001One, two, one, two, three. Shannon, can you hear me? I can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Perfect. Hi, Shannon. Hi. How are you? Are we um I can't see in the in the room. Are we are we doing Are we ready to get going? Diane, can you hear me? I don't think the mics are on yet, Shannon. Oh, gotcha. Shannon, you Shannon, can you hear me now? I can. Yes. Okay. Just give me one minute. I'll let you know and I'll hit the gavl when ready to go. All right. Sounds great. Thank you. All right, Shannon, we I just binged the gavl. You're ready to go. Awesome. Thank you, Freaya. Uh, good evening and welcome to the Thursday, May 1st um Scarboro Board of Education business meeting. Um, Ray, can we call the
002attendance? Yes. Mr. Kellahar, here. Miss Leon, here. Miss Lindstöm, here. Miss Peterson, I'm sorry. She's um absent today. Sorry. Mr. Tarpinian here. Mr. Penny Huff here. Miss Ledger here. Miss RKina here. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Uh would everyone please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Oh, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Perfect. Thank you so much. Agenda item 4.0 is approval of the May 3rd, 2025 business meeting minutes and April 17th, 2025 workshop and business meeting minutes. So, if there is no objections, we can approve those. All right. Agenda item 5.0 is a non-action item, just um a consent agenda item for our April resignations, retirements, and
003new hires. So, I would just um suggest to the board to um look through those are in their our board meeting materials. Um agenda item 6.0 are adjustments to the agenda. Um I don't have any. Diane, do you have any adjustments or anybody else? I do not. Perfect. Thank you. Agenda item 7.0 is the student spotlight award recipient. So for this we'll turn it over to Grace and Abby. So, the April students spotlight winner is Ellery Peas. And Ellery was nominated by her crew teacher and math teacher, Miss Gus. Gigas Gigas. Nice. And so unfortunately she's not able to be here tonight, but she did give me um like a little blurb to read. Um she says, "Hi, I'm Miss Geekas. I am Eller's crew teacher and math teacher. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend
004tonight's school committee meeting. Ellery is a kind and mature seventh grade student who's been a valuable contributor to both the seventh grade class and the SMS community. She is actively involved in several afterchool organizations including student council, gym dandies, and the middle school theater. When Ellerie sets her mind to something, she is determined to see it through. She is confident in expressing her thoughts and concerns, consistently advocating for both herself and others. When I asked Molly Chester, the SMS student council adviser, about Eller's contributions, she shared the following. Ellerie is a two-year member of student council and has used her voice passionately and effectively throughout her time as a rep. She has great ideas and is confident and thoughtful in sharing them with her peers and with school leadership. Ellery always considers how our initiatives
005will affect each and every student and is a stellar example of what a student council rep should be. Ellery is on a path to greatness and I can't wait to see all the amazing and wonderful things she does in the future. Congratulations, Ellerie. Thank you. all together. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations, Ellery. That's so exciting. All right. Agenda item 8.0 0 is a superintendent report. So, I'll turn this over to Diane. Great. Good evening, everyone. Uh pleased to share my superintendent report with you this evening. Uh first off, again, I always try to uh make sure that we're uh informing you and celebrating things when we're able to do that. And I've got a couple of uh such items for you this evening. First off, um you know, thanks to some of the decisions that the
006board made at a recent meeting, uh we are pleased to be able to be moving our prek pilot forward for the second year. Uh applications have been open and uh those close tomorrow. Um as you all know, that is a randomized selection in terms of um uh what students get those 16 seats. We make sure that the makeup of the class matches the demographics in our district. Um and so um Kelly Mullen Martin who is our prek uh liaison will be working with Ruth from Shooting Stars. Uh they'll be taking a look at um those applications um and there will be a randomized selection of students for screening. those students will be screened. Um and then enrollment decisions will be made after screening. Uh and there are 16 slots available. So this is just a
007reminder um if there are folks in the community who would like to have their fouryear-olds considered, you do have to turn four by October 15th uh to please make sure that um you go online um and complete that application uh by end of day tomorrow. Uh the second piece of great news that I want to share with you, I think last month um I shared with all of you uh that Mike Leage, our activities director, had received a national award. Um uh in in the same week uh that I had made that announcement to you, Mike also received uh another award. He uh was named by the main interstella scholastic athletic administrators association to receive their annual award of merit. Um this is given out to one athletic director in the state each year. Um
008and it is given to an individual that um this association deems as having performed meritorious service to the state. And so, um, Mike received that award, uh, at their recent conference and, um, wanted to share that with you because, again, I think that there is so much for us to celebrate in terms of, uh, the caliber and quality of professionals that we have here at Scar Bro Public Schools. Um, on the next slide, you'll see that, uh, we just have our monthly enrollment report. our enrollment is uh maintaining uh very consistent numbers. Uh you'll see one more enrollment report for the month of June. Um and then your next one um when the school year begins in the fall. So um you know that is a piece to report. The other piece that I wanted
009to just take a a minute uh to update you on um and I don't have a slide for this is um uh around Title 9 federal funding and main schools. Uh I know that um there were there have been some questions as of late. Um we've been um taking a look at our Title 9 policies. We have those up for second reading this evening. Um you saw those at first reading last month. Um but there have been a lot of changes um and some questions coming forward in terms of uh what takes precedence over uh federal law, title 9 and then the state law which is the main human rights act. Um and the interplay of those two things with executive orders that either have been issued or might be issued. Um, and interestingly enough
