Hanover School Board 05/14/2025

001Okay. Uh so calls the order at 7:05. Uh any members of the board need to review the order of the agenda? No. Okay. Moving on. Um any members of the public on Zoom? We actually do have one. Okay. Um I don't know. If anyone any members of the public would like to address the board at this time, please raise your hand. Okay. Um and thank you to the members of the public for being here. Uh we will move right along to the principal report. So, even though we had a spring break, an April break, couched between our last meeting and this meeting, a ton has happened since we last met. Um, and I just was sent um our task list from, you know, now our task and event list from like now to the end

002of the year. And it is going to be an incredibly fast-paced and exciting and in a very short few number of days. It's unbelievable that we are here in May, really rolling up on June pretty quickly. Um, I submitted my principal's report and I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, highlighted a few really special events that, uh, happened uh, here at Ray. Um, some artisan residencies, um, followup about our kindergarten troll project that I would encourage you to take a look at. Um and then just would want to conclude by stating out loud um the love and appreciation that we have for all staff and teachers um and everybody that works on behalf of students uh here at the race school. We had a really wonderful celebration for staff appreciation, teacher appreciation. Um and our

003PTO uh did such a lovely job of helping us feel so loved and appreciated. Um, but just to say out loud, I work with some truly incredible people and it's not lost on me every day when I walk into the school how lucky I am to be surrounded by such incredible folks. So, happy school staff appreciation. Thank you, Lauren. I have questions for Yeah. No, please. I have a question. I just was a little confused about the troll project because I looked at Vins and it talked about the Richmond school. So, did they make the things like the feet and all of that in their wood shop classes? Oh, so yes, there was. Yes, there was. There were contributions um yes from our friends at RMS, but the ideas um and the naming. I hope

004you enjoyed the names. I was like laughing with one of our kindergarten teachers. They were like, we were not super creative. It was along the lines of, you know, if you have a stuffed animal bunny, you call it bunny, right? troll. Yeah. Like a troll made out of branches and it's called branchy, right? Yes. Um so the majority of the work did happen um through our kindergartens here and their teachers, but there was some help from our other friends as well and they took them over to them. Yes. And so this was a fundamental misunderstanding that I had from the beginning of the year and somewhere along the way maybe um something shifted in my mind. I thought that our trolls were going to be out in our backyard and I thought we were going

005to be touring these trolls. Um, and I was like really excited and also surprised to see that there was this incredible um partnership with Vins. And so we have our amazing trolls out on tour. You can walk the trail um and see these trolls over there. And and on this field trip, our kindergartens um led other schools and other people through this trail and talked about their trolls and the process and what they learned about it. It was really um a really special thing. But what that means for us is that we can't just go into the backyard as a group here and take the tour. But I would encourage you to go check it out because it's pretty special. Thank you. Yep. Do we know how long it's going to be on display at

006Vince? Uh through August. Oh, yes. Cool. Oh, and a board member mentioned to me too, a correction to I forgot to mention that, a correction to one of the dates in my report. So, we are going to be having a community blue ribbon celebration. Um, I said Saturday, June 6th in this report and it's actually Saturday, June 7th at 3:00. I just have one more question. Are um board members welcome to come to the book fair thing you're doing? You are welcome to come to everything all the time. Yes, please. Please do. Okay. We would love to see all of you. I feel like we're way over there. Any questions? No, my question is going to be I thought we were going to keep you seen the trolls like I don't know what you know.

007No, I don't. I will just mention that the how I believe still has museum passes that everyone is trying to get to bins to see the trolls. So, um, anything else for Lauren? Okay, Lauren, we'll get to hear from you again very shortly. Yes. Um, moving on then, get my window sorted here to There we go. uh the board calendar and topic template. Um one thing that I noticed and I just wanted to check with you. I believe we are moving the S is it SAS results or am I like dating myself? That's something else now. No, you're right. SAS results. I know we're moving that to next month. Is that something we should permanently move? Yes. Okay. So, is June the right time frame for that or the following September? I'd say even June

008we'll we'll be crossing our fingers that we have the results and are able usually we'll we'll get really close to having our school's results. We will not have any comparison to state at that point or year-over-year or anything that we might ask you to look at. So okay. So maybe just a a comment for the note taker that we think about moving that to our August meeting which was my other question for the board. That August meeting seems really early to me. Um, and I don't know if anybody had a chance to look at that and thought, "Wow, that's feels really early." August 12th. I'm a little concerned about quorum and such. So, if everyone could just take a look at that and make sure um those feel very early to me and maybe that's

009just standard, but I felt like it was generally more endolog. Well, we have in the past sometimes pushed our meetings to be like later in August, especially if we were starting a little earlier in August so that we could get school started and then and the first day of school is the 27th. Yeah. Okay. Well, just take a look at it and if we feel like that's going to be a quorum issue, certainly let us know. Right. We can always we'll have plenty of time to warn it if we decide we need to push it. Yeah. Uh, anything else on the calendar or the agenda templates? Yeah. Yeah, the the template needs to have something in September. Now, I don't trust anything that I look at. I think I see um for doing the schoolboard

010resolutions. Yeah, I feel like we've requested that before. So, yeah, just I think maybe an update because I think we've also moved the survey or the um testing results back before. So, just if the notetaker can make sure I get that in there and I will also just send a quick email to Ryan to make sure that we um formally update that for going forward. Anything else that should be added? Can I just clarify? psychologist or No, I was just thinking Carrie doesn't know what I'm talking about, but the New Hampshire School Board Association meets in October and they have typically there's a window where school districts can submit resolutions and that's usually in July. Um, so for us to do something, we would have to do it, you know, at our June meeting perhaps

011if there's something that we want to submit as a resolution. But regardless of whether we submit one or not, they send out the resolutions that are going to come before this meeting. And our I'm I've been the representative and I get two votes, one for handover and one for Dresden. Um, but we go through all the resolutions as a handover board and a Dresden board and give me direction on how to vote on those. Okay. So, I'm going to put a note in that we should add um an NHSBA resolution like do we want to for June and then maybe September. Is that early enough? Okay. September. It has to be September. Okay. Review resolution. B resolutions. Yes, Ben. Um, I note that the resolution discussion is actually in the Dresden one for June this

012this month for next month. So, I'm assuming it might just be an air oversight that it's not handover. You just didn't get transferred to vote. Okay, perfect. All right. Well, I'll make a note then for Thank you. Yeah. Um, I think my only question was and maybe it's not handover, it's FAU, but there's been conversation around onboarding of pay staff. I see in March it said reorg of the board, but in terms of intentionality of onboarding, like that conversation um has happened since uh like Gina, Renee, and I are coming on and I don't know if it's helpful to have it on here as a way to prompt more formalized process of that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We've been talking about the board retreat. Um so that Yes. Thank you. I will put a note for

