MSAD 51 School Board Meeting May 2, 2022, 6:30PM

001i was speed running voting all right welcome to the may 2nd 2022 msad 51 borah directors meeting thank you all for being here i'm excited that we have some really great recognition tonight i can see some of you in the audience are getting ready for the second part of our recognition but first we're going to recognize our outgoing student rep madison dalton so madison joined the board in summer of 2020 is that correct beginning of her junior year and i think we all can line that up to a timeline that's pretty challenging to join a school board as a student who's also trying to navigate the world that we were all trying to navigate at the same time madison continued to show up with confidence with honesty and i had many times where i was

002able to chat one-on-one with madison where you were really honest and really spoke for your your students that were your cohorts and um i have learned a lot from you and i wish that i had the confidence that you do when i was your age so i admire you for that so i'd like to open it up to anyone else on the board that would like to speak i think madison deserves lots of recognition this was a hard couple of years this room was really tense and challenging in a lot of times and madison sat here with composure and continued to keep showing up and so i'm so grateful for your service with us madison peter well i think the most important thing for us is a board that she really kept us up to

003date on what was going on in the high school and not sugar-coated or anything else but okay here some of the real problems we're having uh here are some of the things that are going well and i think she was the early canary in the coal mine as far as a lot of the mental health issues that are going on uh with our students i mean i can remember when god i don't see the first or second time i was on the school board and we the subject of student recogni representation came up and i was not in favor of it and i will say my second time around and this certainly justified uh doing this they've served as very very useful and informative members of the board so congratulations it's i've really enjoyed our

004many side conversations and i hope i haven't corrupted you that much thank you you haven't might go we all hope that peter madison it's been an absolute pleasure i brought just a fierce yet thoughtful voice uh to the board um not only do i wish i had that composure and confidence when i i mean i wish i had it now uh so it's just really appreciate uh everything you brought here even on hard topics just never being afraid to just step up and say what you feel and what you think and it's always comes from again just such a thoughtful place so uh you're gonna do extraordinary things no matter what you decide um so good luck to you and thank you for giving us some of your time anyone else like to say anything

005kevin i would love to madison it has been a sheer delight um when when you joined and you could immediately feel your your acumen and debate and all those different things not not picking fights but justifying uh your position and i think that you do that exceedingly well i remember that in early days you didn't need encouragement to keep speaking up but i hope desperately that you continue to um the other couple things that have always jumped out of me i mean even though you left early last week it was for the right reasons you're one of the hardest working people i've met up here and you have a reputation that precedes you i hope that you'll come back and update this board with um with your successes thank you all so much this is

006definitely this has been an opportunity almost or i guess i would say of a lifetime i've learned a lot on the school board and it's definitely helped me and will continue to help me even after i'm gone but thank you guys so much thank you madison we have a little gift for you so i'm gonna walk out with you it's a pony a pony madison i've been dying to know what you're doing next year are you willing to share that with us i'm going to emerson congratulations [Applause] college in boston is a lot of fun sometimes too much but a lot most of the schools i applied to were in boston for a reason all right moving on to the second part of our recognition we have um jazz band and combo which is the

007way it's listed but that doesn't sound right so i wonder um who could give a little introduction to this i bet mr rollins could give a great introduction so thank you for your time tonight um the group before you as our high school jazz band our jazz combo is made up of a few members of these students uh but what you're going to hear tonight is one song by our big band and while we're here i'd like to acknowledge some students that here they play in in what's called the the a district jazz festival and a state jazz festival in addition to that we have honors jazz festivals the honors jazz festival students auditioned to be part of those one of which we hosted last week that district festival and eight of the 16 students

008in that honors jazz festival were students from here great high school and those students are and maybe you can give a quick wave isaiah mcfartridge cam anderson leif bodie matthew gilbert nicholas theodorus jack airy charlie moore and nathan howe and they played right here on the stage to represent our community last week sure um and so that's a festival that encompasses all the schools from pretty much portland through oxford hills telstar additionally these students can audition to be in the state jazz festival again it's an audition festival anybody in the state can audition to be in those and of these students the following were were members of that uh isaiah uh mick fettuccine anderson matthew gilbert nicholas theodorus jack airy and nathan howell additionally uh we play in a state jazz festival which means this

009old band packs up we went to hampden academy and play a set up there there are judges judges provide scores for each ensemble and i can proudly tell you that this ensemble received there are two schools with matching scores of those the highest scores in this this band was one of those additionally at the state jazz festival they give awards for musicianship awards they award five of them in the state uh two of the students before you were recipients of those awards those two students are cam anderson and nathan howell and i should mention that one award is given to one student in the state called the dale huff award which is given to the most out student outstanding musician in the state and that was this year awarded to nathan howell our drummer um

010[Applause] [Music] [Applause] so with that we thought we'd give you an opportunity to hear one of the songs that we play at the state fast festival um so they're here tonight from all parts of of town to be here um on time and so this is a tune called blue tiger by eric morales thank you so much [Music] bye [Music] so [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] that was why we're here that we've been missing this for a long time that was beautiful well done thank you all so much for coming here and giving that to us that was awesome congratulations on all your

011achievements keep playing you guys are awesome thank you again thank you [Applause] what what year is the drummer in greeley and where are you going to school good for you awesome thank you all again all right we'll move on to our other business parts of the agenda we have a an item for approval of minutes but we are going to table that until the the next time what are you laughing at me no i just can't just keep doing that um so we are going to table the approval of minutes uh for april 25th as they were not ready for tonight's meeting so thank you for your patience on that we'll have that in june to approve so we will move on to uh public comment is there anyone here that would like to speak

012more than welcome to follow the jazz concert okay i don't see anybody um does anyone have anything for communications i have one thing i'd like to share that both towns knowing that there's elections coming up and new board members joining this board as we'll be saying goodbye to a few both towns are hosting a meet the candidates night not new york north yarmouth is uh on the 9th and cumberland will be on the 18th and i encourage anyone to participate in those i plan on listening it's a good way to get to know the candidates and i don't believe there's questions and answers but it's helpful as we as we look toward the election in june okay we will move on to presentations um our first one is the long range facilities capital plan pass

013that over to you jeff all right good evening um here to uh wow it is hard to go after the jasmine they're amazing just amazing talent there it's great to hear that and i agree it's a great way to start the meeting off we should have this all the time um so tonight i'm going to be presenting something that should look pretty familiar it's been talked about at the board level workshop and it's also been discussed at the facilities committee level and it's just a bringing tonight for approval and adoption by the full board a draft long-range facilities plan for the district and really considering this to be an important critical early step in before any sort of school project is put out to referendum formally by the board or any other work that's done

014on our facilities long range so that's why we're here tonight and why are we having this presentation the peak enrollment in the sad's history so far was the year 2001 2000 2001 where the district's enrollment hit 2421 students that's the highest it's been in the 55 history 55 year-old history of msad51 and at that time there were three other facilities in the district besides the ones that we have today of course the middle school is a newer building and there was an auxiliary building to the high school that served as the junior high school for many years as many people know however we are three facilities short of what we were back in 2000 2001 and the projections that we have and i'll go into those projections in a couple minutes a little bit more

