001okay welcome to the february 1st 2021 board of directors meetings for msad 51 thank you for shifting and being with us remotely tonight so we can make sure everybody gets home and stays home safely due to the storm um i need to call to order through rogue roll call since we are remotely so when i say your name please just say here or present peter bingham here kevin desmond here margot harrington here and matsumovic here tyler mcginley present kate perrin here mike simmons i'm not sure whoops mike right can you hear us i can see you all right we'll come back uh jennifer stewart uh president mike williams looks like great all right we'll come back yeah and madison dalton here and mike simmons i just see you frozen oh mike can you say here
002or present okay i'm gonna assume he can't hear us um okay jeff i don't believe we have any recognition for this evening am i correct that's right we don't have any tonight okay thank you so we'll move on to approval of the january 19th 2021 minutes do i have a motion so moved in a second second any discussion or questions okay uh seeing none i'll go through roll call again peter bingham yes kevin desmond yes margo harrington yes and matt smovich yes tyler mcginley yes kate marin yes mike simmons can you hear us yes i got my audio fix thank you okay and you are present and you are voting yes on the approval of minutes yeah thank you uh jennifer stewart uh yes michael williams yes elias leggett bar yeah and madison you were
003absent correct yeah so all right thank you so we'll move on to public comment and i just wanted to refer back to um we have a new version of public comment policy that was um edited back in or revised back in december of 2020 and there's one thing that continues to come up as a pattern that we continue to see at public comments so i just wanted to reference one of the items from this uh policy which is that the board chair myself is responsible for ensuring orderly contact of corn sorry conduct of board meetings and making sure that the items followed are followed within this policy one of those is that speakers are expected to follow the rules of common etiquette including refraining from using vulgar and abusive language yelling arguing or making defamatory
004comments so if you have an issue with a personal issue with somebody on this board we ask that you keep it to yourself and you speak about the business of the board of the district so with that almost lost power um andy do we have any public speakers this evening uh we have a few uh starting with sean mcrae of cumberland okay chairperson mcginley thank you for the time uh won't take very long uh i'm awaiting your response to my questions about the equity leadership committee meeting link as this is a taxpayer-funded public meeting all community members should be able to attend see an agenda read published minutes etc will you be sending that soon per usual i'm not going to answer your questions outstanding you are such an amazing chairperson also i weet your
005response uh with nick schuller whiston to the questions about the school board member ann maximowicz uh but also remember pains and penalty of perjury that's all i have for this evening thank you great thanks can we move on to the next speaker uh yes julie mcdonald of north yarmouth thank you hi can you guys hear me yes okay okay um i do have my comments time to three minutes but i i have to rush through to get it in three minutes and i will go ahead and read it for the three minute time period uh chairperson mcginley board members thank you for having me this evening um i'd like to speak on the equity committee uh issue uh last time i spoke on this issue i was placed on a social media racist list i
006certainly hope that does not happen again um i'd like to start by referring the group to chris hoffman's december 12 2020 brulee high school weekly newsletter he was referring to a student forum he had recently attended stating quote certainly it's been a tough year student government shared the results of their recent survey of the student body and one particular data point has stuck with me two thirds of students reported that their stress levels are somewhat or significantly higher than in the previous year and that he would be working to better understand this and how he could support the students as a result end quote um i would just like to recommend at this time that you know getting into this equity language that has been proposed is um not a good time for this with
007students already stressed and depressed i don't think it's the appropriate time to tell them that they are racist and white supremacist simply because they were born in white skin something they can absolutely do nothing about um i am also concerned about a private facebook group that not everybody in the community has access to by a member of the board i'm talking about anti-racism work and what examples of white privilege are covered in north yarmouth i'm concerned about this because not every taxpayer and cumberland north yarmouth parent can have access to this group and see what's being discussed um i also would like to raise my concern with the usm ibram kennedy partnership that's been proposed um ibram kendi is a critical race theorist self-described who declared that the expression quote legal vote used to describe
008votes cast in conformity with u.s law is functionally racist uh the same ibrahim kennedy who last september attacked amy coney barrett after the mother of seven was appointed to the supreme court suggesting that she was a white colonizer because she and her husband had adopted two haitian children quote uh can be said some white colonizers adopted black children they civilized these savage children in the superior ways of white people while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity i can't imagine saying to students of msad 51 this is someone we're going to hold up as an example when you need to read about you need to read this author i think this partnership is no better than the previous
009um community change and partnership um i just really wish i mean it's black history month i absolutely wish with every part of my being that we could get back to martin luther king jr where he said i have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed that we hold these truths to be selfish sorry i'm sorry your time has come to three minutes okay that was the last sentence it was martin thank you okay uh last we have hannah berry of cumberland thanks good evening um is my audio working great thanks um this is my first time doing public comment on google meets so chairperson mcginley and board thank you for your patience as i learn the technology here um i really just have
010two comments for the board and the administration tonight um one is which i promised my three teenagers i would advocate for a snow day so i have a house full of kids who classic traditional snow day and i have three burnt out teenagers from sitting on a computer so for what it's worth i put my vote in i'm sure there's lots of people who want to get the day in and not have to make it up in june but for what it's worth my kids would love a snow day and the second item i'd like to bring up is i would really love it if the board could maybe share publicly in the coming months discussions about fall planning i'm very concerned that we might not make a plan for the fall in time to
011make positive changes because i know there's a lot on our plates to get through this school year and there's also a lot going on with our potential new school structure but i think with some planning ahead we can make next year um more successful and we can make some positive changes for um all the students at msad 51 because i think we can probably all agree the virus is not going to be gone in september um we don't know how many people will be vaccinated by then but i'm pretty confident and i'm not a scientist at the vex that the virus will still be here so i'd like to you know try to make you know some positive changes in the meantime so that we can have a successful next school year thank you appreciate
012it thank you and that's it all right thank you andy all right so moving on we have a presentation um from our mental health team and i don't know jeff if you would like to um kick this off and give a little bit of background i know we talked a little bit about it at our last meeting but yes this is a conversation that started at your previous board meeting around mental health um and the fact that there have been some losses of parents uh recently in the community several parents and um obviously mental health um is something that's been on our mind um always but certainly this year uh with the pandemic it's it's made it much harder i think for uh everyone to operate and function uh in a typical way and certainly
013the stress of all of this is is falling on our families and our staff and certainly our students as well we've noticed that in the school district so i asked several members of our social work and um school counselor team our mental health teams um to um come tonight and present to you and eric brown there's a social worker in the district also a mental health specialist johnna mulligan is a school counselor at grayley high school and don lane is a school counselor at mabel eye wilson school and they're here tonight to give you some more information about mental health services in the district and then a little bit more specifics about this year during a pandemic and so they have some information for you so i'll turn it over to them great thank you
014um to the board and to as well jeff for allowing us the opportunity to talk tonight about the social emotional needs of our students and how things have been going this year um just as a caveat i am home with my two kids and my husband in the back so if you do hear some noise that's what's going on back there um so we had the opportunity jana and eric and i to chat with our counterparts across the district and i'm going to kind of present what's happening at the wilson school and then eric will look at the the middle levels and jonah will talk a little bit more specifically about the high school and i'd like to kind of just start out with what's going well um but also want to acknowledge that this
015is just sort of a slice of you know our perspective from the social emotional team i'm sure if you were to reach out to parents or to students it might be a different perspective or more information um to sort of round out the full picture so what's going well right now at least at the elementary level in the mornings when you're there you see a lot of little guys and gals coming in upbeat and smiling and positive about their school day i think kids are really excited still to to be coming to school um even though it looks a little bit different than it has in years past we have seen a significant reduction in behavioral and office referrals over previous years um and also there were the referrals for social and emotional supports at
016least coming into the school counseling team are down and i think this might be different than in the older grades but what we believe is contributing to this positive shift at least at the elementary level is that when kids feel safer they do better and there's a lot of things right now despite the pandemic that is allowing students to feel safer in our building there's a very consistent schedule there's a lack of transitions moving from room to room the class my sizes are significantly smaller having lunch in the classroom a lot less people in the hallway and on the bus allowing kids more personal space when they're at those individual desks helps kids to feel safe um and so i think that's part of the reason why we're seeing a lot of those behaviors go
017way down i think also just developmentally where our kids are at is that at this age a lot of little ones love to be home so the idea that they're home more is not um a negative necessarily for them of course that's not true for all students but for a large proportion of our students and teachers because of small class sizes have a lot of more one-on-one time with their students so they're getting to know them in ways that they might not have had the chance to in previous years another thing that's going well is the classroom guidance lessons while um we used to be able to provide them on a weekly basis we're now i'm doing them every other week just because of the the limits of my current schedule and um our barb
018uh neff who's the other school counselor's schedule however on the weeks that we don't see students we are providing a seesaw lesson to help reinforce what we're seeing in class or doing in class and we've been focusing a lot on feelings identification coping strategies including things like mindfulness skills i'm learning about compassion and gratitude and diversity and students are currently learning things like about the brain and its role in emotional regulation and during those class lessons students are provided opportunities to talk about their feelings with each other in class and i can't tell you that there isn't anything sweeter than listening to kindergarteners check in with each other and asking each other how they're feeling and sharing those things so i think that's a wonderful opportunity for kids and through seesaw um students are having
019an opportunity to share with their school counselor in about how they're feeling about situations that are coming up for them offering opportunities for them to process those situations think about what maybe they could have done differently and it's not necessarily the same as an individual counseling session but that can be very therapeutic for kids to be able to share to know that someone's listening and to have a voice coming back to them in reference to those pieces that they're sharing about we're also working on a mid-year check-in for some of the for the older students to kind of just get an opportunity for them to share about how in-person and at-home learning is going and based on those reports we'll look to see which students might need additional check-ins our social workers are continuing to
020work with students individually and virtually in person and virtually and they're receiving their referrals primarily from parents and classroom teachers and since behavior referrals are down the social workers are currently better able to meet the needs of the students that they are working with while we're not offering as many group opportunities because of kovit and the constraints around that these group meetings are still occurring where applicable some of the social workers or the social workers are attempting to do some small group stuff virtually for students who are feeling lonely doing a social group via google meets they're also talking to parents and providing psychoeducation around normal responses that children are having to the pandemic and offering strategies and ways to connect with their kids sharing community resources and the behavior strategists and school social social
021workers are also supporting students with remote learning which continues to be i think one of the largest areas of struggle for our students we also have a robust rti process that's working to help support students academic behaviorally and social emotional needs and school-wide we have the behavior team initiatives and celebrations that i think just help contribute to a positive school atmosphere for students things like snowman decorations and gratitude trees and wilson wows and wilson the turtle videos and pajama days and we have staff greetings students as they come in in the morning and walking them to the bus at the end of the day which is a wonderful way to connect and i know a lot of the kids look forward to those little conversations they're having on the way to the bus or their
022their parents car so that kind of takes us to what are our challenges at this point i think the students number one complaint so far is their frustration with at-home learning students at this age require a little bit more direct support with schoolwork which is challenging to provide remotely both for the teachers and for the adults with whom they're living their caregivers social workers are also seeing some separation anxiety beginning to crop up which makes a lot of sense given that students are spending the five days at home before coming back into school so it's natural for them to then have a little bit of not all students but having a tricky transition back into the building social isolation isolation and loneliness are a concern for some students and especially for students who maybe are
023in a class situation where they didn't have any friends going in just because of the way the cohorts are broken out this year it's definitely a little bit more challenging for kids to make those connections which makes it then harder to come want to come to school if you don't feel like you have that connection in the classroom and the more of the referrals that we seem to be getting at this point are from students who've never struggled um and haven't had any problems socially but are now struggling with motivation on those remote days and then not wanting them to school on their school days and then for me it's just because it's easier and more comfortable to be at home without a mask and the work is done quickly and they have time to
