RSU73 School Board Meeting 05/22/25

001Laura, are we all set with attendance? Adjustments to the agenda? None. Okay. I would entertain an a motion for approval of the board minutes from May 8th, 2025. Don Do I have a second? Holly. All those in favor, please say I. All those opposed. Anybody abstaining? Okay. Motion passes. Alan Svenas of Maine Parents Rights and Education. Welcome Alan testing. I uh I definitely appreciate uh the invite tonight opportunity to present uh to the school board. Um the it has about 20 slides, but a lot of them are quick. Um so it's not going to be long and drawn out. Um so I just want to keep in mind that this parents rights are for all parents, all families, and all students. And those are the lenses that we want everyone to accept this presentation. Um

002and everything inside of it. I'm going to fix this real quick. Uh, good evening, Chairwoman Olette, RSU73 school board members, and Superintendent Albert. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of families in your district tonight. And we're here to urge you to prioritize clarity, safety, and outcomes for all families by grounding your leadership in the fundamental rights of parents. Uh this begins with enforcing Title N, Title N to protect the innocence, the essence of fairness and safety in girls sports and spaces. My name is Alan Sarvinus. I'm the state director for Parents Rights and Education Maine. We're a 501c3 nonprofits fully volunteer. Uh we're a nonpartisan grassroots advocacy group uh that holds local initiatives for parents to enforce and uphold their inherent and fundamental rights. We believe families, not the government, are the

003primary stakeholders in their child's education. I'm joined tonight by two of my partners. Uh we call them prearents rights education leaders. Uh 18-year educator Rebecca Brooks and sixtime deployed Army veteran Craig Caffrey. Mr. Caffrey is a main girl dad and he has stood with me side by side for six years as we've advocated for parents rights in education. He is here in a support role and cana engage with any parents or stakeholders this evening. Mrs. Brooks is here to deliver a critical but sometimes hard to understand concept later in the presentation. I humbly thank them for their time and talent and it must be understood that we are parents rights and education together. Our advocacy is based on action. Uh we engage parents and stakeholders in person and equip them with basic and then professional

004training. This p platform is easily navigated through trainange.com. Our mission is to implement local advocacy programs and to produce meaningful changes. This direct person-toperson contact has allowed us to flourish in the state of Maine. As we can see by our uh prescore map, we do not prioritize internet or social platforms. We pri prioritize people. We prioritize action. And that's how you produce meaningful change. Excuse me. The strongest driver for academic success is the educational environment within the home. Any district decision decision that disrupts the home automatically hinders and harms academic outcomes. We need school boards to govern with parental lenses, parental rights lenses. For example, for example, earlier I said we were going to urge you to prioritize transparency, safety, and outcomes for all families. What do I mean exactly? Transparency. Without transparency, there's no

005parental engagement engagement. Without engagement, the educational environment within the home declines. For example, new math. When new math was launched, how many pe raise your hand is when new math was launched, you understood what new math was? So, okay. How many knows how many how many know how to do new math today? Okay. How many can do new math on who can how many can do math or new math on a computer? So the decision to reimagine math severed educational environment in the home because parents had no idea how to teach their kids math anymore. So the kids couldn't go home and get help from their parents. Today student outcomes in math have declined. If school boards use parental right lenses and accept it is the number one driver of academic success. negative outcomes would

006be much lower than they are today. Safety, I will go right to behavior. Uh my wife is a teacher and I hear it all the time. Every kid has a right to a free and uninterrupted education. Parents have a duty to protect their child. We know this because if you do not protect them, CPS comes knocking at your door, knocking at your door. So parental lenses means a parents must trust the district and maintaining a secure and orderly environment so their kids learning is not interrupted. The educational environment in the home is harmed if they're always concerned about behavior. We need school boards to address title six like title nine and apply lenses of parental rights. Finally, outcomes. Parents continue to see themselves baseline assessments of main education decline. They have no idea what nuas

007are. I have not come across parents in six years who know what nias are. Why would they engage with something they do not know or understand? But instead of tests like Nia, we urge you to find and qualify real world outcomes to measure. That means what do I mean by real world outcomes? So right now EMS and law enforcement are waving competency tests to hire new and young employees. That means those who's coming to save our lives when the in a fire or our loved ones heart attack, we actually don't know if they can learn the life-saving skills and techniques. Companies are bleeding overhead because they have to train new hires on basic high school level skills. Parents want their kids to prosper. Parents will engage in a system producing prosper prosperous outcomes. Uh so

008tonight we're here to walk through three three questions. What are parents rights? How are they impacted by title N? What's our path forward? Path to use parental rights lenses. We have to understand and fully comprehend what parents rights are. Are they absolute rights? Are they fundamental rights? Or are they ordinary to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? We have an absolute right to life. We have an absolute right to breathe. The government can't tell us we can stop breathing. So it's fundamental or ordinary. But the good thing is is we don't have to decide for ourselves or make it up or go off of what we believe. The Supreme Court of the United States and the main Supreme Court have done a hell of a job the last 200 years defining that parents rights

009are fundamental. Federal courts have said they've established beyond debate that parents rights are fundamental to direct parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing education and care of their child. A child's rights are coupled with their parents rights. If it affects the child, then the parents have a right to know and they have a duty to guide and protect that child. This is not just a moral principle. It's federal and state law. In state law, it's the longest court recognized fundamental right in our nation's 250 years. from Yodar to 25 years later to Troxel to 25 years later to right here at the main Supreme Court case last year called Bari. They mandated again that parents rights are fundamental to our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When schools undermine this right by

010withholding information, bypassing consent, or using a critical pedigogy instead of traditional, they sever trust and harm the educational environment within the home. And recently, just to make it clear, the new administration's Department of Education has filed a lawsuit claiming Maine Department of Education has violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, alleging that Maine schools are withholding information from parents. They issued a dear colleague letter from the Secretary of Education. And basically a dear colleague letter is just an order from your boss. So slide 10, I wanted to include a policy example that's pretty pretty straightforward. Um, but it is dependent on if we're using parental rights lenses or just reading the words in front of us. When a policy says we prioritize students, I've heard countless board members across the state use that phrase,

011which is a good thing, right? school board directors, you want to prioritize students. Well, what stu, as we know, students rights and what they want and what is good for them is determined by and with their parents. So, when you say or I say I prioritize students, that's great as long as you are saying I prioritize students and their famil family's beliefs and their desired outcomes of their education. How uh section two, how does how does Title N impact parental rights? Uh so in the last uh decade now or probably a little more, Title 9 has been a yo-yo of sorts. Uh and recently in federal court have ruled the 2020 revisions unconstitutional or 2024 revisions unconstitutional. So, we urge the board to have all their applicable policies only mirror the current 2020 Title 9

012provisions. Title 9 was created in 1972 with a guarantee for equal opportunities for girls in education, sports, and privacy. None of these revisions throughout the year created confusion. Everybody was pretty unified on what Title N was for. This is the best example of prioritizing outcomes over ideology because in order to achieve equality, we had to separate. Yet to yet today, those immensely positive outcomes from Title N are being eroded not by students but by ideological and personal interpretations that deny biological realities. It threatens the safety and fairness that Title 9 has guaranteed for decades. It's about equal access, equal safety, and equal dignity. The 2024 revisions basically attempted to apply the main Human Rights Act or the Pennsylvania Human's Rights Act to the entire country. It gave schools expanded authority to discipline students when they

013were off campus and outside of school hours. It attacked parents rights by trying to remove the fundamental right to know. right to know. The latter is only attempted when totally dismissing parents rights as a fundamental right. That is why a federal court ruled it was vague and capriccious, basically unpredictable, which we view your current policy AC. It creates a damning chilling effect on compelled students which is more harmful than the actual consequences. If the 2024 language is unconstitutional, that it is unconstitutional for RSU73. The chilling effect was a major component to why the 2024 Title 9 provisions were ruled unconstitutional. But it is very hard to grasp because we can't feel it, touch it, or see it. Uh so tonight I invited uh for a few minutes uh parents rights and education leader and educator

014Rebecca Brooks who's going to speak to you a few minutes about her experience in with the chilling effect inside public schools. Hello good evening everyone. Thank you again on behalf of pre for inviting us here this evening. Okay, thank you. Sorry that gave me a second to get this ready. Um yes, so as Alan said, my name is Rebecca Brooks. I was um an educator in SAD75 for 18 years. Um upon the adoption of particular policy um that SAD75 passed in November of 2023, I was forced with a really difficult decision to leave that community, a community that I had grown to love. Um students that I had seen grow from kindergarten all the way up through fifth grade and into their middle school years. um as I served as a substitute for that district

015as well. Um the particular policy that they passed was ACA and that was a transgender gender ideology pronoun usage policy that as a employee I would have been forced to use language that I was not comfortable with that I felt was going against everything that I believed. Um, I began feeling what is called the chilling effect. When the chilling effect happens, an individual is afraid to speak their mind. They have a fear of reprisal. They have a fear of judgment. They have a fear of losing their job. They have a fear of the friendships and the community involvement that they have worked so hard for um is now at risk. And so I had to make a very difficult decision and I resigned from SAD75. I didn't realize that that chilling effect would happen to

016our young girls so soon. Um, I've for now a little over a year watched as so many young athletes, young girls are essentially being forced to stay quiet, picture tape over their mouths. They are afraid to speak up. They are afraid to walk off the field. They are afraid to tell their coach. They are afraid to confront friends and colleagues and teachers because they do not want to be labeled a transphobic person. They don't want to be labeled a bigot. They don't want that attention. They simply want to play. Unfortunately, in our world today, we find ourselves surrounded by politicians and activist groups that are willing to not only steal the opportunities to wait from our young girls, but they are also willing to put them in jeopardy day in and day out when they

017are forced on the field or on the track or in any other way, shape, or form in their locker rooms. Picture yourself, whether you are a father or a mother, and your daughter goes out to that field thinking that she's going to be playing with other females and then that ends up not being the case. Put it in a different lens. How is she feeling when she goes to the locker room to change? And I know the other side tends to feel that this should be okay. Do they have daughters that are okay with that? Would they themselves be okay if they went to the YMCA and stripped down to get into the shower and were confronted with an impossible situation? How do you justify that? So tonight, I want you to take a moment

