School Board Meeting - April 27, 2023

001I don't say foreign good evening and welcome to the Scarborough Board of Education regular business meeting the date is Thursday April 27 2023 um Diane can we call the attendance please sure Mrs Gammon here Mr Kelleher here miss Leong here Mrs Lindstrom here Mr mayorino here miss tarpinian here Mr peony Huff here miss bertuglia and Mr Shumway thank you um would everyone please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance um thank you all right thank you um agenda item um 4.0 is adjustments to the agenda are there any adjustments no adjustments this evening all right agenda item 5.0 is public comment if there's anybody wishing to make public comment um if you can line up by the podium and we'll go one at a time or if you're online if you could raise your yellow

002Zoom hand we can we can invite you to give public comment as well all right so really quickly where you're getting set up I'll just go over the the rules for public comment um public comment is addressed to me as the the board chair you can keep your couple your comments for three minutes um and prior to getting started if you could introduce yourself to us and then we will recommend you to um start your comment hello hi what's your name my name is suno very good is my pronouns are he him I'm here to support trans and lgbtq kids I believe that all kids should have a wonderful future and because every kid should feel free in our community they might be scared to come out so let's be their Diamond Shields tell them

003they are unstoppable and unbreakable now let's hear what my mom has to say thank you so I'll put them over your head thank you I was very very strictly directed as to how I was supposed to hold those signs all right okay do I get a new three minutes yes thank you hello my name is Michelle oxusship my pronouns are she her hers and I'm a teacher parent and resident in Scarborough the views I expressed today do not represent the views of my school district but rather there are reflections of my own as a CIS queer woman born of a Korean immigrant mother and father of Middle Eastern ancestry I am humbled to stand on the unseated ancestral lands of the wabanaki people I have heard people say things like I respect you and I

004love you but I will not protect you this is fundamentally flawed James Baldwin one of the greatest American thinkers said we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist laughs as a teacher how can I say I love and respect my students if I don't Champion their human rights as a parent how can I say I love and respect my children if I don't honor their voices as a human how can I say I love and respect my community if I deny their right to exist I am grateful every day for the Educators each of my children has had in the Scarborough school system like mistake daily they support nourish and lift up my children each of my children

005had a supportive and caring teacher with whom to navigate the Waters of sharing their identity on their terms in fact each of their teachers at the time of their sharing their identities fifth grade fifth grade and second grade respectively were their biggest cheerleaders and loving spaces not only were there teachers their supports but their principles were as well that is how we support kids School Board we need to be their Shields we must protect their personal autonomy we must protect their voices we must protect their right to choose when and with whom they share who they are parents we need to protect their rights our children's bodies and Spirits are theirs and theirs alone we need to be their number one accomplice and Safe Haven I will end with another truth from James Baldwin I

006hope we remember this as we advocate for our children as we show them who we are and what we stand for children have never been very good at listening to their elders but they have never failed to imitate them thank you thank you very much you could introduce yourself and then we'll start though um hi my name is Mike Blanton um and I'm a Scarborough high school student a sophomore okay welcome um go ahead and start your time you'll see the light on um as a non-binary student I support the proposed student policy because it is necessary for the safety of transgender students throughout Scarborough high school I have friends whose families wouldn't be supportive of their identity as a trans student and they deserve to have a place where they can safely be who

007they are without worrying about being outed to their parents or kicked out um if a trans kid hasn't come out to their parents it's not because the teachers are hiding it from them it's because they don't feel comfortable with talking to their parents and that isn't a teacher's fault all transgender students deserve just as much respect as any cisgender student and I believe that this policy is a right I'm moving the right direction hello can I start can you just introduce yourself okay my name is Angela Maliko I use to her pronouns and I am a junior at Scarborough high school and I'm also the vice president of civil rights Club and I support this new policy that makes it so that trans students can be more comfortable in sharing their experiences at school trans

008students should not feel endangered at school as a result of sharing their identity because school should be a place where everybody should feel welcomed being surrounded by many of my non-gender confirming friends and classmates has made me more aware of their experiences and what they face in their day-to-day lives these experiences are another reason why I support this policy and they deserve to feel like every other student regardless of their gender they deserve to feel like everyone else they deserve to feel comfortable in who they are they deserve to feel safe for some non-gender confirming students School may be their only place of safety they might have hostile homes so school is the only safe place regardless of these students are humans first and as such their rights should be protected and this is why

009I support this policy thank you thank you hello hi um my name is yashu darasala and my pronouns are she her and I'm a sophomore at Scarborough High School the passing of this policy is absolutely necessary why should trans students be excluded from the protection that school provides school is supposed to be a place where everyone feels safe and excluding my trans friends and peers from feeling safe is discriminatory trans and non-gender conforming students are my closest friends and peers they are my people they are beautiful human beings who have so much to give to the world and the least we can do is give them a space where they feel safe and protected this new policy is absolutely necessary because it protects trans students by changing verbs to make them more definitive erasing any

010confusion that could result in actions that could potentially harm these students for many students who don't have a safe space at home school should at least be a place where they feel like they belong and can express themselves and their identity they deserve to feel secure safe and respected in our community just like every other student this is why I support this policy and I hope you can understand at the end of the day these students are also human thank you my name is Alex Wu I am a sophomore at Scarborough High School I use any pronouns many parents feel that the school board is setting policies that circumvent parents School of board policy was never What affected relationships between parents and children School Board policy was never attached to how parents interacted with their

011children School Board policy does not affect the comfort of a student to speak of their truest self to their parents if they censor themselves it is because of what parents have done if they censor themselves it is because of how parents have made them feel if they censor themselves it is because they feel they cannot be their truest self with their parents forcing them to speak their Truth where they feel they are not welcome will not remove a wage between parents and teachers and merely endangers children or if that child never felt welcome enough to be able to speak about our identity it was not a problem a school board policy it was a problem of trust and control it was a problem appearances control the policy protects trans students from being outed somebody telling

012somebody else about a certain person's identity against their will in regards to gender or sexuality if they share their identity at school it does this by moving verbs in the subjunctive mood verbs that indicate possibility into the indicative indicative verbs indicate facts statements or in the case of this policy things that will occur under it the protection of trans students in this policy is vital as there are many households in which a trans student will not be welcome if they openly share their identity they could even possibly be disowned or kicked out of their home if a child feels more welcome to speak about their identity in a school environment one that should be more unfamiliar than a space of family it is clear that the space of family was never a truly welcome one

013if there is no space for Secrets then it is clear that honesty and trust was never the intention of a teacher-parent relationship the whole idea of needing trust and honesty is contradictory for if a parent needs verification and identification of all honesty of the True full identity of their child then there was never any Trust allow us to formulate our own identities on our own time without whatever idea of trust or honesty thereof without whatever idea of control over our identity they want we have the right to be ourselves our own true selves we gathered here to show our support we gathered that without effective policy our rights are not protected We Gather here as a tribute to you a testament to our opinion so many people here aren't here in support of passing this

014policy the amendment of this policy we are statistics enough to show that people care about this policy people care about the rights of our students please make it so trans students can be safe in their identity at our school trans students deserve to feel safe our students deserve to feel safe in who they are um shall I start if you just introduce yourself um hi my name is Kate Marvin I am a mother of a student at Scarborough Middle School I am an English professor and I don't know how else I come here as a mother I obviously support this policy I want to give you some insight as to what it's like to be a parent of a trans non-binary kid my kid is a straight A student they have a pet frog named