010is as I was preparing uh this information for you today, we did receive an update from Maine um the Maine School Superintendent Association um today um uh in terms of some guidance and this was developed in conjunction with Drummond Woodsome um who is our uh legal counsel and so we put a lot of credence um in this guidance and So, um the uh update as of today um is just a reminder that state and federal laws take precedence over executive orders. Um that is the way that the law works. Um and um right now um the main human rights act is not preempted by title 9 and schools must be complying with both laws. And um the main human rights act is consistent with title 9. And um in terms of questions that people have
011about has title 9 changed because of new administration, I think we also talked about this a little bit at last month's meeting. Um Title 9 has remained the same. Um it prohibits discrimination in education on the basis of sex. Over the years, court cases across the country have construed what requires schools to do and when schools might be liable for violating the statute, but there has been no change in either the words of the statute or in case law since the new president took office. And so, um, as I explained last month, when people talk about switching back to the 2020 Title 9 policies, that is unrelated um to um, you know, what is currently up for debate in terms of executive orders uh, versus uh, federal laws versus the main human rights act. Um,
012and um, you know, that was a separate case. Uh we also have received some questions in regards to do main schools um must main schools allow transgender students um specifically the question has come up around transgender girls to participate in girls athletic events and uh the guidance that we have received on that is that the main human rights act requires this to happen as does the rules of the main principles association. and title 9 does not prohibit that. Um if the state law gets amended um obviously that may change and we will follow um guidance um as laws do change. And then finally, um, you know, I think there have been some questions that have come up around if individual school districts decide to align themselves with executive orders, um, around transgender participation in sports.
013Uh, will those districts receive funding even if it is we withheld from the state of Maine? Most of you are probably aware that um you know the the current conflict seems to be with um the presidency and our governor and currently the state of Maine um is the grantee for all federal funds. And so what that means is that all federal funds that flow to us as schools go through the main department of education first. And um so if a federal agency were to stop funding um that would be stopping funding to the state and all school districts would be affected by that regardless of um their position on this particular topic of transgender participation. So um there is no provision in the law um currently by which the federal fund d the federal government
014provides direct funds to schools. So hopefully um that helps to clarify questions that folks have um been wondering about. Thank you Diane. Absolutely. Um, excuse me. This is a this Title N update is a non um a non-action item, but um for the board tonight, but it's an opportunity for us to get a little bit more information as to what's happening and um around the state and as it relates to the executive order from President Trump. Um, but I did want to open it up for any comments, any questions for Diane or um any discussion around this. Ray, would you mind turning the the PowerPoint off for just a second? I don't know if that's too much trouble. Thank you. Just so I can see if anybody. All right, it looks like any any questions,
015any discussion? We good? anything we want to answer? Yeah, go ahead, Jenna. I just want to know how are we getting a lot of questions about about it? If it's enough, would it be valuable for us to post that somewhere so that everybody knows? If it's not that many, then it doesn't really affect us and we don't have to change anything. I I think that I've that there has been very little questions asked about this. Um Shannon asked me to provide an update to all of you this evening as part of the board meeting. I do wonder um to Jenna's point, I wonder if um Diane, is that what you shared with us? Um is it too much trouble to put it in an outline that we could post to our meeting materials? Certainly. I
016could um you know uh format that so that you could put that along with the meeting materials. Absolutely. Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. Right. Any other discussion or questions? All right. Thank you, Diane. Absolutely. All right. Let's see. Um agenda item 10.0 is the chair's report. Um I don't have too too much um because this has been a um a vacation week for school, but I do have two things I wanted to talk about. The first is um the budget process and where we are. Um we did have a our last round table um this week. I'm I think it was Monday um or Tuesday we had it and it was it went really really well. Um we had a few community members show up um asking questions mainly for the town
017quite frankly um I guess there has been for those not who haven't been following along there's been a big push in the pickle ball community um as it relates to adding additional courts and really understanding um how how we could do that and how we can increase the recreation in our town. And so there was a lot of questions around that um which the town council has um committed to adding additional pickle ball courts and that's part of this year's budget. So um where they are where we are right now um the the budget as it stands we're looking at an approximate 3.48% property tax increase. So um we're going to get into our second reading tonight, but as it that's the entire budget for the town side and the school side. So, um, the
018budget the the town finance committee I believe met today or was planning to meet today. Um, so I looking forward to hearing more from that. Um, there um, in addition to the pickle ball courts, there was also an addition of lights at the Peterson baseball field. Um, so that was a new ad from the town side and they also added some funding for um, additional full-time public safety positions. So that would be our fire um fire firemen and our police officers. So they have some additional um asks that they have added when I say they I mean the town has added um to the budget and then both of course we'll hear tonight um are Norm and Kate and the finance committee um finance groups have been working on reducing where they can. So that's