024play um and the motivation to get that work done when you're doing it independently can be a little bit tricky so moving forward kind of some of the things that we were thinking about um that one way that we can better support our students is to support the adults which with which they live and work um because if the adults in their lives are feeling stressed or overwhelmed and taxed then they really don't have the emotional resources left to help support their children so how can we better connect the adults in our school community with opportunities for emotional social support um both within our building and within the larger community families also there's a it feels like a lot of pressure for students to get a lot of that work done on their remote days
025and how can we better help support families we have some students even in kindergarten who are finishing their seesaw assignments at seven eight o'clock at night which is really late and it's because that they don't have an adult with them during the day that's able to help support them with that so what can we do in order to kind of lessen that pressure to get those things done especially at that time of night while also thinking about ways to limit screen time i think about kids feeling that lack of motivation um that sitting in front of computer as we all know as adults can be really taxing and so how do we balance out making sure that kids have equitable access to their education while also maintaining a healthy amount of screen time for kids
026we're also planning to meet as a social emotional team more regularly we haven't had an opportunity to do that as much this year so we're returning to those meetings so that we can make sure that we're not missing any students and i think this is sort of brought up a minute ago but the idea that moving forward thinking about what next year is going to look at like we are really concerned about the transition back into a full week of school for kids especially when you think about kindergarteners and first graders and for kindergartners their only experience so far has been these two days a week so how will they be able to maintain the standard stamina for a full school week um and what will that school classroom look like the bigger classroom the
027bigger larger amounts of people in the hallway how will that feel for students and how can we best support them in transitioning back into the school on a full-time basis i believe that is all i have for now so i'm going to go ahead and pass the baton over to eric we'll speak to the middle school thank you don good evening everybody thank you board members for this opportunity to talk about the mental health in the district uh always happy to talk about and i know my colleagues i speak for my colleagues they're very happy to talk about it as well so again i'm eric brown my title here in the district is risk assessment mental health specialist so i float around to to all the schools in the district and my office is over
028in the middle school so i'm gonna cover uh grades four through eight uh so i have some very important notes so bear with me there's there's a lot here but i definitely think it's important to uh to get through all of them uh so i'm gonna report out on fourth of grades fourth and five uh first so the social worker there is katie campbell just uh just to note that katie is in the district uh monday through thursday so off on fridays and the school counselor is ali waterhouse um so we we went through a similar process with don we uh we we set up a format asked some questions they they answered them um we put this information together so some of the trends that they're seeing here in the district um as far
029as the positives what's going well they noted that in the fall the students and staff actually very much seem to be excited to be back into school into the swing of things and a sense of of normalcy um and they really adjusted well to the to the hybrid model these these young fellas these fourth and fifth graders uh really did a good job as far as the hybrid rules we're in mass they've been they've been terrific at that uh all the sanitizing stations so the sanitizations are doing a really good job with the social distancing piece which can be difficult but they've been doing a fantastic job um you know much like don was reporting there's been a there's been a big reduction in uh some of the behavior um so i think that goes
030with uh probably a reduction in sensory input i think that goes with uh lower class numbers um so there's been a there's been a reduction in some of the problematic classroom behavior some of the biggest stressors and complaints that uh ms campbell and ms waterhouse reported were there has been an increase in absences students there have been disengaging more with remote learning and that change in transition can be pretty stressful for for these uh for these students so we're talking about somebody that's in cohort a uh is here on monday tuesday they transition home wednesday thursday friday have the weekend so that's five days at home um and then back to for two days so that's that that transition fatigue has been happening that's been a difficult thing for for students um they're stressed about
031meeting classroom expectations and obviously the isolation uh students are feeling lonely with remote learning as with any fourth or fifth grade there's a lot of silliness that may happen when you put the video on them so some distracting behaviors and how some of this social emotional mental health is being addressed here in the district utilizing a whole school social emotional support approach so there are weekly meetings with um katie and ali as well as the administrator carol mccarthy there i want to just say uh i've been super impressed with administrators uh throughout all the schools and how much they've been able to collaborate with us so this is so there's weekly weekly meetings between cali katie ali and carol to discuss attendance social emotional and behavioral as well as any other horizon student concerns uh
032developmentally appropriate weekly guidance lessons for fourth and fifth with a strong focus on social emotional learning um i have a first grader and a fourth grader in the distance uh the district don my first grader very much appreciates those guidance lessons he loves them and my fourth grader looks forward to those as well so individual meetings with students in person and online small alleged groups with two to three students is still still happening the students that need that that that support so email phone and online video meetings communications with families who need support ongoing student support teams rti 504 iep meetings to address academic and behavioral social emotional needs the bucket slips the monthly bucket slip drawings for that positive behavior support monthly theme days are happening virtual assemblies building that positive school culture morning
033green this is actually a kind of a cool thing that i like to see is it's it's as far as positive and protective factors for for young people um so there's more ingredient greeters every day to greet the students when they come into school and also the stu staff out there in the hallways to say goodbye them at the end of the day support and coaching for teachers and staff around a variety of student or staff concerns offering coordinated staff breaks during the day professional development for staff some around trauma-informed classroom practices and approaches geared to positively impact all students regular sharing of articles webinars podcasts with addressing staff wellness then as far as to report out on greeley uh middle school six through eight the licensed social worker there places clinical social work there
034is rachel loring and the school counselors are bobby goodwin and kate olsen petrovsky and the trends they're seeing as far as the positives go back so they soon report that students were excited to get back in the beginning they seem to adjust well to the mass wearing hand sanitizing and overall new layout of the school the remote learning has been helpful for a group of students who have been benefited from smaller class sizes less people in the building lower sensory input more teacher attention feedback hybrid model has been helpful for students to connect with school and teachers it also been helpful for those students that have a difficult time making it five days a week to school there's been a redec reduction so same sort of thing a lot of reduction of behaviors less students
035classroom the students in the the middle school six through eight they go from one class to the next class so there's not any milling about in the hallways um as much as that could be positive uh social interaction you can also uh bring up some some behavioral issues so there's less of that bigger stresses and complaints from the middle school six through eight has been some students are finding it hard to motivate themselves to work from home there's a lot of independent work without uh the social fun of being with your friends and navigating technology for some is difficult it's difficult for me uh feeling isolated students missing extra curricular activities including sports uh feeling detachment from school they were they worry about becoming sick they're getting or getting family members sick some are dealing
036with or worrying about their sick family members and worries about being perceived as having coveted by peers is kind of an interesting thing that's come up some students are hesitant to go down to the nurse's office because they will they feel like other students might see them there and they may think they may have coveted so that's that's been a concern by some of the students and again there's some transition fatigue between in person and remote learning uh mass fatigue is happening the social distancing fatigue when you get older uh you know six through eight chicks uh you know in the high school as well uh social interactions means a little something different and so they're experiencing that a little bit more uh students are missing friends that are in other cohorts uh missing rituals
037teenage rituals like visiting family and friends during certain times of the year going places on weekends birthday party sleepovers all the teenage typical stuff and some of the behaviors and challenges that are present so again more procrastination less work production needing more parental support to get to meets and do work again parents are working as well and so there's a lot of family stress that's happening there some kids have more difficulty being independent some are very hesitant to do meets in their home i've experienced that myself as far as some students are hesitant to do any sort of online virtual meeting because they don't have a lot of privacy at home a large number of students are struggling with symptoms of anxiety depression overall sense of isolation sadness frustration fatigue anger irritability and hopelessness about
038when things will turn back to normal also the students with challenges with executive functioning having significant difficulty with creating and following routine schedule for the day without an adult support students that have more perfectionistic tendencies are having a hard time and not really sure when do they should start their work so they're spending a lot increasing the amount of time trying to finish their work and overall losing valuable social skill building time things we're doing to address these challenges six through eight academically we're offering individual appointments with that techs in person in virtually after school homework is is available as well socially emotionally individual appointments in person in virtually with school counselors social workers weekly check-ins additional appointments based on need and for potential crisis situations continuation of social emotional learning groups grades six through
039eight support to the families as they work to support the students at home providing helpful information regarding mental health issues as well as available community resources on the macro level to school staff families and community emotional support to staff members as well as referrals to outside mental health providers and consulting with parents consulting and teams of staff administrator weekly meetings sixth grade ken and ken marx and marie trouble car to brainstorm how to better support students that are struggling in trying to keep clubs going like civil rights team as well so that's that's things in the nutshell as far as four through five six or maybe more of a natural that's a lot of information so i thank you um but just a couple more things i just wanted to throw out real quickly as
040far as i know john i see that i see that look there um and i don't want to step on your toes at all jonah but just a few more things that i'm seeing that's happening in a district so trying to be more flexible trying to be more creative is um again providing resources emotional support to staff members offering community uh resource information so we've had some myself and peter scott have ask for the entire district to have the suicide awareness training uh no regatta you're supposed to have every five years but we've asked every every staff in the school to have that and be updated this year we've met with the director of national alliance and mental health illness uh suicide prevention director greg marley we've talked about how to make that that bridges
041the gap between school and community um we've got trainings training coming up actually next week with the pto anxiety depression i'm actually going to help co-facilitate that we're in uh collaboration with talking about having more the trainings happen there and we're actually coordinating with some community mental health clinicians as well talking about collaboration for school of community supports and well that's i guess that's it for right now so i appreciate your time thank you so much johnna thank you so i'm johna mulligan i i work in the high school one of the school counselors i also have two kids in the high school i have a freshman and a junior um and i collected information from um tiffany mcfeatris who is our lcpc and our ladc which is a alcohol and drug counselor peter scott
042who is in lcsw and the three school counselors mandy melissa and myself and we just you know we didn't go out and gather data from kids or parents or anything teachers so this is like dawn said a slice of information to set the stage in the high school it becomes a little different as soon as kids come into the high school you have a transcript when you have a transcript you have credits when you have that the stress and anxiety from parents and kids seems to skyrocket even before covid so i think it's important to acknowledge that and to recognize um that that with the idea of this and post-secondary goals are kids gonna get scholarships are there sports scholarships out there all of this plays a huge role i believe in the emotional well-being
043of the kids right now because it's something they're very very stressed about and and are their parents um their teachers are also stressed trying to make sure that the curriculum is um pared down in an appropriate way to still allow them to move forward into the next level of classes in a way that is helpful to them and not hurtful so that's a lot of stuff going on to kind of set the stage for um the other things and i'll try and keep them somewhat brief so our school counselors do a lot of triaging for our social workers so we often do the initial kind of meetings with kids and determine whether the student might need more extensive support and may go to the social workers um over someone who we can meet with and
044give that kind of um individual sport support we also spend a significant amount of our time on academic support and post-secondary our social workers probably send spend between 60 to 80 of their time um on mandated meetings based on ieps so to just put that in perspective it we have a lot of kids who are popping up this year as needing support that haven't previously and so um we're trying to figure out how do we maintain all of those other supports while still giving it to the students who are um kind of a surprise to us they haven't popped up previously things that are going well for us for me it was amazing to come back to school and see the kids um just being in the building with some of them was was great
045and i think a lot of the kids felt that way too most of the time students are also compliant reduction in behavior referrals and all of that we have a very active and engaged student support team that includes our admin and our social services to really support the kids uh we do small group and individual meetings much more probably individual for the school counselors and small group um social workers still do some small groups um not as many as they did kind of pre-coven also connecting kids to school-based resources um and i will say our teachers and our admin our administration with um dawn and chris are very very engaged in supporting the kids which has been great stresses um quarantines quarantine was hard for kids especially previous to concurrent learning my own daughter's been