015Gremlin they're really obsessed with cats and they draw a lot you know they're they're hardly like a deviant right in fact one time I parked somewhere in a No Parking Zone to walk our dog really quickly and they wouldn't get out of the car because they were like no so really like it's you know I um so my kid is also trans now they came out a few years ago and I didn't anticipate it I knew that they might be queer but um but I hadn't anticipated the transness and but they were ready they had already even thinking about it for a long time and they hadn't shared it with me and I can be honest with you I feel sit as as assistant parent it was hard for me to get used to and

016I had to do a lot of thinking and I had to do a lot of listening to my child but what I noticed almost right away was that my child was much happier my child was liberated okay they had suffered um a brief period of anxiety and depression I and that which was really unusual for them because they're very um focused you know and they're very intelligent and they're they have a lot of joy in life um and so I was worried that I didn't know what it was but it turned out it was gender dysphoria that had really been bothering them for a long time so once I saw how uplifted they were I really didn't care and then um I started to think about well why does anybody care that like my kid

017is maybe not male or female is maybe somewhere on the spectrum because it really doesn't affect them I can tell you that my child does feel safe sometimes in the schools and sometimes not safe I can tell you my kid largely feels safe because of the support from their friends and their parents and their friends and their teachers and me but what I want to tell you in addition to that just sort of to share my experience because it's been a really rewarding experience to have a trans child who's come out and stood up for themselves and it really I I'm very like I have a lot of respect for their bravery honestly um but I also want to tell you they have a lot of friends and they have friends who have not come

018out to their parents and I'm like well like why not they're like they're not comfortable I think some of them might even have parents who might be ready for it but I don't think the kids are ready and so that's why I feel very strongly about this policy because I think kids should come out when they're ready to do it to their parents thanks a lot is there anybody or again online um if you could raise your your yellow Zoom hand all right seeing no more I will close public comment for the evening thank you um agenda item 6.0 is the spotlight award recognition so Jillian all right we have a all right I say this every time because it's always unique but we have a unique uh award tonight very excited to present um

019we have three winners tonight and they are on the next slide oh look at it's all shifted off to the side Katrina Edwards Sybil kippen Cheryl Milliken and they are all in the audience um and the person that nominate them is also in the audience and that is Stephanie Lynn Hart and um I Stephanie do you want to do okay I so so Stephanie put together this really phenomenal presentation that I cannot take credit for at all so I wanted to make sure that I didn't um but I so I'll just read it uh Katrina Sybil and Cheryl are being celebrated for their amazing work that went above and beyond and to help a new student transition to Wentworth last year uh so when this third grade student moved to Scarborough in the fall of

02022 she had severe reverse adverse reaction to school and school buildings um so when the team got together they that was led by Katrina and um Sybil and Cheryl I was going to try to say your full last name and I realized that I didn't want to invest that um immediately they created a plan to work to make school accessible for her and they have come along uh the child has come a long way they've been working on the playground where the special ed team went work outside with her for three hours a day which that's a lot you guys you guys are awesome um but when it got cold outside they realized their playground wasn't going to be sustainable so they created an indoor playground and the student learned to transition inside um and

021so as time passed she became more comfortable with their indoor playground area and the team Incorporated ways for her to explore more parts of the school building she started taking the long way to her room passing by the fls classroom on the way that's the functional life skills classroom practice all right um uh that that led to stops um in the fls room and the therapy rooms where she was exposed to her peers and other special ed team members for a brief period of time so for the 2022-23 school year this team of amazing Educators and therapists were able to transition the student from spending three hours a day outside on the playground to attending a full day of school in the functional life skills classroom so fast forward to this year and the student

022continues to attend full day in the fls room she eats lunch in the cafeteria and goes uh Teresa's with her peers um sorry it was this is a beautiful story and it's very touching so she uses the communication system and iPad to communicate her wants and needs two weeks ago she rode the bus for the first time and participated in the fls recreational swim program run by the team of OTS and PTs and this dedicated Trio of special Educators along with the special ed team put so much time and thought into the successful successful plan to integrate the student into her school environment it took a long time and there was definitely a lot of bumps in the road but Katrina Sibyl and Cheryl never gave up and saw a plan through to succession but

023there was a video and it's not here um I don't know what happened but um shoot uh it was a really really nice video that um was by the principal of Wentworth uh who is not in the room oh she is in the room and so do you want to come in foreign well Kelly Kelly had a really beautiful message and was very touching um that okay okay he's gonna say we can also edit after the fact to the slide deck so that it'll yeah as part of the materials as well um and so I you know I I can speak personally I know I know that these ladies are amazing Educators and we're very lucky to have them um so congratulations and thank you for all that you do and we have some awards

024for you if you'll come up and um and you're welcome to speak if you want to but you don't have to okay um thank you are there any comments about the spotlight award can I just point out the smile in the little girl's face at the end like I think that spoke volumes and I've never met her and never heard the story before so I think that's awesome can you hear me okay awesome um sorry I can't be there but I wanted to say congratulations I think this was very well deserved after seeing those slides I thought what a wonderful beautiful story and you almost never hear of how much work a special education teacher does for one individual child and it means a lot to me just because I'm also a special ed teacher

025so it's for you guys to be recognized in this way and having other staff recognize how hard you've worked to really integrate this child into the building that takes a lot a lot of work and it's so commendable so congratulations to you three foreign thank you Jenna um I will also Echo the congratulations congratulations and it's um to Brian's point the photos of her swimming and in the pool and so excited and so happy and um directly attributable to the work you've done right and it was long and it was hard but you stuck with it and you stuck together and that's really really admirable and we all very much appreciate all of the hard work and how cool that your co-workers recognize it as well right and so that must feel pretty special too

026so thank you and thank you Stephanie for nominating her and Kelly we will absolutely get your video up on this live deck so thank you for that too all right um all right agenda item 7.0 is the public Hearing in the fy24 school budget so for this I will ask Kate to come to the podium throw some things yeah let our friends Escape oh that's okay I'd I'd go [Laughter] run while you can um so uh Jeff will tell you that I had like I don't know 15 slides in there this morning and and we went oh my gosh look at the agenda that's so silly you guys don't need to hear the budget story again um so we we got creative and and put together a lot of links so that when the public

027is looking at this if this is your first time hearing about the school's budget this year um you really want to get in there and poke around in the slide deck and find all the links to all the materials that we have available for you um but for this evening I'm just giving a quick overview that will allow the the public to speak to the budget um for anybody who's present to do so so the first reading of this the school's budget was passed by the school board on March 16th and we've got the slide deck from that meeting LinkedIn here the full Municipal budget was presented to the Town Council and the public on March 29th and now we're in the process between first and second reading where we're reviewing the budget both town

028and school um leaders and coming up with refinements and updates as we move toward the board second reading and then finally to the town council's second reading and vote our budget resources are all available on the school Department's budget page this is a live Link in the slide deck and if you don't have the slide deck in front of you you can just go to the school Department's website and go under the school board section and find the budget page on that page are a ton of resources available for you to learn about the budget everything from the superintendent's introduction and executive summary which is a quick overview to fold deep piles of digital paper I guess we could call it Carolyn and I are like yes paper um slide decks from our workshops and

029FAQ sheet is the last thing on that little checklist and that's something that we're updating and working with as questions come in so I will say if anyone in the public does have questions they should send them to Boe at scarboroughschools.org and those will be parceled out to the right folks to answer them and then we can add them to our FAQ so they're available for everybody to look at this is the way that the budget looked when the school board received it from the Leadership Council on March 16th this is a summary of the budget showing the three operating funds the general fund which is your K-12 education that the public votes on adult education and school nutrition and at that time we were looking at an overall increase to our gross budget our

