001good evening and welcome to the regularly scheduled scarborough board of education meeting the date is thursday august 18th 2022. may i have the role please yes mrs giptis she's been excused mr kelleher here miss leong here mrs lindstrom here mr peeny huff here mrs turner here miss bertullia here and mr shumway here perfect can everybody please join me in the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty all right agenda item 4.0 our public i'm sorry our adjustments to the agenda i would like to move up um the room fee waiver request the mix and mingle square dance club i would like to move that up um from item 9.4 up to um 5.0 so above public comment or
002i'm sorry after public comments so 6.0 right so looking for her in all right are there any other adjustments nope no other adjustments all right agenda item 5.0 is public comment on agenda items is there anybody wishing to make public comment they're here online all right seeing none i will close public comment all right so our new agenda item 6.0 is the room fee waiver request the mix and mingle square dance club would you like to step up to the hi there um kid i ask that you read the motion that you have um the motion is to approve a room wave request for thursday nights starting september of 2022 through june of 2023 from 6 15 to 8 45 pm okay in my letter i would like to amend that because in my letter
003it said not only a room waiver request but a waiver of custodial fees yes yes you're right it does say a waiver of charges for the use of the multi-purpose room and custodial fees at eight corner schools so as you know in the past two years social dancing has taken a really big hit especially when you have a group of square dancers which dance in a group of eight and they're all you know touching each other all the time and dancing through each other's breath so we're just trying to get things back to normal by asking for the same waivers that we have had previously do you have any questions are there any questions no i think we're thank you for that um so uh i can read through what this says it says um
004the the mix and mingle square dance club is requesting the waiver like we just discussed of the multi-purpose room and custodial fees it would be on thursday evenings from september 22 september of 2022 through june of 2023 from 6 15 to 8 45 for square dance classes they are a non-profit group and have been using eight corners schools since bessie's school closed and have danced in scarborough schools for more than 20 years at the end of each year we they make a donation to the schools that funds are available they will continue with the annual contribution if the club is able to financially do so so do i have a motion to approve the um room waiver request and the custodial fees at eight corner school for the square dancing club so moved second is
005there any discussion any questions so this is something we already were waving previously and then it's because they haven't had it for a couple years it stopped now they're just wanting to go back to the way it was that is my understanding that's correct correct okay thank you um is there um i'm just trying to think through there's the custodians we we have them are they there during that time anyway is that during a shift yeah okay so um we are all present today so we can go ahead and do um by hand vote by hand i'm all in favor of waiving the room fee in the custodial fees at eight corner school on thursday nights for the square dancing club all right thank you so much the motion passes thank you absolutely enjoy the
006square dancing [Laughter] all right agenda item 7.0 now is the superintendent's report there we go um yeah i i just on this slide it's going to highlight the the message that i was going to send out um as far as an august update and really just to extend the fact that i always forget to turn my microphone on um just extend our thanks to to everyone for just a really successful summer between our summer academy and extended school year programs to all the facilities work that's been happening from the turf to the new stem labs to just the buildings look phenomenal the closer we get um you know to bring our kids back and and then you know certainly in the last couple of days with um all of our student athletes out on on
007on the new turf and also on all the new i mean it's just you know it's it's getting close although i will remind everyone we're still in summer um and there's still some summer left and you know in addition um you know we've had wentworth was packed with uh community programs and just there's been just a lot of energy in addition to professional development for staff and curriculum work and and so just just a special thanks to everyone involved in all those efforts as we as we made it through the summer um and then i also wanted to take a little time if we go to the next slide just to highlight um a a new website that's uh for our scarborough schools building project which is right on the home page right at the
008top there's a special button for it even when you go when you go to it and this new website really outlines for anyone in the public all the information that's that's been presented i mean everything is on that website that's related to this building project that um you know that has really been talked about our facilities needs for over 10 years now so and and that's something that that we were able to highlight in a drawing joint workshop last night uh between the board uh this board and the town council uh and and what really struck me as part of the presentation was the i think the reaction collectively to the timeline graphic that that i just wanted to highlight in terms of our facilities at the k-2 level and then also the middle school
009where students have been in temporary classrooms we have 30 30 temporary classrooms across the district most of which have been utilized you know again these are designed to be temporary but have been utilized for in some cases in excess of 20 years um and at you know four of our schools across the district and and i think that really struck a chord um in recognition of the fact that that you know this isn't future growth or future needs that we're dealing with but really past present and future you know and so going through that project history uh in terms of our facilities needs and the need for a new uh school building in scarborough for elementary and k to three specifically um as well as sixth grade just underscores kind of the importance of of
010and educa you know communicating continue to communicate and educate people about this project as we go through so um i did include the the timeline link on this slide and then and my next slide um just wanted to [Music] encourage you know obviously this board and then the public to get involved in some upcoming educational visioning workshops so the building committee that's been meeting very regularly since january of this year has also started our communication subcommittee which has been very active within the last month two month and a half or so to really get the word out on this project uh through social media through the development of this website that's now linked to our home page and then also some of the slides that we've been sharing we've got flyers as well that we're
011trying to disseminate and then starting to talk about these three workshops for the fall that are all going to be happening via zoom virtually so um uh people who who would like to participate in these workshops the first is september 8th from 6 to 8 p.m the second september 19th from six to eight uh and the third is october 18th from six to eight so we attempted to do one of these workshops in the spring it was it was very challenging to get um participation active participation in these so um we're i think we're in a position now where there's more awareness and there's a little more um momentum here and then obviously communication from from the building committee so i'm hopeful that we can get a good number of staff and community members involved
012in these workshops and it's really designed to to think through what we want our s this consolidated k-3 solution or in elementary school spaces to be you know taking into account all of the deficiencies of the the current smaller schools what do our kids need um in this space and this and then in this program to make sure that we're able to deliver services in the best way possible for our students so that educational visioning piece i think will work most effectively when it's a combination of you know district leadership um building leadership staff faculty teachers as well as parents families and students frankly even so um putting in a plug for that for those workshops and and throwing those dates out and there's going to be obviously more communication that will come forth soon
