Scott Jeff myself Kim Vine who's in on the GCA advisory committee um we do want to use that space as much as possible so if you've got events coming up things my vision of that is that the GCA calendar people can subscribe to and people can say what's going on to GCA tonight you know that'd be fantastic to use that space costs a little bit of money we ought to use it
021um okay moving on to Communications [Music] um anything else anybody go for a dam I just wanted to know my failed to mention it at our last November meeting but that we're in the middle of Native American heritage month and also Saturday was um suicide survivors day and so that honors folks who have lost people to Suicide death by Suicide and also those who have attempted to die by Suicide so I was thinking a lot of the folks in our community over the past few years that we've lost thanks thank you anybody else anything for may I ask Tommy a question in light of the shooting this weekend do you have any sense of how our lgbtq students are doing um did you hear anything or do you know if there's anything planned for for
022those who are struggling right now I haven't heard of any um kind of like Memorial or thing that happened like around Parkland at the school but I think that um I I heard some of the members of the gsta the gay straight transgender Alliance they were talking about it um and it wasn't brought up in any of my classes but I did hear some talk about it around the school and just that it was really hard for some sure some students yeah please let us know if there's something that we can assist with I've done that yeah foreign anything okay moving on so um our second uh section of items for Action because we did some earlier um there are two executive sessions um well potentially we shall vote on and then potentially a vote
023at the end so for item 10g uh can I get a motion for that pretty please um I'd like to make a motion that we vote to enter executive session to discuss negotiations between the msad 51 secretaries educational technicians and Library technicians and the ms-8051 board of directors pursuant to State Statute MRSA 4056-d thank you Anne second thank you Mike okay discussion all in favor unanimous thank you motion carries okay so I think uh at this point we could probably shut off the cameras and the mics because when we come back they'll just be potentially one quick vote um but all the discussion would have happened in executive sessions