030expenditures budget of 6.47 percent and an increase to the ask of the town the tax request for townspeople of 7.28 percent since that time we've had some really great news the first bullet point on this slide is that as we were heading into the town manager's presentation on March 29th we received word from the Department of Education that our state subsidy was going to be increased by over 1.5 million dollars and that was just huge in terms of our ask to uh Scarborough taxpayers because it allowed us to have the same budget which with a much smaller request for taxes um also in the meantime since we've had first reading we've had a number of things um change in our knowledge about what's in the budget one of the big ones was that we received

031our Anthem premium rates we had estimated them at eight percent increase and uh we actually are going to have a 3.7 percent increase which is great that's a much smaller amount than what we had budgeted for um so you see in the slide that we're going to save money over what we originally asked for so when we come to Second reading you'll see a reduction you'll also see reductions in debt service you'll see some increases in facilities Insurance that's property insurance and contracted Services projections because we've got better numbers for those and unfortunately those better numbers are higher uh but again we're trying to adjust to the new information that's coming in and energy even fuel costs we're also going to be able to have some reductions so we have a long uh spreadsheet that

032we follow and track all of these changes and that's provided to the board before they go to the second reading so that they can see all of the adjustments that have been made we kind of previewed the the draft of that with the finance committee this week just to give them a sense of where we are today and this next slide is actually where we are today you can see that the total education budget that you saw two slides ago the expenditures are now down to a 5.86 percent increase um and the tax request is now down below four percent to 3.58 percent so that's really great news in terms of the lift that we're asking the community to make to support the school budget um and we're you know super pleased to be in

033this position and again we'll be continuing to make adjustments all the way up through the second reading of the school board here's some dates to take note of um we'd be especially pleased for the public to turn out for the town council's first reading next week school supporters will be most welcome at that meeting um we'll be talking with the Town Council on a number of topics uh one being the building project which is the next topic I think on our agenda tonight and uh showing up at some of these meetings and and weighing in and asking questions and voicing opinions is really important throughout the whole process the last item on the page is about the referendum vote and the vote is kind of late this year it's after school is out so we're

034encouraging our school Community to take advantage of the fact that they can use absentee ballots and they can take advantage of early voting so you can request an absentee ballot right now and again that's a live link it's to the town's budget or excuse me elections page you can call the town clerk's office and they will send you out a ballot that you can hang on to and turn in tonight if you want to I think there's one more and it's just another plea for folks to stay connected with us we have our own as I said our own school department budget page which goes pretty deep on the school side of things the town also has a school a budget portal which includes the entire Municipal budget and a lot of documentation that goes

035along with that there's some videos there's some articles that are very interesting there so I would I would definitely encourage folks to take a look at that as well thank you so much Kate I was gonna say for the record that's down from 15 slides to five right I I don't know if I can claim I had I think I had one of them was like the cover page and but but yeah yeah I think that's probably the briefest I've been in quite some time so I'll take credit for that um does are there any questions for Kate um this might be a sillier question but I just wondered if you can explain when you look at um I am for you if you look at slide 19 which is the original projections um what

036we saw at first reading and then you look at the new slide on Slide 21. the difference in the tax request is is greater than the difference between the um total education budget and so is that a result of that I understand like the the changes that have happened but the change from the edge of total education budget went from 6.47 to 5.86 but the tax request went from 7.28 down to 3.58 so that's a pretty significant right so explain that quickly so what you're seeing there is the impact of that new Revenue right so that above that red line um is all of the expenditure budget where we have been making adjustments and bringing things down from the original ask but what really impacts that is the non-tax revenue and the non-tax revenue is

037what allows us to reduce our requests for local taxes and we all know that that Scarborough pays most of the bills for the school budget it's just the nature of our community and and uh our ability according to the Department of Education to pay those bills but the the difference in the tax ask the tax request is driven um mostly by that additional Revenue perfect thank you are there any other questions for Kate all right thank you so much you're welcome all right agenda item 8.0 is the Scarborough Public School building project the site selection so for this I will invite Dina our building steering committee chair good evening uh Dana Fortier hopefully I don't get just three minutes um uh I'm Dana Fortier I'm the there's uh Shanna mentioned I'm the chair of the

038building committee um and I think tonight what we wanted to talk a little bit about is uh the site selection process for uh the school um first of all I would be remiss if I didn't thank all the people that were involved and I won't be able to go through all of them but there's a number of people in this room all of the building committee uh has put a tremendous amount of work into it Al Palmer Lisa Sawan from Al from Gore Palmer and Lisa from uh Harriman um so it's really um pretty extensive effort including a lot of the Town staff as well so um tonight when I I won't go through everything because I want to be cognizant of time but um I wanted to cover a little bit about the process

039some of what we looked at um and where we ended up um so Diane if you want to go to the next slide I've always thought that this would make a pretty quilt but um so this is a map of Scarborough and the parcels that fall between a certain acreage um and this was sort of the basis for us starting our search so we we didn't relegate ourselves through the search process to Parcels that were just on the market or available we looked at everything including ones that were not on the market Parcels that may be smaller in size but could be combined to make a larger parcel our Target acreage was somewhere around 25 acres we looked at smaller we looked at bigger um everything was was really considered so um interesting thing or

040maybe not so interesting to some people who lived in Scarborough is there's a lot of green on this map and the green is conserved area um what doesn't show on this map is all the parcels that are in blue or pink are Parcels that um are either land that's owned or could be developed but in large in many cases what you'll find is that not all that land is developable um the Scarborough has a lot of wetlands and we found a lot of parcels that were 25 acres but were 60 Wetland and so um when you when you look at that and you look at how much land is already developed and Scarborough starts to shrink down your bucket of uh possibilities pretty quickly so if you want to jump to the next slide this

041shows our search area um there were through some different venues Community input input from building committee from school staff from town staff from a number of different people we were able to get to and what we felt like was a reasonable search area trying to balance bus transportation times the radius from the municipal campus which is important for offering services and also you know not having doubling back of buses was important and lastly uh not necessarily last but um one of the other critical uh components was the the sense of approach Scarborough does have some industrial areas that had large parcels and you know there were we didn't want students or families to feel like they were coming into an industrial park on their way to school so that was an important aspect of of

042the search so you can kind of see the area there on the screen with the Stars being schools and the municipal complex and high school right in the middle and if you jump to the next slide the these are 10 uh areas that were looked at these are necessarily all of them but these were the ones that boiled to the top from two different groups one of them was from the building committee on the right and the other one was from um uh Community forums that we had and you can see the top four are matching uh pretty closely so um not necessarily in the same order but the same top four so safety environment location for future expansion and uh traffic and Transportation safety we're all important particularly when you look at the congestion

043around the Oak Hill area there's a lot there to consider that was important in the decision-making process so again these others the other 10 you don't have to go back and hang in the other the other ten the other ten um you know those were still used in the ranking but we wanted to highlight those those top four just from an alignment perspective um so a little bit I've already talked about some of this um three to four miles one and a half miles bus ride times proximity um all very important aspects uh for a site selection process you can go ahead so we asked people to rank where they would like to see we gave them a grid and you notice that it's a little hard to see but a gridded map we did

