School Board Meeting - August 17, 2023

001okay thank you foreign good evening and welcome to the Thursday August 17th 2023 Scarborough Board of Education meeting um Diane can we call the um no can we can we just do the Pledge of Allegiance with everybody joining me for that Pledge of Allegiance we're not taking anything I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you fam can we call attendance please sure Mrs Gammon here Mr Kelleher here miss Leon here Mrs Lindstrom here Mr mayorino here miss tarpinion here Mr Pini huh uh she'll be joining us soon Miss Ledger uh she's been excused and Mr Shumway he's been honest thank you all right agenda item 3.0 or adjustments

002to the agenda are there any adjustments this evening thank you agenda item 4.0 is Pub is public comment is there anybody wishing to make public comment this evening seeing none and seeing none online I will close that agenda item 4.5.0 excuse me is the K-8 Unified School update um I just wanted to update um everyone here in the public on last night's Town council meeting so the Town Council met an executive session for quite a lengthy time last night to discuss um the path forward so to back up just a step a step back um there was a land deal that the Town Council had authorized Tom Hall to sign with the developers of the downs for the land for the school unfortunately it was a time-bound land deal so they had to both parties

003had to sign by a very specific date that date came and went without any signature so the land deal is now null and void um last night at the Town council meeting on the there was an agenda item to uh put the referendum reading to first to first first reading so vote for first reading um in executive session what the Town Council did was review all the options in front of them for this for the land for the school so that is still that work is still ongoing there is about three weeks between now and the next town council meeting where they are going to look for the best way forward for the land um they did go to First reading on the ballot language and it was approved six to one um by the

004council I I would um which was great news it did you get past um there is a lot of work though to be done between now um and then so really uh what we are tasked with and what moving forward what we need to do is really educate the community um more so on the need for the school why this is important why this land is the right place why this Unified School is the right choice and why the case okay through eight um K-8 uh strategic plan is the right is the right plan for the whole District so not just our students not just our staff but really our entire Community um so that is where we are right now um the next few weeks will be very busy is Town Council really kind

005of works to wrap its arms around what what are the next steps and how do we how do we continue as we all know there's really just not a lot of land in Scarborough there's not a lot of choice for us so um that is where we're at um hopefully at our the next meeting the next town council meeting which would be the second reading of the ballot language would be um September 6th Cameron no no I think the view I don't think I think it's the technology should I exit out of the because you're on I'm not on no I mean yeah yeah I'll just come off yeah I can come off okay perfect there we are now everybody can see [Laughter] all right so are there any questions for me about the update

006just have a quick question on so if to for the for it to pass that second reading does the deal need to be agreed upon with the gowns or across whatever Crossroads yeah that's a great that's a great um question um my perception my personal perception from what I heard last night is um I don't know that it would the second reading would pass if there's not a landline place there are counselors that really um want this hammered out prior to yeah that makes sense going to referendum so yes I don't believe it would pass if not yeah I think um I think the the the Practical piece of it is is if there isn't a land deal in place and where to go to referendum and be very I think it would be uh

007and I think it makes sense that would be very a practical challenge for it to pass if there wasn't a landing on place for sure I say just thinking that through a little Yeah well yeah we have to know a dollar amount yeah so yeah you don't have a dollar so yeah exactly I think that's a big um a big piece of understanding the whole project Frank said that um dollar figure the 160 million does include the cost of the downslan As We Knew It with the land deal that has expired yeah great question are there any other questions when is the next time we are all meeting with Town Council um we have not set another date yet with them um but was supposed to be last night as you know we're supposed to

008have a joint workshop with them ahead of their vote um that was assuming of course the land deal would be signed um so when that didn't happen our Workshop was canceled but we do have one uh we will reschedule it it just I don't have that date yet from John any other questions all right um agenda item 6.0 is a superintendence report so I'll turn this over to Jeff yeah it's been uh it's been a busy summer so um I mean the campus I think is a little quieter obviously than normal but uh there's been a whole lot of things going on I'm finishing up a um a letter just summarizing things that have been going on around campus over the summer time um to go out to the whole community and to staff uh

009probably tomorrow um as far as kids we had our summer reading Academy and Kinder camp at the elementary level Middle School connections with sixth graders I have high schoolers working through credit recovery and Pathways a lot of staff development and curriculum work we've had over 30 sessions many of many hosted and and you know staff working with staff so I mean there's just a lot of collaboration that goes on over the summer in terms of professional development in terms of building skills and developing curriculum at All Phase levels uh Athletics are already fall Athletics are already underway so football field hockey soccer volleyball sports cross country uh Mike was saying we've got 400 um athletes this fall which I think is a new record um so that's pretty cool clubs and organizations we've had music

010boosters had a booth set up at Summerfest um so we're starting to you know just it's like fall already somehow right or it certainly feels that way I'm trying to like say no no no no no no still summer but anyway um so that everything's um heating up we had um just go to the slide here that I presented to we um last week had our Leadership Institute our Leadership Council two days and and just really kind of setting goals for the year um getting ready for opening days opening staff days uh those were a really good two days um we're excited to have principal cafele who's a nationally renowned educational consultant and and speaker um a former turnaround principal in New Jersey uh when winners of multiple national awards uh he's just really inspiring

011and he's been working we've had the opportunity as a Leadership Council to to meet with him a couple of times over the course of the last year to learn from him um around building this inequity mindset as Educators and then also culturally responsive teaching so as you know as as our classrooms and community grows and and both in in enrollment but also diversity um he's he's he's got a lot of um really way really good ways to explain and set the table and and provide us that um uh just his his education and inspiration for for building a more inclusive community in our schools so he's going to be um he was with us actually uh inclusive of school-based teams and our and our office staff this past Tuesday um on the 15th and is

012going to be offering a keynote at um our second day the all district opening on August 29th so we've got our opening staff development days which we're busy getting getting ready for on the 28th and 29th and appointment days and everything uh um to welcome everybody back um so we're excited thank you Jeff is running very good um so uh agenda item 7.0 is a chairs report um I have um one thing I wanted to add in my church report um to what I was talking about with the school building um and it's it very much relates to your question Carolyn that if um you know what is the path forward if there is no land and um the reality is of the um there is not a land deal on the table that um

013I I mentioned I'm not confident that the second reading will pass which means we would um at a bare minimum we would be delayed in the school process and a delay um when we have talked this through a delay would equate to about a year delay so um unfortunately for um really the community as a whole because a delay in the project does not equate to kids not coming to Scarborough so we still have this very large group of kids that are moving um and being born and will live in Scarborough in 2027 when the school was set to open so going forward um it's really incumbent upon those of us in the community that believe in this project and support this project really share our thoughts and our feelings with Town Council so um

014you there's multiple ways to do that you can email Town Council and share your opinion and your thoughts of support or you can provide public comment at their next board meeting I'm sorry their next council meeting which is the 6th of September so get any questions that okay agenda item 7.1 is a 2023 proposed msba resolution so as a reminder um this is an annual delegate assembly that happens every year um with the Maine School Board Association and it brings together the assembly brings together representatives from all over the state of Maine that serve as delegates and represent their um their Community um fraila was has volunteered previously to be our delegate so our goal tonight is to read through the changes the proposed revisions and then the new proposed resolutions and provide feedback to