013that in March. Um, and the other thing I would just ask board members to think about, and I don't think we need any kind of conver or decision tonight, per se, um, but to think about the board retreat format, timing, what's useful to us? Because I feel like we get to March every year and kind of go, "Oh, board retreats coming up. We have new members. What, you know, and how how is the retreat being used differently from a regular meeting? Is that time valuable to us? Does Saturday morning when we're often missing three or four people make sense, you know, and if so, let's plan it with a little um more foresight and intentionality perhaps. So, just something to Sunday. Okay. So, just think about it. Um just think about it and let me

014know if anything comes to mind on that. Um Jay was saying maybe a tradeoff for better onboarding for new members in exchange for the retreat but um is there any evaluative nature after a retreat like is there any like we have not done that but that's a good idea just to see what thoughts are um yeah J I think I'm not suggesting we start another committee but um well good but it not only an assessment of our our last retreat, but about the whole idea of the retreat in general. We could do a survey of the board and generate some ideas from that. And and I I was talking to Kelly before the meeting. We we used to use the retreat, it was traditionally used as a meeting for the board to set its annual

015goals, but you now have a strategic planning process in place that you never had back when that was the the operating procedure. So it might be that that goal setting has has given way to much more thorough and regular planning that you're doing now and you're going out three to five years, not just setting goals. And that was one of the things we complained about that was that sort of called for a strategic plan was that the board would set its goals in mid to late May. Meanwhile, the schools are already planning things like well before that and then and then we're supposed to align everything with the board's goals. So it was sort of a mismatch. Yeah. But now that we have the plan, maybe there's some other way to do this or a

016way to have a non-meating, maybe not taking up one of your valuable weekends, but maybe in in lie of a regular board meeting since we only are legally obligated to have one every other month. One one month if you picked one could just be informal chance for you to discuss and talk about priorities and whatever the topics you wanted to cover. Yeah. And I will point out that um in Dresden last year when former board member Kim Harman was chair that she had a meeting um regular meeting where there was a distinct time period devoted to here's what Dresden's going to do in the next year. And I recall some of us were sort of oh we're doing this now okay but it was very helpful and that's directly where the middle school sports stuff

017came from was like what are our goals? It wasn't tied into strategic planning specifically, but kind of the the one-year activity specific to that district that were not part of strategic planning. You're talking about our retreat. We had No, it wasn't a retreat. It was just a regular board meeting had a session, but like we got that done in the context of a regular board meeting and I was a little annoyed at the time, but it turned out to be very It was a good idea. I think a confession. Yes. I told him herself. Uh, okay. Sorry, taking notes for Ryan. Um, all right. Anything else? Okay. Thank you guys. That was a productive discussion. Uh, moving right along to parent survey results. Lauren way. First off, I'll start by saying awesome that overall like

018glowing glowing positivity. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Now you may take it. Thanks. So that's all that's all I was. So just for a little bit of context, um this survey last year we did in June. This year we did it in May. I'm, you know, not sure if that makes an impact one way or the other. Um but this it is going to be nice because I can present it now and if you have sort of deep dive type questions, I can also come back in June and have those answers prepared if it's not something that I can readily get for you right now. So from a me presenting to you perspective, I really like this idea of presenting it May and then or sending it out in May and then having the

019opportunity to clarify things if needed in June at that board meeting. Um this survey this year uh similar to last year was open for one week. Um, I sent it out initially in a rays of sunshine on a Friday, sent a reminder on a Monday, sent a reminder on Wednesday, sent a reminder on the Friday that it was going to close, and also put it into the rays of sunshine on the Friday that it was going to close, and then kept it open. I said it was going to close at at midnight, kept it open for just a few extra hours on Saturday to see if we would get anybody. We didn't. Sometimes we do capture a few late responders, but this year we did not. Um, so I found in the past too that

020when we keep it open for like weeks at a time, we don't typically get additional um, answers and respondents either. So, um, happy to always take advice around the length of the survey and how long it should be open, but that's what it was for this year. Last year in June, um, we had 157 respondents. This year we had 135. Mhm. Um I do ask uh in the sort of the directions to complete the survey that parents and guardians consider filling out one for each of their children. That helps me understand, you know, population-wise, how many folks are we actually capturing. So if we have a population of 466 students, I have 135 responses. And I know some of them were doubles because some of the comments were listed twice. So I know that the

021parent filled it out for one, but had similar comments for both. Um, I also really can't control for like mom answers it and dad answers it. Um, there's no way to do that through this um, platform at least. So, it's open to anyone to answer. So, um, we have 135 responses. I would say yeartoear we generally see that um, you know, we trend pretty well and pretty positively. Um, I do have a caveat. I don't think that this is the most effective survey and I've said that a number of times and would love to calibrate um more as an SAU and across the schools especially leaning into the strategic plan to ask more pointed questions about progress and what parents and guardians and community members are experiencing. Um but that could be something that I

022work on with my leadership friends. Um so that's the caveat for the future. Um sort of highlevel but also interesting things. Um, it's hard to really make huge leaps from last year to this year when I compare, you know, question to question. What's nice about not having a drastic change is I can look at last year's responses and this year's responses um to very similar questions and see if there are areas that we're doing better or maybe need some improvement in. So, a couple of things that I just wanted to make sure to highlight. Um, one thing that I felt was a success, you know, and something that we're really looking to grow in. If you are looking at question number 10, um, I think this has been on our mind for quite some time.

023This is the race school curriculum programming and resources. Acknowledge the diversity of students backgrounds and learning needs. Um, we did see a bump in this area from last year to this year in terms of um, respondents uh, leaning more into the strongly agree and agree. So, um, I wanted to talk through a few of the things that we really worked on as initiatives here at Ray that could be, um, why we're seeing this improvement, though not drastic. It's hard to tell if it's meaningful or not, but some improvement in this area. Um, so some of this you may have heard from Jay before because of our focus on equity. Um and a big nod to our instructional coach Steph Herold who also came to present to you about her sbatical which was around diversity, equity,

024inclusion and access. Um and having her in this instructional coach role has been really instrumental in I think um making sure that the staff and faculty is on the same page about what this question even means. You know, how do we u make sure that we're acknowledging the diversity of students backgrounds? So here are some of the things that have been important in trying to do that this year. Um we had a book study around group reading disability in mathematics. Um we had many schoolwide data meetings to identify trends uh and determine where student needs were in order to um provide intervention, reteing and enrichment. Uh we had a huge schoolwide bowl um that I spoke about and I will kind of wrap up for you in June around the Rayway um multi-tered systems of

