School Board Meeting

001so good thank you so much kelly welcome with that i will go ahead and call tonight's meeting to order welcome everyone this is the scarborough board of education regular business meeting for thursday may 6 2021 could i have the attendance please this is skepticism yeah dr gill here miss casalonas here miss lincoln this is lindstrom here mrs seither here mrs turner here mr bennett here let's give this here perfect thank you everyone please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all agenda item 4.0 is adjustments to the agenda are there any adjustments to the agenda this evening seeing none agenda item 5.0 is public common

002on agenda items same spiel i give every week if you would like to make a public comment please raise your little blue hand if you are in uh as an attendee of our meeting and i will be able to promote you to a panelist anyone wishing to speak should please address their comments to the chair you'll have three minutes to speak i will play a alarm to let you know that your time is up and i ask that you please respect the three-minute time limit we did not receive any emails this week via our email public comment i'm not seeing any hands raised and so with that i will go ahead and close public comment this evening agenda item 6.0 is the superintendent's report thank you i'd like to uh talk about the may enrollment

003and uh we'll pull up that slide and we'll start there we go so i'll be talking about the past present and um for each uh building and we'll start with the high school so currently we have 942 students a year ago we had 984 we have eight home schoolers we have 235 students doing 100 remote and we have 707 in the hybrid model go to the middle school currently 703 a year ago 701 homeschool 21 100 remote we have 109 and with our hybrid model we have 594. wentworth school currently we have 612 students a year ago we had 673. we have 17 home school students and we have 79 students who are doing 100 remote and 535 in the hybrid model as we look at blueprint bluepoint excuse me we have currently 197 a

004year ago 203 and when we look at all three k2 schools we have 33 home school students back to blue point we have 34 100 remote and 163 hybrid as we look at eight corners we currently have 227 a year ago 243 we have 49 doing 100 remote and 178 in the hybrid model as we look at pleasant hill we currently have 184 a year ago 205 we have 33 doing 100 remote and in hybrid we have 151 so the grand total currently total enrollment is 2865 a year ago 3009. we have 79 homeschool students and we have 559 100 remote and finally we have 2309 who are in the hybrid model thank you i could go on to the next slide that would be terrific so what i would like to do tonight is

005talk about our fall school reopening plan it's obviously always a work in progress and we have been doing a lot of work thanks to uh everybody who's been involved with this so on the next slide i'd like to talk about the outcomes of this presentation and really what tonight is to talk about is the progress and the planning head as we go full time in september we'll identify some obstacles and how we plan to address them harriman associates has been a long time relationship with the scarborough schools their architects and they've done a lot of work within the district in the past if you remember the wentworth school harriman associates we're very involved in designing and having that school built so what we've tried to do is use them this year to look at our

006facilities as we begin to plan ahead and again i can't help but emphasize the outstanding work that they have done and i truly feel i have a deep respect for them over my career just watching how harriman has done a magnificent job working with schools in this slide what we're trying to do is talk about the recent changes in the cdc guidelines at one point in time students desks had to be six feet apart that has changed where they're going to be three feet apart and so when we look at the grade level and the number of students what we have in front of us is what we're planning for september so for instance in k2 we'll have 16 students per classroom that's the maximum amount of students that we can have at that level

007in three through five the maximum number of students is 17. as we look at the middle 6 through 8 we can get 18 students within the classroom and finally at the high school 9 through 12 we'll have 19 students per classroom so thanks to todd jepsen our facilities director he worked with the drum on harriman associates to begin to look at each building and some of the classrooms and how can we get desks in those classrooms per grade level as i just went through the numbers that are broken apart from k 2 3 5 6 8 in the high school and so here in the i'm going to kind of talk a little bit about this diagram i i don't want to lose you because i know the graphic is kind of hard to understand

008but if you can look at the small orange squares and if you actually counted those small squares at this point in time this is wentworth school a typical classroom and when you would come up with 17 desks and those desks are three feet apart and again that's the small orange squares that you see there so what we try to do is to look at the actual classroom furnishings such as built-ins looking at bathrooms looking at sinks and counters and your typical classroom and how many deaths could we get into each classroom and again the criteria we came up with was 17 desks at wentworth school as we move on we'll look at the next slide that talks about the primary schools as i mentioned earlier at the k2 schools we'll have 16 desks and again

009on your leisure if you want to look at this diagram and count the small little squares you'll see that there's those squares represent the 16 desk harriman looked at traffic flow which is critically important particularly those three bullets there emergency egress the bathroom entrances and we have some supply built-in areas on cabinets within those classrooms as well so that's the primary school again we're looking at 16 desks per classroom as we look at the middle school as a reminder we can get 18 desks within a typical classroom and this is an opportunity again for us to try to begin to make sure that we're meeting the three-foot requirement between each desk and with this particular diagram the desk may need to be moved on a daily basis if indeed people need to access supplies but

