001okay i' entertain a motion to accept the January 11th 2024 school board meeting minutes uh motion by Robin second by Phoebe any errors or admissions there's there's an admission I'll send the notes to her to update okay so uh that was during board comments there was some some admission um so we have an amendment you want to make that a friendly Amendment do you accept that yes do you accept that we have a friendly amendment to any other erors or omissions seeing none uh the vote is on accepting the January 11th 2024 school board meeting minutes uh as amended roll call please abstain yes yes and yes yes yes so moved and comments uh we've got a fairly long list tonight so just going to ask that uh we keep to the three minutes first
002up uh when you come up please state your name your town of residence and your comment topic uh Rob there we go um I'm Rob Taylor um I'm from Jay and I'm also a teacher here at Spruce Mountain High School um and I just wanted to talk for a minute about uh policy igj which is the instructional and library media selection policy um and um I just think it's really important that we that we follow the policy um and it's very very clear in terms of of what it delineates for steps um the first step in the policy is that uh if there's a material that um a person has a a issue with um the complaint should be first heard by the person that's providing the materials so if a a person had a
003problem with something that I was teaching in my science class and the materials I was using in my science class and they said to Mr ployd uh M uh you know we have a concern about what's happening in Mr Taylor's classroom um Mr ployd would immediately refer that person to me and I would hear that person's complaint and have a discussion and hopefully be able to resolve the matter at that level that would be the first step um if um that doesn't result in resolution of the matter um at that kind of informal level uh there's a challenge form that gets filled out and then that challenge form um you know allows the thing to go to the next step um that would go to the superintendent um Mr Albert would appoint a committee the
004committee uh researches the the materials um reads the materials reviews them also looks at um research and other information about them files a report back to the superintendent um nothing is removed until the final decision gets made um the committee report um can then be appealed to the school board um and the board receives that testimony and and makes its decision and I guess my my thing is that any actions that happen outside of that policy really unappropriate uh we really should be um allowing that process to happen as as it's written um I think I think it's a good policy and um I think it's worth worth following to the letter um I also have a great respect for our uh librarian and our library staff um they work very very hard uh policy
005JJ also has criteria for selecting materials um and it provides clear guidelines and a form for open discussion and I just hope we can follow that thank you thank you Sher I'm Sher wette and I'm from the town ofj um I have a couple of topics that I'd like to speak on first uh inappropriate materials in school and bullying um this is not about politics or religion or gay or straight this is not about banning books this is about what is age appropriate for our kids a recent blog post by a board member stated that she was given a book by her mother that is what I'm asking for and when it is the appropriate time to discuss sex should be determined by the parents not the school not a precocious child who walks into
006the library and says oh this looks interesting if a child's parents want them to read a book they can take them to the public library because the truth is as good as intentions as schools are you cannot prevent a child from checking out a book that they are not allowed to see or sharing them with classmates on the bus or at recess on another topic I would like to address not only the board but the community with these comments it is about bullying it was mentioned that adults are being bullied not just kids this is happening on both sides and it needs to stop a good school C School Board candidate has dropped out of the race because his business is being targeted this is unacceptable this is the reason I got off the board
007several years ago they came after my family it's wrong this is beneath our community because I believe at the heart we all have our kids best interest at heart so please disagree if you'd like but stop with the targeting of family and business is thank you thank you sh Jamie backer I think hi I'm Jamie Baxter and I'm from Jay um I have kids that attend um the school system I have one in middle school and one in high school school um and um I have sent a letter to the board this year um and I've had multiple talks with the Middle School principal who's been amazing to talk through things with us but um to piggyback on the last person I'm really concerned with bullying I'm really concerned with bullying especially at the middle
008school level and especially with female students um I have a daughter who's in the eth grade along with you know some of her friends and they witness bullying all the time they see it they're not part of it they might have acquaintances that might that do tend to be bullies and my daughter's response to that was Mom it's easier for me to just be friendly than to say anything because I don't want to be the next one that gets beat up that's a concern she won't go to the administration she won't go to any teachers because this this's you know this group of bullying girls who one or the other or however many there are sees these children going in and you know even if they're looking for a teacher for help um they're not
009going to because then somebody tells somebody else and it goes to this and it goes to that and I don't know that there is a solution to this problem I know that um Mr Target's aware and we've had great conversations about it but I do fear for you know the safe of some of these students these these girls are brutal they're not just you know it's not caddy name calling anymore like these girls are downright beating the Jeepers out of each other and other students and it's just it's scary it's really scary and they make comments before they do it I'm going to jump so and so is is the key phrase that I've heard come out of you know the mouths of of young women who come to my home um who hang out