015in depth but by 2031 32 our very latest numbers are projecting that the sad's total enrollment will surpass that of 2000 2001. so we'll have more students at that point and three fewer facilities um yes the middle school was added onto about um eight years ago when it opened to gms for eight however it was a small addition uh to accommodate some classrooms and again we're talking about three facilities that are no longer with the district all were on the smaller side however the north yarmouth memorial school accommodated two of our grades by the time it closed the drown road school accommodated one grade by the time it closed in the shabig island school is obviously still open and been renovated but shabig island is no longer part of cumberland or sad51 just giving you

016a quick history on that so the updated enrollment projections done by rebecca wandel and these are as recent as literally last week she gave final numbers to the district she's been working on this for as you know since last summer and she was still she had some outstanding areas she needed to review more in depth before she could give us a final report this is her final report there is a full report that we are posting on the website and for anyone to look at those final numbers but she is dated at march of but gave it to me last week just double checking some things so we're updated most current numbers at this point so 2497 students by the year 2031 32 and as you can see the fall of next year she's projecting

0172123 students in the district she has updated these numbers and she has curtailed some of her projections that she had even a few months ago after looking into housing starts a little bit more deeply looking at turnover housing looking at projections for housing and looking at in and out of out-migration and also making sure that um she caveats everything by saying that the the postcovid era is a difficult one to judge completely um as to whether the enrollment will hold she said october of 2022 which is what our official accounts are taken for next year will be the time to compare her numbers against those numbers and she's provided four different enrollment models and given us one which is the one in front of you that she believes is the best match for what she

018believes at this at this time so the current conditions taking those numbers and i'll get back to those numbers in just a minute in a different way uh mabel i wilson school's enrollment is will be projected now at 7 35. we'd originally projected based on her numbers um back in the summer that we would have 761 students in 2022-23 she did adjust those numbers down to 735 for the fall of and these numbers are up from 540 students in 2015. so you can see in about six seven years those numbers have gone up roughly 200 students at the wilson school albeit we have many modulars we have 21 modular rooms or some of them were put placed on the campus as a result of covid and smaller class sizes but we also are projecting we

019need all of those for enrollment related purposes within the next two years but we do have modules at mabel wilson school and gms as you know set up costs facilities committee looked at this whether removing any of these modulars for the next couple of years made sense i mean the amount of cost to put those in with utilities water etc just made it almost unreasonable financially and otherwise to remove the units so thus they are in the proposed budget that you'll be voting on tonight increasing enrollment necessitates us keeping those modulars for the foreseeable future until a school project is decided on and the annual leasing cost right now for all 21 units is 335 376 dollars and that excludes any capital costs related to setup or utilities so the site obviously at 80 gray

020road i'd like to thank board members for walking through that property today with oatpoint earlier this afternoon i'm just giving giving a visual this is where the school is expected to be put however if you see where the yellow arrow is recent alterations show that that site is moving a little bit further south so the the actual footprint of that building a proposed building will be a little bit deeper into the woods and a little bit further away from the ball field and the development i think the site will be a better site for the school more natural and more wooded and it also adjusts for any sort of wetland issues that have arisen however the site is very viable at this point we don't have final reports yet um we'll have final reports um

021actually oak point told me today that they think by the end of next week we should have a preliminary final report and certainly a final report by the end of this month and that way we'll know all of the um the wetland vernal pools we'll have all those reports in um and really all of the uh the initial site work should be done in terms of testing for the viability of this site at mabel i wilson school as i mentioned earlier the enrollment has jumped so much and the current proposed great configuration if the school project passes by voters once put out to referendum mabeligh wilson will become a grades three to five school in the meantime the district aside from whether the project passes or not that facility does need improvements and work and

022the district applied for revolving renovation funds which is put out by the legislature and the governor there have been period of years where that money has not been available and thankfully recently it's been available for us to uh to apply for um this district was awarded one and a half million dollars in state funds um fifty percent of it is forgiven taken off the books which is about seven hundred and seventy five seventy thousand dollars the other half of the money would be loaned to the district at zero percent interest so the um current money is being uh would be earmarked for replacing many of the windows not all of them this money will not replace every window in the facility but all of the most necessary windows indoors security upgrades throughout the building air

023handling system enhancements and also retrofitting the bathrooms would be done through the bond project and not through evolving renovation funds but i wanted to throw that in there that if voters do pass this project for a new school in north yarmouth and this becomes a intermediate school we would so we would need to do that at this point we'll be asking the board to set a referendum for the revolving renovation funds for this june so again this is separate from the school project referendum which likely would be held as if the board wishes uh in the fall but this is money that we need just to upgrade the facility no matter what its use is so the proposed new grade span for configurations we are currently a district obviously with a primary school a split

024facility with two different schools grades four and five and grade six through eight at the middle school we currently have eight hundred students in that facility in greeley high school grades nine and twelve we have six hundred students and mabel wilson school currently we have um 613 students some i'm sorry 713 students we'd be reverting to a proposed grade configuration if the referendum for a new school passes we would have a primary school pre-k through grade 2 in north yarmouth mabel i wilson school will be intermediate school grades three to five the middle school would revert back to grades six through eight which it was before and the high school would remain nine through 12 if the project goes through what does that mean for enrollment and how do we look at enrollment in determining

025school size etc so rebecca wandel's updated numbers again as of simply last week and she's dated march 2022 would show you the enrollment numbers by the proposed grade configurations if the project's new school project passed by voters starting in 2025-26 this is assuming that the new school would open either in september of 2025 or september of 2026. we're not sure which year at this point it's probably closer to 2026 but we don't have an actual determination on that i'm not going to go through all these numbers however i would like to point out that the yellow highlighted boxes are the highest enrollment projections that rebecca came up with these numbers do not match her chart that you gave that she gave us in the report the reason being there's two reasons one is that she

026was assuming in basing her report on 31 to 33 pre-k students we are using 48 students with full-time pre-k classes in the event that we have three-year-olds that we need to program for through the cds model that bill died in the legislature this year but it keeps coming up every year and we know at some point we will be responsible for students with special needs and programming from for those students in the building would be important again this is not a universal pre-k model at all it would just be 48 students but it does increase the assumption from what rebecca had used for her numbers and this also includes superintendent agreement students that she's added into different models however was not part of the model that i used for making sure all of our numbers

027are in there so this gives you a three percent inflation the superintendent agreement students that we have which is anywhere from 30 to 35 students annually on superintendent agreements into our district and then it also makes the assumption for 48 students in pre-k so using that baseline these are the numbers you can see at the highest point the new primary school would be 607 students the highest enrollment for the intermediate school or maybe like wilson school would be 593. um 611 for the middle school 6-8 and 741 for the high school and you can see those numbers begin to really catch up with the high school later on in the projections so the highest projected enrollment based on what rebecca went as far as 2032 would be 2497 students based on her most recent projections

028so this is actually the crux of the presentation hopefully this doesn't look new at all it should look um very familiar this is a draft long range capital projects plan these are the priority one areas of this plan again this has looked been looked at by the facilities committee it's also been presented to the full board previously so a new primary school obviously grades pre-k to two in north yarmouth 80 gray road and this would be based on enrollment increases that i just showed you and it says in this particular draft plan new construction of a 700 student school and talking with oak point just today actually that might be modified slightly down and i think there are some adjustments to the concept designed for the new school that could be made material adjustments that

