School Board Meeting

001gonna give looks like nick needs one more minute to get in and sarah too right sarah [Music] perfect great the time is now seven o'clock so i would like to welcome everyone to the scarborough public schools board of education meeting for this evening today is thursday april 15 2021. could i have the attendance please sure mrs giftis dr gill yeah miss casalonas here miss leighton here mrs rashford here mrs either here mrs turner here mr bennett here and miss skiptis here perfect 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 this evening

002seeing none agenda item 5.0 is public comment on agenda items um just go through this field um one more time here every week um i will ask that members of the public who wish to speak to agenda items please raise your little blue hand um if you click on your own name you should be have the option to raise hand each speaker will have three minutes and i will be using my phone to time you i will mute myself and when the timer goes off i will unmute and you'll kind of get that blast of music and that lets you know that your time is up so if you could please wrap up when you do hear the music that's appreciated um please direct your comments to me the chair state name and your address

003for us when you begin we have five public comments that we received via email that kelly johnson will be reading for us i will go ahead and let kelly start kelly if you want to do three and then i will call on members of the public who are in attendance okay uh this first email is from and i apologize elise elise trevorello and she says good evening ahead of tonight's meeting i'd like to submit a question and comment with the announcement of new hampshire being directed for five full days of in-person learning by april 19th and massachusetts doing the saying it is evident that our neighboring states agree that full full days in person is the best for our children academically and emotionally when does the board plan on putting their agenda for return in

004the fall parents are very eagerly awaiting this information for cleaning purposes additionally as the second dose of the vaccine is likely on the horizon to our educators does the superintendent plan to reach out to the department of education or the governor's office requesting ways to work around the three-foot guidelines the way other neighboring districts like bonny eagle have it'd be very nice to see our school district fight for our children's education um scarborough resident mother of three shut my phone i'm sorry this next email is from allison neeland of 19 jamaica mill road dear school board thank you for including fall school reopening on your agenda today it is critical that we started immediately planning for a five day a week in person school schedule i hope that this conversation will be ongoing throughout all

005remaining school board meetings i have read through most of biddeford school district 69 page comprehensive plan for reopening and am i impressed by their thoroughness i look forward to seeing an equally detailed plan from scarborough in the near future and if you haven't already i encourage you to use biddeford's plan as a model i'm also encouraged to hear that cape elizabeth and falmouth have found creative solutions to opening this spring if they can do it so can scarborough as you consider the 2122 calendar i urge you not to follow into the trap of seeing student in school time and professional development for teachers as being mutually exclusive we do not have to shorten school days for kids in order to provide robust opportunities for training and collaboration for teachers i have had the unique opportunity

006of living and teaching around the world and i've seen many successful schedules that allow teachers to have substantial planning and professional development time skype was the first place we've lived with the district asked kids and therefore families to sacrifice in order for teachers to have planning time as a parent of three school age kids i'm more than happy to be part of a working group to develop creative staffing and scheduling solutions so that our teachers can get the planning time they need and our students can get the in-person school time that they need i request that the school board pressure school administrators to develop a better plan for transitioning kids into the new school year without asking our kids to give up even more of their in-person time i do not support the plans to

007face in instructional time at the beginning of the school nor the plan to make wednesday a shortened day these plans put the burden entirely on families to build the costs and responsibility of educating children during school hours instead we need to keep kids in school and build a schedule so teachers can get the time they need to be effective in the classroom this is hard but important work and i know there are many parents like me who are eager to help develop a plan that serves the needs of our kids and their amazing teachers simultaneously sincerely alice in neeland this third email is from ethan and sarah mcgrain dear board members we are continue to advocate for the full return of in-person learning we have three children in the scarborough school district and all have

008been negatively impacted with this year's hybrid learning we tie children in with tears in their eyes saying they are lonely they miss their friends they miss their teacher they miss their routine other districts around us are finding ways to return children to school full-time this school year and have already outlined their plans to return children this school year and have already outside outlined their plans for the fall please bring back our children full-time five days a week in the fall please do not push the stop make stop date back to make children miss even more school days we have so much ground to make up with the laws of education they miss this year every day is precious thank you for your time ethan and sarah thank you kelly uh i'm gonna go to mr

009bartlett first and then miss pine you will be on deck oh i'm actually not a host i can't promote hello can you hear me yes we can hear you oh hello i can hear you brian thank you hello this is brian bartlett i'm at 8 red brook lane here in scarborough i have two children in the scarborough school system both of them are eight owners i found it absolutely appalling a lack of consistent effort to get the kids back into school full-time in-person learning this school year it has been incredibly and emotionally taxing for my children being out of the school as much as they have been over the past year plus at this point their education has been suffering as a byproduct of the lack of in-person learning i appreciate all of you looking

010to get back into school full-time in personal learning next school year however our children are struggling now and they need to be back in school full-time now i know you have all heard the parents at previous school board meetings about a month ago with the parents pleading with you on behalf of their kids and we were completely dismissed because it was difficult with the new data that you have tonight i ask that you not only find a way to go back full-time next year but also this year when it comes down to additional professional development time next year we all know our kids have already missed too much in-person instruction and should not be they shouldn't have to miss anymore i can understand eating one early release or late start day per month but beyond

011that is ridiculous at this point given how much they've already missed it is time to get back to school full time so as fast as possible um time is the essence here guys come on it's time to do what's the best thing for all of the kids let's get back to school full-time thank you thank you brian stella you should be all set okay good evening chair and school board members so after another week of successes of neighboring school districts figuring out how to increase student classroom time to four or even five days a week the frustration in me rises to have my student denied the same opportunities offered around the state can only be described as inequitable and it clearly does not put our students as a top priority the school board has chosen

012to stay the course in hybrid with the intention of planning for a full-time return in the fall but we have yet to see any plans it does not seem unreasonable that we as the stakeholders should receive weekly updates with those plans and progress reports as we look to the fall i would ask that you remember your requirement to keep the students as the number one priority in concern students have spent enough time out of the classroom transition days for anyone other than perhaps incoming kindergartners are not needed students need full days five days a week starting as early as possible an alternative to the proposed transition days at the start of the school year may be to reintroduce the august kinder camp with similar options for grades one and two as to not take away

013from classroom time at the start of the school year if anything we should be decreasing the summer not increasing due to the education ketchup needed so please make choices and find options that give our students the benefits of classroom time a full five days a week thank you thank you very much kelly i'm gonna go back to you okay this next letter is from winnie lee dear cheer thank you everyone for your passion for our children we know it is a labor of love doing what you do for our children you have shoulder two times if not three times the amount of workload and have done it so graciously for us parents i don't drop my kids off at school because school will fix all the problems i bring my kids to school knowing the

014integral role will play in the daily life of my family school is essential it truly takes a village to raise our children most recently with the implemented half-day wednesdays my girls came home so refreshed they said mom we didn't do our usual school work but instead we did a lot of fun activities it filled my pocket because our educators wisely used this brief amount of time to address the sel needs of our children time and time again everyone has pulled off what is short of a miracle while managing all of the moving pieces behind the scenes as much as we long for the good old days i know that it won't be nor should it remain the same our children in their schools have been changed forever as the landscape of education has evolved fresh

015ideas for educating our children can be nurtured we have seen how relationships and socialization is so integral to learning i know firsthand how starved of human interaction my children were during this pandemic any opportunity for peer interaction did oneness for them here we have a big opportunity to think big we have essa grant mighty and additional federal funding in the pipeline 20 of this money is earmarked to address learning loss and social emotional needs with the remainder dedicated to reopening our schools full time the wait and see approach is no longer applicable as we know we can safely reopen schools we are now in the minority list of schools that are offering less than four days a week i expect that we are not aggressively i expect that we not only aggressively plan towards reopening