025support, our educational support team and our behavioral response protocol. Um that I think really does uh lean into acknowledging student backgrounds, needs and not just in the learn areas of learning but also social emotional. Um we had uh a PD series that was led by some of our instructional leaders um around the accuracy of historical texts um reading diversity checklists and this concept of um windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors. What are students seeing? How are they seeing it? And how are we using the resources, the media that we are selecting um in our classrooms to make sure that students feel seen and can see others. Um, we had a library text review and consideration group that met frequently to analyze the books that we have in our library. Um, we had culture presentations that

026were happening in various grade levels where community members and/or parents could come in and give a presentation about their culture. Um, and then we also, as you've probably seen highlighted through many of our um, board meetings, we had new and diverse presenters and artists this year and leaned into that with student learning in the classroom as well. Um some topics and instructional practices that are being explored with Steph through her coaching work include um holiday books representation activities around the holiday season. Um exploring language arts and social studies units through an equity lens at various grade levels. Um we have biography readings at grade levels. Um Spanish cultural biography connections and then analyzing books and resources for authenticity and representation. Um so really across many areas we're thinking about how we're making sure that our

027students feel seen, feel heard, and also have the opportunity to um see and hear others. Um so I would attribute a lot of that really focused work this year to you know a potential increase um in uh positivity in question number 10. If we move on to question number Yes, I please go ahead. Sorry. Yes, so I gen I I echo Kelly's earlier comment that the survey results are outstanding in terms of the positivity and that gives us more opportunities to be nitpicky because there's so there's so few negative things to talk about. Yeah. So which is awesome. That's not necessarily true of all the schools. So, thank you for emphasizing just how awesome Ray is here and I I said every day. Um, but it one of the things that seems to be a

028trend in in several of these comments is that the amount of people saying neither agree or disagree or unsure to me seems anecdotally a little higher than previous years. And that's sort of the in between people who are either afraid to give an opinion or truly don't know. Right. And I think part of that comes from a lot of the stuff you're telling us about are things we know as a board, which is great and wonderful, but as a parent, I don't see a lot of that in Raise of Sunshine or reports from a teacher. Certainly not reports from my kid who tells me fine, you know, every day. Good. And I love recess. So I love hearing the things you're talking about, but maybe we as a collective community, board included, can do a

029better job, and I don't think this is exclusive to Ray. I think we all No, I agree. of trumpeting our accomplishments in more pointed ways. Yes. And even things where I'm not a parent like at the high school that these incredible accomplishments are things that I hear purely as a sides from board members in the hallway rather than like through the valley news or through big press releases from the SEU office or things like that. So I think we as a collective community could do much better and sort of these accomplishments are awesome. thumbnail. Let's make sure people know about them because so many parents have no clue what's happening here. And I say that so nicely to to them as well like when we have sidebars and atontos or sports events or whatever and

030they say what's going on and the things I'm telling them like they never heard of it even if it's in an email you know it doesn't mean it's retained unfortunately. Sure. And there's no easy answer to that but we should keep trying. Yes. Yes. I agree. directness to our sole employment as superintendent. Thank you very I keep not looking at you. I'm also not done if you want me to say more things about this. Well, I just want to piggyback a little bit on that because I think that the community as a whole is really struggling to understand what's going on in the community as a whole. Um, you can see it in the leadup to town meeting where people acted like suddenly things were presenting themselves that nobody had ever heard of and they

031weren't paying attention. And so it's not easy, but I think the more information we make accessible on our websites and the more we push people, you know, that I I almost feel like your this should all be on the the Race School website. You know, this is the principal report presented to the board and here's another place where you can find it. So, it's not just somebody who's watching us on Zoom knowing about it, but somebody could fiddle around and go, "Oh, I didn't see this link." And I I just think the more we make information available, the the better. Yes. And Deb, just so you know, that that was something that came out of our retreat actually as well, you know, and we we used some of the examples of things going on in

032Harper as well, other school districts where these things have been talked about in board meetings for months, right? But, you know, Valley News picks it up and suddenly everyone's talking about it and surprised even though it's been going on, you know, and so right. Yes. To your point, helping people see things and just for Jan's benefit and whoever in the public, I was at a memorial service on Saturday. So, I missed the retreat. That's why I don't know. It's been sad. Yes. Karen, I think to piggyback on that, I think there is an element many thoughts, right? And I there's lots of things about postcoid communities being lack of connectivity, right? Like which is just a big part of a broader theme that communities have experienced generally like a lack of a lack of connectedness.

033One of the things that I think about in especially perhaps in elementary school where the communication from children is incredibly limited. They can't quite remember what they were doing 10 minutes before you last saw them. Um is the intentionality. I think I did feel like as a parent I know about some of these events, but in your write up it highlights how it's tied to your goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion as and so it's more like pointed like this is actually a result of a planful piece as opposed to look at our cool um artisan residents, right? Which to me is part of the like I know that there's artisan residents. I know that there's a um you know a reading curve, but is that tied to you know and I think that that

034may be the piece that helps and is different in terms of how we receive it as a board than perhaps how we know it as a parent and community member. Um even though in some ways it could be said as the same image. Thank you Jay. I was just going to say what's what's interesting and and hopefully we'll get a little more feedback from the public about this is that in the surveys that we've done recently folks have indicated that they're happy with the nature and quantity frequency of communication the general communication and the area where they had they felt that they needed more communication or different or better communication was about their individual children and um and so we're working on a survey right now and communication is one chunk of it Because the

035question that we all had and and and and that actually the entire race staff had was like what is it they want? Yes. And so we need to go back and ask them. So we're working on right now developing a series of more granular questions around how people would like to receive communication. Um and then their general satisfaction with communication. Everything from my office to the principal to the board. Yeah. And so we should get we should have a little more data to share with you around what people want. Mhm. Um, remember back in daycare, you used to get those little reports that like I ate bananas. They were delicious, you know, every day. And I think that's my response. There's a lot like there's a piece. We want that information. And then also, it's

036not dayare, right? I mean, I mean that seriously and I think that there is an elephant and always going to be a population of parents that wants to report. How did my kid do in math today? How did they do in reading? How did they do in science? And to me that is a piece of um that is an expectation that is not reasonable to have on educational staff. And that is absolutely like the amount that we know is actually kind of a lot I would argue compared to some other settings in terms of the amount of information you might get from your elementary school teacher in terms of detail. And so I think there's like we want the information but also I like what's the what's the balance of what's reasonable expectation for teachers