018and think about how you would feel if you could not speak your mind. If you had something you wanted to simply say, a discussion you simply wanted to have, and you were afraid that you would get a phone call from friends, I can't believe you said this. we can't be friends anymore. Or you, a shop owner, all of a sudden discovered people weren't coming to your store anymore. They weren't purchasing things from you anymore because you spoke your mind. That's the chilling effect. That is why so many young girls today are not speaking up. They're afraid. They need us to back them up. They need our support now more than ever. I have this little analogy that I'd like to use when I'm standing in front of the board. Interestingly enough, not so much this

019one, more like one at home. I feel like I'm standing in the lion's den. I'm the lamb and I'm in the lion's den. I had others behind me supporting me. Our girls need lions now. They are the lambs and we need to start roaring for them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. Um, so I didn't change the slide when she was up here because she was on a roll, but um, this is the chilling effect and as I said, it was one of the three really one of the two major reasons why the 2024 revisions, title N revisions were ruled unconstitutional and the chilling effect has a major impact in all schools. And I just want to say that there is a difference between mandating something and mandating others do something than and allowing

020it just to exist. No one's fighting anything to exist. We're asking you to not to mandate certain things that create a chilling effect and violate parents fundamental rights. But now for the best part. Um, our solution right now, our solution is ini is enforcing is urging you to enforce title 9, which is legally sound and it shows that we care about all students. We started a petition here in RSU73 and we've received overwhelming support and will continue to expand it going forward. Why enforce Title 9 as it's intended? Protect girl sports and spaces. It protects parents due process. It protects freedom of speech and expression. And it protects sincerely held beliefs. as we predicted starting petition being so uh popular with overwhelming support. There's been recent polling done in Maine by a couple organizations. Uh

021this first one is more to get across the point of a parents um parents right to know is an absolute majority if not more not only in the state of Maine but across the country. And it's not that they impose out just outright oppose medical care for students, which would be kind of silly to say out loud, right? It's the fact that they're scared that they won't get a right to know. It's this they're scared that they won't learn something about their child. And why are they scared? Is because again, as a parent, it's our duty to protect our child. And if you don't know something, then you know something that you can't protect. The American Parents Coalition in the beginning of March did even a larger polling. Um, and this is what their their

022results were. 69% of Maine parents, children under 18 believe sports participation should be grounded in sex. 72% of Maine schoolers believe schools should be required to notify parents before counseling a student about their gender identity. As board directors, your duty is to protect all students, which is inh inherently includes their parents' wishes. We ask you to believe and imply local control, embrace it, and not allow ideological theories to trump how we care about our girls, their sports, and spaces. We must provide them with a fair and opportune environment. We urge you to adopt the main education initiative resolution to enforce title 9 based on sex aligned with current federal federal regulations and statutes. Clarify local policies that conflict with this definition and restore parental trust by declaring we see you, we hear you, and we

023will protect your inherent and fundamental parental rights. The best way to unify the district around this issue is to respect the natural rights of parents in applying federal protections of Title 9. And let RSU 73 join MSAD70 as a leader with true belief in local control by passing the main education initiative regarding Title 9. And that's all I have. I appreciate Thank you very much. Thank you, Alan. Do any board members have any questions for Alan? All right. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Uh question about that petition. Is that you said it's already been circulated in the the district? Yes, it's been started. Do we have a copy of that? Because I don't think I've seen it. No, we're not planning on turning it. We still plan on circulating it. Is it available for

024the school board members to see? Yes. The title N resolution. I have a copy of it. The resolution. Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Oh, yes. Sorry, I mentioned like the actual petitions. Oh, no. Just a I couldn't read it. It was too small. Yes. And I send copies to chairwoman chairwoman Olette to that she can distribute. Any other questions for Alan? Hi. Um, I had a question on um how your organization specifically gains the interest of parents um involvement in their students education when they're typically removed from their students education. I I want to rephrase your question or sorry typically. So your goal is to get parents to be more um to interact more with their students education. Correct? Yes. Okay. So my question for you would be how does your organization accomplish that with

025the parents that typically don't show the interest in their students education? Uh uh good question. I appre thank you very much for asking it. So in SAD75 we approached the social studies department head and talked to him about having veterans back in school and we found that a large group of parents that weren't typically engaged uh were very interested in veterans coming back in school. Uh Greg right here, Mr. Caffrey Caffrey headed up the uh agreement with the social studies department head and the middle school ended up having uh VFW and Legion members back in for an assembly and the parents and and those who attended I promise you did not you normally attend uh school functions. Thank you. Yep. Anybody else? Thank you, Alan. Thank you, DJ. Yeah. All right. It's a little off.

026Good evening. Um, bear with me. I'm still getting over pneumonia. Um, so if I start to have a coughing fit, I may it'll be loud, so just be prepared. Um today I was asked to discuss what Spruce Mountain High School does with our Phoenix Time. Um going to go through our Phoenix Time uh currently. It has evolved over the years because of different needs within the school. So and and you can stop me at any time just to ask me questions or whatnot. Um the mission here for Spruce Martin High School is to foster accountability and independence for our students. Our students are to take um their their learning uh and opportunities uh to be a a good student. uh promote responsibility and respect um our environment and we always want to encourage our students

027to maintain respect, empathy, compassion um especially with our community. We just had a community service day yesterday went really well. That was part of our Phoenix time stuff that we do support comprehensive well-being focus on the holistic health of a student uh including emotional, mental, and physical well-beings. We have games and activities that we do with our students to encourage school spirit. Um we have times uh what we call club times and I'll get into that a little bit uh with you. Um it's a time for our students to have clubs throughout the the week on specific days. Provide continuous academic support at any time this year especially. Um we dedicated the the majority of our time to actually uh spending with their uh their teachers in the content areas throughout the week. And this

028is the core components of what we have for our Phoenix time at Sprucebond High School. And and it is it's all scattered. However, once the kids get used to the schedule, um it's pretty easy to follow. Tuesdays and Fridays are the opportunities to meet with their teachers and for targeted supports for their academic areas. Mondays and Thursdays uh structured advisory time where students stay in Phoenix time and they uh accept an extenduating circumstances uh where they may have to go and meet with a a teacher for some missed time during the day during the week prior. Uh we do focus on the new and state assessments on on Mondays. Um we do skill building. Uh we do activities around math and reading um for our students. The skill building that we do on Monday is

029really um a focus on the uh new uh Tuesday meetings uh is also another piece of that. All students remain in Phoenix time advisory um for Mondays and we prepare for the Tuesday that's coming which is uh class meetings and group discussions um as needed. So quite often our uh advisors will try to pull together our students to get ready for homecoming weeks um Phoenix weeks those types of things to get students uh engaged and involved in their school spirit. Wednesdays. Uh uh there is no uh Phoenix time because we have late arrivals on that day. We just don't have the time. Again, our our actual timing of this is a 40 minute window. Um and we don't do it at the beginning of school because we have kids that uh may not be in

030in the morning and they show up in the afternoon or whatnot. And we have foster tech students on specific other days. So, we try to try to keep it um in the middle of the day, right before lunch, and that has evolved over the years. Also, on Thursdays, it's always going to be our grade checks with our our adviserss, with our students. Um I do it quite often on club days because I I do a bunch of uh study hall type things for our students um in the cafeteria and we go through academics and looking at their power school grades and seeing what they can make up. Um that has never changed. That's stuff that we've always done uh here at Spruce Mountain High School. Um the Fridays students meet with with teachers who requested

031them. So on Fridays is a big day for our students that that either have missed a a an assignment or they missed a quiz or a test. Those students during that time, we send them to those teachers that are requesting them. So So and and that's changed over the years, too. just so you guys can get that understanding of it. Um students quite often in our community um especially at the high school have a job to go do right after school. They have um family to take care of, siblings they have to uh babysit. So it's very difficult for a lot of our students to spend time after school with our teachers. So we've created this time during the school day on Fridays where they can make those things up. And it has, I'm going

032to tell you, this year alone has improved our scores uh quite extensively. And at the end of the school year, I will share with you um the failure rates and that type of stuff on a on a on a percentage rate. So you'll see from year to year and I'll give you last year's year before so that you can understand how much this has helped us this year. Uh Mondays the goals uh address academic needs part uh particularly in reading math based um in new scores. I was kind of talking about that a little bit earlier. We do uh schoolwide activities that that our kids can be involved in and if they win if they get it correct, they get it put in a box and and during our advisor uh excuse me, as a

033our school awards ceremony, we give certain prizes out to our students. Um I think that's been going on since you were doing it. Yeah. Um action items. Teachers submit this. This is things that our teachers need to do. uh teachers submit a list of students to meet with on Tuesday by 10:20. So they they already know that they're meeting with them, right? So those things that the students get an email, they respond to the email. We're also teaching all those soft skills um on how to write an email, um how to make a an email not sound so uh discombobulated at times because kids, they put their they texting all the time. So when you put in an email, there's no periods like they so we have to teach them how to do that. And

034these are things that we need to learn, right? Um students remain Phoenix time unless uh approved uh to leave by the teacher. Um again, I won't reiterate the outcomes there. Tuesday academic time his goal set uh the goal students engage in uh focused academic work with their teacher or participate in a group meeting. So that's when our students will go with um um Olympia leaders uh women's leader group will meet. That's when um our all of our clubs have opportunities to meet during that time. Um and and it's just a great time for our students to meet um with those advisors. So like Environ will meet on that time. Robotics will have some meetings during that time. Student uh uh council and and those types of things all on Tuesdays. Um it it helps out

035with our students to have an organized day for that. Um that was loud. Um Thursday is again another grade check. We do our grade checks with our students and prepare them for Friday for the uh Phoenix time attendance sheet. Um this has been our major focus this year. We didn't do as many clubs as we've used to. Um and we used to do clubs almost every week. Um, and clubs can be, you know, playing four square to get and and you got to remember we we were doing a lot of clubs right after uh um COVID happened because our kids didn't know how to socialize, right? They they had some hard times with that coming back to school. So, we started doing a lot more clubs. Well, this year we took some of that club

036time away. Um this week we're actually doing clubs uh for the end of the school year. Um, and kids are having a blast doing all the activities. Um, you know, physical activities, um, crafts, those types of things, um, baking, uh, kids to have an opportunity to do all those types of things. And I know you remember that, too. Um, it's just a really good time for our students and it encourages our students to be more social with each other and have uh, a positive interaction here at school. Um on Fridays again it is the targeted uh time for our students. Uh the students that do not need that time uh they usually will prot take some time to do some so uh study hall activities for themselves within the advisory provisory. Um it's just continued

