001deficient at this >> is this. >> Okay, we do have some updates to the agenda. We are going to table the food service contract until our next Dresden meeting which is Oh, don't worry. It's only two weeks. So, be prepared for that. >> What? >> Why isn't it two weeks? >> We can do it before then the school year this year. >> Oh, it's June. So we're going to table that and we are waiting on both the animatric principal Julie Stevenson and some students to give the presentation. So we are going to build off on that a little bit time TVD to acknowledge that the students are also quite busy this time of year. Any other changes or amendments to the agenda apart from those two? And seeing none, we'll move on to public comment.
002Would anyone in the public online or physical presence like to say anything? >> I am. >> Seeing none, we'll move right along to open with a public hearing for a donation from our good friends at the burn Foundation. Julia is also not here. Would anyone like to attest briefly to this donation with gratitude from the Abot team? >> Anyone know what that is? >> Can you say a little louder? Sorry. Abbott. H A B T like >> it's STEM. No, >> it has to do with the balloons project. It >> is the balloon balloon project. >> We love and appreciate the balloon project. Would anyone else like to say anything to that? Otherwise, we will move straight on to the recommendation. Would anyone like to make that donation for the hearing? Noting this is separate
003from our regular meeting. >> Rene, you want to give it a shot? >> Yes. Uh, I move to approve with gratitude a donation in the amount of $25,000 from the Jack and Dorothy Burn Foundation for the Hab team. >> Let anyone care to seconded by uh Carrie. Any further discussion? Seeing none, so thank you everyone. And as always, we appreciate and with gratit foundations for this particular item, noting in the supporting doc grant total they've done over the last few years, which we add each time to show our continued appreciation. >> Moving on to the reports, I note that we have two lovely high school council representatives here, Ian Sun and Ella Tony, who comes back after a one-year absence. You guys want to walk us through what's going on where there are two of
004you? >> I'm going to hand it off to Ian. Well, I would just first like to say to the board how grateful I am for having letting me have this experience. This has been incredibly rewarding and I would like to thank you so much for it everybody in the board. Thank you. >> Thank you again. >> Yes. I just want to say that Ian has done a really really remarkable job. You may not remember, but he was elected to the board as a ninth grader. And he has been very thorough, very responsible. When he attends council meetings, he's very accurate. When he has questions, he'll ask me, and I feel like we have developed a a fun relationship in no small part because I teased him unmercifully one time by mistake. Then he nice about
005it. >> I can only tease me. >> Yeah, >> only me. I'm so I'm so happy to transition from this role back to Ella. >> Ella raised Ella. >> No, I'll add I'm so glad to be back. My my year as the rep for council was like Ian said, just such a rewarding experience. So I'm glad to be back for another year and Ian's done such a great job and he's actually going to be representing council to the committee on programming and procedure which does a lot of the curriculum work for Anna Rohigh. So nice for the promotion. Thank you for >> seeing you again, Ella. Any further comments for our council reps? >> Seeing you, we'll move on. Thanks to both of you. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you very
006much. >> Go enjoy the weather. >> And we have all hopefully read a miss's report. I miss anything we need to particularly know from the report apart from what we've just read. Mr. West additional at this point and I look forward to the conversation at the RMS survey. >> Yes, we'll get into the survey in more detail at the June 9th meeting in two weeks. Any questions for Anissa on her report? Seeing none, like I said, we will temporarily um pass the high school principal report noting that she will be here momentarily with some students. The government's okay. We'll move right along to the big district firing discussion and we'll um we're reading a policy. I unfortunately missed the last policy meeting somewhat unexpectedly. I had to be out of town putting out a metaphorical
007fire. So Deb stepped in and took copious notes of >> and will walk us through all the things that I missed. >> Wow. didn't see me too. Now, >> we sort of moved along, you know, um some of the policies are in response to laws and changes and it seemed like it it didn't make a lot of sense to spend time getting into the weeds on them because the New Hampshire School Board Association has already developed the policies. So I am going to take you through a couple quick ones. The if you look at the first one, it's a first reading DAFFB equivalence in instruction with staff and materials. Oh my gosh. As I wait for my computer to open. >> Yeah. >> And a note to her and we have been having ongoing off
008and on. >> But I have notes on a separate piece of paper. So I will just tell you that this particular one is required for all title one schools and we already provide the asurances the compliance we follow the established compliance procedures. So we already do all this we just have to have a policy in place. So that's number one. The second one on class size this is also a first read. >> Wait sorry you have questions on it. Do you want to go? Do we go through >> with this many probably do one at a time so I don't lose track. Did you have a question on deaf? >> I did have a question on deaf. >> Yeah. >> Um uh >> which I can't open. So I can either >> Oh, go ahead.
009>> I think they might be fine. Um the the word district obviously it's the it's equivalency. My understanding it sounded like there's some data that we're going to look at for each of the schools in said district. However, there are other districts So I was curious how we thought that we would engage in that conversation. are we looking at, you know, in handover would be looking at just raceful whereas it would actually be more helpful probably to look at everything al together but um like procedurally >> is it just like in Dresden we're going to look at RMS and HHS >> we are handover >> looking at RMS and HHS >> for Dresden >> right just Dresden um and in fact there there are some readings some policies where it already exists in Norwich and
010in handover and it just doesn't exist in Dresden. So, I I will do my best. >> Oh, now it's over. >> Are you trying to >> Yes. Yeah. This is actually a policy that we did not have that we had learned about when we just had our recent audit for the grants. So they went through and just looked at all of these different pieces that we were supposed to be up to date and so we brought this forward as a policy that we needed. >> Great. So >> yeah, go ahead. >> Um so just to understand there's you it I think this one I can't remember which one it was. Uh there's like an ask that like once or twice a year you'll do an analysis and bring us information. >> Yes. And that since
011we're just enacting the policy now, we're not getting I'm not saying you drop everything. We're not expecting data now, but it would be something you'd bring next year at some point. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, you get this information anyway. Generally, when we talk about we have to sign general asurances every year. And so when we come to that, we talk about a lot of these >> pieces. And then when we talk about the grants, that's when we're talking about like title one, what we'll do with that funding, how we'll use it, what we do with teachers and things like that. So we talked about through the process of using our federal funds. Go ahead. >> I was just wondering maintenance of effort. Are we specifically talking about special special needs? Are we talking
012about title one? Are we talking about what is what is that referring to? No, it's um it's a lot of different things, but we are looking at all of our data around students like attendry data, things like that. We're making an effort to put the funding where it's most greatly needed and as you know, we don't receive a lot of funding for federal grants. So, like the um >> the go to supplement, not supplant, that means we can't have things budgeted for in our budgets. It has to be something that we're doing in addition to the budget. So we can't say, "Oh, we've got, you know, this position budgeted for an interventionist. We can't swap that out for an interventionist through the grant funding." Yeah. >> So it's all those kinds of specifics. So we
013have to follow. Okay. It's basically you're acknowledging the things that we ask you to acknowledge when we bring those asurances forward. So, it's a lot of the same kinds of things >> and I think the chairs all filled this out about a month ago maybe. >> Yeah. Yeah, it was last month actually. Thank you. >> Any further questions on this first policy? >> Deb, you want to walk us through? Sure. Most of these are first readings that we'll talk again in June. >> So, the second one on class size and student educator ratios. This is the one where Hanover and Norwich have a policy and Dresden doesn't. and we're simply tweaking it a little bit as you can see by the green additions >> to in anticipation of open enrollment coming our way. So, it's
014pretty straightforward >> and not this is a separate policy that and the other open enrollment we'll get to in a second. >> Renee, again, everything okay with it? >> I did my homework. Um, >> uh, I had two thoughts here. Um, one was just on this lab classes and I I it says it's underneath um the the you know exception that says class sites limits above may be exceeded in the following circumstances are lab would lab classes be bigger >> 25 or smaller. >> So okay so I think to me that reads like oh lab class is gonna be bigger than 25 and and I did not think that was the right direction. >> Yeah it's a good call. >> Yeah. I don't know. >> We should look back. >> I wish I was in
015class. I've lied. >> Yeah, it's a good call. >> The first three would be definitely >> examples and even D maybe. But anyway, so that was wonderful. >> Lisa, >> yeah, I think E makes it clear with the phrase afterwards that it's the number of workstations available is literally is what determines what the lab size is. But it might be good to pull it out because otherwise it is misleading. >> Yeah. I mean I don't think we should remove it. I think the lab should be there. But >> instead of like seated by or some such. >> Yeah. >> But if you take it out of that it makes sense the way it reads. Yeah. >> Yep. But since it is not a grammatical change, we'll bring it back to policy formally. I come back.