037versus deaf parents we hear a concern right and I think that there is a um because they are coming out of daycare where they did know how many banana pieces they ate and right um and I and I would say too that personally I felt like that gets less and less and less as the child gets older so it may not be raceful as much as the their schools where you have that feeling, you know, you get to the middle school and suddenly they come home happy. Great. You know, and it's which is developmentally appropriate I would I would argue, right? But um yeah. Okay. anything uh sorry before we let Lauren keep going um and I just just to piggyback on that both in terms of your commentary as well as Lauren's comments that

038the survey that that Jay mentioned is more pointed I would say in terms of what we're looking for as well as sort of what's realistic and and because it's going to be a K12 survey that will also help us get out whether there's school or education level differentiation between like what the high school wants versus what Ray and MCS want as well as differentiation between Ray and MCS in terms of what they're looking for because that can help us identify patterns like oh well maybe at the K2 level we should be doing bananas and that kind of stuff and that's a trickle down effect and then conversely we know at RMS that they want a lot more conferences because they got that at the elementary school they anticipate that that's going to keep going and

039why is it not you know level of sort of parent coaching also Yeah, if you want. That would be really interesting. All right. Well, just keep going. Okay. Sure. Okay. Um I wanted to highlight 12 as an area where things leaned slightly more positive from last year to this year. Um and I, you know, would hypothesize that our So this was year three. Yes, year three of our illustrative math roll out. Um, and it was a like a really it was a really big year because we started to make it truly our own in terms of the instruction and the assessment and any other resources that we're using to supplement what IM gives us. um both in previous years comments as well as in this question oftentimes we would hear people express their displeasure like

040a lot of displeasure with math being taught at the race school and over the past couple of years it's still there um but significantly less commentary on um dissatisfaction with math and I think some of it is because we've done some pretty good communicating about it. I, you know, spent some time um writing a couple of narratives for Rays of Sunshine early in the year to talk about the process of adopting IM, you know, why we use it, how we use it, why we like it. Um, and I think that also our intentionality around choosing that program um really it has met the needs of so many learners within our school. So, I'm like I'm really proud of that work and year three and um what we're seeing there. And then also um our work

041in NGSS, you probably saw that there were a couple of comments where people were like, I love my kid loves science this year. Um I see that as a very positive change as well with this work. And then there were also a couple that were like, so what's going on with um you probably noticed this, like what's going on with mystery dub, which is something that we used to use kind of bridge our old science um teaching with this new science teaching. Um, and so, you know, it also lets me know that there is more room for growth there, but also we we will have completed our three units or close to completion of our three units by next Wednesday. So, going into next year, we're going to be in a better place with science

042from day one. Um, so I'm really excited to see if that continues to be an area that we grow in in positivity. Um, 14. Question 14. We were just kind of talking about this. The race school uses effective ways of evaluating my students learning. This every year is like a kind of a dicey one. Um, I was I met with my instructional team this morning and this is one of the questions that we discussed because as an instructional team we feel like we have a really robust assessment schedule and some pretty incredible um screening tools and um uh universal tools that we use along with some of our summitive assessments. We feel like we really do have effective ways of evaluating students learning. But there's obviously a breakdown here because um the parent community doesn't

043necessarily feel as strongly about that. So we were talking today about how we can be more effective communicators and this directly aligns with the strategic plan as well. Um how we can be more effective communicators around the ways that we're evaluating students and what we're doing with that data. Another huge jump that we made this year was um was our our data meetings that happened after universal screenings. You know, three times a year at every grade level. Um, that's something definitely that parents should know about that we're not just, you know, testing kids. Um, and it's not just three times a year. We have the big assessments, the little assessments, the progress monitoring. So, um, being more transparent about what we're doing there and why we're doing it um because I feel really excited about

044how we're evaluating students learning um, with the approaches that we've adopted over the past year, year and a half. So, um, I'm excited for that area for growth because I think that we can make some great growth there. Um, we love homework, right? This question every year. Every year. Interesting. This year, um, more families this year said, "My student does not have regularly assigned homework." It's huge. Yes. Yeah. And more people said the amount of homework is just right. So, I was like, I think we're getting a little bit closer. There will there will always be um some folks that want more homework, and I can understand and appreciate that. Um but also uh in engaging in conversations with my leadership friends at RMS, I I feel like this is another discussion that we need

045to be having, you know, K8, K12, um around homework expectations because in a couple of comments, you know, parents were saying, uh we need to be giving homework, you know, regularly assigned homework at the race school to prepare them for the middle school. When I talked to my friends at the middle school, they are moving away. they their hope is to be moving away from um regularly assigned homework. So if that's the case, then we would be in alignment. If that's not the case, then we need to have that conversation and figure that out. Um I would just say at at my dentist appointment earlier this week, my dentist, while my mouth was full of hands and stuff, yes, um really expressed a strong opinion that we should have more homework and we should be

046focused more on homework. So just want to share that with you. What did you say back? Yes. And and the homework question, not get back to the other surveys, there's a question in the next survey as well. Super. And the last time we did that at the SAU level, the general theme was kind of as you may have anticipated where at the elementary school, vast majority of parents wanted more homework, more rigor and at the high school is the exact opposite. Yeah. less homework is way too hard as it is. These kids are drowning and the middle school was kind of just right the sweet spot to the middle. Yeah. And I have no desire to, you know, have our 5 through 12 year olds drowning in homework. I just feel like there's so much

047there's so much more. And when we were giving regularly assigned homework and asked the question, is the homework meeting the needs of your student? Is it effective? Parents were often saying it wasn't super effective, too. So, um, you know, I think it'd be great to look at the research around around homework, too, and make some strategic decisions around the place of homework for our elementary students and, you know, students across the district because homework is good when it's done a certain way, right? Do you Sorry. Go ahead. uh to your knowledge for at least for my older child who's no longer here, but there was a lot of discrepancies at the teacher level among giving out homework within the same grade. Is that still in issue or is it more standardized? No, less so an

048issue. Um we are working on that section in the handbook right now which I'll be presenting those changes to you at the June meeting. um because uh the expectation is that we are in alignment across the grade level. We've inched our way there, but it's not 100% yet. Some grade levels are more on the same page than others, but in these homework conversations as part of the family handbook, um I'm hoping that we are even closer, if not all the way there next year. For me, I looked at those two 16 and 17 next to each other and I thought I wish and I'm sure you can look at this in the back end, but I think it would be useful to understand where those 50% think it's just right. Are they falling in the

