001the school board meeting of March 4th. Let's pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Welcome and announcements from the board chair. I just have a welcome, no announcements. And then next. >> Okay. So, we're going to have the yellow tulip project presentation. >> So, I'm going to take that. There was a miscommunication with dates. My fault. So, the yellow tulip team students are going to come to next month's meeting, but we thought that if we showcase the video tonight that then it would give them more time to talk and answer questions. So, we still thought it was worthwhile. So, some people in this room who are part of this are
002seeing this for the first time, but I think you'd be really impressed and proud of us. >> Hi, my name is Elizabeth Samborn and I'm the adviser for the yellow tulip project here at Sbury Valley High School. Back in April of 2019, one of my then sixth graders asked me about bringing the yellow tulip project here to school. We thought we might plant a tiny raised bed of tulips for a school hope garden, but we were not sure how much more we'd be able to accomplish. Now nearly seven years later, it's amazing to see how much we've grown as a mighty tulip team in a tiny town in western Maine. Our mission is to build a community with the common goal of smashing the stigmas surrounding mental health and helping anyone who is struggling to
003feel less alone. In order to do this and for young people to be able to access help, we talk about mental health in our schools. The Tula team at Saki Valley High School strives to create a healthy school environment that recognizes the importance of emotional and mental wellness and is built on a foundation of advocacy, education, and awareness. Let's hear what the valley has to say about our community, civic responsibility, and mental health. This will help us understand how young people and adults see these ideas in real life. >> What does civic responsibility mean to you? >> To me, it just means like, you know, there's always something you can do to make your community a better place. And I think that you always should when you have that opportunity. >> Uh we all benefit
004from, you know, different things throughout our community. So civic responsibility to me is being able to give back to our community in different ways. >> What civic responsibility means to me is that people are helping each other like through like small little actions that make like a better difference in our community. >> Is the idea that like people have a responsibility to like help out their fellow their fellow person. um and hopefully make the world a better place or a nice place for us all to live. >> Um what makes you feel connected or included in your community? I think being able to help people in our branding or different organizations in the community like the school, the giving tree, Christmas time, people who just individuals in the community that need help, we can help
005any way we can by >> for us for us through our business. I think I feel like we're fortunate. We're very connected or feel very connected to our community. I've always been on the fire department and uh yeah, so that's that's my connection to the town and uh it's just something that keeps me going and keeps me involved. And again, I feel like something like that is really important, too. >> My community is the school and when you guys are happy and smiling, it makes me happy. Just want to make you guys happy. Uh, I think having someone to talk to, uh, I feel like there's a lot of people on staff that I can like if I have a problem or if I'm having a bad day, I just go to them and I
006present to them and they remind me that like I'm not alone. >> How does feeling connected to others impact your mental health? >> Well, as a therapist, I think human connection is very important and like critical actually to mental health. um when we're isolated and we're stuck with our own thoughts, we generally don't do very well. So for me, it's one of the most important things is having some kind of connection, even if that's just getting out of your house and going to a coffee shop and just being around other people. But genuine connection is even something else I would like push others to strive for as well. It's like having at least one person in your world that you feel like you can turn to and talk to. Um, it definitely impacts my mental
007health in a very good way. As I am a very social person and for my family to feel charged, I need interaction with people. That doesn't mean I don't need time alone, but definitely um having the time to talk to people like at lunch or in the hallways or just little conversation helps me. I feel um better about myself and my mental health. you know, uh, being connected to others is super impactful to my mental health. Um, I work from home, so, you know, there if I go 2, 3, 4 weeks without going into the office and seeing everyone, it's evident to those around me, you know, that it takes a toll and it's impactful. I feel less motivated to do things. Um, just all around sluggish. So every once in a while, my wife