016schools with urgency but do so strategically beginning with task force selection that is optimistic and solution oriented towards the skull in the process we need transparency as it builds trust and competence without transparency there's no accountability this situation demands exceptional leadership and creativity thank you winnie lee this next letter is from rachel disciple this call dear superintendent and school board committee i'd like to address reopening plan for scarborough schools for the 21 and 22 school year we are over a year into this pandemic and we've seen the absolute devastating consequences for our children not being in school full time the mental health consequences have been nearly catastrophic the current covered response by the school district has led to social isolation and has caused our children to have suicidal ideation increased substance abuse ptsd depression anxiety

017and the list goes on the student dropout rate has increased our children have had decreased learning decrease math scores we're destroying our children i urge you to please use the next data that we have learned over the last year to resume normal activities and schedules that support our children with education health social emotional well-being and psychological stability please look at states that have had their children in full time and other surrounding main towns to support a safe plan for scarborough our children deserve more they continue to remain a low-risk group have had lower hospitalizations and there have been no child deaths to main children to children in the state of maine today regards rachel disco thank you kelly i believe that's the last one i have okay thank you i think so too um mr

018fertild i'm gonna promote you and then mrs ladd you will be next can you hear me now we can hear you all right first off thank you all to the school council i know you've had quite the interesting year um i'm just kind of getting in to everything now um and i'd resign myself to the fact that we were going to have the hybrid model for the remainder of this year i i would love to see us go full time i don't know if we have the plans and the organization right now in place for that but again i i am endorsing that i do have some i guess my biggest fear would be in the fall going back to the same situation from what i can gather based on we have for vaccines and

019now the reduced space requirement of three feet uh i it seems as though as that three foot limiting factor is all i can really put my finger on that would prevent us from going full you know back to normal i guess quote unquote the five days um and i just hope we're putting all our resources and thoughts and plans in to thinking inside outside the box or making new boxes or whatever we can do following biddeford's lead where they're using outside resources i have friends in massachusetts that are all going back to have already started going back five days a week so i'm just i feel quite sure that if they can do it uh we can find a way to get that three again i assume the only thing that's holding us back is

020the three foot space which i understand is a difficult issue i just hope that's really the forefront of getting this going so again i'm looking hopefully for full five days as soon as possible that we logically can and i hope we're looking at all resources we can to to allow for that i'm glad to hear that some people were really appreciative of that half day wednesday um for you know it i know for some people with child care who have organized and kind of run around to get as much child care as they can i know for some it ended up for some people it was more of a hassle than it was an actual benefit um with all the surveys that were happening i i i kind of i was surprised that wasn't surveyed

021before it came i don't think it was i didn't notice that survey before it came through um you know having one extra day a month for you know it just seemed to some extent it seemed more costly and difficult than it was as a benefit but again hearing people speak to the benefits of that i'm very glad to hear that and my last thought is just knowing that even in this current environment the days where the kids aren't in school they're going to day cares they're having play dates they're rolling around outside and playing it's happening it might not be happening under the you know the watchful eye of the school but it is happening so i feel almost in a sense that right now the kids are more at risk joining day cares getting

022together having fun you know being kids which i i love to see and they're not they're not really having widespread reactions to anything there it's not there's no clusters as far as i can tell and especially the younger groups my child's at eight corners sorry i live in 45 maple lab is the introduction um so these kids are gathering in in groups on the days they don't have schools it's more or less a free-for-all people are finding any daycare they can because people are working for the beginning of the school year a lot of these daycares weren't even wearing masks and there were no outbreaks now they've all gone to full masks and they've had they've had great luck with that so i hope that can go into the equation again i i know the

023main thing of the equation is that i think that three foot requirement but i just hope this other peripheral information helps us to understand that we should be trying to push or hope to make you know facilitate this as best as possible uh that's all thank you very much thank you and you should be all sad and jen if you want to unmute you should be all set great can you hear me okay okay great thank you so much for um hearing all these comments again um in march i spoke at a meeting and listed a handful of districts who were already opening more fully hopefully as positive examples and really hoping that our district could could join them but now here we are really at the back of the pack one of a shrinking

024list of districts left with less than four days in person in school our staff have done such a tremendous job implementing the half-day wednesdays that were approved at a prior meeting um and the kids are loving it i haven't heard from a single child or parent who doesn't say that there this has just like been a light in their in their kids um you know in their life recently and so i just really ask with the utmost sincerity that you please empower some of the same staff and the forthcoming building committees to go the rest of the way by voting tonight to let them open their classrooms to the fullest extent that they are able as soon as possible without having to wait for another meeting i look forward to hearing the details of the

025rest of the fall plan tonight because i know that there's been a lot of work going on there um but if there are plans for a full in-person return in the fall that assume no change to the current cdc guidelines it's really hard for me to then imagine how that same plan could not be implemented sooner and i understand that that might be different at different levels of our of our schools but our kids honestly deserve that kind of effort after the efforts that they've put in this year because it's been really hard for them too and i believe that you as school board members that you honestly have the best interest of our kids in your hearts it's literally your mission as our board members anyone that doesn't should simply no longer serve on

026this board i also believe that you know the in-person instruction is what's best for our kids and i believe with those two facts as your guide and the continued hard work and staff that support all the really good things that are happening in this district that you will go ahead and make the right choices for our kids not only for next year but for the rest of this year too thanks thank you very much jeremy dill i'm gonna promote you here we go can you hear me we can hear you all right thank you uh my name is jeremy dill i'm the father of a first grader at blue point school so i will say that this hybrid learning model is very much most of what she's known for her educational experience and like a

027lot of the parents you know i certainly echo this desire for them to return full-time in the fall um i know the challenges that uh returning earlier may present but i think certainly uh looking ahead to the fall i'm hopeful that that the opportunity will arise and this will be fulfilled but i i guess i also realize that you know my complaints and my concerns are also coming from a place of privilege and that i think we also gotta look at things through a lens of equity um you know looking at recent statistics about the scarborough school district almost eight percent of students in scarborough schools are on free and reduced lunch programs so keep in mind that these are households that don't have the same opportunities to have daycare opportunities for their students on

028their remote learning days these are households that may not be able to take time off from work to be able to be home with kids on their remote learning so you know you also need to look at this as a student welfare issue and as an equity issue and try and get these school these children back to school full-time so that you know these families can have the the burden that is remote learning removed from their lives so thank you so much thank you very much is there anyone else in attendance who would like to make a public comment this evening mr perry hi good evening can you guys hear me okay we can hear you great thank you originally i wasn't going to speak um i guess let me back up first of all

029i have a three-year-old son and a six-year-old son who is currently in a part of a homeschool pod we live over in the pleasant hill area so my older boy would be attending pleasant hill um hopefully five days a week in the fall so originally i wasn't going to speak um but something happened to me this this morning actually ironically that i would like to share so around 11 30 um i was at a stoplight and i saw a gentleman out there and i had a brief discussion with him he was a panhandler in his 40s and you know reason why i had a conversation with him a brief one he was standing there with his six-year-old son um so being the father of a six-year-old i kind of took that part um he was

030out of work he was homeless they said they were bouncing around from house to house um you know staying where they could you know i asked him if his boy was in school and he said no i didn't really get a chance to go beyond that um but as i did drive off i played over about 100 scenarios in my head as to what you know what led them to that situation um regardless of any of those scenarios the one that stuck with me was that really could have been any parent any parent in scarborough um who has been forced out of work forced to stay home with their kid their child while their school's closed or in hybrid and let's be honest hybrid is not the same as open so while i know and

031appreciate all the work that's being done by everybody um hybrid for us is is not working anymore i don't i don't feel so on a positive note um in looking at kind of the meeting agenda and some of the material that that went around earlier i am grateful to see progress being made with the review of the biddeford plan with the engagement of harriman associates to do some spatial analysis so that i will say kudos for that upon review of these plans and these assessments that are being done it's absolutely critical that the board be transparent on the steps the timing and the costs needed to get our children back to the five days a week um or at least the option this year of going back five days a week um you know again

