001e e e good evening uh how are we on attendance s correct elain's hoping to be here a little bit later okay thank you uh we're going to change things up a little bit uh we are going to go into an executive session to discuss a personal matter pursuant to one MSA 456a time out oh can I get a motion to go into an executive session Roger Michelle any discussion uh all in favor of the motion say I I all opposed very good e e e back in session at 627 and now a word from our superintendent good evening understandably people have been upset with what has gone on as was stated in the press the safety and well-being of our students is our number one concern we received the parental complaint following protocol that
002staff person was put on pay to administrative leave for an investigation starting on Thursday February 27th due to the nature of that complaint the jpd was notified as with DHHS and the main Department of Education certification Department we will continue to work closely with our law enforcement on this matter the staff person was arrested seven school days after the complaint was made and resigned late Tuesday afternoon March 11th nine School school days after the complaint moving forward the policy committee will be looking to tweak or update our policies also as with any contract negotiations language will be seriously looked at in the future thank you thank you and I would entertain a motion to approve the school board minutes from February 27th Tina Riley second Danielle Danielle a second uh any discussion all in favor
003of the motion say I I all opposed the motion carries yeah Andrew abstains and Sarah abstains anybody else okay and Communications and correspondence Rob Taylor and students thank you there we go um Mr Albert about two months ago um said that the board would like uh an update on the MOs silver culture outdoor research project we it kind of called the chaga project um and we've talked to you guys before um but he wanted a an update on how things were going with it and uh we've gotten all these Thursday snowstorms so we're finally here and it's not snowing so um we're here um and I have a bunch of kids that can kind of tell you um what we've been doing with it um a lot of work has been done and um it's
004been a it's been a really nice uh project to be involved with so skyly you're up okay so what is Mos Silva culture it is the Art and Science of growing trees M keep going sorry okay m is a Greek word for mushrooms or fungus so M Silva culture is the science of a growing fungi in a forest ecosystem and then what is chaga chaga is a fungus that is commonly found on Birch trees chaga mushrooms are a Val valued commodity prized for their high levels of antioxidants and are traditionally harvested by foresting in the main woods now we move on to background information on our project specifically so our project is located on RSU 73 owned Forest land behind the high school um how many trees are involved there were 60 trees in the
005enir experimental group five dowels per tree and 60 trees in our control group there are many educational benefits that come along with this project for Science and Mathematics including experimental design scientific method Forest management skills and for math measurement diameter at breast height compass bearings statistics including growth rate statistical significant and then we can really see benefits when it comes to the economic model of this project if the birch trees that are located in with within this stand of our forest were traditionally harvested Birchwood isn't really very valuable so it would sell for about $300 per 1,000 board feet which means that one birch tree is around $30 so the 60 birch trees inoculated would be valued at $1,800 whoops but with our new um inoculated trees the 60 birch trees are worth almost $37,000
006because the five dowels are uh capable of producing 2.5 PB conks each each and the market price for chaga is pretty steady at about $50 per pound so each tree would be then worth about $625 as opposed to the $30 if you were to just Harvest Harvest them normally um so back on June 17th is when we did our inoculation day uh just Nick MOS Silva is the company that's doing this in in for us all over the state of main actually all over New England um they're really having some great success and they're they're very very busy but they came and spent the day with us um do you guys want to talk a little bit about your experiences on the inoculation day back in June sure I'll sure um Justin and Nikki came
007and I think that it was we didn't have school that day or it was a half day of school it was actually the day after the last it was the final day of school but we had exam makeup day hit the high school so we didn't have to come to school so we didn't have classes so we came out pretty early in the morning at like 9: and they came out and joined us and we started just by you're okay oh I mean it's early if you don't have school okay anyway um they explained to us kind of what the process would be like um I was actually just like this weekend tapping my trees for maple syrup and if you've ever done that it's pretty much the same thing you take a drill with
008a special drill bit and you drill into the tree like half an inch and you take um a wooden dowel and it's literally just like a little piece of wood and they explain to us that it's um birch wood from trees in Maine because I mean you can think about it you're not supposed to um transport firewood from state to state so it's important that you have um wood that comes from the state so that you're not introducing any bacteria or invasive species or anything like that so they have the wooden dowels that have the chaga spores on it you drill the hole and then you um tap it in with a rubber mallet and you cover it with this Like Glue paste type of stuff so that nothing else can get in it and
009before we inoculated the trees we measured um diameter at breast height and um Compass bearing and all the trees were tagged so they can be found later to collect data it was pretty fun we just got to walk around all of the new Trail systems so earlier in the year in June uh we went out and inoculated all those trees but later in the year in September we went out and gathered a control group of 60 white birch trees of which we gathered also the GPS location and the diameter at breast height so that we can compare the two groups to see the growth rate how uh the chaga affects the trees that it was put into versus regular trees so that if there is any negative effects to the health of the tree we
010could see that in the in the data um and also in this picture um this is U my Early College environmental science class Zen's a member of the class kids get dual credit they get high school credit towards graduation they also get four science credits from the University of main of Farmington um through an agreement that we have um and the gentleman using the the measuring tool there is Austin Gilbo who's a Spruce Mountain alumnus uh he works for sappy paper and he got us um a grant uh it's called an employees ideas that matter Grant um so he basically the company sends us out and he applied for the grant and he he he um basically um wrote a grant to to fund things for our Environ program because he was a very uh
011big envir honor back in high school um and we got a $3,000 grant for them and that's helped us to buy uh measuring equipment and tools and and other things and we've also bought some water quality Equipment for the work we do with the lot Livermore Falls Water District too so uh we really appreciate sappy paper and Austin um for all their help with that so some of the questions that we hope we can answer through the data we collect from this experiment are diameter at breast height does the chaga affect how fast the trees are growing um the height of each dowel so the dowels were implanted vertically five in each tree so by harvesting the con afterwards we can find out if it grows best at a certain height um which side of
012the tree was inoculated so the trees were um inoculated on different sides like cinal directions north south east west so we can find out if maybe it grows best facing a certain direction CU I think it's kind of a like old wives tale that moss grows best on one side of a tree but I'm pretty sure Justin and Nikki told us that's not true but we'll see um and species of tree we inoculated both white and yellow Birch so we hope to find out if maybe one grows better than the other these are some of the programs that have contributed to helping learn about this and that's our Environ team our early college environmental science class their Mains natural resource class and college preper and honors biology classes um so our future plans for the