013and i think the easiest way to get people involved and to sign up for these virtual workshops will be through you know like a google form being sent out or people can sign up and and then get provided the link and we're off and running for those dates so anyway uh but the the the meeting last night i thought was um was went really well and and it was a a a real collaborative tone i felt between you know the council and the boe you know in terms of that discussion around you know overdue facilities needs for our kids that is my update and it's still summer and it's still summer are there any questions or comments for jeff um i just would add um i heard this said last night actually by lisa and
014i thought it was a really good way to describe these visioning workshops is that they um she said they're really the meat and potatoes of this project right like this is really where um the exciting time to get you know it's exciting to get to work and in this and what you're really doing as a participant in this is really planning for the strategic vision for the for the district going forward which is which is really exciting so hopefully um for those listening there's there'll be some some renewed interest in in participating in this that would be great yeah great all right so i am up next um two before i move into the next slide i have two um two pieces of information to share the first is that um just as a side
015note or just as a note um the first board meeting in september which is september 1st we will be fully remote because this um the chambers will be undergoing maintenance work so we will actually have a fully remote meeting so um i just want to um go ahead and put that on your radar now and then um let the public know that as well all right um the second announcement is that the all district opening is august 29th at 8 a.m so if you are available that morning and would love to come down and welcome our staff um at the turf that we will be at the new turf field and there is as i understand a lot of new staff members because we had a lot of retirement so it will be a good
016opportunity to welcome everybody on their first day back um so that'll be 8 a.m to about nine nine fifteen at the at the turpin at the turf and track all right my next slide this is the exciting one look at the nature this is our um our turf is open officially it is finished it looks beautiful absolutely gorgeous um and this is our field hockey team that was out so our teams that are participating in fall practices are already out already out on the field so i have heard very positive things i was telling jeff my son came home with his very first turf turf burn from the new turf yep so it's getting its use already that's right so um this has been a labor of love as we all know and it's just
017great to see that it's open and it's it's um able you know it's in use and the kids are really loving it already as you can tell that's that all right so my next slide so now we're going to move into the two pieces of information um two big two big parts of information we have to talk about the first are um the town charter proposed changes that are before town council right now so um i spoke to to john um the the with the counselor klushi um about a month ago about some of the changes that are in the in the new proposals and um at the time what he was looking for was really to try to get a try to get our perspective on really what he's looking for is the election
018change that's that's really where his he wanted to know what our thoughts were um however we of course are in summer session and so we are meeting only once a month and the reality is this was our next board meeting after um when i spoke with him and this is really a conversation that should be held in the public and really available for the public to participate in as they if they so chose so um i did ask him for some time to be able to speak with you um what that means though is since they're um they are they are very curious to hear what our perspective is is after we discuss this tonight i will write him in the town council a letter on our behalf just stating what what our perspective is
019on these changes um like i said he is really focused on the election one i did however want to just bring this one up um this is a change in current language so um current the current language so when you're reading this one um what is crossed out and in red is what's proposed to be removed what's in red and just in red is what is proposed to be added so if you read this one this this is um in regard to vacancies that might occur on the board of education so in other words if we have a vacancy is um you know we just walk through this process if it is um more than six months beyond our next regular election so more than six months then we we would um have that special
020election if it is less than six months until our next scheduled election then the um vacancy may be filled at the option of the town council so it would not be at the board of education's option so i did reach out to john today this morning to talk to him to try to get an understanding around this and um it is i am waiting on an interpretation but it where we are right now is it appears that really that the um ownership of that the ability to put something on ballot rests with town council and not with the board of education and my only worry that i that um i see is i just want to be sure that we have a voice in this process somehow so um what i would like for us
021to talk about is um what do we think about maybe asking or advocating for a change in the language a little bit to where maybe it says something like the vacancy may at the option of the town council after consulting with the board something along that lines to where we know we have us we have a voice in this process where we're not just idly on the sidelines i think maybe it should be something more like that if we decide if it's within six months less than six months like you said that if we decide we want to have a special election that maybe we go through the town council since they have to do it but rather than leave it up to them or having to get their permission i think we should be
022able to decide if we want to we decided we didn't want to fill it this time and we were going to wait why should they take that from us going forward well i that was initially when i talked to john when i called john that was actually where i was going like i'm not quite sure why this would change but um it apparently it's a it's a legality so i understand going through them but i think we should be able to decide we want to do it or not rather than have them decide if it's best for us to have a special election or not just like we decided that okay you know what we can make it until november we don't need to do it why why should they come in not knowing what
023we have going on and then decide that for us um because and i i asked i asked actually about our um what we just went through i said well what if we had as a board decided that we did want to hold a special election he said what would have happened is it would have gone to town council and they they could have very they they have the authority to say you know what no we're not going to hold a special election we hear you when i get there and that's fine but we should still be able to decide if we want to hold the election or at least try to have it instead of them deciding uh no or yes it's we should be able to we should have the voice and then we'll
024go okay now we have to go we decide yes we want to now we know we have to go to town council and ask rather than them take that away from us and say no we're not going to do it or or if we don't want to do it and they just say yeah we're going to do it i mean we should i think we should have the the voice and we should drive the bus there and then yeah we have to make a stop at town council before we get there but at least we're driving the bus yeah yep i agree yeah go ahead i totally agree with john i i do think it should be the board's voice and i think as strongly as we can get that language in there that will