029could be made to downsize that school just slightly based on these new numbers that we've received but that's a point for discussion so i think in approving this plan that piece obviously can be adjusted the intermediate school as i mentioned grades three to five middle school and high school so that's one of that's priority one another the second priority one um if the board chooses to adopt this plan tonight be improving maybe like wilson school as i mentioned um in advance of of making an intermediate school but also even if it doesn't become a different grade configuration the facility alone would be upgraded based on the revolving renovation fund money that we're getting from the state of maine and in making improvements for may valley wilson it's also contingent upon the referendum for other things

030such as looking at the cafeteria retrofitting the bathrooms and looking at the outdoor play space the playground the field not having modulars on the school grounds and looking at all those pieces that would come as a result later and be part of the bond for the new school would also wrap in some other improvements to maybe wilson school outside of the revolving renovation funds priority two if approved by the board tonight in this long-range capital plan would be an artificial would be an artificial turf field that would allow more access for playing in longer use of the field for fall and spring it would not diminish our need for twin brook but it would just open up a lot more options and longer playing time for our our teams so being able to do that

031is really critical in a growing in a growing district as well as being a good community asset for other purposes and then priority three there are two areas renovating the maintenance in the field house the maintenance building in the field house which are both on the main campus here this is a safety issue it's been a safety issue for years we know it we have maintenance equipment in the field house as well as a weight room in a snack shack we'd like to add bathrooms to the field house that's been a long-standing discussion and even making some sort of a slight addition to the field house if needed but certainly in addition to the maintenance building in order to move the maintenance equipment that's in the field house up to the maintenance building and get

032that equipment out of the field house also as part of priority three would be the renovation of greeley high school even though really high school was renovated now about 17 18 16 17 years ago there were some areas that did not receive attention at the time or very minimal attention which would be greely pool the library media center math and science wings again these receive light renovation but there's other renovations that we certainly would like to do in those areas since they did not get a full renovation the commons and then uh cafeteria putting windows in the cafeteria which currently has no windows in there so that would be the i mean really the long-range capital plan is is truly these two slides priorities one through three and then the only thing i'd like to

033add is that an annual review i recommend to the board if you adopt this plan that the facilities committee annually review this long-range facility's plan to make sure it's viable each year and it's current responsive and that the full board should review and approve if there are any adjustments made by the facilities committee annually it would go back to the board for full review and approval so that's my recommended long-range facilities plan i know we've talked about having this come before the board for a while and it's really important prior to putting out some of the major big steps that are included in this especially priority one in this plan thank you jeff um i know we are voting on this um under items for action but while it's all fresh does anyone have questions

034or comments do have a question um the um so we're using the state revolving renovation fund for maybe wilson which is great i fully support that um the renovations that we could would do to ghs would that be uh allowable under the construct of the state revolving fund um not for the round that we just completed so this one's specific just to maybe wilson school i'll clarify my question um if well i guess that there's two parts uh i didn't ask that question well so do we know if that fund will be available in next year or the year after um and then would that be allowable um scott may know if it's going to be if it's already been discussed for next year but it's been on and off for years so some years

035you know it's been available and some years it's just not available at all it depends if the legislature puts funds into the budget for this purpose it's also for um specific need to it has it has to be a real show need like we had security needs because of doors windows that didn't open properly and ao and other windows in the building that needed work in the hvac in one room so so that's that's why we uh we're so high on the priority list for this year but again like the for to do the high school i just wanted like it's their state money or potentially federal money too knowing that the infrastructure bill has school renovation funds in there as well yeah we can always take advantage of applying for those funds whenever they

036become available so yes i believe that some of the stuff at the high school would be subject to the revolving renovation fund it's just when we get the opportunity to apply for those funds and there may be you know opportunities to improve many areas of the high school we have areas of the high school where the windows don't work properly we have hvac that could be upgraded there's a number of areas that could use some work in high school awesome thank you and the reason why i ask is just it may be priority three but if there is you know state or federal assistance hopefully it would jump up the priority well i mean this particular money with a revolving renovation fund i mean we put this whole application together and it's basically free money

037right you know half of it's free and the rest is interest-free loan i mean it's it's an amazing program yeah i think the important part is that the we just want the public to know that the voters do have to vote on accepting the money from the state and then using it obviously you have to pay it back at zero percent interest um it's the other half is loan but this june we would be asking voters if the board wants to put that forward as a referendum item to go ahead and and to vote that vote on that item so that we can accept those funds from the state um and regardless of what we're doing with the the facility at mabel eye wilson school what grade configuration it's you know irregardless at this point

038we need to upgrade the facility no matter how it's used anybody else down at that end jennifer um i didn't mean to do that in there so um jeff you had mentioned i have a couple questions you had mentioned that we have 30 kids currently under superintendence agreements it was my understanding that when our schools were at capacity that we weren't doing this and that the only ones that we were accepting were at the high school because we have capacity is that is that the way it currently stands or are we taking kids at any age at this point that is true over the last two years we curtailed our superintendent agreement so i didn't accept any new students so if we had students already in our districts um that we have been that we

039had taken in i accepted them back but we didn't take any new students and um and we didn't take any new high school students either right um so it was only what the students that we have so i have been this year is the first year that i just started looking at superintendent agreements a week ago um and we are we're going to start accepting students if we have space mostly at the high schools where we're getting our requests right now okay but you're it seemed like in your um model you're saying that we're going to accept them at any level after we have capacity is that what the theory is i think rebecca she did ask me that question specifically and she looked at the average of superintendent agreements over many years and we

040averaged between 30 and 35. so she used that number and i and she asked me are you going to stay at that level and they said we're going to try to stay i would hope that the the kids of our taxpayers are the priority and that our school our classrooms do not get too large and that we're accepting kids to sit in those seats that aren't you know just based on the superintendent's agreements i understand there's each situation you know that you look at them but i would i would hope that we're not accepting a lot of kids when they're increasing our class sizes or we're having other you know resources being used for this yeah every time there's a student that comes forward that wants to come here i always check with the principal

041of the school make sure that we have enough space for the student we've said no for that reason alone in fact during covert we just said no period right because we didn't want to increase our class sizes but that's that's always a consideration okay um if we don't have space we don't have space right okay um so my next question is why are we voting on this now if you could kind of walk me through if if we vote for this plan are we locked into it and like why are we doing this tonight when i think there's so much up in the air with one the turf field that was discussed you know a month ago or so the the property for the primary school and so what would be the benefit of voting

042it through tonight versus waiting to get things settled down so it doesn't lock the board into um actually going through with it it's just a plan itself saying this is what we think it's basically being transparent with the public and saying this is what we think our needs are right now there might be components of the plan that just don't go through for whatever reason the board chooses not to so the board has to take you know statutory steps basically to say send it to referendum in order for to activate any parts of these officially but this is basically a roadmap saying these are the needs of the district that at this point that we think are the needs of the district when we're just telling the public these are things on the horizon i

043i think that i don't want to speak for members of the facilities committee necessarily um but my sense of making sure we have this plan in place is that we're not putting out a school project and then saying three years from now by the way greatly high school we we've got to do something about that pool after all we want to say these are all the needs that we know of and over a period of time we hope to get to them or these would be considered as part of the board's work and putting these forward but it still requires in the end the board has to ask the public do you want to do this and they have to set a referendum i would just hope that we're not tied into this and the