016>> Okay. I can fix that. >> Yeah. Still this one. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Go for it. Um the and I this might be for all of them but um I read this as a um as a really important part of the class size conversation and then there's another piece. So this is all about like making sure our kids are getting the attention that they need. Our educators can effectively educate that volume of students in that specific circumstance. There's also a cost. So we are saying 25 students here to we could also say 20 would also achieve these goals or 15 would achieve these goals but at some point there's actually like 25 there's a a piece of sustainability I think embedded in that which I don't know if we need to explicitly call out
017here or how we want to talk about that but I didn't want it to be um uh I don't I don't I don't know you guys are doing more of the policy stuff from the date than I am. But there's there's decisions we make as a school board based on school size, class size that are financial as well, right in the end. And so I don't know if that should be embedded in here like we are we're trying to optimize this financial burden, but also like really these are the most important things for the educator experience, but there's a limit. >> Yeah. I mean, I think the financial sustainability aspect, those would probably not be covered by the policy directly. Okay. Okay. It's a good call, but I don't know if it's your >> Okay.
018>> Robin, any disagreement with that? >> No, I agree. >> Okay. >> Any other questions on this policy? >> And then I see we have some other guests. Julie, we'll get to this overall policy. >> Um, great. >> I'm going to try to do some easy ones. So, I'm hopping over to the right column. >> Jumping around. >> Yes. the first reading at policy GBCD which is about background investigations and criminal record checks. You will notice if you can open it. >> Yes, it shut down again. Yeah. >> The only the difference we passed another board policy that said that interns pay for and student teachers pay for their own background checks. This is simply making sure that that language is in this policy too. And it's those one, two, three, six words that are
019green and highlighted. That's the only difference >> which is back. This is something that we we fixed already in a different policy, but not in this specific. >> So, this is housekeeping. So, I really hope we don't I have no question. >> Oh, good. >> Just to that dollar amount is currently was it $25 that 25 or 45? >> I can't remember what the cost. So, it's a fairly small price if they just >> And now I'm going to skip down to career readiness pathways and credentials. See if it'll open. It did. Um, this is um revised to reflect the new ED 306 rules which require we've we've said in the in the past this has just applied to high schools. Now, it has to apply to everybody. And that's fine. I mean, if a
020parent comes in and talks about globes and NES and um whatever at the Ray School, it counts. And if they, you know, talk about fiscal policy like Kim did at the Richmond School, it counts. So, this is just kind of boilerplate to accommodate or to line up with state requirements. >> Any questions on that one? And by the way, it was we were supposed to have it implemented no later than the 256 school year. >> Oh, well done. >> Yeah, I just did. >> Okay. >> Noting that we've had this policy for a while just >> fidd. >> Yeah. And this isn't I mean this is a broader question and more just a thought and more like Lauren and Robin around curriculum. when I have worked with these kind of policies that is the like
021K12 career thing that has played into thinking about um school counseling from a prek to 12 like or K to 12 um continuum in the way we think about math or English anyway. So for me this sets that up and I don't know I know that that work is starting but to me it plays into this policy that we start to think about that >> curriculum. Thank you for that. And >> we're good with that policy. >> Okay, we'll move on. >> Sorry. And then um I think we to move on into the uh first readings, continue with the first readings. We should probably look at the high school graduation policy since Julie's here. And I can Julie came to our meeting and I don't need to speak for her. So, >> but I could.
022>> So, do you want more? >> Sure. >> So, the high school graduation the first read of it um it looks like the state requirements. So, um we had a conversation the initial one that I'd sent to the policy committee had a 1.0 language requirement and the staff voted on not having that. Um, and so the only thing that looks different in there is the 0.5 art extra. And there's um, and then we also had a vote about what, you know, sort of are we is that us making a statement about world language necessarily, or did people really want to stick with the 20 graduation requirements, want to stick with what the state requirements were? And the way I read the vote was it wasn't an anti-world language. was more there are a few students
023who either may go to Hartford or have two LS's that adding more graduation requirements could be a burden to and so people were more concerned about that but wanted to be very supportive of world language um that vote has now um said to me sort of I have a sense of how the staff feels which then makes the art.5 feel very strange to me so I haven't had a chance to talk to the staff some are here um It's on the agenda tomorrow for the staff meeting that I was going to let the staff know that my recommendation to this group would be if we're going to go state requirements and we go state requirements all the way and we remove the 0.5 hard and put that back into the elective credits. Our staff has
024if you look in our handbook a way to overrule me um if I make a decision. So I want to make the decision so they can overrule me and if they overrule me they will overrule me to Robin and then Robin would have the sort of final decision. So, we're going to do that process, but I haven't had a chance to tell the staff that I feel like it's not consistent with the 0.5 art is not consistent even with what the staff sort of goal was. And I think it's just because of the order that it came in. We said yes to art. We said yes to world language. Then someone questioned that, wanted to send it to the staff. And so, I don't know, maybe nobody would overrule me. I have no idea. >>
025Yeah. Um, so obviously hugely in favor of world language. That is that said, I I think most collegebound students are taping world language anyway because it is typ typically expected of collegebound students. >> Um, I'm not sure that's true of art. And so I'm going to perhaps put a little plug in for that half credit of art simply because it's not something that students >> Do anyway. Exactly. So yeah, >> I will just say that this has been the subject of many many many many CPP meetings. Many many many CPP meetings. I have offered my opinion and I'm sure you can imagine. Um, and in the end I think that sometimes we just go with what is the least squeaky and we our students go way beyond all of this >> and we could hear
026from multiple people with multiple favorites and multiple perspectives and I just said tell us what you want us to approve and we'll approve it. I mean that's not usually my statement but that's what it is right >> with all these things this is a resident school board level decision >> and we should think it through thought carefully and to spread about how handover students typically do we also hear plenty of situations where that typical is not what actually happens at the individual student level and everyone is different what they're trying to do and keep all those caveats in mind this is a first reading I expect there will be more conversation at this tonight as well as at the second reading >> so this is the the first volley if you will Um Rene >>
027just clarification the high the green highlight section is that specific to educationally handicapped students or is that the proposal? >> The proposal was to get rid of I don't know my reading glasses was to get rid of educationally handicapped students. We don't want to do that. Uhu >> also there should be a crossover. >> Yes. >> Great. >> Yeah. Yep. That was the >> Thanks for that kind of >> Yeah. as from like a very old >> Yeah. >> handbook obviously. >> Any further discussion tonight? We will see it again. >> Deb, you want to keep God? >> Whenever you want to jump in, go ahead. >> Okay, I'm going down in the same order to the enrollment um and enrollment capacities. >> A second reading, >> which is a second reading. And what was
028what's highlighted in green was added at the board's request after the first reading. Yes. So we've talked about this and we've tweaked it. >> It's been talked about at hand. >> Mhm. >> Rene, go ahead. >> Sorry. Um I didn't realize is anybody online? >> There is. Okay, great. Just >> I think Tara added >> Yeah. So there was discussion previously led by Tara about the transportation component and like we talked about at handover, we are keeping that language in for various reasons. Great. Okay. Um, the wellness policy, this is the one I am not 100% sure about because I think we tabled it. >> This has been discussed for several months. >> Yes. >> Within the policy committee. >> Right. >> Oh, okay. >> I know. But I've only gone to two meetings, so
029I don't know the >> This is a confusing one. If you read it through very carefully, it's very long and it is very detailed where there is some serious discussion at the policy committee level about whether we should bring it up at all. This is sort of things it gets as granular ascertaining water quality, regulating the types of water bottles students will bring like specific brands and what the materials are made out of and stuff where we had serious concerns about whether it's appropriate to come from the state because the state is pushing this kind of nonsense, excuse me, stuff >> and whether that opens up a whole other can awareness that we really don't want to go down. It also has to be certain certifications for food staff. Um, marketing certain foods, what types
030of posters we're going to have on the wall for fluid advertising across all four schools. This is Justin would be applying to everything. Um, the types of ads we can have in our emails, free product samples and all sorts of stuff where it gets very very nebulous very very quickly. Was this discussed further at that last policy meeting or No, >> no, it was not. I think the theory was that you knew more about it than those of us present. >> I think we should table this here and not discuss it. >> I think that's fine. >> I agree. >> Anyone? >> Oh, sorry, Teresa. >> My two cents. Um, so this wellness policy when whenever it really comes up, it's usually because you participate in the National School Lunch Program and it's a requirement.