015fraila that she will then take with her and it is her Duty um at the assembly to speak on our behalf and to to vote um in a way that she she believes represents what our thoughts are tonight um so what you what you see in front of you will just go through them briefly there's um in the packet um um of resolutions which Cheryl I'll send to you for the website um there are some deletions and removals um I didn't include that in there because it's deleting old and some of these revisions actually combine multiple resolutions into one so um you'll see that if you look through the materials that you had um ahead of ahead of time you'll see that but the first one is a Career and Technical education opportunities and this

016reads with a growing demand that public schools better prepare students for work as well as College the Maine School Board Association supports expanded opportunities for students to participate in career in technical education CTE classes early exposure to Hands-On skills helps students discover interests and visualize career paths CTE also makes traditional learning more relevant and keep students engaged we support efforts to make CTE classes more available understanding it will take local coordination efforts and greater flexibility in scheduling to make it work it also is critical that our CTE programs form alliances with local businesses to support this effort and that the state provides adequate funding to support CTE services and programs to include transportation and equipment so that is the um that is the updated the revised um resolution and it does um what how when

017if this was accepted if this resolution as written was accepted it would delete three previous um resolutions and kind of combine them into one so um on the surf so we'll open it up first for convert for discussion on this one is there any discussion or any thoughts about um this particular resolution I didn't know if there's anything from Jeff or Brian your your work with the vocational group is there anything that you could think that would be um need to be addressed here I have a question yeah what is the effect of these resolutions these are sort of like guiding principles for the state that we're all agreeing on as a collective and I understand correctly I want to make sure we know what we're doing and so what we're having input on is

018sort of what are those guiding principles or sort of best practices you might call it in a different field for school boards yes and schools like I'm not mistaken in that that's what that's what this is yeah so what we're doing is trying to set what we think is the best practice forward right and these guiding principles thank you that's a um thank you for saying that fraila um these guiding principles guide the msba when they Advocate on school board's behalf so when they go and speak to our local um and elected officials what they do is they use these guidelines to guide that work right so um this would guide their conversations guide how they Advocate on for schools in Maine yeah I was just going to add on to this that when I

019had read through the document in advance I was glad to see that this is one of the first things that's on there um just as a as a previous CTE teacher but also now sitting on um being the liaison for that particular group uh you just see how passionate these particular teachers are but also the talent that they bring to the table and they really just want to share that with the students but there's a there's such a it seems like the demand is growing um as in certain areas more so um I know down in Biddeford they're actually expanding adding two different programs adding a whole addition onto their um to their school over there for that very very purpose so I think it's great to see this and I I particularly liked how

020it said kind of right dead in the middle it says CT also makes traditional learning more relevant um I literally had a conversation today with a student I had about three years ago he called me to tell me he's graduating early because he took my classes and um basically he didn't realize how much it was going to help him and that was just a general business class so I think there's a ton of value and I'd love to see the Statewide but I think really in Scarborough it would be huge just to continue to push the idea of CTE and show kids that there is opportunity that doesn't always have to be those traditional White Collar jobs that blue collar jobs pay really well too sometimes yeah yeah and I think too it's a um

021sorry I didn't mean to jump in on you um this program like is expanding and expanding you know if you think back to what it was when it first started I in my mind I seem to remember it being um shot like auto shop right and it's it's it's so much more than auto shop right there are there's electric electric electrician there is criminology there is um beautician school there is so many opportunities for students it is not the traditional to your point for your school and it to me what this does is it almost um it goes out one step further to removing any sort of stigma that's still left around CTE and that's that's what in my mind is the import thing yeah and I would just add that it it also and

022this is bearing out um with graduates so whether it's Paz or Westbrook it's not this isn't just these These are also kids who will go on to higher education um and but they're they're coming out of high school with with certifications and job ready and skills where they can get right into the workforce so um that and it's also I think it's important for school boards because it is a shared expense so it's it's multiple districts that are you know also financially supporting um and kicking in uh dollars for you know students who are attending CTE programs I mean the challenge I think has been as far as like expansion too is it's just you know Junior and Senior year you know Westbrook and past so how do we how do we get do we

023do we expand and then include and start with freshman sophomore and have a sophomore program that kind of thing so there's been a lot of talk about that is there also an additional session that's in the like late afternoons evenings we've talked about having a third session uh because one of the challenges for CTE programs is that it's a hot it's it's a hybrid approach so they're at you know they're at a ascending school in the morning and then they're you know you know either go in the afternoon or vice versa either either attending in the morning and then going in the afternoon so there's that all of those transitions can make it um can make it a challenge but um it's it's definitely expanding and the need is I mean it's just is there

024for sure uh yes and I think there's really community support for it I know that I was approached by a couple business members of the community um at a function I was at and that they were really pushing is that like there's money out there for tools there's money for startup costs and um I was able to put them in contact with the one of the individuals of the high school that mentors people and helps them get like apprenticeships and and job training and stuff like that and uh and so I think there is a lot of communities for this as well and we know that there's a huge demand right now in the market for people who have these hard skills um right out of high school and it's not you know it college

025is not for everybody and we need to be able to serve everybody not just people who fit one mold yeah I kind of I like the um I like what you're saying about maybe expanding this or talks to expand this tonight to 9th and 10th graders and I wonder how we could um maybe strengthen this a little bit to include some of that advocacy so I was as Jeff was saying that when I had left from teaching down at the Biddeford Center of Technology they had just started incorporating more of this freshman it was hard just because they don't really know their career path so to get them into things is a little harder but what they did start to do is during that freshman year they would walk them through our programs and they

026would have they would spend like half a day once just to get a little bit of exposure and they could choose their top three programs that they wanted so it would give them a little bit of a taste to let them know that we exist so when they move on and they become sophomores and juniors and seniors they know what's there and there were some programs at least down there that were open to sophomores but most it was just Juniors and seniors so maybe that's something to talk about yeah in the early the Early exposure but I sort of like emphasizing that yeah or any other comments or discussion for fraila don't worry I'm taking notes thank you all right um the second revision is um titled staff relationships the Maine school boards Association urges

027School staff I'm sorry or just school boards to enact and publicize procedures that give voice to District employees while boards have the final say in matters of policy staff impacted by policy should have the means to provide input through a robust meet and consult process School Board policy committee members through administrators who attend policy committee meetings should seek input from affected staff this particular resolution combines or replaces an old an old staff relationship resolution um this this goes a little bit more in depth I would say adds a little bit more meat to the res resolution excuse me um really talk really expanding upon the staff how that they are they should be able to provide um input to the board I'm going to look over to the two of you first what are your

028thoughts on this I feel I I just wonder because I feel like we have a pretty robust meet and consult process outlined pretty extensively in our contracts and so I I guess I'm wondering what the onus of the because we all As we all looked at msba to help us as we draft things and we write policies and we write contracts and whatnot so um I presume others in the state too so I'm curious as to what brought why why this is why we are expanding upon this now do you have any any insight okay do you find that teachers Avail themselves of the the Myriad of ways that we have for them to reach out I well we we have input right now for immediate consult so we have people utilizing across us which

029so that would speak to it I think we we live up to this maybe and maybe it maybe we're ahead of the curve sometimes in this instance perhaps not like I don't know but like maybe maybe we're doing this and that's what other districts should be doing and make it in Statewide I don't think it means that like we're trying to catch up to everything sometimes we're doing the right thing and I think we're just recognizing that in this um I know we've had a desire to have more sap input and policy specifically and I think we'll have a chance to think about that that came up between our last our policy meeting but um right I mean we have a meeting consult on the not on like on the schedule but we have it