019how we've gotten to that 3.48% 48% increase as it stands right now and that includes all of those um incre those additions that I that I mentioned to you along with our additions. Um the second thing I wanted to mention um quickly um and I'm hoping I'm not stealing a thunder from the building update, but in this week's um newsletter, town newsletter and on the website is uh the tax impact modeling uh program or page that community members can visit if they're interested in knowing what the tax impact will be for the school building will be um to their with their specific to their specific house and their specific value of their house. So, I've included the website here. Um, if you go to that website, you type in the value of your home and
020you can see what that tax impact is going to look like. So, it's a pretty um pretty neat tool that we have in the community with um the ability for the community members to really see what that impact might be to them specifically. So, instead of talking in general terms, now community members can look at specific impact All right. Any questions for me? All right. Agenda item 11.0 are the committee reports. Um, and it looks like our first is uh the building committee. So, Jillian. All right. So, we had our last community forum or their most recent community forum last night. There was a great turnout. Um people were participated really well. Uh uh it was an an excellent presentation. Uh Larry and Diane gave the presentation of the two options, annual costs and the
021operating costs. And Diane actually forwarded us this news story. The the media was here and they covered it. They were here until the bitter end really. Um and uh so I encourage you all to watch that. um and catch up. That meeting was also recorded so you can see it in its entirety. Um the survey for the preferred options is now live. It's on the school's website. There should be a popup that comes up. Um there's also paper copies in the lobby here and at the library. And um hoping really you've all heard from me already, but there's a stack of uh handouts out there. We really need to get these out to the community. So all of the help we can get would be great. Um the next meetings are the 5th, 12th, and
02219th, all at 6:00 p.m. And on the next slide, I have the information, some of the information that was presented last night that's in those flyers. This is like a super comprehensive uh I don't even know how they got all this information on there. The talent is amazing. But so as you both as you know both options we've narrowed down to two options. One is the consolidated K2 with additions to the middle school and Wentworth. And the other option is retaining the three primary schools. Um except for we'd be moving eight corners, closing down its current location and building a slightly larger building on at another location. We have not decided about the land yet. Um and still with a middle school edition and an addition at Wentworth. both came in uh between 122 and
023132 million. But the information that we got this week were the operating costs and there really is a substantial difference there. um the annual operating costs for the con keeping the three primary schools and the addition to Wentworth and the middle school uh is about 15 million but for the consolidated school is about 12.4 million and this actually is a big deal because that equals about $190 to $200 per year um of savings. So, uh, the committee will be has presented that information. It's all in the survey. Um, and we will see what we learn, but there's quite a bit of information on those sheets. I really encourage you to read them and have that information um, ready to roll because there'll be lots of questions. And that's pretty much it. Thank you. Any questions
024for Jillian about the building project? So many questions, right? Um, really quickly, um, the just to be clear, the $200 for the staffing, the difference in the staffing between the two models, that's over and above the additional cost for the building out. So yeah, the both both options for the actual bond would be an average over 32 years actually I think is a $385 per year for an average six. So that's a $600,000 house in Scar Bro. I mean it's there's a tax calculator online if you want to go plug in your home value. Um what the difference is is that so both options would cost that for the bond. Um but going the consolidated school would actually decrease our overall compared between the two. I I guess I um struggling with the way to
025explain this but it would be about $190 to $200 a year of savings in comparison to the other option. So in effect uh there is a a difference. Um one's 385 and one's about 185 when you do the math per year. Got it. Thank you. Makes sense. Yeah. Yes, it does. Thank you. and the communications committee is putting out um more detail um that's going to be the next blog post. So um in regards to how that $190 to $200 was calculated um so you know I know that there are a lot of people who have questions about how that math is done. Um, and I know the communications committee worked really closely with um, the tax office um, to help come up with that calculation. And so there will be um an explanation of
026that um for folks with availability um as long as well as um you know Jillian's looking at a handout that I had provided on Monday at the building committee in regards to the savings for or the differences in staffing costs and the categories um under which um there would be uh savings for positions. So that will be up and um on the website shortly. Yeah. And and this information is also available on the survey. Perfect. That's great. Thank you. All right. Communications committee. All right. So we had our last meeting this morning uh on Zoom. We have our next meeting at the end of the month on the 29th also at 8 a.m. on Zoom. We have a spotlight award coming up at our next meeting. Uh we're really looking forward to that. Um we
027discussed we're continuing to discuss budget advertising uh getting out the vote. Um making sure people know there is a vote this year. Uh and it's on it's uh uh early voting is coming up pretty quick. So we are looking to launch a social media campaign for that. Um, of course we have some general concern. We continue to have general concern for uh communication moving forward with the loss of the printed version of the leader going to every household. Um, although it's really easy to sign up uh online. So I hope everybody has done that. We talked about the senior citizen event and um little notes for next year. And then we also submitted our first article to Scarbo Living magazine. Uh thanks to Ry Ray Ray really did all of the work for it. So