025pass by the lawyer would be better like if it can say at the option of the town council based on a recommendation from the board of education i think as strong as we can get it worded in there that it should be the board's choice obviously with the town council having the legal authority to do it right yeah i like that language so it's it's to repeat what she said at the option so the vacancy may at the option of the town council at the recommendation of the board be filled i wasn't trying to make up language i was just saying well we should have to say something yeah yes and i agree i i think that where my worry was what i told john is that to me when you read through the read
026this as it's proposed we we end up being um almost like bystanders in our in our process right like it's it's kind of happening around us without us as i read it here exactly what i saw yeah and i think any language we can get their legal counsel to agree to that doesn't eliminate us from the process i like your wording so far yeah and i totally agree we definitely need to be the driving force of it and yes they have the final say but we need to be the ones spearheading it perfect all right so now i feel good all right so the next one next slide please this is the big this is the one that um really to borrow the phrase i just used them the meat and potatoes of where we
027need to look so what this proposal would do it would change it would leave town council elections as is and it would change board of education elections and they would they would no longer happen in november they would now happen in june when we vote on the the budget so this is something sorry siri just she wanted to be a part of it yes she wanted to be a part um [Laughter] so this has been something that previous boards have also discussed and has um really there is a lot of i would say a lot of support for this because you think about when you come in now you know we tend to operate off of a school year right so what happens right now is we have new board members that are coming in
028after the school year has started after we've set goals it's kind of this awkward time for lack of a better phrase right and so if we change this to june that gives us an opportunity to onboard new members before the school year starts so they can kind of get their feet underneath them before we're taken up and running in september so um the other thing and this is more of a when we talk about professional development on the board side so if you think about the one the three of you that just had come on so jenna john and julian you started in november and literally the week or two weeks before that is the annual school board training so you will almost have gone a full year on your in your seat before you
029even have that training available to you so that's where i always saw that this was a little the disconnect with this because that training um when i finally got it i found it to be incredibly helpful and insightful for my seat here and defining it and what that means and um our role as board members versus jeff's role as the superintendent so that's that's kind of the push for this i think would also be very beneficial to committees where we don't think we just started until january with when we got in and got going and then you figure out okay who wants to be where if we can do that in the summer before school starts and then we're off and running with uh you know committee starting in september you know october at the
030latest then we're months and months ahead and we can get i think we get a lot more done and maybe take some pressure off of certain things where we don't have to cram it into a shorter period of time we have it's just a thought but that's a good point yeah great yeah i also think it's would be nice and you guys can weigh in on it but i feel like we're very disruptive to your timeline with new board members starting in november it might be nice for you and your staff to have board members start when you have more time to sort of invest in getting new members up to speed on how things work yeah no question and you think about the budget cycle too you know i mean it's it to john's
031point you you've got a very small window of time before all of a sudden you're consumed with budget mm-hmm yeah so yeah and the committees i mean you know um we've we've had some committees this year that weren't able to get started quite frankly until really the school year was about done right so it's that's a very valid point that that's another just an added bonus to this yeah i mean the other thing is there are a lot of districts in the state that do have june elections so it's not unusual there's nothing we might are we i don't even know what the numbers are if it's more unusual to have november or june but a lot happened in june yeah so um i think i'm hearing that we're all uh okay we're all supportive
032of the june the june vote okay so that's part one of this part oh sorry no no you go home [Laughter] so that is part one part two um if you read on where it says the term uh for members of the board of education elected on our prior to november 8th 2022 which will be the whole board right so um after this next election when their term expires um there was a question or part of the part of this discussion was around okay how do we how do we seat new members right because all of our terms go november currently go november to november so the second part of this would be that you would actually serve instead of ending in november you would serve until the next june so it's going to extend
033your term by six months no you're getting you're getting um you're going until you're going to stay on until your successors come in june we'll get hazard pay right doesn't affect me it doesn't affect you but everybody that'll essentially it will be the full board after this next election and it may affect you so yeah so the everybody the full board following this next election would be impacted so um i i curious to hear your thoughts is that does everybody feel that that would be um better would it be better to cut your terms short um this is again this is the proposal the proposed language is to extend what's a few months seriously i think personally for me it would have been helpful to have those prior members on board just to ease the
034transition um you know when you're when you're joining you're kind of just jumping in and here's all this information and even now almost you know almost a year in i'm still finding out new information and i think having someone prior with the you know being in whatever committees that you might be in would be able to offer their expertise and offer their knowledge um so i think it'd be really helpful and beneficial to the whole board having that support i mean not to say because there are other people that were on the board prior but it's also a lot on their plate you know trying to get us all acclimated to our new positions on top of the day-to-day school board activities yeah yeah and that's another reason why i like the june because i
035think you know we i'm going to use air quotes because it doesn't feel like this summer has been quiet but our summer time is our quiet time right so that's when you kind of have this opportunity to to really learn without jumping into the fire so to speak right all right so do we feel good about six months extended everybody sounds like i want to make sure you will get paid for yes your next yes your next second in your net your last six months could be at a higher pay rate yeah right there there is a proposal for a higher for an increase all right and then i think there's one more this is just the the last piece of this and it's just describes um for purposes of filling vacancies so this was
036something that was missing out of the current charter um and so they've rectified that and added it in that the um june referendum is considered a normal election for us now i have a question about that if this passes does that make the vacancy conversation like obsolete since every six months we have what is considered a regular election yeah i can go back and ask wouldn't it i mean if these passes i don't know if they're doing the other one because they don't know if this one's going to pass yeah that's a good point right this is yeah [Music] if this one passes and they're now considering june and november regular elections and then you go back to the one about board vacancies it says like if you're within six months the conversation about a
037special special election doesn't even happen because you would just do it at the next regular scheduled election right yeah that okay i i listened to the conversation last night at the town council meeting um and i guess i didn't even catch that part but that does you wouldn't have yeah i guess from november to june you would right because that would be seven months but june to november you would not well it would still be so you would like one month a year yeah you would have that option yeah one month is when this would apply um we really gonna talk this out no um but it would still be considered a special election because it would be off term right i mean well it depends when it falls so if you if you um