031So, Norwich would technically need to be following this have a wellness committee or wellness policy committee. Um, the side of the river, we don't, >> right? >> So, you're not technically required. >> Correct. And even if we're required to have it, we can still change the wording of it as we see fit. >> So, thank you for that. Ch feed in their feedback. Teresa, everyone okay? We bring this back to policy as is and we'll discuss further. >> Okay. See head number from there >> and I think the the other two are um field trips >> which is a third reading. >> A third reading. Exactly. And you can see in green the tweaking that has occurred. >> Um and this was not discussed at our >> yeah board meeting. >> The reason it's back
032here is for board members who have somewhat more memories than I do. The reason this went back to policy at the second reading last time went back to the international field trips conversation which we had back in the January February time period and it basically became how much involvement should the board have on international field trips. There was some evidence that we need to be involved but how much level of involvement and where policy landed is we have to be told of them with a reasonable advance time. I think it's 3 months but we do not have to necessarily give permission. It's moreformational in nature and we as a board have kind of gone back and forth philosophically on how involved we should be especially if there are perceived safety or security issues related to
033international traveling. So where we landed on was more of a notification methodology and we can get more into that when we get to that. I saw some comments on that there too. >> Right. I was just going to say and we have examples of international trips that are in Julie's report. >> Yeah. which we'll probably get to separately in a few minutes. >> Any further discussion on the policy? Noting this is a third read. We are third read. We are going to approve it tonight unless there are substantial concerns. Lisa, you have those concerns. >> Well, and I'm sorry if I missed it the first two times or if I'm not reading this properly, but um I sent a couple questions to Ben as I like was like I was like, I read all of
034this and this is my homework and here are my questions. So maybe we don't have I don't have to actually say it, but >> um yeah, for this one I just am wondering based upon the work of the equity committee, I didn't see anything in there about like equal access to these field trips and how how students are selected. And that's a little bit concerning to me. Like if it if it's associated with a class, then that is pretty obvious. Like if you're going to Spain and it's this trip that the Spanish teacher is taking you on and you have to have a certain level of proficiency or whatever, but maybe you have a level of proficiency because you're a native Spanish speaker and you don't, you know, you're not in the class and could
035you go? I just I didn't see anything in there about equitable access to these pretty spectacular opportunities. And I don't know how to phrase that, so I'm not being very helpful with um language at this point in time, but it just occurred to me that that that is missing here. So >> that was that response. >> I was just I would just say if the bullet points include trip costs and plan for any fundraising activities and arrangements for financing. So I think without getting too into the weeds, we've got points where we could follow up those concerns. And I think >> at some point we have we've got to let policies go. We cannot keep doing fourth and fifth reading. It's not a good use of our time. I I think that the applica the
036field trip forms that Julie's going to show us, we can ask questions at that point about that. But I think >> which I think is the intented future racing, >> right? Again, just wearing the equity committee hat and um we've had conversation during March intensive about how people get so I don't know it just it's a conversation we keep coming to and this doesn't seem to address it. So um you know like there is the financial piece making it equitable so you can go whether you can afford it or not but that's only after you've been selected to be part of the group. So >> and I will note in the stuff that in international trips that Jul is going to bring forth in a few minutes there are multiple ones where we only expect
037it to be about 1500 don't worry only 1500 which as we know for some families and many of them that's a problem regardless how much notice you give. Um so it's a fair point Kelly >> I don't know if this needs to be in the policy. Yeah, >> caveat. However, um I I'm not seeing any wording in here about um this I see approval and that may just be all this is handling um initial approval of travel but not what are the mechanisms for subsequently withdrawing that approval. And I I know it says like we will follow US Department of State guidelines etc. Um, I didn't know if that needs to be in the policy, but like, you know, come February leading up to March intensive, we decide, nope, no longer safe. >> I don't
038know if that needs to be codified or not. >> I think there have been historically reasons where we have caught things have changed since when this first came up to March 10th. I'm sure Phil said when he's ready, he's around here somewhere as well, >> where situations have changed from the nine months where we announced this is what's going to happen versus the actual trip, right? and then determine the mechanism of how do we determine safe and we may have some political questions about the accuracy of state department guidances these days. But that said, that is sort of the official authority that can help us determine that. >> Okay. >> Um >> there's probably other policies that govern. >> Yeah. There's all sorts of safety mechanisms and >> chaperoning and all the other stuff that
039comes into field trips. I'm going to ask a super annoying question that need to be um clarified, but I'm just curious um throughout this document, it's parents/guardians, parents and/or guardians. Is there a reason we don't just say caregivers? Which has been my experience in this kind of policy. It's very nitpicky and doesn't matter, but it's just a question. >> I think it's a fair question. >> Legal language or something. >> Yeah, I know. I would like it there. >> It's been me adding it to our policies off and on for the last few years or so. Just trying to be inclusive. >> Yeah. there could be a better term. >> It's the term I'm most used to seeing for that kind of like catch all as we move into that, but I didn't know either.
040There was something >> I don't know if that's like does it need to guardian backified terms? >> It could just say guardian >> instead of guardian. >> Yeah. Right. It could just say guardians. >> Some folks may not like that. I'm okay with that. >> Well, we say both. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> we try we try to be consistent but there's other things like a lot of the older languages say the principal he will do you know stuff like that that we we upgrade as we we update as we cross >> and that we reduce to one we're just guardians we're going for I don't know why we need if we're if we're in the practice of >> why do we need that Yes. >> A little side. >> Um any further discussion at least
041was equity point. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> And and again I agree with Deb's point. At some point you got to move forward, but it >> I'm sorry I missed it on the first two readings. I caught it on the third. >> That's probably right. Open up for a vote later. >> Right. And Deb, I think or two left. I think the last one is the athletics and co-curricular activities which has a lot of green that's been added and that I hope people read through and to be honest we didn't discuss this at the most recent policy meeting. >> So I don't think anything needed to be picked apart when I was at the meeting. It was it was basically and and Garrett and I can both chime in on this basically our attempt to
042codify >> the addition of RMS right to our previous athletic policies and all the different things that have come up within that one. >> Um Robin, there's a specific one we wanted to talk about. Do you remember which one that was? They were going months ago now. >> I think we're like the sixth grade thing. >> Let's see. >> Just wondering what that is. >> Timer. We hit 30 minutes. So keeping track for us on 6A >> I'm aware >> so the reason for all the green right is that basically it was all about the addition of the sports >> y >> and just to remind everybody so this was actually pretty much all of the language verbatim that was developed like years ago when the school board did a whole study on how to
043add sports and it's pretty much what they've been using although not codifi codified when adding a sport and this has been all reviewed since and there's been small changes that were made right by Megan >> in addition to Brandon and >> right they've reviewed all this themselves too as far as how they want to be adding sports >> that's why it's all greens because it was all pulled from >> files >> and with updated language like you know gender balancing things some of which is relevant other conversation of how to add a new sports and the official process to go about that. I'm seeing hands from Lisa and then Rene. >> Yeah, just a quick one. Um in the second paragraph um the the addition of or direct athletics programs just for clarification. I think