032transparency on the result of these findings and reviews is going to be key um it'll help ease a lot of the the stress um on on parents teachers on everybody involved we have the funds existing and forthcoming we have the resources um and and most of all we have the community to to get behind our kids and our teachers who as far as i can understand are contractually obligated to perform in a safe environment so again we you know we're asking for a transparent plan for the families to establish the steps or execute on the steps to make that plan happen i'll leave it at that and thank you for your time thank you very much is there anyone else who would like to make public comment this evening seeing none i'm going to go

033ahead and close public comment i'm going to do a little housekeeping here just for a sec agenda item 6.0 this evening is the fy 22 public hearing on the school proposed budget and with that i'm going to turn it over to [Music] sandy and kate hi there sorry i'm i'm having trouble pushing buttons myself this evening um i think sarah was actually going to start this off for us a little bit and then let me dive into the more detailed bits is that what you're thinking sarah yeah sure i'll just cover off um the first slide if you don't mind moving it forward cool thank you yeah so kate's going to cover the detail i just wanted to take the opportunity just to kind of set the scene as to where we were uh or

034sorry where we are rather and this is an image that hopefully um those of you who are watching have seen before it's been it was created by by the town but it's been shared in a bunch of different communications so we want to continue to share it um and really the the point of putting this up there at the start is just to try and demonstrate that we're really just at the beginning of this process uh it was just last night that the town had their first reading and so what you're going to see tonight is some details behind what our first reading was um and the town's first reading was a little bit different um in that they actually made a passive motion and an amendment to sort of reduce budgets for where they

035came in originally um to the tune of about 3.4 ish million dollars so what you're going to see tonight does not reflect any work that's been done following the the motion that was made last night um but that isn't final and that really just kind of starts the process so what we hope that uh folks who are out there watching and listening tonight will do is is reach out to us let us know what's important as we go through this budget process what we want to make sure remains in um and what's of value to you and and your families so with that i will hand it over to kate and i think we have this image again at the end to put up to sear into your minds when when you can stay engaged

036screenshots um yeah we should we should note that these um presentations are posted on our website after each meeting and um there's a ton of budget material on um the town and school budget portal and there's also an appendix slide at the end of this presentation we didn't want to get too deep into tons of detail but there is tons of detail out there for anyone who's interested in following along with the budget process and getting more information and i will just make a pitch right here as your school business manager that none of the things that we want to do in this school district can be done without enough funding so bear that in mind and support us as we move along kelly could i have the next slide thank you so real quickly

037these are the um guiding thoughts that we brought into our budget development process this year very different from the norm we built a budget just before the pandemic hit last year and this year we had the benefit of living through the months of pandemic school and and we had a little bit different focus in our budget um and we wanted to take a look at what had happened in this prior year as we started to think about moving forward and hopefully moving out of the pandemic environment so what we're looking at was to make sure that we could maintain our current programs and services and stay healthy in school big underline on that one and also talk about coming back into school after having been in the hybrid mode and what kind of needs our

038students would have that might be different in this new environment next slide cal this is a snapshot of the school operating budgets it doesn't include the capital budget again there are documents posted online which can give you every last little detail of what's out there in our proposal but what this shows you is the budget that was approved by the school board at first reading on the 15th of march and as sarah mentioned we've gone to the next step where the town council is approved the municipal budget and first reading and what they have authorized is not what we have put on the table but that's where the process comes in we need to work together to figure out how we get to the right endpoint and if you have memorized that slide that sarah

039cautioned you to do you would have seen that we have a finance committee meeting coming up on the 28th which will be our next opportunity for the school and the town to work together towards the next steps so this shows you the fun general fund operating budget which is our k-12 budget that's what you folks vote on we have our adult education operating budget and our school nutrition budget an overall increase on expenditures of just under 2.5 million or 5.28 percent and then we show the non-tax revenues that's school subsidy for the most part and a few other small revenue sources and the net amount is what we are asking for in taxes from the citizens of scarborough the tax request for the school department is not the increase to the tax rate it's simply

040a portion of the formula that's used to derive the increase in the tax rate next cal so again our focus as we were building the budget our leadership team pulled together and did their usual budget process which is very intensive and takes several months but again the focus has been really um heavily on what is it going to look like in the coming fiscal year which starts july 1st and takes us through the next school year what what is our life going to be like um recovering from covet the coveted impacts and you saw some of the things that i mentioned in the earlier slide and the other piece that's been really difficult for us is to figure out what kind of enrollment we're going to have next year and how to address the appropriate

041levels of class size um and of course the cdc guidance is a big piece of that the social distancing requirements and you'll hear an awful lot more about that in the next chunk of this evening next slide what we call level services is basically doing the same things this year and then doing them again next year with the understanding that children change their grades that programs come and go but essentially level services is maintaining what we currently have about 80 of our operating budget is in personnel costs staff salaries and benefits and the uh increase in our budget this year about 74 of the total overall increase in our operating budget is made up of these costs so bearing in mind that we're a people organization and that we really spend very little money on

042stuff other things and if you are going to be a budget geek with me and get into reading the budget book you'll see all kinds of cool pie charts in there that tell you where your budget dollars go where your tax dollars go next slide this chart gives you a quick one-shot view of the changes from fy21 fiscal year 21 is where we are today fiscal year 22 is the budget that we're building and so this tells you um what's new what's different what's gone um the budget from nfy 22 retains some of the folks that we added with covet in mind we added two school nurses and that need remains we now have one nurse a registered nurse in each of our school buildings two in the larger buildings critical need they've been working

043tirelessly to keep us safe this year one special education teacher that we added is going to be retained and we didn't add 23 bus driver positions that's our full complement of bus drivers and we want to retain our full complement of bus drivers even though our community has been driving their kids all year long and allowing us to distance on buses we're going to need all of those positions when we get back to filling our buses the budget removes some of the funding that was specifically allocated for coveted preparations because we've prepared and we're there it restores some positions that were lost uh in the fy 21 budget about 1.8 million dollars was reduced out of our current year budget causing us to lose a number of positions that we are hoping to restore we

044behaved in emergency mode in the spring of 2020 when we were trying to build the budget for this year and we acknowledged that we were in a a difficult time and we didn't know what the future would hold so we we eliminated a number of positions and now we are hoping to restore those knowing that we are heading back into what may be a little bit more normal year and also knowing what the loss of those positions has cost us in this current year this budget also adds a half-time social worker we have a half-time position that we'd like to make full-time um that is i hope an obvious choice in a situation where our kids social emotional needs are so high that would be at the high school it also adds to special education

045and techs based on a new rule coming down from the state department of education that extends the amount of time that teenagers can be in high school it extends the age limit and so we will have students in school longer in special education programs five classroom teachers are included in this current budget proposal was passed by the board however since that time we've received word that we will be getting funding from the federal government and this is sort of two in the weeds for me to explain all the different grants that we've had i'm throwing you back to the budget book it's all in there um however we do know that we have sufficient funding um with this last round to go back to the round before that and use that money to pay for

046the five classroom teachers so uh it's our proposal that those will be removed from our operating budget but the positions will be able to be funded with federal funds next slide kel when we put a budget out for first reading there are always items in motion and items in motion means that we don't know all of the details of our outside costs costs that are influenced by outside factors typically until we get further into the budget process so this is a list of the various things that we take a look at between first and second reading i'll call your attention to the nice red words that say that the anthem health insurance the increased value that we budgeted is about 350 000 and with the funding coming in the premiums coming in flat um that's

047a savings which is awesome unfortunately we are going to need that savings to pay for the debt service estimate which was too low so that kind of washes things out but we do have another a number of other moving pieces that we're keeping an eye on and our hope is to be able to reduce our ask for our budget proposal that went in first reading so that in second reading we can have a smaller number but also meet the needs of our our students next slide cal there are a number of items in our capital budget and again i didn't represent that here on a slide but there are two items that were particularly watching the cost on and we'll be having more conversations around as you may have heard the school department has taken