030on the book so to speak so it's a process that we practice here yeah and we we do um when we have policies that impact a specific Department we do have a proceed it's not a procedure that's in the books but we do have a practice of inviting staff members to our policy meetings so for example when we've looked at policies about immunizations we've brought the nursing staff in when we've looked at policies we're going to look at one tonight about um student fees so our athletic director came in and met with us and spoke with us so we um to freylo's point we are already um following this and maybe it's naive of me to assume others do as well this one I guess just kind of surprised me I wasn't quite sure what

031the I think this one just cleans up the language that was there prior it's it doesn't really change a whole lot yeah it just makes it sound better better yeah and a little bit more inclusive of the staff all right so we feel good here all right the next one is professional development um the Maine School Board Association urges local school boards to ensure the continuing professional development needs of the education professionals with whom they share the responsibility for school Improvement are met msba believes in better preparation for instructional staff and encourages professional development that will exemplify the highest ideals in education through development of in-service programs related to the specific needs of their school system B encouragement of full utilization of such programs in C compensation for additional credits if such additional training is

032in the area of Competency of the individual staff or is otherwise deemed appropriate by the school board School Board should work to ensure maximum opportunities are provided for all staff so that year by year their effectiveness increases as Educators and as leaders in the community attainment of the main system of learning results requires sustained devotion of time effort and financial resources to the continuing education of the instructional staff and so this would delete to previous resolutions so is there any discussion here uh yeah we want to train our staff yeah I I think it's like this weird it's this weird one because um yes we absolutely like this should be a priority right but um where I Veer off a little bit and this is probably me reading a little too much in really um

033you know we think about our role our role is the 30 000 foot view set the direction the vision the tone the boots on the ground is our superintendent and our assistant superintendent so we're not directing professional development needs Jeff and Diane are directing professional development needs I'd fight with you a little bit only because of the way our contract negotiations work in regards to RPD here so professional development is there there are stipulations within our contracts about how PD and 1pd happens there's pushback on the staff because I've heard from Monique very little I can imagine most people heard more about her wanting you know more time and more dates there's there's a tension between staff who wanting to learn in order to deploy the highest you know level to continue their own development

034so that they can pass it on and then the tension with keeping kids in school um and that that balance I've heard that throughout the budget process I heard it throughout the last year um but but so I think it's important that we make it a goal by funding it by supporting it I make sure there's time for it but not Direct in what it is nuts that's not our job and to your point freyla I think um we've also seen that play itself out um in years where uh the leadership team has made recommendations about a school calendar that would support greater professional development that would be more in line with uh communities nearby and again you know we have heard that message that you know it's about the time that our students are

035in school and so you know there there's definitely a tension between making sure that we're maximizing time for students while we're also making sure that we have the most highly skilled employees possible we're in foreign my only other question and I I know that we have we have this in play I don't know if this is across the state of Maine um the compensation for additional credits um and not that this is a mandate and not that this is the way um everybody has to do it I just because that's tax money that that feels a little I don't know if that can be the wording can be well I have the opportunity to attend uh one of the development days and I learned something which is that I could have gotten educational credits if

036I had the right certification for attending so I think we do yeah support staff by paying them and making sure they get credit for being there so I don't think it's additional tax money that we're thinking about but I think that we do we value people and the way that you value people is by respecting their time by compensating them fairly and by ensuring they have opportunities to grow and that's why people are I think happy here and we're attracting the stuff that we're attracted yeah I would agree with that absolutely yeah and I think some of this is also aligning your professional development to meet the growth and the and the development of your staff but then also make sure it's aligned with district code and it's it's not he's one officer like this

037you know and and then teachers use District money just to fulfill their the one thing that they're interested in but it's not necessarily related or aligned with you know what what other staff is doing so there's a little bit of that in here too which I think makes sense um and it's certainly how we want to try and use our own resources for for PD and I think there the key word here is if such additional training in the area of Competency for them is required so you know you're you're investing as needed yeah right right all right the next um revision is teacher preparation programs the main school boards Association believes there should be ongoing review of teacher preparation programs through collaboration with colleges and universities local school boards the Department of Education and

038msba along with other groups and individuals as appropriate the goal of the collaboration is to determine if teachers are being prepared appropriately with best practices to help all students achieve the standards within the main system of learning results improving the quality of teaching and certification procedures additionally msba recommends that approved teacher preparation programs include best practice training to help teachers assist in the identification of students who may have Behavioral Health substance use or mental health or academic issues that's it so that would take the place of or would delete um too old resolutions as well well right is there any discussion on this um so for this one and it could just be really nitpicky about it but I don't feel as though it includes it so basically it specifies mental health and behavioral but

039it's not encompassing like physical limitations to a space either um I think I think like some of this academic needs kind of cover like your your OTS your PTS your slps but then when you have like a physical situation maybe you need wheelchair access and how to accommodate that in a classroom I think academically there might not be a need right just a physical need something that encompasses some physical um space for these students also my sense is that it was written in the way that you see it here because there was such a gap in the skill set um with um education Professionals in meeting behavioral needs because we've seen such an absurgeance of that with students and so I'm I don't believe that it was because we don't think we want people to

040have skills in those areas but it was really zoning in on you know Behavioral Health and then academics in terms of you know as we think about multi-tiered systems of supports and really wanting to provide intervention at the you know lowest level possible what's interesting though is that the old the 4.8 resolution that would be deleted which is teacher preparation program when it goes through the list of people or collaborative collaborative groups you should work with one of them is um Maine administrators of services for children with disabilities so back to what you're saying yeah I completely agree with you Jonah yeah I think you can put that in I think we should insert I think Behavioral Health both times and mental health I think is something that is new to think about in a

041simple setting um and I think there's a huge um recognition and emerging ideas about how to achieve that but I think you're right I think we also need to support students um with you know academic issues seems really broad but like I think calling out you know children who have special needs and making sure teachers are prepared to deal with in the classrooms whether that's recognizing the childhood neurodivergent and needs a motor break in the middle of class or um creating a space for children who can who can need to take a break because they're overstimulated knowing that children need to stem and not you know calling that a behavioral issue because they're fidgeting those are really important skills that are not that are that are should be part of every school but may not

042it may not have always been something that teachers have been trained on you know 20 years ago I don't think teachers have trained on that and we have teachers who have been in our schools for that long to make sure that they're recognized enough so I think there's a way to look and distribute um and I think the um you know this is a piece that I'm really super interested about so um I I think that um collaboration between uh schools and colleges and universities is so vitally important um actually just today I was meeting um with a group that I participate in I happened to chair the um College of Education advisory Council for USM and so we were developing our agenda for our next meeting and it's a great group to be part

043of because um we have about 25 education professionals from our region in all different roles some in central office roles some building leaders teachers coaches instructional coaches um and um we meet multiple times a year with the leaders at USM for the different schools of Education to talk about what the needs that we're seeing in our schools are and they have made real changes in developing their programs which is just the best thing ever right because we have to be communicating with each other and you know I don't know if anyone has seen the piece um even in regards to the apprenticeship program um that has been established with Southern Maine Community College and the University of Southern Maine um that work is you know providing an alternate Pathway to grow um Educators to to

044try to fill in some of that Gap and so it's just really exciting that our higher education partners are really interested in helping us to grow Educators in the fields hmm is there any other discussion here any other questions all right thank you all right the last revision is School District collaboration um speaking of collaboration um this is previously called school choice the main school boards Association applauds the efforts of many local school boards to establish programs that allow students options to learn in a manner that is most productive to them therefore msba in court encourages and supports continuation of efforts to provide multiple Pathways via inter-district choices for voluntary efforts among Public School units to establish and maintain Regional programs for the benefit of their students msba opposes mandated inter-district choice um first is