044that's the the name of the per the new person at RMS, right? I would just add RMS in front of it just like you have Hannover High School athletic director say Richmond Middle School director of athletics because otherwise it looks like there's two positions at the high school and I was trying to figure out who that second person was until I you know just for clarification purposes. >> I kind of personally in response to that kind of like keeping that title because this is largely geared about sports is not >> No, I did say change the title. I just said put Richmond Middle School in front of it just like you have Hannover High School athletic director say Richmond Middle School director of athletics and co-curricular >> or take Hannover High School out like what
045because the middle school doesn't have an athletic director and I yeah it just was confusing because it made it look like both positions were housed at the high school >> and then it made it look like the high school was hiring the middle school coaches which is what caught my eye. I was like why would that I was like why is Meg hiring the you know the middle school coaches which didn't make any sense. Okay. So, >> I would consider that more of a grammatical >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not a substantive, but Okay. >> It's a clar It's a clarifying >> point. Okay. >> Any other comments on this one? Renee, go ahead. Sorry. I was stupid. >> No, you're fine. Um I This is kind of uh akin to what Kelly was
046saying in the last policy. Like lots of good detail about the thought that goes into starting something, but there's like one sentence about how things would be stopped. And I'm wondering uh like I again maybe that doesn't it's not in this policy but that last pro uh par paragraph programs that fail to meet minimum particip participation or financial sustainability standards may be suspended or discontinued. It's not even a guarantee. So, are we getting ourselves in a place where we're just keep adding and adding and adding and adding and adding? Um or it's programs I don't know like are they're reviewed annually reviewed I don't I don't know like what is the process for making sure we are offering kind of the right set the right volume of activities uh sports >> that's a fair point
047um sports creep has happening in high school as you know and like we talked about >> political and sustainability and cost it is tricky when accounts dip low and how long do you wait before you take action is a great example that's been discussed off and on for years now >> and that is a I think that's a great call out. >> Any other comments on that? This is this is a first reading I think. >> Yeah. So, it's going to come back so we can bring that back to next policy and then bring it back here for a second. Any other comments on this particular one? >> Deb, does that complete or do we? >> Yay, Deb. Good job. back. >> Thanks. >> All right. So, like I said, a couple of these are
048coming up for a vote later today. The second reading and the third readings on field trips and enrollment that will move on to the March intensive report. Matt, are you around? >> Matt, sorry. >> Right. Thank you for that reminder. We do have a special presentation a courtesy of Julie um Julie Sbert and and her fellow people. >> Yeah. So I'll I think they should go first and I'll do the principal board questions after because I sense that that might take some time. And >> I agree with you. >> So you guys can get out of here like present and get out of here. >> So I think they shared the presentation or that gentleman behind the screen over there shared their presentation. on Zoom >> if you have a chair. >> Yeah, we the
049board does not have a presentation. >> Okay. We have not seen anything with you on the Zoom. >> I know most of us are not on the Zoom. I am but I might be the only one. >> Otherwise, I don't know if someone can help me. It's okay. We're can get on Zoom >> or the kids can just use my screen then >> or we can just listen. >> We don't need more screens. Just tell us what you've been doing. >> We're good. have it on. >> Okay, for those you are on Zoom, it is available. So, a couple of us are looking at it and can maybe share some screens. >> You want to do that instead? Rene and I >> can listen to calling those. Yes, you're going. members feel free to move
050around easier for you. >> You guys are ready. Go for it. My name is Beha Mclofflin. I'm one of the peer leaders here. Um I've been a peer leader for the past two years. Been involved on um various tours around the involved with various tours around the school, spoken on different panels, and throughout high school, I have been in the crew team as a copin. >> Hello everyone. My name is Hayden Navard. Um I'm also a senior and I've also been a peer leader for the past two years. Um, outside of that, I I play baseball as you can tell. I actually just came to my game. Uh, we won, which is not doing that. Um, I love being a part of our school council and I also help out with the supporting athletes. >>
051I'm Katie. I'm a junior, so I've been a peer leader this past year. Um, I play soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. And, um, I'm also involved in the environmental club and a leader of that. school. >> Um, okay. This past summer, Miss Watt and Mr. Cyel presented us with an idea to get more involved with peer leadership and extend advisory beyond the walls of the high school. We enthusiastically said yes and from there began brainstorming with Miss Wulmont and Mr. Cybel on what the fall semester and the rest of the school year would look like. >> Yeah. One problem we were trying to solve was how to have students change the narrative of advisory through incorporating SEAL and portrait of learner values with the idea of getting more involved with the community around us. One of
052the first things that came to mind was the 11th grade guiding question and advisory which is who am I in my community? From here, we decided it was clear we wanted to bring the 11th grade advisor that's outside of their classroom and into their communities and have them extend their knowledge of SEAL, which stands for social emotional learning skills by involving themselves in the community. We began designing a lesson plan that would be manageable for 11th grade students to teach fourth grade students. We met with the fourth grade teachers at the race school and learned that rumor spreading was an issue in the fourth grade classes and decided to create a lesson that addressed social awareness, one of the five core competencies incl skills. We needed to find a balance between engaging an engaging game
053for the fourth graders while still having them understand the idea of social awareness. >> After consultation with the fourth grade teachers, advisory um leaders um also known as adviserss and going through different drafts of the lesson, we finally decided on a variation of the classic game telephone. We designed a presentation and then went to gauge 11th grade excite. We met with around 10 different 11th grade advisories p proposing our design lesson plan and our um course of action from there. As much as we would have loved to take all of the 11th grade advisories over to the race school due to logistics we only able to offer this opportunity to five advisories. The five advisories had expressed interest in the activity and were excited to spend time with the fourth graders over at the race.
054The next few weeks during advisory, we split up and went to different advisories to train the 11th graders on how to present to a group leadership and time management and how to keep the fourth graders engaged. >> Excellent. >> The day of we gathered all the students and distributed name cards and lesson plants. Upon arrival, there was excitement from the 11th grade students um who had attended the race school and reminisced on being back. Each 11th grade advisory was assigned to one of the five fourth grade classrooms. The 11th grader began with presenting an icebreaker called name link fence. Here students introduce themselves with their name and a fun fact about themselves and they would then link arms with someone that they shared a fun fact with. By the end, everyone was linked together in
055a circle through similarities. >> From there, we transitioned into the telephone game where an original prompt was changed as it moved around the circle of students. The game was interactive as students were able to act out silly prompts such as a reindeer on a pogo stick while the next student had to guess what the previous student was acting out. There was a lot of fun and giggles, but students were able to see how through a chain of people, something like a reindeer on a pogo stick could slowly change to a moose crossing a river. After discussion, fourth graders quickly connected this game to rumor spreading and how through something can be dramatically changed into something that is no longer true. All part of social awareness. The following day, we returned to hear what the fourth
056graders had to say about the activity, what they might have learned, what they enjoyed. The main highlight was the games with the 11th graders, but they also reflected on rumor spreading and what they learned from the activity. They also expressed that they learned enjoyed learning from older students and what life was like at the high school. >> Here's a clip from one of the interviews. Okay, now I don't know. Just turn it really loud. >> Be super quiet. It's hard to check. This question, what can we do to stop class? All right. Uh, the 11 pairs also had lots of fun during the activity and got to experience uh leadership roles. Not only did this experience shape fourth graders understanding of rumor spreading, but it also helped 11th graders understand skills from a different perspective.