008will force me to go into the office so that way I get reconnected with everybody. >> I think feeling connected to others impacts my mental health cuz it makes me a little bit more relieved in a way because I can connect through similar experiences, different experiences, everything like that. and it can help me understand in a broader like aspect of things to understand how other people are feeling and how I myself am feeling in a way that I didn't understand before. >> Can you think of a time when someone's actions help make your community a healthier healthier or kinder place? >> You know, I see it as a coach. I see it a lot. I've seen a lot of bad programs and I've seen a lot of good programs. And basically what um the sign
009of a good program is when those coaches come together and like rally their team to become a family and become their own little community. Um, I think that when we do a lot of food drives and hygiene baskets and all of that to donations and charity and a lot of shelters, I think that really helps our community, especially in like the aspect of trying to help people who can't get the help and stuff that they need. And it really helps when those small gestures go a long way. When I was younger, um, we kind of live on a weird road, but on our road there's a bunch of houses. So, we walk to people's houses and we put little notes on their doors and some of those notes that we did a couple years ago
010still stand there today, which makes me so happy. And nobody even knew that it was us. So, people were like going around and talking about, "Oh my gosh, people put notes on our doors." And it just made me smile because they didn't know it was us. But yeah, >> when I was 13, my dad had a stroke and it was the first time that I actually felt community. They did fundraisers and had community dinners and they did not get anything in return. And I remember thinking in our time of despair or just it was so uncertain and at 13 I didn't know community. I didn't think community even knew me. >> What gives you hope about your community's future? There are a lot of people especially in this community that care a lot about the
011community and that gives me a lot of hope because they are doing things in the background to try to make things better here. >> I'd say the yellow tulip project because it's informing many people about mental health and keeping them informed. Um seeing some of the freshmen during like football and stuff like a lot of them seem promising not only football just people in general. Um, they seem like good kids. You know, a lot of them don't do anything too bad. You know, they're mostly good. So, I have faith in them to do to do well. You know, I work with I work with students um every year as a coach and seeing their development from freshman, sophomore, all the way up till senior year. Um, from when they're kids to when they turn into
012mostly young men. We haven't had any girls on the team thus far. Um, but you know, seeing the growth in those four years and seeing, you know, the young men that they turn into, especially this year's senior class, I have great hope for our our future in the valley, especially if they stick around and can build upon what they've already started to. People still come together. People still gather and they still help each other. They still talk to one another. And even though sometimes they may not agree with one another, people still appreciate one another. And I think that's important. I think it's good not to lose sight of that. If we lose sight of friendship and love and connectivity and stuff like that, that's when we'll be in trouble. But I don't think that'll
013ever happen. Yeah. So that's what gives me hope is to see young people like yourselves um doing doing programs like this. I think it's important and it's important for the future. >> People are like there for us like all the teachers, the students and all that stuff, they are there for us and whenever we need something, they will try their best to do it and they'll be there for us. That gives me hope. Anytime I see a random act of kindness, it kind of makes me just feel good about people and it makes me hopeful for humanity as a whole. >> Gosh. I mean the fact that we're doing this right now uh the like that um organizations exist like especially in our school right with the civil rights project and the and the children
014project um that students are taking initiative to try and make the world a better place or to do something positive in their community. You guys congratulate and smile. >> 99.5. We looked at at this community years ago, decades ago, this was a booming place of business, socializing like it was a was a popular destination for people. And in recent decades, that's kind of that's kind of lost its traction. But there's a beautiful community here and hopefully with what what we're trying to do for ourselves, I mean to sound selfish, I'm sure, but uh is to bring that space and and try to build this community back up trying. >> Thank you to everyone who contributed and shared their thoughts. These ideas will help us learn how caring for ourselves and others will make our community