045there any business Mission from anybody this feels like a lot of words and so that's where I am what is mandated inter-district well that's what I was just traditional second question yes yes but like that I um I don't even know I'm not sure that I read this and understand what they're getting at so if anybody else um has any any different thoughts I would I just I'm kind of looking here to see if you could help us maybe what are we trying to get at here is this uh Charter School mostly Charter School thing the way I read it is that it looks at how do schools work collectively with one another to us to build and establish programs rather than competing with each other and saying I'm going to take your kids and

046bring them over to my Charter School um right or you know as we have seen under previous state leadership at you know sometime in our state where you know there was a belief that um there should be a voucher program that exists and that every family should get to decide what school district they want their child to attend um so I think this is more about how do we work collectively to establish programming for students so that we're not competitive but we're saying here's a need you know I think um kind of an offshoot to a much larger extent than the vocational programming right it kind of builds off of that concept right and I think as you get into more rural part of this state I mean there has to be in order to

047provide those Pathways for kids there has to be that collaboration right and that flexibility because you just you may not be able to offer those programs and your community but in a neighboring one they may and so there's been a tradition I think and and in Maine and certainly with like a superintendent's like superintendent's agreements and other things where you know you're putting the best interest of the child at the locus of everything right and and being able to build those Pathways and flexibility um when when you may not have the resources to have um or even the population or density to have enough of the you know diversity of resources so you kind of have to do that that's just part of I think being educating kids effectively in in a state like Maine

048so yeah I mean it and and the having having mandated this is how this needs to work to have any kind of this interdistrict collaboration um I just I don't think works or would work so do you think this resolution isn't necessary I think it is and oh you think it's in support of that gotcha I feel like from what Jeff was just saying this needs to be clarified yeah better yes because my perception when I read this the other day was similar but different like I was thinking more from The Vocational standpoint of what Diane had just kind of uh mentioned quickly because you know I know I've seen different districts where let's say there's a business program that's offered in Scarborough but it's not offered in South Portland can a kid cross over

049district lines and come here because their parents are adamant that that kid take that business program that's here or you know maybe there's not something that's at paths and um you know over in Westbrook but maybe they do offer it down in Biddeford can a kid go down that way so this is kind of a I I didn't think of it the way that Jeff had just explained it but it makes a lot more sense I just don't think this explains it when I started reading this honestly I start I my first thought was oh it it's kind of like how we share positions with other districts that's where I first started and then I had to completely change my mindset to that's not at all what this is talking about so I I think

050this has to be cleaned up in a way that really gets to what they're trying to say I don't think this does it maybe you could just write down everything or maybe I can come back to the recording and just bring your recording yeah just play it back students shouldn't have to leave their Community right like that's what it comes down to is you shouldn't have to leave your community for a program that is in a high interest or necessity for you right like we should figure out how to work together so I just studied after that so you know I'm thinking I grew up in northern Maine we didn't have half of what we have down here so like you were talking to earlier but to to what you just said how how could

051that be accomplished without leaving my community like how do I get asked how would it I as a 15 year old sophomore have gotten access to stuff so I guess I'm questioning the collaboration but so so yeah I mean you would have to I mean if there were no kind of ability for me as a superintendent to work with another superintendent or one District to work with another District to provide those crossover opportunities without literally having you move to the town that had that program right then you're able to be flexible and and provide Pathways without having to look to like displace a family so ideology exactly you know I also like what we do with the sports you know how we have we've combined with Gorham to make a team because both of us

052didn't have enough yeah so yeah we just work together so instead of having nothing people have won it's a perfect example John so like if I grew up in limestone I could have attended a program in Presque Isle just that one program instead of having to move right is that what this is trying to get at well it's it it's supportive of those I apologize at all right it's a it's a resolution or a statement saying that we support having the you know having the flexibility for local districts to to meet the needs of kids and offer multiple pathways that would require kind of that inter-district collaboration so to Carolyn's question if she was a student if she lived in Limestone and her High School didn't offer I don't know the business class but the

053high school at the next town did she could take that one class at that High School potentially because they would collaborate together yeah in theory no I don't know what you do with all of this that we've just said I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say this makes no sense yeah it needs to be clear right yeah right we're we're not this yes yeah yeah it also added just sounds a little cringe-worthy when it says they're plotting the efforts of our school boards um yes thank you but like we're patting ourselves on the back yeah yeah a little much yeah yeah I mean I think I would want to encourage the support you can just cut get straight to the point there and to I don't know I don't think this comes up later I

054think I did the wrong thing I read the really long document those are the short ones yay me it was a fun night um but to what somebody was saying earlier about you know vouchers and school choice and I noticed in here there's quite a bit of language between 2A 4p 2b5e and 3B 3B about you know opposing school choice and charter schools in the voucher system and all that and I personally am supportive of it I feel like you we have to what's best for the kids is help the kids meet wherever their needs can be met best and if it's at a different location because you maybe somebody's kid excels in math and there's a really awesome school that has some kind of math program I I was disappointed to see that that's

055discouraged um I get it because of money flowing From Here There and Everywhere but um that from my personal point of view um I'm a fan of that can you tell me which one you're reading again uh so it was just somebody commented on that earlier with regards to what we were just talking about to to be 5D but I noticed it in 2a4p 2b5e and three B three B so it was kind of scattered throughout the document but you know again that's that's my that's my personal opinion um I understand why um msma may not agree with me um but I just feel like yeah it's children first if that's what we're doing and as Educators we should have supported children where they can learn the best and it's another school might provide a

056better structure a different structure that meets their needs I guess that's my only point it really that's I mean not the only basis for but one of the bases for like the superintendent waiver right like if it's not working here or in another school right that's the purpose of that exactly what you're saying yeah yeah yeah I just I had noticed it was spelled out in here in several places so I was just oh that's unfortunate but I know it's a big a bigger topic than here yeah yeah so it's it's seven and at least from here to me that that means and maybe clarification too with how their other maybe a deeper look if would you mind providing the ones that you found a fraila like off of oh yeah sure you know offline

057so that you could say that because maybe I think what I'm hearing you say is that this resolution might disagree with some of the others that they're not looking at right now Beauty potentially sure that's what that happens yeah it is long I read it all right any other discussion on that one all right so then we have new these are the new proposed resolutions so the first one is um non-partisan school board members the Maine School Board Association recognizes and supports the non-partisan practice of the election of local school board members as determined by the school districts structure Statute in one MRSA title 20a school board members are elected on a general ballot without party designation and one selected are to focus on what's in the best interest of the students in the school

058district the rationale behind this new resolution is this resolution underscores Our obligation as school board members to make decisions based on what is best for the students we serve and make decisions through that lens regardless of an individual's party affiliation is there any discussion here all right I'll dive in I I see both sides um I truly truly truly do um but at the end of the day I think ah as a voter it's helpful for me to know party affiliation because then I might then I might know okay I get a general sense of how this person will think and what what do what lens they will make decisions through because I'll pick on you Brian uh Brian May make a totally different call on something than I and I would make it I

059might make a totally different call than Brian on something um and I I understand children and we can both have children at the heart of our of our decisions and how we make them so that's just my opinion I I think it's a really worthy goal that politics if politics could be out of everything I really do um but at the end of the day I think in my opinion it helps inform people who may not take the time to to know whoever is running um so that's my spiel so I personally like the wording of this as a person who is not affiliated with any party um I like I like that because you can be a part of any party but still have different views from that party um and then once everyone