046quarantined four times since december so i can tell you that it can be very challenging um our kids are doing well with it and our teachers are trying to do well but there's still a struggle like to manage that remote learning especially before we had all the equipment there's an increase in student absences uh in student need due to as eric mentioned loneliness isolation depression anxiety and again i will reiterate it's not necessarily the students who had already kind of known that this was a mental health concern for them it's some kids that we weren't we had no idea that this was going to pop up it's hard to do meaningful social work work with students virtually because it's hard to make that connection um virtually to to um really get deeper into the support
047um for freshmen we don't know them that well so the first time we've met them some of them i've never seen their faces right they've had a mask on um students not coming to school i feel is a really big issue right now um and it's really hard to access them if they're not coming to school so it's really hard on the teachers who are being tasked to try and keep these kids current it's hard for us to reach out to them because they're overwhelmed with email the email for these poor high school kids is google classroom emails from their teachers from me from the school in general and it's easy for me to say just go through and file it but it's it's hard for a high schooler to do that so that it
048can be super challenging there's also a increased stress in teachers just trying to basically triage with their students so if you think that the amount of time they have to try and help they're always trying to choose who needs them in a certain moment and it's really overwhelming and stressful for a teacher to know i could help this kid but now i can't help this kid right now so they're constantly kind of re-triaging this list of kids to help and just simply not enough time for them to give the amount of support that they would like to give to help all the students and for many of them if they see them on a tuesday they don't see them again till the next tuesday so if the student wants help they may you know they
049may be able to do it virtually but they may have to wait a long time before they see seem in person again and so i think that's hard for the teachers as well because they go into teaching and they you know there's a little bit of a sense sometimes a failure on their part not that they are failing but that they can't they can't do what they were meant to be doing so that's kind of hard and if a teacher is stressed it is hard in the classroom as well um homework and remote work is a real challenge um some kids can do it really well and some kids need more support and a lot of our kids obviously can be home alone they're old enough to be home alone so there's not necessarily an
050adult at home kind of checking in on them always um how we're trying to address some of these things we have weekly meetings with our see high group which is our basically our attendance group that really looks at why kids are out and then tries to send them to the appropriate resource to see whether it be at administration or social work guidance refer to a one of our rti supports we have two deans that work with each work with two of the classes and they really kind of look down into the attendance and see kids who've been not attending for longer periods weekly meetings with our student support team and this is where we determine whether a student might need math lab or english lab or learning center we have the learning centers for executive
051function we also have a library executive function that's a shorter term support we have remote supports where teachers will have open study halls or the executive function coach will meet with students virtually to try and help them get organized so we have all of these things um behavioral rti social work but it can be very hard to get a student to access it when they're home because we can't just go to their study hall and pull them out we have weekly student service meetings we now have after school programming on monday and thursday and you can think of it as sort of an after school study hall time that teachers can have kids go to and these are all more opportunities for students to connect with an adult and hopefully to ease some of their
052stress but on the other hand some of our kids just avoid because they're so stressed out by the amount of people trying to help them that they sometimes can tend to avoid it um into our advisory model this year so we have um kids are meeting two days a week because they're only here two days a week and it's 20 minutes now and it's much more about connection and specific advisory activities and i think the hope is that this will transfer into you know advisory next year and it will keep kind of blossoming to a more and more um connective and activity based uh program we also what one thing we're working on i know with our student support team is to create a webpage that will link community resources bibliotherapy books for kids and
053parents talk about the yellow tulip project we were looking at a virtual calming center and i spent the last three days you know looking at the puppy room because it's absolutely adorable things like that that kids can access in through one page instead of maybe trying to search through different um sites to gain information we also had been approved for a wellness room at the high school through foundation 51 but it kind of got put on hold due to covid and that would be a place because kids don't have anywhere to go when they're stressed out in the high school they can come to me but i might have a student with me so a place that they could go to kind of press a reset class so that's kind of our our future things
054um we did send communication home um to through uh snail mail before christmas break that actually was a way for us to reach out to parents and kids and say we need your help in supporting um the kids and parents in our community asking the students to be aware of your friends if your friends are no longer snapping you 500 000 times a day then there might be something going on and to let us know or if um a parent is noticing differences at the dinner table that you helping us is really important because we don't see them five days a week anymore so it's really hard um and the other thing i think i touched on it but teachers are normally our first line of defense they're usually the people in the classroom that
055see the students consistently for 82 minutes they see the changes in expression the change in behavior and they let us know this is what i saw in an essay this is what i'm noticing about so and so and i feel as if we've lost a little bit of that of them being able to triage that because they're just not able to make the same level of connection um not that they don't want to but it's just not something they're as able to make right now um so this means that we're really dependent on parents peers um to kind of give us that feedback to send us a quick email and say you know i'm feeling like my my child might need a check-in or something like that um i do think i do think we're
056missing students not because we're not trying but because um sometimes we're finding these kids when we can't do preventative work but when it's we're noticing it when grades come out or um when the student has already been struggling for longer than we would like so that that's mine thank you everyone question um yeah so i think what i'll do is i'll pass it off to the board um to ask any questions or for feedback or um and anyone can kind of just go ahead and speak i have a question and whoever answers this i will leave it up to the team but i think my question is i heard a theme of students who had not previously been identified as struggling are now coming up as needing assistance needing support and then that other theme
057of the iep time was really pretty remarkable to hear that 60 to 80 of the lcsw time is spent in iep meetings so my question as a board member it's not in iep meetings it's working with students there's mandated support right sorry okay perfect so my question is what do you and your team need more of from the board in terms of support you know i i spoke with julie olsen who was great on friday she's like well i feel like we've got the right staffing and i you know i felt she was really helpful to talk to but as a board i'm always looking at what i can do to support your work more so yeah i guess i could speak to thank you okay uh yeah so as far as my interviews with
058uh katie campbell licensed social worker as well as rachel uh lauren licensed social worker clinical social worker uh yeah they spend about 27 to 28 hours per week or two 27 to 28 students right off as far as iep goes 504 rti uh tier 3 intervention so and then they have additional openings for those students that have been identified by a teacher by a parent by a caregiver that are also struggling socially emotionally so we have that opportunity to um to address those students as well so as john has said yeah there probably are students unfortunately that are out there struggling that we don't know about yet uh i think we've been creative one of the one of the coolest things that i've seen is the collaboration with everybody so it's this you know not
059to sound cliche but it but it but it's cliche for a reason because it's so true is that everybody's just working together so school counselors and social workers are really really have kind of joined unified and just just trying to support every student that we possibly can as as far as what extra uh we needed you know that's hard to say i i think what we what we're doing right now is is effective i think it's working i think we're meeting the needs of the students uh that are identified um you know just i think with talking just personally with the with with miss lauren and miss campbell was that it's the continuing education stuff it's it's it's that would be you know helpful some some things that pop up the ever-changing landscape of of
060covid that you know the uh you know more anxiety more depression the uh you know the telehealth the uh doing this on virtual and they both i think we'd all agree uh school council social workers would much rather much rather meet with a student in person unfortunately that can't always happen right so we have to do this virtual thing so just a little bit more continuing education about the ethics of that i mean we've all gone about trying to figure out all telehealth and doing it through zoom and doing it through google chat and we've all figured out the ins and outs but it's it's just again it's it's always changing something new presents itself so just that continuing education piece so i think that's that's something that um we could probably utilize use more
061of uh when we could fit that in i don't know so okay yeah that's helpful thank you always just trying to support the work and i feel so strongly that people are struggling right now and we can see it across the board so however we can support you let us know you guys we appreciate it i would add something that i think that a community approach is really important and i'll speak for the high school that it's really essential that our parents are on somewhat on board with us because um and i know i i am a parent of high schoolers i know that is very hard to work and go home and basically work again so i get that um but we're really struggling with getting kids to school and um and getting trying
062to make a plan with parents that um kind of make happen and i'm not sure i mean sometimes we have to let some of the things go sometimes the classes that kids are in are not the most important thing that are on the table in a given moment um and so it's a really hard thing to navigate um but i do think that um that kind of a stronger connection between all of us knowing that we're kind of all in it to try and help the kids get through this and then the next year be successful again and be ready to re-engage maybe in a different way this year is not going to look the same as it does next year for these kids and it's okay and i think i you know trying to
063help parents understand that it is okay that there are things um there are classes your children may not take this year um that this is okay so i would love more time to communicate with parents actually because i think that for some parents it's their first child in high school and so everything feels very very uh mike and then kevin thank you so much um john i just wanted to just thank you especially for that last comment i think that's just so critically important i think you uh jonna eric dawn you're doing you it's a herculean effort what you're undertaking uh this is extraordinary uh what we're going through and you know you only have control over what you have control over in the building but this is a mental health crisis that's way beyond
064that and it's something where you know it's interesting seeing the impact i'm a parent of a second grader and a fifth grader and you know and two working parents and trying to juggle all that and have a lot of friends are doing the same thing it is it is in a lot of cases a mental health disaster across the board um people are struggling even in what's seeming like people who still have jobs and their health but mentally are falling apart and so um the last point you made especially about it being a community-wide effort and finding every chance we can get to reach out and you know at least make connections um and and so this isn't much of a question just uh just noting that just so i so appreciated you saying that
065um because i i don't know what the broader community statewide answer to that is but there is it is there um and so but again i just wanted to say thank you uh to you to eric to dawn uh for this then the work you're putting in i really appreciate it and for my kids too i can see it in them thank you michael kevin go ahead then elias kevin no all right elias yeah i guess this kind of goes along with the lines of mike um mike's comment that i think just a sense of gratitude and appreciation for just talking about the issue of mental health and time such as this is um it's just so important to have that i think even the fact that the topic is on the table just makes
066students and i think everyone just feels supported in itself because it kind of validates whatever um everybody has their struggle in this point in time and any struggles that would exist in a regular year i think are for the most part accentuated because of just how unprecedented everything is and from a student perspective like i never thought i especially as a senior would want to go to school so much five times a week like i i was always kind of the thing i was like oh i wonder what it life would be like if i could go to school like if the weekends and school days could flip and that was always kind of like a fantasy but now it's kind of like oh what be careful what you wish for um so i think
067it is just from a high school perspective it i think the toll of yellow is it's so much better than last spring but it's almost painful in the sense that it's like you can taste what normal would be like but it just like isn't there and it can't be there and i think that that's been really hard for the senior class given this is the last really we'll know and i think just everyone every s um separate class has their own sort of thing that i can point out that's really tough like the junior class it's um through they say i know for for all ib classes like they don't know their teachers as well because a lot of them have new teachers this year and at least we got the uh like experience of
068having our teachers normally for the first half of last year and then the freshmen don't even know what like in a regular high school experience is like and the sophomores have barely even been in high school so it's just everybody has their unique struggle um that it not not one is worse than the other and i think just talking about the issue in itself is a great starting point and all the um counseling workers at the high school and throughout the district are just so great and supporting kids of all ages because it is as everyone's alluded to definitely a point in time where i think everyone's emotional resilience is down and just acknowledging that i think is the first step in everyone joining together and coming overcoming this tough time and like fingers crossed
069knock on wood that normal comes as soon as possible thank you elias jennifer and then peter thank you tyler um i'll just make it um quick because i'll just echo what others before me have said but um don and eric and and jonna thank you for speaking on this this was something that i brought up to school board meetings ago when we had a workshop and i really think our community needs to um keep it in mind every day that people have are struggling and that one day may be good and the next day isn't and the people that we think that appear that they have it together they don't and we gotta like watch out for the adults and those little ones and just make sure that we all get through this because we