010we didn't think that was a any way of not providing this we thought that that that flexibility that people would be willing to move around if they had to so people can get their supplies as we go to the next slide here we're looking at a small number of students per class means additional teachers which will be required as we transition from hybrid to in-person full-time learning we have in this current budget budgeted for 17 new classroom teachers this is a must it's got to happen in order for us to have full time learning in the fall fortunately we have received so2 and s3 grants this year so as you can see we've taken some of those positions out of those grants and uh we're very fortunate to get that money but the message here

011is that we need 17 teachers to open school next fall as we look at retrofitting spaces which is going to happen in order to open for september and we're going to be spending the summer working on this again we need to repurpose space for additional classrooms and this is a challenge particularly with certain buildings but we know we can do it and the work will be completed over the summer mr jefferson our facilities director is already making and we're going to be able to do this i just want people to know that some staff specialists will need to float from classroom with carts again just to have the flexibility for next year that will need to happen next slide talks a little bit more about the repurposing space each school must have two clinics a

012respiratory clinic and a regular school clinic typically in a normal year we only have one clinic per building and that's just a regular school clinic but because of covert we have to have that extra respiratory clinic so an example of repurposing space at blue point currently the nurses occupy an unused classroom for their respiratory clinic this space will need to be transformed back into a regular student classroom the proposal is to divide the current teacher work room into half respiratory clinic and maintain remain in half as a teacher workroom so what i wanted to show the public is that's an example of repurposing our space over the summer to try to get another classroom and that's the hard work that we'll be doing but we know we can do it and it will be done

013on the next slide talks about lunchroom meal time requirements so this is um i have to say this is really challenging and my association the superintendent's association did put a letter to i believe the governor um talking about the lunchroom that it's a real challenge to have students be six feet apart while they eat it and i think everybody's feeling that throughout the state particularly for lunchrooms and and trying to meet that requirement so each phase will have to create a plan accordingly and students will eat lunch throughout the buildings and the grounds and that is something that um each building is starting to plan for and you know i was in the high school meeting the other day and they were talking about that and just kind of talking a lot about different spaces

014that that will need to happen and it can happen outdoors as well and certainly on a beautiful day in the fall the next slide please so why not go back full time in person learning for the remainder of the school year two bullets there are really critical not enough time to refit and repurpose existing spaces we're pretty tight as you very well know within the schools and we need the time over the summer to refit and get those spaces ready for september in addition we don't have enough staff because we're limited on how many students we can put in a typical classroom for instance at the elementary level we can't put 20 students in the classroom we're required to have 16 and no more because of the square footage and the requirements from the state

015so with the purpose of trying to hire 17 teachers is to allow for more classroom space and we obviously need to get going with that and get people hired and ready for september so those are the two big reasons why we're not going back to school full-time at this point in time the last slide talks about the fall reopening task force teams so each building it has developed a team with parents community members and staff and they come together and the purpose is to really continue to hone in on what needs to be done for the opening in school they'll have weekly meetings and again the idea is to troubleshoot to update people on what has been done and areas that we need to continue to think about those meeting notes of each committee will

016be on the um website and for people to review so again i i was fortunate to be assigned to the high school and i i thought the meeting went exceptionally well it's great to get the feedback from community members and parents and uh you know it's just an opportunity to brainstorm together what needs to happen and how can we do this together so it's a collective group thinking about the details of opening school and i believe that is the last slide and again i i just like to thank everybody for their contributions their patience and uh we're really excited to march forward and get ready for full opening of school in september thank you for that comprehensive update is there anyone on the board who would like to ask sandy any questions before we move

017on to his next report max go ahead um i just wanted to ask about like why i don't you might not know this but like since like teenagers at like the middle school in the high school are physically larger is there any reason they don't have to be spaced apart further or like why smaller children can't be closer together like is there is there a reason because like you think like they'd be able to be able to like project saliva or whatever further the larger that they are right good point and max really what we have to go by is the regulation and that's just cdc's saying three feet across the board they don't break it down by grade level age level or anything like that yeah totally fair thank you anyone else okay not

018seeing anybody any thank you again sandy um before we advance the slide deck because i don't think the slide in here um i did ask sandy to invite mr legage to speak to us and give us a bit of a spring sports update as you all know last week the governor changed the outdoor masking regulations and then the main principals association also voted on some different guidelines and so i thought that it would be timely to have our athletic director come and give us an update about where we are with that well good evening thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit about athletics and student activities i'll give you a little bit update on activities as well because there's some great things happening there um i'll certainly say that spring sports have gotten