060is elected and we're all on the same board it really doesn't matter what party you're on We Are All One board so it shouldn't in my opinion it shouldn't matter I think I like the language there for that and also going with what you're saying is you could be of whichever party or whatever you want to be and then being associated with that could hurt you even though you don't necessarily would make any decision based on looking through that lens as you said you may not see things from school you could put your you know people are able to be objective and you know what I think it could you know if you were somebody that was right for the for the position but because you're associated with a certain party it may hurt you

061so why not keep it out it doesn't I mean you can tell people your beliefs all day long without saying I'm a you know Republican I'm a Democrat I'm a you know green party whatever you can be anything you want and not I think to keep some of it keep it keeping it out of it well in the end help you more than I hurt you it's funny I other side because that's the exact thing that I had I'm like yeah it can hurt you two which you know at the end of the day it's up to the voters to decide but yeah I I absolutely agree with you John I I also support this because I I think that we need to be de-politicizing things more than politicizing things more uh people running to

062their Corners is not a way that we can run a school and um I would hope that people aren't making decisions for the whole District based on their political views but based on what the evidence is and the best decision for those kids so I I fully support this yeah I had an interesting um initial reaction to this because I ran during a presidential election yeah and um that is when this becomes an issue because it didn't match when I was running um for some in our community it didn't matter what my stance was what my views were it mattered what political party I was affiliated with and so um there were people that would literally tell me I appreciate what you're saying I agree with what you're saying but I'm not going to vote

063for you because you're this and that is a very difficult place to find yourself in because again if you're trying to um do something and you're trying to volunteer for something because you believe passionately in helping the students and making sure that our district is um well run and and you want to give your time and serve that piece shouldn't matter right but what I was Finding from from my experience is it did matter it did matter very much in my other qualifications or what I could bring to the table didn't matter so it's I had this like I was like yes I love this I love this for that reason right because then we can we can really say like this is what we're advocating for this is not important in this role right

064yeah no I hate the microphone uh no I completely get it like I said when I started I I can definitely see both sides I'm just thinking as of a voter it's helpful to know the lens of which somebody view has their world view um so that's that's my only perception I'm not I'm not saying at all and I know that you didn't mean anything um that politics should be a part of yeah but uh so I just want to make make sure I'm clear on that no but yeah that's not what I'm advocating for I'm just thinking helpful to the voter all right there's another discussion I'll go on to the next next one um this one is um parent Guardian engagement and the education of their children the main School Board Association believes

065parents and Guardians are pivotal Partners in the education of their children msba supports the opportunities for parents and Guardians to be involved in their children's education is described and designated within federal and state laws in school district policies handbooks procedures and other guidance related to parental involvement and engagement these times for engagement include the opportunity to be heard by School District leadership opportunities for consultations with teaching staff about what is being taught and the opportunity to receive and review information about school budgets and spending parents and Guardians also have the ability to opt their children out of programming they do not feel as appropriate for their child these opportunities for involvement should be communicated clearly and consistently throughout documentation in school district policies school websites handbooks and other forms of communication which are publicly available

066and easily accessible times to raise questions of school Personnel about these engagement opportunities should be offered to all parents and Guardians msba also believes that parent Guardian opportunities for involvement in the education of their own children should not inhibit the education of other children the rationale behind this the public education of students is most effective when parents are actively engaged opportunities for that engagement should be communicated to parents with appropriate parameters that accommodate schools schedules and parent schedules that communication can and should include public Forums on topics of great interest as well as one-on-one conversations when needed is there any discussion on this I think it's great to give parents that ability I mean we have it anyway but yeah yeah I think it's great to formalize that yeah I was going to say we

067talk about this in our goals so you know I I think this could be a good example of what we talked about before not necessarily that we're ahead of the curve but we're there are things that they might be mentioning that we're doing already and that we we definitely know we value and find important yeah yeah I had the same thought like that we've we've um policies we've looked at this year we've really talked about especially like think of the transgender um and gender expansive student policy we've really talked about parents being involved and being um active participants in their kids education so to me this this kind of dovetailed right into what we've said as a board and has has said is important to us all right you feel good there it was a

068long one took a couple slides sorry yeah this it just keeps going this one also has two slides um okay so um the last one is the state funding for to support students mental and Behavioral Health the Maine school boards Association believes that additional funding needs to be allocated to school districts to support students mental and Behavioral Health the legislator needs to dedicate additional funding that can be distributed to all districts including minimum receivers through targeted funds with the EPA within the EPS formula to support students action at the state level to help address wait lists barriers to access and the shortage of Staff equipped to help address the needs is essential as is support for the provision of resources besides Personnel including best practices and other specialized trainings the rationale is that schools saw

069concerns with students mental and Behavioral Health made worse during the shutdown of schools due to covid and they still persist today we need to address this mental Behavioral Health concern which affects how students feel about themselves and how they relate to others we need to seek ways to provide greater resources to support students with these needs for any discussion go ahead it's another one of those where we're focusing on the mental and Behavioral Health of things um I would like to to add nutritional needs because the economy has been kind of rough lately and uh might be and maybe this is the dress where they say barriers to access um but making sure that our kids have access to food at all times um and I know it's also funded by federally funded now but

070is there any additional State funding that we can provide for those families if needed I don't know if that's the place for it so no I think you probably could put something in there because that they we would want them to Advocate to continue the free lunch Services exactly for your that reason yeah and breakfast free breakfast and lunch and just as a point of information they actually are expanding that for three more years yeah that's wonderful yeah is it in there somewhere else say that again it could be written somewhere else I I was going to say I I swear it's there's one that I and I should look into it but 21 um 3B 2B I don't have the long document in front of me oh yeah yeah I swear yeah [Music] yeah

071especially in their 3B 2B which calls on the main school or association called upon Congress to pass the universal School meals program 21 the school nutrition act of 1966 and the US will be national school lunch act can make breakfast and lunch treat for all children without eventually affecting Federal funding formula how many years for immediation on trades that was adopted in 2022 so I think they've adopted that okay okay I'm sorry I won't I don't want to say all that but yes it's 3v 2B it's in there they did it no I think it was a good point but I think I think this is really important I think there's a couple of factors and the first is this is really this is really about legislative um advocacy towards budgeting um to work towards

072um getting more support for kids at that level and I think it's part of a larger conversation that's outside of schools that has to do with when you have students um children who are not doing well and when you don't when they're not doing well in the educational system I get to see them in my of my date to day life in a different system and there is a long-standing severe shortage of resources for families who are struggling with their children's needs and their homes they don't mean special needs children although their their struggles are there as well I mean when children are not functioning well in society because they have untreated mental health needs and they don't have access to medication and all the therapy services are six month wait lists for online Telehealth

073appointments once a week with counselors who are not well trained and experienced with dealing with children who have trauma and other Related Disorders schools see that and then we see that and you know I don't want to hijack the conversation to close Long Creek which is a very robust conversation outside of this room um but the reality is there are no there are very few safe placements for children who are struggling in the community and can't be safely be at home and that that's a there's a shortage of mental health beds and then there's even larger shortage of long-term residential facilities in the state of Maine and I think we all should be advocating that our children have what they need because when those children aren't doing well they end up on an obvious mostly

074chronically homeless bounced around often and incarcerated whether it is youth or as adults and then they they struggle for life and if there are we have appropriate funding that starts at the schools if we can meet these children when they're five six and seven I won't be advocating to put them in custody when they're 15 16 17 and then putting them in prison when they're 18 19 and 20. and that would really you know that it's a systemic thing it's not the school can't fix this problem you call Justice and can't fix this problem but the legislature can fund adequate services to address some of the issues and unless we all our systems are working together um it's just going to continue to cycle and it's it's in a really dire right now we have