010with my daughter um she is friends with a few girls who have gotten in trouble at school and and my home is a safe haven for them um there's one particular child who comes to my home who who isn't currently attending public school um because she followed through with um with an act that was Unbecoming and it was it was dangerous and she did it after being bullied and pushed and pursued to do it and none of her friends including my daughter was willing to step forward and and Target or or say the name of the other students that were involved um that kind of pushed this girl into doing what she did um I'm just worried and I don't know that there's a solution um but I'm definitely worried that students like my daughter
011who aren't going to speak up and say anything because they know that they're the next Target and I just don't know how many people are fully aware of the extent of what's actually happening take 10 seconds to wrap up please okay and I know everybody's doing what they can so that's all Chris this is awfully loud uh next up uh Jesse hi so I'm Jesse White and I live in limore Falls I have a daughter who attends Bruce Mountain Middle School and to piggyback off of the previous two speakers um there's certainly a concern around bullying within the school system and I think that the point that it starts with the adults um is valid so I'm not going to dwell on that it's being spoken about we're talking about it but I have some
012suggestions if you wouldn't mind um my daughter has come home on a few occasions talking about teachers speaking poorly about students and as the Educators within the system they are the leaders and they are the role models for our children teachers have called students trolls in front of other students teachers have said to my daughter specifically that she needs to be better person in order to get better grades mind you my daughter got one B last semester and the rest were A's and that b was a 91 and this comment came out when she asked how she could improve her grade because she wants to be high honors that's a problem and so if we could look to our Educators and possibly get them some sensitivity training some inclusive leadership training and some unconscious bias
013training perhaps we can start there and move the needle teach our children how to be better thank you thank you uh John hey John VTO from limore Falls I first want to thank uh the principal and the teacher at my daughter's school they've been doing a great job helping my wife and I with some of the curriculum so I do want to thank them for that don't know if we're allowed to call people out directly but they know who they are uh second I want to sort of put like a scenario out here so a boy writes a note to his friend saying he really wants well an eight-year-old boy writes a note to his friend saying he really wants to see a girl in his class with her clothes off the teacher collects this
014note now I'd like to see by a show of hands who thinks that's a appropriate for an 8-year-old boy to be writing in a class I mean is it really appropriate for an 8-year-old boy to say he wants to see his schoolmates naked probably not um so now uh little excerpt from a book that my daughter read and she had to ask me dad is it okay if a boy sees me naked so I would like to I wish I had the opportunity to ask each one of you what your reply would be to that question when your old daughter asks that so here's how it came yeah I'd like to see more of if you know what I mean Jeff elbowed Rick in the ribs Rick knew what Jeff meant and Jeff knew that
015Rick knew what he meant but Jeff continued anyway with her clothes off so that's just one excerpt from this entire book now I know there's a lot of people that think we're trying to band books whatever else no we just want age appropriate books so one of the things that I would like to see is if the schools could implement the UBC which is the universal book content grading system so there's zero through five zero has no speak of anything sexual drugs violence anything five all the way up to whatever it may be right this way it makes it easy for us parents to send a note to the administration or to the school say my child is allowed books from Level whatever it may be instead of every time so there's a massive database
016of books that are available to our kids right so every day I'm going to have to go check that database to see if that book is in the school that just doesn't seem that practical to me so these books have grades or ratings let's see if we can use those to make it safer for our kids because I don't want to have to explain to my daughter that you know she's not an asexual worm right so um not saying that with disrespect worms or asexual right there's no gender they just reproduce so that's where that's all coming from but these are questions that came from her after she read this book I explained to her that you know we don't wanted to read these books so now every book that she takes from the library
017she's going to bring to us for review but I mean it takes a lot of time she loves to read and she checks out many books a week plus we bring her to the library and she gets other books so it's just about protecting her innocence right she's eight years old I don't want her to read about this stuff thank you thank you Roger hey my name is Roger Molton I'm resident of Wheeler Street in limore Falls I have to admit after last meeting I'm a little confused uh my first introduction to the school board came when we had a mask vote I was asked by some of your staff uh to come and speak here because if they said what I did other members of again your staff would bully them I came and
018spoke and sure enough a teacher and her spouse sent me an awful message 2 days later from a fake account it claimed they were intimate with my wife on multiple occasions I asked the spouse why he sent it and I was banned from the grounds for 3 months even though I didn't even raise my voice swear or say anything appropriate I literally said why did you send it and how do you think I would respond that earned me a three-month pan from this property I received proof from the chief of police that it did indeed come from the teacher's home and yet no action was taken I was literally the only one held accountable in that situation and I still don't feel that I did anything wrong then I came to address that situation and