044this in sort of a real real-time session we said hey if we're going to put a school anywhere in Scarborough where would you like to see it and 73 of the people that participated told us they wanted to see it in squared D2 some of them said hey maybe C2 and then we had a small percentage of people that said they wanted to see it in the E9 you'll notice that there's a lot of green there that's conservation land not going to be real great um so we proceeded um next slide if you go uh so and I think this goes to talk a little bit about the the the rigor of the process and it's one of the things that I I think or anybody that has doubts around what was considered or um

045the number of people that were involved we had 30 plus site selection meetings between public forums meetings with the Town School Board building committee and that's not to say uh you know the meetings that Al and I had to talk about you know one site or another in the topography um there was a lot that went into this we had 46 sites initially identified over 2 000 acres of land that were explored we narrowed it down to a number that was less than 46 but still greater than the four on the next line over a long period of time this has been going on for a number of months um and we ultimately came down to four sites that align closest to the site selection criteria um and um as we'll see in the next

046slides here we removed three of them uh due to alignment lack of alignment with the criteria and then uh ultimately boil it down to the one so many months of work summarized in one single slide um this Matrix and the following uh the the the the following slides show all of the sites that were considered and provides information on the parcels why they were removed from the list or in some cases why they were you know brought on for further consideration uh and So for anybody that wants to go through this is this is all the due diligence and there's there's more information uh Beyond this for anybody that's interested in some bedtime reading um uh so you can jump to the next slide um so the four sites that we ultimately ended up with

047were site number seven which is uh for anybody that's familiar with where the Scarborough Hannaford is it's directly behind Hannaford um owned by the Foley family um the Scarborough Downs uh location um uh which is you know everybody I think is familiar with with the Downs property it's 500 Acres of um of development um we there's another site that's kind of out behind Cabela's on two Rod Road uh it is on the west side of the turnpike or the north side of the turnpike depending on which way you look at it um in another site that is a little behind I guess where Sam's Club is again on the other side of the turnpike um that is owned by the grondin family uh member of the grondin family so those were the four finalist sites

048the Grande site was a late ad it came in it was um under option with another company for a period of time that option was released uh once that option was released it very quickly went back under option with a local developer the local developer we had discussion with them and they had indicated their willingness to carve out a portion of the site potentially for the project um and I'll talk more about that here in a minute so the Foley site again 35 Acres I think the next slide so this all of these um all of these these images on on this on the following slides are kind of at the same scale so you can get an idea of uh the size of the parcels um you'll see the area to the top of

049the page you'll see a lot of blue hashing those are Wetland areas there are some Wetland areas on the property itself and as we explored this site this is a couple things that came into play one is that we couldn't uh contact the family we had a difficult time getting a response from the people that own the property and there are some challenges with access on this one so a little Dolphin Drive which is a road that enters the property through a small driveway um you know so actually you have access through that and then another access would have to be carved out largely across the Wetland area that is to the top of the page there so that would require uh some in-loo compensation which is you know for Wetlands which is I think

050owls 525 000. 285 an acre um 285 000 an acre uh to mitigate Plus cost of construction um which is a pretty uh pretty healthy um cost for this so so this site um uh you know it was you know it was still in consideration but there's definitely there was definitely some some pretty substantial challenges in addition to that uh any road that would come uh from uh the like in the top of the page over to Route 114 would already be in a very congested area of Oak Hill um Oak Hill is considered a high crash uh location again with a lot of traffic so we would have to um uh dot would require some likely some mitigation and some improvements in order for us to have a drive there uh so this is

051the Scarborough Downs um we had been in conversations with them um and uh talking about a 25 acre parcel somewhere on the down site um and uh this site had a number of advantages uh one of them uh was that you know it's already in development a lot of the traffic mitigation is has been completed or is already underway um which is a big yeah and you know to say all of it would be complete it probably isn't accurate we would there probably are some things that would will still have to be done um but by and large that's a multi there's a there's a multi uh uh entrance uh ability here so you have you know access off a Payne Road you have access off of Route One um soon to be accessed off

052the highest Parkway uh and the potential for future access off of um Sawyer Road around between the Middle School and uh where the old race track is utilities are largely in place with some uh you know work needed for utilities and um it did meet all of our local criterias in terms of entrance uh and uh soils and topography the site is sites are relatively flat that entire uh you know development is largely a field a flat field so um lots of positives with this one uh the two Rod Road Site um again this site is uh on the northwest side of the the turnpike um you jump to the next one uh as you can see there are there's a large Wetland complex there right in the middle and there's another one on the

053corner um uh that is a um unfortunately it sort of bifurcates the the the parcels uh so you're left with a developable area that's you know sort of at the bottom and one on the top um this site does have some grade to it um so uh there is a sufficient base for the programming needs uh it would have to be on one corner or the other uh however um you know they're the some of the challenges are utilities uh with this being on the other side of the turnpike there would be no sewer and no water so those utilities would have to be installed uh which is you know basically involves tunneling under the turnpike the turnpike does not allow uh overhead uh or Bridge Crossings so we would have to um uh you

054know bore under the turnpike for both of those utility services that uh relatively High expense um I guess lastly for this property there is a restriction on two Rod Road for vehicular uh traffic and entrances that's actually a town ordinance um not a deal killer but it would be something that would have to be uh it would have to have to be undone by the by the council and likely there would be some traffic Transportation improvements needed to both two Rod Road and some of the other subsequent Road along along that corridor uh uh the other is at the top of the page you'll see sort of a soil area at the very top that is a junkyard uh in something that was also part of our decision making if we were not able to

055deal with the two Rod Road uh you know issue we would have to uh somehow find an entrance off of beech Ridge Road which would bring us closer potentially to that junkyard area and there was also concerns around you know potential for expansion of that um and potential concerns around uh soil contamination so lastly as The Chronic site this is a site that I talked about that was a late ad um we were made aware of this when uh the grondins approached us and and had indicated that the property may be available this site is a very interesting one it's a large site um and as you'll notice there where the cursor is there again is some very very large Wetland complex as part of the Red Brook stream uh Corridor so it's also in

056addition to it being a wetland it's also um a a stream system that is maybe a little bit more highly protected by the state access to this parcel would have to be off of 114. the areas that were considered for placement of the school are sort of in the notched area right where the cursor is right there in would require uh you know obviously an entrance in off of 114. uh bringing it up to the school area there and that would require again Wetland mitigation in order to accommodate the road uh 114 that section of 114 from the Sam's Club intersection or or uh Payne Road intersection on up through into Gorham is considered by the dot as a traffic Mobility Corridor so entrances off of that road of any volume other than of like

057a driveway so anything more than just a home driveway would require special permission from the dot and there's an exception process that would have to go through it would be highly likely for an entrance of this magnitude would require intersection and intersection potentially a stoplight and where the road would be located is in a curve so there were concerns around sight distance for uh entrance um with regard to placement of the building itself in the area that we looked at and we did look at a couple different areas this parcel is very highly graded so there is a uh something like a 40 foot is it 40 feet well the 40 40 foot that would be a 40 foot change in elevation from one side of the building to the other side of the building

058so you can imagine uh you know something in the in the in the range of you know four times the height of this room um as you move from one side of the building to another and that doesn't include you know as you get further away from the facility you're going to have uh changes in elevation for parking lots um so it would be a very steep incline uh all on solid Bedrock uh so it would be a lot of blasting um the Bedrock is visible um we've in conversation with the developer um they've done some exploration and have noted that a good portion of the site is uh Bedrock so um that was another element of consideration as we talked about development costs none of this is insurmountable uh but it would add to