075no long-term placement for children with psychiatric needs in the state we ship them to other states we pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per student per child to ship them out of state if we can't deal with their mental health needs because we have no long-term psychiatric that's here speaking of trauma right sending them away from their families yeah I I mean on the surface I I uh support this I don't know if it could be written a little bit better to um I don't I don't yeah I think that it's a good statement of support uh maybe even um a call for action or funding a little bit you know I don't know that's what I read when I read it you know how are we doing this and how is that going to

076be impacted and don't we fall under the minimum receivers category not yet but I think that John I I think the financial model shows us getting there fairly soon if I'm not speaking out of turn I think we're I think he expects us to be close um but it we certainly don't receive as much as other parts of the state right I think that's a fair assessment to make um so I do appreciate that this yes that this advocacy work is inclusive yes yes yeah and this is the year that we have a bump a proper students entering with special support services and I'm not saying all of them have mental health or all of them have the federal challenges but we have twice as many as normal children entering with CDs services for that

077translates directly to increased need for mental health and behavioral supports it's a sad topic Carolyn did you have a disc a comment on this earlier okay all right so that is the last one um do you feel is there anything else we can give to you before you pack your soapbox up and represent us so well yeah I think I think I think again most of them weren't that or shattering or I have a lot of questions I didn't know what that one meant so I think I can I think I can advocate for uh clarification yeah on that and then we know what I'm gonna do on the last one so perfect all right thank you so much is there any advocacy that we can push for with regards to uh we're in the

078curriculum meeting the other day and also just a class yeah last night yeah yeah yesterday yeah uh but you know we've talked about it time and time again here about um is it the meas and the lack of consistency of testing and getting score results is there anything that the msma should I get the my acronym right uh msba yeah um whatever you can do to Advocate and advocate for that so we can get there is one on there is one on there 4.12 is standardized testing benchmarks and they talk about they talk about that um if there's an area where we can push on that I think that is really important I think that we've read that over and over and over again that is so I will I will bring I'll bring in

079see where I can insert it to insert it and say do that one yeah yeah I'm not very shy so I can say thank you that's a good one thank you Carolyn that's okay you're welcome once in a while all right um agenda item 8.0 are committee reports um so we'll start with the communications meeting uh committee so Jillian all right so our last we had we've had two meetings um we had one on 7 20 and one on eight three uh we're just we're trying to meet um more frequently in in shorter bursts um we have one tentatively scheduled for 9 14. I should say there's a possible us other meeting in between now and then um we were mainly working on getting the spotlight Awards up and running again um a welcome letter

080out and uh we have been discussing Another Round Table date obviously they're there's a lot of uh opportunity to engage particularly with the school project um we were kind of yeah bouncing around with the idea of whether that is uh you know too much too much or not enough uh for just regular school things so any input is welcome um we will likely do another one for sure in in the early fall um once school has gotten started up again that's it is the well the welcome letter goes out to the whole district is that for or what is that all right it's uh it's uh just our you know from the board you know welcoming staff back and um reminding them Spotlight award mostly uh okay I wasn't sure if it was the community

081or just the staff right oh gosh yeah that would be a different one could that I don't know if that could be another opportunity but we've talked about this in building committee a little bit about trying to continue to educate our own teachers about the push for the new school I don't know if that's an opportunity but as we enter you know a lot of these new orientations and yeah the groups I know you have a keynote speaker and things like that but any of those I'm just thinking from a Communications perspective to continue to hopefully fingers cross things works out you know from a land perspective but if it does then I mean our top cheerleaders are the ones doing the work on on the ground yeah there's a little bit of overlap because

082we have the our our normal our regular board Communications committee and then additionally there's a building steering committee Communications committee so there's like this strange overlap between the two right and so um the building steering committee Communications subcommittee which is a huge mouthful um yeah we need a we need an acronym for that but they are actually just we're discussing that with Jeff um ways to make sure that and our teachers are pretty engaged and have attended we've had building leadership attend um Town Council meetings pretty regularly recently which has been wonderful um in um teachers have also attended and come and give them public comment about what this means to them and it's been really really awesome to see um the support from from the from our staff but um yeah they were that

083that was one of the things we just recently talked about too right and we talked about just including um and I'll kind of mirroring their the themed Community like weekly Community forums um kind of mirroring that in our district um communication to staff and to families uh and also it's it's definitely going to be and we talked about this a little bit too at the Leadership Retreat particularly this um this fall really focusing on um educating staff to help educate communities about the project as well and having that integrated into you know different places during opening day and and then even into um you know open houses and those kind of things too so in our last conversation for communications we were talking about um potentially partnering with the PTA on events and uh touching

084base with Laura to make sure that we're not doing double the work here and making sure that we're we're all doing it all the right time yeah yeah there um Laura the communications subcommittee um for the building I'll work it that way um is having eight um weeks of themed q a sessions so once a week starting August 22nd um and they will be live and be a zoo so people can attend either way so it's very kind of similar to what um the communications committee has been doing with the round table very similar idea um they will just be topic specific to the school to the Unified School um and issues that we know are of great concern in the community so like week one is the tax impact so that the entire time

085will be spent talking about the tax impact and every week is something different and it goes down um into the end when we get to the end of the two of the eight weeks we're going to do building tours associate with the Q and A's combined so um we've seen some really I would say um from our previous tours um I know that some of us have participated in them there's been I think they've been really eye-opening for people in the community to really get an idea of what we're what we're working the limitations we're working with so those will start up August 22nd they are all on Tuesdays except there's a couple of off days I shouldn't say they're all on Tuesdays um they're um all six most of them are six to seven

086p.m there are some Sunday dates in there as well all right curriculum committee so we met yesterday or last week as Carolyn said uh yes um so we met yesterday uh it was the first time we had uh Katie Vetro on board um spearheading her first meeting which was great it was a pretty quick meeting Diane joined us as well which was fantastic so um basically we got a little bit of a re review similar to what Jeff had said before in his superintendent's report that the summer program was a huge success um everything has ended at this point except for Kinder Camp which ends tomorrow um and I just gave a nice shout out but I'll do it here publicly as well that I've heard from my daughter who is into Kinder Camp just

087today's her third day and she comes home glowing and like ready to tell us about what her day like literally I feel like she's totally ready and I don't know who this little girl is so but she knows her teacher she loves them and she you know she's talking very positively which I think is a you know it just shows the power of these programs that we do and I had mentioned it in um our meeting yesterday as well that I have another friend who has two to older daughters in the district who participated in the reading Academy and this is the second year that they wanted to do it right you hear reading and you hear kids and you're like do they want to read and right right and usually they're like no um

088but it I mean there were pictures that Katie shared with us that uh I meant to put on the slide but I didn't but some of the activities that they were doing and it looks like a lot of fun so it's it's no surprise to me why our kids are so excited to be a part of our schools and in our district and you know I'll continue through curriculum as we get some of that uh that information or if you guys hear anecdotes like that I think it's great and this is a good place to kind of share it just to know that you know curriculum I think some people think it think about it and they're like oh lesson plans like it's boring um but there's a lot of fun that goes into those