048on the turf and track turf field and track renovation project that was proposed by the town some years ago and we have added that into our budget this year and planned to be the supporters and promoters of that project and we are working on budget estimates that will help us refine that number a little bit um and the second item here bulleted here is our long-range planning project and um with that we've got a placeholder number in our budget and we are leaning on our building steering committee to help us figure out if that's the right number and to define what that amount of money will purchase for us i think we can do the next one oh look it's the budget calendar um so i'm going to leave you with this slide i think

049the the next one which kelly can scoot by it has a link to the budget portal and it has a bunch of sort of fine print around all of the words i've been speaking to you but do take note of that calendar please memorize it print it out and put it on your fridge and um share it with your friends because your support along the way here is really going to be critical to us being able to retain what is in this budget proposal which will then allow us to spend the federal funds that we may have available on getting our kids back to school with the restrictions that we're facing um do you want to have some question time on this april or uh absolutely if there's anybody on the board who would like

050to ask kate a question i know we've seen this material a bunch of times you know but for the public i just feel like it you know we have a great audience we have a ton of people who are engaged in our meetings and so we wanted to take another opportunity to just go through the budget height you know from a high level um and to speak to kate's points you know being at this point your advocacy as constituents is so needed at town council finance committee meetings at our own finance committee meetings at full board meetings at town council meetings email the town council not just the school board to advocate for our investments you know they're going to be they're going to be looking to hear what people are going to be willing

051to support at referendum just like they do every year um and so we really need to provide that strong voice for our kids so that we can get a nice um you know budget that will will serve their needs in the fall because we know that the needs are going to be great does anybody have any questions for kate not seeing any thank you very much kate and sarah for pulling that together for us today welcome thank you agenda item 7.0 is superintendent report and tonight mr prince will be presenting the fall reopening update thank you april indeed we're here tonight to talk about the opening of school and that's been our goal to return full time in person in the fall next slide please we have some assumptions that hopefully these assumptions are correct

052that the three four distances will continue to be in place for students in september we will come back to school full time full time but we need to be proactive with safety nets to support us if pandemic conditions change such as if we need to temporarily go yellow or red because of an outbreak did you know me deo is developing a roadmap road map to the recovery plan and that will be coming out hopefully soon we've been waiting for that and uh i did call d.o.e and they explained to me that that should be coming pretty soon and uh we're looking forward to seeing what they have to say that will match our plan and and we can learn from that plan next uh slide please so this year you know we've had our facilities

053director todd jefferson um work with a local commercial broker for a listing of commercial office spaces because again part of thinking ahead we were a little worried that we may have to get some other spaces because we just don't have enough space in the building to bring everybody back so he's been working with a commercial broker just to kind of keep us abreast of possibilities out there in the community um we entered into a conversation with the university we are very have close ties with the university of southern maine both the professor dr flynn ross and the dean came over to uh uh we're on zoom with them talking about the potential of having interns within the district and and that there's a possibility for that there's some limitations on that and i'll just give

054you a quick example when you take an intern the new model now is to try to have that intern end up with part of a classroom and as the intern gets more experience potentially maybe they could take on a couple more students the disadvantage that they really would like to have the internet be in their own classroom and so you know that's a little bit of a limitation for us here in scarborough but again we want to continue to have those conversations because we think it's an opportunity if we need to go that route todd has been in touch with our architect firm to really look at maximizing current space utilization and he'll be talking about that tonight and then we are forming and reopening planning committees going to be school based and to really

055look at the logistics the challenges and the opportunities for each school as we begin to open school in the fall and that those committees will be meeting starting fairly soon in may and uh we have good representation hopefully from the commun community on that as well the site as i was just talking about the school-based teams again i first of all want to just congratulate the stock committee last summer for the work that they did it was really a representation to come together and represent all the schools and departments and now we're just feeling that again we could be more localized at each building and for each building to have teachers a school nurse parents students school board member support staff and administrator come together and really begin to talk about the fall and to

056kind of get into the nitty-gritty of what that's going to look like next slide so we are committed uh we're really trying to do some good planning i'm very optimistic and i do appreciate people's patience i know this has been a long haul particularly for the parents and uh i put a letter out today to the staff just explaining to them that i hope they have a wonderful vacation i know it's been a hard year and that i mentioned to them that we'd be presenting this work tonight and i'm hoping we have some staff members that are watching next slide so todd jepson is going to jump in and kind of walk through the next two or three slides he's the expert when it comes to classroom space todd are you up there yes i

057am thank you as sandy said we've been working really hard to analyze all of our spaces and uh as you all know uh the whole spacing uh demands from the doe have been a bit of a moving target we started out with six foot distancing and last month it was changed uh to three feet of distancing so as we were working our classroom spacing we then had to go back and change it all to three and keep it six feet from the teachers and bear in mind that students needed to be six feet apart to eat so it wasn't just a simple draw box and stick in the chairs and desks and students it was a little bit more complicated and so we are in the process of adjusting the other challenge in our district

058is that at every school there are varying room sizes and in every phase level there are different materials and supplies and equipment uh in the classrooms that take up space and and uh so we've done a lot of weeding and uh condensing and storing if you've driven by any of the schools especially the high school you'll see all these large storage containers and so forth so the challenge has been to try to get as many students as possible in a classroom with those varying sizes for example at the elementary schools the primary schools they actually have three different size classrooms because the buildings that were built originally in the 50s and 60s then the renovated sections in the 90s and now the portables that are added onto all of them as well they're all different

059sizes so anyway our work with harriman uh they have been our long-range facilities planning firm for quite a few years they actually built and designed the renovated high school uh as well as wentworth so we had a lot of uh things in place already in terms of size so it began with them several weeks ago and we are uh finalizing those drawings and maximum student occupant loads for the classrooms and it's uh it's looking really positive in terms of how many kids we can get in there will definitely be some compromise for for the way the rooms are laid out um it's gonna feel rather uniform i'm afraid but that's something we're willing to work with the other challenges we've had is that the enrollment has been a bit of a moving target so we're

060trying to keep our eye on the most realistic numbers of the students that will be returning um a school like the high school course offerings also uh impact uh how many kids are in what types of courses because the kids can sign up for their classes unlike in other lower level schools staffing has been a huge challenge uh in order to get back uh with the numbers we can fit in classroom is going to require more more teaching staff to be in those classrooms transportation also is a challenge and probably the resounding refrain we heard from all the principals this week when we met with them to show them what we have come up with so far is feeding the students and a place to do that in the way that the doe and cdc

061recommend with the six foot distancing it's really challenging at the k2 schools and the middle school to do that and if you were walking through you would see desks and tables in very strange places to accommodate the feeding of the students that has to take place and again the overall overarching goal we try to keep in mind is to follow the guidelines and keep all of the occupants safe next slide please in this process as sandy referenced we have considered many alternative space considerations in the town everything from uh churches to as sandy referenced commercial office spaces the first challenge was to see if you know i i always look at how much space we have and say can't we can't we make what we have work so we started out by storing everything out

062outside of classrooms and making more room inside our buildings for these things to happen i mentioned that earlier with all the storage containers and things stored in spaces that technically they shouldn't be stored in like boiler rooms and hallway corners and things and then we reconfigured some spaces within the buildings or we changed purposes of rooms for example the pleasant hills staff and faculty room is now a special education uh space with several employees who work in that department in there and we've found an alternative space cordoned off in the pleasant hill cafeteria for the staff so again there's been a lot of compromise and good will asked of the staff and they've all complied and done a great job and it's it's really been encouraging to see the willingness and flexibility of the staff

063last fall we also set up tents for just a mask break or an outdoor classroom setting or an eating area on nice days we'll put those back up right after the april break now that the ground is drying up and it's getting a little warmer out um the pictures on the right on this slide are actually of what i consider to be the most promising community space it's the the point or east point community church it's in the old bob's discount furniture store near clark's pond home depot if you haven't been there uh it's a beautiful space we uh had someone reach out to us from that place and they have uh several spaces that could be used as classrooms i visited there and we looked over the whole thing they also have a a