015stronger. I thought the students did such an incredible job. I connected with Miss Ray's eyes. It makes me tear up. So, I'm very proud of them. So, great job. Still in the team. So, I'm excited for you to get to actually talk to the students next week. So, or excuse me, on April 1. >> Thank you. That was great. Hearing of delegations. Okay. Consideration to approve the minutes for February 4th board of directors meeting. >> Second. >> Judy D. >> All those in favor? Consideration to approve the proposed agenda for March 4th, 2026 board of directors meeting. >> Don Judy. >> All those in favor? >> Okay. Next, we have Josie and Finley with the student report. >> Good evening. As February comes to a successful close, we would like to report on these noteworthy
016achievements. The middle school held their annual kids teaching kids day on the 27th. >> Congratulations to Trevan Mason and Annabelle Emory who won medals at the Special Olympics. Trevan won gold in both the giant slal slalom and super jeep races and Annabelle won bronze and silver medals. Guest speaker Nicole Treble hosted a resume workshop last Thursday for students to practice their knowledge of what interviewers are looking for in both a resume and a person. She guided students through the intricacies and basic principles of resume building. Girls basketball was awarded the class C good sportsmanship award. The main principles association awards the banners to one team in each region based on how players and coaches treat their opponents, officials, and teammates. Let's go Hawks. Looking forward, tomorrow the junior class will be traveling to Quebec City
017where they will be touring cathedrals and parliament and participate in the local culture. The SVES Barn Dance will be held on Friday the 20th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Finally, Hades Town, a musical about a lovesick musician who must travel to the underworld to win back his wife from the God of the Dead, will be showing 700 p.m. Friday the 27th, 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Saturday the 28th, and 2:00 p.m. Sunday the 29th. We encourage you all to attend. All righty. Thank you, ladies. Okay. Business and finance reports. >> So, I'll take that one. Uh, similar to most months, our state subsidy has been received and recorded. The town revenues are all in and revenues continue to exceed expenses with expenses in mind. Food service expenses as always at the start of the
018year continue to exceed revenues. Very common uh at this point. We expect to catch up and adult dead revenues exceed expenses with the expenses in line. One big piece of news is the auditors did come and uh conducted a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation, gave huge kudos to Peggy McKenzie and Paul Loud and our team. Uh it was a very successful audit. They thought we're in a very good financial position. Uh that finance team here deserves a ton of credit. So they really did a good job. Shout out to Peg Peggy and her team. Audit was very positive for SAD55. >> Okay. Thank you. The next meeting will be March 11th at 5:00 p.m. Facilities report. >> I'll take that one as well. That one was uh a little bit flattered. Some of the same things
019that we've been discussing. Uh talked to this board. PreK modular. Uh in terms of CDS programming for uh children that need support in our schools. We met with the DO team, I think on Monday, Miss Day. Uh we're supposed to hear back about potential state funding for a prek module for that program. I have no news to report, but we discussed that uh with construction. Additional donation for the wait room. I've already announced uh Mr. Fields donated another $50,000 to complete it. Sue, Johnny, and I met to go over all the specifics. I think we'll get it done for the amount and I think it'll be a beautiful facility. Uh and the last one, uh ice rink potential improvements at our elementary school. I'm going to save for my own superintendent report later on. >>
020Okay. Thank you. Next meeting March 11th following findings curriculum report. Um we met on February 11th and we were joined um by Mr. Hughes the elementary principal and Jamie Martin the dean of students. Um and they had a really great presentation um where they highlighted um each grade level um prek um they shared their use of the prek for me curriculum and and showed some videos of student learning. It was really really nice to see the kids engaging in learning about wind and and perseverance. It was very cute. Um and they were very engaged. Um and then kindergarten um the kindergarten team shared about their enjoyment of the inter reading program and one of the new resources that they have this year called sounds of success that help with phmic awareness and um I think
021has been um a great addition to their curriculum. Uh first grade shared about their character strong lessons as well as the interreading structured literacy lessons um and the new sounds of success program. uh second grade teachers shared their about their um use of small groupoup instruction with literacy and math um and how they are um utilizing the espark program um based on student achievement from the NWA. Third grade teachers shared about their use of um a program called mystery writing um to engage students in their ability to write. Um and they're doing small groupoup lessons also with literacy and math. Um and then each of the uh um unified arts were also highlighted in their presentation about um music is using a lot of technology and recorders. I don't know if you guys remember using