089lesson plans and you know I'm hearing about it all for my daughter at the moment so I think it's good is she taking the bus there too oh she loves the us she tells me that is her favorite part so she has her new swipe card she knows about it she knows what she needs it for so I I mean yeah lots of positives she hasn't lost it yet right there seems to be a lot of General excitement and I think that that's you know it's great I hear it and I just wanted to speak to that specifically just because I'm I'm in that particular part but again the reading program had really good uh feedback that I've heard from the community as well so really nice um the title one Grant I had mentioned

090this during our last meeting but we officially discussed it during our curriculum committee meeting is that due to some changes in allocations and carryover of funds we are able to fund uh through the title one Grant and additional position in the district which will be at eight Corners it'll be very similar to the literacy intervention uh Services uh that are currently offered at Blue Point so this is one of those positions that we've talked about if we can get this school passed right now this is very specific to the areas in town that show a need based on um where our um uh residor thank you are free and reduced right where those applications are submitted from so you know right now currently our students in Pleasant Hill are kind of missing out on this

091potential person but when we collaborate together there's many many benefits so this is just you know it's a positive for the district but it still shows that we have places to grow and hopefully collaborating as our school could be big uh up there a lot of you have expressed interest especially because of the school about kindergarten enrollment numbers so we had discussed this with Diane as to where things had actually Fallen recently and so this seems right on par with what our expectations are um you can see the breakdown between the three different schools there they're very close to each other uh but they're expected to grow as well and Diane had shared with us that um typically it seems like this number should be somewhere around 205 to 215 so it seems like it

092should get around there yeah one of the things that I shared yesterday was as our administrative assistants just came back on Monday and then we had them engaged in two days of professional development and so they're literally just yesterday hitting the ground running with all of the new applications um for for student enrollment so these are definitely soft numbers at this point so and I I did ask both Diane and Katie that as they get more updated kind of when the desk the dust settles to let us know what those numbers are because again this will be a good indicator of the direction we're going and I think we all kind of know where that's going but um a solid number would be helpful uh upcoming if you feel like you want to join our

093next meeting um we are going to skip our September meeting just due to the busyness during that time and Katie also being new to the district we've we kind of discussed it and said we'd give her that month to kind of get situated so we're going to be meeting again on the 11th in October uh 6 p.m on zoom and our expectation right now is to discuss that external curriculum guide that had been shared with you um towards the end of last school year and we're expecting some updates there as teachers roll out you know what they're going to be doing for the year and then Katie had mentioned that she has some initial data um from the spring but she's waiting to get some other information before she can really share that so hopefully

094we'll have some curriculum data to share soon actually something are there any questions for Brian all right uh policy committee Paul's communities continue to churn out things to vote on don't worry we're coming up on that later our last meeting was August 2nd uh we had robust public comment from the Community member on policy GB ebb which you will not see today because we didn't get to it in policy um that's going to be a pretty um a bigger discussion on that that's a bigger policy having to do with students and staff um we completed our school safety discussion um I think we're in a really good spot with that and uh we reviewed activity fees which is her first reading tonight I will leave that for later we reviewed the policies for second reading

095as well our next meeting is on September 11th at four o'clock we meet in the conference room upstairs we also have a zoom link available we're going to be diving into GBE I've left to be off at the end of that no I didn't it replaces current gbeb staff conduct with students and I I think this is going to be a pretty needy policy it's got a lot of details in it about how staff and students interact with each other and we had a lot of feedback about that so I think it'll be an interesting discussion um we also are still looking at facilities naming which hopefully will become super relevant very shortly it's going to require cooperation with Town Council which um what we're working on and then we're going to start hitting um

096I kind of arbitrarily picked 2020 money as the date of we're going to start going through all the policies pre-2020 that haven't been looked at and we're just going to review them my hope is that most of them will just be able to put a date on the bottom as we reviewed it um and there won't be a lot of changes but some of the some of the policies haven't been reviewed since 2003 and they bear looking at I think so that that's sort of how we've chosen to take it if there's anything that any of you policies that come up that you have questions about or that you think we should take a look at more urgently for some reason just please forward that to me and we can definitely expedite that otherwise we'll

097just keep plowing through the policies until we have no pre-2021s and then we can start of the 2021 ones so um that's the policy committee there any questions for frela any comments all right diversity equity and inclusion well I rolled out of our last meeting into this meeting with Jillian uh yeah we had a meeting tonight at six o'clock uh we have our next meeting is on September 12th uh we need new chairs so I think an email went out to let you all know that both of our chairs resigned and that is unfortunate because I want to say that both of them did a very good job for the last year I think they shouldered a lot of work um without a lot of guidance or support we didn't tell them what we needed

098to do they sort of both the plane will fly and although I think we've been that's been overused recently but um but they they just sort of figured it out um but they both um elected to step down and so um the meeting today really we kind of scrapped our agenda because everyone got sick there was no facilitator so eight minutes then I decided to become the facilitator of the meeting and so we did and what we'd focus on is we we looked at what we did to nominate the chairs a year ago really last summer and we're going to try to redo that with this with this um boards approval the other thing is um I think the we're working on an organizational document as a board so that we can hand them some

099basic structure instructions so that they don't have to do that because that's not really where their work should be focused on and so that's basic like how do you have a quorum what is a vote how do you replace your chairs um because right now we literally are on mass talking about how we're going to replace the chairs and really we should just be doing that like so we have people here this is how we're going to vote this is who we're nominating let's go instead of we spend 45 minutes talking about how everyone feels about how we're going to do that um so exciting though we still had even though it was an impromptu last minute rescheduled meeting we had I think 12 attendees by the end of it and people are still really

100invested and excited so that's gonna keep on keeping on and I think with a little support from this board which I think we're working on uh which will bring to the full board when it's ready uh we can I think assist them by just giving them some support so that they can move on to the work that we want them to do really I was just noticing the plurals of chairs um is that is does that work well it um yes okay for this committee it really does um it's a very collaborative committee which is helps is helping me grow as a person individually participate in um but there's three chairs there's a student chair there's a community chair and there's a staff chair and one of the things we talked about is how do

101we facilitate them organizing themselves so they can organize Us and how that from an Outsiders first I did because we weren't part of the chair meetings things that we saw that might not have worked as well and things that we could help them work with better yeah so that's that's part of that but we explicitly talked about that like is that but I don't think the committee would work with one share I think you'd have a riot so yeah yeah I'm just thinking back to Prior experience where I've worked under three-headed it it in my experience it's it's a difficult task so just want to make sure they're set up for success I think we can do it I think they need multiple chairs it's a very collaborative group like more clouded than I've ever

102been involved with which is again I'm growing as a person it's good well I think just to just also jump in there we talked about having there be really specific tasks associated with each chair they would be meeting together but this you know whatever cure a b and c like whatever Community chair would do this whatever that's a good idea yeah all right um are there any um liaison updates or any other committee updates um I did notice yesterday at the I had I talked with John I noticed that the um um council meeting yesterday sorry uh they roll Tom and his managers report talked about the community center ad hoc committee um that that is going to uh get off the ground shortly so hopefully soon yeah it might have slipped their minds yes

103all right agenda item 9.0 is new business 9.1 is the second reading of policy jic student code of conduct I'm happy to take it from here I do have one question about this um I did not I have it with me but I didn't realize we were going to be talking about that because this was when we we had a request from the union to do a meet and consult on which we then tried to set up and we didn't hear back from them so we have previously reviewed this policy we made virtually no changes we've changed some Wills to shells um and I think two places but we made virtually no other changes on it on it um I just want to make sure people understand that I expect that they're still going to