064gym and another uh sort of an indoor turf uh field and it it had some real potential we also talked with the rock church and saint max's church those were actually not going to be alternatives for us scarborough downs also offered a space in their sort of on-track observation area it's a big space it's more of an auditorium style space and we're going to be challenged by the ongoing activities in that building and to be combined with school operations so and then finally as many of you know our community services department uh is operating their child care facility out of the old house of lights which they've now called the hub and we've talked with them about the potential of you know maybe a portion or some segments of that space being used as alternative

065classrooms or overflow classrooms if the need arises um and then the town manager referenced that the alder hall it's a masonic the old masonic lodge down by dunston fire station uh is now owned by the town and i looked at that and um i can tell you with 100 certainty that will not work uh it has some significant air quality issues um that i wouldn't want staff or students exposed to um but i still appreciate everyone reaching out and giving us some great ideas um back to the point um we we put in a bunch of questions after our visit and uh we are waiting to hear back from them about some of the questions that we have in terms of how to make something like that work next slide please finally the commercial properties

066that we've looked at i've connected with the dunham group and they have put out a listing from all of firms besides dunham group um of the various commercial properties that are available and some of them are uh might be suitable but might also be combined with other businesses which may not want the sort of disruptive neighbor of a school or school classes there but uh ongoing conversations there and what visits uh planned uh everything from professional office space to sort of industrial park kind of warehouse spaces that might be able to accommodate uh or or be you know quickly renovated or you know dusted off shall we say uh to accommodate additional space if if we need that come the fall uh challenges there are are they really easily convertible um the things we think

067about aren't just desks and chairs they're things like technology and safety and security and transportation and uh meals indoor air quality where does the nursing health health staff reside that is all what i consider to be the infrastructure sort of the intangible um all the stuff i handle is tangible um so but i have to take all these things into consideration when when deeming something worthy of classroom space and the good news is i'm not the only one that has to decide that so finally the town manager uh referred us to uh the person who uh has some space in the old bessie school which is across the road from the town hall and uh also some space above the scarborough grounds uh business across the street um i've got calls into that person as

068well and i'm waiting to hear back as well and then finally we actually even just drove up to this child care facility which is on route 114 between eight corners and uh payne road and unfortunately that space has been consumed by a physical therapy uh business so it's being converted it's already been taken unfortunately so we're a little late to the trough there so the good news is from our studies with harriman is it's looking like we can get more desks or students in a classroom so that the fall reopening is looking quite promising it will again involve some adjustments in terms of class sizes which may impact staffing and hopefully we'll have the budget to do that we're also challenged by the types of furnishings uh the slide i first showed had desks in

069it most of our elementary schools have tables but we're also finding that as we analyze how you set up the tables that it's looking quite promising that we'll get quite a few students in a classroom with the tables as well again other precautions in place so um i i don't have a lot more to say other than i i think we're looking really good to house our students on our own properties for the fall based on uh the results of our harriman study and that with some sort of creative programming and staffing i think we're heading in the right direction for a positive outcome for fall and our students in our own buildings full-on five days a week in my opinion thank you appreciate it i think we have one more slide so this is

070just to pick up what todd had talked about again we're very optimistic for september that all students will be back in the scarborough schools the need will be to hire additional 12 teachers and we'll continue to look at the sr3 funds that will assist with um trying to make sure that we can hire at least 12 teachers and that's the real need here is now that we can get the number our desks or tables in the classrooms now we need more staff and over the summer i think todd will continue to repurpose different spaces in the certain schools just to make sure that we're ready for september so i'm 100 confident at this point in time that we will have all our students back in school for fall and i think that is the last

071slide thank you so much sandy and todd for presenting all of that information at this time i will take board member questions and comments nick you can go first hopefully i'll meet myself there i am um so what i have to say is more of a comment than a question it's really addressed to the board but also everybody in attendance so um first i want to i want to thank you sandy and all of our staff and community members who have contributed to this work uh aimed at reopening our schools um i also want to thank the people that have spoken in public comment recently and shared their passion and concerns regarding the status of our school and students tonight we heard several people talk about a desire for transparency and our success for the

072rest of this year and next fall really depends on that um many families in our community have experienced multiple coven 19 close contacts and or infections over the past 13 months and i can understand how that's frightening and frustrating and stressful and disruptive all the same time i want to thank most of those families for being forthright and communicating with our schools so that we can take steps to keep your children and our staff safer but in the interest of full transparency i also want to say that it's come to light that that some may not have been completely transparent and communicative in the ways that i just outlined so i'm asking please to everybody in attendance to share with anybody you talk with and if your child tests positive or part of your family

073is asked to quarantine please heed that advice and notify your child's school and those that are potentially impacted our collective success as we endeavor to return to more in-person learning this year and next fall depends on you thanks thanks nick gabby and then shannon um first i just want to say like thank you for all this work it's making me really hopeful for my senior year and it's just it's exciting to hear about um i actually have two questions so my first one is would like the separation of church and state rule is it like allowed for public schools to teach i don't know if that's a rule and then also um for the older like high school students who would be vaccinated in the fall do you know if the three feet rule still

074applies to them so your last question gabby my understanding is there's a lot of movement with the superintendent's association to have perhaps doe cdc to look at those guidelines particularly for the cafeteria and um other restrictions because if we didn't have those restrictions we would be much in a better place so i think there's a lot of movement to have the governor and her depart her her colleagues up there to really look at what we're asking so i think more will come from that i don't want to lead people to think it's going to happen but there's a big movement to look at that um and your other question was remind me it was about the church and state and like public schools and churches so that's a really good point we would have to

075i mean we get at this point in time we're not really going to move forward with any additional space but if we had to then i think we would have to pursue that with our school attorney and get some information on that good thanks questions go ahead shannon um i had a question about the study and i'm not sure if todd perhaps you said this and i just missed it but how many um how many i know the classrooms are different sizes but how many students per class can we can we fit in based on the new study uh it's written i'm sorry i'm gonna get mine it's it's really a range of side of numbers so i think we're up to 16 to 19 at the maximum depending on the largest size classrooms so

076and that's with again realistic put them up against the wall even if we're blocking a bookcase get them in there and keep them six feet from the teacher and three feet apart and then allowing reasonably uh when i did this i actually sat in a student chair and said how much space is it going to take for a child to slide back and get out of their desk if they have to go to the bathroom or something so we gave a slight slight a few inches extra for them to go in and out and still remain three feet from the person behind them um with the desk you know separating them so i think 16 to 19 depending on the school and the classroom they're in is what we've come up with now thank you

077todd um kt is there one building that will have a greater staffing need than any other one or is the 12 teachers pretty well spread out diane do you yeah so the the 12 teachers really um are nested more at the k-8 level than they are at the high school um and again that's just because you know high school operates very differently um than any of our other phase levels do so you know that is 12 teachers that's above and beyond the budget proposal that um kate and sandy shared at the beginning of the presentation tonight but again i think that if we can target those latest ester funds towards that um that will certainly better position us to be able to fit that need thanks guys um i don't see any other hand so

078i will go ahead and say my comment which is um todd touched on this a little bit and we we had someone touch on this in public comment um one of our biggest challenges my understanding is that eating is the giving making sure that the kids can unmask because right now the guideline is still six feet um are we anticipating that it will be three feet for eating in the fall like is that our assumption because that to me seems like it's still going to be a really big challenge to fill our schools and and all the desks and all the configurations are going to be set up for three feet but we still have to find a way for them to be able to eat six feet correct yeah cafeteria is the biggest challenge

079for most districts if i if i might butt in here a little bit uh the the cafeterias also are the gymnasium uh facility in the k2 schools so under normal circumstances it's challenging to serve lunch and then clean it all up for those of you who are parents and i'm a parent of two boys kids make a mess when they eat and then squeeze the kids back in for phys ed under normal circumstances that is nail-bitingly tight and now with six-foot distancing kids eating in their classrooms and one custodian in the building huge challenge there so um we can make it happen and we will my staff has been amazing if i could take a public moment to commend my custodial and maintenance staff for the work they have done under these circumstances they have