019that meeting wasn't recorded yet again avoiding accountability in my mind so I'm confused as to why after coming here last week to speak about children being bullied I basically get a a response avoiding accountability yet again and claiming children get the audacity to bully from me and my social media activity oddly enough my children have never bullied anyone there's not a person in this room that can tell you my children have bullied a single soul nor will they ever we hear this the exact opposite from staff members but yet again a couple days after the last board meeting a board member spouse tagged me in a post saying I'm hate fueled claimed I made statements that I never made and claimed I was afraid these books would make me or my kids gay and ended
020with homeschool your kids if you don't like the majority female anatomy only he didn't use female anatomy another board member wrote A Blog doing exactly what I said you all would do and tried to make it sound like we're attacking lgbtq books in any capacity that is so far from true we're going after inappropriate material it's not our fault the only inappro books in the library that touch on that subject are those after all that happened I'm not up here begging you to stop bullying me I'm begging you to focus on the children and accountability you have a policy on bullying that looks to be a good policy but it appears it's not being followed who's accountable for ensuring that policy is followed and why aren't we holding them accountable if it isn't why are
021we getting reports of a parent whose child was being a bully and he wasn't even made aware so that he could correct that situation and why am I constantly hearing that accountability for athletes looks different than accountability for non-athletes we have a bullying is issue in this District because many of you have an accountability issue holding adults accountable is not bullying and it needs to happen and if you continue to vote for pedophile images in our school our accountability online will be custic as that should be a reasonable adults response to other adults glorifying pedophilia in their children's Library lastly I would love it if you could stop viewing me as some sort of enemy when I come here believe it or not I do appreciate the vast majority of people employed by this district
022there are a few employees that I literally I get emotional when I talk about how wonderful they've been to my children and my family um unfortunately due to kind time constraints I can't say you know go into detail um but I will touch on that next time thanks again for your time please inforce your policy on bullying and focus on accountability and the children have a great night thank you uh Brooke my name is Brooke Ray I reside in liver M Falls and I'm here to talk about bullying in the book Rick I spoke at a Schoolboard meeting back in October concerning the excessive moment of bullying going on our schools and the lack of repercussions for the for the bullying and Comm and not communicating with the parents since then the bullying has continued
023to get out of control and this Behavior has continued to be dismissed by our school school admin superintendent and now our school board you have all heard what happened with my daughters let me share some more concerns from parents in our community concerning bullying I pulled my child in seventh grade for bullying The Bullying was awful and no matter how many times I call the school or superintendent nothing changed in third grade a student threatened to put my child in the hospital that same year that police strangled another student at school fourth grade that same bully threatened to strangle my daughter no one called me about it that bully continued to stalk my daughter and one of her friends during recess this child was in fifth grade this year and end endured excessive bullying for
0242 years with the school doing nothing she was finally REM remov for homeschooling this year another one my son got bit on the school bus about a month ago he goes to the elementary school he also got three concussions from bullies last year back in October I presented the school board with a a proposal for a safety standown this was designed to bring together the RSU 73 Community including parents teachers administrators and students to address the core issues of safety and bullying still nothing has been done not only are children getting bullied almost daily but they are getting hurt it is clear that RSU 73 does not have a zero tolerance Pol policy on bullying but do they but they do appear to have a policy on zero parental communication and zero accountability something needs
025to be done to protect our children things need to change we need this safety standown as soon as possible I also want to speak briefly on the book Rick it is clear that this book is sexualizing children this is not something that I would want my eight and 10-year-old to have access to I am also very concerned about how some of the board members on this piano continue to go after parents are trying to Advocate on what they feel is best for their children I've watched one more member comment on social media blaming the parents and stating kids see worse on social media I was given the same excuse from the SRO when another child threatened to murder my 8-year-olds yes parents should be held accountable but they aren't even being notified this board and
026District needs to have some accountability too you guys continue to deflect from the core issue and take no accountability that this is happening in your schools also we are sick and tired of the school district trying to normalize this behavior and referring to social media my 8 and 10-year-old are not on social media so stop labeling how we are parenting our children and putting all of our children in that category my child doesn't see worse on social media or either do their friends they have seen the worse in your schools it's about time this District take some accountability after this initial post happened from one of our board members this board member husband then goes on social media continue to bash a parent claiming that he's bullying because he's speaking up for his kids and