013project um we've had a like I said like U Natalie just said we've had a lot of kids involved in a lot of different programs here at the school um we've actually already developed lessons and materials and have been sharing them with the Middle School um we're hoping the middle school science teachers are going to get middle school kids involved out there um and we've also talked with Mrs Elling Wood's uh AP uh statistics class because when we really start to look at this data um this uh her work with Statistics will be invaluable um to analyzing the data when we get done um so yeah we're really hoping that there's a um an opportunity to just keep involving more kids um the project is going to take five to seven years uh if you
014go out there now and you look at an inoculated tree you'll see five holes drilled in it um like uh Lily was saying they have arborous paste covering the holes so the trees can't get infected um and we're now just playing the waiting game to watch the chaga grow um next fall we're going to go back out again we're going to do every year we're going to go back we're going to measure diameter at breast height um check on the chaga growth also have to do that to the 60 uh control grip trees so we can analyze how well these things are growing over time um and one of our one of those essential questions is what is this relationship ship between um chaga and the birch tree um symbiosis is when two things live
015together symbiosis comes in many forms is it parasitism where one negatively affects the other is it commensalism where one is not affected and the other one benefits is it mutualism where they both benefit um this project might help us to answer that those questions and determine uh what kinds of things are going on with the trees um and I'd just like to thank um again Justin Michael Silva and uh also the the folks over at sappy and Austin Gilbo um for all their help on the project and uh so I I also want to make sure everyone gets introduced real quick so I'll have them come through and introduce themselves but this is Ken Baker who's teaches biology also does the Environ Tim with me I'm obviously Rob Taylor why don't you guys all introduce
016yourselves I'm Zen Weil doy and I'm on the uh Early College environmental science I'm Lily porier I'm on the Environ team and I also took the Early College environmental science class last year I'm Natalie FKA I'm on the Environ team and last year I took the Early College environmental science class I'm Lea Welch I'm on the marathon team um I'm Chelsea kopka and I'm just on in barathon I'm Skyler Condon I'm on Environ and I also did the environmental science class thanks um other any questions thank you very much I think this is an absolutely fantastic program I have a quick question and I'm gonna see if anybody else has any questions as well but have any of you had chaga te if can you raise your hand if you've had it ah and I
017just want to know what did you think disgusting disgusting yeah and that's actually um on our to-do list to do is to make some Chate tea um Lily actually found a giant Conch um on your at your house um and um my um main natural resources class actually found wild chaga growing out where we've actually done um put the chaga in so um we've actually been marking those trees so we know that that chaga is not part of our experimental group it's actually already there and it's it's just in the kids found it um because now they know what to look for um so yeah and maturation is is how long is it five to seven years five to seven years and um they also say that after they do the Harvest um they can
018do it sustainably so you're leaving some of the the chaga on the tree and it can kind of scab over regrow and you may get a second harvest a couple years down the road from the first sweet so yeah sweet sweet I I think all of you should try that chaga tea I haven't tried it yet but I'm I'm looking forward to it is there a a minimum diameter of tree that you impregnate with the um surprisingly um we actually prefer smaller trees um larger trees uh actually fight the chaga off a little bit better it's harder for the chaga to get into the into the tree um a 10-inch diameter birch tree is kind of perfect but um five to 15 Ines that's where most of our diameters fall did anybody else have any
019questions thank you very much awesome well done thank you right and Mark good evening thank you for allowing us to be here tonight uh my name is Mark ke for those of you who don't know me I'm the assistant principal and athletic director I have with me Chris Dua who is our outdoor uh Club advisor um and I'm going to talk to you tonight about the moose river trip which we've this would be the fifth year that we've asked for it um last year we had it set to go and due to some illness in my family it just didn't happen it's hard to be um two days away from contact when there's some stuff going on at home so um the Moose river trip is a 4-day trip on the Moose river which is
020in Jackman and um the fir it's a actually a 5-day program the first day is here at the high school prepping all gear teaching kids some of the basic stuff on dry land about proper PFD use um basics of canoe Strokes um how to set up tents so that you don't get out in the middle of the woods and find out that you're missing some pegs or you know your important pieces um and how to tie knots and then how to get canoes on and off canoe trailer um they bring all their gear in that day we spend probably six or seven hours here and then they go home that night leaving all their gear here the next morning we would leave here about 6 o'clock we would drive to um Jackman to through Jackman
021to holb on the way through we would order pizza to be ready for the day that we come out um and uh go into holb Falls where we take our gear um we canoe about 300 yards across holb pond to our first campsite um we divide the group into small working parties so each group has their own responsibilities and you know could be the tarp crew it could be the um the cooking crew and we rotate some of those things so that um the the trip Works smoothly we stay there that first night during that day we go out and we teach everybody we do some inwater canoe strokes and then we flip canoes and teach them how to do wet water rescue so that they're able to get back in their canoe should their
022canoe ever tip over um and then we would um get up the next morning fairly early we would canoe roughly 13 miles down to holb Falls which is the first um first time on the river for most of them um it's pretty quiet there are a couple of nice little rips for them to go through um and it's challenged by choice so some kids will choose to walk around While others will take their canoes through um and then we'll stay at holb Falls which is um we do a little science um experiment there with hydraulics and and rocks being thrown in at the top and to see what the you know how how those rocks will come out of the choot um they do some fly fishing or regular fishing um and then the following
023morning we would canoe from there to addan Falls which again requires a couple of uh small rips um and again the kids are becoming more comfortable by that time so they're learning The Strokes being able to control their canoes a little bit better and we would stay either at holb Falls or we would canoe across the pond depending on um what the weather's like and what time we get there because it's really about another hour hour and a half to get across the other side of the pond um stay that night and then canoe out the next day which is about a 45 minute paddle to where the um the Vehicles will be for the for the trip home so they'll be learning about the outdoors we'll be talking about chaga I've had chaga te
024I used to actually make chuga tea and then make my coffee with it so um I've had it quite a bit um will'll be um obviously all of the outdoor um skills along with fishing um so it's a it's a really good experience this will be the 11th year that I've done it I'm a master main guide Mr Dua is um working towards his uh education oal trip leader license um we will both be trained in Wilderness first aid so we will be um we will be able to take care of anything that happens out there um and then um when we get back we'll get back here about 3:00 in the afternoon after having pizza at the Overlook in Jackman looking over the trip that they just took um and when we get back
025here set up tents so that they can dry out and then we' um I would come back in the next day and take care of all that equipment so does anybody have any questions yeah does anybody have any questions oh Jody how many chaperons do you have this year so knowing how many kids can go and so how many kids can go with those sh well we H we have by state law we can't take more than 10 a piece but if you get to that point where you've got 20 kids and four chapon then that's a that's not a a camping trip that's a party um like a a a travel party you know and it's just too many people um we would there is there is a small fee it's $75 we do