059the cost of construction quite significantly and potentially the timeline so um I'll pause there maybe for any questions before we get to the last part of it sure um and just a reminder for board members so we will discuss um the vote when we're when we get to new business but if you have questions for um about the presentation or anything that you've seen so far that now is the time to ask Dina yeah and what's on the screen right now is just a summary of a lot of what I've talked about um essentially you know it's pretty easy to see from the green uh the site that comes out ahead of all of the others is uh Scarborough Downs um for all the reasons that I just discussed and and there are more beyond

060that but certainly um uh that's that's our recommendation is is just based on everything that we are seeing um in I think the diligence that we put into the entire team put into everything um Scarborough Downs uh is by far and away uh I think the the site that that's the most favorable for for developing is this the school or or Dana I had one I don't want a rehashable business we I think um this board previously voted um or to made a decision to move forward with a unified site um but the in this is this is post that process but as part of your process you also did consider um the existing sites with the addition of a Ford Primary School to accommodate as a base but when you made that decision your

061recommendation to the board to this board is was the unified site and so you move forward with that it's not that you didn't look at that responsibility no that's a good question so I mean the the the the four School fourth School option is one that becomes very problematic from a number of different perspectives um first and foremost uh it's would be the absolute most costly thing the town could could do um you have to renovate three existing schools those three existing schools are nowhere near big enough uh to accept the programs that would go into this go into them and we're revising a business case that will show this information uh very succinctly um but you know there's a couple of important points one is that the parcels that each of the schools sit

062on are not large enough to accommodate a program in any form um that would you know that would that would make sense that would make it you know an obvious decision to renovate the existing schools you still have to build a fourth school to accommodate that program uh no matter what so you know in that school has to be large enough to accept the children or the the programs from each of those schools uh during a one-year period while they're renovated so now you're taking all the program from you taking the program from that school and you're putting it in the fourth school just so you can renovate another school um so it becomes again very costly and a very long drawn out process that process will not when you look when you look at

063the enrollment projections the recently and even the previous ones the schedule doesn't work with the enrollment that we're going to see we're going to run out of room before we finish the project so again more to come on that we've got the business case um that's going to be coming out and be updated we post it on the website this information will be on the website updated FAQ on the website and I highly encourage people to go spend some time and look at the information the group's done a lot of work to put information on on the website and you know we've had a lot of folks that are concerned with the project and we can put the information out there but folks got to read it so encourage you to do that reach out

064to us if you have questions we will do our best to answer them any other questions from right now I I just wanted to add one thing we the fully site we had the gentlemen come on Tuesday with a very very enthusiastic message that under no uncertain terms will the school be going on that site so yep uh good good call out Jillian absolutely yeah um we had we had reached out to um the property owners uh who happened to be I think this gentleman's parents and um uh he uh you know very uh you know willingly showed up and said hey it's not going to happen so um uh it was great so it was good it was good to get some closure on that one after all the phone tag we tried to

065tried to get going but um uh yeah so thanks for mentioning that I have a quick question I think it's a quick question um when you were talking about um like the existing you built in a fourth school and the three the three primary schools that exist and renovating them about not being able to offer the same programming sorry is are you saying that with the fourth new school that we would be building it would have programming you know updated programming offerings that the three schools couldn't couldn't offer because of their size or what did you yeah so can you clarify that there's there's two I guess there's kind of two two things that have been one of them is what we're considering right that we build a unified school the other as I even

066hate calling it an option because it's not really an option that should even be considered but we'll we'll we'll talk about I agree with you I'm just yeah no I I want to clarify that's good and it's a good question we would have to build a fourth school and keep the three existing and renovate them so when you look at the three existing schools we have Portables on them now we've consumed a large portion of the apron space around the schools for things like additional parking uh all the trailers that we have the kids go to school and and by consuming that apron space we're consuming other things like playground space buffer space with the neighbors uh space for things like stormwater ponds that we would need if we were to uh you know do

067something with those schools so if you you're really going to be relegated to the existing footprint maybe a little tiny expansion we can't put a second floor the buildings won't support a second floor where that leaves you with the existing schools is you're relegated to almost what you started with like what was built in 1950 right so you can't make the rooms bigger you're you're going to be kind of stuck with the layout that you have and oh by the way whatever you had for Portables now you don't so now you you squash down so maybe you're looking at you know a kindergarten school maybe a first grade you won't fit second grade that's going to have to be in the fourth school so it really becomes kind of um quite difficult to uh to

068provide enough space for just basic classroom space but then when you talk about all the extra no the other programs special education music art gym space play Space Storage Space you're still stuck with all the same problems you had before so it really doesn't make sense and again can't emphasize enough long drawn out timeline 12 plus years okay so when you look at that and then you look at this thing called inflation I don't know if anybody's noticed that lately that isn't going to slow down um so for every year that we delay a project or for every year we have a future construction project you're going to be paying that over and over and over again welcome hopefully that answers the question yeah and just to add on to that a little bit when

069you look at the when you talk about programming and that the schools offer and you look at the um what's called a massing diagram which is essentially what what he showed us which is the land essentially the photo of the land when you look at the massing diagrams for the for the three current schools in the the way that the the property that we have when you start adding things in like having a Bus Loop and having a dedicated parent drop-off space the space for that school that he that Dean is talking about that we currently have actually shrinks down even smaller and then you're now talking about building a building on a smaller space and trying to fit in programming like a separate cafeteria in a separate gym for anybody who who is familiar

070with our current schools those happen right now in one place right so when you when you start doing that that's when that's to Jeff's I mean to Dana's point you can't there's just not the space to create all of those spaces yeah right to have the programming that that we would one other thing that's important to mention too is that with renovating any kind of renovation um we're going to be touching in each one of the existing schools we would be touching enough to require us to bring the entire facility up to today's code standards and I think that includes things like fire and egress um you know sprinkle systems uh you know fire mitigation so fire doors and things like that in an existing facility that was built in 19 40s 1950s and get

071really really costly and it can become um something that consumes more space that you don't have so you say okay well now we have to have um room for a fire door well where you put the fire door fire door has to go into a classroom well now you're going to lose part of a classroom so these are things that will happen in these you know if we were to pursue this that path it would be um it's definitely something that would become very difficult to contend with um questions for Dana Jenna you too yeah I just wanted to add that um you know from like a child development standpoint if you were to update these existing schools it would also require us to disrupt the school day for our kids um and then also

072you would have to pay more for our contractors to come on site after school hours which just tacked on more money to the the projects itself absolutely thank you Jenna if I could just uh kind of shine some light on a couple things because I don't think everybody if they're out in the public understands Dana's background which I've learned a lot about what you do professionally and I think that it gives a lot of validity to you sitting in this chair position and it I think it has really given us a lot of confidence in your guidance which I mean we can't thank you enough oh my God the amount of hours you've put in thank you um so I mean along with Al and Lisa as well so um sitting on the committee I

073have learned a ton from all of you but the this is as great of a presentation as this was this is really just the cliff notes we have gone in so thoroughly and so much in depth over the last couple months um and even more before I even got on the board that I've learned about as well so I really encourage people to go back and look even our most recent meeting where we voted um in support to bring the Downs to now the school board to have that vote um there was a lot of really good robust discussion and there were a lot of good points brought up that you know the Downs wasn't something that was predetermined um and we discussed that so not to drag this meeting on but I do think