037support teacher roles. So submit student names. These are all like activities that our teachers need to do. Inform students about schedule meetings in advance. Um maintaining communication with Phoenix time advisors to ensure students receive the appropriate supports. That has been our major uh major focus benefits of uh Phoenix time. Um this is stuff that I've been noticing this year. um improve students accountability, foster independent learning, um holistic support, uh increase teacher and student engagement. Um you know, our focus every year is to make sure that every student has at least one adult in the school that they can um rely on and and share their successes with. Um that's our focus. um addressing the impact of students academic progress, social emotional development, health and well-being. Um we also have time for our students to meet

038with counselors during that time. Um we have meetings with parents. They do come in during that time uh during our advisory uh time also. So and that's what I have. Thank you TJ. Any questions for TJ? Tina, thank you for that. Thank you for that. Can you hear me? Yep. Oh, good. Thank you for that presentation. Can you remind me, And I know I should know because it's right on the schedule that you handed out. Yeah. What time of day is that held and how long does it last? 10:20 to 10:40. 10:50 10:20 to 10:50. So, when you say that their teachers are putting in a request for a particular student to meet with them, is that for the next day? It is for the next day. Y Thank you. Yeah. Are there are there

039stipens that go along with No stipens? This is all durable. It's all Okay. Yep. Any any other questions for TJ Elaine? My sympathies on having pneumonia. I had it this winter, too, and it kicked me. It was It was nasty. Hope you're better. I'm getting there. Um, I just want to say I support this program. It's It's great. It encourages more relationships, more time kids to either socialize with one another or to find out more of what they have in common because it's so much more important to find out between staff, kids, kids, kids, staff, staff. We have more in common than we disagree. Oh, absolutely. Especially Especially being from the three towns. Exactly. Absolutely. and and that all these activities plus the academic um support that's there for each of these kids. Um it's

040all positive and I want to thank you and I want to thank your staff making it positive. They do a great job. Thank you DJ. Thank you, Chris. Okay, here we go. So, can you shift it this way? So, what is Phoenix time at the middle school? Um, basically right now it's a place built into our daily schedule for our physical activity, uh, team building. We make community connections, social emotional education, and this is where we do a lot of our community circles. Chris, is your mic on? Yeah. Yeah. A little closer. Yeah. Um then I then I can't read. So our um our Phoenix time is based off um Maslo's hierarchy needs and that we believe that that's going to be met before we can uh achieve Bloom's tax omni which is basically the

041way that we learn as individuals. Um, but we also need to have the safety. Um, the safety, the comfort basic. Where did I go? All right. So, in Mazo's hierarchy needs, you need to have your basics, the food, the water, warmth, uh, rest, your safety, security. Um, you have to have the love, the friendship, the relationships. Okay. Before you can even get to the learning stage. Um, and what we look to ensure that our students at middle school are getting are being healthy, being safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Um, our school models are take care of yourself, take care of each other, and take care of this place. And we reinforce this regularly. um students, this is what they hear uh almost every day, you know, during announcements. Um one of our goals is to

042build relationships between individuals throughout our school and to improve our school climate. Um, one of the things that, you know, when we when we shared this with staff, we asked them to think of a teacher that you had in school who made it a priority to build a caring relationship with you in addition to being your instructor. So, it just wasn't being the academic instructor, but actually was taking time to to become to recognize you as an individual. And what kind of difference has that made in your life? So one of our goals is to identify expectations for behavior in the school and to explicitly teach students those expectations. Uh some of the things that we have on a regular basis are trimester traits and words of the month. The things that we focus on

043are things like mindfulness, optimism, forgiveness, integrity, respect, responsibility. Uh we do digital citizenship. We work on kindness, gratitude, perseverance. Uh worked on collab collaboration, empathy and you know all kinds of other good things. Um so what does Phoenix time look like? Uh right now every teacher in the school has roughly depending on the grade level 8 to 12 students as assigned to them for the next three years. So they come in, they have this one teacher that they can non-academic, it's just all about relationship building. Um, we do uh weekly lessons. I have a lesson example right here. Um, okay. This is a this was from just the other week. Um, you can see that on Mondays we have academic check-ins, which I'll show you that sheet in a minute. We do that every week.

044Uh, students, um, on Tuesdays we have our basically a lesson or a physical activity depending if you're upstairs or downstairs. We have no Phoenix time on Wednesdays because arrival. Um, Thursdays, um, we have this year, this time week we had May through year assessments. Um and then obviously on Friday we have a lot of times of teacher choice so where the teachers actually can design their own activities to to do with the kids in in a group. Um you guys can have access to any of this anytime you want. I believe some of you already do. If you want it just let me know. Um part of the academic check-in, the students get to sign up for open exploratory, which every um every community has a specified day through the week that if the students

045meet their academic goals, they get to go have an extra exploratory, art, fizzed, um library, um kind of those are seem to be the big hitters back here. All right. So, so I was talking about our academic check-in. So, we meet every Monday. Students open up their power school. They look at each one of the subjects. They put down the grade. They recognize they're missing assignments. Um, they establish a goal for the week for an academic goal. Then the teacher actually initial it initials it to make sure that they're being honest with it. If they u meet their goal, they get to choose. You can see some of the four activities um that they get and then was last week's goal completed or not. So some of the other things that we do um during

046the Phoenix time time of the day, it's our first 40 minutes in the day. Uh that's when we have our assemblies, our student of the month, Phoenix award winners, we have our any type of recognitions. um if we have a um like this week we're going up to to see the Rock of Ages and the vocal ensemble and that's when we we do that type of stuff. So, not really taking anything away from our core academic time. Um one of the things that we started doing uh this year was we decided that we were going to actually grade it and the teachers aren't actually grading it, the students are grading themselves. So, at the end of the week, the students fill out or day. They actually before they leave, they fill out what they they

047they're honest with themselves. Um they so as you can see what respect looks like. These are the two things that would be great. Respect. Are you following directions? Are you being kind? Keeping your hands to yourself, listening some of the simple things. Are you participating? Are you taking time to speak in the circles? Are you completing your worksheets? Are you being a willing member of the of the the group? You know, being part of a community. Um you know, we says playing the games, but if you wanted to opt out of a game, you know, you just got to kind of advocate for yourself. Uh team, the students score themselves with either 01. Uh if they get a perfect score for the week, they enter this exit ticket into a monthly drawing at the assemblies.

048We draw a bunch of different prizes. Um usually I do four or five per grade level up there. Um I think that's pretty much it. Oh, and as far as the um one of the things that we noticed too with the academic check is that um we've actually reduced the number of students requiring summer in school and retention. We have a lot more students that are actually making the honor roles and um and we every trimester we actually set the bar higher for their um for them to get their open exploratory. Uh the first trimester we start them off at the basic the lowest grading passing grade which is a 65. Then we go up to a 74 and a 77. So those kids are always always working and believe it or not by the

049time we get to the end of the third trimester those exp open exploratory sheets are full. I mean, we might have maybe 10 to 12 kids per grade that don't don't make it. That's pretty much all I have. Thank you, Chris. Any questions for Chris? Michelle, sorry. Thank you for that um explanation. I I remember when I when we were trying to build Phoenix in the middle school. And really just to point out the importance that not all of our children, we can't assume that they know what some of these things are like. What is optimism put into practice in grades six through eight? What is integrity? And so I think it's it's fantastic that it's continued to um be implemented and taught and shown examples of what that is in lesson format. Um, are

050they still with the same teacher all three years? They are with the same teacher all three years. And when you say I have eighth grade promotion, so last year we was the first year that we did it. U this will be our second year. During eighth grade promotion, those teachers because they've been with them for three years are actually the ones that are giving them their eighth grade promotion certificate and all their awards. It's like an advisor adise sort of uh setup. That's fantastic. And then the last thing I wanted to ask, but it sounds like you answered it a bit, was is there um the data that you're using to drive how you continue to look at Phoenix time and its effectiveness? I heard about read summer school decrease, which is fantastic because that

051was really high around the COVID time and trying to work with some of those challenges. It sounds like you've honed the program a bit, but are you guys using any other data to visit in order to know how you want to continue to navigate Phoenix time. Yeah, actually I'll get into that. I I'm gonna I believe I'm speaking in two weeks for about restorative and we we really use a lot of that data that that we collect from there. Um in order to really drive a lot of where where what direction we're going with this. Any other questions for Chris? Aa Um, I'd just like you to know that, um, as you know, I used to work for the after school program at the middle school. The academic check-in sheets are really great and it

052holds the students accountable. It's, um, over the year, I did notice that a lot of the students were keeping their grades up because they wanted to participate in other things. So, I would just like to tell you that those are really great and you guys are doing a great job. Awesome. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Thank you, Chris. Okay, public comments. Uh before we get started with that, I just would like to reiterate that each speaker will have three minutes. And I am going to limit it to only comments that have to do with school and school activities. Um, if your intent is to bash a teacher, uh, school board member, I will shut you down. Um, so that being said, uh, Stephen Getten, put it down even lower. How's that? Tell me when

053to start. Go ahead. All set. Okay. My name is uh Steve Gtle and my wife Sandy and I reside at 1017 Franklin Road in Jay Mir. We raised our three children in the J and now Spruce Mountain School District. Um I own and operate Woodland Investment Services, which is a forest management company. All my children have chosen to either homeschool their or send their children to private schools to educate educate their children to avoid the nonsense and indoctrination of the tolerance of certain lifestyles within our uh choices within our public school system. Each of our children participated in various male and female sports, used boys and girls bathrooms. This was simple and was a blessing. Our current governor Janet Mills in 2021 during COVID shut down our state and did not allow the legislature to

054convene redefined title nine under the Human Rights Act. Then along with Attorney General Aaron Frey and others according to their vision for our state. Well, in Genesis 1:27, the Bible states, "So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them." In Matthew 19:4, Jesus answers the Pharisees and says, "But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female." God made male and female. Period. When a baby is born, they are respectably called a girl or a boy based on their specific plumbing that divine define their sex. King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said, Proverbs 29:18a, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Transgender and other sexual orientation choices are choices that go against common sense. What God has