028it was really uh it was really well written. Um we're really excited about that. And that's pretty much it. Did I miss anything? No. Um I have one update that I haven't um been able to um talk to you yet about. Jillian Diane and I received an email late this afternoon um from Drew at the reporter from um the leader and since they have gone to the online version of the paper they wanted to they being the leader wanted to circle back about something we had talked with him about in the past and that's creating a school column. um now that they've gone to this online version, they don't have the same space constraints that they had when they were in print. And so um they're interested now in talking to us about either a
029bi-weekly or a monthly column. Um something in his mind it would be something similar to what the town council is doing, which is like the counselor corner where the the counselors rotate. Um, if we think back to what we had discussed with Rey and Drew at the and Jenna and Jillian, I think we met at the beginning of the school year, we had talked about potentially principles and and you know, district leaders writing some of the articles as well. So, he is interested in circling back to that and having that discussion again. Oh, I would I think that that would be a really great opportunity. Um, I it's it I think the way that the counselors do it is really interesting. Um, it lets people write about things from their perspective. I don't know if
030you've all read that before, but um, I think I think that's great and I think it gives the community a good opportunity to hear from some of the district leaders about what's going on. So, I Yeah, I we're totally on board with that, especially if the work's out. Yeah. Yeah. So, more to come on that. Any other questions or thoughts for Jillian? All right, Jenna, you're next with curriculum. We had a short meeting on April 17th and we discussed some summer planning. So, it's crazy to think that the end of the year is really close. Um, and summer planning is already well underway. Uh, so we're planning for kinder camps, elementary summer reading academy, um, middle school connections academy, and I understand the invitations are already out and getting a lot of interest in that,
031too. Um, and high school credit recovery. So, lots lots are already in motion for the summer. So, I'm excited to hear all about that when everyone comes back from the summer vacation. Very good. Any questions for Jenna? All right, continue on. Continuing on with Jenna finance and then um we met on Monday as a finance committee and we got an update from Kate and Diane from town council's finance committee. Um and I understand D uh Kate's probably going to go through a lot of this information so I won't bore you with it, but I will bore you with a lot of words that I'm going to have to amend later. Um, but basically we talked about the the town um tax rate increase and the request for us to reduce it by a certain amount,
032which Kate will get into. Um, and how she has figured out how to offset a lot of our costs to reduce our amount to where the town wants us to be. So, what we vote on tonight is our last best proposal to the town. Um, so I'll let Kate go into it later. Perfect. Any questions for Jenna? All right, Freigha. Negotiations. Uh, we actually had uh met for negotiations uh today before this meeting and uh negotiations are ongoing with both the professional staff contract, teachers contract and the administrators association. I've also reached out to the maintenance uh unit in order to start that negotiation. Those are our three for the year and our goal for all three of them is to get them completed before the end of the school year. Thank you. Um and
033then policy and the policy committee uh will meet again on May 13th. So we last met um at the beginning of April. So you we have had a meeting since then or two. Um, we reviewed the title 9 policies at that meeting which are up for second reading um, during action items on this agenda. We also were going through the use of school facilities and student transportation policies which are both really interesting um, and are probably going to be uh, interesting to the community members um, if there are substantive changes to those policies. Um other than that um uh we made a change in how we're looking at upcoming policies and we flipped to uh chron reverse chronological order and so we are going to look at our 1983 policy IHBB gifted and talented education
034first after the get done with the work that we're ongoing and then we're moving to the 2000s uh circa 2001 um and we'll move up from there and hopefully we'll revisit um all the policies and get them up to date uh quickly. Some of these are going to be really fast. Um, others are going to be, you know, are going to take our time with and we'll make sure we allocate the appropriate amount of time for each of the policies. Awesome. Are there any questions for Freaya? Thank you, Freila. Um, agenda item 12.0 are leazison reports. Are there any leazison reports this evening? All right. Hearing none, we'll move on to agenda item 13.0, which is student reports. So, we'll turn this over to um Grayson to Abby. Um at the middle school, the SMS
035theater team put on four performances of the musical Matilda Jr. from April 11th through the 13th. The students did an amazing job performing in front of packed houses and received standing ovations at all performances. Um, a special thank you to the directors, uh, the director Jesse Dum, the producer Bethany Jensen, the coral director Matt Leersge, and then many others for their support in leading the students through this performance. And then at the high school today, um, Mr. Tero, Miss Blazedell, and Mr. Brown all participated in the USC Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness for mental health. So, basically, they just got water dumped over their head. That was fun. Um, and then today, seniors participated in decision day where they wore the merch of the college that they'll be attending in the fall. And then
036upcoming at the high school is prom on May 10th, which is exciting. And then for the next two weeks, AP exams. Not so exciting, but coming. Okay. So earlier in April at Wentworth, there was a author visit or author visit where the students were able to learn more about the process of like being an author and illustrator. And so spring sports or at the high school have also already started and they've all had pretty strong starts. And so this was the first week back from April or spring break and the phone policy was like fully implemented at the high school. So, starting this week, we all have put our phones in phone trees for every class and for study halls. And I can say that at least in my classes, it has all gone pretty