044fact of that in the fall like the math wing at the high school i know needs attention and that the facilities is just like well it's priority three so we're not going to do that like sometimes we do that with our strategic plan and we get tied in there and then i think it's harder for and mind you i won't be on the board going forward but i think if we have this plan and you're too tied into it and you're like well this is what we all agreed to i think to to be tied into that i think we would have to workshop that i appreciate what the facilities um committee is bringing forward and all of that but i'm not tied into you know i get that we need a road map but

045i can't i can't kind of under con like understand tying ourselves into this and why we need to approve it yeah and i should have said this too and i it actually should have been part of the presentation so we have two different facility plans we have one that's the long-range kind of the big one which is the one i'm presenting tonight and then we have more of the um kind of like the roof replacement the we have windows that we know that need to be fixed or replaced we've got pavement that we know needs to get repaved we've got kind of those smaller things um and those are part of a five-year plan that we have a facilities plan and that's just using capital money to pick those things off as they come up

046they're on a schedule we know that x number of years we've got to fix it we've got to replace a roof at a school that's different from this plan and scott works with don foster on that plan has been reviewed i believe by facilities recently and that's all that stuff and then there's another piece of it which is emergency stuff like we know at the math wing for example there's window problems and we've known about that for a while where had those windows on order huh no we actually did work on those and replaced mechanisms in them and right or a softball fence that was just fixed today right so those that hasn't that stuff's not going to be in this place this is the big stuff but but when say say if we if

047you sat there in january of next year and this isn't if this isn't really what the plan should be is facilities going to like break it down again or or is everyone locked into this for three years nope i just it's review and maybe i'm beating a dead horse but i don't i don't feel comfortable voting on supporting something that i don't completely sorry completely understand what i'm voting on and and how taxpayers are going to be tied to this the turf field we need a turf field we're a school that probably needs a turf field but maybe it needs to be fundraised maybe part of it needs to be funded but but for people to say well it's in the plan the voters are just going to pay for it it just needs to

048get on the ref i don't that's i guess something that i need to understand yeah and this plan doesn't identify funding sources or timelines or anything like that just basically all this plan does is identify the big stuff that we know about at this point you know we don't want to say again a few years from now by the way we forgot to tell you about the pool we know the pool is but it may not get done for 15 or 20 years or who knows when you know or it may become a repair that we have to do we did actually make a repair at the pool not very long ago because it was more of an urgent item so those are things that are outside of this but this is kind of the

049big stuff knowing we've got aging facilities in certain areas of our district and we just want to be transparent look yes we have a school project we're putting out we want to make sure you know about there's other things down the road who knows when we can get to them but we want to put it just out in one place in one report so people don't say well you forgot to tell us that part um so i think that's it can i ask peter a question because you're the chair of the facilities right peter peter um how long has this plan been worked on in in your committee kind of off and on for a couple of years okay uh it's i i think the thing is jennifer we've got a referendum coming up at

050some point in time so the public kind of needs to know what's out there in the future i remember that when we did the gca the question was what was out there in the future and immediately in that future plan was something's got to happen to wilson we don't know what we don't know what the major renovations are but something's going to happen so you know you get this narrative out in the community well we didn't know about wilson we didn't know the stuff had to do well uh the board and the facilities committee at that time put out a long-range plan and then there was the fact that something had to be done so that if somebody had done their research and i mean i can remember i was on the town council at

051the time and was a strong advocate of the arts center at that point and i did mention in the town council meeting that let's not forget there's something out there major wilson that we've got to do and we don't know but selective amnesia is a disease that kind of like the current covid it seems to never go away jennifer do you have more questions um we can also comment i think i'm good i think i just wanted to ask about the the superintendent's agreements how tied in we are and understanding that and understanding that the priorities can change in the future and that yeah and i think you know and i think that people should understand if it's on this list it's it could be moved around or other ways to fund it ask jennifer

052a quick question would it would it um be more comfortable if at the top i mean it says draft right now but underneath this header it said something like these priorities are subject to change by the board uh or whatever you know basically the board has control over what these priorities are so tonight we're just asking is you know this is what we think is on the horizon do you agree um with the big stuff and obviously it can be revisited by the board any point it wishes to i just want to be hesitant to change too much of this before we're just about to vote on it i think our communications around it is important i think um knowing that this is really our due diligence to show the community that we've got lots

053of projects and that we're not just asking for a huge project and then saying well that's it for the next 10 years i think that was the goal of being able to put this out being transparent that this is not you know the new school is not the only project down the line and there is flexibility in this as far as i understand um and one of my first questions was is there a timeline attached to it and there isn't and i think that that gives us that flexibility to say okay at the beginning of next year whoever is chairing facilities this should be one of their priorities to look at at the beginning of that year and say are we still on board with this priority that's how i see this plan i've asked

054for this plan to come to the board specifically around this time for those reasons knowing that we're asking the community to understand a big project um for the long term of the case yes i would feel more comfortable if it wasn't so maybe so specific with where the primary school is when we have so many things up in the air and that's how i don't know if i could i probably won't vote for this because there's so many up in the air things with the primary school that naming that specific i understand that we need to get more facilities for our students we're just not there yet completely on what what the answer is in my mind so okay okay thank you jason and then kevin um so i i don't have any great issues

055with priority one items but i would echo a lot of jennifer's concerns in general um so this is a pretty important document and i can see it being used in the future like well these were what we were supposed to do and these were the priorities and we voted on this so therefore this is now the path that we should follow because of this document so i sort of have similar concerns i was on the facilities committee last time that this plan came up on that call and you know the field there wasn't consensus on where that should lie so i sort of have an issue with that i have beyond priority one items i take issue with that either flipping two and two or three or moving number three's up to number twos i

056kind of feel like we should be maintaining what we have which is what those priority three items feel like to me sort of renovating bring it back to what they should have been i feel like that's more important before we put in a turf field which we can debate at length but is a new fancy shiny thing [Music] so i guess i question whether we even have to vote on this in the first place but that's my input is locking these down and showing those priorities as they are that's going to be used in the future and that i don't agree with the way that those are laid out [Music] i would suggest we don't vote on it at all or just accept it as a report or we vote on priority one items potentially

057or we amend it and flip it or that's that's my input so last year when you voted on the um long-range capital plan is it how is it different from this year's uh so there what there hasn't been a vote on this plan um so this is the first time this is the first time ever uh that this plan is being voted on yeah that we've put everything in one place that we have identified as the large areas that we um believe would be going forward at some point whether they go forward again it's up to the board but just identifying those areas i think that was also one of the reasons why i thought it was really important that we brought a plan because we haven't looked at a plan as a board in

058a long-term way so that was also why i thought it was really important that we had something to look at while we're also looking at a big project in the public at the same time so there currently isn't a board adopted plan there has been you know there's a five-year capital plan which is all smaller and that's never been approved by the board that's more of a facilities committee document i'm fully in favor of having a living working document something like this that we look at even more often than annually for sure we should i mean the public should be able to find something like this easily to see the roadmap and a very granular version of it but locking it down with a vote so that it becomes something that is almost an edict

059and therefore here we go there's the proof this is what we have to do that sort of bothers me thank you um i agree jason i just want to say that very loudly that uh so um i i think a big opportunity and a few of us are short timers i think it is a real opportunity for the district to focus on long-range planning now when you talk about this fantastic facility and it's shocking that it's filled to capacity tonight when when those conversations were going on about building this building there were some members of the board that talked about the need to focus on those on what was going on with mabel i mean most notably our former chair kate was adamant about it and there weren't enough people yet i was one of