055established, male and female special interest groups and agendas are being pushed down our throats as the law and those whose moral standards oppose this vision are touted as being intolerant. Who is really being intolerant? What our governor is standing and so proudly fighting for goes against common sense. Spruce Mountain High School was established in 2013. I was at that merger meeting and spoke then about all the synergy and cost savings that we were being told would occur if we merged and student enrollment was down in each school. I mentioned then that if we were to save money and streamline things, some teachers and staff will lose their jobs. Could have heard a pin drop. Is stu is student enrollment today up or down since 2013? What is our student to teacher teacher ratio today? Have

056we really re realized cost savings? Where is the accountability? get back to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Our public school system citizens would not function without federal funding. We cannot afford higher taxes locally to promote agendas that I personally and biblically do not agree with. $360 million are at stake here in Maine because our governor and others have changed title title nine to include radical ideology that only has caused confusion for our children and our grandchildren. It is time to do the right thing morally and Spruce Mountain to take a stand against such foolishness and to say everyone is either biological male or female. Period. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Phoebe Pike. Sorry, I'm short. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Uh Phoebe Pike, Livermore Falls. There's been a lot of talk about

057disabilities 504 in IEPs at meetings, public forums, nationally, on the news, and quite frankly, in my daily life. I've heard people question the percentage of students with IEPs and 504 plans. I've heard people actively scoff at the cost of educating our children with different abilities and neurode divergence. I would like to remind anyone listening to these words that our programs and individualized plans bleed into every aspect of our society. They are designed to ensure that our students with different abilities and needs have equal access to opportunities, resources, and services. When the 504 was created, it was designed to protect, support, and eventually the goal was to eliminate barriers, physical, attitudal, and systematic that limit people with disabilities from achieving their full potential. Inclusion goes beyond just physical accessibility. A ramp is not enough to fix

058systematic issues. It is our job to ensure that individuals with disabilities and those who are neurody divergent feel valued, respected, and empowered. Disability inclusion is not a favor or a type of entitlement that should be ashamed of, but rather a fundamental human right that allows people with different abilities to engage fully in their communities, workplaces, schools, and social environments. Everybody wants to talk about the numbers. Well, globally speaking, over 1 billion people live with some form of disability. And not all of them are born with them. They can occur later in life. And of those people, a large demographic of them are underrepresented, misunderstood, and marginalized. Or they flat out refuse to be diagnosed due to the stigma that we see in everyday life. Everyone, it's 2025. Everyone deserves the right to access education, employment,

059healthcare, social services in order to live a fulfilling life. Disability inclusion ensures that people with disabilities can participate without facing undue challenges or discrimination. In an inclusive school and community, hopefully like ours, all individuals, regardless of their abilities, are recognized as valuable members of society. Disability inclusion prompts breaking down those stereotypes and fostering mutual respect amongst each other. It is also the law that schools must provide appropriate accommodation or accommodations for students with disabilities to ensure that they have the same access to education as their peers. This may involve personalized plans, assisted tools, and specialized teaching methods, IEPs, and 504 plans. I'm sorry, Phoebe. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Everyone deserves an education. Sarah Moer. Good evening, school board members. My name is Sarah Moer and I'm a resident of Livermore Falls. I

060coown the flower barn with one of my sisters, Katherine Moer, here in Jay. Our mother started this business in 1980 out of our own home. And I come to speak to you all about a matter that has affected our business as well as us personally. About a month ago, my fiance helped us hang a new sign in the business. At that time, we changed out our seasonal flag and hung an LGBTQ pride flag. Multiple people reached out to tell us how much it meant to them to see that flag flying out in front of our establishment. that made our hearts full because it represents acceptance and love and how we truly care about all that reside in our community. We received an anonymous call two weeks later. The caller told my sister that they were

061no longer going to support our business because of our queer flag and that we didn't even have an American flag. He was disgusted that we would hang such a flag across from an elementary school and we were speechless. Fast forward to three days ago. An elected town official in this community chose to make a public comment on our Flower Barn Facebook page for all to see. His comment on our cover photo read, and I quote, "If I purchase a Phoenix flag for you, would you swap it out with the sex flag that you have flying across from an elementary school? I would love to continue to support your business, but I just can't when that is the flag you choose with your proximity to a school of young children publicly. An elected town official in

062this community. The audacity of this person using blatant hate speech, the complete disrespect to not only our business, but for our members of our LGBTQ community that may have seen the homophobic comment. This is precisely why we hang our pride flag. My sister and I want it known that our establishment is a place of acceptance and love. Your race, sex, gender, and religion are all accepted in our business. This is a safe space and we don't discriminate. As for being across from an elementary school, that is just our location. And you know what? It shouldn't matter because we all matter. Adults as well as children need to know that they're not alone in the battle that the LGBTQ community holds. They face it daily. Hate speech is completely unex unacceptable. Coming from the mother of

063a now 17-year-old that is part of the LGBTQ community, I know all too well that bullying that they face within the public school system and it needs to stop. Bullying is not okay. Whether that bully is a child or an adult, I just want this I just want and all in attendance, either present or watching online, to know how much we love our customers. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Joseph Bossy. Bossy I apologize if I mispronounce anybody's name. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Joseph and I'm here tonight because something deeply troubling has happened. Recently, hate speech was speech was used both online and in a phone call with an elected official targeting members of the LGBTQ community. Let's not downplay this. Let's not hide behind euphemisms. It sends a message. Sends

064out a message here that LGBTQ students are less valued, less safe, less worthy of respect. When people in power using tolerate this kind of language, it sends a message loud and clear. It harms. It creates fear where there should be trust. It breeds shame where there should be pride and it isolates students that deserve historical inclusion and love. Let me be crystal clear. This is not about political differences. This is about decency and accountability and the fundamental right of every student to feel safe affirmed in their school or own schools. We cannot meet this moment with silence. Silence in the face of hate is complicity. So I'm calling on this board to take real visible action publicly and unequivocally unequivocally condemn hate speech no matter who says it and no matter where it's said. Establish

065and enforce firm policies that hold board members and staff accountable for discriminatory behavior and implement comprehensive training to all district leaders on LGBTQ inclusion, equity, and respectfulness communication. These are not radical demands. These are basic standards any school district should uphold if truly it truly values the dignity and safety of its students. To this board, your leadership sets the tone for this entire community. This is your moment. Use it to lead with integrity. Use it to protect not in danger. use it to build a culture where every student knows they matter. Thank you. [Applause] I will mention this one more time. Please address your comments to me, the chair, and you have keep it to three minutes. Um, let's see. Danielle Brotherton. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Danielle Brotherton. I'm here

066tonight to speak frankly about the dangerous consequences of allowing allowing extremist rhetoric into our public schools, especially when it's disguised as parental rights. Tonight, RSU7 Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Sorry. Oh, I can hear the difference now. Tonight, RC73 invited parents rights and education, PRIE, to give a presentation to this very board. Frankly, it's outrageous that a group that a well-documented history with a well-documented history of promoting fear, division, and censorship was given a platform in a public school district. This isn't about healthy debate. It's about giving legit legitimacy to a group that routinely targets vulnerable students. Let's be excuse me, let's be clear about what PIE and similar organizations are doing. They're fueling a hostile environment for LGBTQ plus students under a guise of dark families. They push narratives that suggest LGBTQ plus content in

067books is inappropriate or dangerous when in fact it's often the only representation these students have. In RSU73, we've already seen local attempts to ban books that include LGBTQ plus characters or themes. I won't name those titles here because I don't want to give anyone ideas. But I will say this, these are books that foster understanding, empathy, and self-acceptance. Removing them don't doesn't protect kid. It isolates them. When children see themselves or their families represented by books that are being banned, it can make them feel like they don't matter. A Trevor Project 2023 study found that students had who had an affirming or supportive school environment reported a lower rate of attempted suicide. Excuse me, I'm thirsty. We've seen what this climate of fear can lead to. In the Bonnie Eagle School District, educators and parents

068were harassed after speaking in favor of inclusive education. These kinds of ti tactics create a chilling effect. Teacher teachers second guess what they can support whether they can support students. Librarians face scrutinies just for doing their jobs. And most importantly, LGBTQ plus students get the message loud and clear that their identities are controversial or worse, unacceptable. Is that really the kind of district we want to be? Groups like PIE don't want partnership. They want control. And when they they're advocating for parents, they mean a very narrow group of parents who share their ideology. The rest of us were treated as outsiders in our own community. I'm calling on this board to take a firm stand. Reject fear-mongering, defend inclusive practices, and most of all, protect the students in this district who are already walking a

069harder path just because of who they are. Inclusive education is not controversial. It's a commitment to safety, respect, and belonging for all students. Thank you. Ed Walsh. Good evening. My name is Ed Walsh. I'm a retired soldier, clinical social worker, and a proud member of this community for over 25 years. I'm here tonight uh with deep concerns of profound disappointment over the board's decision to invite parents rights and education into the district conversation. Let me be clear. By doing so, you're opening the door to something dangerous, something causes deep and lasting harm, and it's leading to moral injury. This board has betrayed the trust of our community. How dare you? While this group may claim to advocate for parental rights, a closer look reveals a different truth. A truth marked by exclusion, marginalization, intolerance, all

070disguised as educational reform. I ask you, how does this affect our teachers, our staff, and our students who don't conform to narrowing reform? And I ask you, oh, I got that. My apologies. How does it feel to be told you don't belong? We now understand life and learning through the lens of trauma. Moral injury occurs when people participate in, witness, or are unable to stop actions that violate their core values. Leaves wounds that are invisible but devastating. If you're not sure what your core values are, I'd be helped to offer group training. It's not as simple as it looks as it looks. Our teachers carry an incredible emotional load. They are on the front lines supporting every student, navigating complex educational decisions, and doing so with limited support. But this constant moral strain, it wears

071them down. They begin to wonder if they can make a difference. And many begin to think about leaving. And maybe that's the goal of this group, to drive out the very educators we need the most. Let's be honest. We're pushing out the heart of our community. To our teachers who give them everything, this hurts. To our students who feel pushed aside, this hurts. To the friends and allies of students, this all hurts us. The cost is too high. When the board open the doors to hate, you are putting educators in an impossible position. Do they speak up to protect their students and risk their jobs or stay silent, violate their own values, and lose a piece of themselves? So I ask you, what are you doing to our community? What are you doing? Do the