057And so this is an 11th grade uh feedback form that we sent out to the different adviserss. And here's just an example. Um I can read for you. I think this activity is really good for our advisory. It brought us closer together as we were all in the same position. We had to work together to ensure we had a great plan and fun games ready to go. Our advisory had so much fun in so many laughs. It was for sure valuable to fourth graders because they seemed very excited and they looked up to us for advice and reassurance. At the end of our lesson, the fourth graders seemed to know very well how words can be twisted and a lot more about rumors. Second semester, we introduced Katie to this project as I was continuing
058my own adventure at Nolles, the National Outdoor Leadership School. The plan was not only to continue working in elementary schools um in our community, but also with the residents at Kendall. Okay, so our first project during the second semester was bringing the fourth grade oriented lesson to MCS or the Marian Cross School in Norwich. And after a very successful initial visit at the race school and over 11th graders were eager to continue engaging with the community this time at MCS. Following a brief refresher meeting with our junior advisories, we traveled to MCS and once again had an excellent experience. This visit was rewarding for both the fourth graders and the juniors with plenty of enthusiasm, meaningful conversations, and clear evidence that our lesson was effectively reaching the students. From there, we began working on our
059final project, which was focused on working with 12th graders at um HHS and residents at Kendall um a independent living home in our community. And the guiding question for the seniors at Hannover or the 12th graders, it um was who am I and where am I going? We felt that having 12th graders talk to people with a lot of unique lived experiences will be the perfect fit for our 12th graders who are moving um from the high school onto their next stages in life. To start planning for the Kendall advisory lesson, we communicated with Jeff who's the community liaison at Kendall at handover to see if the lesson would be possible and something that the Kendall residents would be excited to participate in. And once we communicated with him over a period of weeks, we
060um or he put together a signup sheet for us, which is pictured on the right. And after about a week, it started to fill up with names and phone numbers. Um and so, um once we got the list sent to us from Jeff, Hayden and I took over with communicating with the residents and we um called all of the residents if they could um come. So green with yes means that they could come and red unfortunately meant no. But we were able to get a lot of participants and um it ended up being perfect um because after receiving positive um feedback from them. Then we sent out an email to them confirming their participation and we had 11 who could come to pair up with 11 senior or 12th grade advisories um here. And this
061happened last Thursday is when the Kendall residents came over and um each of the residents came and they had such great stories to tell and positive attitudes. And everyone afterwards said that they had a really positive experience, the 12th graders and the Kendall residents. And this was a successful um way for older and younger generations to form connections and just talk about life as 12th graders are transitioning into a new stage. So, oh, um, overall this was an extremely valable valuable lesson for all three of us, but more importantly, it was valuable for all the community members involved, whether it be students in the high school, students at elementary schools in our community, or the older adults at Kendall. We learned the importance of getting involved in the community and the positive outcomes it can
062have. Another valuable takeaway was the social emotional learning skills that are being talked about among all students in Kendall residents. And it also taught us really important skills of communicating um well with people around the community, managing work and stress load, being kind, and making responsible decisions um which are some of the most important skills that you can learn throughout your education. Thank you. Great. See this combined efforts coming to fruition. Thank you. >> Uh any comments from board members on this? >> Good. >> Um thank you for that presentation. One word of caution just for future presentations is this was on this is live on YouTube and we put in people's emails, phone numbers and pictures. So just be very careful of that. next time. Some folks may not want the information on YouTube.
063Thanks, guys. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Shifting to the regular principal report. Um, some of us may have questions on this particularly regarding the travel and the JV hockey. >> Anyone have any questions to start with, Julie? >> And then I just want to say growth improvement plan. You see it? That's we're headed. Um, and then, um, the I know that we don't have the policy yet that says I'm supposed to bring everything to the board, but I just felt like throwing them out there because at some point people have to start advertising and I wouldn't want the policy to go into place and then people said we weren't aware and then right because what the hope is that we're trying to frontload this so it's the year before so people
064can spend the summer fundraising, raising money like for things that aren't march intensive where they're randomly place. I think they know that they're going to be placed. So, that was the hope in just getting them out there. So, there's the one that was earlier this year that I threw in there that's for next year or two of them and then these four and then there may be two others coming. >> Thank you. >> Any questions on the international trip since we're already talking about it next >> um point of clarification because I think there a lot of them are there. I think there all three of them were over march intensive week. >> Yeah. >> So, how does that work if you're supposed to be at march intensive but you're not because of this trip?
065>> So, what happened a few years back certain trips still ran during March intensive like the Spanish exchange program. And so, it was they were not part of March intensive, but it was during that time because that's what it made sense and it was less disruptive to the school. So I asked the staff and we sort of wrote a policy or procedure for the high school that said um you know regular trips during march intensive that because they may cost more because they may and with march intensive we say you can't miss more than like a day before or a day after the Spanish exchange missed two I think and then also um you have a list in the Spanish exchange you have a list of people so march intensive there's random lottery and so
066if it were out then we said that in the May the year before that the March intensive committee would look at it we've changed that now to me looking at it um and then our normal CPP procedures where we look at it so these are trips that are linked to classes um that have that are outside of margin intensive mainly because they choose the students that they're taking versus random lottery Um and we try to keep them the committee decided that really it should be between no more than 80 to 100 students total because then the March intensive program will get watered down. >> And two years ago, not this year, but last, there were a number of our world language trips went >> and then only one went this year, Spanish. And then there
067are a number of them going next year. Plus, you'll see there's a social studies plan in the >> um English one that was added. >> Very good. >> So, they'd still get credit. >> So, what we said in that was that they still get a successful participation whereas before that we said they were nonparticipants. And that felt strange to send students on an exchange program that we were >> sponsoring and say they didn't participate in. >> So, >> yeah. One question I had is is some of these approvals are already approved internally to HHS, but they're still pretty nebulous in terms of the materials we see. The German one, for example, says we're going to Germany. >> Yeah. >> But we might also go to Austria and then different section. We might go to Austria
068and we might go to Switzerland >> and that's a lot of whatifs, right? That's already we don't even know what country they're, >> right? >> So, how much detail do they need? So, one of them that came last week to the committee we sent back information, not one that's here. Um, in terms of because the German the Germany trip has run before um we probably we're just going to check in with them and what they decide. they I just said we needed them in May. And so I think that people just threw what they had together um because they wanted to make sure to get them before summer so that they knew their list of kids so the kids could start fundraising and they would make decisions based on that. >> So I think the
069kids are known the year prior to the actual trip. >> That's the hope is that they'll go into summer knowing so they could have a summer job to help pay for it that they could do more fundraising over the summer. So that the hope is to do it sooner than later. Um when you know who the students are, some schools do it, they publish their trips three year like three or four years ago. Didn't you say, Robin, that there's a school that you worked at the you knew what was coming when you were a ninth grader? You knew what trip might be running your senior year so that you could plan over a four-year period that you were going to do that and then >> you could fundra for it. So the whole idea would
070be just more to to help with the cost piece. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions for Julie on this or anything else? >> Accessibility or access piece. And I'm looking at the English one and thinking there are probably less people who read Austin and aren't in the classes. So just I don't know if those could be opened up a little more. It also felt like a really small number of students. I didn't know that was not not for me. Just a thought. >> Yeah. >> I'm I'm just going to say I'm very concerned about the price of the U monuments to history >> trip. Four to$5,000. >> Which one was that? that that >> international law doesn't >> it could go up. >> Yeah. >> I'm just I 1,800 is one thing. Four to 5,000
071>> for a and I know that we just talked about the international policy. But >> yeah, >> I I just have trouble with that >> and I apologize because I know it's your trip. >> Me? No. too. >> So, what I think >> I'm here to answer any questions. >> Yeah. And came to answer questions because I said I could see this being a concern. Yeah. Um, so she wanted to come >> and the only thing that I can say which I about it which is interesting is I think >> what it might illustrate is that the other travel experiences that we have are done without any sort of tour operator. Um, and so like for my colleague whose son goes to Hartford, the one to Hartford High School, he went on a trip that
072was $4,200 last year at Hartford High School and it was done through a tour group. And so I think >> what you see there is prices that for a tour group and some what Pam pointed out to me, some schools don't allow >> people to take trips unless it's through a tour. Um, so it might actually lower the actual cost in some places. And what you're seeing with the $2,000 that you see in March intensive or Austin or Germany or the Spanish Exchange is that our teachers are being the tour operators. Um, and so we all get a really great deal because our teachers are willing to do that and able to do that because they're experienced travelers, but it also comes at a cost to them in terms of, you know, they're spending time
073figuring out the the whole plane decides to cancel all the tickets and then they're dealing with that and not necessarily dealing with the kids on the ground and talking to them about the educational piece. So, it does represent. So, part of me felt like it might be nice for everyone to see what that difference is and actually what an amazing >> deal we've been getting with our teachers being the travel operators or the tour groups. But I I don't know Pam if you want to say anything or >> haven't answering the question that um I do there are school districts that I'm aware of um that require a bonded travel agent to for any teacher to take students internationally on a trip. Um one of the things that I think is exciting for me is
074that I get to teach which is what I love doing and it's tied directly to what I've been teaching for years in the classroom. And so I've been to these places. I've been on this very trip. Um what's exciting about I think students love travel is that they are very much engaged in teaching students how to travel so that they learn these skill sets um so that they can travel anywhere um and and take that learning with them in addition to what they're learning through me as we have these experiences on that trip. Um I like the having taken students to Greece before and from down high school one of the right and we're on a subway and then the subway workers go on strike while we are on the subway and we are nowhere
075near our destination right and so now that part of the curriculum trip is cut out because I was going to be teaching at this one place we were going to do this we had you know this two-hour long program we were going to be doing that now is exated because we can't even we've got to now figure about or none of us, you know, speak the language. Um how we're going to navigate our 20 odd students through um a a protest and a wall of people, you know, for a communist party protest um and uh and not lose them in that sea of of humanity and get them safely to another location, right? And anything that happens along those lines, you know, the the travel agency in an international space is going to take care
076of that. And for me, I again want to invest my time in teaching and being in these spaces with some bits. Part of this I recognize is certainly the cost that comes with that. Um in talking with students of travel, they are anticipating because of the uncertainties of um the current war uh for Iran and what that's doing to travel costs. Um they have they don't anticipate that this price is going to go up. Um when I first put this proposal together the 1 of May, they were saying we're still sorting that out. What they've done is um pretty much guaranteed pricing of what they normally in they're charging in March what they believe will be a traditional summer cost for a trip um and charging that in March and they anticipate summer cost to
077be higher. Um and so still going in March is less expensive and so given that they are guaranteeing that price um so that it would not go up for that. So and I'm not trying to be dismissive of the your comment about this is expensive. It is three countries. They also get us into places that I couldn't do. The European Court of Human Rights in particular you cannot tour on your own. You can't make a you cannot take a group there. They can get us in there. um having been to the Nazi you know concentration camp that concentration camp seeing the Hitler's parade grounds I mean these are just extraordinary places and they get special access for this particular group of students and we're going there we would be going there at a time when
078they're not heavily crowded so we get to spend a leisurely amount of time in some really um evocative places that tie in again directly with the curriculum so um so again I realize I mean I'm passionate about this excited about it having done this exact same for having been at a trial at the international criminal court. It it reminds us of our responsibilities to each other um international humanitarian rights law and the institutions that this country set up um largely speaking through the United Nations. We need to value those. >> Quick comment for the noteaker that was Pam Kuster teacher with I just want to follow up by saying you have completely answered all my questions. In fact, now I think I'm leaning towards working with agencies that can make sure everybody is properly steered.