037smoothly. So, that's great to hear. Thank you for that update. Any questions for Grace or Abby? All right. Thank you. Um, agenda item 14.0 is a presentation. 14.1 is a climate education professional development grant. So, I think is Katie there? I am. Wonderful. Thank you. We'll turn it over to you. So, I'm very excited to share with you tonight the um acquisition of another grant. Um, I want to start by saying Dylan Nay sends his regrets for not being here tonight. He's the principal grant writer with a team of folks including Kate Cune. They're instructional coaches at the middle school. And this one's really exciting for me because they were really involved with the main outdoor learning initiative, that Molly grant we got last year. And so when you bring forward work, it's always exciting
038to see that work be um engaged in, but it's even more exciting when teachers take up the torch themselves and lead further development of the work. And that's ultimately what this climate grant is. So Dylan and Kate approached me and said, "We would really like to take on the endeavor of writing this grant with your help as kind of more of a consultant this time. uh with the purpose of this grant being to engage instructors at the middle school level in climate and environmental change education through professional development. So there will be a summer PD kickoff um for Kate and Dylan and 13 of their colleagues who will engage in essentially what's a professional learning community for the year. So that six hours this summer will give them time to um begin planning together and
039get on the same page in terms of acquiring some conceptual understandings around the education of the climate and environment that they want to implement. And then they will engage in 2hour monthly PD and planning sessions to continue the work through the school year. What's really exciting about this grant is that one of the requirements of the grant was that it be done in partnership with a local organization. And so they chose to partner with Mainree Foundation. Um and so some of the funding for this will pay for some contracted service work with that consultant who will join them for the full 30 hours of the PD as an organizational expert. uh Maintree Foundation's work is um their cho chief initiative is to advance forest uh forestbased education and workplace development and they um do a
040lot of professional development within their own own organization for educators as well as experiential programs for students. Um but their work also includes data collection with students around local issues, educator professional development and they also are um Maine's longest standing um skill and safety trainer for the logging professionals in our community. So they work not just with educators but with professionals doing forest base work. Um, so this is excellent because the focus before was largely in Martian marine studies and that will continue and this expands that work. The money will also allow us to pay for instructional supplies related to planning and professional development and provide opportunities for teachers to um really see the to fruition the lessons that they're creating. So the ultimate goal is to create integrated outdoor education lessons and units that
041engage students in collaborative problem solving while fostering a deeper connection to both nature and the scar bro community. So it really picks up the work of the main outdoor learning initiative grant and extends it to opportunities for all students 6 through 8 and not just our inter integrated studies group. The award total is $29,145.72 and it will provide an opportunity for that professional development to be funded as well as the instructional supplies and the contracted service of the Mainree Foundation's professional. So, we're really excited um that this next step for us is just to wait for um further information from the state's procure procurement office to get an official contract underway. But um you should, I believe, see in your packet the initial award letter and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you so
042much. This is exciting. Um what a great opportunity. Are there any questions or comments for Katie? I have a quick comment. Shannon, please. Oh, I just wanted to say um it's always exciting when we have um a successful grant in our packet. Um and I love it when I see you in the audience because I know you're going to come up here and tee it up, but um it's really great to see how engaged educators have been in going out and pursuing really creative opportunities that are benefiting such a wide range of our student body. I mean, I remember the Molly grant at the beginning when you introduced it and then I remember seeing the presentations come through um both professionally and from our student representatives who who have just seen how this has like
043trickled through out that learning community but really throughout the school and to see that the the teachers go back and to keep pushing the boundaries to give these opportunities to our students is so valuable. So, I think it's it's a testament to your ability to foster, you know, grant writing is really intimidating and hard and often thankless work and um and so really fostering an environment where people are willing to tackle it and then tackle it well so that they're getting, you know, they're getting to successful grant applications, which is really great. So, thank you. Thank you, Fa. I couldn't agree more. I'm I'm incredibly proud of the grant that Dylan and Kate wrote and and was happy to support them in that. And I agree, there's nothing more exciting than to see teachers take
044up the work themselves because they're so passionate about it. And the group of teachers, the 13 educators joining them are just the same. And so that's really incredible. No, and I think to your point, Freila, I think it is motivating when people are successful at writing a grant and it spurs them on to seek out other opportunities. And so, um, it's contagious. It is. And it's wonderful for our students. I think it's pretty incredible that our teachers wrote it, right? And that they instead of, you know, Kate that Katie that you got to be the consultant this time, help them as they wrote it and to see success. That is that is really motivating and exciting for sure. So congratulations. Um Diane, as a point of information or um clarification, um I just realized this
045is on as a presentation. Um but I I think that the board has to vote on this. Is that true? Yes, you should actually vote to accept the grant. Yeah, it's just um I think it's fine for us to vote. We just don't have it under um new business. Um so um I'm going to go ahead and move forward with the vote. Um, do I have a motion to approve the climate education professional development grant as presented? Moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Ray, could you call the uh any public comment? All right. Ray, can you call the vote, please? Mr. Kellagher? Yes. Miss Le Young? Yes. Miss Lindstöm? Yes. Mr. Rockensty? Yes. Mr. Tennian? Yes. Mr. Piney Huff, yes. Miss Ledger, yes. Miss Rina, yes. Perfect. It shows it's unanimous. Thank you so much