019off to a good start um the transition to the new covered rules has been a little challenging um but we're working through those i really think the struggle for student athletes is more around the contradiction in the rules you know you step on the playing field and the rules are a little different than when you step off the playing field um but we continue to provide reminders and and people are you know the kids are doing a really good job you know the best they can um you know sticking with the rules that are in place i was asked to um i guess the issue of face mask came up and i was asked to speak specifically about that we are following the mpa rule as it relates to that which is essentially the governor's

020order that when outside everyone still has a face mask with them and if they um you know within six feet um of somebody that they pull their face mask on and cover their face the exception for athletes of course is when they're engaged in physical activity during a practice or a game we also ask coaches to do the same thing have their face messed with them all the time and pull their face mask up if they're within six feet of somebody and um obviously for coaches that's quite often that they're within six feet of somebody um we ask the same thing of officials when officials come to our facility and officiate games we require them to continue to fill out the screening forms as we always have and we require them to have a face

021mask and to use that face mask when they're within six feet of people even during the game so um you know face off kind of in lacrosse the officials have to pull their mass up um that sort of thing so everybody's been really good about that doing the best they can there really hasn't been any pushback on that the addition of spectators at games has certainly been exciting for the teams in terms of spectator management uh i have to say that [Music] i'm really proud of our scarborough community i think the families our scarborough families for the most part have really embraced following the rules um just because it's a you know opportunity to be able to come see a child so you do do what you got to do i will say that most

022of my time in the spectator crowd unfortunately is spent uh dealing with our visiting team spectators uh not really our own uh spectators so that's good and bad you know in a way but um it's so far so good uh people seem to be um following the rules that we have in place um i think that our game management structure that we share with our teams has worked out we if you've been to a game uh not to get into the weeds of anything but if you've been to a game this the the area between um the turf field and the baseball softball field we really lock down that area and it's really just for student athletes coaches game personnel we also were faced with a couple rules uh in terms of baseball softball of

023dugout fencing is required it happened to work out this year because we couldn't have kids in the dugout anyways because of the social distancing with our dugouts just aren't large enough so we were able to set up um a system outside of the backstops of the dugouts for the the teams to sit and so we kind of killed two birds with one stone this year we do have some money i think in our cip account for next year to cover that rule to be able to uh put some fencing up in front of all the dugouts that is a that is going to be a requirement um before next season so and i think we're on on track um in terms of the budget to see that through but this year it worked out well

024we had we couldn't be in the dugout anyway and uh so it we covered kind of two birds with one stone there i would be remiss if i didn't continue to bring up the turf track project and the daily reminder that we have uh at least my staff and coaches of how important it's going to be to refresh that facility um and that is uh a place that we we we really need to um pass that past that uh referendum or however it goes hopefully it'll go through cip and then onto a boat but it's a daily reminder when we have kids practicing and playing games that that that field needs to be refreshed we also community services have has done some great work getting the other fields ready but um there continues to be

025struggles at the other facilities we continue to have infrastructure type issues you know fencing that's um in rough shape tennis courts court service and rough shape i don't know if anybody has watched the tennis match but they can only use three of the four courts we have the fourth court is so bad we don't dare to do varsity matches on it um they use it for a warm-up area things like that but don't we don't play mat matches on on the fourth court um so you know the the facility is is aging it's not just the turf track and um you know we we've kind of learned that there needs to be those incremental investments in those facilities but we're going to be faced with major investments when the whole thing fails um and so

026i'll just continue to keep that in the front of mind of folks the whole facility issues and safety things related to that a little bit about activities i'll share that the english department coming up here uh june 5th is planning their shakespeare in the park performance and really neat idea when they first talked to me about doing that they wanted because they had this idea of wanting to do shakespeare and we kind of talked this idea about shakespeare in the park and it never really evolved they ended up i think doing it the first year or two in the auditorium this year they're actually going to do it outside so it truly is going to be shakespeare in the park at memorial park on june 5th i think the rain date is sunday june 6

027and there's two or three shows so if you want to be looking for those flyers there's quite a few students involved in that and the reports that i'm getting um are really exciting i'm looking forward to seeing it myself the ecos group has started a kind of like a subcommittee of ecos the solar committee that they're doing where they're kind of getting focused on on that so i think that's kind of an exciting addition to that the ecos group and model united nations is really getting geared up they're starting to do their country assignments getting geared up for um you know the the uh the of their their event that's coming up um that they participate in so there's really some great things happening all around and i guess you know that word normalcy has