080been astounding walk through any school and look at them they're clean and the custodians are showing up and the maintenance guys are shuffling furniture every which way and stuffing them every corner and container they can find it i i can't say enough about my staff and i appreciate all of those who have acknowledged that to us because it goes a long way in keeping us going so thank you thanks todd and definitely on our behalf let them know our hats are off we we couldn't do it without them and we know that um sarah and then alicia thanks april uh todd at a prior meeting i forget what it was now and it was a lot while ago we talked about there's like a desk and chair shortage and not just in scarborough maine but

081it sounds like in the country does does this plan does that impact our plans to be able to go back full time with the three feet distance with more desks and equipment than we have today i'm gonna answer that with the utmost confidence and say no um we uh the biggest place we were challenged is uh we moved a lot of tables out of the middle school um we saved the ones that we could absolutely reuse some of them literally they were 26 years old or whatever 25 years old the building is and they fell apart when we moved them so we had to throw them out but i have successfully ordered over 400 more desks for the middle school and they will be here as i've been promised sometime in june uh so they

082will be here for the fall we'll have the middle school ready and i think we're going to be able to make the tables work at the k2s with the numbers that we are allowed to have in those spaces and it could be again some creative programming on the teachers and principles of those schools part but again they've stepped up and done an amazing job in their tiny little schools so they're making it happen so i'm i'm pretty confident sarah that we can we can not worry about furniture awesome thank you great go ahead alisha thank you i don't know what the um plan format for the um restart committees are but hearing the public um comment um tonight that we heard a theme that they wanted transparency and and to be kept updated i was

083wondering if we could um tape those meetings and then post them if that's a possibility i think we could look into that i just don't know if the meetings were held at different times and i think we could make sure we could get a camera set up i'm not sure how many cameras we have to be honest with you between the town and the schools but certainly if we could do that we will do it i think it's a great idea and it's great for people to from the public to be able to watch those they wouldn't be live necessarily i will take the opportunity to put in a plug for my fellow board members too if you haven't let me know your availability and your interest to serve on one of those building committees

084shoot me an email and let me know if you can volunteer your time um to to do that that would be great because it helps us keep the public informed too you know the more we know um leanne um just a couple of quick things i want to confirm that it is the five that we've already requested plus 12 so we're looking at 17 teachers that we would need for this plan to work okay um and then i guess it's a plea really to the community it kind of backs into what was said earlier um please do support this with town council let them know how important these 17 teachers are um how the budget really is going to need to be able to support this in order for the doors to open and all

085the students to come back full time it sounds like this is really the most critical piece of the plan is the staffing thanks thanks leanne um i do see our attendees who have their hands raised unfortunately during a board meeting at this point i don't take public comment from anyone who's in attendance but if you have a question or a comment you can email us at boe at scarborough schools dot org and i will be happy to get you an answer to your question and address your comment there are there any other board members who would like to make a comment or ask a question i'm not seeing any so thank you again to todd and sandy for the prep that went into giving the community an update tonight i know that it was much

086anticipated um and i'm sure we will get additional questions as the weeks go by um and to address the the transparency issue you know as frequently as as we can give you an update um you know i i had a request for this to be on every agenda from now until the end of school and i can't make that guarantee right now um because we don't know what the update for may 6 would look like um but by all means you know if we have something to share we will share it and also i want to point out that board meetings are certainly not the only way that we share information there's a district newsletter that goes out weekly now every friday and so you know that's a great source of information in terms of

087just getting that rolling update and so if you're not already reading that newsletter or clicking on that newsletter make sure you you give it a whirl with that i will go ahead and move on to agenda item 8.0 which is new business tonight agenda item 8.1 is the second reading of the 2021-2022 school calendar you want me to take it april i would love for you to tee this up a little bit thank you okay thank you so um just like to back up to the to the history of um what's gone on with the with the school calendar we do have a board policy ica that um talks about how the board um school calendar should be approved and um that is supposed to be um that administration presents the calendar to policy committee

088and the policy committee um does the work at that level and then makes a recommendation to the full board and um i guess historically that hasn't been followed and so we've we've been trying to do that this year we've got a little i would say some some growing pains but um and and probably it's partly because of this is a tough year um in general so um the two real issues i think that we um were faced with were the um the request by administration for wednesdays um whether it be um for professional development of our staff whether it be for uh late start or early release and the frequency by which that should occur and then there were um there was a question of um the start days and um how at the in

089particular at the lower levels how the administration felt that there needed to be um sort of a staggered approach to provide an um an opportunity for our students to you know see the school to get used to that get used to their schedule their friends their um their bus ride perhaps um and to get tested and to also allow the teachers some time to prepare and so those are obviously um things that are very important um but we've also heard that um our kids are struggling and we need to um parents feel strongly that kids need to be back in school full time and so um the request by administration was brought to us and um the policy committee then met just as a group and um diane asked us to come up with five

090with some proposals we did come up with five proposals um that was presented back to um the building level principles to determine if there were any um of those proposals that they could support because the consensus of the um of the committee was that the um staggered start of the school year was a little too slow um given the the concerns that we had heard heard from um parents um so we did agree on um or we had a consensus that it was not um it was not unanimous um to go with the the proposal five which is not what um administration recommended initially again that they recommended a slower more staggered approach that would allow the kids to ease back into school um and i guess if we can move to the next slide

091i think that's where we'll see the so this is the proposal um from from leadership and um it would have us returning back to school um on september 13 um for for k through five now the the issue for um the older grades was not really um it was interesting because part of the discussion that we had was um about how the transition should occur which really isn't the school board's purview um because you know we're not it's not our responsibility to try to run the schools but it became a discussion that we had to have because of the calendar and so we didn't have to do that at the higher grades um and and so it was a little um awkward and uncomfortable um i would say to have um uh to have sort

092of a difference of opinion but um i think that diane maybe i'll pass it on to you to present the um administration request initially and then um then i'll go back to sort of where we wound up if that's okay sure that's fine so um this was the proposal from the leadership team um and our k5 principals presented that at the policy meeting on tuesday and as alicia has pointed out previously that um the purpose of the time um as presented is to build connections with students and families to give folks a broad overview to provide individual appointments to get to know families and provide tours for the school since many of our families will have never stepped foot inside their child's current school before since you know by the time we head back to

093school we will not have had folks in in side schools for 18 months and so you can see here the original proposal has september 1st and 2nd as specific appointment times again our teachers would be spending you know the entire day meeting with each of their families um and then following the extended labor day weekend which has been traditional on our calendar um the following week would be a half a day on the 7th and 8th for half of the classroom to again engage kids get them used to the way things are organized and the protocols that will have to be followed and um on the morning of the 9th and the 10th all of the students would be together and you can see that from the 7th through 10th on the proposal students would

094be attending for half a day and that would be to allow teachers an opportunity in the afternoon to have individual screening appointments with each of the students i think everybody is well aware that there is definitely concern about learning loss or where our students are starting from and so it is going to be really important for all of our staff to to have solid information about the skills that students in their classes are coming with so that they can plan for instruction appropriately if you can go to the next slide kelly the k5 administrators on at the meeting on tuesday also provided a rationale for their request they had worked together with their school teams and staff around this proposal they felt strongly that again as i mentioned in the previous slide actually two-thirds of

095our families at the k-5 level will never have been inside their child's school before students won't have been in school full-time and none of our students will have had a full year in um in their school uh because of you know this pandemic that we've had and um in order to provide a little bit more information they also wanted to give some reasoning for why we have screening appointments for k-5 students and again you can see those listed here not just about making connections with students but also meeting their families getting important information about their students the beginning of the year is always a time for teachers to connect with families and to get to know their kids but at this time you know there may be more information um in terms of you know