046and congratulations. Thank you. Yes. All right. Agenda item 15.0 is general public comment. Is there anyone wishing to make general public comment this evening? Anyone? There does not appear to be Shannon. Okay. And I don't see anyone raising their hand online. So hearing none, I will close general public comment. Um, agenda item 16.0 is continuing business. 16.1 is the second reading of the FY26 school budget. So I assume we have Kate there, too. You do have Kate here again to talk about the budget again. We're happy. Hi everyone. Hi everyone. I'm excited to be here tonight because um we've come a really long way. We've we've been two months working on this um really important project to get um a good and and uh and efficient and careful and thoughtful budget for next year. And
047uh tonight we are at second reading and vote from the school board. Um I've got a couple slides for anyone who hasn't been following along with us. I'm going to say some of the same things that I've said before, but I'll go quickly. Um this slide describes the fact that we've uh been through first reading and that the town council and and um the town management has been putting along along with us. They've been going along on the same trajectory with us since their first reading. Um refinements and amendments as Shannon referenced earlier have been made um ever since the first reading. And tonight we have an amended version um of that original budget. Um, this is my promo slide for all of the materials that are available for the public to view. Um, that
048is a live link in the slide deck if you happen to be looking at this at some point. Um, you can click on that link or go to our website and find all kinds of information about the budget. Um there's also a grid on that web page with all of the meeting dates and for each meeting where there was um material shared um there's agendas, there's video streams. Um and uh something that isn't called out on the slide is that on that page we now have little video clips of the presentations that our school leaders have done over this past school year um here at school board. Um, and those are kind of fun to watch as well to to give folks some insight into what's really going on in our schools. This slide shows
049you the budget that was passed at first reading. Um, the board's budget. This is the operating budget. So, general fund is the K12 budget that the folks in the town vote on every year. We also have adulted and school nutrition operating budgets. So, at the start of this process when the board voted, we were at a 7.48% increase in our expenditures overall and a 6.85% increase in our request for tax dollars from the town of Scar Bro. Um, Shannon gave a number earlier that was 3.48%. That number represents the projected increase to the tax rate overall where the town budget and the school budget are combined and the capital budget as well. So, as we said, the um the budget has been changed and what you're going to be looking at tonight is an amended
050budget. Um the reasons for the changes are some uh things that have happened to us and some things that we have done ourselves. So uh choices we didn't get to make and choices that we did get to make. Um the first section here talks about benefit projections and um you've heard me say this before that we projected our Anthem rates at 8% an 8% increase which we thought was a pretty high number and unfortunately they came in at over 10% almost 11% increase. Um so that means that we have to raise our budget number to accommodate that. Um and I I took a little note from Dian's note takingaking where she did red and green which I liked. So red is numbers that we had to add to the budget. Green is numbers that we
051can subtract from the budget. So also in benefits, we were able to make some reductions. Um our Delta dental rates were a little bit lower than what we budgeted. Um our workers comp was significantly lower than what we budgeted. And when I say it was lower, um we still have an estimated premium, but we've gotten more information from MEC, which is our workers comp carrier about what they're going to ask us for in the coming year. Um, in unemployment, we reduced our amount based on the experience that we've had paying unemployment claims to the state um, last year and this year as well. Um, this next one is about personnel costs. And this is kind of a nice fun story because it it ties into the fact that we've been able to make a lot
052of new hires um even in the past two months since um we presented the first reading budget, but especially since we started doing budget projections all the way back in December and January. Um, so what we've done is we've gone back through and for some of these positions that were open, we now have people in them or we have a better sense of the kinds of people that we've been hiring over the past few months to fill those positions. Um, overall we've been able to reduce and you'll see some details on those um, funny bright colored sheets that I've given you. There's a blue section um on the back of page there that tells you all the details of the individual amounts for each of those types of spending. Um, but the bottom line is
053that we were able to say, okay, the estimates that we have in our budget are probably a little bit too high for those open positions. And we're either going to replace them with the actual cost of a human being that we've hired in the meantime, or we're going to replace it with a better estimate for what that open position is likely to cost us. other areas where we we've had items in motion. Um we did make two additions which you've heard about already. I talked about these um I think when we had the public hearing we had uh discussion about the changes. We do need to add two new special services edexs and a tuition amount for an outside placement. um those are um information that's information that we received after first reading um about
054students that were moving into our district. We've also had a lot of conversations about the prek program. Um you all addressed that beautifully for us last time you met and voted to um add funding to offset the $70,000 extra that we needed um to accommodate the loss of grant funds there. A couple of other small changes um in energy costs. We were able to reduce our projections. Uh we use a consultant for energy purchasing and when I say energy I mean electricity, natural gas, fuel, oil and propane. Um and they were able to give us some u more refined estimates. That is a super volatile area. So we're all keeping our fingers crossed to see how that's all going to work out. But we were able to bring our numbers down a little bit there.