038or if an individual board member it was november 1st and they decided they wanted to resign or they had to resign from the board that would be more than six months until the next election because november to december january february march april may june so you're seven months out so when you're seven months out that is where that clause kicks in where the town council may hold a special election do you want to go can you can you um go back one or two actually no i'm sorry i said it the wrong way i'm sorry let me let me take let me change what i just told you so let me rephrase that so if it was june 1st and some or june 2nd and somebody had to resign from their seat there is less
039than six months until the next election less than six months until november so then that is when town council has the option to hold the special special election i'm trying to think in the wording of this if like does the board or the council ever have the option to say like say our vacancy happened in july naturally the election would happen in november just right anyone have authority to say we don't even want to do that we just we just want to wait until june within six months so if it's within six months yes that's when the town council can say no no if it's within six months council can say no to a special election to a special election but can anyone say no to filling that seat during the next regular election or
040does that have to happen based on this language yeah that's that's what i was trying yeah now i'm understanding yeah so you're talking about are we able and let me rephrase and see if i have this right are you saying are we able to run the board at less than seven members if we choose to do that for longer than six months yeah is that an option yeah i'm i'm assuming it's not right i don't the way i read this shall be filmed yeah right the first sentence yeah yeah describes what you're talking about and yeah okay it will it will be filled yep so if it's six if it's more than six months um we do not have the option to run minus a person okay all right so i will get those our
041thoughts over to um to town council all right um now so we'll move on from charter language and we'll talk about the um maine school board association the annual um delegates meeting that comes up um well comes up every year um we're soon we'll be in that time and jillian is going to represent scarborough um at the at the meeting which is a very you'll have a great time it's it's always interesting um what happens at the meeting is that delegates or representatives from all of the districts around the state of maine get together and they discussed they discuss proposed um deletions proposed additions and proposed new amendments or to their their policies and their procedures so um what these are what we what i would like us to do tonight is discuss each of
042these give jillian some talking points for um the meeting so that when she goes she's accurate she's able to say hey this is how scarborough feels about these um deletions additions and new new amendments make sense so the first one um there is a proposed deletion they're proposing to delete two existing resolutions that you can see here um school safety and violence in the schools so they're proposing to delete those because they think that this one crime violence and discipline covers it so that that's the rationale behind it are there any any thoughts on this one i mean it's safe to assume that they did this in consultation with their attorney correct i i would assume so but that would be something that would maybe you might want to confirm when you're there but my
043assumption would be yes but so it's just deleting into redundancy well i actually think that um if you read the originals i think that this one is much more robust than what the two the two originals were maybe two sentences each oh geez so this to me um it goes more in depth um it's more robust has more meat to it than the other two did so i actually think this one to me seems like a better a better fit all right any other thoughts on this one all right in the next one um so that was the only deletion then we had some proposed revisions that came through so this is the um administration of medication um so what this is saying is that the main school board association urges the local school to
044adopt policy governing the administration of medications to students in school so on these slides um i copied straight out of the the coloring is different because i copied straight from the proposed resolutions so that jillian would have um accurate she'd be looking at the same thing when she when she's in this meeting um so there is a little bit of a difference here the underlined words and yellow are additions the strikeouts are proposal proposed removals so um to me i i i we just want you it's interesting that this comes up because we just did this policy and policy review we just um and policy committee just talked about it um i'm not sure i understand what um the the language to limit or prohibit current options um i don't know what current options would
045mean otherwise so to me maybe this broadens it a little bit i don't know do you do either of you have thoughts on that i don't have specific thoughts on it but i do wonder you know if it is if it is really targeted to the um medical marijuana policy that we have in terms of medication but at the end of the day i think you know it is the school's role to make sure that students are getting their prescribed medications right um as i'm looking at this i the word option should not be struck out i was just going to say it so i apologize so it what it took out is the current so the current is is proposed to be removed so it would actually read msba opposes legislation that would limit
046or prohibit options available does that make sense so i i'm sorry i didn't recognize that before i apologize i can fix it um yeah i guess that's and maybe that's exactly what it is because i was trying to figure out like why what is the purpose of this and it seemed to me that it's expanding that what an option is but maybe that's exactly what it is the medical marijuana yeah i mean that's just a wonder yeah so i have is there any comments on this one i don't want to pose to it i don't think we should stand in the way if somebody's doctor says that they need this who are we to decide that they don't yeah my other wonder when it says current does that mean when options change that this has
047to be updated every time like does it kind of take out that need to constantly come back and revise this so to me it might it might be a clerical efficiency as well yeah i mean i think anything that i don't know why we would not want this i don't want our choices as a board being limited all right um this one is the main educational assessments so it's that's what they the wording used to be so they're proposing to strike that and call it state assessments um this is just in line with removing the me language there is a grammatical error so when you speak with them the and before science should come out so it should be language arts comma math comma science yeah there's just an extra hand does that make sense
048jillian that extra and yeah what what's the rationale for changing it to state assessments instead of maine educational assessments it's it's the name of the assessment because we are currently using the nwea yeah um formally the main educational assessment was a locally developed assessment in the state of maine thank you so to me this seems like something that we could easily support right just yeah all right so our next one so this is legislative mandates um um does anybody have before i go does anybody have any thoughts on this one this is um this is a proposal that would limit that would that essentially says that the msba really urges the legislator not to interfere with responsibilities at the local the school board level um i have very strong feelings about this i think i