079So, thank you for that answer. >> Thank you for listening. It made a difference. It did make a difference to me to have a, you know, a bonded, you know, anything goes wrong, I don't have to worry about it, especially not speaking languages and, you know, a couple of those count. >> Thank you. I I really appreciate your answer. And just to clarify that again, this is a third reading that we're going to approve later tonight in the wording of international field trips areformational and approved by the superintendent, but they're to the board with three months notice. >> Okay. Anything else for Julie relating to this or hockey or anything else on her report? >> Great. >> Right. Right. So now we're going to go back to where we were, which I believe was the
080more intensive report where Matt Prince has been waiting very patiently over there. >> Take it away, Matt, when you're ready. >> Hey everybody, I'm uh Matt Prince and uh I'm a social studies teacher, but one of my is also the males coordinator. Um every uh year I comes well I come twice. I come in the fall to present my program studies and then I come in May to report on how the year has gone. your new policy uh has given me some guidance that the I plan to talk about today uh attendance uh the scholarship and finances intensive uh feedback from parents, students and staff and sort of uh direction moving uh forward. So uh first of all in attendance attendance was actually slightly better this year. We had uh 48 students who were considered
081to be non-participants uh for this year. So that's an improvement but I do think that there's room for growth. I'll note that I think that week does present some challenges and that it's that the advantages of it that it's in between sports. Um it's the Dartmouth break people in the community have more time but it's also for some families it is the only opportunity for wisdom teeth or to see a relative or whatnot. So though we have good attendance was better this year but but I think we still have room for for growth. Uh in terms of scholarships, I firm believe that March Intensive creates opportunities for students that wouldn't have them uh for yeah that wouldn't have these opportunities otherwise. Uh so this year we gave out 22 scholarships to students in the free
082and reduced lunch program. Uh there's 35 students total. 15 of those uh traveled and over more than 80% of the juniors and seniors in that program also were able to do either a regional or a distant travel. So they're taking advantage of those opportunities. I think that it's uh it's definitely creating opportunities. Overall, there were 53 scholarships uh given out. So, there were 18 in addition to the free and reduced lunch students. And we gave out a total of 28,000 I think 310 uh dollars. So, it was a rather substantial uh amount of money, but uh again, we think it was a great investment for kids uh educational opportunities. Uh in terms of our finances, we're really at this point. We're we try to be one year ahead in terms of our fundraising and you
083approved a generous uh gift from the burn foundation uh uh last uh in a previous meeting, right? So So we're sitting, I think, at about $38,000 in the account. Um we've get an additional $10,000 that gets budgeted to subsidize courses and to take the courses that are $75 or less and to make those free and usually 50% of the program has no cost to uh to students that's associated. So, so we're there. We do want to do more fundraising in our sort of off season and sort of expand our our sort of our donor pool and we've got some good leads actually um from that. So, hopefully there'll be more gifts for uh for for you to uh to to approve. They also I want to just draw attention to Youth and Action was really
084generous with us this year. They gave us almost $6,000 um to to really take away the the costs of our service related courses. They essentially funded those and they also provided a scholarship for two of uh the distant travel trips for kids going one kid going to Habitat and one kid who's going to uh Colombia. So that was that was very generous from them. Um feedback from our three constituent groups remains to be really uh popular. Um she I'm a little disappointed that with 89% of students uh would recommend their course to a friend. We've been hitting 90 every single year. I'm pretty convinced that had there been better weather for ice fishing, uh that number would have been like 91 or 92, but we had it was cold. They don't have an ice house,
085so uh it dipped by a percent. But that's and I will say too, one thing that's nice is that uh we had over 306 respondents to the student survey, which is a bigger sample size than what we've had uh in the uh in the uh in the past. I think uh the most common thing that students will talk about is that they would like to have march intensive be 5 days instead of four. Uh they frequently request more travel opportunities. Um uh there is a little bit of frustration I think from ninth and tth graders um about the options that remain when they're selecting and you know we try to make it as attractive as we can but you know sometimes there are more opportunities as you progress through uh the years and then there
086was about 8% we did not have halfday options this year in part because they really weren't proposed by staff and we need sort of a critical pull mass to move those forward. We asked the students about that. About 8% said they would like to have some halfday option. So, we'll see what we can do with that. Um, from parents, we heard that 91% of parents said that March intensive was a worthwhile experience uh for their uh for their student. Um, they talked a lot about uh the opportunity for being away from stress and not having homework and their kids seeming to enjoy school. I think particularly popular were the courses that connected kids to career opportunities. I'm going to talk about a couple of those uh in a uh in in a second. Um but
087uh and then the the one question too we we've held over with sort of the policy on travel and regional travel and 94% of parents said that they would like to either expand or continue the current number of trips that we're offering. Only 2% of parents out of the 170 who responded to the survey said they would want to uh to take those away. Um staff again I would overall characterize the feedback that we got as positive. I think that some of the concerns that they have are that they'd like to have more time in the fall before proposals are due. Um getting those proposals in uh on October 9th sometimes they feel like that's a little bit with everything else in the first quarter. It can be hard to to do. Um I think
088it's always a challenge collecting student fees for the course that has fees. They don't have to have a course with fee, right? But but it it is a challenge to collect those. Um you know a lot of them do comment that it is a lot of work and I think if you were to ask staff in February they would say this feels like a lot. I think when we have the program and they get the reward of actually you know sorting the fruits of their labor so to speak the satisfaction with the program uh does go up. But I do think you know we should acknowledge that staff work really hard to make these uh programs possible and it you know they're they're sort of the lynch pin in the whole operation. Um, I think
089the the there's a lot of safeguards in place obviously when we're spending uh money here and I think that we changed some of the rules this year. I actually think that they were uh improvements. We were able to get more staff debit cards to take with them when they were outside of the building. We developed a system with spreadsheets. I think with any system there's a learning curve. So some staff were you know had had a few concerns but I think that actually the system was better. I think next year with the second year in the system that will be even uh that will be even smoother. And then we're going to have a conversation about half days because there are some staff who are part-time and whether or not we can find a way
090to accommodate half-day proposals again. So I think that's that's still moving forward. Um recommendations. I think one of the things that we see is that the students really love the career focus courses. So we were able to bring back uh a course at the hospital this year at the pathology lab and that was a smash hit. we could have filled it probably three or four times you know uh they really like that hypertherm we also were able to bring that course back in introduction to engineering again the students that participated in that they uh they love that course the service courses as well I think get a lot of acclaim there was we partnered this year for the first time with high courses uh and uh again students absolutely love that experience I don't know
091Pam was actually the faculty person attached to that lender if you could talk a little bit more about that and then I don't know if you saw it but WCX did a really nice piece on the students working at Cover Home Repair. Um, and I noticed that uh Cover Home Repair featured their work with the Hannover High School group uh in their in one of their appeals to the uh the community. But it really that that WCX piece is really powerful because it's like they're talking to the kids and it's like, "Wow, this is incredible and we didn't realize this type of poverty existed." Then they're talk, you know, you see the the place where they're working and the wheelchair ramp and why it was necessary and it's just like you just feel good. So