055Um, we mentioned one curriculum software item there where we were able to we were given an opportunity to pre purchase a three-year subscription uh at the K2 level at a significant discount. And so we went ahead and did that and now we don't have that cost in the upcoming year. Um, the one other ad that I have there, and I kind of skipped over it, is facilities contracted services. We increased our district-wide contracted services line in facilities because of all of the happy, cheerful emails we've been getting from our vendors saying, "We can't hold this price for you. We gave you a quote, but we really don't know what's going on in the market." Um, and even though we had already bulked up those lines a little bit in the original budget, we felt it
056was really important to have a little bit more flexibility there for those costs. So, you get to the bottom line and you get an increase in the operating budgets of just under $276,000. um you throw in the new revenue from the prek reserve fund and you end up with a net increase of about 206,000. So here's what it looks like uh for the operating budgets um as compared with the the first reading. This is what you will be voting on this evening. little bit of an increase in both the education budget expenditures overall and in the tax request. Now, if we go to the next slide, there's a um a new moment in capital budget. The capital budget, we were able to actually make two reductions that are going to impact the tax rate. Um
057one is sort of a sad thing and one is a positive thing. The positive thing is in school nutrition, we had um money in the budget for replacing two ovens at the high school and we have sufficient funds in FY25 right now, including a large fund balance in that uh in the school nutrition program to be able to go ahead and buy them today and not have to have them budgeted for next year. The sad one is the middle school um science classrooms which we were planning to retrofit two classrooms. We did two last year um into a little bit more modern design, more flexible design um that um the middle school's really gotten a lot of good use out of this year with the two that we did do. Unfortunately, because the generator at
058the middle school is going to be installed this summer coming up, um they will have no power. And uh the way that it was described to me by facilities was they they would be able to uh tear down and demolish the existing rooms rather nicely in the dark with their sledgehammers or whatever they do and but they wouldn't be able to put them back together. And so we really thought that was that was not a great choice. um to uh destroy and not rebuild. And uh so we decided it would be a good idea to defer that um to the summer of 26. Um we can still get it done, but we're not going to be creating any havoc um in terms of their space there. So the fact that these items were going to
059be appropriated, which means we're going to raise tax dollars to pay for them, which is true in the capital budget when you have a small cost. Um well, yeah, it's small to us, right? You you look at $25,000 in your checkbook and you might not think that, but um in this case, it reduces our budget tax request. Excuse me. Um so this does have an impact on the tax rate. Um so here's a picture of the capital budget and this is where it stands right now. You'll see that bottom line where um well the two bottom lines it t not uh school excuse school capital non- tax revenues. I should have had the coffee. School capital non-tax revenues um are typically um bond revenues. They're bonds issued by the town to support capital budgets. They
060can also be reserve um revenues which we used some of last year. And that bottom line where it says school capital tax request, that's the piece that we're actually funding by raising taxes. And so that's the piece that impacts the tax rate um and adds to that request. This sort of really hardto- read chart is a handout that you folks have. Also, if anybody's looking at it at home, it's posted online um on that budget page. You can blow the slide up real big, but basically what this says is what last year's budget was. Um, what we passed at first reading and the change between last year and this year. And then the second half of it is what second reading looks like and what the changes from last year. And the last column is
061what are the adjustments that we made between first and second reading. And you'll see at the very bottom of that page, the net change, meaning the actual impact to the tax request. So, the amount of taxes that we want to raise is an increase of just under $156,000 from first reading to second reading. Um, so I have on here that the town council is going to be having their second reading and vote next Wednesday night. I did want to um piggyback a little bit on what Shannon was saying earlier. The town council finance committee met just before this meeting at 5:00 this evening and um they voted to bring forward to the full council a whole slate of adjustments. piece of that is what we just talked about, the school board's changes in our budget.