072right thing. It's not that hard to do. And I'll leave you with this. I have a soldier in hospice right now, and he speaks to love, kindness, and acceptance. Let's do that. [Applause] Before we continue, let me just get one thing uh perfectly clear that it wasn't the board's decision to to bring parents rights and education. It was mine and I stand behind that. So, individual agendas for the board. I'm the I'm the chair and Scott and I set the agenda for the board. Yes. And the the other thing is is I'm going to have both sides come and speak. It's not a one-sided thing. It's not you have to listen to what I say. What both sides are going to be able to give their opinions and each individual has one vote. So my

073my one opinion is just one vote and that's all I'm going to say about that. Not tonight because I'm not going to be here till 9:00 like we were last night. But they are invited. Okay, moving on. Thank you for recognizing me and interrupting. Can we have interruptions in the crowd stop? People walking through the crowd and passing out materials. This is not the time for that. We're listening to people and I'd ask us to be respectful of all speakers. No, you weren't. Pepin. Hello board members. My name is Mlette Pepin and I have been in this community for about 21 years. I come to you as a grandparent and a taxpayer for this town. Um, so I'm going to start. I apologize. I have to read this. So I'm here to speak about Title

074N and the official choice now facing our district. Excuse me. Does somebody else want to talk? Because it's my time. Across the state, districts responded differently to the controversial 2024 Title 9 revisions. Some like Windham and Lewon reverted to the 2020 version but retained unconstitutional language referencing gender identity. Others including Augusta and Freeport. Do I need to wait? I mean everybody has a right to their You need to be quiet. It's my turn. Be quiet. I will I will clear the audience. I was quiet when you spoke. It's my turn. Others including Augusta and Freeport have been more transparent formally rescending all 2024 Title 9 language so their applicable policies only refract current only reflect current Title 9 language. And then there's MSAD70 in Hodgegden where courageous board director Clarissa Porter moni uh excuse me

075motioned to enforce Title 9 as intended. That night, the board unanimously voted to enforce Title Nine as it is designed based on the re reality that there are only two sexes, male and female. This proves something important. Our district does have a choice. Let's be clear. Protecting kids privacy and activities like girls sports and all students is the entire purpose of Title N. It doesn't matter who you like or who does what or who doesn't because honestly, everybody has a right to be here. I don't judge anyone by who they are, who they choose to be, or anything else. And I would really like the board to think about this when they're jud when they're looking at this. It's the entitled purpose of Title 9. You have a decision to make. Please make the one

076that prioritizes education, safety, and fairness to all our students by passing the Title N resolution called Ensuring Compliance with Title N and protection of sex-based privacies. Thank you. Thank you, Mlette. Dr. Steve Beh for 40 odd years. two kids graduated school system here and I'd like to direct my comments to the board about parents rights and education. The J school board did not invite me to speak tonight and it's okay. I don't take it personally, but the J school board did invite parents in education, parent rights and education to speak and I do resent that and I do take that personally. They they saw fit to invite a partisan political action group and that is not okay. This is without question if you look on their website this is corroborated. This is a national and

077right-wing organization funded at least initially by the Koch brothers and judging by their website their chief aim is the election of their candidates and state legislatores and to get their candidates on school boards. Why is this school board inviting an outside national political organization to its meeting? What political or educational service purposes do they serve? What aims do they serve in this community at war with this board? What drummers do they dance to? This clearly does not align the local control of schools, which is a cherished principle in Maine. An elected school board should serve at the pleasure of its community and to endeavor to pre to represent the community's interests and voices as best it can. It should not have its own political agenda. It should not curry influences behind our backs. Rather than

078the trust and confidence I want to feel with this board, I now feel distrust and perhaps betrayal. Something is going on here that does not smell. Thank you. Robin Beck. Good evening. My name is Robin Beck and I'm from Livermore Falls. So, we're in a school gym cafeteria. I thought maybe a little bit of education here. Oh, come on. So we'll let's learn some new words. Education according to Oxford languages is the process of receiving or giving systemic instruction especially at a school or university or from Miriam Webster dictionary the knowledge and development resulting from the process of being educated. To educate a student at any level is to give that student information on the subject being taught, to teach that student how to research additional information, and using critical thinking skills to be able

079to discern the subject matter. In case you don't know, critical thinking skills is the ability to uh objectively analyze and evaluate an issue in order to form a judgement. again according to Oxford languages. See, I'm not going to say something that isn't backed up like some people. Now, on the uh next word of this morning, we'll head back to Oxford languages. Indoctrination. Oh, yeah. It's the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically or according to the Marryiam Webster dictionary to imbue with a you usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view or principle. Indoctrination is the opposite of education. You are teaching one way of looking at the world and totally bypassing critical thinking skills. That is what the majority of the current school board wants to do.

080Some on our school board have invited the group parents rights and education here tonight. This group is listed on the hate map of the poverty law southern poverty law center which is a nonprofit nonpartisan civil rights group that documents anti-government and extremist groups here in the US. This parents rights group is a collection of extreme right-wing, anti-LGBTQ, anti-government fanatics that want to change the way these teachers teach. They'll talk about indoctrination. They didn't mention the word. Somebody else did though, but that's what they're into. They'll talk about it. They're the ones that are pushing indoctrination by denying our students a broad education. Education. If the majority of this board agrees with this group, then they are no better and they're hurting our community and they're hurting our children. Thank you, Alan Remlat. Can you hear

081me? Can you hear me? No. No. Can you Can you hear me? I need heels here. Okay. Good evening, Chairperson Wulette, school board members, members of the community. My name is Ellen Grunblat. My husband, who you heard from two speakers ago, and I have lived in Jay for more than 40 years. Our two children attended Jay schools. Like other community members here, I have a strong interest in the health of our school system and its ability to provide a quality education and a sense of safety and acceptance for all students. As a member of a cultural minority, I am acutely aware of the ways in which students can be targeted for perceived and actual differences from what is arbitrarily considered the norm. Teachers, administrators, and especially the school board itself are tasked with addressing the

082bullying and harassment that can stem from such targeting. Indeed, we in the community count on you adults in leadership positions to provide structure and safety for all students in a nondiscriminatory manner. So, what is parent rights in education doing here? It purports to be main grown, but it is a national presence with enough of a discriminatory agenda, as others have mentioned, to have earned it a designation as a hate group. It promotes an ideology that includes banning in school libraries, whitewashing the teaching of American history, I think uh the speaker did allude to that somewhat. And lying about how schools handle health and sexuality issues. It claims to empower parents as though parents are weak, while what it actually does is bully administrators and school boards into taking actions that are antithetical to the educational

083concerns of our school and community. We held school board elections a few weeks ago. I pray that these elected officials are prepared to set aside their politics, whatever they are, and listen to each other with open minds. Refrain from labeling and targeting and most important engage in reason discussion of differences. This is the path to policies that truly value students growth, development, and independent exploration. Policies that support teachers and administrators to do their jobs equitably and well following the pre-road leads in the opposite direction. Do not allow this organization to climb into the driver's seat. Thank you. Board comments. Tina, thank you. Um, yesterday I I caused a catastrophe for for a whole bunch of people. It's a small annoyance for a lot of people. It was a catastrophe for me. My uh my my

084rsu73.com uh account was hacked. I had a 12digit a 12 character password that was randomly generated with and numbers and letters and all of the good stuff. Um, and I sent out probably I don't know hundreds of spam emails because my account was hacked. I want to thank the IT department for fixing that, but also I want to encourage everybody who has an RSU73.com account to um don't rely on a good password to keep your account safe. Um, uh, use two factor authentication and if you need to know how to do that, please reach out to the IT. They will they'll talk you through it. They're really good about that. Thank you. Andrew, um I'd like to say thank you to our school two student representatives we've had this past year. Uh Skyler and Avery.

085I'm believe they have a track meet tonight. That's why they're not here. Not here. and I've appreciated the hard work those girls have done as representing the student body and giving us input that we don't see every day. I a little disappointed Avery's not here because I promised her that uh she's not the only fashion master in the school. She wears the high top Converse sneakers which is all the rage. Well, I have a pair also. And these are 48 years old. I still can't I I've outgrown most my wardrobe, but I still can fit in my shoes. Any other board comments? Don, I just wanted to welcome the new board members and also I wanted to thank uh Spruce Mountain, our school for uh sending some kids to help uh clean up at the

086VFW. I just thought that was a really big thing and I will tell you it meant a lot to the members. So, thank you so much. Roger. Um, I just wanted to say, you know, we had some public comments about 504s and I hope that some of us will look into that if that's not something we're following to a tea or or I want to make sure that we're aware of that. I wasn't aware that there was an issue with how we administer 504s. Um, and also I just wanted to point out that when out main comes here, nobody gets mad at them and asks them not to come. So, Any other board comments? Superintendent's report. Good evening. Uh, I met with a couple of staff people who are retiring this year. Uh, good conversations

087on an appreciation for what they've done for us. I also met with Chris Boddman to discuss the loss of the ease grant as of December 25th. Uh, this was a grant, a five-year grant that we had received from the federal government. uh for mental health uh and counseling for our students. It was it was wellreceived. Uh that grant has now been stopped, but it will go until December 25 because it's a January to December grant. Um also during the past weeks, I attended the Western Maine reertification steering committee meeting. Uh that's all of Western Maine. Um there were 16 different uh administrators that were reertified at the meeting. I also attended a Zoom meeting with Drummond Woodsome on navigating school policies and I also attended the monthly Western Maine superintendent meeting uh where we discussed

088budget issues across the state. Any questions? Holly Scott, I saw that um we have a job opening for a secretary for the assistant principal in the middle school. Was that in the budget? Oh, it's at the high school. Okay. I guess I read it wrong. Sorry. any other questions for Scott. Okay. Sherry Parker. Good evening. Okay. In special education, we currently have 347 students. This is three less than our than my April report. Uh we had four students who were dismissed. We had four students who withdrew from RSU73. We had one student who did not qualify and then we had six new referrals come in. The number of students in special education includes a total of 18 referrals that are currently in progress across the district, which is three less than from April report. We

089currently have 69 students with IEPs at the primary school, 85 students at the elementary school, 82 students at the middle school, and 111 students at the high school with IEPs. We continue to have 13 students out of district in special purpose schools for day treatment programming. We have submitted another application um for a on a student's behalf for special purpose programming at uh sorry day treatment programming at a special purpose school. Unfortunately, this week we had a student not accepted to a program and not even put on the waiting list. ISU73 is still required to plan programming for this student who was too high need for a special purpose program. I will continue to look for other options, but in the meantime, creating appropriate programming and services will definitely put a strain on our current