022recorders when you're in school. It was a lot of fun. um physical education was trying to get outside as much as possible and art students were learning about developing craft and um they are focusing on um what they call tab teaching for artistic behaviors. Uh in STEM they are also using mystery science um to bring in some science experiments and hands-on science activities. Uh library was focused on fairy tales right now um introducing Barry Hales and they read them and um really learn about the elements. Um and then um Mr. Hughes and and Miss Martin talked about their administrator roles and some of the typical activities that they are um dealing with on a daily basis, reviewing behavior and academic data, meeting with grade levels, um talking about tier 2 instruction, um visiting their visiting
023classrooms daily, supporting staff throughout the day. um and talked a little bit about their um their new position this year, the elementary interventionist, who's providing motor breaks for individual students and small groups, as well as teaching some of those character strong lessons that are really necessary to help kids with calm bodies and being kind and all those really important aspects of um their character traits. Um so um and then um Mr. Hughes ended talking about some of the academic growth. Um uh in math the fall percentile was uh 43% and in the winter it's 49%. So they've made some growth. Um and in the reading their fall medium percentile was 43% and in the winter it's 48%. So um but they will be sharing more of that to come. Thank you. Thank you. And your
024next meeting is April 8th. >> Yes. 4 p.m. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Uh the Wellness Committee had no meeting and their next meeting is scheduled for May 18th at 1:15 p.m. Lake Region Vocational Advisory Committee. >> I think Mr. Wolf has uh provided notes just quick highlights. They reviewed the enrollment focused on early childhood occupations. I thought interesting to note students who complete two years of ECO early childhood occupations return 15 college credits which will be accepted throughout Union and main community college systems. Uh so tour of the program, talk about how they embed the credits, field trips to Thomas Moer furniture, culinary art programs to Orchard Pies, some of great work that Walt Ridley does over there, and some upcoming dates of Skills USA in March uh in an advisory board meeting the 27th
025of March at 9:00 a.m. Legion. >> Thank you. Adult Education Advisory Committee had no meeting and their next meeting is May 26. >> Sorry, I just have to No, no, you didn't. You didn't. >> But um last school board meeting, we had spoken about the books that the adult ed were putting together. And so Jenny texted me um last week and said that they were done and if I could come pick some of them up and just kind of them out. Um, so I grabbed 20 of them knowing that there were like 15 schoolboard people here. So, whoever wants one, just go ahead and grab one. They're free. They're very rough copy. Um, you know, not some pages are not done right and the page numbers are cut off and it's just a super rough
026copy. But again, it's they're totally free and just take one and enjoy it. Um, and the rest of them I'll just leave them out there on the on you know when you come in. >> Thank you. >> And your and your next meeting is May 26 at 3 p.m. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Policy committee. The committee decided the following policies are ready for a first read at the next board meeting in March. EVBD temperature standards in schools. ACAC service animals in school. IHBAI special education independent educational evaluations. JIH questioning and searching uh searches of students. JIH-R questioning and searches of students administrative procedures. U we postpone dealing with JIC the cell phone policy as the governor has has a proposed cell phone ban awaiting legislative approval. >> Thank you. And the next meeting is March
02711th. >> Thank you. Okay. Action items. Consideration to approve the following policies as a first read. EB B D standards in schools. We'll do these one at a time. >> We can do a whole group. Whole group. >> Okay. I am GA service animals in schools. I HBA AI special education independent educational evaluations. JIH questioning and searching of students. JIH-R questioning and searches of student administrative procedures. So, who would like to make a motion to consider these for the first read? >> Judy. >> Second, >> Don. >> All in favor. Thank you. And now we're moving on to the superintendent report. >> Okay. Uh, so one housekeeping item, Samantha Willie, varsity softball coach. Congratulations to Samantha. I received a few emails from the board. No, it's not possible to not accept a retirement. We do