096how children have fared during um this hybrid learning time that parents feel is important to share and we want to honor the time that it would take to have each of those conversations and also um building relationships and so that is in addition to you know some of the academic screening that would happen the next slide um actually um this goes on to talk about early release so we can probably hold off on that for now so that we can have this part of the conversation does that make sense to you alicia or so so the the thank you diane for doing that so the proposal that um the policy committee committee came up with was um that um on september 1st the grade 6 and 9 would would go into for an introduction to

097school which i think is something that's occurring if i would be appointment by only uh be by appointment only and then september 2nd would be um grades 6 through 12 we'll be attending school k5 will be by appointment only and again that would allow for that screening um to occur um on september 3rd we have no school september 6 we have no school it's labor day september 7th again students grade 6 through 12 will be attending k5 will be a half day um on the next day the 8th 12 will be in school k5 will be a half day morning only on both of those days and then on 9 10 all um students will return back to school and and this was not unanimous in the committee level it was something that um was

098um proposed to administration that they said that they could live with it was something that i think as a group said that we could live with and it was to try to find a middle ground um to meet the needs of the kids after hearing the administration's you know really strong um feeling about the need for that that testing and that preparation and that this is going to be really difficult and overwhelming to the kids along with hearing very strongly from our community that they feel that kids need to be back in school and i don't know if you want to ask questions about the start of the day um start of the year or um if and if so we could we could do that now and then move on to the wednesday discussion

099more fully my recommendation would be that we discuss this portion first and then we discuss the the early release portion next if that's okay with everybody yeah that's fine right kristen has her hand up yeah can you just explain to me the difference between what's happening on the first and second versus the afternoons of the seventh and eighth like what the different screenings are did you say alicia anyone maybe diane could answer yeah um the um first and the second would be um for appointments with families and so again those would be the meetings that i described where parents could talk about you know it's kind of like a parent-teacher conference right at the beginning of the school year but again because of um the experience the most recent experiences that folks have had and

100students have had in terms of um you know our hybrid environment folks thought that that was important and so it would be relationship building um finding out more about students and giving parents that chance to experience the school and then the screening appointments which would happen on the half days on the following week would be dedicated to getting that academic information so um you know i can totally appreciate without recapping the entire policy meeting that we've come to a compromise here or that was the suggestion um but i would just make sure that that people understand that it will not be possible for a teacher to screen every student in their class in two half days um and so you know we will have to make a plan for um how to set those up

101and when um other students can be screened whether that be hiring substitutes or um having other people cover what you know but but that will be a creative problem solving that we will have to engage in okay thank you dick and then sarah so i just want to i i think i got my head around exactly what's being proposed here but given what what diane just said it kind of sparked something for me so if those two half days for k5 aren't enough to get that screening done what why wouldn't we do that as two full days to be able to get that done i'm just wondering diane do you want it i i think it's a um i think you're a little confused nick and mate and definitely correct me if i'm wrong nick

102i think the that half day time the two half days yep all kids will have gone home and the parents bring their child back for a screening appointment and what diane is saying is that those two half days are not enough time to do those screening appointments so we're that's why the administration had asked for four half days so okay so the the the am only is actually am instruction on the afternoon is the screening yes i think the idea behind it was to help kids transition back to school i think our administrators again i don't want to speak for them but i guess i am because i'm on the meeting um uh that our administrators wanted to you know respond to parents desire to you know make sure that we're getting kids back in

103soon enough but also being really thoughtful about that transition like our this is just a different start and so wanting to be thoughtful around that time but you know certainly if you know the board wants to consider just providing that in one fell swoop and not having that staggered approach um you know again i think that administration is open to whatever folks can support to make sure that our students have a thoughtful return okay um sarah go ahead so sorry if i'm if i'm not understanding i thought where nick was going with his question was the same question that i had which was i guess couldn't we use the the the full 9-1-9-2 which is by appointment only to do some of those screenings we can certainly look at how to structure the time that

104we have again you know this was the proposal that was was brought forward by the team um and again if this is the time that they have they can go back and figure out what is the best way to structure that you can see where the conversation gets muddy because that type of discussion is really uncomfortable for was really uncomfortable for me as a board member to have because you know that's not really within our our responsibilities and so it's just the calendar and so you know but in order to make the calendar work we need to consider you know how many days of screening do you need and um and how to structure that and so it it's it's a tough conversation yeah and i think if i if i if you don't mind

105april like just to piggyback on what you're saying which i think i i heard you say diane that you know we may not be able to do all the screenings or it's going to be a challenge to all the screenings in the half days which is why the the proposal was for the full days um but and maybe it's my ignorance right i'm just not fully understanding why we couldn't use the 9.1 in the 92 days to do some of that screening as as well which is why i asked the question um so idea originally was that if we think about kids coming in never having met someone before and like hey hello nice to meet you sit down let me give you this reading assessment um and so in the planning our administrators were

106really thinking about that relationship building first um so that you know they weren't just reading kids cold but again i think that whatever time that we are given um we will look to maximize for our students kristin yeah i had more of just a comment about going back to school um and i know that in years past the pta has been really helpful getting kids to meet some of their new classmates and acclimated to school and we've had a ton of offers from the community to pitch in where they can so maybe there's some more opportunities there between the parents some of the more seasoned parents who know the school and the pta and getting some people back to the buildings does anyone else want to make a comment on this portion of the calendar

107so i i'll make i'll make my comment then um as alicia said the recommendation came out of the policy committee um it's our job at the committee level all of us no matter what committee we're on is to try and build consensus um you know alisha pointed out i there was a dissenting voice and that was me um and that's not to say that i can't or won't support uh the committee's recommendation um but just to kind of you know explain to the board why um i felt the way i did is just you know i think that we're getting a little bogged down i i personally feel like we're getting a little bogged down with this idea that the kids aren't um actually back in school or that the start date isn't until the

10813th or you know these sound bites kind of you know roll around um but the kids are there they're there every day tuesday wednesday thursday and friday um in different of of being there and they're not and i and that's actually i'm just speaking because they're not there both tuesday and wednesday that was split by alphabet um and you know the screening appointments again for me i just feel like it's so important to get these kids off to a great start and everybody wants we all want the best possible outcome for our kids every single person who work so hard and it might just be a difference of opinion that i think those screening appointments and having the kids be all over the map this year those screening appointments are probably going to take longer

109than they have typically taken the teachers are gonna you know maybe need that that extra time to the kit for the kids to you know get used to being assassed and all of those all of those things and i just think there's a lot of unknowns the admin asked for four half days the compromise was two half days um and that's that's you know kind of where we landed um and so that's that's why i wasn't 100 on board with the recommendation um of the policy committee max um i just wanted to agree with you about just like phasing back into school i mean like i agree the teachers are probably going to have a lot of um newer issues surrounding just kids being prepared and like like a lot of people have commented there's

110been um some lost time this year also the whole thing about like students have not really had a full normal day of school in like 18 months so going back five days a week it's definitely going to be very difficult it's probably a take a real like a real physical toll on them for for the most part so i would just support like going back in as slow as possible not as slow as possible but like as comfortably as possible thanks max so um if there are no other comments on this portion the other part of the calendar that we need to approve and vote on tonight is related to the proposal that came from our leadership about early release versus late start and the frequency of those days and i will kick it back

111over to you alicia if you want to talk about the policy committee's recommendation um actually diane do you want to um start with the leadership's proposal for early release sure um so um and again the i also have the data from the surveys um that will be in the next couple of slides as well so you know i i can present both of those um so the proposal from the leadership team in regards to um early release time was um to again have some focused time during this transition back to school to full in-person learning we certainly know that there are going to continue to be some challenges as we bridge back over to a more normal five day a week schedule for all of our students and families we also wanted to make sure

112that people recognize that there is time necessary for improvement efforts um this actually came up last night in our dei committee where um we're working on developing an action plan for diversity equity and inclusion we had a great um discussion with some of our high school students who had actually gone down to k2 to deliver some professional development to our teachers yesterday afternoon and some of the things that they recognized was um that there is a lot of room for growth and a lot of things that our teachers may not have had for professional development um because of you know their their tenure with us or the fact that the district hasn't really dug into this kind of training in the past and so there's a there's a lot of work ahead and it was