027also stated I think he's scared certain literature in the school bull in the school library will turn him or his kids gay this is the most uneducated in and ignorant comment I have seen thus far then he continued to tell him that he should just homeschool his kids the example we are setting here do we not see the hypocrisy here this is bullying I have watched this parent be bashed on social media from some members of this board and family members am I now going to be the next Target since I'm speaking for our children this needs to stop we all need to do better and be better we as parents have rights we have the right to speak up and advocate for our children without fear of being retaliated from this board RSU RSU
02873 seems to forget that we are still parents we demand a safety to stand down for our children concerning the safety in our school finish please there's the last sentence and if you have no intentions of removing Rick from the elementary school why can't we use the UBC system dedicated to these types of books and students can only be allowed to take these books from this area without a per without their permission thank you for your time thank you Steve Steve and I live in j want to talk about the book issue there are two issues that concern me regarding the challenge to the book Rick Rick as probably all of us know is about a middle schooler who in the course of exploring questions of sexuality it turns out Rick identifies as nonsexual and
029not interested in Romance and dating deals with the issues of choosing to be different and how to confront bullying in the school first we are again unnecessarily spending meeting time staff time teacher time on yet another book challenge and why because this middle schooler is exploring what it means and what it takes to be different or that he has questions about his sexuality or is it so controversial to have a book that deals with bullying I think the answers to these questions are self-evident this is a book entirely within the developmental range certainly of high schoolers and many middle schoolers while some of us may wish we were all the same those of us who deal with children especially teachers and related staff know on a day-to-day basis that this is not true some are
030suggesting that this book be banned or perhaps kept in some separate secluded part of the school so that students who want to read it can get special permission to read it in seclusion and isolation doing this would set up a student for isolation labeling ostracism and probably harassment but the bigger issue to me is the intrusion into running of the school and the attempt to dictate an educational policy our history here in Jay with this book issue is becoming very clear that once you start to entertain book hands and allow that kind of intrusion into the running of the school the questions become endless now it's this book now that book perhaps it's going to be a cultural issue or a historical subject and so on what I'm talking about is not far-fetched some of
031you have may seen may have seen the Martin scorsi movie Killers of the flower Moon about the murders of Osage Indians in Oklahoma by white settlers in the early 20th century in Oklahoma anyone can see the movie which was very popular but teachers cannot have students read the book or even talk about the movie in school because of a state law that prohibits talking about anything that would make anyone racially or ethnically uncomfortable so in a sit like situation like that situation like in Florida it is impossible to talk about race it's imp it's impossible to talk about certain elements of American History we just had Martin Luther King Day how do you talk about that without talking about race I bring these kind of questions up because this is just around the corner from
032book Banning now it's a book about sex a book about bullying a book about being different but there is nothing to say the concerns will not be raised about other topics I think we have to draw the line and make it clear that we trust our teachers and their process to make decisions about the appropriate curriculum for our students certainly parents have the right to decide what their children read within the walls of their home but I do not think parents have the right to decide what our students are read reading within the walls of the school we have professionals here to make those decisions unless the community one last sentence unless the community can make school Community can make clear where it stands on the issue of censorship and book bands this will be
033a NeverEnding issue that will bedevil every aspect of Education year after year thank you thank you well I don't want myy okay whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa let's let's let's all let's all let's all calm down am okay okay can we all agree we're going to stop at this point please thank you Peter mine's a little bit lighter than that all right September 17th is Constitution Day and citizenship day this commemorates the September 17th 1787 signing of the Constitution each educational institution that receives federal funds for a fiscal year is required to hold an educational program about the US Constitution for it students on that day or thereabouts oh my name is Peter Labby I'm from J so this didn't come around last week or anything like that this law is actually was
034signed on the books on what what December of art four so most of us started in ' um and I don't know six 7th of September 22 I uh I talked to the uh principal at Spruce Mountain and I I told him I said I don't want to Ambush you and he was cool about that and I said even if you do it on the 23rd fourth and 5ifth of September it's fine with me and he called me on the 26th of that year and said he'd done it and I said good for you very good um I didn't call him this year until November and then I called him back and he never got back to me which would lead a person to believe that he probably didn't do it if you read further