074it's very important for anybody in the public who might be hearing those things also didn't go listen or didn't attend our most recent um uh building committee meeting you know it's it's online I would encourage you to go take a peek at it because you'll get a lot of those questions that you have answered and similar to what Dana said we are putting together that frequently asked questions so pretty much anything anybody's asking us we're going to put on there in a pretty organized fashion so I feel as somebody who's been sitting and very involved in this I feel I feel very confident in the decision that we're making um and I feel very confident in the fact that Dana's leading us and we have Al and Lisa and their expertise too so I mean

075we for me you know I think I could probably speak for everybody but we really appreciate all three of your uh you know your input and your definitely your time yeah I know it's been it's you know everybody has um has you know done a tremendous amount here I mean we've had involvement from Tom uh Hall um you know John uh you know on the Town Council everybody has really done a nice job at making sure that the process was followed we were thorough everything was considered and um you know I always go back to the saying uh you know no one is smarter than all of us and that's I think that's the case uh that's the case with this so it's been a good good effort there any questions I'm certainly happy to

076answer any additional I like I said I think our recommendation is to uh uh what we voted on the other night was the down sight and um hopefully uh we've provided enough information here to make that decision uh making process easy for everybody I just want to say um thank you very much to you and to the entire building committee it's not lost on any of us that you are volunteers and that this is a huge lift and it has been a huge lift for many many years not just a few months not just a couple weeks not just a couple hours but for years and we all greatly appreciate your work everybody on the committee we have staff members that work all day just like the rest of our volunteers and then stay and

077continue on working through this and some of these meetings have gone well into the evening and so thank you thank you thank you this is really good and we um like Brian said I have the utmost confidence and the recommendation that you're bringing board and we appreciate you providing this additional information for us oh thank you and thank the team 9.0 is so 9.1 is the motion to approve the um Scarborough Public School building committee site selection for the proposed new school so do I have a motion to approve so moved second thank you all right any discussion so now would be if we have any questions about the site about the process now we can we can get into that if there's any foreign but I you know I having sat through all of

078these meetings or most of them with all of these uh brilliant people uh I I can tell you that I I just want to really reiterate that there were hours that went into even just the littlest details on these on these properties it was uh nothing was taken lightly um I honestly did not I didn't know where we were going to arrive when we started this process or even most the way through it um people brought really great points about all of these sites throughout that um it seemed insurmountable at first the number of sites and then the few that popped up in between and all the legwork that went into uh trying to find some of the landowners I I know all this was said at our last meeting but it's really um it's

079it's really quite something there's there were many many hours so um I'm really excited that we have arrived here finally uh and I know the community has been anticipating this for a really long time so I'm excited to get out there and I'm certainly very excited to vote on this tonight thank you Joanne um Diane really quick would you mind playing up slide 26 sure 26 26 please we're on 45. um almost there I don't know um I just wanted to point out and if you see the centroid and there if you could just circle with your Mouse um I just want to point out what this is so when this was again this is the map of Alice Scarborough that where Diane is circling that is essentially the geographic centroid of town so when

080you're looking at this map and then you're looking at the concentric rings outside each of those Rings those red rings are a mile from from the centroid so um when when the building steering committee and then the um community at the different forums were asked where they want this property that's how you're trying to look um that's what you're looking in relation to so um the Downs location um essentially is right there where Diane's circling that that blue spot so very close to the centroid of town so when we start talking about um bus rides Scarborough is very very large and as it stands right now we have some students that are riding the bus for upwards up to an hour and so when we talk about really making sure that the bus rides are

081equivalent across town making sure we have access to sewer water utilities making sure that this is a close enclosed proximity to everybody and can handle the traffic that is where this site really kind of rose to the top in my mind I would say yeah um it was not all that um attuned to what the building committee had been doing before joining the board and obviously I'm fairly new to this process but having been here and been educated by all the work the committee has done it's really impressed upon me sort of the dedication the time that took going into this I don't you know there's a lot of noise in about town because if there's noise in every town and there were no exception but there's a lot of discussion about you know the

082the downs and sort of feelings about the downs and I really would like to pull this process out of any feelings towards the Downs in general I think that's inappropriate especially in light of sort of the amount of work that went into site selection and the fact that it wasn't predetermined and if it was there was a heck of a lot of work wasted on uh 46 whittling down to four other sites it took years to do that would not have been done if there was some sort of predetermined out so I think that is just a myth that's evolved that I think should be dispelled and I think the work on the website clearly demonstrates that um and so I just I I don't I don't want to rehash the the four schools versus

083one school but um that is something else that I hear a lot about which is the four School versus the one school um and this idea that sort of you know we haven't put that to bed um I think it has been put to bed that also is in the website I'm on all the materials it's extremely clear in the analysis why it's impossible to do four School four schools and to keep the existing primary schools as much as you know my children go there and there is an emotional attachment to the schools where your children grow up in and I definitely feel that but those feelings can't come in can't can't be born at the cost of the next 12 years of children moving through our school district and so I think it's really

084critically clear for folks um who are hopefully paying attention um if they have strong opinions to look at the information that's been provided to us it because it really does answer all the whys and how comes that I think you're hanging people up and I would just to tag along with that I think any of us who sit on the building steering committee would be more than happy if people have questions about that and maybe they don't have that actual time to go digging through the years worth of data that's on there um I think we're all pretty well educated to be able to sit down and and we had actually a couple of us have individually sat down with people in the community so we're more than happy to do that uh but you

085bring up a good point because a lot of that has been addressed it is out there in public there's evidence to support it or data that backs it up there's numbers that support it uh and so I think it's I'm glad that you brought that up um the fact about if people thought the Downs was predetermined was also addressed at our last meeting um and I don't want to speak for for John Anderson but I would recommend everybody go back to that last meeting because I think he made a good comment talking about you know there's something to the effect of of when the Downs came into Scarborough the big concern of a lot of people was how is this big massive you know installment of kind of a community within a community gonna fit

086and bring us together and this could really it seems like this could be a great way to create that natural um you know organic Community because now we can have a school potentially within the Downs where we would potentially have a town center too that that looks like it's breaking ground this summer so um a lot of positives to this that I think we weren't necessarily even thinking about in advance that as we started seeing the puzzle pieces come together as as a committee I think we started seeing some of those true benefits that it's not just about just the students but even the community is really going to get some good benefits out of this and I think that's our our goal right a lot of our work is kind of just starting now

087now that we've gotten to this point but I think that's our goal now is to educate everybody as to why should you support this because we support this now let's make sure you understand how you also benefit from this because there are benefits to the community even if you don't have kids the follow-up briefly on that um I also have served on committees not on this committee but other committees and I think this board is delegated um a lot of the work to that committee and the fact that they've unanimously come back with this recommendation speaks volumes to me from what the information I see I don't see any choice other than supporting this um so I'm very happy to support it but I also want to say that we also have to put trust

088in our community members when they when they come together and they put a lot of time and effort and they are very clear and transparent in the process and the information that they relied on and so we have to rely on the people that we delegate that to so that as well absolutely all right if there are no other questions we will call the vote please sure Mrs Gammon thousand percent yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom very enthusiastically yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinian yes Mr peony yes Miss bertulia and Mr Shumway yes okay thank you so much it's unanimous and it passes thank you all right 9.2 is the first reading of policy ACR which is a grievance procedure for persons with disabilities so for this I'll turn it over to

089Thriller yeah I don't blame anybody leaving we have a lot of really intense policy work so with your seat belts um so the policy committee met and um we were able to go over a number of policies which are being presented today um the first five I believe in the county correctly um yeah the first five are required policies that are required by law and um I'm not going to read them to you even though I was afraid for a minute I might have to and they would all go to sleep if I did that um there's a federal procurement policy as part of this uh extravaganza yeah so I'm going to go through them overall and then ask for any questions and then I'm going to talk about the differences between the policies that