090staffing levels. We currently have 21 seniors in special education. 16 of them are graduating in June. Five seniors are eligible to stay until their 22nd birthday under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in order to work on transition to adult services and programming. This is making a very large functional life skills program at our high school. Next year it will be manageable, but very quickly in the future it will be a number that is not manageable. U I'll be looking for to other special education administrators on guidance on how they are programming for this transition planning. We have had 10 meeting uh meetings for 10 incoming kindergarten students who have IEPs in place through child development services. We're legally obligated under IDA to continue their service, their special education services as they transition to public

091school. In the very near future, I don't know when, but within the next couple of years, um all districts will become responsible for special education services. So it will be within the next um three to four years um we will need to provide services to three and four year olds who currently receive services through child development services. This change from CDS to public school responsibility started this year with cohort one and there will be another group of schools that have signed up to be part of cohort 2 next year. This is a multi-year process and I'm hoping by year three or four we will have a better understanding of the process and the needs that we will have to have in place as a district. There has been a request by special education directors in

092the surrounding area to audit the cohort next year um by sitting in on all the meetings even though we're not going to go through the process yet. This would be a great way for us to learn before jumping in so that we know what resources need to be available. The open edtech positions in RSU73 for the beginning of this school year are very concerning. Last week, I posted eight open positions. I'm anticipating two more edtech resignations. We have people finishing college or returning to college. They're all staying within the educational field, but class scheduling does not allow for full-time employment during the school day. I've received three applications and I've spoken to another person who's gathering materials for her application packet and I'm just really hoping a few more roll in over the summer. I

093also posted two life skills teacher positions. Uh we've had a teacher of record case manager with an edtech 3 running the middle school life skills program. And although the students are demonstrating significant progress, we really are hoping to find a special education teacher that is dedicated just to that middle school program. And then at the high school, we have Diane Mo, who has earned her retirement with 40 years of teaching special education, and she will be hard to replace. I will also be posting for a part-time occupational therapist. Currently, we have a full-time position and a part-time contracted the active therapist. The contracted therapist will no longer be res will no longer be providing services of any kind um in the fall due to family changes. So, we will need to find someone part-time to

094provide occupational therapy services to our middle school and high school students as required by their IEPs. Questions for Sherry? Don. There we go. Um, like somebody was asking earlier about the 504 or talking about the 504. Is this replacing it? What you're doing now? 504 going to continue. That 504 is continuing. Um section 504 is a general education law that puts accommodations within the classroom for students with disabilities and to remove those barriers. And special education is the next. All of special education also falls under 504, but it's a more restrictive environment that has services provided along with the plan. Yeah, I know. Well, I know at the last meeting there was a presentation about numbers. So, there's been a lot of talk about numbers and our district tends to be higher for both 504

095and special education. Um, and we're seeing a big um increase in those services right now. And a lot is related to mental health. The mental health in our area is very concerning and it's getting younger and younger unfortunately. Tanya, to my question which you just answered, we're high as a district. That's is that a big number compared to surrounding districts? We've been running right around 25% of our population um since I've been the director. So, we're a little bit under that 25% mark right now. Um so, I it is higher than the state average, but compared to what I'm not sure what Mount Blue's numbers or Turner's numbers are at this point, but higher than the state average. We are higher than the state average. They're about 20%. We have been for a while. Um

096especially the moveins with housing getting so expensive. We have lots of families moving in. Um and that is definitely increasing our number. Other questions for Sherry? Roger. Uh, not so much a question as just a thank you for for everything you do. I had no idea how much of our budget and and everything is is special ed related and when I try to wrap my brain around everything you have to process, I get a headache. So, thank you for everything you do. I think you do a wonderful job you with the headache today. The last three weeks have been crazy. So, I had a personal uh someone close to me with a 504. It worked out excellent. She was able to work her way out of that. no longer need those and it helped her

097to get over barriers. So again, just thank you for everything that you do. Other questions for Sherry? Thank you. Darcy, that's a nice segue to mine mental health component. So perfect. Um I just like every other building um at Spruce Mountain Primary School, we're wrapping up NWA testing. Um I do however um just to kind of touch upon that a little bit in the fall and in the spring I send home the family report that does explain the NWA to parents. It explains their strengths and their weaknesses. In the fall, I like to do that because they can click on a QR code and it gives them strategies to use with their child at home to practice some of those skills that they might have been weak on in those areas for both reading and

098math. And then in the spring, they get to see the growth that they've made or what things they might want to work on over the summer. So, I think that's really important. I got a lot of feedback from parents that they really appreciated that this year. Um, but at the primary school, we do more than just the NWA. our teachers are tasked with also doing one-on-one assessments in literacy and math with our students because we like to triangulate the data and not just use that one test to see their growth over the year. So the end of the year we're you know really working hard on getting those assessments finished and then we look at the data and analyze that so that in the fall we can start right in on any tier two or

099three interventions that need to take place. Um, exciting. I'm working with Jay Nile's library because we want to send all of our kids to the library right before summer to gear up for some summer reading and for her to share the different events that are going on for free for kids to do over the summer as well. So, we're I'm working with transportation on getting that for the end of the year. Um, as the year wind downs, I take a lot of time reflecting on areas of strength and areas of growth for next year. Gone are the days when most students come to school knowing their letters, their how to speak to um each other, how to sit at the carpet and listen to a story, how to manage emotions when they are aren't doing

100a preferred activity or don't like something. Vocabulary skills are low because adults are talking with them less and less as toddlers, like sitting around the dinner table or riding in the car. Next year, we will have a large focus on social emotional learning and mental health. Our staff are going to have Norris PD around trauma-informed practices. We're really going to wrap around our mindup curriculum starting in prek instead of kindergarten because those early interventions are what is going to make them successful in the elementary school and years beyond. So we really appreciate um the support of the board in getting our curriculums for mental health and getting those supports in our schools to support staff in implementing that with our children. We are also discussing multi-tered systems of support, MTSS, and how to make changes

101that will serve more students at the tier 2 level academically to close the achievement gap. Lastly, I invite board members to have a conversation with me, step into my building so that you can be more communicated with about all the things happening or changing at Spruce Mount Primary School. And this will help you make informed decisions about what happens in the district. Good evening. How are you? Well, I wanted to welcome all the new board members. Um, so, uh, just like the other buildings, this may be the busiest time of year from, you know, you know, finishing up the school year. We're finishing our, um, NIA testing. We're also state mandated science testing um which we finished today and we'll do some makeups tomorrow. Um we also had our spring concert. It was the first

102concert I that I've been here as an elementary school person uh where all three grade levels were together. We were outside. We were at the football field and it was amazing. We got everybody together. I saw the entire stands were filled. Um now we just got to figure out how we do our winter concert there. um because it was a great turnout. People loved it and um the weather was great. It might have been the only sunny night we've had in the last month. Um the library the library has been working on and reading books about gardening and the science of seeds. Um they've sprouted seeds in the library and now they're moving out to the green houses um to get those going to plant their flowers. Um next week we will have our fifth

103play the aristocrats. It's going to be May 28th here at six o'clock. Um, come and see it. They always do a Jocelyn French who was at the primary does an amazing job with those kids. Um, our school attendance, I think last time I was here we had 301. We continue to have 301. Um, funday funday field day is going to be June 10th. Um, we've increased the number of water activities we have because those seem to be a big hit for kids. I hopefully it gets warm so they don't freeze, but we'll um invite parents and kids and we'll be outside running around. Um, all the kids will be given a fun uh field day shirt so everybody and we go by color so we can keep track of the grade levels easier that way.

104Um I am on the advisory board for UMF and one of the huge concerns I have um especially now in the the passion that we see in the people in the community today and in the past is UMF is not putting out teachers. We need to make sure that we support our teachers. Um I'm not saying we are. I'm not saying we aren't. I'm just saying we need to be careful because we did mock interviews um a couple weeks ago and there were only 27 students at UMF that participated in the mock interviews and that's across all the fields. We're talking special ed, regular ed, we're talking, you know, math, science, social studies, we're talking everything that UMF does. There were 27 people. Of those 27 people, there were only seven elementary ed graduates. So,

105if we start losing people or people are retiring, we're going to have a really difficult time filling those positions. And what's going to happen is our class sizes are going to go up and then people are going to complain about that. So, of the seven people that are graduating, I got to talk to five up to five. those five people, one was going back to Connecticut, one was going back to Vermont, one was going to grad school in Arizona, one was going back to school or back where she grew up in South Portland. Even though she did her student teaching in this district and I told her that we had an opening, she chose to go back and the fifth one we all know is Paris House, who I believe got a job in Rumford.