04974% who don't have homework or are they falling in the 20% who have the zero to 20 minutes? That's something you would want me to come back with. No, it was more just a comment for you. I'm not going to make any decisions on it anyway. But um just a more comment, you know, that that struck me as something that would be interesting to understand. And then of course my grade level, right? Like yeah, my kindergartener doesn't have homework. That's probably really good thing. My fifth grader has a little bit is probably also a really good developmental thing, right? Good point. And then I also am curious and this might come out in the comments um which I didn't get a chance to read all the way all the way through but um the reading

050I know that was a big requirement of you know there wasn't a lot of homework but it was a half hour of reading a night or something like that that kind of ramps up as they get older. Right. Right. And I'm would be curious to know too if parents think of that as homework in some houses my house that was a negotiation regularly so that was definitely thought of as homework. Right. Right. I know there are a lot of houses where you're taking the book away to say it's dinner time now you have to stop reading. So that wouldn't be even considered homework, right? So that might be an interesting thing to delve into. Yeah. Okay. Um I'm almost done and then I'm happy to answer anything else. Um question 21. The Rays of Sunshine

051weekly newsletter contains useful and accurate information. and you all already started talking about this, but uh one of the notes that I had to myself is um both from the comment section where some folks offer some really great constructive feedback, but then also just sort of looking at this too, um thinking through both in my board reports and in the rays of sunshine, um that sharing progress on initiatives and sharing connections to strategic planning um would be a really powerful way to hopefully make the rays of sunshine more pal palatable or interesting or whatever the word is that we would want to use for folks. It um it does tend to be more of like a celebratory thing as well as like a bulletin board for upcoming events. So um using that as a more

052strategic plan for communication I think would be really um powerful in the future. So I agree with what was shared before this idea if I'm going to talk about it here at the board let's make sure that I'm also reflecting it to parents. Um, and what can I share more with the board about our strategic planning and initiative progress here? That's all I really wanted to say. I think we're probably almost the questions here because we interspersed them. Um, I hate to keep bringing it up and you'll yell at me, but the the board members still don't get the raise of sunshine and it's still I won't yell at you and it's the only one of the four schools that we do not receive in our board capacity. And I know we talked about before.

053Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Let's figure this out. Thank you. I realized my neck is like actually getting crept. All right. Oh, Ash, sorry. I do have one more thing that I wrote down. Um, so another theme that came out in the comments was this idea and um Carrie just mentioned it too. This idea of community and connectedness. Um and I think we made some strides in that area this year. Um you know bringing back some of our um loved uh events such as our math night. Um continuing with our lity event. Um you know hosting this blue ribbon celebration. Um you thinking about uh the SAU70 which is so cool. um SAU wide uh band concert, some upcoming um musical features that we'll have. Just uh just noting that um we are really trying

054to think about postco how to bring people back together in meaningful in meaningful ways because um the school is what it is because of the community and having been at Ray Precoid and now you know postcoid um thinking about why we do what we do and and making sure that you know we are we do have that community outreach people do feel welcome um to come to our school and do know what's happening here at the school and then also know you know the the other parents and guardians in in the classroom. So I remember you know potlucks and more of those things which still tend to happen in our kindergarten first grade classrooms but that you know cohorts of families would move together through the school and have a sense of connectedness that I

055don't think has returned quite yet. So thinking about our planning for next year, what can we do to promote those community events and community connections will continue to be on our minds. Now I'm at the point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I thought that the comments were full of really helpful ideas. They were really I was really grateful. Great. Yes. And there was that one comment about um the pre the late August barbecue. Yeah. one and then I remember we did that before co not for all grades but if something like that could come back I think that could be very powerful. Yeah. And one clarifying question on one of the pretext comments was someone mentioned UDL universal design for learning. Okay. Basically differentiating making accessible to everyone. Okay. In a in a natural sort of

056way. Oh yeah. Thank you. That was my question. Um, I I will point out because the reason that I didn't look at all the open responses is because I when I was looking through the agenda, apparently I was not logged in. So, all of the open responses that were referring to are currently administrative content, which is probably intentional at this point. Um, but I I don't know if at some point they can be made available, but I just wanted to make sure we were aware that nobody who's listening to us can see those currently. Thanks for saying that. I did follow what we decided to do last year. So, if you look at last year's presentation, we did the same thing. Um, and I there's nothing that we would want to hide and I did

057my very best at trying to redact what I thought was should be redacted. Um, but if the board would like these to be open to public, I would like another set of eyes to make sure that I did redact properly. Yeah. Thank you. and um and then yeah, happily would share that if that's something that the board would like and would want for the future as well. So I would that is that volunteering as well as pointing out that there's no formal policy on this and maybe we should tackle that but I would argue there is a trend across the schools and SAU of trying to be as open as we can with our survey results and we did that for a recent RMS survey and we've done that for the SAU surveys that I

058participated in where eventually yes all the open-ended comments properly redacted yes are publicly available and I will point out that I'm glad it's an admin comment because There was one context where someone's name was still in there. Okay. Um and yeah, yeah, which is why second is always good, which is why we ourselves do a second set of eyes. I look at and Jay look at it separately just to double check all of those things. I just wanted to make sure that the members of the public knew we what we were talking about. If you want me to do that, I can do that as well. All right. Anything else on this item? Lauren, thank you so much for that. Um, Ben, you get to talk reading a policy. All right. Um, thank you. So,

059there's a bombardment of policies here, but it's not as bad as it looks. So, the first one that are hype buildings that start with the letter D. I think we mentioned this briefly at a different board where we got dinged by the auditors for not actually I think it was at the retreat for not keeping up with updating our policies as frequently as we should and when we discussed it at the policy committees realized we across the four districts we have over 1300 policies and the policy committee already meets at least twice a month for an hour and a half and that is just dealing dealing with the new policies that come through the pipeline, let alone updating line by line 1300 policies every year. Like that's not about just like no that's four per

060day. That's not sustainable. But when we've kind of had that back and forth, what became more prudent was that we review these D series policies which are more specifically related to finance, budgeting, fiscal responsibility. And so we at policy would like the D series to be approved very briefly discussed as needed kind of like what we do for the DFA which is the investment one that we discuss at every board. I think roughly around March or April every year and that these D series ones will be discussed in that same March April time period after the new after a new board comes in with the vote but we're discussing them now in May so that they have a 2025 review. I don't think any of them warrant discussion. A couple of them are in the

061R series, which we don't theoretically have to approve, but we put in there just for open transparency. So, I'm not going to I'm hoping we won't have a discussion about them, but of course, we can if we need to. So, this is simply that they will be there and we'll kind of do this and put the new number on them. I mean, I'm not I'm not trying to be tright. We can look at them all ahead of them. We look at it ahead of time and without we don't anticipate many yearly changes, but they do warrant an annual review for a reason. And you'll highlight changes for us, correct? Yep. And we found no changes in this particular year. So those ones we are going to be introducing yearly and you'll note in the admin