060the ones on the board that didn't question it enough of where that sat in priority so i think in terms of long term it is it's a gap that's fixable and it kind of brings me that peter can talk to what happens here in cumberland but i know on the other side of the border in north yarmouth very resolute focus on town assets on when those are acquired when additional ones are being acquired really to the extent that there are spreadsheets that would show we've we've purchased this fire truck in in 2010 it is slated for a replacement in 2030 and there are dollar uh figures attached to that now scott i know that you have that for the vehicles in the district that that i know but some of these things that that we

061look at on here if our interest is transparency i would add to that our interest should be predictability and so some of those things that that we can understand the cost of a new school and acquiring property well that that is pretty binary but some of these different things on here if you're looking at that priority and you can have an understanding not down to the penny but to something that says to the district this is what we're looking at over time and we can make the right types of decisions uh in the cadence that make sure that we maximize the use of of community dollars i think that that would serve us well i look at many of these and this probably isn't fair jeff and i apologize in advance some of these feel

062aspirational and i'm more focused on on things that are actual and and i know that you are too if you can find time as one of your next priorities next year to look at these find a dollar value find out what that looks like over time i agree with jennifer i'm not uh and jason not sure what a vote buys for you tonight other than saying that this is the type of focus that i think is going to serve you well and i and i think if we were going to vote on it i would um i would suggest we have a workshop on it because i think there should be input besides the facilities committee if it's a votable document but we can do what else anybody scott do you have any comments as

063a director of facilities as someone that puts this together and has this mostly in your brain as far as how the board would look at this you know in a different way or use this plan um the only the only part that i have around it we've had long-range plans and long-range facilities plans before when we were at peak enrollments years ago we developed plans around um you know the need for a middle school the need for replacing the junior high school that was here and you know peter you remember those um i would see it as a is basically a tool that we would look at and set out there as where we're looking to go towards the future and possibly put some rough dollar figures around it um that we might be able

064to know where we're heading in the future or what we might be looking at but i would see it as a tool that the board could use to inform the public of what's coming so just adding to that because that's that is exactly what i'm talking about but i remember when we had those conversations over in north yarmouth last year when we were we began that conversation about the cost of the school that work of of trying to reserve for future events and and i i know you've done a fantastic job with that um that's the type of thing that brings about that predictability for folks and and helps them not to stare at the ceiling at night yeah i mean that's that's quite frankly the reason why we've been building fund balance in order

065to anticipate debt service on the new building and also when you're looking at these items tying that into our debt service schedule so you understand when debt is being reduced or when debt is dropping off in order to take on additional projects or things that are necessary and eventually what you try to get to is stabilizing your debt service as things drop off bringing other things on so that you don't have those speed those spikes in debt service that's everything yeah i think so i appreciate the conversation and i think what i'm remembering as far as kind of bringing this back up to the facilities is that we didn't have this process we weren't talking about a long-term facilities plan and so when i started to think about kind of the loose ends as we

066continue to look at the end of this year i was like we really need to look at a plan that that looks at all of the things that are ahead of us so what i'm hearing from the board is that it's a good tool but it's not necessarily something that we need to vote on and so what i think what we uh tom did you have a comment i just saw a finger go up um sure okay so i'm a bit more in favor of this uh than some of my my fellow board members are um and correct me if i'm wrong what we would be voting on here is this is a signal to the public that on may 2nd 2022 this is what the district perceives its long-term capital needs to be there's

067it's not binding we could come back and vote again next week to if these needs change uh so there's unless we like vehemently disagree on these needs there's not there's not a lot of harm in a yes vote but there's also nothing really at stake other than just signaling to the public that we're in agreement that this is what our our long-term needs are so i think we we could vote a vote on it or we could not vote on it i'm not sure make much of a difference i think it's a good point i wanted to just just respond to that for a minute um i think asking the board to vote was just more of a do you agree with this planet you know is there a problem with this plan um i

068i don't want to assume there's been a lot of discussion about this over the last i think peter said two years on and off but i just we don't want to make assumptions that this is where the board wants to be we're kind of saying is this right you know it doesn't say you have to tie yourself to do we have to do a turf field do we have to do you know the renovation of whatever at the high school but it's saying these are areas that have been talked about and identified as areas that need work at some point or could need work um and you know is the board in agreement with this or is this like way off base um and again i think maybe it's just more there's there's got to

069be some sort of disclaimer that's might be missing from this plan you know it's subject-to-board action subject to um you know something like that but whether the board takes a vote tonight i think is is not as important as is their general agreement that this is a tool that can be used because i i have actually shared this with all of our staff at a staff meeting and i just put it out there as a draft i said look these are just things that just to be aware of um just an awareness it wasn't you know yes we're doing these things these are things that we might be thinking about doing just want to make you aware and it was used literally for that purpose like awareness kind of a signal these are things that

070could be looked at but i know avery's oh i don't want to be there avery and then kevin uh yeah so my question is uh i presume by what it's prioritizing is the way that we fund things or is it prioritizing the way that we address these problems if that makes sense i actually think it's what tom used the word signal i think it's a way of signaling to the public that there's large other large needs um whenever that may be it might be 20 years from now that these things get addressed but right now these are the things that are big that we're aware of that we just want to say the school project a new school project is not the only thing okay and i do think it came from and i think

071peter said it earlier when the gca was being built there was a narrative that you know we're doing this before we do something at maple i wilson school yeah the gca have been discussed for years um prior to prior to it actually being put to referendum so i do think it's more of a signal of a plan than it is saying definitely we're doing this and here's the dollar amount that's how i see it anyway so it's more it's like kind of um like how we're going to allocate our attention uh towards them yeah i think that's a good way of saying it um i kind of uh yeah i hate going back to things that people have said because like i just i don't like sitting here for four hours but um i think

072jason made a great point about how like an artificial turf field is like that's a want not a need kind of in my my opinion i know a lot of people differ on that uh sports is a big part of our community and uh people have wanted this for a long time but you know if we don't have air conditioning in parts of the high school that starts to interfere with students learning and i just that that feels like it holds a lot more weight than fake grass kevin i could do the old guy story about we didn't have air conditioning you also didn't have as severe global warming tuna fish in a hot locker after lunch seven hours i don't remember seventh period many days um no i i think that tom's point helps

073to helps to clarify and and jeff yours did as well but the reason that i think um it's not easy to assign dollar value cities it's not easy to do the research that that might be required to come up with those numbers but jennifer and i were at the same event last night down the hall and uh people talking about how wonderful it would be to have a new pool and of course i was going to call scott this morning and ask what a pool causes um but if you had dollars in mind or if you understood what the implication of what your priorities are it provides again that clarity so it's not easy but i bet you could find an intern that could help you right now peter yeah i i would agree with

074tom's comments that it's a guideline we can shift the priorities around we've done this over the last uh six months but i think it's important that this is out there we've got school board elections coming up in june council and select elect and so i think it's important as the public evaluates the school board candidates and such if if these subjects come up and they will my suspicion especially the new school and probably the turf field because it's a hot item with groups that you know they've got at least the guidelines of where the board is thinking and also for the fact with the referendum if it does come up in november on the schools as a tool and i don't think the at least of my experience the last couple times on the board