106So, out of the five people, out of the seven, five were not an option. I don't know about the other two people. So, and this is a trend I've seen because I've been doing these mock interviews for years. You know, four or five years ago, I did I think it was three different groups of like four to five kids. And that wasn't all of them. This year, I did two groups of two. So, we're not graduating teachers. If anybody saw the Forbes article where they listed the lowest paying jobs, the first five years out of college and then the the median years between 35 and 45, six out of the low six of the 10 lowest paying jobs are in education. So we need to make sure that we support our teachers and do what's

107right for them so they can do what's right for the kids. Questions? microphones in the budget. Um, I know we talked about this a couple years ago where FF, which has been the premier teacher education school in the state. That's if you want to be a teacher and you were we get kids from all over New England coming to UMF. Correct. the number of graduates as you said across all programs that's secondary education elementary science math early childhood uh early childhood special education all of those used to graduate 150 200 plus students each year when I first I know last year Sherry Parker shared with us that was it 26 or 27 last year this Last year was 27, last year was 38. That's across all of those fields. No one wants to go into

108education. We all need to think about that. It's scary. It scares me about what's happening and who's going to teach my great grandchildren. My kids will be out of school in the next eight years. But I I'm scared for the future of education. Well, when I started as principal, UMF would call and I would take anybody they would get and I could I would have anywhere between six, seven, eight, nine student teachers, practum teachers in the building at one time constant. Now I have one. You could pick and choose pretty much. So it's it's a big priority. We've got to be well aware of this. And I think I have maybe two next year that I'm looking for. Well, we've already placed one, but I have one more. So two so two people. That's not

109going to fill our positions in a few years when people start retiring. And if we start losing people on top of that, we're in a world of hurt. So I'm just curious, has there been discussion that you've had with administration or um the heads of some of those departments as to the key indicators as to um what's contributing to the outcome of this? I remember going to college there and you couldn't it was almost impossible to land a a job opening fresh out of college um as a teacher when I remember when I went it was highly competitive and I remember them saying back then this is like 25 years ago that there was going to be a major um retirement sort of sort of bubble and um they were looking at at that factor

110back then but I it doesn't sound like that's the only season. And so I heard you talk about low salary, but I'm just curious as to the other factors. No, I haven't talked to them. I mean, my oldest daughter graduated a couple years ago and you know, she probably had eight or nine friends that she was really close to and and most of them didn't even stay in Maine, let alone let alone go into education and some of their parents were teachers. It's just this is just my opinion. It's not the job it used to be. you know, it's it's a lot more. When I first started in education, um, and I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but we didn't have to provide breakfast. We didn't have to provide

111certain things. We weren't providing clothing and food bags and all of this stuff. And the world's just changed. And as things happen, more and more gets put on the schools and the teachers, you know, and it's if it's is it fair? I don't know. Um, it's just the way it's become. And you know, teachers are going to do what they can do to help kids. That's just in their nature and that's who they are and that's why they teach. You know, but at the same time, they're human. They feel the stress. You know, there's a lot of things and a lot of stressors in the buildings that are not their fault. You know, they feel the pressure, right? You could feel the pressure here tonight. You don't think that's getting into the schools? You don't

112think that makes makes the teachers feel less than valued? you're if you think that you're wrong because they see what's going on in society, not just in name, not just in Jade, but not just, you know, it's across the country. And if we want people that are going to do what's best for kids, then we need to take a look at what we can do that's best for them. Because in the end, the kids are the most important. But if we don't have people to do what's best for the kids, we can't do that. It's impossible. We're not going to be able to do it. All right. Good evening again. Um, I'll start off the middle school enrollment of 296. On May 5th to the 9th was teacher appreciation week. Uh, the student council did

113a great job celebrating our teachers. They designed a baseball theme week making cards for our hall of fame wall. uh bubble gum, baby roose, popcorn, peanuts, and cracker jacks were distributed for snacks throughout the week. They were treated to a private barbecue lunch with ball ballpark franks, cheeseburgers, and sweet Italian sausages. They ended the week on Friday afternoon with a whiffle ball game between the upstairs and downstairs teachers. Uh the upstairs teachers were winning 1714 until officer York made a guest exper appearance and hit a walk-off grand stand for the downstairs teachers to come out on top. It was a It was a great event. Um May 13th and 19th, the eighth graders did their last visits to Foster Tech and the other group that stayed behind uh went up to the high school for

114their high school tours. May 15th, we completed the main throughear assessment for ELA. On May 16th, we had our April student of the month Phoenix Award assembly. We had another great turnout of parents and guardians. Um during intervention on that day, the eighth graders went up to the high school for an extracurricular fear uh fair at the high school. So you can see what they could join for clubs and all the activities that they have to offer up there for next year. Uh on May 20th, the middle school went up to high school for a vocal ensemble, which is which was amazing. Um, and it was great to see these middle school students up on stage and, you know, they had they were performing and they were they were shining with with confidence and it

115was this is amazing to watch them grow. Um, this morning we completed the main three-year assessment and then next week we'll be taking the uh next week will be for makeups. Um, tomorrow we're going to go to the high school again for the Rock of Ages performance. Uh if you've never seen it, it's it's amazing. Uh Diane Fennelson does a great job with them. On May 29th and June 2nd, the students will take their STAR assessment, our schoolwide um assessment. Uh June 2nd, we will host an incoming sixth grade parent informational night. June 3rd and 5th, the seventh graders are going to the Challenger Space Station and Coal Transportation Museum in Bangor. Uh June 4th is the eighth grade trip to Boston for the STEM day at Fenway in the Los Angeles Angels versus the

116Boston Red Sox. Uh June 6th, the sixth grade is going on their annual bowling and movies for the end of the air field trip. June 11th is our field day. June 12th is 8th grade promotion at noon time here in the in the gym. June 13th is our last day and step up day. So as you can see this last month in May and June has been very extremely busy and last year at this time we had 127 out of school suspensions and 41 in school suspensions. Uh this year we have uh have had 59 out of school suspensions and 35 in school. Questions for Chris? Sounds like you got a busy month. We do. Thank you. DJ. So, thank you guys. Uh, enrollment is 412. Um, I'm going to highlight a bunch of different

117things that we've been doing already, but we're we are in the mode just like everybody else. Um, the we had the new the main throughear exams. Um, we're all done with them. Our students are actually doing we have some kids that have to do some makeups this following week. Um I think they did pretty well and pretty hopeful for it. Uh fine arts night if you didn't get a chance to come out for that. It was awesome. Our uh students are so talented. Uh I definitely I'm going to share some of the photos with you guys because I took some photos of the the artwork that these students did and I'm going to tell you unbelievable the quilting work that they do. Um the band uh the it was just a great night. Um and

118and our our families and our our parents and and grandparents, they had a wonderful time that time that night. Local ensemble was this past Tuesday. Um I was out. I was not feeling well, so I couldn't see it. I did hear that it was unbelievable. Um and the the staff uh that were there during the day were just raving about it. Students were too. Community service day. I'm going to go a little bit in depth with the community service because I want to highlight what our students did um over the it was yesterday and it was in the morning. So, we worked on the I'm going to go through a list uh we did Lim Fall State Skate Park, Westfield, Livermore Town, Dow Field, the VFW, Route 17 Cemetery because last year we didn't hit

119that one. primary school, J Hill Cemetery. Uh we cleaned up some of those uh ones in the back. If you go up on top of the hill, those ones were cleaned up. Um Pine Island, we collected almost two uh a little over 20 tires out of the river and along the shore. It it's it's part of it. It's when it floods. It floods floods there really good. And I'm going to tell you that if you guys get a chance to go to Pine Island, catch a fish. We had a couple kids doing that yesterday, too. It's really fun. Um the round round pond uh Breton's pond. Uh we went to the sports field in Breton's Spruce Mountain High School cross country trails. The um Mrs. Fenison was working on Rock of Ages. She had all

120of her kids working on that portion. Uh we had uh a bunch of our life skills, student skills working around the school um RTI support. We had uh school grounds all the way around the elementary school. We did a walk a bogw walk uh cleanup. French Falls, if you ever get a chance, so those of you who haven't been there yet, you need to go. Um it's a wonderful uh uh trail system that we have along the river and our our se our our students went and cleaned that right up. We had kids down there with uh uh backpack blowers and it it was just an awesome day down there. Um, we had the rail trail all the way to the J Plaza was cleaned up. Uh, we had over four truckloads of garbage. Um,

121it was it was a really good day for our students and they came back extremely proud of what they did and that's what we're trying to do is bring our students and community members together. Um, it was a wonderful day. The I want to go through some of the the events that I want you at. You need to be there for these. We have Rock of Ages tomorrow night, 700 p.m. We have the Memorial Day parade. Marching band is there on Monday. Be there. It's a great event. We They just started up again last year. So fun. Senior scholarship night. This is the largest amount of money. I'm not going to reveal it. I'm not going to reveal it tonight, but it's more than half a million dollars. So, I'm telling you, if you have

122a chance to come to the scholarship night next Thursday, you need to be there. Foster Tech recognition, anybody's invited, family members, community members to go to Foster Tech on June 2nd. You get to see our students um being recognized for their outstanding dedication to their craft. What an opportunity opportunity for you. I hope you can be there. Um, we have a recogni final recognition assembly which is on June 5th. I want you there. I want you to see what our students do, what our p what our uh staff does in recognition of our students for the end of the year. It's not just about the seniors. It's also about our underassmen, right? Yearbook dedication is that same day activity and then obviously we do the u memorial walkthrough for all the buildings on that same

123day, June 5th. And that starts around 10 to 10:30 depending on how long our uh final recognition assembly takes. And then the wonderful day that we have on Sunday, we have our graduation. I hope you guys can be there. It's really nice. It I will make it a decision on Wednesday if it's inside or outside because last year was a little sketchy. It got a little wet and then it stopped raining for the ceremony. I don't need that stress. So, um, we're going to make a decision on Wednesday and it should be a great day. I hope to see everybody there. Um, it's a great opportunity and and lift the spirits up for our students. Um, they're they're they're definitely uh excited. My my seniors are ready. Let's just say that. And I'm going to

124leave it there. TJ, do you have a time of the foster tech? Uh, six o'clock. Six o'clock. Yeah. Yep. It hasn't been here since I've been here. I was in it when when I went to school here. Um Yeah. Yeah, I can look into it for next year. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I still know my little brother that I have. Yeah. Meet up with him, you know, a couple years ago. See him in the in Walmart usually is what I see. Oh, good. Thank you. Second what you said, Daniel. When you were in school. Yes, I was. Yeah. There. You were my teacher. Stop it. I remember you leaving school. I know. Because my dad was mad at me. Yeah, exactly. Okay. But we won't go down that path when you left school premises. I did.

125Um. Yeah. Great. I I still am in in touch with kids that I didn't know when they were in elementary school. When they came down from high school, that are now in their 40s that still stay in touch with me on Facebook. And I had those kids get to have relationships with teachers. They get to have relationships with a little they make a huge difference in those kids lives. Those kids I'm turning 50 this this summer. That means the 40s is no longer. Stop it. It means my birthday is coming. Just stop it. But yeah, I'll second that. I think that would be a great It would work into your community. piece as well. Um, and especially, you know, you got kids at the elementary that are interested in music. It's awesome. Yeah. Thank you.