090that were the policy committee is recommending and the draft policy that was given to us by German Woodson they're very minor but I will vote for them so I'm starting um I'm gonna look at the make sure the agenda lines up with my email um policy ACR which is the grievance procedure for persons uh with disability that would be policy number AC Dash r and I do have them all open on my computer so just give me a second um we made a very slight change in the second paragraph to make a should be a shell I think you're going to see a theme with our committee having making permissive language stronger um we made that second change of a shot from a should at the last um the second to last paragraph as well

091but other other than that it's um it's the same as the required the policy that was recommended as the model policy um this policy is a requirement um uh so that we become we come into compliance federal law so it's not a lot of options um or it wasn't a lot of work to be done but I'm happy to answer any questions about it um I did have one question in the policy committee meeting um having to do with why it was limited to uh it's a procedure of grievances for individuals who have physical disabilities and if there's a structural change to a building that needs to be made it needs to come before the support um and what was limited I think we decided that was likely because structural requires a lot of financing

092which would require a lot of other work to be done um but ultimately we didn't make any changes but I hope you all had an enjoyable time reading this policy um any questions um yeah all right so do I have a motion to approve the first reading and policy ACR the grievance procedure for persons with disabilities so moved secondly any discussion Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Liang yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinian yes Mr Penny huh yes Miss bertuglia and Mr Shumway that says unanimously thank you okay 9.3 is the first reading of policy djr which is the federal procurement manual for school units this is the one you're very happy that I'm not reading out loud to you 16 Pages um there's one change we made we change pronouns

093uh which said his or her to there uh just for brevity not that there's a lot of brevity in this policy but this this policy um has a brief overview but this just brings us into compliance with Federal Grant essentially grants um and allows us to um we have to go along with federal policy in order to be entitled to Grants and this is the procurement policy that we have to have to be entitled to federal grants and we all want a Federal grant money so that's why the policy committee supports this are there any questions all right control please is scammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr Mayor Reno yes Miss tarpinian yes Mr Pini huh we have a motion yeah yeah we don't I don't think we have

094a motion thank you there's never a motion too before we do asked for a vote yes that's correct thank you for pointing that out thank you for that John I apologize um okay do I have a motion to approve the first reading of policy djr the federal procurement manual for school units still moved second my goodness thank you very much um okay can we call the role please the vote please no do you want to clarify that there's no more is there any more discussion I'm sorry okay Mrs given yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinion yes Mr peony Huff yes Miss pertulia and Mr Shumway yes perfect thank you and I apologize again um agenda item 9.4 is the first reading of policy e b c

095a the comprehensive health and safety and Emergency Management plan all right so this policy um we did make a couple of changes but nothing substantive we changed the wills to shows in a couple of places um that would have been in the very first line of it and then we put in Scarborough School District where appropriate instead of the generic name School unit name um ultimately this is a statutory uh policy it's in your beautiful orange book um I haven't flagged but wants to read it but it is laid out in 20amrs 1001 subtraction 16. this is mandatory the policy is mandatory the language is mandatory so all right do I have a motion to approve the first reading of policy ebca the comprehensive health and safety and Emergency Management plan who moved second is

096there any discussion just had a quick question yeah on uh in the third paragraph does it does that mean that uh the superintendent do I call you superintendent or can I just say Jeff we'll go superintendent we'll submit a plan so we'll does that mean we'll be getting a plan to review yes so what we did was we actually discussed um within the policy you know we have that binder that I we made for you when you first came on and in that binder is a yearly calendar of the things we have to do so this has now been added to that so um Diane suggested September would be a good month to review that because that's when the school year is starting and when this would would is it seems an appropriate time for

097us to review this annually but as one point of clarity um we would not be providing a detailed copy of that Emergency Management plan because that is a confidential plan because of the nature of the topic also just I don't know if you're if you care um what was shared with us is that we actually largely already have a plan we do um so we actually are in compliance with the law we just don't have the policy to go with them correct yeah and I would just add the timing of of that review is good because there were some significant changes this past year um in terms of the plan and and then also some additional um technology and procedures that we have in place this year thank you Carolyn I'm having a we did

098take a motion already Yes okay thank you now I'm scared all right can we call the vote please Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinian yes Miss trapiniha here yes Miss bertilia yes the wheels have come off the bus completely yeah all right agenda item 9.5 is the first reading of policy gbn the Family and Medical Leave Emma yeah maybe a good place to go FML English um this again is statutory and makes two changes that are effective um Maine made two changes once effective was one was became effective in October 2021 one became effective August of 2022 has to do effective days of statutes um this brings us into compliance with the definitions of there which includes new member new members to the family

099category grandchildren domestic Partners grandchildren and it also extends benefits to folks who work at the school for at least 900 hours in the previous 12 months which enlarges the group entitled to it but though again those are both statutory changes all right do I have a motion to approve the first reading of policy gbn family and medical leave who moved second is there any discussion all right can we call them Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinian yes Mr Penny have yes Miss bertulia yes and Mr Shumway yes perfect thank you um 9.6 is the first reading of policy gcfbr which is the recruiting and hiring of administrative staff administrative procedure so for this policy we did make one substantive change which is um previously

100we required the policy required that we advertise and print media for job postings which is something that's uh no longer uh done based on expense and lack of response um we use the internet this is an amazing device so this uh we edited it to just um allow immediate Vega so that um the appropriate parties in HR can decide where to place the advertisement in appropriate media instead of directing it to be printed but that's the only change um other than that it it just it's it's not in this is not a statutory uh law however this is a procedure that would be required um to make sure that we are in compliance with all the hiring practices that will keep us out of trouble perfect do I have a motion to approve the first

101reading and policy gcfbr the recruiting and hiring of administrative staff administrative procedure all moved second all right any discussion all right Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher here I mean yes Miss Liang yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr Mayor Reno yes Miss tarpinian yes Mr Pini huh yes Miss bertilia yes and Mr Shumway yes thank you okay I'm gonna bundle nine seven and nine eight because those are the two that go together so this is the second reading of policy ACAA the transgender and gender expansive students and the second reading of policy a c a a a e transgender student support plan so um I'm going to turn over to Thriller to talk through the changes that were um suggested and what the policy did what the policy committee decided sure so the policy committee um went

102through um we listened to we had additional public comment we had additional um comment through email um we've obviously been addressed by Folks at all of our meetings here um and we have tried to respond um to all those in our meeting sort of going back through so we went back through the policy pretty much line by line again um it was more quick this time which was uh good because it's taking I think it took us five meetings to get through the entire policy um so looking at the changes that we made we changed all the kind of permissive and this has been spoken to um shoulds Woods to be consistently shall and we have this great function on our computers a lot of search for all the words and change into shell which

103was very helpful but we think we caught them all um and so that was the that was one of the biggest changes that's throughout the document I'm not going to list every one of them um other than that um we considered um we added at our last when the first reading when we had um the attorney I think she's Melissa Huey here um to address us she helped craft some language at the beginning which really helped set the tone for the policy which is that I view this policy as an invitation or a calling in to all the members around a student um whose policy this is affected by this policy and who needs um to use this policy um and so we added at the end of the last sentence in the kind of