070really need to be on top of it and you know we're not seeing people on the sidelines and and in the hallways and and at the library and things like that so we have to figure out how to make a connection um with each other and help our kids learn how to make those connections and i know that people are struggling you know using social media there's been some bad things going around and you know we got to be on top of that because that's not where it should should fall either so um thank you for being on top of this and and you know just keeping it in the forefront of the conversation peter bam i think it's kevin kevin was ahead so i will no he isn't okay i want to follow up
071a little bit from uh kate we've got a new round of state coded aid coming in and you know it's easy to identify hardware it's easy to identify the finite things long-term subs but are the are there some outreach outside resources uh that we can bring to bear to assist you folks uh you know outreaching let's say the parents or some of this i have absolutely no idea of what i'm talking about but you know it seems like there's there's a ton of resources out there that if it's relatively simple to bring them in that uh we're going to have some money to do it but again maybe i'm i'm i don't know what i'm talking about but just just a thought thank you peter um i'm not seeing anyone else that's raised a hand
072i took a ton of notes and i want to say thank you to everybody i want to say thank you to jennifer for bringing this up at our workshop a few meetings ago this is clearly a priority and needs to kind of always be a priority of our students and our staff um there are a couple things that i wanted to make a mention of is um appreciated your honesty of things that work and things that don't work we have to be able to focus on both of those and be open to knowing that sometimes things don't work and sometimes those things are out of our control which is a lot of what we're experiencing right now i think one thing that's really important that we don't forget is that there's things that have changed
073that are making our kids our students feeling safer at school and we should pay attention to those things even if we can't carry them on in the same way next year but all the things like um lower sensory inputs small class sizes of course we all want small class sizes but we're seeing a positive response to some of the changes that have been put into place this year we should keep track of those and see how we can keep those implemented or parts of them implemented as we look at what school looks like next year and and the years beyond um and i hope that these conversations can help destigmatize kids asking for help i mean i hate thinking that kids don't want to go to certain places in the school because people may think
074certain things i remember that feeling being in high school that's doesn't go away but i hope that the more that we can talk about this it just those places are cool i i mean i think they're cool so um and then lastly i just wanted to mention that um i appreciate the website that you are putting together and i hope that we can pass that along to both communities and our town councils um for them to share widely because there's we're only going to be successful as everybody mentioned if we can do this as a community so thank you so much for all of your time and connecting behind the scenes and bringing all this to us this evening i really appreciate all your work thank you guys thank you yes thank you very much
075very much okay so we will now move on to superintendent's report jeff i'll pass it off to you yeah i'll start my report by just thanking don eric and jonah for an amazing report we have a tremendous mental health team they do great work and are truly i think it's everybody should be every parent should know that we have a good safety net in place for mental health um like eric said there are students that probably you know we're missing right now that's why we need with kids being in just two days we need parents and they're in other students to be saying something if they feel like someone needs help we have an excellent mental health team and they're ready and willing to work hard to make sure that our kids are feeling connected
076and supported and that's in any any year but especially in this year that we're in right now so i want to thank all three of them for a great report and speaking on behalf of the mental health team for the district thank you thank you i also want to just say that craig marley who is the uh really the state nami um contact and director for nami for maine uh will be he's um at least told me that he he's put it on this calendar uh to be with the board on march 1st um and he is probably the most recognized expert on suicide prevention in the state of maine so he'll be be here to talk with the board on march 1st as well so we'll be continuing mental health doesn't go away and
077we certainly know that it's part of the strategic plan as well so we're happy that greg will be joining us and um we also mentioned that we've had a phone call with greg a video call with greg and a team of people about 15 people from the district last week to get some more support from him on mental health so with that if our three mental health specialists want to sign off feel free to do that i know they have a busy day ahead uh tomorrow as well and so i just wanted to say that before i start my report um so the superintendent's report tonight we lost jeff for a minute i'm guessing he'll be right back we'll give him a second to join there he is hopefully you enjoyed the report we'll try
078that again okay i'm not sure i'm not sure where jeff kate's disappearing to um nope he's back we'll try this again and if not we'll move on to uh commanding yeah i would go under committee reports at this point okay you sure jeff okay all right so uh for committee reports we'll start with finance that's kevin um i i don't have much to update other than to say that there's a meeting to continue the work through the superintendent's uh budget um jeff has sent a number of items out to the uh to the board and actually jeff i'll i'll hand that over to you if there's anything that you want to clarify from either either one of your emails the esser funds or the uh or the state um funds subsidy uh yeah from the
079update we are uh we did get our preliminary state subsidy numbers um it looks like we're going to be up 675 000 um over our current state aid for the year um still has to be enacted by the legislature but that's good news anytime we get more state funding um for a fiscal year that's that's a good thing um and then we did get our sr2 money allocations as i um wrote to the board as well and that um those are monies that are based on title one funds we don't get a lot of title one funding in our district um and so that formula was used to calculate an amount which was 175 000 for the next two years so you know in comparison we received about 3 million between the both coronavirus federal
080relief monies in the fall so this is quite different from from the crf money that we received in the fall but it's still extra money for the district and certainly will be used uh for any uh lingering covid 19 direct costs that will that we'll surely have next year thank you kevin and jeff moving on to policy and um i do not have an update we haven't met since our last meeting um but we'll be meeting directly before our next meeting thank you anne facilities peter uh we'll cover everything in the uh in the workshop okay um mike simmons curriculum yeah we had a meeting last thursday and uh first we discussed the needs of the high school science department and then had a um a spirited discussion around an early version of next year's
081calendar great thank you and then student reports madison or elias um i'll start i guess there hasn't been too much change from the last things i said in the last four meeting about mental health i think that we've definitely covered those bases today though so i'm really happy to hear that um the only special thing that i've heard about that kind of wanted to mention is there was a music advocacy kind of group built by students we heard a lot about it a couple meetings ago from miss pollock ms carlson i believe and some students have moved forward to talk to our town senators and stuff like that and it's really exciting to hear about and i just know that it's predominantly juniors there are a couple of seniors and a couple of sophomores i
082believe but yeah it was something exciting to hear yeah for sure that's very exciting and i guess from a curriculum standpoint we just wrapped up um the first semester which for seniors means kind of it's like the climax like oh okay these are going these are getting sent to colleges uh gotta keep your act up and then not not that they the grades can just fall off the track but it's like it's a bit uh um of the pressure taken off and i guess looking um tomorrow we are obviously probably i don't know what jeff's if jeff is going to call it yet but probably looking um forward to a snow day so it i think just the overall snow day vibes have been changed um with the online format but i think aside from
083everybody staying um sticking in there and i think it's been definitely an event for uh year so far that it's crazy to think about one year into 2021 already being gone but i think just the overall student and not that as we've discussed in this meeting are definitely difficulties um as a result of factors that we are all familiar with but um i think everyone's grateful for things that the board are doing um and just keeping the students um thoughts uh and perspectives in mind whether it be panels um or just trying to make this year as normal as possible how about a red day elias oh the i i wouldn't say the red days are exactly the vibe but it's all good seniors never like never like any days that they we have to
084make up at the end of the year or anything oh yeah or bad days or anything like that yeah okay yeah hopefully um i think some sledding will still be on the docket but that i absolutely think so i'm sure i'm gonna get enough snow thank you elias um all right so moving on to communications i don't believe we have anything this evening unless something else has come up um all right we don't have any items for action but we are going to move into a workshop uh for the primary school project design um and we will have uh oak point associates joining us this evening and i believe i've seen a few joining us um peter i'm gonna pass this off to you as this is um your committee at least um and then
085maybe jeff um and tyler from oh point can take it from there and please let me know who i'm supposed to allow in besides rob and tyler yeah we're going to be expecting sarah smith allisontown d matteo and jack gagnon thank you i'll let him all in thank you thank you andy so just a uh before we get into the presentation with oath point just to uh just briefly cover how we're how we've got to this evening over the last couple of months we have again approved uh the uh the possible purchase of the land adjacent to the performing arts center so uh as a result of that uh the finance committee the celebrities committee was directed to work with oak point and the administration to come up with a rough site plan of where
086this pre-k through one school might be located we had a preliminary meeting last week where uh oak point made a presentation uh uh with the finance committee a lot of questions were brought up and oak point uh did some more work uh this morning uh one of the critical things is where these preliminary drawings fit in with the town site planned ordinance and we had a meeting this morning with bill shane the cumberland town manager oak point uh jeff and uh scott and myself uh so we're gonna see how this presentation goes tonight and what the board reaction is uh and we've come up with what we think may be uh the next step but it's going to be depending on your thoughts and i guess at this point jeff i'll turn it over to
087you to introduce yeah i'm going to turn over to tyler um to introduce but i just wanted to add that after tyler's done i'm also going to just present very briefly some ideas for the campus plan um i know that their the facilities committee was very interested in making sure that the board had some concrete um ideas to at least um you know critter in the next few months prior to uh you know putting something forth at a referendum and so tonight i'm just going to introduce some ideas that you've all heard of but just put it in one place as to looking you know kind of a campus planning as well and these are things that the board may want to consider or may not want to consider but just you know kind of
088putting these ideas that we we've talked about in the air sometimes um and putting it in one place so that you can see that and and start to consider those those things so after um tyler and the team from oak point go through the school piece i'll kind of give a little bit broader perspective on how this fits into some campus potential campus planning that the board might want to look at but what we'll do before jeff does that is give the board a chance to comment and ask uh oak point questions on the school itself so back to you jeff yeah i'll just ask tyler if you want to introduce um your team or gonna go from there yeah happily so my name is tyler barter i'm an architect and project manager with oak
089point and i am joined tonight with uh by our team sarah smith is an interior designer and space planner and educational planner with oak point uh rob tillotson is here as well he is an architect and engineer and the president of oak point allison tom di mateo is here she's a landscape architect and jack agne is also i think was not able to get into the meeting but is listening live so he is our civil engineer and i'm gonna is our presentation pop-up great so i wanted to um to take a quick quick minute to introduce what we're going to talk about tonight as peter and jeff had mentioned we're really at the beginning of this concept design process so a lot of what you're going to see tonight are really the beginnings of some
090diagrammatic concepts of how this site might work they're going to indicate you know some of the rough massing how we're going to transition between floors a lot of the on-site circulation is going to work that's really one of the most critical pieces that we're dealing with on your campus as you know with the uh the number of buildings and facilities you have here and then a projected increase in population this is something that we're very sensitive about so tonight is less about trying to hone in on you know grade level organization and what buildings are going to look like exactly how your site is going to be and really more trying to understand some of the implications of decisions that we're going to be asking you to make as we go forward through this process
091so we wanted to start off and talk a little bit about the goals i know you're very aware of the needs that you have going forward but i thought it was important for for those listening to understand that we're talking about a roughly 450 students school this is going to serve pre-k through one and be located on the campus we're looking to build as much flexibility long-term for the district as we can so we've really took taken a hard look at your enrollment projections really dialed in on what the projected needs are for the next 10 years and trying to set you up for a lot of long-term flexibility across your four buildings uh we're looking to make sure that we're improving on-site circulations for both pedestrians and vehicular circulation that's really a critical thing
092is we're starting to transition people in and out you know four bus drop offs four parent drop-offs same thing in the afternoon so that's really an important piece uh we're looking to make sure that this school is meeting those 21st century educational guidelines that we're really focusing in on some of those small group instruction spaces providing breakout areas and really giving you a lot of flexibility as educational models are starting to change over the years and then another big thing is making sure that especially with this age group that we're providing some really good on-site outdoor play and learning areas so trying to take advantage of some of the natural features of the property that you're you're looking to acquire so allison you know feel free to jump in if i stray too far but
093we one of the first things that we've done is kind of taking a a look at what your overall parking and access is going to be throughout the site so what you'll see here is your four major access points uh two at the high school one for the middle school one for mabel eye and then also the parking as you kind of move around the site that's really going to start to form the basis of how we analyze this site and make sure that we're going to be improving these situations going forward for a point of reference this is the piece of property adjacent to the superintendent's office that is i believe currently under contract you're being identified as an expansion zone for this school when we couple that with the superintendent's lot the me