035on there's actual educational stuff from all the way from K through 12 so it uh probably I should have came here first but I did didn't I just went to him but uh it's supposed to be done supposed to be done and I understand that you probably didn't know that but well now you do so there you go and quite frankly there's no reason why yeah take two three weeks to figure it out but ought to start sooner rather than later thank you okay any board member comments Phoebe all right of course first I want to thank the public for speaking um it's very important that we hear everyone's viewpoints because we are a community and communities made up of different viewpoints different opinions and we are stronger because of that the Melting Pot makes
036us better it makes us stronger together even if we don't always agree on everything that's okay but um I do have something else I plan to say if that's okay Bob is it okay if I continue all right um what I want to talk about tonight is about the school itself about the people in the school the people working with the school the people involved with the school and that includes parents as well of course and Guardians and anyone who is part of this community is part of what I want to say it's not easy teaching it's not easy a lot of people assume the further you are removed from the classroom the more the idea of the kids sit in their desk everyone listens we might have one or two kids to act up
037and everything is fine that isn't necessarily true every single teacher every single person in that classroom students included are there experiencing it for the first time together whether teacher's been in the classroom for their first time or if they've been there 30 years every single class is different and new because the world around them changes we talk about these changes often we talk about faster cars we talk about the safety measures we put in place we talk about people who talk about I never used a seat Bel when I was growing up and I I was fine and then seat bels are implemented and that changes things the number of the classroom students is different what I'm trying to say is everyone involved is still learning we're still learning together and if we look back
038at tomorrow and we say I could have done this better good it is important to look back at our mistakes it is important to make improvements on them there are lots of things that I'm sure every single person in this room would change if they could go back and change something anything whether it was wearing a white shirt when you knew you were having spaghetti whether it was taking more care while driving and not getting a speeding ticket what I think we need most is empathy compassion and understanding and that is so important the empathy is so important because once all of us agree to treat each other with kindness with respect and compassion then we can model better behaviors for everyone around us whether it be our own children or someone else's kids or
039if it's our friends or anyone in your circle if we act with compassion we might not always receive it back but that's okay because we're learning how to deal with our own emotions we're dealing with patience and how to deal with these hard situations and US learning how to deal with these things is helping the Next Generation and I do want to thank everyone here for speaking up and showing that you care because we all know everyone in this room cares and that is that is monumentous in this community and that is why I'm proud of RSU 73 because even though we don't always get it right we are trying to and and we will learn from our mistakes and we will do better because that is what we do thank you thank you B
040uh Holly do you have you end up I want to thank all of you for coming tonight um I heard your concerns and um I do want to make a correction that this book is trying this is in the elementary school not just the middle school and the high school so it's the elementary school that they're questioning it and I've read most of it and I've got to say I understand your concerns and I also hly we're goingon to discuss that when it comes to the board so just keep that in mind you'll have chance to say anything at that point okay thank you for coming Kina thank you I'd like to share a few fa paraphrase points from the RSU 73 policy manual which can be found in its entirety under the Schoolboard section
041of the RSU 73.org website we believe that all children must be provided equal but not identical opportunities to allow them to achieve levels to achieve at levels commensurate with their abilities in an environment that allows them to develop positive attitudes towards themselves and genuine respect for others students will be seen in their totality as physical mental social and aesthetic beings which requires knowledge of child growth and development the board delegates the selection of Library resources to the professionally trained School Employees and it recognizes that the objective of library media resources is to extend and enrich the educational programs of the schools this is essential to providing enrichment opportunities that expand the students's interests and contribute to a desire for lifelong learning it's the responsibility of the library to provide a wide range of materials on
042all levels of difficulty with diversity of appeal and the presentation of different points of view selection of library media materials should take into consideration the varied interests abilities and maturity levels of the students served Foster respect and appreciation for cultural diversity and varied opinions and present a balance of opposing sides of controversial issues to enable students to develop a capability for critical analysis when a decision on challenged materials is appealed to the board the material in question will be considered in the light of differing opinions and of the criteria for initial SE selection the superintendent will develop and Implement a procedure for a parent to access instructional materials used as part of the curriculum when such a request is made the final Authority as to what materials an individual student will be exposed rest with
043that student's parents however at no time will the wishes of one child's parents to restrict his or her viewing of a particular item infringe on the other parents rights to permit their children to view the same material in the interest of responding to challenges to the school's selection of library books I think it's essential that everyone concerned consider these policies which by law guide our decisions as a school system and as a board thank you thank you anyone else superintendent good evening uh I attended the Foster Tech advisory committee meeting to discuss budget also to discuss discuss what programs could be added in the future I also received the tour of the facility also the past two weeks I met with Chris Hollingsworth Crystal flag and K inviting to discuss the changes that we made