026have some money we received a grant through teens to Trail so we would be able to scholarship some kids if they can't afford it we do help them with gear we have extra sleeping bags and things like that we provide um dry bags if the kids don't have them so really it's it's um it's a great opportunity for kids so yeah we we'll probably try to keep it to a total group of around 16 or 17 maybe 18 at the max okay great thank you you're welcome any other questions from any other board members no thank you well done uh so we need to vote on that so I'd entertain a motion Jody what's the motion um I'd like to make a motion to approve that the high school and Mr Keller takes um a
027group of students on the Moose river trip for 2025 and a second Tina Riley seconds any discussion seeing no discussion all in favor say I I all opposed and the motion carries all right Rob Taylor again for blue crew did you change too right got to represent got to represent my uh Bureau at home is full of Robotics and Environ shirts it's kind of the Wardrobe um so the in first robotics um the the biggest award you can win at a uh District event is called the impact award and the the impact award recognizes the teams um work in their school work with their team work with their Community work with the Greater Community in the state of Maine as a whole and also working to promote uh the first organization um as a whole
028um and it's the best award you can get and if you win that award at one of your District qualifying events um it automatically qualifies you to go to the first New England competition um and uh two weeks ago down at f with high school at the southern main robotics competition the blue crew won the impact award um so um the kids have punched their ticket to go to no wuin um we're going to tell you a little bit about about what the team does in a in a minute here um the one thing I just want to say about this group of kids um I've been teaching for about 36 years and I've worked with a lot of a lot of different very successful teams and I have never had a group of kids
029that enjoys each other's company as much as this group does they love to spend time together so anytime there is an opportunity for them to do an event they're there they show up they have a great time and it's that tightness amongst the team members that has really led to the impact award um you you can probably can't name a festival that occurred in Western Maine where we weren't there doing an Outreach event um the Apple pumpkin Strawberry Festival Blueberry Festival uh we got all the berries um they they're um they've done a ton of work here within our school and in with with Mount Blue um they actually started a new LEGO League team at Mount Blue Middle School this year um they raised the money to pay for the team's registration they they
030help train the mentor um of the team and train the kids on how to compete and the team won an award at the state meet um we also mentored our LEGO League teams here at Spruce Mountain Middle School um and uh we actually uh hosted and ran the state competition over at Mount Blue um the first Saturday in February the amount of work these kids did have done is incredibly impressive and and as we often say um first robotics is a lot more than robots we do a lot more than robots and and that's why the kids are being recognized so um I'm going to let them talk a little bit um Skyler gets to start again the oh yeah these are some posters that we actually used during our impact report so this is
031blue crew by by the Numbers where it just has a bunch of important statistics about our team like how we students from our team are from over 14 towns and four counties in Maine and as a team we have done over 2,000 hours of Outreach events and and Personnel hours and that's 100 hours times the 20 people on our team and we've actually reached over 10,000 people from a TV show we did with Mount Blue TV and from all the events that we do like the Blueberry Festival the Strawberry Festival um and as Mr Taylor said we have mentored 20 teams in the last five years and that is five teams per year on an average we started two teams at the Spruce Mountain Middle School and one team at Mount Blue and we are
032100% youth Le Team all the students make all the decisions and the mentors are just there to support us and Mason will talk more about that so um like Skyler said we are completely student L um we we split ourselves up into subgroups of um business and Outreach and uh uh robot and building um there there's a lot to running a team like ours um it's not just building a robot um like uh has been mentioned we we do a lot of Outreach within our community and within our school so uh it requires a lot of kids to run it um so uh we we have uh students who lead their sub teams um and we select student leaders um by an interview panel of both mentors and their peers um they must go through
033a resumé WR writing workshop and submit their resume to the um the committee that selects them um and they have to do a five to seven minute interview uh with the committee um and uh we also meet as an executive team independent of the mentors um every week um to to maintain um student leadership within the team so this is a calendar that I made it explains so basically blue crew has spent 34% of the calendar days for the past is it four years years three years doing something like Outreach events mentoring just meetings that we hold that's Prive a big part of first robotics is something called the safety All Stars which is awarded to the team who has shown Integrity of course saf and overall promoting a healthy work environment with other teams
034currently us the blue crew have won safety Allstars at 15 different events and hopefully we'll keep that streak going with our next event this weekend as well as promoting safety through access such as creating a safety comic uh talking to many pits about safety and spraying safety awareness as a whole as a team and allowing other teams to come and ask us questions or ask of use certain Safety products that we uh allow them to use so so yeah the uh the event um down in fouth was pretty special um like um U Maggie just said they won the safety All-Star award both days at that competition um and we won the impact award and uh we got into the playf offs and um their robot was ranked 15th out of 30 after qualifying then
035they have a draft um there are eight alliances that compete against each other in the playoffs we were in the number five Alliance uh it's a double elimination tournament we upset the number four Alliance in the first round they lost to the number two Alliance I think it was in the second round put them in the losers bracket slogged their way all the way through the losers bracket um and lost to the number one one Alliance in the finals um so you'll see some of the kids have their um medallions on the blue one is for the impact award and the orange one is for being a robotic event finalist um that was a pretty good weekend um we're really proud of the kids and Mason has a request for [Applause] you going do what
036we did so um with us winning the uh impact award which is the most prestigious award in first um we have automatically punched our ticket to New England's um so we are here tonight to request um to attend the out of state um New England championships in uh Springfield Massachusetts uh April 2nd through April 5th 2025 are there any questions from the board Andrew Andrew yes thank you I know you've done well in the state competitions is this your first time to new englands um I think it's our third um for for blue crew that's awesome I was just wondering how many people on the team at Spruce is is this the team or is there more um so so we so we have there there's about um so there's about 20 of of us
037in total and um it's it's pretty split uh half and half between us and MBL all right all right and I know no team leaders or coaches like to talk about the next game they always want to talk about what's coming on you want to focus on New England let's just say New England goes outstanding and you guys kick some butt what's after that uh we might be coming back to you to talk about going to worlds in Houston Texas in the middle of April um I don't know how first lives in this universe but we'll find out on April 6th if we qualify for worlds worlds starts on April 16th wow and you can't make a hotel reservation until you actually qualify because you have to make your hotel reservations through first so we
038yeah we'll figure it out any other questions great job congratulations good work I would just like to say too if you get a chance to come this weekend Saturday and Sunday we're going to be at the Lewiston colise at the the pine tree District event it's our second event and uh please find our pit find us in the stands would love to see you thank you thank you Andrew I ask that we approve the trip by unanimous consent all right there motion has been made and is it seconded Tina any discussion all all in favor say I I all opposed seeing no opposed the motion carries Andrew and Michelle bran and Carrie Mitchell this is the behavior committee report good evening um Carrie and I were snowed out of speaking at the last two school