049made that known previously in previous situations where i don't believe that we should be hamstrung by what's happening at the state level right sometimes even when it's not uh when it's an inadvertent um interference it still happens and it makes our job a little bit harder right so i am fully in favor um in favor of this i think we were elected by scarborough citizens to make decisions that would impact our local level and impact us locally right and sometimes that interference whether it's intentional or not just him just makes it harder for us to make those decisions i'm with you on that one i fully support that you know we make the decisions for scarborough not all of maine gets to make a decision for scarborough i agree i think you can mark that
050as highly supportive is there any other thoughts on this one all right so this is scheduling of career and technical education programs um some of this seems name change um to me anyway what i would what i would classify as wording change um to fit the current names of programs adding the word guardians behind parents um what i thought would was interesting is the addition of in regions so if you look at down at the bottom a it says provide for a greater opportunity for shared funding and decision making responsibilities within units served by career and technical centers and regions so to me this is um you know we we've we participated on a lot of um joint ventures i will say with other districts right and that to me is what this is speaking
051to and i think we we have demonstrated at least in scarborough that when we have that need to to collaborate if we can and it works it works pretty well um it's just my fault um i will say i did wonder and this would be maybe a question jeff for you and diane about the flexibility and the scheduling of courses i'm not sure why we would want to remove that language and so i did have some concern there because when you want the flexibility to to schedule those as it worked for the district i think about like when we talk about the the calendar at the start of the year you know this is one of the things you consider making sure that our calendar is in line with other districts right because the i
052mean that's just the nature of the model of cte you know um in these regions right that is that it's a hybrid it's not a fully comprehensive experience they're half with us in half at the cte um center so that that that just and perhaps that's why that was struck because there's an element of flexibility that you actually don't have yeah yeah you have to become inflexible knowing that like there's the way your school day is planned really needs to jive with the cte that you're working with so that your students can access that right like if if we have five districts that are going to a cte those five districts really need to be coordinated if we all wanted to be flexible in the way that we scheduled our students would not have the
053same access to programming also almost wonder if if the new a that they have in there or if that's even new but just leaving it at decision making responsibility sort of encompasses yeah that scheduling piece yeah i mean that yeah it's i mean it's a huge challenge because there's no comprehensive cte school you know um right that's standalone full you know you're that's your full academic program right it's it's it's half half in half out half in your home school and half of the house or at least well that makes sense so it's the exact opposite of what i was thinking coming in like where i was thinking he would want more flexibility to work it's actually the opposite you actually shouldn't can't have that you have to align with the other the scheduling is
054is is definitely challenging it just doesn't work unless you change the model obviously all right well that's good feedback for joining me all right um this is the alternative certification um so this is speaking to the filling of positions where we know um shortages have been an issue um across the state right not just in education but really in all aspects of jobs but um this one um what i found interesting is that maybe the wording is is such that perhaps you can look elsewhere in other in other job sectors for um employees for to to have a employment goal so um i don't know what are your thoughts do you have thoughts on this one but you can currently do that under the revised chapter 115 laws for certification and credentialing of employees so
055someone who's coming from the private sector can be certified through an alternate pathway by having a substantial amount of credits like i believe it's 24 credits in that discipline so for example if i am a biologist and i have more than 24 credits in biology those could count towards my certification to become a biology teacher the state's already made those pathways available so if you stated holiday express you can then become a teacher or you know i'm saying you don't have to go the same route just be whatever they decide is like i know what happened in florida you can it was just crazy what how easy it was to become a teacher where you stood and talked with somebody for you know a week and then or two weeks or whatever well i'm sure
056everybody heard about this it was like mind-boggling we talked about the same kind of stuff or much stricter much more stringent okay good just just just making sure much more stringent so does this undo that like is this no no i think that this is in support of the statutory changes that have already gone into effect yeah okay i think there's been there's been a recognition that there just haven't for people who are eminently qualified to be teaching or consider teaching or and have that alternative pathway and would be super effective in the classroom it's it's they've been hamstrung by a very very inflexible um series of requirements to to to get the certification that they need yeah yeah because in general teachers search teacher programs are very prescriptive so if you go through a
057teacher education program your sequence of course work would be very prescriptive right because you'd have to have a methods class for this and a memphis class for that etc etc and what they're saying now is that they realize that there is actually a connection between doing work in that field effective teaching right and i think the other value in this is that second sentence around the continuation of studying other pathways that may not have been developed yet just curious if you know or is the state still issuing emergency certificates for teachers okay and this is a good thing for administrators as well that same would apply that there are shortages across every area in education as long as it's easier for the right people and not for the wrong people i guess that's all i
058was concerned with because i'm like you just hear the horror stories and i'm like please tell me that's not what we're doing and remember we always get to decide who we hire whether you're certified or not yeah yeah i mean i think this just opens us up to developing who you currently have you know given the fact that during coven there are all these emergency certificates given to anyone who's on paper qualified they may not necessarily have that experience and this would encourage that to move forward within their careers yes i kind of think of when you're talking about a candidate pool right like you want the most viable candidate pool you can get and that's what my reading of this and my limited knowledge seemed to seem to get up all right the next
059one um this is teacher preparation programs um so again some wording changes um the bottom isn't it is an addition additionally msb msba recommends that improved teacher preparation programs include best practices i think this might continue on to the next slide okay is everyone read what's on this one before i move shall i move it any thoughts on this one i kind of wonder about the group the collaborative pro on the second piece of this i'm sorry diane oh that's fine this one so when it talks about this collaborative group and it goes through the people that should serve in it what i don't see are um teachers i see i see professors but i don't see teachers in the k through 12. and so the main educational education association mm-hmm yeah would that be
060the actual teachers would that be people that work for the nea that would be the teachers they would be the voice of the teachers okay i just wondered if there would be some um advantages to having teachers that have just potentially um started teaching you know that have just gone through any sort of preparation program that could provide almost real-time insight and i guess i read the meas as their staff would be you know and yes they're the voices of the teachers but i was thinking perhaps it would be good to have some opportunity that's interesting mostly what i see from this is just removing the common core standards as part of the language so and it's just broadening it to the main system of learning um versus being stuck to the common core standards