028been used a lot and i'm excited to say that you know my department probably isn't is being allowed right now through the rules to provide as close to normal experiences as kids would have and so it's exciting we uh we are having a very successful spring athletic season right now i'm knocking on wood right now but we're having a very successful spring season right now in terms of wins and losses as well and i think that's it happy to answer any questions thank you mike does anybody have any questions or comments alicia thank you um thanks for that mike it's been really great just watch the kids out there playing and seeing them get socialization and everybody's smiling um a couple of things i've noticed it seems like the you know like the perimeter spectator

029setup um just um i wonder when the way it's set up if if that actually um encourages people to cluster together more than if if all of the spectator opportunities were available so people could have more room to socially distance um i think the setup that we have now is the very best we can if for the baseball field it's the 114 parking lot it's very expansive i think that people could line up all the way down the access road and all the way um to the 114 road it's a it's it's tremendously expansive and you could really be any place up there and see the baseball game um it's actually probably the best seat in the house there in terms of softball i don't think that we're in any different situation than we've been

030in we had one bleacher section behind the backstop fence and we've added two bleacher sections actually in left field and the comments that i've gotten so far have been can we have bleachers in left field all the time even after covert um i think that we do take up some parking spots there but i think it does afford even maybe more seating more opportunity because people used to come into the campus and really just stand behind the backstop fence and it was very crowded with both visiting team and home team this really spreads it out we're able to put two bleacher sections there we've always had one i think in terms of spectators for the turf field i have not seen the large bleacher section be so filled that there wasn't seeding i haven't seen

031that at any game this spring um and people are allowed to stand on the fence line uh not all the way around but on that side uh you know as they first enter so i haven't noticed um that there's been any concerns about that i don't see how we could open it up any differently partly because of trying to you know i continue to try to do everything i can to reduce exposures because at the end of the day you know i want to try to keep as safe an environment as i can for our kids so that they can continue to have a season and be able to participate in postseason we've had a couple close encounters i'm thankfully it worked out that it hasn't shut a team down yet but uh you know

032we certainly don't want that especially as we approach uh the end of uh the regular season and the start of the postseason it's really going to be upon us essentially the spring season is the month of may um that's not un uncommon it's very much like that but really at the uh already this this saturday to be honest we've started postseason with some sports this saturday is the tennis individual qualifier so we've even started some postseason with some of our sports so i haven't seen that there's been um an issue with needing to change the spectator seating maybe jv softball but jv softball is no different than it's always been we put the we were for jv softball we were able to put the team benches on the inside of the big fence which allowed

033us to continue to have spectator seating over at the 114 softball field as we always have that's not changed so if i understand you correctly you don't have any plans to open up the the fields so that people can use that as spectator areas and allow for additional social distancing i don't have any plans to change from what we're doing right now what's your rationale mike well what i said is my job is to try to reduce as many exposures as possible i think the seating is working out fine right now i don't see overcrowding and i don't see a need for spectators to come in that middle section where student athletes are especially during baseball games because of the team benches being outside that fence area now um and softball and also lacrosse we

034don't have the concession open there's no need for people to come around that side okay i mean i guess i see it very differently than you but that that's okay um uh one thing other thing i did want to ask about is that um you know the girls softball team has had announcers and um music for like 10 years and that hasn't been happening this year but i've noticed that the boys lacrosse is still getting that and that really is concerning to me so i'm hoping that we can um i understand that you've said that there's too much going on with the fields to allow the girls to have music and announcing um that to me seems like an inequity and i'm really hoping that that can stop i'm not sure what you're talking about

035the girls have had announcing at their first game today today we asked that none of the teams have announcing because we had six events going on all at the same time and so girls the announcers they had they had to turn their music down the only day that we did not have announcing for any of the teams well out in the parking lot softball game that we had they had the middle school students here and they were doing full announcing full music everything no um out in the parking lot um nobody could hear the announcer or the music and um when we inquired we're told that um you asked them to turn it down but the lacrosse is like super loud we can hear every play the boys lacrosse game and their music and the

036girls have walk up songs that they look forward to and you can't hear it and i know today they weren't allowed to have an announcer and or music and the last the other game they were told that they had to turn it down because it was too loud and interfering with other sports and that seems inequitable and so i'm hoping that that's something you'll change yeah i i don't see an inequity i do we're doing the same thing for baseball as we do for softball and um and if there's multiple games going on the facility then we do our very best to try to not have one sound over the other well when the boys lacrosse are playing in the girls soft puzzle playing we can hear the boys perfectly but the girls were told

037to turn it down so i'm asking you if you could please address that yeah we'll take a look at that thank you any other questions for mike okay i'm not seeing any uh thank you very much mr legage for coming and for giving us your time on a thursday night to give us an update um i couldn't agree more how exciting it is to see the kids out there and you know i'm sure that you are very well aware that the other leads in town are looking to you for guidance um and following your lead and so i appreciate your strong leadership um when it comes to these new regulations and rules because it really does set a tone for it for the whole district so thank you thank you agenda item 7.0 is the