075if something conditions change that we can't pivot quite immediately to deal with it so i think we this isn't totally cast in stone i'm of the tom school of thought that i think we should vote on it when the time comes and let the chips fall where they may okay we do have another opportunity for discussion when voting comes around my my biggest concern with not having attention to this type of plan is that we lo we lose sight of it we haven't voted on something like this we haven't talked about this as a board it's important if we don't put this in our process then um we're going to miss something so i want to make sure this is part of our work every year that we look at this we adjust it and

076it comes to the board as something that we have to pay attention to and i don't think we're going to do that unless it's part of our agenda sometimes so yeah and it sounds like you know maybe some of the softening of the plan might be just a disclaimer that um just to make sure i can see where somebody might be worried that a few months from now someone will look at the plan and say it was board approved where's where is the turf field or where is the field house getting renovated or where is where's the pool where why isn't it getting done and when is it getting done and i think you know it's going to be clear this is just a marker in time it's just signaling certain big projects but it's

077not not intended to be rock solid and certainly there's lots of things that have to happen before any of these things would happen anyway you could also tie all these items to our plan of financing that we use in the district in terms of our debt service schedule so you could look at actually specific years that these may want to be looked at but tyler with other things of this magnitude we would have a workshop sure and we would have a workshop on every single one of those priorities anytime that they came to the level of we need to make them happen wouldn't we have a workshop to put this together i mean that's the job of the facilities department and committee okay i mean i'm i'm i'm open to workshopping this i guess i

078just don't want to lose i don't feel that it's necessary to workshop i'm i'm very adamant that we do not vote on it i don't feel that the document even saying that the board can change it is going to have um be interpreted the same way going forward um so i i'm not in favor of voting on it so okay okay well we that is our first item production we can discuss how we want to adjust that if necessary in a little bit any other questions on this before we move on to the next presentation jason it's a good document i think we should continue to help it evolve and expand on it and do more like it long term more granular but it should does not need to be an item for action we

079at the town level for planning board we have various reports that we expect annually growth for one is a is one that i look forward to and this could be something that's presented you know twice a year put it on the docket and we continue to make it better and better but locking it down with a vote gives it different weight and power and a fear that that can be used fair okay we will continue to digest that before we get to our interaction um all right we have a superintendent's report which i think is quite exciting is it is it i mean oh no it is i'll leave it to you always excited so tonight my superintendent's report involves some highlights talk about secret sauce and an equity event on may 4th so to

080get to the highlights um or since really it's only been one week since i reported to the board and here is what has happened over the last um week or so quite a bit and honestly there there's just so much going on that at this point um i don't think we could even put everything into one place oops sorry anyway so high school junior adele um weaver worked with the rapper spouse one of maine's most successful music artists i thought this was a pretty uh cool story dan westone yes dan westhoven is the pathways specialist and we have a program here at the high school called the silo project which means students work on individual projects this is adele working with and i don't know this rapper i actually don't listen to his music but

081i actually now want to look him up and find out what kind of music he is is working on and she adele was able to go down and work with him on a single that he is working on it's supposed to be released i think very shortly but he is a very well-known rapper in the state of maine and this is part of the pathways program so also over the last week maine award-winning children's author cynthia lord visited with fourth and fifth graders last week at the gca talking about our latest book called rules we answered lots of questions from students i want to thank fourth grade teacher sheri mcginnis and her colleagues for sponsoring cynthia she actually lives in brunswick the best buddies maine was rec has recognized the middle school for fundraising efforts

082and supporting mentoring and friendship with regular education and special education students so actually great fundraising efforts there fifth graders at the middle school and i know some of this didn't happen in the last week but we posted it in the last week we have so many things that are this is a good thing to have so many things that are positive going on that we have a backup of positive news right now but they reenacted the boston tea party as part of their study of the american revolution um and i think that's it for news coverage of the last week so going to the rest of the superintendent's report hopefully there wasn't anything up there i'm trying a new format so um work with me number one in maine obviously guerrilla high school in grilled

083middle school over the last week we found out really high school this is the third year in a row and the second year in a row for really middle school so how'd we do it we asked i've been asked that how do you how do you do it we've had media attention etc so it is a big secret it's the secret sauce so here it is and the secret sauce is hard working all around fantastic students dedicated knowledgeable and caring as teachers and staff committed consistent and effective leadership by administrators and schools and setting conditions for learning support of parents families and community members consistent coordinated curriculum professional learning time that's dedicated i'd like to hats off to the wednesday early release time and a relentless focus on student learning and instruction despite the i

084won't say it the p word over the last two years or the c word however you want to look at it so there's a lot of research on education but one of the best researchers over the last decade maybe 15 years has been a man named john hattie who is basically a researcher who looked at all of the research in education and then researched the very best of it all and set um what has largely been considered by many educators i won't say most but a majority of educators i think in this country now and even internationally as some of the best ways to educate students that are research based and we know they make significant progress he's written many books on this and done just got a whole team of researchers that work on

085this john hattie talks about this whole hinge mentality and his effect sizes are based on a 0.4 effect size and 0.4 is where that red arrow is on this eng the 0.4 means that that's an average growth for a student instructionally over a year and that's where the research wants to be is in that green area as an average anything below the 0.4 effect size and research doesn't mean that it's not good except when it gets into the red area there are areas that are actually reverse student achievement and believe it or not things like retention grade retention generally speaking has been found to be significantly not a good thing except for the very youngest students it can be positive but i'm not going to make a broad sweep on that one but generally speaking

086great retention as kids get older is is an example of something that would be in the red zone from research and then there's things that in the yellow area which are considered developmental students would just pick it up naturally just as they get older so they're learning naturally so that has a 0.15 effect size and then in the orange the typical just an average typical teacher situation with students and then the green area 0.4 would be a teacher who is making sure that students are getting to grade level by the end of each year and are proficient so that's kind of where hattie sets and see he says everything beyond that 0.4 is more than a year's growth for a student in education so everything up through that green kind of the yellow through the

087green is considered a year's growth in education so this has been vetted out by lots of researchers people have torn his research apart over the last 15 years and very few have been able to really argue with it so this is why we pay attention to this in education so i'm summarizing a lot in one slide but these are the things that um we have been doing in our district for a long time not just the last two years but i think it really talks about those things beyond the green area um and a lot of districts do these things a lot of schools do these things we're not we're not different that's why i call it the secret sauce question mark really not really secret we know that these are things that work one

088of them is 1.57 remember that 0.4 is considered to be a year's growth per student schools that do things like these go beyond that one year's growth and it doesn't mean that it does it for all students but generally speaking when teachers and principals put these things into place we see more than one year's growth on average for a large number of students so schools where teachers actually talk together and have dedicated time like wednesday early release for example or they have it built into their schedule to be meeting as a team as a department john hattie's research has found that it is at the very pinnacle of effective schools which is 1.57 effect way over that .4 for an average typical year and i know this is getting weedy but i think it's fascinating

089you know i could talk about this all day 1.44 is students own expectations of their own learning and how they're going to do so if they think they're going to do well you know obviously teachers and parents have a lot to do with helping kids get there but if they think they're going to do okay and and they work hard then they do well and and this is again another one of those had this all comes from patty i didn't make this up 1.28 again these are way over the typical year for hinge points abstract thinking processes schools districts classrooms that focus on rigor in learning you know do you offer a lot of ap do you offer a lot of ib can kids get to those classes when they get to high school are