094uh that parking lot and then also the current access road it really gives us a really good opportunity to begin to carve up a piece of land that's going to be appropriate for uh you know not an insignificant size building you know with 450 kids we're still looking at you know a fairly robust educational program that we need to fit on a an already pretty congested site so this has really been a fantastic boost to this project i think it would have been much more challenging trying to to find a piece of land um to drop a school on without this so this is overall pretty good moving forward one of the things i think it was very helpful for us as we went out and did some preliminary walks around the site is to
095note that there's a pretty significant grade change i think you've all experienced it as you transverse from the lower parking lot near the administrative offices and mabel eye up to the high school from that point there is about a 28 foot 22 foot grade difference from down here what you see on the left hand side here that's the the corner of mabel eye this is the road you can see the track transitioning up to the parking lot next to the the performing arts center that 22 feet of great difference really gives us an opportunity to do some fun things on the site what our overall approach to this is is that somewhere down on that lower area that kind of that u-shaped piece between mabel eye and tuttle road that's really going to serve as
096our access point on a lower level and what our thought is is that the building can really serve to transition some of that grade change as you move around from top left kind of clockwise gives you a little bit of an idea on how that that mass will go as you look on this side there's a small retaining wall the building loops around this is all two-story in the front and then as you head up that access road the building starts to kind of compress into the site and transition to a one-story building so all of that upper level is where the educational wing is going to be housed so all of the the k k and one classrooms are going to be located on that level that gives a really good opportunity for an
097outdoor play and learning kind of separated from the um your connection road between the the upper and lower parts of campus and really creates a protected part of the site using that building to help break down the site into some some different zones and by stepping down the scale of the building it gives a really good opportunity to make it a little bit more appropriate for some of your youngest learners [Music] quick idea on on how we would break this up and again these are really diagrammatic this is something that is more of a proof of concept that this will actually fit on your site and we've got a couple different kind of uh versions that were that we've been looking at we've called this one the plus which is primarily based on the organization
098of the classroom wings but what we would try to do in this building is try to group as many of your public functions on the lower level so when you come in you would have administrative a secure entrance which is critical for our school populations these days uh cafeteria the gymnasium music and art all located on that level one of the things that would give you an opportunity for is to use this for community events in the evening if the district chose uh to do that so planning that zone separating it up from the general uh classroom rings above on this level we would also try to put the pre-k and an outdoor plan learning area dedicated to them so trying to keep them from having to make that one flight up uh track throughout
099the day the other piece we've got on this option and something that would need to be vetted as we begin to work with your school leadership is keeping some of your special education on that lower level as well as you move up you see the two staircases would be your primary up so we have a really nice kind of grand stair as you come in give a chance for some kids to go immediately up first graders all right yeah first graders could continue on the quarter and use the second stair trying to break that population up a little bit and then we've got three individual wings and this is that that plus that i was talking about um the first blue one is uh first grade moving in the next wing becomes kind of that
100flex wings there's four kindergarten for first grade and those will be able to be changed back and forth year to year based on the overall population and then moving into a again another k-wing at the end throughout all the options we're looking at small group instruction spaces that's that purple color and again these are things that will be working with your administrative team and jeff to make sure that we're really identifying what the overall needs are in their locations the outdoor play and learning area would be kind of in that back area and this gives us a great opportunity to provide some access from library spaces and different points along the corridor to really give a good connectivity to the outside and there is going to be a lot of buffering between this piece of
101property and the adjacent residential zone so you know introducing some new vegetation other things on the site oh i think we've missed a site plan sorry i've got one slide out of order and with that allison do you want to hop in to talk a little bit about the site circulation sure are you going to share the oh i'm sorry so like tyler was uh talking about a couple of minutes ago when we plan um sites for new schools um there are really four different things that are or five different things that we're working with that have to work with each other but also work independently the first two are drop-off areas so obviously bus circulation and parent circulation are two really important circulation needs for for vehicles but they need to be kept separate
102for safety reasons we've got parking needs for both staff and visitor parking for an elementary school we've got service area considerations if there's cafeteria deliveries need to be made where does that service happen where where does um you know where where are the dumpsters where is the sort of back of house and then lastly we are working with outdoor play and learning environments outdoor gathering spaces so all of those things come together on the site when we have a campus situation that really gets it gets taken up a notch in the sense that we have to consider the effects of all of these things not only independently with the school but how they affect the campus so this plan shows the mabel eye some of the middle school track area and then the potential new
103site like tyler said we're kind of we're learning as we go in terms of going back and forth between developing ideas for the building seeing how they work on the site this is a process it's certainly a very fluid process right now so with the building that tyler was just describing one of the ideas that we had right now the there's a connector road that basically goes next to the superintendent's office in between the superintendent's office and parking lot and the mabel eye wilson parent drop-off in order to be able to create more room on the site for the new school we're proposing a concept that that shifts that connector road down on the site a little bit further east which actually aligns with street across across tuttle road which is a better planning practice
104in terms of uh traffic um traffic planning and engineering so that's positive um and but what one thing it would do is it would essentially uh force the need to be able to relocate the parent loop for mabel i wilson so on this on this diagram the red arrows are proposed parent loop circulation the pink arrows are proposed bust loop circulation and the purple boxes are proposed parking areas for each of those two schools and the blue arrows are through traffic so right now what we're looking at is a parent loop for the new school that that loops from the connector row between the middle and the high school and can be accessed from several different points not just one point apparent loop for the mabel eye would move into what is currently the bus
105loop we're also considering a bus loop for the new school that comes in front of the main entrance towards the tuttle road side of the site that bus exit might also be shared with a service uh entrance that would be able to be co-located um and the bus loop for mabel eye is something that we're sort of toying around with and one concept is to do sort of an inline bus drop off that would have to be completely separated from the through traffic but could potentially do sort of a parallel uh drop off slip lane for buses at mabel eye we'd need to to rearrange the play spaces over there to be able to accommodate enough of a play area so that's sort of still under development um that's that's really kind of in a
106nutshell the site plan that is being developed alongside that concept that tyler just showed so the other option that we were starting to take a look at is one that we've called the uh kind of the s curve and it's one that follows the uh the roadway coming down between the two schools and it has a very similar approach uh to the other two so again entering on that lower level this one i think the big difference here is utilizing the building a little bit differently to to kind of break that higher level with an interior courtyard space which would be somewhat of a nice nice space adjacent to both your cafeteria and music and art give you an opportunity to have some outdoor plan learning on that lower level as well as the upper
107again these are are both things that are you know doing the very same thing so as you move up that access road it starts to transition to that one-story building and then you end up again with that really nice plane learning zone on the upper level broken from the roadway by the building this is a quick floor plan of how that something like this would function so again entering at that main level we keep all your public spaces on that lower level um pre-k some special education classroom some service zones as well and then as you move up again slightly different arrangement but stairs on both sides that begin to give you that vertical circulation through the building on the upper level this one's a little bit different where it breaks down into four classroom
108pods instead of the larger eight again these are are both some some different concepts that we're playing around that gives some opportunity for your administrative team to weigh in on how we distribute programs so in all of these we've got a small group learning spaces broken out on these we end up with these nice zones that give you small group and possibly some additional special education and on all of them as well we're going to have you know ample staff bathrooms staff work rooms broken up and spread out amongst the rest of the building to provide some good connectivity there and eliminate that need to come down to the central office again with the last one this one would also provide access out to an outdoor plan learning area on that upper level from either
109corners the library and other areas that give you kind of that desire align out to those types of spaces allison describe the site circulation here and i should say that the site circulation is not necessarily tied to one one concept or the other they could potentially either one work with with either building um this is a little bit different from from the circulation that was paired with those 3d masks that tyler just showed but um with this one the the connector road between tuttle and the the drive that goes from the middle school to the high school is a little bit different um in that with this with this concept we're sort of looking at the idea of actually shifting that road and you can see in that that light blue line that has an
110arrow on both ends shifting it so that it actually um would remove one of the straight straightaways at the end of the track the track has two straightaways the longer of the two and would relocate um the throwing area to be able to get a road that pulls a little bit further away from from mabel eye and the new school site and what that might allow us to do is to um locate a shared bus loop um that you can see in the pink that might serve both the new school as well as mabel eye the green arrow is that relocated connector road between tuttle and the middle school high school campus and one thought that we had was that potentially from a policy and operations standpoint that road could be a through road most
111of the day except for the time when the elementary schools are doing drop off and pick up um at which time it would shift to having that that shared bus loop on one end and on the other end would allow for a in the red arrows um a longer entrance and and sort of horseshoe parent drop off loop at the new school one of the things we've heard is there can be i mean there are a lot of parents who pick up and drop off so we don't want to shortchange the ability to cue for a parent loop so we're trying to create opportunities for longer potential cueing areas so you can see that on this plan the mabel eye loop is still shown as being over on the um where the bus loop is
112for mabel mabel eye and then the parking areas that are being proposed are really shown in the same areas as within the previous concept again just just throwing some ideas out there and and seeing how that might work operationally for you and what we might be able to do from a space planning standpoint so ty tyler so does that pretty much uh cover your presentation at this point it does uh just a couple of other things before the questions uh uh that uh either plan or the overall plan will require the removal and possible relocation of the the administrative buildings and it's still basically up in the air if those are if those offices are relocated within the campus or or something else we're still looking at it one of the things that we're looking
113into since it is kind of a sensitive thing that we are going to have a meeting with the historical society or at least the chairman of it uh steve moriarity to see if they're interested in the building but whatever that it's not going to be there it's either going to be somewhere else in town it may be on the campus we're still looking at that but it's got to go the other little hooker in this is that there's a possibility that we may be able to get some additional adjacent land uh going back toward the wyatt property and uh what that would do is eliminate a lot of the buffering issues that we're going to have on this and also uh uh take care of maybe some uh future issues so before the questions came
114in i just wanted to to uh put those additional things in there and at this point chairman tyler i don't know how to do this hand and feet and raising and all this other stuff so i'll kind of let you take over identifying folks that have questions sure so um mike williams go for it i'll just follow the hands as they come up awesome thank you tyler uh and thank you oak point teller and team uh and peter for being our fearless leader here uh just a quick question um about uh sir i i seeing that certainly appreciate the challenge in trying to figure out the traffic flows and the bus loops and the parent loops and you know the flow throughs and such um one thing though that just is a flag of concern
115for me is just seeing uh potential losing potential outdoor space uh and play space at mabel wilson uh as well as that block of shade trees uh you know when tyler mcginley and i walked the campus in august to try to figure out outdoor learning spaces it was quite noticeable the dearth of shade our campus has and so losing shade trees that would just be problematic understanding so if we need to put something there just flagging that we should replace that uh and more so in other places but also um again we'd be you'd be going right through tuttle town uh or we'd be going through tuttle town uh with that and so just if there was thinking about replacing that and so we don't actually lose play space you know there's a ball field
116at mabel wilson that's rarely used um and so just thinking through how we can replace that well the other thing too is mike that the portable classroom will be going bye-bye also that is definitely helpful but even with that i hope to not lose it right yeah i think um one thing that's important to mention is that we've kind of started at the hardest part of the site i think trying to really identify what this school is going to take and how some of that circulation is going to go and we're going to kind of work our way toward mabel eye you'll see a lot of the the site circulation changes there are going to require some changes to the the entrance at mabel eye you know you're currently coming in at the access road
117and kind of down to that center corridor and we're going to be looking for something that might be more of a straight shot through the building kind of connecting to where the playground is now to existing bus loops so as we work our way toward that part of the site i think some of those things will become a little bit more apparent how they'll be dealt with and be a lot more opportunity for discussion as well so these are great points thank you okay now is your time to raise your hand all right margo you're muted margo that was my warm-up for myself um you mentioned uh common spaces in the new school um what would those be is it a smaller gym cafeteria library yes so um you know in our preliminary discussions with