044for essa3 in order to best use the money between now and September 30th of this year also had a meeting with Renee Whitley from the Franklin County Children's task force and our K8 principles to discuss extending our 21st century Grant it is our plan to renew We Know by we should know by Springtime whether or not we've been approved for this extension also attended the Western Main steering committee meeting on administrative certification in the region it is our group that sends approval to the state certification office for those administrators that are applying for recertification also met with Crystal flag and Chris haulings with these past couple weeks to discuss Title One funding for the remainder of this year and for next I continue to meet weekly with board chair Staples to discuss and set the
045upcoming board meeting agendas and discuss issues that may arise or have Arisen and I also continue to meet monthly with the co-presidents of the association to discuss possible issues and to work together on problem solving issues thank you questions or comments for Scott hly the weekly um meetings that you and Bob have does anyone take minutes for those meetings or is there anybody that reports on what is discussed on those meetings I've watched other um Schoolboard meetings from other districts and they have um when there are meetings outside of the actual board meeting there's a chairperson for each committee and that person speaks at the regular board meeting of what went on at that those meetings and we don't do that here is there a reason why never come up can we have it come
046up can we have like we have policy meetings I'm on the policy committee can we be more transparent in front of the people that come to see the meetings so that we know you know what happens in your meetings on Tuesdays with Bob and our meetings Finance meetings I know there's some things that cannot be discussed but at least a little report from the chair of every committee during the regular meetings so the rest of the so we're all in the same Loop including the public we can do that thank you anyone else okay administrative reports Sherry good evening I'm Sherry param the director of special services uh we currently have 364 students in special education and that includes 19 students who are in the referral process this is a decrease of four students from
047my last report in December we currently have 71 students at the primary school with IEPs 77 at the elementary school 104 at the middle school and 112 at the high school that's that bubble moving through that we've talked about for a long time uh we currently have four 14 students that we send to special purpose schools for day treatment programming this is one additional student uh from my December but if you remember then I said we were anticipating another student moving in and they have relocated to our district um so legally we have to continue with that day treatment programming in December and January we had two special education teachers become safety care trainers safety care is a state approved program for the chapter three restraint and seclusion compliance we now have three trainers in
048our district Emily Brett at the primary school Elise gett at the elementary school and Chris Dua at the high school my hope is to find a staff member at the middle school to attend the three-day train the trainer session so that we have one trainer per building these individuals train RSU 73 staff on deescalation this training module is approximately 7 hours long for the initial certification and it must be renewed yearly with a three and a half hour refresher course we currently have 45 staff members serving certified for deescalation including all of our administrators having the additional trainers will allow us to offer more opportunities for deescalation certification chapter 33 is education law not just special education so ideally to get general education staff trained as well is the goal each trainer can train only
04910 staff members at a time though so we run into the challenge of having enough professional development time in order to hold these trainings we often try to brainstorm what the best approach is because early release days are not even enough those afternoons are not even enough to truly hold the recertification there is an additional module for restraint training and this training is not offered as widespread throughout the district as the deescalation training because restraint is a last resort Intervention when there's imminent danger of severe injury we have 12 staff members who are restraint trained within RSU 73 and with additional trainers my hope is to increase this as well but we have very few incidents where restraint is we've had a couple of years where there has been none um and the majority of
050is at the primary school questions or comments thank you Michael couldn't be here tonight so he will report next meeting Chris all right well good evening uh right now our Middle School we have 329 students um our Middle School's brat girls basketball team is starting the league playoffs they went in as the number two seed the boys had a successful year improving but they fell short of the playoffs uh tomorrow our progress reports are going to be sent home then on January 17th we had our schoolwide spelling beam where we have a returning uh Champion Huck duie was named first place and Lily Bell Rose was a runner up and they're going to be headed to the Franklin County swelling be on February 15th at day Mountain Middle School so congratulations to them last Saturday
051I had the opportunity to celebrate uh Landon Anthony being named The District VFW Patriot pen winner and a awards banquet at the windso VFW uh during that same banquet we celebrated Denise Arelli being named the VFW Middle School teacher of the year at that banquet also they announced the state VFW winning uh teacher of the year which was named Denise Arelli and she'll be headed to the national competition in Washington DC uh in March so congratulations Denise um on Tuesday January 30th our alternative ed class is going to be headed to Temple to attend the main local living school where they'll be working Hands-On with staff learning life Off the Grid participating in ice cutting cooking and from the root Celler and they're going to get a history of the land and then on February