038chairs report the first item on my chairs report tonight is uh i would like to have a discussion of a return to hybrid meetings um as we had discussed back in december um you know we we actually did hold one hybrid meeting while i was chair um and with the social distancing and the case numbers going up and some of my own personal feelings about it i had decided that i wasn't particularly comfortable being in person um and then with the technology piece of really the person who is cheering the meeting needs to be in person if any of the board members are going to be at home created a environment where really we all kind of just needed to be united in solidarity here that we were just going to do remote meetings and

039so i can't again i appreciate everyone's willingness to do that um and i think we've really made it work for the last five months we we are in a groove here um i feel more comfortable um i as of today actually and i i have the shakes a little bit from my shot as of yesterday i am i got my second shot um and so uh my goal is to be uh comfortable and behind the dice again and so um we can discuss i'm happy to um have this be a full board discussion it's certainly not a decision that i would you know that i'm trying to make by myself um but if people are comfortable with it um i think that we are ready maybe as early as our next meeting in june i'm

040not in june in may um to be in person um we'll continue to follow all of our masking and social distancing guidelines obviously um in person attendance as long as i've already spoken with some individual board members about this um as long as i'm chair i have absolutely no problem with people attending remotely right now it's protected by the governor's executive order that we are allowed to meet in this format and so i have absolutely no problem with board members who wish to remain at home and you don't have to explain your reason to anybody you can just be at home and that goes for staff as well i mean this is technically our meeting so you know we set the rules and i say anybody who would like to be at home is welcome

041to be at home we do have to consider the um space capacity inside chambers town council has been successfully running in-person meetings hybrid meetings for quite a while um but we do have significantly more people in attendance typically at a school board meeting than they do just because we generally invite a lot of our staff and support staff and so that is something that we'll need to take into consideration we don't currently have a workshop scheduled for um the second meeting in may but if we do and it turns out that it it seems like it's going to be a large workshop um i may just make the call to have that meeting be remote as well um so that we're not trying to jump back into our first hybrid meeting and then figure out

042how we're going to accommodate extra people in the room and all that um one thing i have noticed i don't know if you guys have been watching town council meetings um they have tried to accommodate the full council lately um and two people have to sit with their back to the camera and so that is not necessarily my favorite format and that might be something that you know we can work with it and the folks who do the recording um to configure the tables a little bit differently but ultimately um i think my preference would be that we stick to a more hybrid um meeting style so that people aren't sitting with their backs um you know to the camera during a full meeting and so i would love to hear if anyone has any

043thoughts about any of that seeing none oh max um i just want to say like i would love to meet in person um even our next our next meeting because i would like i'd love to have at least one last in-person meeting before i i go away so um thank you so much for like figuring this out i've been thinking about you max for sure i i i figured that that would be um something that you would you would really hope for so for sure thank you you're welcome shannon um i just have a logistics question does it matter um does it matter for spacing requirements if somebody is fully vaccinated or not that's a good question um obviously all of the social distancing and mask mandate rules are completely regardless of whether our people

044are vaccinated um and so it's not like if two people are vaccinated we can sit closer and we don't have to wear masks like all the guidelines are still the same and so for adults it's six feet of distance with a mask and the plastic partition those are the current indoor meeting guidelines not seeing any other hands so with that i will take that that you all trust me and i can coordinate this um we'll figure out a fair way to accommodate people who would like to be uh in person because i'm sure um there are um people who have preferences and you know i'll do my best to accommodate everybody's preferences as we move forward so thank you the next portion of my chairs report is to thank our teachers as everyone knows this

045is teacher appreciation week um and as i just mentioned i i got my second shot yesterday and so i spent a fair amount of the day watching tv today and taking it easy um and so i heard a quote during a commercial and i know this is sounding very inspiring already but it had to do with empathy and and i'm not gonna get the quote right or or remember the words but i do remember how the quote made me feel um and that was to say that the best way to make our own lives better is to make the lives of someone else better and i thought to myself if that doesn't um you know kind of encapsulate the way i want to work um as a board member and the way that our teachers

046i know work for our students then i don't know what does and so on behalf of the board i want to thank all of our teachers and dedicated staff who put our kids first in order to make their lives better every day thank you and i'm totally crying anyone else have anything that they'd like to say thank you we think you're all amazing and and this has been a really hard hard time and so um you know we we hope you feel that you're feeling the love i love the posts um our ptas do an amazing job celebrating our teachers and so i hope that this has been a good week um and that you guys are feeling the love with that agenda item 8.0 is committee reports all right communications short and sweet just