104want to meet a consult on this policy and it may come around more quickly is that fair Shane I don't know if he's talking have you have spoken with um uh the rep just to see if if she was planning to set this up because she was really insistent but then she didn't really communicate with us for an extended period of time uh right and where we loved off um she I have not heard anything further okay about it so we thought it was important that this get on the books so to speak before the start of the school year and if there are concerns about the policy she's welcome with reason at any time and we can then review the policy with her and if there are changes that we agree should be made

105we'll bring them back to this for our first and second reading like we would any other policy if that makes sense right is there any discussion any questions excuse me all right do I have a motion to approve the second reading of policy jic student code of conduct is there somebody to Second it for me he did oh you did thank you um are there any any discussion yes sorry about that I was looking at the wrong policy um on hold for being consult is the right one um I there was a couple other changes we made the school unit changes um we shortened some of the language I should have subscribed again and mix it up and then the one is we updated the um one of the definitions of our discrimination harassment to

106match our new discriminator harassment policy so there's I don't think there are substantive changes to this policy but I to be honest it was more than the shells so we'll show you guys know that you have seen this before once before you know all right any further discussions right all in favor perfect it's unanimous thank you um agenda item 9.2 is the second reading of policy jkf disciplinary removal of students with disabilities uh this is the one where I threatened to get out my orange book which I do love the color of but you don't want me to read from it's um this is uh exactly what it sounds like it's it's removable student with disabilities uh it has a lot of intersection with federal law and we made virtually no changes except for we

107changed the pronouns to there so that we didn't keep having to say he and she um there was one small section that we rewrote very slightly to clarify the language that was subsection 6B we have made no changes since the first reading that you've seen and virtually all of this is enshrine and statute so it's not there's not a lot of room for discussion all right do I have a motion to um first is there any questions right do I have a motion to approve the second reading of policy jkf disciplinary removal of students with disabilities it's all moved here's what I found second sorry must have hit my watch button um is there any discussion all right all in favor [Laughter] it's unanimous thank you agenda item 9.3 is the second reading of policy

108jkfr which is a disciplinary removal of students with disabilities administrative procedure uh this is exactly what I said in the last one which is we changed uh pronouns around to straighten out the language um but again this is statutory there's very little room for discretion um and other than that it's mostly encoded what's given to us uh as as guidelines language it's required so in Government Federal Law um are there any questions all right do I have a motion to approve the second reading of policy jkfr disciplinary removal of students with disabilities administrative procedure oh moved second is there any discussion okay all in favor perfect thank you it's unanimous um agenda item 9.4 is the second reading of policy cbip the evaluation of the superintendent procedure um this is the policy that we've decided

109to change the timeline on to make it a little less hectic in May and June um so the change substantively is that we will set goals and objections for the next fiscal year no later than the last day in September and then we'll do the evaluation no later than the last uh day of May which means we'll really be meeting in April instead of meeting in May and June which is what we did this year um this was this came out of our discussion so it is exactly how it looked last time and we didn't discuss it further meeting I don't really think are there any questions all right um is uh there a motion to approve the second reading of policy cbip evaluation of the superintendent procedure so moved second is there any discussion

110all in favor unanimous thank you agenda item 9.5 is the first reading of policy jjf student fees um so this policy um came out of a discussion about equity and making sure that we didn't have barriers to participation in Stu and for students athletes and students and activities um which we have a fee for at Wentworth and middle school and the high school um and uh we have to look at this every year by our own policy so we did it for that reason too I'll get to the exact fees we elected after a long discussion I think over two or three meetings um to leave it the same and the basis of that is we had information from Kate Bolton about the fiscal impact of making changes and we had input from the athletic

111director about the rate of participation and the rate of participation for our students in Scarborough um in athletic and Athletics and activities approaches 90 which is extremely high higher than average for sure and as a result of that we decided without information that there was actually a barrier to participation it didn't make sense to do something that would quite honestly reduce the amount of money we're bringing in to to contribute to our district um with with information that we have extremely high participation and so we made a suggestion that um when there's a survey opportunity that the athletic director include a question that would sort of probe that are there students who are not partaking in activities or athlete Athletics because of these fees we also have a waiver program that is available it's a

112click box there's not um it's not like a robust or difficult process to request the waiver and they're pretty pretty much granted if it's requested um so I think we have the ability to serve students allow them to participate as they wish and that's worn out by the numbers of people who participate is there any questions are there any questions all right do I have a motion to approve the first reading a policy jjf student fees second any discussion all in favor thank you agenda item 9.6 is the first reading of policy jjf e student fees exhibit so this is the schedule of fees currently at the high school it's 150 per sport it's 50 per activity the middle school it's a hundred dollars for I'm sorry no no I lied that's what we potentially

113were bugging about is at the high school it's a hundred dollars for sport it's fifty dollars per activity and there's a cap of 300 for the year for Middle School there's an athletic cap of 175 dollars per sport 25 per activity and there's a 225 student cap if you participate in both at Wentworth is 25 per activity of those fees for my understanding have not changed in 10 ish years so they've been they've remained static um we did consider if we were gonna we thought about reducing it to one fee for the year but upping the fee so that was the that we were playing around with numbers about that that's where the numbers I was reading at first but ultimately when we decided not to make any changes we decided to leave the letter

114Buzz are there any questions [Music] do I have a motion to approve the first reading and policy jjfe student fees exhibit so moved second is there any discussion all right all in favor ites thank you okay I'm going to bundle um thank you I'm going to bundle 9.7 9.8 and 9.9 which are the meeting minutes of July 15 2023 the workshop minutes of July 13th I'm sorry June 15 2023 the workshop minutes of July 13 2023 and the meeting minutes of July 13 2023 do I have a motion to approve the meetings the minutes as presented so moved second is there any discussion all in favor perfect thank you um agenda item 9.10 our appointments 9.10.1 is the blue point K2 special education teacher so Maria Lowe has been selected to fill this position um

115Ms Lowe received her Bachelor's of Science and Elementary education with a concentration in special education and minored in child development and family relations at University of Maine at Orono perfect do I have a motion to approve the blue point K2 special education teacher so I moved second is there any questions any discussion yeah I have a question and I don't want to get home myself I know we've had several grievances filed that might be related to one or more of these I haven't connected them and I haven't read them all because they came in relatively recently if if something happens with the grievance procedure what would happen to these folks in terms of their positions and I don't need to open a can of worms I just am curious well um I think that the

116best um way to answer that is um you know we we need to proceed um with filling there's there's one position here that would kind of um could potentially be impacted um but we need to proceed and and fill the position and and um and educate our kids and you know okay I was just I was just curious because I I thought there might be some crossover but again I haven't read everything that came in in the last hour because I was in the other meeting yeah and is there another discussion all right um all in favor thank you um agenda item 9.10.2 is the Middle School 0.7 PE health teacher so Nicole Sierra's been selected to fill this position Monsieur received her Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science at Keene State College she

117has recently completed a dual certification in physical education and health education at St Joe's this year is a level one certified mountain bike instructor all right so we have a motion to approve the Middle School PE 0.7 PE health teacher so I moved second is there any discussion all in favor okay did unanimous thank you agenda item 9.10.3 is the eight Corners PE Wellness teacher uh Jacob King has been selected to fill this position uh Mr King received his bachelor's degree in Health Science for the concentration of physical education he recently worked in the Turner primary school as a Pre-K to physical education teacher and as an after-school physical education program coordinator for Turner schools very good do I have a motion to approve the eight Corners PE Wellness teacher second is there any discussion

118all in favor thank you it's unanimous um agenda item 10.0 is adjournment do I have a motion any discussion all in favor