039board meetings that we were scheduled for but tonight we are finally here to speak on behalf of the district's Behavior steering committee to update you on the work being done in individual buildings and districtwide we met most recently on January 29th when we agreed that we would continue to meet as a districtwide steering committee on a quarterly basis as a district we have begun work with the thriving Minds Grant and I've included a summary of that work in your packet tonight we'll be focusing on summarizing the work that is currently being done in each building and we'll highlight some of the areas that we believe need additional support at the high school our Focus has been on two main areas students social and emotional health and vaping sensation education for social and emotional health Paula
040Keller um our school's social worker has been working with our school's main youth leaders Representatives so those are current high school students who are part of the main youth leaders program to create monthly newsletters highlighting healthy strategies to help support students mental social and emotional health these are posted around the school and in all bathroom stalls I've provided copies of two of the newsletters that they've made so far for you to see in your packet our guidance staff has also been working to arrange guest speakers from minding your mind a nonprofit organization that provides mental health education to students in kindergarten through college and to the adults in their communities with the goal of ending the stigma of destructive behaviors often associated with mental health issues um it will include guest speakers the who then
041have an opportunity to work in smaller breakout sessions um by a grade level within the high school our building's ad hoc Behavior committee is also working on adapting anti-bullying lessons that have been piloted by the Middle School Phoenix time advisers to be used in our own Phoenix time groups for Vaping cessation and education um I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because originally Jade Kutcher and the program um that is working in the middle school and high school they were scheduled to be presenting right after us today um and I believe that they've actually arranged to present at the next board meeting so they'll be able to give you a lot of detail on the amazing work that they've been doing um in our schools but I will say that we have
042Al we have already had students who've participated in The Vaping cessation program that have expressed a desire to remain connected to the program because of its positive impact on their life um and one of of the reasons why that is one of our big areas of focus at the high school is because our disciplinary data shows that um the majority more than half of our disciplinary issues are connected to vaping in some way um for one thing because vaping does usually mean either out of school or in school suspension but it is also often even even when kids aren't caught vaping students who do vape regularly and perhaps are experiencing withdrawal symptoms while they're here at school that does all Al often lead to disciplinary situations because they are simply struggling to get through the
043school day so The Vaping cessation programming that we are currently working with um is definitely really really important for us oh sorry the Middle School's restorative practices committee has designed and Incorporated lessons addressing addressing bullying into Phoenix time the lessons addressed Rude versus mean versus bullying um they've addressed the emotional and mental scars that do not heal when someone is bullied and they've addressed how the way that we speak to one one another makes a difference in our relationships and our own self-worth the middle school has also had several assemblies this year that have included messages to students about bullying and about being resilient to traumatic life experiences including topics such as mental health and bullying cyber bullying and overcoming obstacles to be successful the middle school has also adopted the use of a form
044for students to fill out if they believe they are experiencing bullying and staff report that it has made it easier for Mr Collins to follow up with students and to help students learn to identify and deal effectively with different types of negative peer interactions staff also believe that the strict no sell phone use allowed during the school day policy has helped significantly but they do report that students use of cell phones in social media outside of school is still contributing to social conflicts at school since the last update at the beginning of the year the elementary school has added another edtech one in the behavior RTI room she is currently doing pushin in the classrooms to help students stay on task and help with work completion as well as working with students who have in
045school suspension in order to keep them here instead of outside of school we continue to use and refer to the poster or the handout labeled is it mean rude or bullying which is the same one as the middle school this visual helps determine if the reported behavior is mean rude or bullying since most children used to think any type of negative behavior was actually bullying even if it was just one isolated incident students are now able to identify what the behavior truly is if the behavior is either rude or mean we let them know if this Behavior continues and is targeted that that is in fact bullying it needs to be reported this districtwide uh mean rude and or bullying visual and the wording has really helped and there appears to be a decrease in
046reports of bullying all students also have healthy living as a weekly Allied arts class where seal lessons are taught the fifth grade Good Vibes Club is working on being positive influences in various ways including daily positive words through morning announcements buddy lunches are ongoing for those who struggle in the cafeteria setting as well seven staff members are signed up for the state's regulated classroom professional development happening over the next couple of months and last but very important to note is the negative effects of student use of social media and cell phones outside of school even at our grades uh continues to be an issue that is often brought into the school the primary school is using mindup a social and emotional learning curriculum teachers do lessons in the classroom around students mental health and the
047parts of the the brain that helps students focus and the principal reinforces strategies during schoolwide morning meetings with breathing exercises uh which parts of the brain to focus on for certain tasks such as testing or how to reset coming in from Recess this program has been very helpful for students and staff so there is a common language used when redirecting the students for example the front of the brain is called their Wise Owl because it helps students make good choices the amydala is is called The Barking Dog because it controls their reactions to certain things that might happen mind up books have also been some of the most popular books for students to check out at the library teachers also report referring to the building's consequence Matrix frequently saying that it has made it easier
048to deal with a lot of issues even though it doesn't cure everything and it often serves as the foundation for students individual Behavior plans so we are continuing to work on understanding the role that Main's dangerous student Behavior law should be playing in our schools we believe that it would be helpful to take advantage of some of the professional development opportunities designed by the unified guidance collection of Education stakeholders across the state this unified guidance group includes the main principles Association the main school superintendent Association the main School Board Association the main administrators of service for children with disabilities and the main Education Association I've included in your packet the current written guidance including a recommended reporting form we believe it would be helpful to design a district-wide procedure to help us ensure the laws