047a reminder the in the know is in the leader now um i was really excited to see our first publication the committee is solely focused right now really on uh budget communication need to make sure that we're getting that out and letting the community know our next meeting will be monday may 17th at 11 o'clock thank you leanne i think this is just a reminder of the the schedule and actually as of um a couple hours ago there's another workshop that's going to happen that's not on this but more just for um the the rest of the board's knowledge is the the town council is putting in a budget specific workshop on the 18th april i'm looking at you to confirm that that's right yep on the 18th um and it's just the town council

048but they've asked that kate and i just be available just to answer any questions so i think it's probably what we thought maybe last night was going to be but we didn't get to get to it with the audit so it's just another opportunity to do that kelly if you don't mind going to the next slide thanks and then i guess just just some positive news to report so since the first reading we had our department review meeting a couple weeks ago with town council so just a reminder for people listening every department has a individual meeting with the town finance committee where they just review their budget in more detail and the ask from the finance committee this year was to come to those department reviews with any updates on how they can close

049the gap to get from what the first reading was to the the three percent goal um and you know through some some movements on our side uh we were able to to reduce our budget ass by about 1.1 million dollars which is gonna go a long way in getting to that three percent goal so um really positive there and and you know most of that comes from um adjustments to our insurance rates um as well as the ability to use some of the esser funding for the teacher roles that sandy talked about earlier um i think that's it me unless anybody has any questions i guess i guess i'll just rap by saying the next step is really you know our second reading um it's likely or it's possible i should say that we'll get

050further direction from them after the workshop and we might have to make additional adjustment adjustments but it's also possible that we won't have to so um right now things are looking good stay tuned great thank you sarah long range facilities planning we had sort of a full meeting in early april and as everyone's been discussing sports obviously the mitigation for the spring season was finished and the turf and track are usable and i will echo what everyone has said it's been so great to see all the activity going on out there um the turf and track are going to require seasonal testing to ensure the safety with the next test scheduled in july hopefully to be ready for the fall season uh the mitigation costs could range anywhere from ten thousand to fifty thousand per

051season those will continue for fy22 to be funded through community services and as mike said earlier it's so important for everyone to know that this facility is truly on its last leg and with any one of these seasonal tests we could get the news that there is no mitigation to be done and the field is just no longer usable so that leads to the next point that the replacement of the facility is in our fy 22 cip budget it's still a work in progress but it is in there and district leadership is continuing to evaluate transitioning the facility from the town over to the school so i would expect we'll hear from them in the coming months about that uh can you go to the next slide kelly please thank you uh we also discussed

052the new primary school project those planning costs are also in our fy 22 cip budget and the building steering committee is going to be reconvening in the coming months but for now there is a small subgroup within the building steering committee that is working on a presentation for the council to get them up to speed on all the work that's already been done and you know get their input on next steps for that project and finally we discussed the playground and the ada compliance which they are technically ada compliant however they are not truly accessible for all of our students there are funds in the fy 22 ci cip budget to address some of those issues that still remain so that all of our students can access the playgrounds and i want to thank mike

053and todd for coming to our meeting and giving us updates on some of these things that's it for me thank you kristin nick hello um i don't have a whole lot to say as you know negotiations is somewhat of a closed process but i didn't want everyone to know that we're still continuing to work on those three contracts that we've been talking about that all expire on june 30th the educational support professionals or who called esp it's not extra sensory perception sensory perception every time i say esp i think of that bus drivers and the food services and custodial staff and so we're continuing that work and our next meeting is on monday may 10th at 4 30. that's it great thank you all right um we have been meeting as the direct uh diversity

054equity and inclusion committee we've actually moved into starting to review the climate survey data um we started with the elementary school survey results um reviewing that and making some determinations about it in the sense of reading data and understanding how to interpret the results that that we're seeing our next step is to move to the middle school and the high school data which um was presented as one survey the middle school and high schoolers took the same survey so there wasn't asked to segregate that information so that we could look at the middle school separately from the high school so that's our next steps um coming up our next meeting is may 12th um and then we are just to give a give a heads up of what's coming up in the future we are

055planning a board meeting workshop where our consultants from maec will come and present do a presentation on the climate survey results and what they showed for the district thank you shannon um yeah just obviously the the budget which i just talked about um is a priority right now for town council and the other item that they're focusing on or i guess it's over now is the the gmo which passed last night so i think i raised that at the last meeting but that did pass last night um one other thing that um i don't know much about but i'll come back with more information next meeting is i guess about a decade ago or so there's like a town-wide survey that was sent out um it's almost like a survey a status services satisfaction survey