090you doing it all the way through do you offer those things throughout your your schooling a 0.9 again these are way over the tip of the year teacher credibility do you hire good teachers and staff do you have the best people in your classrooms that is huge and it's kind of these are these are obvious that's why i call it secret sauce .75 clear learning targets we've worked a lot on clear learning targets in our district over the last few years i'm almost to the point where i think people just roll their eyes now when we say it because of course we're doing this viable and coherent curriculum we talk about when we interview teachers learning targets make it clear it's not a mystery put it up post it talk about it kids should know

091what they're learning and why 0.72 teacher student relationships talking about mental health especially during this time and those relationships we know that these are all these are not this is not rocket science but it's just been confirmed by research we know that that is important 0.67 prior knowledge essential learning standards we focused a lot over the last two years on the most important learning standards because during the pandemic we wanted to make sure that kids didn't get to the end of the year in a content area grade level without the most critical learning that they needed for the next grade level so and john hattie has confirmed that that's very important in his researchers and point five he's again he's done hundreds of these hinge points he's got lists and you can google it these

092are just some of them these are the big ones .52 home environment we know that students that come from involved in supportive in affirming homes where the parents take an interest in their child's education and they're learning at home too we know that that's huge again not not rocket science but again well over that point four which is a typical year for a student again this is like a whole this this is like a weeks long thing that i'm giving you and i'm packaging it in one small thing but good reminders is that these rankings are just one indicator they're not not the only indicator they're one indicator we have many other indicators that our district looks at and they're in the annual report um and i i try to you know report on those

093things um a lot of indicators uh make up our school community and how our students are doing and what and what makes them tick we know that it's not one thing for all you know every student it's so many different things that's important and recognition doesn't belong to any particular person or group it belongs to all of our students staff families and the community members who support our district whether through their taxes through helping a student make sure they're getting home safely at the end of the day whatever it is and we have so many people to you know it takes a community to do this it's a clear testament to the value that this community cumberland north yarmouth places on its education uh in this community that it cannot happen without a community that

094cares deeply about the education of children here that is important and that's what's pro that's that's why i say be proud and celebrate because this is a community that cares a lot about education um and um yes the people can say oh u.s news world reported only you know only certain communities would ever get this award and everything but it takes a lot of things and it doesn't matter the number one isn't important what's important is it affirms that there's a this is a good educational system that is supported by so many people um to make this um an incredible place for for students so that's what that was the secret sauce nothing secret about it there's nothing saucy about it either just it is what it is i like pasta so i use that

095um so join us um this week i'd like to really put an extra plug out we put this on social media newsletters we're really trying to get this out um lawrence alexander will be here in person um and we've partnered or really the pto has done really leg work on this but the equity committee has also worked with the pto trying to get as many people to come out lawrence is going to be here talk about equity help continue the process of building an equity plan as we have those conversations so really excited about him being here and hope as many people come out in person for this event on wednesday evening thank you jeff that's a lot to um celebrate i was away last week and kept getting the updates about these um about

096these uh acknowledgments of our school and it was a really wonderful thing to receive and i hope everybody feels proud to have these i know when i drove in tonight they were on the leaderboard it was really cool to read so thank you for that recap and thanks for continuing to put out the positive news about our school it's really important okay moving into committee reports kevin would you like to start off with finance sure um so we've got some work in front of us tonight that mr pulin's prepared the warrant statements for us um critical dates uh 5 19 is a thursday at the district budget meeting which is may 19th no no i got that location yes right over here right here in the g4 right here uh on the 14th of june

097will be the actual uh referendum uh and that can be in your that is in your own community and can be done via absentee ballot as well but not until after the budget referendum meeting that is all we're working on okay uh policy deanna's not here so i i can do a quick one and let's make sure can you fix anything i screw up um sorry that's a big list um anyway so uh two things first um thank you uh to folks for giving us feedback on policy bed the remote meetings policy that we brought last week we took that we're taking and working through those the really helpful comments and suggestions and we're going to be meeting next week on tuesday to go through that as well as um an additional policy that we've

098been working through for a number of months at this point also the second item uh is today we had a policy committee meeting just before this meeting on policy aca the diversity equity and inclusion policy it was a really good thoughtful discussion made a few changes to the draft policy and moved it to come for a first read to the board great thank you jennifer curriculum um we have not met so nothing to report okay communications mike also haven't met but we need to do that soon okay um equity committee um i'll just kind of echo what jeff's just said about the event that's on this wednesday the conversation is really around kind of understanding why this work is important and i think the more that we can understand why the better that we can

099understand the work as a whole so i hope people are able to to attend i believe that it will be live streamed um and recorded so if you are not able to attend you should be able to watch at home and we hope people make it out and um participate in some conversation and some small group dialogue student reports avery would you like to start you know what i would like to start all right i'll talk about france so um i guess one of the big things that happened uh over the past few weeks is the french exchange trip it's been i don't know it's been postponed a few years but it happened last week um we spent four days five days we spent something we spent some amount of time in paris so we

100we flew out to amsterdam flew into paris we saw like everything in paris it was we woke up around 8 and we got back at the hotel around 11 and we did it all and uh then we took a bullet train out to the middle of nowhere in france and we spent uh like 12 days out with corresponding kids out in some little villages in elsa's sorry i'm very tired because i it wasn't long ago that i got back from france um but yeah it was a great great program very culturally enriching um i i would say that it gives you kind of a new perspective of the world around you here in america and the the reasons we do different things the way we do and i think it really helps you make better

101informed decisions about how you navigate life and i encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do this program to do it because it's great i did not go to france um today today was every senior was supposed to wear their committed college sweatshirt or the college that they're most likely going to go to um which nothing makes you realize how old you're getting like graduating or getting close to it um i'm finally understanding how my parents feel when they're like oh you guys are getting so old it was really real today to see people that i remember as sixth graders like coming up and like yeah i'm going to college next year and it's like that's that's me too um but everyone's just getting excited for graduation and all of the stuff that comes with

102it candlelight project graduation the ceremony itself marching all that so yeah thank you both so much you guys got a lot going on um i was just aware that uh just told that i skipped a committee report from facilities so peter please just would uh quote avery the jimmy buffett song he went to paris looking for answers to questions that bothered him so uh no time peter facilities uh five members of the board conducted a walk through this afternoon with oak point very very educational to actually do the visual of where they're planning things personally i think jason mentioned to me too that and i think the members thought it was very educational uh we got to see the famous springhouse and the famous vernal pool and so right now what's happening is that we're

103awaiting the dep and reports on the vernal pool to determine the the next steps we take the facilities committee is pretty much determined that uh if we do anything it's going to have to be november that september is just not going to work so we should have more within the next couple weeks but it was very educational to me i i think i could see depending on where dep and some of the other stuff comes down that we could build a school on this site the other thing that we dealt with of facilities was a proposed agreement with north yarmouth on sharps field the committee determined that there were many concerns and questions to answer and that bothered us so and so we're going to be having a meeting i believe on the 16th here

104at the gca with sad 51 and north yarmouth officials to sort out where we go from here but i think the the select people and the other uh governmental people in north yarmouth need to understand that this is going to be a process uh that takes time that there are some significant things floating around so that we would prefer not to be referred to another time as foot dragging you know we take looking at this stuff very seriously and trying to sort out what's going to be the best for both entities so that's all i have thank you that was an important update so i appreciate that peter any ad hoc committee reports i don't believe so okay all right thank you all so much so we will move into items for action and again