049being followed with Fidelity particularly now that the laws implementation is grievable at the local level both the primary and Elementary School administrators would like to replace one of the secretary positions in each building with a dean of students position similar to the current position at the middle school in order to manage treny and behavior related issues more effectively we would like to continue working with parents in the community around establishing a better understanding of digital safety building on the recent safety night hosted at the elementary school with a bigger focus on the impact of cell phones on student health and learning and we are also hoping to connect with our local state representative Sheila Lyman uh to discuss some of the bills being proposed during this legislative session that have the potential to support the
050work that we are doing to finish tonight we'd like to share that staff members from across the district have communicated to us that the creation of this Behavior steering committee with its focus on collaboration between staff and Administration has led to significant progress in addressing student behavior and its impact on learning and as you saw during presentations earlier tonight uh and at your last board meeting when the humanities program um was presented our district is blessed to have talented and truly dedicated teachers who do amazing work with our students um even though it's not likely to end up on the evening news tonight um I'm always so excited to see the amazing things that our students are doing here and the awesome opportunities that they get to take part in um we are committed to
051continuing our work to support student behavioral needs and we appreciate your continued support and thank you and I just want to say sorry no I was just going to say if you have any questions it is apparent you guys have been working really hard and I just want to thank you for your endeavors uh great job is there any questions from the board members no questions once again thank you for your hard work all right moving into public comment I do have a quick statement that I'd like to put out good evening I want to begin by acknowledging that we are in a very difficult time and I fully understand the Deep concerns and passions that surround the safety and well-being of our students protecting our children from harm including any potential threats such as
052child Predators is something that every single one of us truly cares deeply about I encourage everyone to share their concerns during this public comment and have any re if they have any relevant information they have we are here to listen as a school board and take your input seriously that being said I must remind everyone that this is not the forum for calling out individual administrators teachers or students public comments should focus on concerns and solutions if any speaker directs comments towards specific individuals they will be asked to stop and their time to speak will be over we want to ensure that public comments rep remain clean respectful and civil for furthermore if anyone has credible information regarding past or current situations involving teachers or any school Personnel we strongly encourage you to report it
053directly to the police for any other concerns or allegations I recommend bringing them to the attention to Scott Albert the superintendent our schools have procedures in place to address such issues and there will be no retali alation for coming forward it is our Collective responsibility as parents teachers and community members to ensure that our children are protected and that the appropriate actions are taken when needed thank you for your understanding and cooperation first up would be Tanya Dello hi hi Tanya I'll remind you you they have three minutes yep thank you my name is Tanya Dillo I've been in this community hey T I'm sorry to stop you already could you speak into the microphone yes sorry I talk loud so um I have been in this community my entire life my children attended School
054in Jay my grandkids have been in and out of Spruce Mountain I am concerned we have a lot of good teachers in this District a lot of good teachers and I feel like they're being drowned out by the bad ones this is why I have an issue with unions Julie and Bob and Rob Taylor I know a very strong supporters of it and if every teacher in this District were like Julian Rob I would not have any problem standing here today I wish that everybody was as dedicated as you both we need to empower the good staff to stand up and say enough is enough because unfortunately all we hear about is the negative more importantly the administration needs to act on these things do the work it is your job we need to give
055the kids the best education possible I realize teaching isn't easy I have two kids in education but if you choose to teach do it well go above and beyond for your students if a coworker is doing something wrong or just not doing their job speak up and administrators let's pull up our bootstraps and do our jobs I do not believe that not one adult in this building didn't know what was going on with what house seems to be many girls over the years so I would like to figure out how we Empower our good teachers to feel comfortable speaking up and coming forward and having something done about it thank you thank you tany melet pepen and I hope I said that right no one does it's okay hi I'm Mallette pin and I live
056in Jay um I no longer have a child in this school I pulled him out two years ago and my question I guess to the board is with all these children that are either at homeschooling or have gone to different districts does that money stay here if they're homeschooling I guess is my first question do you answer that or no and no disrespect me but this is this is a public comment I apologize okay so I guess my thing is with the whole budget I'm looking at how much more that you're expecting the people that live in this town to pay um and honestly for the numbers and to see where the kids are today and I'm not saying we have bad teachers either because I agree you have both on each side I have
057a real hard time with over a million dollars being asked I don't see any changes in these kids I see more kids being homeschooled or going to other districts it's not okay that we're paying that money I mean every year it's something more what was it this year the kitchen needed to be upgraded okay I get that but for me these kids learning what they need to know is a lot more important than that and the only thing I'm going to say about as everyone knows the elephant in the room I agree somebody knew something about this before because the girls coming out that I'm reading on Facebook and I'm sure everybody else are are not in this school right now have been and somebody knew about it that's all I have to say thank
058you Jo Joel G sorry how are you tonight I'm Chief stage a chief of police in Jay um and uh I'll be talking tonight from the standpoint of a chief of police here in RSU 73 but also as a parent in the community uh in dealing with this uh very tragic event that we've we've come to light in the last couple weeks I'd first like to say that I commend uh the school for its handling uh of this matter um principal PL immediately brought it to our school resource officer's attention uh the very moment that he was made aware of the the matter uh from then a very quick response happened from the school district to remove this subject from the school and from having any contact with the children uh and secondly I would
059like to say that the the school did a phenomenal job uh with its use of uh wisdom in the course of discretion uh a lot of times these cases and as a parent any anything that happens with our children I I think I would like to know immediately uh as soon as something happens but as an investigator I understand that in the day of M uh digital media and social media everything that people know was automatically uploaded for the whole world to see and as an investigator that's a flaw uh because if that had happened uh and we were not able to get the um evidence that we needed for a successful prosecution we would be victimizing the victims in this tragic circumstance even worse to that I would like to say and I encourage
060everybody here to um Foster uh an atmosphere and a culture where these young people can come forth uh and have the confidence to know that when they do disclose these matters they're not going to be vilified I have probably am the only person in this room with all the facts of this case and I can tell you that uh there is no indication at all um from these victims that anybody else knew what was going on and that was because out of their own words they were too ashamed to tell anybody and that's a problem I think that we have created a culture uh where young people don't feel comfortable coming forward and disclosing some things and I think that we as adults and as parents in this room have an obligation to these children