113noted um you know by at least one individual in the meeting last night that um when is this work going to happen and so again um we need time with folks in front of us to move these things forward and so um we had listed for the policy committee when we had met not just tuesday this actually comes back to our original proposal that um some of the big p some of the big things on the plate right now for the district besides um the dei work also includes um the social emotional learning um and the plan we've had a social emotional team that's been working for the past two years um in terms of looking at curriculum for all of our students and really making sure that we're attending to those needs and so

114they're getting ready to launch off that work our grade level teams certainly at some levels more than others really struggle to find time for teachers to meet if you go to one of our smaller schools for example um the first grade teachers don't have common planning time and so there isn't the ability to just pull people together while kids are at specials and provide them with that training because everybody's schedule is so unique um and we also you know have heard about the need for us to review our curriculum and update our curriculum and you know as an example on this slide our science and social studies curriculum um have not been reviewed for a number of years um and then another example is the shift in state testing the state has moved away from

115the empower me the traditional mea test and they're asking all districts to start using nwea and that's great for the 50 of the districts in the state that had been using that um we have not been using nwea and so that's another professional development piece for our teachers because it's not just giving the assessment but it's how do you use those assessments have do you make sure that it's not just a check mark that we tested our kids but you're actually looking at the results to help you plan for instruction so so these are just some of the things and again i know that time is at a premium and we certainly recognize that we want to have our kids in school we also have to figure out how to make sure that we provide

116the skills and development that our teachers need to be the most effective if you go to the next slide um this slide is the parent survey data so in late march when this was still under development we had surveyed staff and parents because as some of you know traditionally in the past several years the district has done a late start and this year during the pandemic we have had an early release and so we wanted to get a sense from our community about where their preferences lied and so um this is the parent data so if you take a look at it you can see that 57 of our families preferred the afternoon versus the morning and then the second question the pie chart that is below asked about what plan for professional development could

117folks support and so the choices were a weekly late start or early release a bi-weekly late start or early release or maintaining the traditional once a month early release that we have had and again that would be a 90 minute early release or late start and as you can see here um 67 percent of our parents wanted to maintain um the current once a month um schedule if we move to the next slide you can see how that compares to staff staff felt a little bit more strongly than parents about having early release but again there was agreement there that staff felt like early release was more productive than late start and the second question in regards to which of those three models for professional development would staff support 43 of the staff said they

118could support weekly um 34 said once a month and 22 percent said once a week so you know those are just again other points of information um i know that you had asked as a board to have us provide that for you in terms of the feedback from parents and from our staff and so we wanted to make sure that you have that thank you diane so um if we were unanimous in our recommendation about wednesdays and that was that it should be once monthly early release and one of the prime considerations in coming to that recommendation was the fact that community services indicated that they're not able to support um our students on on wednesdays for early release on a regular basis and so um you know that that was a concern uh for

119us it's interesting because if we're gonna make a move like this the argument and the discussion was that you know maybe this is the time to do it um because people have shown that they're able to do it and then on the other hand maybe it's like you know the worst time so um but for me personally the fact that community services was not available was a really strong consideration i i also thought it was interesting that um staff wasn't overwhelmingly advocating for weekly professional development so it's hard as a as a sort of a late person to understand um why some of those things happen and so to hear all of the work that needs to happen um and then and and know that you know our staff are so devoted and dedicated um

120and to see that you know only about 40 something percent um supported weekly professional development was just sort of curious to me so those are our um recommendations and i think we could open up to questions for the the wednesdays if if that's okay with you april yep no one's great shannon you're first thanks april um i just have more of a um of a comment to the wednesday schedule um i i definitely i don't think um my vote or my say is i don't want it to sound like i don't support continuing education or supporting our teachers and increasing their their their needs you know they learn new technology there's a lot that they do in professional development that i completely agree with and i i completely am on board with my problem is

121as soon as we know that community services cannot support this it's almost a non-starter i don't know how we can ask our parents to um to to find an avenue or to find a way to to watch their kids especially when we know we we have child care that's already at a premium so um i don't to me this is i would agree with the the once a month but what i would also suggest to diane and to leadership team is maybe you look at this um with an eye toward planning for the next school year so perhaps we start earlier on with all of the stakeholders at the table so transportation for buses and community services and um everybody that has a stake in this and get together and see what what's going to

122work and what can be supported and what what is just not going to work and how do you overcome those things that aren't going to work so i think it's something that um potentially in the next the next school year that you could work toward but right now um this just isn't as much as yes i agree that maybe this is the time it's really it's not the time it's not the time with with the challenges that they're that we're facing thanks shannon um i think a lot of what you said about you know scaffolding this for you know future school years was pretty much you know where the conversation landed um with the policy committee as well um nick and then leanne i'm muted okay there we go um i just wanted to to

123um to thank the policy committee for bringing this back and for making this notable change um as probably people recall and if you don't recall you can go watch back and watch the video i was um i was pretty vocal and concerned about amplifying the number of early release or late starts next year given the um premium that in-class instruction has and all the work we're doing to go back to school full-time and so you know there are many ways to engage in professional development as educator myself i mean i've found many ways to engage in it that aren't exclusive of students in the classroom when i was a teacher so i just think that we've learned this year and what we're looking forward to in the fall is more in-person instruction time and i'm

124just so glad to see us return to this more modest use of the um early dismissals and i just want to thank you for bringing this forward and i support it completely thanks nick go ahead leanne um i know i've been pretty quiet about all of this tonight alicia thank you so much for um really giving such a thorough representation of what went through with the very many policy meetings that we had to discuss this um this was probably one of the hardest conversations i think we've ever had in committee um i feel better about having a compromise in here um but i really just wanted to thank you for your leadership in getting us to this point tonight so thank you for that thanks leanne are there any other comments or questions about the

12521 22 proposed school calendar okay and so with that i will accept a motion to approve the policy committee's proposal for the fy um not fy that's fiscal year for the school year 2021 2022 school calendar moved second discussion okay it doesn't look like there's any additional questions or concerns so diane could you please call the vote mr skiptis yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss layton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs scyther no mrs turner yes mr bennett no miss giftus yes all right thanks guys the motion passes uh agenda item 8.2 is the second reading of policy jlcb which is the immunization of students so i will pass it back over to you alicia you're just a reminder that this will bring us in compliance with state law we did amend the language

126to indicate that this um policy will become uh the policy changes will become effective september 1st of uh 2021 and the reason why we're passing it now is so that the the nurses can get their work done to notify their families and work with them to make sure that those immunization changes can happen thank you do i have a motion to approve policy jlcb as presented so moved second discussion see none diane you can go ahead and call the vote please mrs giftes yes dr gill yes catalonist yes miss layton yes mrs lindstrom yes this is either yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes thank you agenda item 8.3 and 8.4 are the meeting minutes of march 4th as well as the meeting minutes from march 18 2021. i would like

127a motion to approve both as presented please is there any discussion thank you kelly for preparing those for us um diane i think you can call the vote this is good yes dr gill yes catholicism yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs seither mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and skiptus yes and sorry that my dog was also trying to vote at the same time no worries agenda item 8.5 is appointments agenda item 8.5.1 is the appointments of our scarborough high school spring coaches kelly sent us this material ahead of time so you should have that in your packet um do i have a motion to approve as presented so moved ready is there any discussion seeing not saying you can call the vote please mrs skiptis yes dr gill yes yes miss layton

128yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs either yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes thank you and congratulations to our coaches and thank you for your time because we know that that's a tough gig item 9.0 is adjournment this evening do i have a motion so moved second i have none other than i hope that everyone has a safe and healthy spring vacation and we look forward to seeing you all when we return all right mrs skiftus yes dr gill yes miss catalonist yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs either yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss get this [Music] yes