092I think if as much as we can find meaningful service opportunities for kids, the March intensive is a great place to uh to put those in. So hopefully we will uh we will grow on those. Um the other thing I think is that uh students really like being out of the building. You know, I think in a different setting is really big. So I don't and I don't know that you necessarily have to go far. I think one of the I mean I think it is good to go far sometimes but year after year the White Mountain Adventures course that just you know goes 70 miles away and in the White Mountains it I mean kids come back I think part of it's they're away from their technology they're connected to uh you know a
093community um it's really powerful to them and so I think you know there's lots of learning goals that come out of this program but I really think that you know having a week where kids are excited about coming to school they're getting away from their technology they're engaging in one thing they don't feel the pressure of the full schedule. Um, in this time we're hearing a lot about sort of a a youth mental health crisis. I really think that in my mind March intensive is is one of the things that can help to uh to to alleviate uh that. So, so, you know, I kind of sound like a broken record because the statistics seem to come in year after year pretty close to the same numbers and I'm obviously a big believer in the
094program. That being said, this is the time, right? I would say like rather than we present the program of studies in October, right, where we sort of this is this is what we've got, right? You know, like if there were, you know, changes or directions that you wanted to see March intensive go, now would be the the perfect time for uh you know, to to to receive some of that feedback. So, >> the questions for Matt, >> Ellie, then Gina, >> it's so wonderful and like so thank you because you put your heart and soul into this as well. So, thank you for that. My my concern not in any direct sense but just more long-term is cost and the cost creep and and where is that going to come from? Yeah. >> Moving forward
095and you know that >> so one of the things we have with margin intensive right is that we we do have this sort of cap at $2,000 for the price and each year it gets a little bit harder right to squeeze those in. We're obviously in this scene where we don't know what travel prices are going to be, right? We I think we I think you know >> the prices are low. We did get an email from parents too saying like oh I got one email saying what's the catch? Is airfare not included? Is you know it's like no no this is this is all included because it is a challenge right to fit it in at a low cost. But I think the existing programs that we have and absorbed a little bit but
096I think you know some of the ones that were 16 or 1700 are going to be more like 18 or 1900 you know and even New York now is you know that's that's eclipsing close to a thousand per a week in New York and it's that's you know there's no there's not a lot of >> not a lot extra in that you know so so it's just you know it's the reality of the world that we uh that we live in right now. Yeah. So Gina, >> I can't remember if this was the board that did this or the school. Um the opportunity for families to do like an independent study approach is that >> we we did eliminate that this year in part because the feedback we received from from some board members. Um
097and so we did do away from that. I mean I would say in the last year that we offered it, we only had about nine or 10, right? So it wasn't a lot. I will say there were probably of the kids who didn't participate, there were probably three or four that I knew of that were doing something that would have been approved for an independent study had they been an independent uh option. I mean, I personally have mixed feelings because I while I think that there are amazing things that kids can do with that time, um there is sort of an equity piece of like students having the same sort of menu of opportunities. And then I also think that the community goals that come out of March intensive in terms of building relationships between
098students and building relationships with staff, I think, you know, you miss out on some of those sometimes with independence. And I think if a student has a good sort of this is how I use this time, I don't think that there's any really negative consequence that they face. And so I had a couple conversations with kids even I was like, I can't tell you that you're allowed to miss school, but you it's a family decision. But but this, you know, from an outside, this seems like a really cool project that you're thinking of, you know, so so I don't know what to make of that, but yeah. >> Yeah. I'll just also echo my I've really big fan of so thanks for all that you and the teachers do. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Appreciate
099that. >> Yeah. >> Then Rene, I'm sorry. period. >> I I would I would just like to point out that we went from when we talk about the cost, we went from asking Darthy Burn for $6,000 in 2014 and it was $30,000 in 2024. So when we talk about sustainable costs, we need to be mindful that there is a very generous person in the community who is >> offsetting the real cost of running this program, right? And that's not going to continue for ever. >> And I'm sure that it was probably more than $30,000. >> And the last gift that she gave, it was 35,000 gift. Yeah. >> Yeah. And and then and it's been tremendous that we've had that. But I think >> trying to grow our donor base is important. Uh you know,
100and that money goes towards, you know, essentially that is the the the bulk of the the the scholarship fund. So, and obviously our goal is to make every March intensive course accessible to every student. Um, and so, uh, we do need to have funding to do it. >> Yep. >> But we're, I mean, I think for next year we're good and hopefully we'll, uh, you know, we'll, uh, we'll keep going. So, go ahead. >> Um, in that same vein, um, I hear the real positives about the local, right? Um, and I think that there is so much growth to be like if you're going to ask where to push and explore. Um, I hear about cover and there's so many social service agencies within 60 miles doing incredible work that have totally different socioeconomic >>
101communities with tons of opportunities um for students to get a sense of what that is. That is not going to be an expensive piece but um and so for me I think about when you ask about the direction. Yeah, >> that would be >> my wish is to like how do we dig in? You know, we've got pathology, some tech, but there's also um tons of >> amazing work, you know, like, you know, that could explore and um >> that's where I would love to see >> I would love to send a bus down to like Manchester and, you know, and maybe explore some of those service opportunities because I mean, right now we're plugged in with Listen, we're plugged in with High Horses, we're plugged in with Cover, right? And in March, we have
102Upper Valley Trails Alliance, too. in March. It's you want you really want the service opportunities to be to be impactful. They really have to be meaningful. And there's only so much band, but it's really hard actually to structure a service opportunity in some ways um really well. I think the other wildfare out there is Habitat is another one that's really great. We have two students who went on the Habitat trip this year who want to start another Habitat trip to somebody else because they're convinced that problem affordable housing is is is big and that going and working on a house was so much fun. And we've got a great partnership with a local chapter in Arkansas and they're they're inc I've gone on that one actually twice and they're incredible with us. They they take
103us in, they invite us to dinners, the the crew that works there is excited to have the kids from New Hampshire and it's just it's it's it's a pretty wonderful thing. So all of the service ones really year after year just get this, you know, feedback. Yeah. >> I mean, you talk about Manchester, but in Lime there's Share, which does, you know, refugee and immigrant resettlement. There's >> the tutoring programs. >> There's Haven. There's, you know, I think there's like some really >> local pieces that are doing, you know, Twin Pines does some amazing actual hands-on work with kids in their >> Well, would you like through um and Dartmouth Kids do some Anyway, there's just so many opportunities that I think about that would really address some cost effectiveness as well as >> we're
104hearing that it's meaningful. >> Yeah, I think that those are those are some great suggestions. So, >> thanks, Kelly. just lowhanging fruit. So my kiddo did great thanks or creative thanks which was awesome and it was awesome but I think would have been open to like hey if you want to now go on to use this in to give back somehow these skills you've learned so maybe there's some thinking that like next steps even if it's not part of the merch >> intensity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I like that a lot. I certainly think something that combines cooking service might be like on that >> be too. Good. All right. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Right. We're gonna move on to any draft resolutions for NHSBA. We
105to my knowledge we have not come up with one. >> No. Well, here's >> Go ahead. I put out the call to fellow board members and the one suggestion that was made was about bringing forward a resolution about allowing forum to be met with um people on Zoom and it's already a resolution that was passed and approved in 2022 and it reads um NHSBA supports amending RSA 91- allow committees, subcommittees and advisory committees without having a quorum physically present while still ensuring that full notice and full transparency requirements are satisfied. So it is a resolution. My suggestion is that we not feel we have to have one every year. Um I think sometimes they get tired of me. I don't know why, but um I would suggest that we share the language of that resolution