061to make sure that we change that culture uh and remember that there is only one villain in the story and that person was arrested last week and hopefully will be successfully prosecuted so I thank the board I thank the school um I thank uh principal PL and and everybody that took the the quick and necessary actions to get the best case resolution to this and I would encourage anybody that does have information please come forward and know that you will be supported know that we will encourage you every step of the way and that we will also do everything we can to protect you thank you thank [Applause] you Sherry hi I'm Sher wette um from the town of J I also own a business in Lima Falls so I pay taxes in Two Towns
062so I'm asking you please don't let the budget go forward as it is now 1.4 million is enough we can't support this we have no Mill we have no real industry in this town anymore we always had a sanctuary when we had IP we had whatever we wanted it was great but that's gone on now and we need to make some tough Cuts if you guys are really interested and I've heard over the last few meetings people say you know we need to think out of the box we need creative thinking that's great but I didn't hear any I watched the meetings and I heard nothing about making Cuts or even possible Cuts we need to do better and the other thing I really want to talk about is um I saw the debate that
063one on about whether boys uh should biological boys should participate in girls Sports in the Sun Journal this morning ironically it said by March 30th of last year more than 600 female athletes competing against biological men lost 890 medals in 29 different sports is that really what we want for our daughters I don't think so I don't have children of my own but I have nieces and nephews and I don't want that for my my nieces I don't want them my niece plays baseball with the boys because they don't have a softball team she loves it but that's her choice it's a sports it's a team sport when she gets to high school I'm sure she won't play baseball but that's not you know that's not here not there but what I'm asking you is
064to do what's right and support our girls and uh please do something to lower the budget thank you Sher Alana Wing um hi oh sorry my name is Elena and I'm from Li more um school is supposed to be a safe place and for the past 15 years we are aware of the situation um and there's been rumors again rumors that from the last school this former teacher had been let go for a very similar um behavior and um if this is true then I feel like there should be more precautions taken um and sorry um in the past 15 years um this has not happened just once and bringing this situation to light gives any other victims an opportunity to speak out and not feel alone already from the news victims are speaking up
065sharing their stories but what about the current students um parents are told that their children are safe at school but how are students supposed to be safe the suicide attempt rates are up the bullying is not controlled and now this so um there's also been a history of certain gym teachers and if you ask almost every girl at school they will tell you that in the past whether at Spruce Mountain Middle School or high school that they have had a gym teacher stare at their butt which is incredibly disappointing and this should not be happening over and over and over again um so I guess I'm just asking like what is what's going on to prevent this because if students are openly talking about it at school I'm sure that some some teachers have overheard
066and I'm not putting fault on anybody for that um I'm happy to be graduating soon but this leaves me very concerned for our future Generations um and everybody talks about the safety and care for the students but ask most students and they will tell you that the school does not care um we need to start being there for our students and being transparent about issues that go on because certain situations affect students for their entire lives and unfortunately um I mean things happen but I just feel like your our students need a lot more support than they're receiving thank you Ava Moffit hi my name is Ava Mett and I am a 2023 alumni of spr mountain high school I am now a student at St Joseph's College of Maine and I've had the privilege
067of being able to play sports at the collegate level throughout High School I played soccer and track and in college I competed in the NCAA for cross country and track I'm here to discuss the transgender Sports executive order that was passed at the federal level on February 5th of this following year and how it pertains to RSU 73 prior to president Trump's executive order amidst the pandemic back in 2021 Spruce Mountain High School made efforts to give the students of fall Sports Experience which I'm very thankful for um but this meant that the girls and boys high school soccer team joined together to play co-ed soccer it didn't take long for the athletes and parents to notice that there was a clear difference between the strength endurance and Agility that these boys had over the
068girls that year I felt very frustrated with my overall soccer experience just due to my teammates consistently getting herur on the field and how there was unequal play time between the girl girls and the boys um and in addition many of the parents who watched the games were very worried for us girls on the field just due to how many injuries that we were sustaining um however we still wanted to play the sport that we loved so we continued and during my time in college I've seen biological males compete in women's cross country meets and track events and every time they win they're they're taking away our medals they're taking away women's opportunities Within These Sports in my freshman year of college I volunteered my time to help with a high school mainstate cross country
069event that took place on the St Joseph's College of main campus and there was a biological male who won the women's cross- country State race that year my current understanding of this important topic is that Mills and the mains principles Association have made the overall decision to follow to not follow Trump's executive order defending women um from gender ideology extremism that has been passed this has put Mains Federal funding at risk for th K through 12 um K through 12 schooling sorry which includes funding for free school lunches and for special education services um at the February 27th school board meeting there was a discussion of rolling back parts of the title 9 to the version with regards to Trump's executive order unfortunately your time is up I apologize I want to thank you thank
070you so much for your comments thank Youk you [Applause] I'm going to recommend that we take a f minute recess for anybody that needs to use the facilities e e e not all right back in session I just want to say before we move forward that uh I would like to invite Ava Moffett to come back to the next session to finish up um the good job she was doing she was very brave good stuff and the student board member reports okay with winter sports ending there are a lot of people who deserve a congrats um Samuel Ginger and Skyler Condon were top 10 in all their races for Nordic skiing Ashley Nelson came in first during mvc's for Al Alpine skiing and then on the girls basketball team congrats to MD Grimaldi for Player
071of the Year and Lily Bose for rookie of the year the drama team competed in the 1X again this year with a murder mystery and the competition was on March 7th at Yarmouth and the group did great so can congrats to them and hopefully on April 1st we'll be doing a performance to the public but I'll keep you updated on if that's today also again con congratulations to the high school robotics team who got immensely recognized two weeks ago at the southern Main Event they won safety All-Star for the 15th cons consecutive time getting to the champion finals and winning the highest award you can get the impact award which recognizes the team for his contribution to its School community and first robotics also our Winter Carnival dance is Saturday night so that's all thank
072you any questions from the board on the student members comments update no all right any board member comments Roger uh first I want to thank Ava for coming up here and and making her statement uh and remind everyone that I'm still embarrassed that we didn't do something prior to president Trump and we haven't done anything yet to protect our female athletes um that being said uh obviously some changes need to be made in this District changes are difficult we do have to have some difficult conversations the conversation I'm about to have isn't going to make friends but it needs to happen um the issue that we have this is my own opinion the issues that we have is the union contracts um if I had my own way I would say we'd never work with