056um that they're looking to potentially uh they put on rfp or get an rfp together to put that out again so i don't know what our role would be if it's something we could contribute to or not financially but just contribute to the questions um uh anyways so that might be coming down the pipe but otherwise that's it thanks sarah legislative update is me um i have had the opportunity in the last three or four weeks to go to several of our state representatives office hours we had constituents who are interested in speaking with our state representatives about addressing the return to in-person learning at a state level and i felt like it was important to attend those meetings and to support our you know support our constituents and be there um you know to

057take notes and see if there were ideas or action items um that came from our state representatives um that i could bring back to the board and possibly we could participate um it's primarily me just sitting there listening um to be honest i i don't i don't typically try and say a lot because i do feel like i'm just there as a observer it's been really informative the take home message after going to several of their office hours i also attended the dems meeting on tuesday night and chris kiazo spoke then as well um the take-home message is that getting anything uh man and getting any of the mandates changed at a legislative level is incredibly cumbersome it takes a very long time and the house is not accepting new bills right now and so

058the bills would have had to have already been put forward in order to make legislative process um progress rather the the second take-home message is that you know we can continue to advocate um you know to the appropriate right we're always looking to advocate to the appropriate level um and the the feeling i got was that the appropriate level remains the main cdc pender makin as the education commissioner and of course governor mills um as ultimately the executor so that's kind of what's been going on legislatively charter committee well hey that's me um the charter committee has done a lot of work over the last few months we've gone through the charter a red line is going to start going top to bottom at the next meeting expect that to take a little bit of

059time there are a couple of pieces that are affecting or could affect the school board if council accepts them um one being pay they did talk about increasing the pay because it hasn't been adjusted in 15 years um the big one though has to do with when elections would be for the school board and there's still a lot of work that needs to happen before that can get to the voters to approve it but they made a recommendation to move our the vote for school board members to june which in many ways is a really good thing because that would give us an opportunity to onboard new members over the summer when it's quieter our committees could really get underway as the school year starts i think it would be a really good cadence for

060us if the community agrees to that so more to come as that red line gets to town council they'll look through all of these suggestions and changes and determine what's going to go to the voters but just want to give you a heads up great thank you leanne agenda item 9.0 is student representative reports all right thank you so much um so the 2021 spring events calendar for seniors has been announced by the high school um i'm super happy to announce that it's just very comprehensive we're getting a lot of things and i'm very excited um just to outline a few on may 15th from 6 to 9 30 at stable oaks in portland there's going to be a senior dinner which is like a prom replacement but it's like the same thing but without

061dancing so it's it's still really great um the may awards night video will be released on youtube um on wednesday may 19th at 6. uh the way the weeks of may 16th and 23rd are ap exams so good luck to all the students who are taking those this year um on june 4th uh starting at 11 15 that day block three and four classes are canceled for seniors because we're going to be having a senior picnic and that is actually our last day so that's really exciting the countdown is basically on now um which is really fun um also the video of senior awards night is going to be released on june 8th at 6 00 pm uh seniors will be having marching practice on june 10th from 9 to 10 30. uh the senior

062parade will be on june 12th the day before graduation at 10 a.m seniors are also going to be getting lawn signs distributed i don't know if any of you saw those last year but we're going to be getting them again this year and then finally the big day graduation is going to be on sunday the 13th at seven at the garage at the cross insurance arena which i think is very great and exciting and we're all looking forward to it so that is awesome uh that's it for this slide we can go into the next one uh yes there we go uh rehearsals for the high school's production of macbeth are well underway and we've been rehearsing both in the theater on the stormy days and then at the park on the beautiful days like

063today we have a lovely rehearsal today uh the shows are on june 5th at two and six like the shirley gage said earlier and then the rain date is june 6th and honestly i'm a part of this i'm the creative director and i'm also in the play and it's so great to actually like be back doing real theater like performing we're getting ready to perform for an audience and it's been so fun working with people so like thank you so much to mr gage and the activities department and miss becker and mr wesley who are directors for putting this together for us like it's a great way to end my senior year um so we can go to the next slide uh so here at the middle school there was a planner uh cover design

064contest for sixth and seventh graders to design next year's planner also tomorrow at the middle school students will be taking part in space day which will feature a large amount of speakers and presentations and activities led by nasa associates which is really cool that's a main wide event so that's very exciting um also teacher appreciation week was this past week which i will talk about more on the next slide which we can go to now uh so this past week was teacher appreciation week and which i hope everyone took some time to celebrate because really teachers are amazing i would just like to extend a warm hand of gratitude to all of the staff in our district um i see firsthand with my dad who is a teacher in the district what you guys must