062content below the the ideal thing is for all policies, all 1300, we review them line by line at the policy committee level every 3 to five years. And that is aspirational. We do have policies dating back still. So like the 60s and 70s. It's so much better than what it was before, but there's still work to do. Can I ask a question on that? Um, so I I am curious and you can think about this or maybe it's a no right away, but I I wonder if it would be helpful to you guys to establish a policy review committee that meets once a month, once quarterly, and spend an hour going through the backlog of in reverse order, this policy has been on the books since 1975. Let's look at it. And if it's something

063that requires significant revamping or reooking, we take it up to the policy committee. Just something to consider if that would be a helpful use of review for you guys. Uh Jake, go ahead. Just I I I see the logic behind that. I just think that with the as far as as thin as you all are spread to have another policy committee meeting, I do think the the auditor said that they recommend that we review, approve, and or andor reaffirm policies that haven't been updated in the last three to five. It'd be really easy since Ryan now has all of our policies on a spreadsheet for her to put another column for up for review and then the date or the year that it should be reviewed and we can Yeah. Then we could just have

064an agenda item on our policy committee meetings where she spreads out those ones that are up for review that year and we get two or three to review. It wouldn't take too much time on our agenda and we could just knock them out. And if it's one that's going to take more time, you a table it for an actual Sure. And then when we have our policy report out at our board meetings, we could say, "Hey, the policy committee reviewed these six policies and and they're still up to date. The law hasn't changed and they're good to go." Yeah. Any questions? Right. And one thing we talked about which is I don't think it's a formal policy yet but we talked about if it's simply reaffirming yes this is still here yes it's still irrelevant

065we have no changes is if the boards are comfortable with the policy committee being like committee looked at it it's still fine and then it doesn't need to go to the full boards we've mused upon that but we don't have a policy specifically about it yet. I'll take Deb and then Teresa. I just I there's a big part of me that really wants to push back on this auditor thing and on all of it. I mean, I think and the work that you do with the policy committee is extraordinary. And when you say there are 1300 policies, I just don't think it's realistic to expect boards of volunteers basically to be updating 1300 policies and paying attention to that. So I I mean great. I love that you have this nice cluster of D's for

066us, but I I am 100% in favor of whatever is the easiest thing for the most people to do and to be moving forward. And so if it's, you know, we've looked at all these D's, we're all fine. Update the number on the policy. But I just think particularly given the current tenor in conquered of changing and passing all these laws that in turn trigger new policies. We can either be prepared for the new or going back over the old. We can't I don't think it's reasonable and I would be more grumpy. Teresa, Teresa, what I was gonna add is um the ones before you actually recently um Ryan and I sat down together and then we kind of plowed through these, read through them and everything else. Um because it's kind of like what

067we're what I'm living every day, right, is following these particular policies that are before you in our office and stuff. So, we went through them there was anything that needed to be changed or anything that was out of place or whatever. So, we did kind of bet them a little bit before now they're coming to you guys. And um and if there were going to be any changes, I think we didn't really come across one. I think there was just one thing where she was going to make note. So, obviously that you would know ahead of time, but the rest note that maybe the same concept with the spreadsheet or something where it's marked that there's no change. Okay, that's great. And and I will point out that, you know, the auditor, their job is

068to point out areas we could improve. We don't have to do those things, right? It's a conversation. So, um, they're doing their due diligence, their job that we pay them to do. So, yeah, but we we are within our rights to push back a little bit and say, "Okay, thanks for the advice." Yeah. And there are times where we say, you know, we hear you the end. That is the story. But then there's um to your point, you know, we're aware that you have those meetings and we need to have those meetings like between you and Ryan or Ran or whomever appropriate employee depending on the issue, but of course that's not the same thing as the board reviewing and um although we certainly take those discussions into consideration. So I think what we'll probably

069end up doing long term is again sort of a combination of due dates in terms of reminders that we put in various software that go okay in three years you're going to check this and this approximate amount spread it out as well as have a discussion at the policy committee on how the best way to do it is to if it's purely an affirmation is the board comfortable with the policy committee tackling that internally and if it's any substantive change definition of substantive at the policy committee level then we bring it to the port board rather than like kind of like what happened at town meeting yesterday if we're changing from select men to chair person you know stuff like that maybe we can tackle that on our own but if it's anything substantial bring

070it to the full board right just for historical reference for car's benefit um awesome so well policy development and maintenance is one of the job one of the primary jobs of a board and the administration is tasked with car carrying them out and I just want to remind everyone one that when when Jamie first got here, which was a year before I got here, she discovered right away that there were policy had not been a priority of the two previous administrations and and and the superintendent two superintendents ago actually came up to me kind of sheepishly after attending a board meeting in another public role that he has to sort of apologize. Well, people weren't really interested in policy, so we didn't do much with policy. So, so for over 12 years, our policy manual

071had just laid dormant. And so there were over when Jane got there over 50 policies, required policies that were either out of date, not or simply didn't exist in our policy manual. And she in her first year went through all of the D series which which pertained to business and updated all of them and the board approved them all and we got the D series in order. And in the eight years here, we've been uh we when I came, we were down to about 35 missing policies and many policies dated back to the 60s literally. Um and I just have to say the policy committee has been like it's like the hardest hardest working committee in showbiz. It's like Were you here when Carrie Callahan handed us all um secret mission envelopes? We each had

072policies like a set of policies to look through. Oh yeah, that was the like, okay guys, we haven't done this for 12 years and we've got to Yeah. Yeah, that was that was right right before I got here. Um, and that was a fun meeting. But I have to say the committee has done such a great job. And Jamie started cataloging the business policies on a spreadsheet. Ryan took the spreadsheet and has really like taken it to another level entirely and does so much work on the front end on researching the stuff so that when the comm when when we get it as a policy committee she's already got it set up in the agenda so that we have the historical policies if there if we don't have the policy she'll have sample policies from

073NHSBA or other districts and then the committee itself um just does a really thorough job but also is expeditious when when when it needs to be. It's gotten a rhythm where it's like, "Okay, this one's easy. We just need to change some words or a legal citation." And other ones, well, we got to talk to the teachers. We talk to the administrators. We got to talk to everybody. And it might take a year or two um till we really get to a final form. But it's really been a lot of great work. And I can't believe I'm saying that about policy. I was Yeah. And I kudos to to Ben for chairing that committee for gosh three years now. Two years. Three years. Probably like five. Five. Yeah. Because it is actually the one committee