106with our four state reps >> and ask them to keep it in mind when they go back to conquered >> for the the next term. And we can hope that maybe they will be joined and more people of similar >> Yes, we >> willingness to change that law. And not to deviate from that too much, but concurrently board members may have noticed I sent an information mailed to everyone about a week ago that we need to be better at our own reporting of remote participation. So tonight when we get to the votes, we are required in the language that for anyone who's here remotely tonight, and we do have one person, they have to state the reason why they're remote. >> So things like travel, illness, something like that. And they have to state who
107is in the room with them. And we need to also state who was here, who was not. So I will get to that when we get to the voting. So this is a how much you care about this is a a real thing. So let any further discussion on making this part of a resolution that we bring noting the Dev's caveats. It's already been done before. Can I just ask if the board cares if I convey this with the board's um desire to >> to our four state reps any okay I'll also bring it to our state senator who sat on the education committee last year >> point meeting some honorary dev makes her presence very known I had the pleasure of witnessing it was awe inspiring I chimed in once or twice, Deb 15,
10820 times, something like that. It was glorious. >> I always speak when it's important >> and we all appreciate your service. And remember, we are moving on. We are not discussing the food service contract tonight. So, we're going to move on to business requirement action. I did unfortunately see a typo in the business in the approval of minutes from last time. There was one situation, let me pull it up in just one second, where our approval last time, um, the motion was made by Kelly, but in the notes it was made by me, and that is something that we do need to keep track of for transparency things. I just want to do a, um, an amended >> vote by consent to reflect that. So, this is 6A in the previous minutes. Other than that,
109we'll take a motion and noting that Tara, we'll have some questions for you when we get to you on the roll call. Um Jon will turn over to the panel. >> Everyone good to proceed with a local call vote starting with Lisa. >> Well, we need a motion. >> Oh, sorry. Thank you. Take a consent motion. >> I move to approve items B through E by consent with um the amended minutes as discussed. >> Noting there are two policies in there. Lisa >> motion seconded. >> Okay. >> Seconded by Lisa. Any further discussion on any of those items including the two policies. >> All right. Seeing none. Let's go ahead. Starting with Lisa. >> Um Christy, yes. Nelson, yes. Dayonia, yes. Sullivan, yes. Russell, yes. >> Tantum, yes. McConnell, yes. >> And then is Terra
110Terra, go ahead. >> Here. I had a schedule conflict, so I am remote. And there is no one else in the room. And Valo, yes. and yes that is unanimous. Thank you all for that. >> Then moving on to the report of the chair. So apart from the stuff we just mentioned, I want to officially welcome Jim to the Dresden board. I saw you're bending with his hand over and the retreat but welcome here. Being a little quiet tonight soaking it all in which everyone's been there before you. No concerns there. Secondly, you may have seen emails from Robin about our annual board survey. The results are not fully back although we're moving very quickly. anticipate those will be available within maybe two weeks or so rather than several months from last time. And I
111know we had some initial concerns last time about that the survey counts this year seem to be quite low. We had some single digits and no double digits by some of the individual schools. But due to some nicely put very polite pressure from Robin by email. Uh we heard from 688 parents this year across the four schools which is an increase of approximately 16% and they have much to say. We are just shy of 3,000 free text comments and it's about 160 pages so far. So, it is awesome and we will get full results shortly. Cool. >> Carrie, >> just a clarifying question, but that number 600 whatever, um, >> is that count like as a parent, if you have two kids in the district, you do two surveys, would they be counted? >> That
112would be counted twice. >> Twice. Okay. >> Because we don't have a way to formally track that without identifying people. And there are some situations like in terms of multiple IP addresses that if it's multiple kids or multiple parents or from like DH or Dartmouth or something like that where we don't track it. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And I think that is it for my report. So any questions for me? Move along to any committee reports? Uh Deb, anything from council that hasn't already been said? >> Yes. The council elected new officers and so the new moderator is Salomay Bartiger. The new assistant moderator is Grace Lan, who was on CPP last year. The new treasurer is Hannah Ek. Secretaria is Zineia Ful. Dresden School Board you know as Ella. The PR person for
113council is Ingred Grath and CPP is Ian. And I would just point out, you don't know this, but five of the winners were all on the same curriculum committee with me this last year. It's got nothing to do with me. True it does. >> But they're all on that committee. So I don't know what's going to happen to that committee. >> What? >> Huh? >> The rowers apparently Julia's taking credit. >> Anybody else want to claim questions? >> All right, Carrie. Any updates from Bford? >> Um, I was not able to go to the last meeting due to a scheduling conflict. Um their graduation for the tech center is tomorrow night um at the 11 and opera house. Um but Ramen went in there wasn't any >> we had some great student presentations at the
114last meeting. So it was really nice to see and one of our handover students presented and I've asked him if he has time to come and present at our school board meetings. >> See if we can make that work out. Any other questions for Hartford? Right. Seeing none, we'll move on to tuition. Tara Kelly, anything to add? >> We're trying to lean together. So have nothing at this time. >> All right. Any other dressing committees? I forgot or missed. Right. Seeing none, we'll move right along to the superintendent report, which we've all read diligently. Any questions for Robin based on that report? >> Amen. Thank you, Robin, for your continued service. Much appreciated. Um, interim director Lauren Ambbrank, unfortunately could not make it tonight for family reasons, but she did provide her report. Any questions
115that we have for that report that Robin can help attest to? Seeing none, move right along to the business administrator's report. Any questions for Teresa based on her report? Seeing none, we do have a need for a non-public tonight for B and C. And I would recommend we put A in as well. Sorry, Kelly. I just wanted to add um we just got the update. You probably can see it, but um from the ESBAN committee, the school board advocacy network. Um so there are two important bills kind of going through to committee tomorrow. If anyone has bandwidth and would like to tune in to those, I can share the link. um HB1300, which is the mandatory statewide school budget cap bill, and that meetings at 11:00 a.m. And then the HB751, our old friend open
116enrollment in a different form, um is 12:45 tomorrow. So, I will share that information with the board and ask Brian to attach it to the minutes. >> Yep. >> Right. We do have need for a non-public tonight and for items B and C. And I would recommend we put in A as well. So, we'll take a motion to go into non-public. Deb, you want to try it? >> I move to enter into non-public session at 8:31 p.m. under RSA 91- A, column 3, Roman numeral 2 A, B, and C. Is that right? >> We have a second. Seconded by Lisa. And we do have to do a roll call roll for the starting word. Kelly >> Yes. >> Anton. Yes. >> Very nice. >> Russell, yes. Good night. Yes. Nelson, yes. Christy, yes. >> And
117Terra, yes. >> And Keny, yes. We will see you all in a few minutes. >> Okay. We're going to return to public session at 9:07. >> I'd like to hear a motion about the new hires FTE changes. Dr. Yeah, >> I move to approve hiring Madison Cook as a HO full-time kept teacher, Christine Wooden as a learning specialist, increasing Liz Susi's FTE from 8 to 0.9 as presented. >> Seconded by Lisa and Lucy is tear back on the line. Yes, she is okay. Going all going around the horn starting with Kel, excuse me. >> Yes. Tanton, yes. Russell, yes. Sullivan, yes. Day, yes. Nelson, yes. Christy, yes. Terra, yes. and Keen. Yes, that is unanimous. Thank you everyone. We'll als take a motion for the nomination list. >> I move to approve the updated nomination
118list as presented. >> Seconded by Lisa on the horn again starting with Kelly. Yes. >> Ton, yes. >> Russell, yes. >> Sivan, yes. >> Yes. >> Nelson, yes. >> Christy, yes. Yes. That is also unanimous. Thank you, everyone. >> Thank you. Sorry. Right. We have a second for public comment. Okay. All right. In that case, if you have any agenda topics for the next meeting, which will just be in two short weeks, please send them to me ASAP. We already had our agenda review meeting today. >> That's right. >> That case, I'll take a motion to adjourn the meeting. We'll do one more quick roll call vote after we hear the motion from. >> Yeah. Move to adjourn the meeting at 9:08 p.m. >> Second by Lisa. Roll call one more time. Starting with Kelly.
119Yes. >> Yes. >> Russell. Yes. >> Yes. >> Nelson. Yes. Christy, yes. >> Pelosi, yes. >> And Kenny, yes. Thank you. Good night, everyone. We'll see you in two weeks. >> Good night, everybody. >> Good night, everyone. >> I gave you a your