118leadership you know the the need for a library is clear um we've got it on an upper level trying to keep it in the heart of the educational wing um so that's definitely one space a cafeteria is uh another they're looking at us much smaller gymnasium space we've kind of called a few of these things like the not gym it's really not going to be a middle school-sized gym with basketball courts in a traditional sense but really uh the active motor play area inside the building so it'll it may look a little bit different than a typical space so those will all be on those lower levels we've also kept some of those other functions like music and art on the lower level that you know depending on how the community decides to use this
119building after hours it gives you some flexibility and it may be decided that you know that whole back section gets gets shut down and use only a part of it so these are all discussions that we'll want to have as we start to proceed into the more detailed analysis of the the space and the adjacency um in in your earlier designs you had a room that was sort of like a indoor amphitheater kind of common place for plays and things like that is that um not being considered because it's a smaller school and there's more outdoor focus or well i think um we have not fully finalized all of the program spaces in here so what we've tried to do is build out some footprints that let allison and jack really dive into some of
120the site challenges but also give us flexibility so that as we start you know this next step that we can identify is is the amphitheater more important than you know two or three smaller breakout rooms and we can start to consolidate those so i would say uh nothing that you've seen or have not seen tonight is set in stone so you know these are all great things so you know if the amphitheater is a priority we'll certainly find ways to introduce those to the to the building and there will be some some tough choices i'm sure throughout the process you know it's still a fairly robust building program so we'll be interested to see how those discussions go i will as well thank you jennifer thank you tyler um my question is around um and
121maybe jeff or someone from mabel wilson that's on this call can answer is how many current um kindergarten classrooms are do we have in first grade it appears in the two designs that it's between 11 and 12 classrooms that are being set up for the future school and so i'm just curious as to where that that plays into where we stand now and what is the vision that this school will be able to support our numbers for how many years in the future you know is it a five-year school or are we looking um more long-term thank you yeah those are good questions jennifer and our enrollment [Music] projections really showed that we're going to max out in probably 8 to 10 years in the district at least all the the demographic enrollment projections that
122we had done by planning decisions and then by rebecca wandel who followed up and did them again um not too long ago and so with that in mind the maximum amount of students that we are expecting of 450 and it's really 400 with kindergarten and first grade looks like the largest class sizes that we would have would be around 200 and then with some pre-kindergarten in there i think that's where we came up with the 450. i think the other thing i want to recommend to the board at some point is we just had the enrollment study updated in 2019 if you remember and we may want to have it updated again as well as we continue going through the process um it just you know as we as we're going through this it would
123be nice to know that those numbers are going to hold i think the pandemic right now has complicated things a little bit um but um you know i'm thinking for kindergarten um with 200 students we're talking about you know 11 or 12 classrooms so that would be right in the range um and the same thing with with first grade i'm keeping those class sizes a little bit on the smaller side which is typically what we've done in this district and and jeff i think you probably saw that corey chimed in that we're currently with excuse me two or ten classes for kindergarten and ten for first right and um so next year we're you know if we're projections are correct with kindergarten we'll be around 200. um in kindergarten which will be the largest kindergarten
124we've had in many many many years um and with 200 we are we're going to probably need 12 classrooms for kindergarten next year so so okay and we don't have to get into the weeds here but but with that we're what we're saying is if we build the school we will max out when we move in because we're already going to be at those numbers yeah when we looked at um the numbers you know between i think it was three and four years from now when the building would be built if it gets approved um there were some also some smaller classes so every year is not 200 and i can update the board with those projections that we had so when we move into the building it wouldn't necessarily be full and that's what
125we had looked at previously is that we wouldn't have 450 students for the first you know couple of years that we move in and that those numbers do go back and forth but the maximum counts that we are showing in the next eight to ten years were 200 for a class but not always 200. sometimes below 200. um okay i think jennifer asks an important question about the flexibility of the building i know tyler barter had talked about it being you know a comprehensive longer-term building i just think that needs to be a priority as much as we can so i would support revisiting some type of enrollment study to make sure that we're looking at the numbers like a third or fourth time as close as we are to the project i heard things
126that are important to me as a board member of preserving outdoor space buffer zones separating it from the residential area making this building that's not a small school feel like it fits into the neighborhood field that we already have i think is important i think people move to the center for a very specific reason and i'd i'd like to honor that as a board member and just making sure it fits in with the landscape which it sounds like it it will and i think the other plus that i've seen tonight is that some of the plans they utilize space differently but not so different that people are going to you know not know where they're going or you know it's not going to be this huge monumental change so it looks like we're moving in
127a great direction mike simmons wow jeff you just called a red day um elias is gonna be bumped but anyway um yeah i've participated on the building committee um a couple years back and initially i favored a pre-k one school but was persuaded to support a pre-k to school um in large part because of grade groupings and how that would fit into our other buildings and so i'm wondering about the knockoff effects on now having a pre-k one school and what that will do to grade groupings and what that means for our other school buildings and how we might have to adjust uh for that yeah i can answer that really quickly that's also in the follow-up presentation i'm going to be doing is some information but basically with a pre-k one k-1 building you
128would then have a two through four building at mabel wilson school that facility really should not have more than three grades in it in order to keep it comfortable with enrollment projections that we have so making that what is right now a four grade building and then you have pre-k which i supposedly has five grades in that building um we would reduce the you know the amount of students in that school down to three grades so it would be a lot more comfortable for that building and and certainly wouldn't be um over capacity the five eight five eight would be at the middle school which is currently 4 8 right now and as you know that building is getting very crowded and overcrowded you know we're even considering modulars if not the next year a
129year after we we're probably going to have to seriously look at it um and so by reducing a grade in that building there'll be a lot more comfortable and allowed to complete with that building that currently is not available so this plan really um i think helps us to um have the student numbers in our buildings make it more comfortable for students and staff and reduces the numbers in all of our facilities high school would stay the same at this point and there's been questions about you know down the road for the high school need to add space that's something that we're looking at but with a high school you have a little more flexibility with scheduling when students are when a teacher is not teaching a class you can schedule a class into that
130room for that block so you do have a different way of looking at available space in a high school that you don't have in other buildings um so that's not really something that we'll analyze but it's it's not a um you know an immediate need right now either yeah because our part of the this was is we've heard back then we heard a lot from teachers and administrators that grouping 345 was a very natural group that was uh you know a good learning cohort if you will and that you know splitting four or five up like that was was less than ideal um and so that's part of why i was asking about two because it seems like we're going less natural learning pods yeah i mean i think there's always different schools of opinion
131on you know what great configurations make sense and there there's been a lot of research in whatever research you find you could google it um or find it in any academic journal there's never been a completely definitive answer to what grade spans really are effective or work or make a difference for kids honestly there's just no answer to that i mean districts have played with grade spans and great groupings i agree the three grades three to five is an ideal intermediate grouping for kids kids tend to be a little more common in those grade levels but i don't think it makes i there is no research that says that there's any achievement gain or deficiency by putting certain grades together so i i think that it's just how we make it work i think there's
132a lot of concern about the 4 8 model that we have even though we have two separate and distinct areas um in the 4 8 facility we've made it work for it's been seven years with that building being that you know in that configuration a lot of people are very skeptical that it could ever work and we made it work partly because um you know did a very good job the administrators have done a great job there making sure that the the two schools are quite different i think in a 5 8 middle school there's opportunities to do the same kind of thing especially with the layout of that particular facility there's an opportunity to group 5th and 6th graders together in one part of the building in 7th and eighth grade in a 5
1338 middle school especially that facility lends itself to being able to do that so i think i think there's opportunities for that to happen in that facility mike did you have any other questions no okay kate your hand is still raised did you have a follow-up no but while i'm here i think that mike brought up some really important points and i think jeff you address them about being really careful and mindful about the grade considerations i know we're limited the space and the way the buildings need to be but i i like the preliminary thoughts of grouping five and six and i would really want to protect those fifth graders in terms of their curriculum and their social interaction so again i know we'll think about all this down the road thank you i
134know kevin had asked in the chat estimated square footage is that something taylor barter you could share for the job um estimator right now we are looking at something in the range of 65 to 70 000 square feet thank you um before we move on to jeff's presentation i just wanna make sure any other board members don't have any questions or comments for oak point okay okay uh before we do this uh so here's where we are uh the next step is that if the board is comfortable with this basic concept we don't even know right now if if we can do these specifically this way if the board approves the kind of general concept we now do need to get into the site plan weeds which the three major ones at this point in
135time we're talking about our traffic flow bill shane does indicate that he thinks he's comfortable uh with an additional curb cut on tuttle road but interestingly enough that's not the town's choice tuttle road is a state road so that the department of transportation has to bless that but bill thinks if the town pretty much recommends it it'll happen so one of the big things that we've got to look at number one are traffic patterns which is going to require some work on the part of a uh a traffic engineer the second large one it's it's not glamorous but it's huge and that's storm water which we have to see if the town's current storm water things will handle this do we need to do retaining pawns or other things again this stuff isn't glamorous but
136if it isn't nailed down we can't do this and then as kate has indicated the other one that has a lot of implications are buffering there's a possibility we might have to do a retaining wall which you can't buy at kmart or walmart at this case and then the buffering adjacent to the neighbors as cade has pointed out this might be easier if we can do this one of the things that again if you go along with the basic concept that oak point and probably the admin will be sitting down with bill longley the code enforcement officer carla nixon the town planner and bill to just go over the next level of stuff so at this point i might call on uh jeff and scott poulin as to where we stand with oak point and
137what we need to do and after that we do need the board saying do we start delving into more of the technical stuff so jeff and scott yeah i think um we also we talked about this with peter as well is that um we're going to get with oak point and just kind of come up with a rough new timeline between now and the referendum on things that need to get done obviously we have a new process between now and then when we're looking at the north yarmouth site we had a you know a very different process and a different timeline so we want to kind of solidify that we also need to talk with our attorney from uh drummond woodson who specializes in um getting school projects to referendum bill stockmayer um and he'll
138be just walking us through and making sure we've got all the legal steps um you know in place so those are two things that we're we're going to want to do um pretty quickly um and then go from there but um yeah peter's right we kind of need the board tonight just to give us an idea if you think that we're going in the right direction with this uh because you know as he indicated there's a lot of things that we'll have to do i think soil testing is another one that we might have to look at too i'm sure that there's the soil is fine which we think it is but we just have to check it um and so those are basic things that we want to make sure we get out of
139the way and clear any hurdles early before we um go too far down the road here so chairman tyler uh before we get into the concept thing i think we need some direction from the board do we go to the next step sure thing um all right i'm just gonna roll call through and um peter i'll start with you yes thank you kevin i guess i'm unclear what the question is me as well i'm unclear too okay just very simply uh uh do we start do we start doing the investigation as far as uh uh site plan uh traffic uh um water buffering all the things that we're going to need to do to say is this concept uh possible and what and to determine at least a basic cost on this we kind of
140need this information but we don't want to go down a rabbit hole if the basic concept isn't something you're interested in thanks for the clarification so with that information um my question would be i i mean obviously i uh in thinking about moving forward towards concept but my question would be of all those things that you ticked off the cost associated with that do we have have we allocated funds currently to that uh i i remember what the agreement was without point but i'm just uh wondering what funds would be necessary to move this to the next level uh jeff and scott i'll refer to scott on that i know scott has that information or is working on it and i think that's one of the things that we need to talk to oak point
141about more is exactly um what you know what the depth of these um you know these investigations we need to do with the property and where this building would be on the property um and get those figures solidified but scott you might have more of an idea uh no jeff that's that's what we need to determine we need to determine what those additional costs are going to be for any subcontractors working for oak point and where we're at in our existing contract with oak point so i think what you're saying scott is that we need to first uh in the timeline of these things get things nailed down with oak point and then we would go into the uh you know the next phase of preliminary investigations on these other uh site plan issues is