0525th the sixth grade is going to be participating in the mlti slam which is a student leadership ambassadors of main showcase uh the students from Nomas High School are going to be coming down with their teacher Kar Kelly who runs the MLT uh mlti program for the doe and they're going to be training our students on becoming more proficient uh with stem questions comments thank you Pat good evening um Joselyn French who is at the primary school has agreed again this year to run our drama program for the fifth graders at the elementary uh so we're going to start that here up pretty soon looking to have the play in may end of May and uh we're going to be doing and Winnie the Pooh this year is the plan right now um so the
053elementary got the Rev Grant we were able to have those two green houses put up um fourth grade is learning about cold sea starting seed starting um which allows the hibernation before sprouting in spring so they're learning about that they just planted a bunch of seeds and placed them in the in the snow bank um the seeds came from the wild seed project fromo um so Emma compost done a great job getting the kids uh she had also done composting with the third graders um composting stuff from the school lunch um so that's going really well um I know I'd come before you and talk about the academic parent teacher teams grant that the state of main put out uh we ended up getting that and so that'll be for two years and I meet
054with them on Monday um so they can start outlining what that looks like and how they're going to be able to help create those teams at the elementary uh School numbers last time I was here the numbers we had 290 and we're at 289 now sorry no 289 questions or comments thank you thank you TJ good evening everyone um got a lot of stuff going on here at the high school this week is uh uh midyear exams and I hope we have school tomorrow because it's my last one and it's a pain in the butt to move it but we'll see where it goes you know these kids are probably hoping it's going to be a snow day tomorrow um student awards assembly is next Wednesday January 31st um that's when we do our student
055of the quarters our Phoenix Award winners upper classman lower classman um it's a really good time we do it now and here kids can actually hear the uh event and then we do some fun stuff with them uh kids really get a get a kick out of it I kind of act out a little bit it's just who I am um robotics is in progress right now uh full force they're they're up to Mount Blue and they're doing a lot of stuff right now and I know we built the uh the actual playing field down here and brought it up there they did great job we got Dan leam who's helping Dan lemu was helping you know it's really cool to see those guys being in part of this uh this community and being a
056part of that so uh Phoenix Fest is our big uh like when we were in high when I was in high school it was the winter carnival uh we have the Phoenix Fest is going to be February 26th to March 2nd and the really cool thing that we're doing this year the first one I've ever done while I'm here is a winter formal um after our homecoming dance and how successful that was uh we decided to do in winter formal we're going to see how that goes uh kids are excited for it and uh the dresses are kids coming in all the time right now looking for them so just to let everybody know about that the big thing that I'd like to talk about today is the uh Facebook Banner auction so we have
057uh an auction for the banners in the in the gymnasium if you have a chance before you leave tonight go out and take a look at the new banners they're actually much cleaner they're brand new you can actually clean them and if they're all in order every single year is up there we got one that's a discrepancy we think we're trying to figure it out 1961 I guess there was one down in limore Falls 1961 I'm trying to figure that out working with the mpa on that um the uh the auction itself so you guys can know about this the auction one which is Monday through Tuesday February 5th through the 6 it will be for fall banners and fall banners only uh Wednesday and Thursday of that week February 7th and 8th it'll be
058the winter banners Friday and Saturday February 9th through uh and the 10th uh that is our spring banners that'll be auctioned off the way this process is going I want to say thank you to some uh people that called me um wanted they they gave out this idea uh of to actually have the people that were part of that team uh meaning coaches family members uh if they're if they're not able to do it um they're the ones who are going to get first dibs at this which is I think a a very good thing for the families to do and um we do have a lot of interest I have people calling me constantly like hey I can't wait for this to come out I'm excited about that um so a photo will be
059on the Facebook I said the Facebook did you just hear me say the Facebook that's embarrassing on Facebook with a brief description of the banner um include the school the team the year the award on the first morning at 7 a.m. that's when it starts bidding will start at 8 a.m. so we'll have it up there at 7 A.M at 8:00 am we're going to start the bidding um and at 8 pm on that on the second day all bids will cease on all banners out for auction for those two days uh the highest bidder will be the uh unofficial winner until the direct connection is proven so we want to make sure that they are part of that team in some way um if a direct direct connection cannot be proven the second highest
060bidder will uh be given the opportunity to prove a connection um same thing is the first part banners can be picked up and paid for at fart high school office during regular school hours the cool thing about this um is we are going to recoup the money that we spent to get the new ones to make the gym look better um and we will place into an account uh if we get so if we get more than what that costs we will then uh create an account dedicated to the Hall of Fame and next year we're going to start Hall of Fame committee for both schools um as they were coming up through as well as Spruce Mountain so um we're we're looking forward to this this is a big deal and I got you