061which is not necessarily applicable to all the needs of our students yeah there's definitely that sel added piece right of the the mental health component as well so absolutely all right just everybody any other concert we feel good on this one all right so now these are the proposed new resolutions so all of the all of the words all all of the all the things are brand new so this first one involves school board public comment period um a lot of this is what we know you know we have the opportunity for the public to participate in our meetings um we are allowed to set reasonable standards which we do in scarborough the three-minute period we ask people to identify themselves now with their their full name um we do ask that they conduct themselves
062accordingly and that we can stop public comment if they aren't um where this changes is the public's definition or where this would stray from what our policy says i guess um we allow anybody just to provide public comment this would say a public is defined as a resident um a taxpayer an immediate family member of a student or an employee so this would limit um out of anybody from out of it in our case anybody from out of scarborous to speaking in a public during public comment this would actually limit us to that like we can't open it up to what we would choose no we could choose but that i'm just using us as an example that's what they're suggesting that they would hold us but would this be like a minimum i mean
063they can't if we want to allow someone to speak at our meeting who doesn't live here and have any connection we can right nothing yeah yeah i mean this wouldn't restrict us this is i guess what i'm trying to say is this is if we if we took this and then we updated our policy we would no longer allow people outside of scarborough to speak which is not our our current practice we allow anybody well we don't have to change our policy and reaction to this no not at all well it says that it would be a revision to state statute and we are bound to follow state statute well and i guess that's my question is if this if it is are we actually limited to we're not allowed to let someone speak that
064we that doesn't fit one of these categories like we lose that leeway depends on how to stack it right yeah yeah i mean i would have an issue with that i think the board should maintain the authority to allow people to speak who we want yeah my wonder about this is is this intended to protect individual school boards from let's say a political action committee that might bombard every school board in the state with a slanted point of view on an issue or topic yeah which i get i think that's nice to have to fall back on as long as it's not tying our hands on what we want to hear right so yeah the my under the way i read this and my understanding is that the mspa will then advocate for a change
065in the statute so as it currently sits no as we in our current world we would not have to um restrict people who speak but if the statute is changed then yes we would have to um i guess i'm kind of with you know i understand the reason the protection i know that there's been a lot of discussion not just in maine but across the entire country about conduct um at school board meetings and how school board members have been treated by members of the public and so i can understand that and appreciate that but then i also appreciate that we have this opportunity for the public to engage in our meetings and so it feels like this is a tough i'm not sure for me i'm kind of defense i guess i don't think
066it's tough just i don't want to lose control to make our own decisions you know and i don't know if we can just direct jillian like can you get them to change the wording i mean i don't yeah i don't i guess i'm it's back to the other thing i don't think we should ever give up our local controller i i mean we can what would you suggest you know public um they i guess it's more like in that section that like john had just read back nothing in this subsection restricts the board from establishing reasonable standards like why can't that also include something about the definition of the public yeah right yeah yeah i mean we could add in including uh or would the same thing be resolved if we said public can be
067defined as like would even doing something like that be enough because then you're not saying that the public has to be defined but you are saying that this as a school board you can make the decision to define it yeah so that might be the way to say it jillian okay at the end there public can be defined as what would the circumstances be for someone to for you to allow essentially allow someone as part of the public to speak during public comment that wouldn't fall into one of those three categories i'm not sure but i'm just not really a big fan of limiting ourselves when we that situation i don't know what the scenario is but i wouldn't be opposed to somebody i'm sure it's happened to the people who don't live here well
068we've also if you remember we just redid this policy as well and we took out the requirement for the address so quite frankly we don't know if if john smith comes in and makes a public comment we don't know if he's a member of the scarborough community as it's as our policy reads well that's an excellent point and how is this being determined right are we going to ask like is this going to be you must show your license at the door i mean how would we police this or how would this be police i think there's and again it's like the good intentions right the the good intentions of doing something but then the logistical nightmare that comes behind it okay yeah we'll need kelly to sit at the door to check ids on
069the way in can raptor take care of this for me right yeah so um does that kind of give you some some feedback to provide yes with this like does that make sense what we're saying yeah yeah okay all right was there anything else on that one okay uh the next one the proposed resolution is the individuals with disabilities education act this is a resolution that would urge congress to reauthorize and fully fund the idea so the provide it would provide 40 reimbursement for locally expended funds for special education which is currently at the 14 i'm fully on board i am as well yes like sure i presume you don't have a there's not a reason we wouldn't want to do that right [Laughter] i'm all in all in all right so that's another highly
070support all right so the next one is the free and reduced lunch qualification um this is a um this one i found i found interesting one reading through this is again a resolution that urges congress um in the administration to define the poverty level requirements um for the free and reduced program by utilizing this area medium median income um that is what's actually used when you're talking when i went to look this up to really kind of dig into it that's what you use when you talk about subsidized housing so the formulas the way i understand my reading is the formulas for subsidized housing and the formulas for reduced lunch free and reduced lunch program are different or too different so in other words you might qualify for subsidized housing as a household but you
071wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily that doesn't mean you automatically qualify for the free reduced lunch because they use two different formulas this is the one where i was hoping that jeff and diane could like tell us if this sounds like a reasonable well any anything's better than the current metric because everybody gets free lunch now and so the reporting of and then title one funding and and other funding related to um our kids is directly tied to a metric that we know is way way way underreported um because for the last what three years three years yeah i mean so um as far as i'm concerned it's so far off and we're so under reporting needs you know for any kind of funding that's tied to um you know you know economic status or you know
072supporting those kinds of needs for you know again for title one funding and everything like there has to be a better way i mean talking with kate about this because because all the all those funding sources are tied to it we have to encourage people to fill out those forms but there's no incentive to do so right um so yeah and i almost wondered if because these um two formulas are different if we're if the same formula is utilized does that open that door up to more funding or it is more funny does more funding become available for the district because i can't imagine that it would be that it would have the opposite effect i mean i think we're already way you know under reporting need right you know as part of what we're