142that right yeah it's um the you know oak point is and rob can chime in and so can tyler but they certainly utilize consultants on these items and we just need to determine where that's heading but that cost is peter i really don't think that um the soils test and the other things are really going to be a cost prohibitor to keep us from going forward if that's what people are interested in on this site i think those will be things that we'll just have to um you know determine with oak point and just move it forward does that answer your question kevin it answers the question i just want to know that we have funds available for that scott we will have funds available once we do the actual warrant article when we come
143to our new district budget meeting we'll have to basically allocate funds from undesignated fund balance to finish that this project but you know the only thing i could determine right now is we'd have to look at capital reserve and see if we can allocate funds from capital reserve for this purpose okay are you all set now kevin i think it's something we do need to talk about at finance though kevin okay i think it's something that we should put on our agenda to have a further discussion about right and i think that the funds should be capped at a certain level and be watched at this point too and we can talk that that through when we have a meeting i agree yeah it's rob we were asked today to meet with uh scott and
144jeff in the next few days to figure out what the what the direction is and and for us to get the cost from the consultants and get an idea of where what the cost is going to be to get to the point where the the the town planner and um those folks who will have enough information to allow us to move forward and give us the direction on on what can happen and how it could happen on the site and that's i think that's what the next step was jeff was to get together with you guys the next couple of days and we have started pulling some of this information together and like we've gotten the uh traffic consultants proposal which is just over ten thousand that's probably one of the bigger ones that we're
145going to need at this point just for for some point i'm working on oak point stuff now sounds like profits wise it would be good to bring this information uh to the finance committee certainly the facilities committee as well make sure they know but the finance committee and make sure this amount is um okay and notwithstanding um the fact that this this would be an okay amount to spend i think we also just need to know if if the board if this concept uh plan and where the building would sit on the property is is acceptable um let's move ahead with that okay i think this i think it's just clearly understanding where we're at no points contract now and then what we're allocating going forward okay so kevin do you have any other comments
146or anything did you want to add anything else i don't know okay margo um i i like so far what i've seen and what i can imagine based on the the schematics i i guess in my mind's eye i kind of like that the entrances perhaps would be moving more towards facing into the campus rather than out to the streets and i think that could create a really nice um for both the wilson school and for the school whoever it will be named for um to have that kind of focus inward because the students really do use all that space in the middle a lot um rather than having it be focused on the road um so i guess i like the concepts i will be interested to see when choices are made what they
147might be but i support the overall concept thank you margo uh and i um i support moving forward i do want us to keep in mind um the size of the school i'm i am concerned that how it's presented that um that we that we would um that we'd run out of space when we move in um and i don't think i have anything to mention that anyone else hasn't already but that's that's my biggest concern is making sure that we're not that we are really looking long-term and not just um short term thanks thank you anne i'm just going to go next because i'm in the this is how it is on this list um i i'd like to say that you know i've had a chance in the facilities committee that we've gone
148over this um pretty much in the same format and i i just want to say thank you to scott for reminding us that the costs that are associated with kind of taking that next step are not something that's going to keep us from taking that next step we just have to to put the numbers on you know we need to put the numbers to each one of those action steps and i appreciate kevin the question but also appreciate um your response scott so that was helpful i'm supportive of moving forward and um appreciative of both of the designs for lots of different reasons and i look forward to how we can kind of clean up our ins and outs throughout the whole campus at the same time uh kate perrin um i am supportive of
149moving forward at this time i think that we've spent a lot of time looking at a lot of different possibilities and i'm i'm pleasantly surprised at the direction of these possibilities in the new land so i'm sure that everyone on finance will figure this one out all right mike simmons um i don't have anything particularly new to add i mean they're interesting concepts they seem to fit well on the space uh like ant like ann i am a little worried about um the space for future expansion it looks like we might be cutting it close um but you know we're early stages we'll see how this goes thank you mike jennifer um i support um moving forward with getting the information for the site for the ground and soils and traffic um i hope that
150the board is then going to be pulled in in the next step when it comes to more discussions on the building and the concept um in that process and i hope that that's what this vote is is just with making sure that we can put a building on that property and then we can be grouped in and i know facilities is overseeing it but be grouped in on what the next step of what the structure will be like thank you jennifer mike williams yeah uh i i definitely support moving forward um i think there's been some good thought before already uh certainly a lot of details to work out uh one and i promised you peter i'd mention this every time i could but i would love in the next phase to how we figure
151out integrating solar power into this building uh as well as other uh significantly energy efficient uh efforts um but yeah my support motherboard thank you elias yeah i'm definitely in support and i think yeah just echoing on um mike just said a very exciting opportunity to have a obviously it's a big undertaking for the taxpayers and just an investment but to think about crafting a the most modern efficient um and just overall engaging work environment wise for our k-2 um students in our district i think is a very exciting task ahead um and it is unfortunate in a sense that um are not unfortunate but i think there's so much hope uh with the north yarmouth campus and obviously when that fell through what what are you gonna do but the one campus model i
152think um no no you can't complain um with being able to keep that uh a central part of cumberland and just msa 51 as a whole so i think that's very exciting um and moving yeah i think functionality is a big thing to keep in mind to make sure this building has a uh purpose uh throughout its time of use whether it be um swallowing obviously the increasing enrollment and maybe when the trend is down um strong support and looking forward to um just looking into more and more of the details and how to make the scores as great as possible thank you elias and leslie madison yeah i'm definitely in support of moving forward i think covert or not more space less claustrophobia and i think it's good for increasing school size of course
153i don't know all the logistics i've never had to build a school before so i'm sure there's a lot more that we need to focus on before we can actually move into this but i think it's an exciting opportunity so i definitely support it okay thank you everyone um jeff i will pass this off to you as you have kind of a follow-up presentation for a larger perspective on the campus and i don't know um oak point if you're staying with us through this or not but i just want to say thank you in advance tyler just welcome just one thing uh before jeff starts that uh i'm sorry oak point i'll get back uh to just let jennifer know and everybody else that there's going to as we get further down there's going to
154be a parallel track where uh and it's already starting where you know teachers staff administrators and such will uh will be weighing in as we get into the quote weeds as far as [Music] what the rooms are what they do and all that that there will be uh that there will be a significant amount of input from the folks that are using it so uh at this point in time we're just going through this stuff but there is a parallel track so this i'm going to just msad it isn't done in a vacuum sorry jeff and oak point no thanks peter no i mean it's there's a lot to do between now and um you know june basically um so there'll be a lot of work that that continues um in different ways but to
155make this project work but we are going to keep the board in the loop all the way along um we'll give you updates i might come back and do another workshop um you know in a month or two um and i'm just going to kind of give you a little more information about that as well but i wanted to thank um oak point for being here tonight and feel free to leave if you don't want to stick around you probably already have this information anyway so it's up to you but thank you for being here we appreciate it all the information well thanks for having us i'm going to sign off thank you all right can you see the uh pres can you see my screen at this point yes all right thank you that's
156good um so basically these are just ideas that i'm um i'm putting into one place tonight that doesn't mean that these are things that we uh the district needs to do the board needs to do these are just um considerations for the for the board to consider um as we kind of look at the the one campus model in a holistic way um and just you know and i'm gonna i'm gonna go pretty briefly i'm cognizant of time at this point but um getting back to the strategic plan um this is one quadrant of the plan which is the early childhood education the critical building block part of the strategic plan so it's aligned and basically from that plan from the strategic plan is the facilities k-5 facilities it's really pre-k 5 facilities at this
157point reviewing the district's long-term educational program for elementary students including the structure options for three and four-year-olds optimal grade spans and facilities um that um make allowances for projected enrollment over the next decade i know you've seen this before but um pre-covered we had 692 students at mabel eye wilson school we if we continue um down this track in in within about five or six years um at maybelline wilson school we would be somewhere around 850 students in that building way over capacity the capacity of that school really to handle you know any amount of students is probably around 550. is the optimal maximum for that building and you know so next year just to give you an idea uh the projected enrollment uh could be as high as 738 students if the students that
158are being homeschooled come back that went to private schools et cetera as part of the pandemic and if we get the kindergarten enrollment that we are projected to get which is around 200 for next year we could certainly be around you know that's that 738 mark if that all goes as projected so certainly i guess the the long and short of it as the enrollment continues and will continue to uh grow at the lower grades so how do we get here uh i won't go through all this but many of you have been you know participants in this entire process but as part of the strategic plan in in conjunction with enrollment projection reports that have been done private uh previously um by um planning decisions and then uh rebecca wandell as a follow-up in
159um a steering committee was convened and from there there was a building committee and um the board approved the recommendation um for a new private primary school off campus obviously that was pre-covered and then as a result of covet a lot of things changed um obviously we went off grid for a few months in terms of talking about this particular project and then the you know there was a resuming of the process when we came back to school this year there is another property search that was put out and then there was a property offer that came forward this past fall that you obviously went under contract for and now we're at the stage of looking at the the concept design based on the potential new property that still needs to be approved by voters
160as part of this process so in terms of looking at campus planning this is just a summary and again these are really um very rough ideas mostly coming for me scott's looked it over as well we've just kind of worked on it but uh primarily just kind of throwing this out looking at priorities um and being able to you know prioritize what would need to happen on the campus in order for the camp to campus to be optimal for all of our students and projected enrollments going forward in the next uh several years so priority one obviously is what you heard tonight a new primary school pre-k to one um and um you know in order to do that the voters need to approve the land purchase that has been offered and then obviously the
161construction of a 450 student school and i talked earlier about you know what that would mean for the other facilities in terms of optimal grade spans and i say optimal in terms of numbers of students and staff comfortably being in those facilities so as part of priority one also is looking at maple i wilson school um and i think it you know it's up to the board on the range of work um that can be done at that building i mean there is possibility of just saying you know the school is in good shape to um turn over to grades two to four and with nothing else to be done we have done a lot of work in that building uh over the last few years whether it's upgrading systems putting heat pumps with air
162conditioning in but there is still work to be done in that building some of it is modernizing that wing that faces tuttle road you know looking at the there's been discussions about moving the office to the other end of the building obviously the playground certainly needs work also for a grades two to four building a playground needs to be you know adequate for that for those grades some retrofitting for grades two to four although the school has been for years um you know working for up to grade three so but considering that there will be no kindergarten in first grade in this building there will be some retrofitting of some classrooms that will need to get done in order to make this more comfortable for that grade span the gym has been you know in
163a discussion item you know do we need to do something with the gym does it need to be enlarged um you know is it the right size gym for for that school or do we just leave it alone these are just ideas that have come up and then obviously small group space and how do we um make that work within the existing facility i think also under priority one and this is all kind of part of the same package in in my mind anyway um is obviously the superintendent's office has to be moved so what do we do um we had a discussion this morning uh with bill shane um there is some historic value to the sweet sir building um and that's why peter mentioned that we really need to talk to historical society
164and see what their interest is in the suites or building but the cost of moving that building for us to move that building um is expect would be expensive if we're moving it to another part of the campus and do we really want to incur that expense and is it worth keeping that building or should we look at other options for housing the district offices we don't need a huge amount of space for that is there a possibility of tacking you know a little bit of space onto the the new building or can we look at the middle school where there would be more room at least for uh for temporarily um and put the uh superintendent's offices over there um as an interim so i think those are discussions that obviously we haven't gotten
165to um in any depth but i think those are things that we need to make sure as part of this um new school building project that we want to keep on the radar looking at other priorities that have um these are discussions that all of you you know i know of are familiar with or these are things that have been circulating but there has been a long time interest in the artificial turf field and if we're looking at committing ourselves to a one campus model for the long term which this would obviously do by building the school on the campus having more access for playing time space [Music] expanding extending the fall and spring seasons and eliminating transportation at twin brook and being able to run two practices on a field and being able to