061know there's some schools around the states that have combined like that um and they haven't done that and there's really no history left in the in the in the gymnasium um I won't speak of those schools but I know which schools they are they just took the banners down and and actually I think some of them got thrown away so I am not in that I'm part of this community and I understand it um and I want to make sure people have the opportunity to be a part of this so yeah so I I have a question yes uh on the direct con connection y say I wanted to bid on one I don't have a direct connection but I want to donate that to uh past coach like Byron Bean or somebody Y is
062is that going to be allowed it will be after the other ones don't bid for it so like if you're we want the teams to bid for it first and the people that have direct connections and if nobody bids for it then we'll we'll go down that road for the next group Andrew is there a particular place on Facebook group or something like that because I don't see anything here as references because for those people not on Facebook I will put this on my on the high school uh Group which is a Spruce Mountain High School uh Facebook group um they don't have to be a part of the group in order to bid they just when they bid it'll be their Facebook post y elain go ahead Phi as yeah absolutely that's a great
063idea thank you yep Elaine um I apprciate you concerns that connection yeah yeah we budgeted I assume for these new banners yes we did and they're all paid they're all paid for so that trying to rec that money just because we we we took it out of go into that goes into our gate receipts so we Ed our gate receipt money we just want to replenish that that gate receipt that we use quite often um and then we'll uh recoup that y so we really have a plan for this Hall of Fame I have an entire plan but I I don't want to start it without Community being a part of it so I have what other schools have done and what what other schools are doing currently um and I have a pretty good
064outline of it um and I I'm pretty excited about it actually right yeah yeah absolutely yeah right never heard anybody didn't for you it's a way of honing those people absolutely y thank you thank you Tasha can you use a microphone please if if there are banners that don't get bit on what yeah we're going to do a second round we were talking about that if there was banners that didn't get get posted or nobody posted a bid for it it would be a second round for it Yep this is going to be a big process this is not it we got 162 of them so there was a lot of work to go in the in the pushing of this when we started taking them down so yeah what uh what starting price are
065you going to go on there is no starting bid there it's an open bid okay yep any other board members somebody could start out with a dollar Sher you had a question um well uh we decided to go this route is really where we're headed with it so yeah I understand that that that's what you uh think we should do and if we have some that are over after the bidding then um by all means we'll hopefully be able to bring it to uh people that would be able to take care of it so yep anyone else thank you thank you and I have nothing so we're going to go on to policies okay we have the first reading of this these four policies all four of these policies do you want to do a
066oh sorry first I would entertain a motion to accept policies at the first reading excuse me a policies ebaa chemical hazards ebca comprehensive health and safety emergency and management plan ebcc bomb threats and ECB Pest Management in school facilities and on school grounds we have a motion by Robin we have a second Elaine Scott now I can go um all four of these policies are mandatory by the state um we had the chemical Hazard policy but we uh tweaked it um as well as we had the um Pest Management policy and we also got information from Main School management to help tweak that at the policy meeting we did not have the ebca or the ebcc so we must add those in uh we did take uh main School managements uh platelet template excuse me
067um to take to take a look at that uh when we met at the policy meeting so that's where they came from any questions from board members not a you're not a board member but I will allow it just clcs super it's it's it's going to be buildings and grounds person for all the four buildings Y correct y any others seeing on roll call please I'm sorry Roger I I you can have a copy they won't they won't actually read the they'll just we read it but you can have a copy of it yeah yeah I'll just grab anyone else okay uh roll call please yes yes yes so moved and I entertain a motion to enter an executive session to discuss contract negotiations pursuant to 1 MSA 4056 d motion by Elaine second by
068Phoebe roll call please yes yes yes back in session at I'd entertain a motion to accept the RSU 73 Education Association educational technician secretaries Collective baring agreement uh effective July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2027 motion by feeb second by Elaine any further comments questions seeing none roll call please yes yes yes so moved and I I do want to say um I'm going to sound like a broken record from the last time we did we did this that it was really nice working with their negotiating group uh very respectful um they we didn't always agree but we uh we worked things out and um I think we we came up with a good contract and thank you okay you have your appointments transfers and all that uh don't forget to grab your budget book
069tonight it's great reading if you have trouble getting to sleep I suggest you start with that if if people have questions between now and the next budget meeting please yeah please uh pick up the phone or email either uh Crystal or I and uh we'll be getting the the form the way you like it Crystal's getting the ready for you Joel okay so uh if you look at the calendar you're going to see that we're going to be meeting much more frequently um so we are meeting on the 8th the 15th and the 29th of February so except for some of us who are traveling far far away take a motion to adjourn Lena was so fast on that one second by Lane roll call please yes yes yes yes