028have to accept a retirement. Uh just >> Joel says to say no. >> Yeah, I've I've heard that a lot. And uh special shout out to Mike, who's been here a long time, worked closely with Mike. He's been a sort of a mentor to me with all of his experience and I know he works closely with Sue and our whole team. And really big loss for our school district. And just shout out congratulations to Mike and best wishes on his retirement. It's really uh you see Sue, it's really sad for all of us. Mike Mike's been a big part of our team for a long time and uh just thank you to Mike for your multiple years of service over 30 years and many as an administrator. So thanks Mike Lane. He will be retiring
029at the end of the school year. >> GOOD FOR uh so that all right so let me read something else. So, this is I I guess good news. Um, Nola Boomer, who I believe is a Fryberg resident, uh, through her friend Eric Wilson, Eric came and met with Sue and I a week or two ago. Uh, and Eric on behalf of Nola or through Nola, dropped off a check in the amount of $15,000 uh, in support of the Sen Valley Elementary School ice rink in honor of Jim Trip, who you may remember passed away at the ice rink. um been talking to the construction committee a little bit about this. I think our thinking with this $15,000 uh is to maybe trench a water line to make flooding it easier. I don't know the first
030thing about an ice rink, but right now they do it with a garden hose. And it seems to me that might take a long time to get that surface area flooded with a garden hose. So maybe to expedite the process as step one and we'll see where it goes as donations come in. Uh but certainly a big shout out to Nola. $15,000 is not insignificant money. Uh I will follow up next week with construction, make specific plans. I think we'll chase prices for the water lines and quotes and make sure construction approves the project. But once again, thank you to Nola for her generous donation. So there is Nola and the water line. Just a quick note for the board before I do a audio visual demonstration that will uh the highest tech one you'll
031ever see. But before that >> Oh, it's going to be unbelievable. Yeah, >> it's my last crayon. >> This is going to be unbelievable. >> You will get from Becky Connors, I believe, our school calendar draft for next year for you to approve at our state of the schools presentation. We take all the suspense out of it. You'll get it Friday to peruse before our meeting on the 11th of March. It's basically the same calendar we've run for the last gwiz, I don't know, 13 years or so. We did set graduation next year for Sunday at 4 PM and maybe that will be our new go uh forever more but opening workshop in the Monday in August and actually the Tuesday is now in September because this happens really late. You'll see it but no
032significant changes to our calendar but you'll get a draft on Friday. We'll approve on the 11th. So now for the excitement here is the audiovisisual equipment right here. >> So this is super exciting. I usually do it with like this. So here's how it goes. So then this is for folks watching. We have a school budget. We have expenses. We'll call our expenses the blue. So this year our expenses are $17.5 million. We have to pay for those expenses. We're a school district so it's got to be one to one. Our revenues this year 25 26 or $17.5 million. So I put expenses out front. Every year we have pressure on our expenses. So I'm talking about next year. By the way, specific presentation right in this room. most excitement you'll have. March 18th, uh
033we'll go over literally line by line in specific detail, but this is general overview for our school board. Every year there's pressure on our expenses. The bulk of our budget, just like every school district in Maine, is salary and benefits. This year, that blue line is up $800,000 to the tune of salary and benefits university across our district. About $800,000 of upward pressure on expenses for 2627. And let me just say for anyone watching, super welld deserved. I think everybody wishes we could do even more, but you'll see how $800,000 affects our bottom line as I keep speaking. So, that's the pressure. There's some special ed pressure. Uh we're going to continue to meet over the next week or two to refine these numbers perfectly for our board on the 18th. uh special education the
034tune of 50,000 and transportation our contract with Edgemeir's another 40-ish thousand almost $900,000 of upward pressure between those things plus a little additional things we're somewhere up over $900,000 in upward pressure to the expense side which amounts to a 10.5% increase to the local taxpayer don't turn off the tutu don't stop watching I'm not saying we're going up 10 and a half% I'm telling you there's 10 and a half% of upward pressure on our expense side. Typically what happens we get uh we have been fortunate to receive additional state subsidy. This orange line of revenue is paid for in two parts primarily state funding and local taxpayer. There's some other things i.e. state agency client billing. We use some fund balance. Sometimes we get revenue from other districts, but the bulk of this orange is