166use a field a lot more than we do with the game field for example that we we don't use that much because it gets damaged pretty quickly and we're constantly having to to maintain it an artificial turf field would be a good way of keeping our commitment to a one campus model and really improving the campus overall for access for student athletes and for community groups and really opening up that space for for better use with the facilities that we have on campus another priority and i listed it as again this is just kind of my thinking but priority three would be renovating the maintenance in the field house kind of goes along with the turf field but at the same time we've mentioned this many times over the years that having maintenance equipment in
167half of the field house is not safe and it you know it also takes up a good portion of the current field house where that space could be used for other things such as putting bathrooms in um expanding the weight room um and doing more with some sort of fitness if we're going to put that long term in the field house so those are ideas that have come up repeatedly in the past i'm just kind of putting it in one place and then the fourth um priority four would be to look at the high school um you know i think we still need to look at the enrollment down the road um really high school is in fairly good shape but there's areas that were never done uh 15 18 years ago when the renovation
168to greely high school was completed the areas that did not get any attention at the time excuse me where the pool the library the math and science wings got some attention but really weren't completely brought up to you know what we consider modern classrooms for for the 21st century the commons uh was not touched um and then um the cafeteria we've certainly done a lot of work on the current cafeteria but we never completed that project in terms of putting windows in etc so you know is there some work that needs to be done at the high school and it's just you know being completely transparent and saying that we don't need to do any work there um i think it's all about priorities and you know is that something that we want to make
169sure that we've we've put out there in the open and been transparent about and said these are things that might we might want to do i also just want to point out that you know these priorities can be you know it's up to the board to decide what goes on a referendum and what's part of a package you know what is included in you know a referendum package if you move forward with that referendum in september what do you want to include um you know in that particular thing are you just putting the primary school um forward um are you looking at doing things at wilson school the district office are you interested in including the turf field and i know a lot of this also comes down to cost you know and how much
170how much is all this going to cost and what makes sense to put forward as a referendum package and those are all conversations the board will certainly need to have and before you make a final decision in a few months about what you um are going to be doing and what you're you're planning to approve or not so just to kind of this is i'm kind of a visual person so i um i put some of the ideas that i just talked about in more of a visual way if this helps or maybe it doesn't but just starting up here with the the high school renovation you know we're really talking about this end of greeley high school um and you know looking and making sure that we modernize it if that's something that the
171board has any interest in or at least telling voters this is something down the road that we might need to do or we'd like to do and it's part of a you know a larger plan for the campus for a campus improvement so this was again the maintenance building is right here and where does you know does this need to be expanded in order to accommodate where maintenance equipment is currently being housed which is in the field house along with the maintenance building we've got maintenance equipment in both places and just kind of clearing this field house out so that it truly is for athletic purposes and not for maintenance um the turf field um if there was a turf field and again this um really you know involves more discussions the athletic advisory committee
172has been very involved in this topic as you know on and off for years um and certainly would want to participate in and give feedback to the board on this if you wanted to move forward but would theoretically be here where the game field is currently located the new school obviously that we're proposed new school that oak point presented tonight would be in this land if the voters approve the property that's under contract for being acquired that you know necessitates obviously the superintendent's office which is right here being uh relocated in order to make the school project work and then the miw uh renovation um again i think it's really the front part of the building um seems to be where a lot of the work uh was not completed when the building was added
173on to 25 30 years ago that part of the building was kind of left and still need some work i put this here and i think this is i really almost want to take it off at this point this was probably a week ago or a few days ago anyway when i was working on this and we kind of got a better answer from the town of cumberland today that you know about the suites are building but i at one point thought could we move the sweets or building here um in this area of the campus by the middle school but i i the more information we got today i think it's it's really not worth even looking at that or considering something like that i think it's pretty expensive so finally this would just
174be a draft roadmap and this again can be looked at by the facilities committee the board these are just again ideas the first five um have actually already been done um property has been secured it's under contract to help with the one campus model the the concept design obviously has been worked on by oak point which you saw tonight uh facilities committee did review it um and there's been a um at least a couple of consultations uh with the town of cumberland now about this and we have more to go in order to make sure that we there's no big glaring issues which you know at this point we're not seeing any um the board workshop is tonight obviously the next step uh would be for the facilities and building committee and i think peter
175that's probably another discussion we want to quickly have before tonight's over is just to talk about you know what what would the board like to see with the building committee we still have a building committee that's in place but um that was for a different purpose and you know have things shifted enough that that building committee probably is is not the one that we're going forward with do we need a different model or how does that look staff input staff will certainly have input in a concept design that gets approved by the board in the end we need to have their voices the leadership team at mabel wilson school has did look at a some potential ideas not a concept design yet but ideas for what a primary school might have it for an interior
176it was a very short discussion but they didn't have a chance to kind of weigh in and see some ideas they'll certainly have a lot more input in the months ahead um and um again looking at the you know a completed concept design with more information and voices in the process hopefully somewhere around april if we're trying to stay on track for a referendum in september and then in there we'd be talking to oak point about facilitating a couple of public informational meetings before the board does a final approval for going to referendum that will be important as well just giving the public more information and then the board obviously needs to set a referendum if you choose to do so um and you're comfortable with the final concept design that would go to voters
177probably somewhere in june and again we need to get more information from drummond at whitson and make sure we have all the legal steps in place but that would be right now just a draft to kind of give you a visual how do we get there from here so i'll stop sharing and go back it's the same thing tyler chairman if you can kind of coordinate the the questions or comments on this sure does anyone want to raise their hand and i can just run through any comments or questions people might have with what jeff just presented and also i think it's important if anybody has any feedback about the building committee that jeff had mentioned a minute ago now is your time at 905 at night to give us your best thoughts on everything
178you just heard all right margo i don't know i don't know if these will be my best thoughts or not but um i did sit in on a bunch of the original building committee meetings for um this the building site in north yarmouth and i think the um the makeup of that group was really good um topics were raised that i would not have thought of um so i hope that that going forward there's if it's not those people that it is um a good cross-section of representation so we can hopefully hear things that we need to hear early in the process not late in the process um as far as how people feel about things um what the what the pulse is in north yarmouth and all that i think learning more sooner is
179always good um i have i know the turf field has been um talked about for a really long time when i see the aerial shots of our campus i see other fields and i know that twin brooks is also used for our athletics so it would be helpful for me to know um what fields are used for what sports for which seasons and really um i know i know what the what the case is for the turf field but i want to be able to say to other people when it looks like there's all this um usable land around why we might choose to do something like that so um i don't know if that's something that dave shapiro could put together for us or if it's really um the different schools use different fields
180for gym or i don't know but that would be helpful for me to to know and i'll think of more questions but i'll get them to you later thank you margot and um i just uh well one thing kind of related to what mario was saying um regarding the other options that we might want to add to the referendum i'm wondering how soon we would maybe get like cost estimates for any of those and then also just wanted to volunteer that um i'm open to serving on the building committee if if needed thank you and um jeff do you have an answer to or or even scott when we might be able to have some sort of round numbers associated with some of those recommendations i think we can get those um i think you
181know oakpoint is going to have to do some of the testing first to get a solid answer on on you know the building project i think we have you know we can get a ballpark figure i don't think it would take very long to do that i think they already have a round idea of what it might cost to build a building i think they just want to make sure that they aren't missing anything at this point the turf field you know i've seen different numbers about what a turf field is it really depends on the quality that you're getting and i it would be good for david to come and kind of talk about the field use um in general in the turf field since he's been very involved in those conversations um along
182with liza miller who's the chair of the athletic advisory committee would probably be a good both of them would uh be good to have i've heard anywhere from you know one and a half to two million for a quality turf field um to install one that lasts you know dozen to 15 years so um i think that's you know i don't know if that's still accurate um there's also been a lot of improvements in turf fields in terms of the health um there's there were some real concerns a few a number of years ago about um how healthy is a turf field but i i my understanding is and i'm not an expert on turf fields but there's been a lot of work done um on making turf fields healthier in the last five years
183or so and we want to hear from david and eliza on that um a little bit more but i think it's fair to say it's somewhere in the one and a half to two million depending on the quality and you know it really depends every chair feels a little different so 2 million i think would be a pretty probably upper line of a turf field thank you jeff does anyone else have anything they'd like to i mean we can always ask questions at for a future date but while we're all here and the topics on the table does anybody else have anything they'd like to add okay i'm seeing none jeff thank god peter go ahead well just uh following up with margo uh i think margot makes a a pretty good point i i
184would not be adverse to retaining the building committee that we have i mean they put a lot of effort in and i think we'd cause more problems than we solved if so i think once we get a little further down maybe [Music] maybe once oak point goes a little further with the information that at that point we can you know we convene the building committee also uh the faculty will have had a chance to wave in a little bit so i guess to answer jeff's and follow up with margot i i wouldn't oh i can't say that in i don't have any uh i don't have any problem uh of if jeff doesn't on the board of just reconstituting the building committee at some point thank you peter i agree i think that we should
185at least offer those that were interested and that participated and um you know volunteered their time to to join back in and my guess is that there will be some that maybe life has changed quite a bit since last time we met so that they won't be available so hopefully definitely again i agree uh with margo to re-engage the north yarmouth folks too yup that's a great point okay um i don't see anybody else's hand raise or hand waving um jeff do you need anything else from us at this moment no i mean it sounds like um everyone's okay with moving forward i think that this you know one point that we need to get a more information to the finance committee um certainly and obviously the facilities committee is just the cost of oak
186point but not withstanding those costs and just more getting more information to both committees to look at and make sure they're comfortable with it um especially the finance committee you know we would be moving forward with oak point um you know continuing the process and just outlining the activities so there's a lot of work that has to be done between now and june and it also sounds like we would basically reconvene the building committee that was in place ask people if they would like to continue if not that's okay we might need to find different people for roles but generally speaking try to find the you know the building committee that was there and have them come back into the process um and bring them up to speed um with oak point on the new
187concept design um and kind of go from there so a lot of things will be happening you know probably more quickly now uh we'll be having all kinds of things like the staff getting involved so there'll be side things going on you know during the process but just to get back to a i think it was jennifer that said just make sure you keep the board apprised um you know i think if nothing else peter you know between you scott and me we'll just make sure that we've got we've got the board apprised of what's going on and then if we need to have another workshop you know in a month or two and just make sure everyone understands what we are so that you know when we get to june and you have to
188make a final decision you've got all the information that you need tonight's was just chew on all the stuff i gave you it wasn't it's just throwing it out and you know i think a lot of it does come down to you know money and how much can we afford to do and as we get price tags on these things i think it'll be easier to kind of say well that makes sense let's look at that again or that one's out that's not going to happen just you know just share cost of things too and putting it all together okay all right well thank you jeff thank you everybody for participating um i know it's been a long few hours so um if no one else has anything else um in regards to our workshop
189i will seek a motion to adjourn our meeting so moved thank you peter thank you kate and i will roll call one last time uh peter bingham yes kevin desmond yes margo harrington yes and maximovich yes ty mcginley yes kate perrin yes mike simmons yes jennifer stewart yes mike williams yes uh elias leggett barr yes and madison dalton we may have lost her i think yeah i'm sorry elias and madison that you have a red day tomorrow i don't know who that superintendent did that but maybe next time will be a real snow day we'll see what we say in the army what we say in the army about that is a personal problem it was tough to send it out during the meeting but it's tough to send it out during the meeting but
190i know but i had to get it out i wanted to get it out tonight because the yarmouth family beat me no they didn't beat you they hadn't called it yet so we hadn't oh they checked me and told me they were okay nope not yet so you did it first so okay thank you