073the Union again I understand that's not legal we can't do that sort of thing I want to compromise with our Educators 98% of our educators are fantastic in this District I think we do better than many districts around us with the percentage of just fantastic people we have but it's no secret that the other 2% is absolutely awful and should no longer work in our district we need to do something because as it stands right now our staff members that belong to that Union are by far more protected than our children nowhere in any realm of any possibility should adults be more protected than children and that Union contract gives them that protection I've asked in the pass for student surveys student exit surveys I get objections to that and I honestly don't understand why
074I would like us to install a student survey on exit of every year uh they can be anonymous surveys but there needs to be something put in our contract with language that says if these surveys get a low enough score these employees need to be brought to the board for review with the possibility of terminating them on the Free Will termination uh that every other employer in the state of Maine that isn't controlled by a union gets to do I know we have great teachers who say that they care about our students more than they care about their pay or their contract if that is true let's have a serious discussion about how to level the playing field legally between students and teachers right now as it exists we do not protect our students more
075than the teachers our students don't have a union lawyer who is is a very good lawyer in their field they can't afford that their parents can't afford that and and if anybody objects to that I I don't want to be near you if you object to doing something as simple as a student survey to protect our students going forward why are you here what are you doing our students are the most important thing in this building they're the most important thing in this community outside of this building but we're allowing a Union contract to put them at risk I personally can name three teachers I'm not going to that there are reasons that should have them fired that the union protects them from it is not okay the recent event Was Not O the only
076event of that nature and I do believe some people in the district are aware of it we need to hold our teachers accountable and unfortunately the way things are set up that can't come out till the next contract I hope my fellow board members and Scott will support this idea and have the truly difficult conversations and stand strong for our students because again they are the most important people if protecting them first isn't your first priority why are you here have that's all I got thank you any other board comments seeing none okay there is no superintendent report he's done it all already and we'll bring up Darcy Shake good evening I'll share with you some fabulous things that are happening at the primary school or that happened we hosted our family bingo night for
077families that our family involvement committee planned and had about 200 people walk through our Halls the Scholastic Book Fair happened that hadn't happened in years thanks to Sher Kutcher sold almost $5,000 worth of books so our school profited $1,500 worth of books that I was able to get from the book fair and $1,400 in cash into our Student Activity account to help um fund other events that we'll have we had our read Across America week and many guest readers from the community came and shared um we had a theme of read into the future and so they came and talked about their occup and then read a book to the kids which was great students earned a whole school celebration today for positive behavior um doing a stem activity with toothpicks and marshmallows and enjoyed
078some hot cocoa our attendance has improved greatly over the past two months students are earning a pizza party with officer York if their class um has the most number of students with perfect attendance and they always love spending time with them pizzas are being donated by Jack's Trading Post for that we are very excited to go to the middle school and watch the production of Aladdin at the end of the month we do have kinder arten registration happening April 17th and 18th for anybody that needs to register a kindergarten student our enrollment is about 328 and our Behavior report is 642 incident reports to date this year thank you Darcy any questions for Darcy thank you very much welcome all right Pat good evening so that it was mentioned um earlier that we had the
079parent safety night at the elementary um it piggybacked on the student safety Online safety that we had the Franklin County Sheriff's Department came in and explained to kids how things like Snapchat and online and and how that you know you never know who you're talking to on the other side of the phone and you need to make sure that you're not giving personal information um I learned some things I'm not super techsavvy um but it's it's amazing how how easy it is for um people to falsify who they are online but it was good for the parents to hear that and it was good for the students to hear that um one of our favorite events is our special person SLG Grandparents Day we're going to have that next Friday on the 21st it's 12:45
080to 1:45 also we're going to the Middle School the kids are excited Ed to go up there and see the Middle School play um Hanford hanford's been a a large supporter of the elementary school um they have different events they sell different things like we just received $80 for Hanford for um the reasonable bags that people purchase through them um we got a certain cut of it so we get $80 that we can use for our Student Activities account um and that happens multiple times for us for Hanford so they've been a great Community partner with us um our readathon our readathon is going strong the kids are doing well um they've raised over $7,500 so far um which we get I believe it's an 80% cut um and then that's used for the Student
081Activity account um we use that like at the end of the year we use that to get the dunk tanks uh the blow the blowup houses that we use for fund day the shirts any kind of pizza parties anything that we do fun for the kids um that's where that money goes um as far as Behavior Behavior we've had 692 um incidents this year and the last time I was up here our attendance was 299 and we're at 296 questions all right any questions for Pat you guys need to wake up all right thanks Pat thank you Chris all right good evening uh right now I'm gonna start off with enrollment the middle school has enrollment of 296 students currently our wrestling team is getting ready for the regional finals one of our wrestlers uh
082Steven Moore has remained undefeated with an 110 record he hasn't had a point scored against him this season and he just recently qualified for the New England tournament in Massachusetts so I want to give him a congratul ulations um that'll be next month another big individual milestone for a middle school student on February 24th rain Cody won the Franklin County Spelling be and will be competing March 22nd at Bowen college for the state so we want to wish him the very best as well so on Friday March 13th we had the staff versus student basketball game with the staff coming out Victorious and very sore last night we held a bingo for books and had a fairly good turnout and gave away a ton of ton of free books on Monday March 17th our first
0838ighth grade Community Connection field trip is taking place they are going to Woodland Senior Living in Pine Pinewood Terrace to visit the residents over there they will be doing activities such as memory care with the with the memory care residents they'll be doing musical recitals uh the assistant living residents they're going to be doing short storytelling and reading books with singals and um to the park residents they're going to be planting seeds and help them start their Gardens uh next year we look to we were looking at bringing these types of Community Connection field trips to all the grades in the Middle School uh next Thursday and Friday March 20th and 21st at 7 pm our Middle School drama will be performing at aladding Junior so come on out if you can um our second
084trimester ends on March 21st and last year at this time I had 101 out of school suspensions and 31 in school suspensions this year we currently have 36 outou of school suspensions and 21 in school so what a difference yeah thank you very much any questions for Chris you're free and clear thanks TJ good evening everyone um going to go over enrollment uh it's 412 uh I want to say thank you to my ladies over here who who gave a great report of what's been going on at Spruce um and I'm just really proud of them for what they've done this year you got to please give them a round of applause because we don't really have a lot of that it's nice nice to see um I did go to the one act play