062And then another piece of it is all the changes that the town wants to make between their first and second reading. And the the net impact of that right now, according to the town uh finance office, is that the tax rate increase would be about 3.75%. We started out of the gate at first reading at 3.48%. So, it's a little bit of an increase, but it's still under 4% the goal that the town council finance committee asked us to meet. And there are some really neat investments there. I think Shannon mentioned on the town side, they're adding new firefighters. They're adding a new ambulance. Um they're adding um police officers. they're they're able to put um quite a bit of of um extra resources into public safety, which was something that was a real priority
063for the town council. This tells us that the town council votes next week. After that, the school portion of the budget goes to referendum um June 10th at the high school. And if um you're clicking on all my links, you can click on this one and go to the elections page for the town. You can get an absentee and early voting ballot information there. Um and um we encourage you to come out and vote and um stay engaged with the budget process. That might be it. Shannon, are you ready for me to read all these big numbers? Yes, but hold on one second before you start reading. Are there any questions for Kate? All right, Jenna, take a sip of water. Just so you know, it's about half a page long and the text is
064really small. So bear with me, everybody. All right, so we are looking to amend the FY26 education budget approved at the school board's first reading on March 20th, 2025. H general fund operating budget. Increase the expenditure budget by $281,664 as outlined in the supporting documents. Add $70,000 to non-t tax revenue from preK program reserve fund. Amended general fund expenditures expenditures gross budget will total $71,66,428. Amended general fund net budget will total $60,91,681. Adult education budget increase the expenditure budget by $90 as outlined in the supporting documents. Amended adult education expenditures gross budget will total $233,057. Amended adult education net budget will total $97,048. School nutrition budget. Reduce the expenditure budget by $5,93 as outlined in the supporting documents. Reduce non-T tax revenue by $5,93 to match expenditures. Amended school nutrition expenditures gross budget will total
0652,529,344. Amended. School nutrition non- tax revenues will total $2,529 529,344. School nutrition net budget will remain at zero. Capital improvements budget reduce expenditure budget by $56,000 as outlined in the supporting documents. Move $600,000 from long range planning to building project. Amended capital improvements expenditures gross budget will total $5,324,000. Amended capital improvements net budget will total $67,000. That is done. That was brilliant. Yes, you did a fantastic job. Second. Thank you so much. Is there any discussion? Shannon, if you don't mind, I did forget to mention the um move of the 600,000 from long range planning into the building project. Um we talked about that at finance. It's um a little bit of a procedural piece, but we had originally in our budget labeled that money as long range planning, but since we're actually um going
066into the phase where we're going to have a project, um the town finance office felt it was more appropriate to put that into the building project line. And that way depending on how we use that um it could be um it could be bonded instead of appropriated because it's going to be for something more tangible going into either the building project itself or going into a transitional um solution for how we manage uh student space in between the referendum and when we actually have a new um building. Great. Thank you, Kate. All right. Is there any other any other discussion? Okay, Ray, can you call the vote, please? Yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Miss Leon, yes. Miss Lindstöm, yes. Mr. Lockenstein, yes. Mr. Tarpenion, yes. Mr. Penny Huff, yes. Miss Ledger, yes. Miss Ruskina, yes. Wonderful.
067Thank you. It shows unanimous. All right. Um because I'm going to do the same thing I did at our last meeting. I'm going to combine um the second reading of our Title 9 policies because they are all as we discussed previously and I'll Frea will talk about they're all being changed for the same reason. Um so Freila, do you want to tee up um that that I'm going to bundle them all so that those um policies that we are reinstating? Yeah, thank you. Um, so this is um five total policies. Um, they're under title nine. Um, but what they're specifically intended to do is indicate sort of the protected classes of folks for the purposes of harassment. So that could be harassment um in anywhere on the school district between students and or employees or
068any combination thereof. And it lays out a process by which claims of harassment are investigated and the due process rights that both the person who is making a claim that they've been harassed um and the person who's accused of doing the harassing um sort of the rules and the and rights they have during that process and the responsibility of the school department to undertake an investigation and sort of lays out in specific the procedural details about how that happens. Um I will not read the policies to you. Um these are very similar actually to the ones we painstakingly went through in the fall. There's the details in terms of like the timelines for the investigation are a little bit different. Um but this is a uh this change um has come about because there were
069former policies that were put into place which is why we changed them. there was a court case or a decision that came down. Um it's linked in our meeting minutes um for the policy committee that indicate that stayed the implication of those new policies. And so the law reverted to the prior policies in terms of those procedural rights. And those rights are sort of how people are notified that a harassment claim is being investigated. Their rights to access the records um to defend themselves or to you know to be protected during the course of that investigation. Happy to take any questions if there were there were no comments that we received on the policy committee between first and second reading. Um but I'm happy to address anything that has been brought up for people. Thank
070you Frea. Are there any questions for Frea? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve um 16.2.1 reinstate policy AC non-discrimination equal opportunity and affirmative action. 16.2.2 reinstate policy ACA harassment and sexual harassment of students. 16.2.3 2.3 Reinstate policy ACA R Student Discrimination Harassment and Title 9 Sexual Harassment Complaint Procedures 16.2.4 Reinstate Policy ACAB Harassment and Sexual Harassment of School Employees and 16.2.5 Reinstate Policy ACABR employee discrimination harassment and title 9 sexual harassment complaint procedures. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, Ray, can we call the vote? Yes. Mr. Kellaher? Yes. Miss Leon? Yes. Miss Lindstöm? Yes. Mr. Rockenstein? Yes. Mr. Pinion? Yes. Mr. Penny Huff? Yes. Miss Ledger? Yes. Mr. Skina? Yes. Wonderful. That shows you unanimous. Thank you so much. Agenda item 17.0 is adjournment. So without objections, we will adjourn at
0718:07 p.m. Thank you so much everyone. Have a great evening.