073allocated for title one and that also had a pretty significant impact with the esser grant uh grants as well huge impact yeah i had the same thoughts as you about this and the next the next one they kind of go hand in hand um it's the funding for the universal school meals act of 2021. um that federal funding formula um i think that is all that you're saying we we are impacted it is adversely impacting us because everybody in maine gets and this is what this would do with the um everybody in the nation would get free lunch right so breakfast like what we do in the state of maine we know that works we know that there's a lot of research behind why we provide these meals you know the the the better focus
074the better concentration the better grades we when they have a well full full meals in their belly at school right so we know the reason why the problem to me is again it's a really good intention and then the logistics behind it like how do we ensure that we're not adversely impacted where title one funds come and right now we know that we are severely impacted well you just have to measure economic need in a different way you can't it can't be based on who applies for a free and reduced lunch because there is no free income right that's what we need a resolution about you know i mean you're you're basing it on a metric that no longer exists yeah well yeah yeah and how do we we can ask parents all day every
075day to please fill out the form but they're not going to do it because there's no reason to right yeah can you back up one i did have one more question about this um do you read the um the lunch rates the free and reduced lunch rates um if you recall the first year we offered the free lunches we were grossly under um under reimbursed thank you i couldn't think of the word um and i know that that has shifted and we are that that's no longer an issue um i didn't i didn't know if um the lunch rates the the free and reduced lunch rates are as we see them now we're still good with that right we're still being reimbursed yes this year this past year was the first year that our lunch
076program has ever operated in the black if you recall you know at the in previous years at the end of the year um the school district would have to reallocate funds to the food service program because we would be in the whole buy hundreds of thousands of dollars but the reimbursement rates um have really increased accordingly so that the rate of reimbursement that we receive for each breakfast and lunch is more than the cost of the meal itself they build in the cost to produce that meal to pay the help to make that meal etc okay so we're still good there anything else here all right this is the last one you're excited um this is the repeal of the government pension offset and the windfall elimination provision um i'm just going to say i
077understand what the pension offset is it's um if you rece essentially if you're receiving a government pension your social security is upset you don't receive the full amount of social security you otherwise would receive because you have a pension what i'm not clear on is how that how that translates to a quality of pulled teachers because unless you go into education as a career for life you are definitely at a loss because if you worked in the private sector let's say for 20 years and you paid into social security and then you decided i think my calling is really to become a teacher i'm going to go into education in the state of maine right you discontinue even paying into social security and now you're in the government pension and so when you retire all
078of those quarters that you receive through social security are compromised you don't get what you put in like you don't get the social security that you paid for the 20 years in the private sector you this is my father's life right and you're and your pension as a government employee is based on two percent for every year of service so if someone were a teacher for 20 years they would only be eligible for 40 percent to figure out on the education side of things versus a colleague that might be of the same age who taught for 40 years was eligible for 80 percent you see what i'm saying and as a new employee a new employee coming into the district cannot say you know what i don't want to participate in the pension program that's
079correct so you do think that that that these two things affect the pool of teachers it certainly doesn't help us the current situation and that offset even includes if you are if just your spouse pays into social security and you pay into government pension right because as you retire you make choices about you know how much of the social security is the person gonna take do they give a certain percentage over to their spouse right in the case that you know that person passes away first etc i know that many other states uh do not have that provision and so the incentive to come to me you know as a second um career teacher and this doesn't have any additional financial like eliminating these doesn't have any additional financial burden for the district i don't
080believe so because we don't pay into social security for our people who have government pension yeah you don't get both you actually get way over taxed at tax time well that makes sense now thanks for explaining it all right that is the last one does um how do you feel do you feel good going into is there anything else you need from us all right we will go on agenda item 9.0 is committee reports uh first communications all right so we are officially launching the spotlight awards we've talked about this a lot um there are live links we will be sending out a communication to the staff the district staff hopefully this week and looking forward to getting that together to present in october any questions for jillian all right and yeah so i i
081just was saying that our next meeting is next meeting is the first tuesday of september at 11 30 we will meet again remotely and the first tuesday of every month thereafter and there is a link to the nomination form but i don't think that translates to what we publish online i wasn't sure but i put it on there anyway and we'll get the links up perfect thank you all right jenna yeah so um our last meeting was august 11th we had discussed items to be presented to town council at yesterday's workshop and jeff you did a great job presenting it to the town i think everyone did a great job answering all the tough questions and giving their anecdotals and um i think with your presentation diane earlier it just kind of highlights the need
082of our buildings um and you know one of the things that we've been discussing regularly is the current financial impacts of not having this new building so um you know like energy costs and operational costs are skyrocketing due to inadequate insulation higher operation costs due to age and small size of our facilities um added costs for travel time for our specialists from school to school and it also costs more to modernize our k to two schools and operate them than to build a new energy efficient consolidated school um that's what that was the highlight of our last conversation um and before you know it we're gonna start budget planning for the next year um and our next meeting will be september 8th are there any questions for jenna all right thank you jenna um are
083there any other board or liaison reports all right agenda item 10.0 then is new business 10.1 or appointments um 10.1.2 is behavior specialist hey uh naomi couture has been nominated to fill this newly created position ms couture received both her bachelor's of science degree and her master's of psychology degree from kaplan university she worked for one year as a special education aide in vicenza italy and for the last four years she's been with the margaret murphy center for children in saco all right do i have a motion to a pro to approve the behavioral specialist so moved second any discussion on favor all right it passes unanimously um 10.1.2 is the middle school math interventionalist teacher for a one year position all right andrea giddings has been selected to fill this position created by resignation