126Okay. Um, all I have is graduation. I know Ava and Michelle have someone that's graduating. Does anybody else have anybody else? Anybody that's graduating this year? Okay. So, I'm going to um appoint them as temporary uh chair for the day for graduation so that you can come off the stage. They receive Okay, let's see. On to new business. So, um I would like the board's permission to get a second opinion uh regarding our title N policies. Right now, we have um German and wisdom and um as with any good policies. I think a second opinion is important uh by a different law firm. Um I'd like to open the the floor up to discussion regarding this and and a motion. I'll make a motion that we get a second opinion on our title. guidance going

127forwardally impressed with the result we got. Do I have a second discussion? John Tina, we went through this and had I thought some really robust discussions about it and it's pretty clear to me um that the legal advice that we got tracks perfectly with everything else that I've dug up about the current situation with the main human rights act and the federal title And it's it's pretty clear that um the Supreme Court made a ruling that says that the 2024 2023 interpretation of Title N wouldn't. So we rolled back and that was a very robust conversation about why we needed to roll back and what we couldn't take out of that because to remove some of the stuff out of that specifically what came up in our policy conversations in our policy was to remove

128gender identity and and sexual orientation from that from those policies. And it became clear that the problem with doing that is that that would leave this district in violation of Right now, there is a lawsuit going on at the federal level that will determine how that should by getting out in front of that. All we're doing is spending taxpayers money so that we can open up taxpayers to greater liability because if we are sued because we have put a policy in place that violates the main state uh the main human rights act then our insurance probably won't cover it. And um so if there is a lawsuit, it will come out of taxpayers pockets just like the lawyer that you want to hire to second guessess the opinion that we already have. It doesn't make

129any sense to me to do that. I don't understand what we're gaining by it. I think we should just sit and concentrate on all the problems that we are hearing about from community and teachers and administrators right now and not dig into um what's really a mess that we don't need to involve ourselves with. We can stay here focused on this district, this school, these administrators, these students, these teachers, this community without having to fight that fight. And I think we would be a better board and a better school system for it if the Supreme Court rules and they may very well do that that um that that the Title 9 is in conflict with the main human rights act and tell us that that that conflict can't stay there. Then we will get the

130recommendations that we need from our lawyers to roll back those policies to whatever we need to do to stay in line with the law. For us to explore why how we can go out and put ourselves in violation of the main human rights act is just not a wise use of taxpayers money. Andrew Do we have an estimate of how much this would cost us? How many hours? How many billing hours? I spoke I spoke with a law firm uh Steve Smith Trial Lawyers and uh they told me $300 for an initial consultation of an hour. How many hours are we looking at? Just just one hour. But Surely they're not going to be able to explain everything in an hour. I would I just want a a a a ruling on how they think

131Title N would fall if if we leave our policies the way they are. So I I don't I don't know that it would take more than an hour. I I have no idea. I haven't spoken with any attorneys. I've only spoken with the parillegal. I'd like to make an amendment to the motion to limit the consultation to one hour. I am open to other opinions, but I don't want, as Tina said, I don't want this cost wasting a lot of taxp money. Oh, I'm not interested in that either. Roger, I am 100% okay with bucking the main Civil Rights Act. Okay, I'm rooted in facts in reality. MSAD70 has not been sued yet. I think MSD AD70 showed their female students that they care and they will protect their state. I am happy to stand

132up as a district and say that we want to do that that we don't want to be behind the eightball when they do come out with the answer from the Supreme Court and I don't want my original motion amended without a vote on such a thing do we have to address the the suggestion on the the amendment or do we just keep discussion on the original? We have an original emot em motion on the floor. Just wanted to be clear. My own opinion is we've we've already hashed through this. This board passed the current policy that goes back to 2020 100%. The people that here voted that policy change 100%. With the idea that when main state law andor the Supreme Court changes, we will change. And that won't happen overnight. There will be time

133given to everybody to change it to what the current and the whatever new wording may be. Um, we've already made this decision that was decided last month by the board as a whole. I'm not sure that spending any more of the taxpayers money um with a firm. I don't know what their background in educational law is. I know that the the firm we use now is the most rooted in educational law in the state. So, My opinion would be no, we don't need to do this. We've done it. Holly, my opinion is um MSAD70 has not been sued by anybody um as of their decision to go back to their original Title N. Um, I think we owe I think we owe our people that had signed the petitions. Um, and there was a lot

134of people that signed the petitions about Title N wanting us to turn it back. So, I think we owe them at least a investigation into what it would take, what the liability is, what the um, a second opinion just isn't going to hurt. And if it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg, let's do it. My concern is that we could be sued the other way by a girl by a girl not being protected. Um, it could happen the other way. What I would I would like to get another opinion, but what I want to know, and this is what I'd been taught in the past, but it's been a long time since I've been in school and college, but I was always under the impression that federal law takes precedent over state law.

135And so that's do want to get an opinion on that because if it does then we're going against federal law by following state law. So I'd like to get another opinion. Yeah, I'd like to get another opinion on on the fact whether or not federal law override states So, you know, and another thing is talking about taxpayers. We had a survey on masks when we did that uh mask stuff. And I think if we had a survey for the taxpayers, it would come out very similar to the rest of the state of Maine numbers where 69% of our population doesn't want men in female spaces. I do find that would be true. So I I think making the claim that our taxpayers wouldn't be up for this challenge is not correct. I think our taxpayers

136would absolutely stand behind us and be proud of us for making a stand. Ava. Um, I would also like to second the importance of our district taking the initiative to check our work, especially through our lawyers and the people that are ultimately uh giving us direction. these things. Um, this topic is really important. I think it doesn't only affect girls, but it affects many other groups of people. And to have somebody check the work with a cost that isn't for the district as a whole, um, I don't know how that would totally impact the district with our funds, but um, I think that $300 to be able or so to be able to talk with somebody else second opinion on what our lawyers have been telling us is really important. And I think with the

137petition that did um get passed around, there was a lot of signatures of people that are taxpayers in our in our towns or supporting towns that do show support with us possibly doing something like this, taking action. Uh Andy, you stole my penny pinching comment because I was very concerned about how much lawyer fees cost. So, um, but I don't disagree with what your argument is about having a second opinion. Um, I would ask that we do uh look at lawyers that have a background in education. So, if we can somehow have a vote or agreement or discussion on the lawyers that we use to have the second opinion, um, I would be more encouraged to support this. Um, I recognize the Supreme Court issue, but isn't the state of Maine currently reviewing bills that

138are currently in committee that would make all this kind of for kind of the cart before the horse? So, I almost see us revisiting this in short order anyways. So, I just want to raise that concern because it's currently in committee. So, that could change things as well. Can we act like for a second that we do live in Maine and that if it's in committee and on the left side, it's likely to pass in the current climate that we have. Also, I I I don't necessarily want to go with a firm that's rooted in education because I think if you Google every single firm that's rooted in education in the state of Maine, it will say they are left-leaning law firms. Just like Drummond and Woodsome will say online. Say online. From what I

139understand, Steve Smith at uh trial attorneys is the law firm that worked with MSAD70. So I think they it I would guess that they do have education experience. Um we certainly can confirm that I'm sure. Um there is also the funding or grant money um that may be attached to some of this. Um that something we might want to consider in our investigating of you know you know the title N because there is funding that is attached to this. Just my opinion I I'm I'm open to a second opinion. I am I am Um, I do want to point out just so the board knows that there is a little bit of a difference between RSU73 and SAD 70. Seven SAD 70 has a has a fraction of the students that we have. I'm not

140exactly sure how many students are in the high school, but it's 40. I don't know. It's it's it's minuscule. Um, also, um, they are so far away from Augusta, I don't I don't think I I think they're not on Janet Mills radar. Um, and then also just noting that they are kneedeep in Trump country. They really are. So there there are some differences between our community and sad 70 that would make and I I would bet that every single person on that board is a conservative. Thank you. I'm looking at your law firm and um in under practice areas they Estate planning and wills, family law and divorce, personal injury, real estate and property, sex crime litigation, military law, aviation law, patent law, business and commercial law, criminal defense, and that is it. There's not

141one word in education. Getting advice from lawyers who don't have a strong education background seems like a really bad idea for a school district that's trying to not get itself into trouble by doing things that are illegal. Just as a point of order, since I feel a second amendment, I'm with I don't know if I can offer this, but if it's legally okay for me to do so, I'll gladly pay the $300 myself. I'll donate that. My wife has given me permission. Just a quick uh question. Is is there um has Drummond and Wood expressed that they wouldn't represent us if this board decided to go against so that they've said that they would they would litigate if this board decided to uh buck the state of Maine. That's my question. No, there are lawyers

142and they said they would represent us. They never said you can't or you couldn't. They made it clear that you probably shouldn't get out in front of this because of the possible lawsuits and the fact that it doesn't they didn't believe that it would change anything for I mean yes shows that how we might feel as a district but it doesn't change who we would be playing against uh throughout the state because there only we don't play against 70. Um there other districts haven't done that yet. Um, like I said, they never said you can't, they never said you couldn't, and they would represented us no matter what we decided. But as they often point out, anybody can sue us at any time, but they'd rather have it be easier for us to win a

143lawsuit than for us to get caught up in something that is not necessarily a good thing. So, they would represent us. Um, I guess one of my questions would be what other schools are having this conversation um in the state of Maine? How many are there um in the state of Maine that are having this conversation about Title N? Um because I think that gives a good representation of how the state of Maine is feeling about this topic. And I um and I think um conversation about the different uh school systems being in Trump country or them being down south where there might be different political. I think that has a impact but also as a whole I think it would be good to maybe get a gauge on how the state of Maine is

144feeling about this um with their school systems. I would hazard a guess that every board, every school system is having similar conversations to this. Um, I know several have voted. Uh, L I believe was on the side of just voted to uh to amend some of their policies. Um, but like I said, I think every every school district is having this the same conversation and it it's it's about dotting the eyes and crossing the tees. I just to make sure that we're going in the right direction. That's it. Okay. So, we have a motion on the floor. Let's get a roll call. Please could you read the motion again? Just a point of order. Did we Did we address Andrew's amendment? Yes. Well, he withdrew it. He withdrew it. Okay. Thank you. I didn't get

145a second. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Um, seeking a motion to go into executive session to discuss new students, school board representatives pursuant to MS [Music] A4056A. Do I have a second? Second by Tina. Okay, we can after after a brief bathroom break. Yes. Oh, all in favor uh say I I opposed. I would entertain a motion uh to accept Mason Leante and Aubrey Mitchell as the two new new student school board representatives beginning June 12th. 2025. This is for us to recommend that they go to voted on that. I'm done. Roger and Don. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Oh, just got Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. All those opposed? Motion passes. Welcome. Have any personal stuff? I for a motion to adjourn. Roger. Tina. Roger

146and Tina. All those in favor say I.