074that when we form our new boards, our new committ people people want to be on that committee. I can't get people to roll off of that committee. So great because I don't have time for that committee. So thank you for Excellent. It wasn't always the case. So thank you for that excellent work. Just to wrap that, it's like when a new superintendent comes in, like there are a few things you have to learn and get really comfortable with very quickly to help you know how to make the right decision. Policies like number one, state state and federal law are a given. And here with four entities and two states, that's that's even more of a chore. So I'm really grateful to the policy committee for doing that work. All right. So speaking of policies, we

075have others on here, right? Yeah. The only thing I'll say about the policy committee talk is that the committee chair needs to do a much better job of explaining it to the boards because um so the other things so that's the D series stuff. The A series ones we've talked about copiously at other meetings particularly the SAU ones. So I'm I'm anticipating that we'll not have further conversation tonight. And then the the two E's and one noting one's an R and the J ones at the bottom. We discussed at the last SAU meeting and I don't believe there was some discussion but I don't think there there was any directive given to the policy committee about anything to change in that. Those are the EVCH went through without change. We did talk to the principles.

076We did talk to the custodial staff and make sure we're all on the same page for that one since it's involving chemicals and the child abuse one. The addition of the form is new and that is a state created form that although maybe not optimal for us is perfectly functional in terms of what is needed. The EPCHR seems not to be loading. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. Which and I only noticed because there are a few Oh, no. It's all blank. There are a few type It's also like 40 pages of blank, which I don't know that it actually is. Um, but there are a few typos in the titles. And I just wanted to point out for anyone who's, you know, nitpicking on those things, that's just in the name of the document. Exactly.

077It's not in the document itself. Well, I was going to look and that's why I noticed that one. And since it's the R, we don't have to approve that anyway. But yes, there is an R version. It's not 40 pages of blank stuff. And the typo is purely in the name of the document. Perfect. And again, for the viewing public R is regulation. It's not it's it's how we how we put in a required how we execute. It's almost like the the regulation according to the law which is the policy. Yeah. Any questions on these policies? All right. Great. Good. Um okay. Um as always, thank you policy committee and thank you Ben for that work. Um donation from the burn foundation for the garden. Yeah. So hopefully you have had a chance to read

078um the actual request itself and if you haven't looked at the garden, it needs help and and it's also already gotten some help. So, this is definitely a need. Um, and it kind of follows suit with all of our conversations around making our playground accessible and happy. So making this other space accessible for students as well and then just kind of bringing it back up to good standards of code um and making it um beautifying it and and making it really useful for our students and just once again an immense amount of gratitude to the burn foundations for their generosity um and a gratitude for Teal for writing this grant on behalf of the school and taking the initiative to get this rolling um and something that she is passionate about Um and um we're

079we're glad to be able to support her, but that's from the support from the Burn Foundation. Thank you. And I will just point out um when I saw this, I I did ask Lauren if this had been if we'd considered putting this through for Bridgemond grant because it would very much fall under um the the kinds of projects that are suitable for Bridgemond grants um for the benefit and enrichment of handover uh students. And I think that this the discussion had happened at the administrative level which is what we always ask for as a board. Did you consider that as an option before we go to outside sourcing since we do have this wonderful generous gift from the Bridgemond Fund and it sounds like there is some coordination happening there that we'll be hearing about

080at the next meeting. So it's going to be exciting meetings. I know sounding long but I like it. Yes. Okay. Um so I just wanted to point that out because I suspect other board members had thought about my question as well. So, other questions on this one. Okay. So, again, immense gratitude to the burn foundation and this sounds like a fun project. Maybe board members can come help with the garden. Um, tuition rate, Teresa, you got for us. Anything anything to share? I mean, we have it. Yes. So, basically per pupil, right? Yes. I'm looking for approval. Mhm. Um so the I know after the last meeting or at the last meeting the discussion regarding the calculation and how it was going to be derived um we went back everything um so the calculation is

081still based on the method that was being used previously. The change that was made was that it was using data that was um already a year out or a year lag. That's how I should say it. Um, so now it's calculating using the current budget that we're going into, which is more realistic, keeping up with the times. So using that and then taking out um, this particular method doesn't use that revenue offset because we don't have one um, and everything else. And so it's taking out things like the community relations, um the special ed tuitions, transportation, debt service, and any capital outlay. So with our MS22 adopted budget for FY2526, the $16 million 561770 budget and then the enrollment data that we had for October 1st of 468 students will come out with the per

082pupil cost tuition rate of $29,63. Great. Thank you so much. Question. Not far off from this year. Yeah. questions on that calculation. Yep. So the difference in the amount of the tuition will rate compared to like the high school is much higher, right? Because the high school is 23 something. Yes. And the high school we factored in using offsetting revenues that were allowed which also helped. Okay. So it's not it's more offsets rather than the race school being intrinsically more expensive because smaller classes basically. Yes. Yes. And actually, you guys had an increase, I believe, in students, right? We had 5 438 and I've got 400, excuse me, hang on, this helps. 438 students in the FY25 and then I've got 468, the number being used for the October. So, you've actually got an increase

083in the students and everything else. Um but it's also because again taking out the factors of whatever debt services and those particular factors are going to what's going to give us our bottom line that we'll divide from. This is interesting though because obviously the special education costs are at the handover school district and so those are significant but the price is still a high one. So, right, that's just what it is. And there was also a thing where yesterday we had to come up with some numbers fairly quickly for a town meeting and I was quoted a figure of 1.215 million for out of district handover special education costs. I don't know that number off the top of my head, but I can get it. Actually kind of makes sense. So, I'm looking at the

084thing where that's it's 1.02 O2 for special ed tuition of any kind. That's from last year. Okay. So, it's just year-on-year changes. Yeah. That would be an annual you have you have this year, right? 1.3. So, the 1.2 compared to this because this Yeah, the other document for the document that I have obvious 1.3 million. um when we're using the calculation for the budget for the FY2526 um clearly those are the budgeted numbers um that were pulled back out um for FY2425 we had 1 million23 thou yeah but that I mean that that there's 100,000 and then the in district so that actually kind of tracks Okay right thank you other questions. All right. Thank you, Teresa. Do we currently have tuition students at the right school? We don't. No. I've had two. Yes. And

085I have two inquiries inquiries about next year currently. Okay. Okay. All right. Um, and that is all we have for business requiring discussion. We have a whole slew of business requiring action including the minutes. um and some of these approvals of policy and uh the generous burn donation. So I have a motion to do a motion I will note but we do need to do it as of Monday because for the minutes of the April 9th meeting and I appreciate the noteaker that's when we had um Tom Andrew Houseman here and had a very long very detailed meeting and the notes there are generally very good. However, um, board member Teroso's name is consistently misspelled throughout the document. Okay. And just that that needs to be as amended. And I think there was a question