084ms gettings earned her bachelor of arts degree in sociology and anthropology from middlebury college she's been teaching math in several main school districts including sullivan and northport since 2016 and she has also instructed the math teacher in chiang mai thailand for two years all right do i have a motion to approve the middle school math interventionalist teacher when you're positioned so moved second is there any discussion all right all in favor all right this is generously um 10.1.3 is a high school stem teacher all right i don't think i've ever read this sentence before carrie kurtz has been chosen to fill this position created by his own retirement [Laughter] mr kurtz received his bachelor's of science degree in geological science from ryder college and a secondary science certification from metropolitan state college he has over
08520 years of teaching physics chemistry geology astronomy and marine studies in cape elizabeth schools in two years at scarborough high school do i have a motion to approve the high school stem teacher so moved second any discussion all right all in favor perfect unanimous all right 10.1.5 is a high school english teacher uh lauren lamoro has been selected to fill this position created by resignation ms lamoro earned her bachelor of arts degree from the university of louisville and her master of arts in teaching from bellarmine university she's been a high school english teacher for nine years in the last six years she was at sanford high school do i have a motion to approve the high school english teacher so i moved second any discussion all in favor all right let's union this um kristen
086just uh skipped over the landmark yes yes notified me of that so i'm going to move back up to 10.1.4 which is the wentworth school classroom teacher which is a one-year position dominique matosi has been nominated to fill this position created by a one-year leave of absence ms matosi received her bachelor of fine arts from usm and her master of science and teaching from fordham university she's a second grade teacher in young school in saco for three years and most recently a third grade teacher at rice community school in portland perfect do i have a motion to approve the wentworth school classroom teacher one year position so moved second any discussion all in favor thank you um okay so now we'll move back to 10.1.6 which is the high school varsities head swim coach yes
087morgan royal nominated as varsity coach for swimming at scarborough high school all right do i have a motion to approve the high school varsity head swim coach so moved second any discussion all in favor let's unanimous thank you all right 10.1.7 is the pleasant hill school special education teacher so holly silva has been not nominated to fill this position created by resignation ms selva received her bachelor's of science degree from university of southern maine and is pursuing her master's degree at from umf she has worked at the center for autism and related disorders casco bay community support services and most recently with margaret murphy center for children do i have a motion to approve the pleasant hill school special education teacher so moved second any discussion all in favor passage unanimously and then last but
088not least the eights corner school art teacher emily hill has been chosen to fill this position created by resignation ms hill earned her bachelor's degree in art education from the ohio state university where she is also currently like that one currently working towards her master's degree she has been a painting instructor and studio coordinator at cheers to art studio in cincinnati and also a muse paint bar in portland currently she's a student support specialist for the college of graduate and professional studies at uni do i have a motion to approve the eight corner school art teacher so moved second any discussion are you all in favor okay thank you all right agenda item 10.2 is the second reading of policy j-i-c-a which is student dress um if you remember when we discussed this at the
089last meeting we had a lot of questions and conversation around um some of the things that were missing right missing from the policy so we did put those back in um so if you look at the working draft that was in your materials um for example we did put in a sentence that students are now required to wear footwear at all times so that we we took care of that omission um and that footwear should be appropriate for the school setting um we also underneath the prohibited items under c we did add the sentence that the school administration has the authority to prohibit other logos pictures or messages which they determined to be a violation of the board's non-discrimination or harassment policies or disruptive to the school's learning environment so we did put that back
090in there and then the last thing we changed is um at the bottom um we had discussion about the consequences um and how that was missing from this new policy so what we did we we had a lot of conversation around that and where we ultimately ended up is that we would um add the this piece to the sentence that says that the superintendent is responsible for the administrative procedures in accordance with policy jk which is a discipline and discipline policy so um that i think we've covered all we covered all of the um criteria that we discussed the last time so first we have a motion to approve the second reading of policy j-i-c-a student dress second and is there any discussion just thank you for addressing the changes you're welcome all right all
091in favor all right you asked me unanimously approved can we um as a side note um do we remember the students that came to the policy committee meeting did we mark their names down it would be i'm just thinking it would be nice to send them this so that now they know it's a done deal we had we had three correct um i wasn't at that meeting i don't did you reflect it in your notes oh i didn't realize you weren't there i i know i know yeah yeah yeah it just maybe we can identify them offline and just send this out to them i think that would be nice um okay the 10.3 is the first reading of policy ijj which is the selection of education educational materials um this is another one that
092we worked on as a committee for quite a few months um to get this where we ready for for first reading um the big change with the model policy was there was an option for the board to either two options one for the board to delegate um the selection of materials to um professionally trained staff essentially the other option is that we would approve every piece of material that comes through so what that looks like in real time is approving thousands upon thousands of pieces of material so um our current policy was a delegation policy so as a committee we felt um you know when you think about the board's role versus the superintendent's role versus the staff's role our role is really that 30 000 foot view and this is something that we could
093delegate appropriately to um jeff and his team to to do so we did go with the delegation um approach um because the we have as the board set the goal of um the diversity equity and inclusion goal um that sentence was beefed up a little bit to include those words so it is professionally trained staff including those trained using a diversity equity and inclusion lists um beyond that um i think majority of this stayed the same i just want to verify before yeah the rest of it um has stayed the same the other piece in here that we just did discuss as a as a group um is the challenge materials policy we just wanted to be sure that all of the steps seemed um understandable readily understandable to staff and parents should they should
094they um need to challenge challenge material and so we felt that it was still everything and there was so relevant and still outlined as it should be all right so do i have first do i have a motion to approve the first reading of policy ijj the selection of educational materials it's all moved second okay are there any just is there any discussion yeah um i think i'm okay with that option one of the delegation i am not on board with including the language around diversity equity and inclusion i don't think that we as a district have adequately defined what that means for us and i don't think the community is adequately informed of that so for me i think it's a little premature to have that language in there okay we can bring that
095back to policy are there any other discussions okay so we'll bring that back all right oh um all in favor of the first reading there's no more discussion okay all right oh so yes um all those not in favor of the first reading thank you all right uh we did okay so agenda item 11 is adjournment do i have a motion to adjourn second any discussion all in favor all right thank you so