085um which was uh last weekend and I'm gonna tell you if you guys get a chance you gotta come and see it when we show it here it was hilarious and and I know a murder mystery you would say it was fun so have a good time with it when you come in to see that um look forward to having everybody be a part of that and we'll give more dates and that type of stuff later on when it comes uh we do have an athletic leadership conference that's coming right up we have a group of athletes that are going to be meeting uh Mr Keller is going to take them uh and it uh should be a great way to encourage our student athletes in the future um spring sports are starting uh Mr
086Keller has gotten together the uh the coaches the coaches staff and students are all doing their signups right now we're just we're excited to have a good start to that um and yes tomorrow night is the dance yes I love them yes so we'll have a good time that's it oh I do want to talk a little bit about uh uh we have a group coming in next Thursday um that is going it's the what you're going to be hearing the next time the uh Jade Kutcher comes in they're going to talk about that um but Thursday our students are going to go and have uh individuals come for mind health healthy Minds uh the other thing that I want to talk about is lately we've been having sappers comes in um and they meet
087up with our students uh give students the opportunity to talk to them uh they're trained also have a school social worker who is trained in sappers which is um it's a it's the organization that helps with students or individuals that have had sexual abuse um and it's uh it's a really good opportunity for our students to be a part of um and that's where I'm at any questions thank you thank you go ahead Roger is the dance tomorrow night or Saturday night Saturday night what did I say tomorrow night you said Tom oh yeah no Saturday night yeah yeah yeah yeah your daughter was asking where they could take pictures inside and yeah yeah there you go there you go yeah any questions other questions for or Corrections for TJ TJ thank you very much
088thank you very much Sher par oh Sher Parker sorry I I think that's not the first time I've done that to you in special education we currently have 345 students that's two less than my report in January this does include 26 new referrals for special education services that are in progress across the district which is an increase of two it is spring so I do expect that number to go up now that three quarters of the year has coming to a close um currently at the primary school there are 69 students in special education which is the same as my last report at the elementary school there are 84 students in special education which is up one the middle school is at 82 which is down three and the high school has 110 which was
089the same in January we currently have 13 students who are out of District um when I was here last we had one on a waiting list he has been placed and is now in an appropriate program that can safely educate him um at his level and meeting his functional needs uh we do have four current open positions we have one edtech one position at the primary school one edte 2 position at the middle school and two edte 1 positions at the high school and finally I would like to um give a special thank you to our special education building coordinators uh Melissa PL at the primary school Christina Bamford at the elementary school Sonia peler at the middle school and Scott McDaniel at the high school special education has over 500 IEP meetings a year
090and these individuals take on the responsibility to chair these meetings as well as to help me review the paperwork and support their colleagues in completing that paperwork or and making the corrections along with meeting the state standards this is in addition to their own case loads and their own teaching load so it is a stien position but I can tell you it's a lot more responsibility so I really do appreciate it all right thank you any questions for Sherry wow okay he got off easy all right uh I have not much to report I do want to mention that uh the school got a a very lovely card from the family of Richard Knight and I just wanted to make sure that we put out there that our hearts go out to that family and
091we just wish them love through through this time thank you all right we got a policy committee report Tina right this goes under the uh first reading of policy bid which we adjusted a little bit this uh deals with board member compensation and just allows that if a board member has extenuating circumstances that would make uh easier for them to be paid on a basis other than twice a year that they could do that um with the permission of the superintendent this is the first reading we'll vote on it tonight and if it passes tonight we'll vote on it again the next meeting good any questions for Tina on this no uh seeing N I would entertain a motion to let's see approve be a board member compensation and expensive policy B Tina first second
092is Sarah any discussion seeing none all in favor say I I all opposed seeing none the motion carries and now we've got the budget final review we had the lawyers draw up the paperwork for this don't forget before you guys leave tonight you need to sign and Laura has really done a good job of trying to make it easier that the Livermore people go to one spot L more Falls people go to the other and J people go to the other to sign because you have to sign in a certain order and how many is it 15 of them have to sign something like that it's it's a lot of p a lot it's a lot to sign um so we have the at the at this point in time is the 1.4 $1,434 570
093increase from last year um just want to remind people there are other opportunities we do still have the uh budget referendum meeting I know people talk about well money never comes down at that meeting this will be my six budget that we've gone through the first two years was involved with Co so we ended up having a hearing we didn't have a budget meeting they wouldn't let us have a budget meeting but the year after that we did have an opportunity um people put up the nomination and we actually dropped in one area $100,000 I mean that that's is an opportunity for people to come out that night and to recommend and either going with what we've recommended or having an opportunity to change that and then whatever set that night there is the actual
094referendum that people go out and vote behind closed doors um what they want and what they don't want uh so there is still opportunities out there for the budget to change but there really isn't an opportunity at this point in time for us to change the budget questions Roger um does every board member have to sign if we object to it could we abstain from signing or no you don't have to sign if if you vote no we've had people in the past who voted no and did not sign will the budget still pass as it stands if if if the if if the but you guys still have to vote on this right now tonight if it passes then it passes and then those who said yes will sign and in the past we
095had some who said no and still signed and some who said no and did not sign okay y thank you any other questions or comments so I'm going to do the motion oh I've got it I got to read it all right well it would be the majority the majority has to yep majority has to vote to pass the budget and that means the majority would have to sign yes yep thank you thank you I move that the vote entitled vote to call and approve the warrants for the budget meeting and the budget validation referendum and to authorize the notice of amounts adopted be approved in form presented to this meeting and that a copy of said vote be included with the minutes of this meeting do I have a first I am the first
096thank you do I have a second Tina yeah we're going to do that we're uh any discuss and roll call please due to unclear budget protocol I'm going to abstain from voting yes yes no yes no point of order Mr chair are extensions permitted without a an reason because I didn't think that was the case I thought that unless a person has a definite conflict of interest that has to be material that they were required to vote either yes or no I believe you are correct on that um that being said I do believe an exstension basically is a no vote correct is it a no Vote or is it how does the majority get figured at that point and is it is it acceptable for a board member who does not have a conflict
097of interest to abstain when the policy says that they cannot I do believe from what I have read that you are correct so I don't know where we go from here it's a pivotal moment in my career as board chair yes no so the motion carries all right you have your co-curriculars is there anything else and next school board meeting is well we do have a policy meeting on the 24th and when is the next school board meeting the 27th and there is a finance committee meeting prior to that being said I would entertain a motion to adjourn Tina Don Stout