104purpose statement is that the administrators and School staff are expected to consider the needs of students on a case-by-case basis work in partnership with parents and or Guardians and to follow this policy and other available resources as appropriate and so we made that change in response to commentary to just make sure that we really from the outset ensure that I really see this again as a call in for parents and families in the school to work together this policy is intended it is not it does not take the place it's a apparent child relationship it's not intended to do that what it is intended to do is to when there's an identifiable issue at school that's identified by a parent a student or a staff member teacher guidance counselor building administrator somebody involved in with

105that student's life and they identify an issue that issue and and the individual believes that there is support needed for that student any of those individuals can then start this process which would then address um the students needs um and that's really the whole purpose of this policy and I think in some you know some of the discussions um for people who are against this policy and who are for this policy sort of are enlarging it to sort of take the place or sort of eclipse a parent-child relationship or interfere or or how people are raising children or make it very large and I want to be really clear that this policy is is is really intended for a very discreet moment at school where somebody at school the student a parent a teacher another

106staff member identifies that there is an issue going on that could be bullying it could be harassing it could be a mental health issue being suffered by a student based on you know internal their internal thought process and worries that they have it could be something that comes up in the classroom but if there's an issue it needs to be addressed by the school and so this is the school's process to address those issues um so with that I think I hope everyone's had an opportunity to review it it is not substantively different than the one we've looked at first reading except for those those changes that I mentioned I don't think we made any changes we did make one change to the form this is a form that's been in I want to be

107clear there is also already a policy and in fact this is this would change that policy um as part of the process that's currently ongoing in the school Scarborough actually created a really great document a confidential student gender support plan that helps guide the meetings that are currently occurring and we sort of brought that document which I want I really whoever created it and whatever thought process went into it was really good um that was great work it gave us a really good place to sort of move this document it we just brought it into alignment with the policy and we also we changed the woods to shells we tried to make it a little brief so we had some duplications of of parts of it where we had two lists of attendees and roles

108try to collapse it to make it a little bit easier again you don't want the form to like make meetings more complicated you want the form to just document what the meeting was about and then when we talk about names which is something that I suspect would be an issue in some of these meetings one of the one of the boxes is the dialogue and it's how will a teacher or staff member responded questions about a student's gender from other students staff parents and Guardians and community and we separated out the parents and Guardians and the community and I think this is important because I think it's really um important to memorialize an agreement so that everybody's on the same page about how somebody is referred to um and if that person has different um

109it is currently using different identities in different places in their lives um that everybody is is aware of that so we can honor and respect and make sure that we are supporting that student in a manner that is beneficial to them and also talks about um uh how will how will teachers and staff and I think how students will refer to themselves and that I think is important to make sure that that is specifically discussed so there's no accidents or assumptions that create unattended consequences and I think that you know some of these boxes um feel a little bit odd or or if it's if it's a situation you haven't encountered seems to be really enlarged but I think it really is important that this document really goes through the school aspect of what happens

110in schools and I really want to compliment whoever created this form and really went into detail about sports and facilities and everything the document is really clear and I think Clarity is the best protection we can give students is that everyone knows what to expect so that was that was sort of the policy committee's main discussion and focus around this policy thank you okay so do I have a motion to approve the second reading of policy a c a a transgender and gender expansive students in the and approve the second reading of policy acaae the transgender student support plan it's all moved second is there any discussion I just wanted to oh go ahead thank you now I just wanted to add that I think it speaks volumes of everyone that made public comment on

111this policy um I think it indicates that the policy is not about the parent child Dynamic but about how we are going to support this within our schools um so you know having working been reading this policy over and over again I think it actually is very detailed and it really focuses on how we can make this experience a better experience for our children thank you Jenna and so I just wanted to First say thank you um to the policy policy team for you know listening to feedback and and incorporating it where they felt it was um best and so that is very much appreciated I'll still abstain tonight um because of a couple issues that we talked about the last time but I you know I'm definitely not going to vote now um but

112I just wanted to let you know that I do appreciate um your work and your efforts thank you Carolyn I also very similar to what Jenna was saying um I I think having that family piece was important to me and having it emphasized and making it just clear uh and and so I I do think that this helps and obviously we had some help from our attorney to come up with the lingo there um again I do wish that the students had stayed so that they could actually see some of this and some of their work come to fruition um I would say that Carolyn and I had noticed something that I thought was interesting and I just asked the the students there are different forms of protests that are out there and we we

113had picked up on the fact that when we did the Pledge that all of the students who spoke decided to sit and I thought that was kind of interesting it's not something personally I believe in or I agree with um so I just asked them you know to consider why do you actually choose to protest in that way because it came off as a protest to me and Carolyn and I kind of looked at each other you know to me I I look at it differently um and I don't view it as being connected to this policy and I feel like this board has been very respectful of the students who came and spoke here both last time and this time um and so I don't want to say that I found it disrespectful but

114in a way I I didn't find it right um just because I I think saying the Pledge is something that we've done for years and years in a school and so I I don't understand if it was a part of protest I wish they had mentioned what the deal was with that uh but you know and and they're welcome to email us and kind of clarify for that that's that's fine too I I welcome that just to be educated as to where that came from but I think it's important and when I used to teach there were some students that literally out of the laziness wouldn't stand up and I said You know guys let's talk about where the pledge comes from like what's the importance of it and certain students would talk about that

115I don't teach anymore but I think that it's important that students think about if they're going to protest and they're going to sit for something that has been a tradition in our schools for a really really really long time think about why you're choosing to do that um I just don't know that this was the right place for that thank you Brian any other I just wanted to respond to Brian um interestingly I I didn't quite pick up on it maybe I just didn't feel like it was a protest and I and I felt that the students that came were merely there to just support this policy that was there and maybe some of them this was a new experience to come uh to a board meeting you know focusing on their bravery and courage

116to stand up at the podium and speak and and really not focusing on the traditional aspect of standing up um for this moment so uh I guess you know it's kind of off topic for for this policy tonight I think we just need to vote on a policy but we can kind of talk more and explore if there's a if this was a protest we can kind of talk with you on like how can we make this a better experience for you so that we're all together on this thank you Jenna um I just have a just a quick um follow-up on the clarity piece and how the clarity of the policies help our students and ensure that they know exactly what to inspect I think this also was helpful for our staff so that

117they have very clear guidance on what they can expect and how um they can help to create this safe environment for our students as well so I think um it likely it's you know we've heard from the students but I would likely think from the the staff and administration as well that this is helpful to to just create um a sense of understanding across across the board film all right if there's no more comments we will um I will ask the call to vote please Mrs Gannon abstain Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yeah this is Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss tarpinian yes Miss trapini Huff yes Miss bertulia yes and Mr Shumway yes okay thank you um agenda item 9.9 are the meeting minutes of April 6 2023. do I have an do I

118have a motion to approve the meeting minutes as presented so moved second any discussion Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yeah Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss terpinian yes Mr peony yes Miss bertulia yeah and Mr Shumway yes perfect thank you um agenda item 9.10 is in a point our appointments and 9.10.1 is the Middle School spring coach eighth grade softball Mr Matt link head coach that's very exciting all right do you have a motion to approve the Middle School spring coach as presented second is there any discussion Mrs Gannon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Liang yeah Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorina yes Mr pinion yes Miss trapini huh yes Miss bertuglia yeah Mr Shumway yes perfect thank you agenda item 10.0 is adjournment do I have a motion to adjourn oh

119Lord second thank you um is there any discussion all right Mrs Gammon yes Mr Kelleher yes Miss Leong yes Mrs Lindstrom yes Mr mayorino yes Miss terpinian yes Miss trapini huh yes Miss bertuglia yes and Mr