035two parts. State funding and local funding, taxpayer dollars. Historically, what's happened, we get a couple $300,000 from the state. We get a couple 300,000 from our locals and we either try and find revenue or reduce expense or fund balance this small gap. That's our typical year-over-year for the past ge. This year we lost 270,000 approximately of state funding. So this line instead of starting out helping us has hurt us. The mouth this year is 13 to 14% apart. That is a problem, right? I mean everybody in this room is aware of that. So that's how we got here. So I guess what I'm saying is we've been doing historical 3%. It could be a little bit more than 3% because 3% basically takes us to level. So if we want the local taxpayers to eat
036into this, we'll work on this side and try and do what we can to reduce expense. We're going to try and chase some other revenues through special ed billing to try and get this orange marker to go up, but we might be getting closer to 4% this year. And I understand it's a balance of maintaining fiscal responsibility while providing the best education we can provide. But this year of 3% basically it actually takes 3.11 uh to get us to level. That's not great. Usually we get a kick and now then we're still 10 behind by making local taxes go up three and a so it might be closer to four. I don't know exactly. And it we understand the taxpayers have constraints. Our board's been clear on that. We understand our kids have needs and
037this blue line is important. That's the 30,000 foot view of where we're at right now. We will crunch every number. Credit to every administrator who's met with us. Credit credit to uh Sue, Peggy, Becky inputting, entering. We're in a good spot. We have to do some refinement to to bring it to the finish line for you folks, but that's the story budgetarily. We'll get the full deal detail on the 18th. It'll officially be approved on April 1st. Uh, but it's been one of the more challenging years that we've had. That's the budgetary story. And I thought I would get super kudos >> for these. Is that >> That's pretty hightech, Alison. Yeah. >> I was going to get blue and white, but you might not have seen the what, you know, for sock that I
038had to get a different revenue. Anyway, is that is that clear? I just want folks to understand the story. I mean, everybody wants to make it be this super confusing 279, you carry the one. It's that simple. You have revenue and expense. These are getting driven out. There's pressure on the blue line, higher needs, and the yellow orange line kicked down. The one hope I'll tell you, which isn't for this year. Sue sent me a 37 page document or whatever, and it said C page 37, there is which was not lovely. Thank you, Mr. D. Uh there's conversation about at the state level, you may have seen this, and I think it's happening on Monday in Augusta about changing the funding formula. Yes. And what would the impact of Soccer be? In one simulation, and
039I'm paraphrasing, it's not in front of me, but in one simulation, it was like $700,000 gain to Sak Valley. And in the other simulation, it was like a $800 something thousand gain. So, if that were true this year instead of that, the state funding would almost completely gap to our blue line. There'd be minimum impact on our taxpayers, and that's probably what we should be getting. It's hard to explain how some affluent coastal districts get more funding than we get. I can't quite. And so I admit to being ignorant on who gets what and how, but there seems to be some inequity and I think Monday's meeting is trying to fix it. There is hope for next year. We'll have to get through this year with the blue and the orange. Uh and we'll come
040up with a presentation for that's not my job. >> So I believe we all should have gotten an email from MSBA regarding Monday's meeting because Terrific. I hope so. Good. um that we are all invited to um testify um in in response to this LD2226. >> Terrific. Um, I obviously >> I'm working, but I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I mean it behooves us to be a part of this and let the state know um what this really does to our schools and our communities when there is >> Hold up your markers. Hold them up. >> Catastrophic >> when that when something like that happens. >> Literally catastrophic. >> I um it's too late for me to ask for that day off. I have to give a certain amount. Um I don't
041know if anyone else can or is interested, but I think these are some of the things that as school boards we need to be a part of to help those funding um decisions change at a higher level than us because that I don't believe that this is going to be the only year that this happens. Like this is going to continue to be a problem. >> And to be honest, I'm sorry. Last year the pen was flat. wasn't down, but it did. There was no help with the orange last year. >> It's getting worse. So, um I just would like to put a >> plug in if anybody can be a part of that. You should have gotten an email um on our district um from MSBA um inviting all schoolboard members to be a
042part of that. >> Thank you, Miss Ray. >> That's what I have. Amy? >> No, that's it. Okay. So, we're going into uh consideration to enter into executive session to consider expulsion of student pursuant to 1MA section 4056A. >> Is that done? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> All in favor?