105here we are at the facilities capital plan um so i think just hearing from the board that i'd like to table this vote and ask that we review this document at a later date with some of the feedback included as far as how we use this how this tool is used um and how the public can access it how the board is responsible for what is being voted on it because i don't think that as a board we're feeling comfortable uh moving forward for move to table a vote second all in favor or discussion no non-debatable all in favor thank you and thank you for the conversation around this it's important that we have this plan so i don't want to lose sight of it i want to continue to have it on our agenda

106if not once if not twice a year agreed very much yeah so i think that that was the initial intent of this to be brought to um items for action but i understand that it needs a bit more um tweaks all right so moving into our second item for action do i have a motion for approving teacher contracts or continuing teacher contracts for 22-23 and jeff do you mind speaking to this just a little bit sure um so can every year the board is asked to we bring nominations for teachers that are moving from first to second year probationary status and until this year the law changed legislator legislature changed the law so that now second year is the end of the probationary cycle however there was one overlap year which is this year so

107third year teachers are that are third year teachers this year are also probationary um and so we also nominate teachers going from their probationary status into what we call continuing contract status in the state of maine um in other states they call it tenure in maine we call it continuing contract status just means that teachers have gone through their probationary period and so it will be two years from now on um and so this year everyone in their second year and everyone in their third year is now we're nominating those folks to go into continuing contract so that's what you're we're asking you to approve tonight and then teachers that are moving from their first to the second year probationary and we're asking you to approve them for another probationary contract going forward so that

108is um what is in front of you thank you so much second any discussion or questions i have i have a question for you jeff what sort of process um review process do they have and has kovid kind of stopped any of that and are they're still being reviewed in the same way and being observed in the classroom each year the same okay yep administrators for every probationary teacher we have a thorough review process which is several in-person observations of classroom instruction there's a pre-conference there's a post conference there's written feedback and then there's a recommendation to me whether or not the teacher should be nominated for another year or continuing contract status for all probationary teachers we did not suspend that so if you remember the the government or the state department of education

109gave us a waiver on whether or not the district each district could decide if they were going to continue with their entire evaluation process for everyone however probationary teachers were not part of that discussion so we continued our process for anyone who was in their probationary period um so that's we our administrators have done that continued doing that work so everyone on this list has had been reviewed in what you're talking um my other question would be is the one-year teachers that we hired for this year are not included on this list they are not included on this list okay correct any further question or discussion all in favor thank you okay and then a motion for the probationary teacher contracts so moved thank you in a second a second questions or discussion all right

110all in favor can i just ask one i just can't help myself i know it so so on the spreadsheet what we're voting on is the top tier and we just voted on the bottom yes this item right here is the top one which is people going from year one to year to probationary so they're going to go into their second year probationary is what you're approving right now so what you approved right before was teachers going from year two and year three into a continuing contract which is what you just voted for okay and even though it says second year probationary it's one to two right is what we're voting on right now yeah it just means that this um you're voting on teachers going into their second probationary year i know you're going

111to miss me so much next year you're going to do that jennifer you asked the questions that other people are thinking about but i just can't help but i know but i just don't want to vote on something i don't still come [Laughter] thank you all right kevin i'm going to pass it up to you for these next few sure thank you uh move that we approve the fiscal year 2022-2023 proposed budget in the amount of 43 million 800 2526 and 44 cents so moved in a second second any discussion or comments here i know there was a thorough conversation about this at last meeting i just want to say i wasn't here fully supportive i also really appreciated the comments that came from the public great questions and i encourage everybody to be continue

112to be engaged um and i i would echo that as well especially the prep that everybody on on this body did uh in advance of last week uh and and again to thank uh the folks on the on the finance committee scott and jeff for your work on moving this forward all in favor wonderful thank you the the next motion i move that we call and approve the warrants for the budget meeting and budget validation referendum and authorize the notice of amounts adopted be approved in form presented to this meeting and that a copy of said vote be included with the minutes of this meeting second any discussion or question here i i would ask uh if scott would just since you have prepared these warrants if since folks don't normally get to see these

113you want to just quickly state for the public what it is that we're doing next sure um what's being voted on is the we have to call the election from maine or the district budget meeting for may 19th and at that district budget meeting um there's a series of warrants articles that are voted on at that meeting by a show of hands so you're calling that particular meeting as part of this vote the other part of the vote is to set the district's referendum for the budget validation vote so you at the district budget meeting whatever is adopted at that district budget meeting on the 19th is what goes forward to the voters for a validation on june 14th so it's the only point i always say this is the only place in america you

114get to vote twice on the same thing so there's a more in-depth vote though that happens at the district budget meeting which is more the particulars of specific work articles that are set by state statute the vote at the june uh at the june 14th has to do with just voting on the budget that was adopted at the district budget meeting and the notices of the amounts are posted at the um at the polling places the third part of this would be to approve the warrant for the revolving renovation fund which is also set for a vote on june 14th and as we mentioned there's also um you know the loan forgiveness part of this it's a little over 1.5 million 50.58 is forgiven and the balance is interest-free so it's basically free money to

115do the renovations to mabel i wilson school in addition to that there has to be a public hearing on the um basically on the bond of that project or the financing of that project and we need to set that for june 2nd which is right now not a scheduled board meeting but we need to have a special meeting to do that in order to set that so and at that particular meeting what we'll be talking about is just the issuance of the bonds any questions that might people may have around questions around the revolving renovation fund and what that means okay so that's what we're voting on this evening and um there'll be a number of documents tonight that the board will need to sign so i would ask that the board stays at the

116end of the meeting and we'll start at one end and pass down a whole mess of documents that we need people to sign tonight thank you thank you so we have a motion and a second all right any questions or discussion who was the second i'm sorry i have kevin is making a motion uh peter peter thank you you're fine okay um all in favor great thank you sorry uh finally i i move uh that the warrant and notice of election of msad 51 presented to uh to the meeting be approved and that a referendum election for the district to be called for june 14 2022 for the purpose of approving the issuance of bonds or notes of the district for minor capital projects uh my uh purposes as described therein it is further voted

117that the notice of public hearing presented to the meeting be approved and that a public hearing on the issuance of bonds or notes for minor capital project purposes be held on june 2nd 2022 at 6 30 pm as provided therein second any discussion or questions here so june 2nd like scott said is not currently scheduled but after this it will be another thursday night public hearing is the same as the one in may no it's a it's a similar it's not the same as the one in may right but it's on a thursday night but it's on a thursday evening it's a public hearing and it's a public hearing regarding the uh bonding or the financing of the project and there isn't a way to combine them no thank you any further questions and can

118i just say one more thing yeah it is class night for graduating seniors if that makes a difference does this facility need to be used because i'll be attending that so i just throw that out there right madison on thursday night it's class night i don't know i think i'm going to be honest i think that's being changed but i i was i believe it's the third is being combined as a candle night candlelight okay in class night okay perfect we did check with the high schools to make sure there was so they'll be friday night yeah that i don't think that's in the main public yet but i guess i just did all right perfect um okay all in favor great thank you all and last move to adjourn thank you and second all

119in favor all right don't don't leave too quickly thank you all so much scott you want to give the assignment though of signing on the same line as a procedure you