065go through every day those students may not say it as much as they should i can undoubtedly speak on their behalf in saying that whatever teacher does in the district is very very appreciated uh scarborough schools are miles better than they would be without you with you in them and um i hope that our community is able to do better by you moving forward especially under the circumstances that our district is facing with the pandemic so from me to you thank you all of you awesome so that's it for me and we can i'm going to hand it on over to gabby hey max can i ask you a question before we move on absolutely thank you i i heard you um talking about all of the exciting senior festivities but i didn't hear you

066talk about the senior stroll is that going to happen the senior stroll i don't i have not heard it called the senior stroll we are having a party why are you walking around the track oh that's i don't think that's happening unfortunately um but that's the the send-off i think is what it's called i don't think that's happening to my knowledge it's not happening but i could be wrong oh okay because i thought that um uh capacity is gonna be 100 after may 24th so i am not sure perhaps i could ask someone in the high school administration about that um i have not heard any news of that but i would love to do that if we're able to yeah me too i know that that's a great day oh yes absolutely so awesome

067thank you thank you of course okay so these are some silver linings of the past school year that staff and students at wentworth had found um so although it seems like there have been many negatives this year negative things this year students were still able to find positive things such as wearing their pjs when remote or spending more time with their family and it's just great to see everyone positive and a good mindset even with tough times and i'll let everyone look at that for a little some interesting things what's up this is wender and then on to the next slide um this past tuesday maine author samara cole duane hosted a live stream for students at eight corners samara is a children's book author and wrote the book magnificent home magnificent homespun brown which

068is a book about loving and feeling comfortable in one's skin and this book was beautifully illustrated by kalani kailani juanita and it won the coretta scott king award for the illustrations and each student at eight quarters and i believe the other primary schools too will receive a copy of this book because miss shep a high school teacher and the civil rights team from the high school received a grant from the scarborough education foundation that's all i have excellent thank you max and gabby agenda item 10.0 is new business this evening agenda item 10.1 10.2 and 10.3 are the mean minutes of march 18th 2021 the meeting minutes of march 24th 2021 and the meeting minutes of march 25th 2021. do i have a motion to approve as presented still moved second session can we call

069the vote please sandy are you calling the vote this evening oh i'm sorry no worries just have my little handy paper here thank you for your patience see diane goes away for a weekend this is giftus yes dr gill yes this castle yes miss clayton yes mrs winston yes mrs seither yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes miss giftus yes excellent thank you and thank you to kelly as always for getting those minutes prepared for us agenda item 10.4 is a wentworth school donation sandy do you have the donation or would you like me to tee it up i'd be happy to talk about it um up in augusta there's a department of agriculture and conservation and forestry and they have a program where by money is put aside for anybody that purchases the agriculture

070specialty license plate and that money turns into grant money and a percentage of it has gone to our district particularly to wentworth a thousand dollars and in speaking with uh principal crosby they're considering to maybe use that money for the greenhouse which is right now a little too small to get a whole classroom in the greenhouse it's 8x12 and i think their dream is to expand that to be 18 by 30 so that our entire classroom could get into the greenhouse so uh thank you from the state of maine and of course catherine hewitt who is our third grade teacher who is the guru with the garden we really appreciate her leadership along with other members of the staff with the work that they've done for our students to learn about agriculture thank you with

071that do i have a motivation to approve the donation as presented so moved thank you discussion okay sandy you can call the vote this is giftus yes dr gill yes miss cassalones yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs snyder yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes miss gift yes excellent thank you 10.5 is school nutrition backpack program donation yes so uh we have the scarborough high school school store typically on a yearly basis gives generous contributions to the school nutrition backpack program and we just received a donation of five hundred dollars from the revenues that generated by the store for this year we respec respectfully request that the school board approve acceptance of this donation on behalf of the backpack program and many thank yous thank you do i have a motion to approve

072as presented second is there any discussion okay sandy i think we're ready let's get this this is giftus oh sorry yes dr gill yes miss catalonis yes miss leighton yes mrs winstrom yes mrs cider yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes miss giftus yes excellent thank you everyone agenda item 10.6 10.6.1 is middle school spring coaches do i have a motion to approve as presented so move back is there any discussion okay i think you can call it this is giptus yes dr gill yes miss catalonist yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs seider yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes let's get this yes thank you sandy i think we all really appreciate the flair with which you are saying saying our names i think one of us started to giggle and then

073that was it i can just see all the little boxes and on that note agenda item 11.0 is adjourned do i have a motion to adjourn so moved suck it one more time sandy here we go mrs giftus yes dr gill yes miss casamonas yes miss layton yes this is winston yes mrs seider yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes yes yes yes everyone have a lovely evening and a very happy mother's day this weekend youtube bye bye bye thank you bye