086asked by a member of the public who I believe was one of our candidates. I'm assuming I think that's Joe Laws probably. Yeah. Yeah. So the last commenter on the public should be laws L A WS rather than blaze laws I think was the what was heard apart that I think it's good. Yeah. And very detailed um information about all of our board candidates too which is that was great. Incredible taking this some last name. I know more about them than I may know about myself at this point. So, do I still want to have all the permissions? I'll I can show you where there's a link in the agenda item. Yeah, it's embedded. Do you still have access? It looks like a little clock. Oh, it's under. It looks different. It does look different

087for And of course, we're switching programs soon, so don't worry too much. [Music] And the minutes for the other meeting look completely fine. Okay, thanks for reading those in such detail. I appreciate that. Um, any other amendments? Okay, I'll take a motion. I move to approve items B through I with the amended notes on the April 8th 8th meeting. Whoops, sorry. April 9th meeting as indicated by Ben and with great appreciation for another foundation grant from the burn foundation by consent. Thank you. Is there a second Ben? Okay. And we don't have any members online. Correct. Okay. So, show of hands. All in favor? Brilliant. That's unanimous for the four of us. Um and uh report of chair. I've been looking to see if we know about our next special meeting, but I don't think

088we have an update on that yet. So, um, yeah, I haven't seen an update on that. Um, huge thank you, as I'm sure everyone will be saying, but huge thank you to our entire staff. Um, I know it was teacher appreciation week last week. We are so grateful for all of the work that um, all of our teachers and staff do on behalf of our children and our families. So, thank you to everyone. Um, our next meeting will be June 11th. Um, and I'm not sure I'm going to be here. Is my vice chair Marcela? Yes. Okay. So, I will chat with Marcela on that one. Um, and I think that's all I have to report right now. You may. Um so just for board members who weren't there yesterday at the handover town meeting

089there was a motion that um that was brought by petition. It was not brought by the town that does have direct implications for our schools particularly for the handover school district. I was there as an individual though I don't I didn't indicate my credentials and spoke to the approximately 200 people about this because the the intent of the of the proposed warrant article was to have a town political statement against the so-called um education freedom vouchers at the state level which is a voucher program for private schools. However, as written, it has implications for any expansion of public of public dollars for private education, which has implications for our special education, including the so-called outofd district placements, which we do currently to the tune of over a million dollars a year for a low twodigit

090amount of handover K12 students where the students go to daily or overnight residential programs for students that are in very high special education need. And per the the as the written non-editable warrant like you cannot edit a petitioned warrant article. Interesting. Is it it read to me and I double check this with members of the administration who agreed with me that this does have the possibility of tying our hands in a way I think totally by the writers of that petition. So I made my piece. The person who spoke before me was Mary Hacken Phillips who we may know as the state representative to um at the state level for the state legislature who lives in Hanover. And she pointed out that 17 previous towns or cities within New Hampshire have approved this. So the

091person who brought it to handover did not create it in a copy paste job. And I don't mean that in a belittling way. And that has not been an issue that any of the other talents have raised. But I think she took what I was saying seriously as I said this is something that we need to perhaps bring back to the originators and frame it because it's I think it was five paragraphs long and the two paragraphs that have the actual description of we do no longer we do not allow the expansion of public school public dollars for private education do not mention vouchers but the other three paragraphs do. So I we I know what the intent was, but that it could have unintended consequences. That said, it did pass by voice vote, although

092there were a few nays including my own based purely on this issue, not based on I believe the intent was I'm not pro vouchers, but um it was also made clear that according to the town's council, this warrant article is not legally binding. So I think it's more aspirational. Let's make a political statement. So, I don't think it has any legal effect on our ability to do out of district placement. If it does, we'll process. And if it does, we But I wanted to make sure the board knew that this was a discussion item. Thank you. And I I just the cynic in me is putting on my hat now. And I can tell you every single town in the state, every single one could have passed that. and nothing is going to stop the

093movement of millions of dollars out of the education trust fund to vouchers because of the nature of conquered. So I I would not worry about it because they're going to ignore it. They ignore everything. It will be it will give representative Hen Phillips something that she can talk about our town and I'm sure she will frame it as concern about vouchers but I am also quite confident that it's not going to change anything. I just want to bring it to the board's attention that it was discussed. I will probably say something similar Justin as a heads up. I think my two steps would be I appreciate your concern and I haven't read it but because of the federal law that protects I feel like a special education director might be like actually it wouldn't supersede

094because there are things that protect that and it's not it is different than a private it's not seen as a private school I mean depend different title like I I think the spirit is very well not just the spirit but my guess would be that it wouldn't hold up because there's so many federal protections right for special education that fall into like least restrictive environment and like once you've done the ones locally you have to then kids like you know so I think there's like yeah I mean I haven't read it but my instinct would say like a special director might be like we're not at risk of this and this is all this conversation is again we we mentioned this at the last SA70 meeting but all wonderful reminders that it's time for us

095to start coordinating I think a little more intentionally with the town on a lot of these these things and I understand the town didn't bring this this is a petition but just making sure that we're in a dialogue you know for these things that are going to I think more and more impact the limited funds that we're going to have going forward I mean things are you know her strings are getting pulled a little tighter and I think it's you know there's a lot of projects that we all have and and that need to coordinate which has become very clear I think in the last month and a half yeah and and two follow comments on that first for again like as Kelly mentioned this is not this is a petition warrant so the town

096did not bring this but also if you look at it itself and it's on the town website and town meeting results for the exact wording but this is not a typical styled warrant article like where there's words that are in all caps there's exclamation points you know in terms of it's not a typical thing and warrant and petition warrant articles cannot be amended on the fly in town meeting which is kind of where I was hoping it would go that said back to sort of the need to be more involved involved is on the survey that Jay and I mentioned that has more pointed um questions and answers. One of the questions is actually basically some of these it feels like there's more of a need for the school boards and the administration to unfortunately

097become more involved in the political process. What are your thoughts on that? Things of that nature. So we're also looking for guidance from our parent community noting that of course parents do not equal handover community but obviously make up a large portion of it and sort of looking for guidance on that because as we do know publicly our school districts including handover have gotten far more involved politically in the past year than we had before and I think given the unanimous votes we've had to join lawsuits and things like that that there is a need for it but I'm curious to hear the public's perspective on that as well. Absolutely. Okay, thank you. That concludes my report. My hijack report. No, I'm kidding. Thank you for all that. Um, so committee reports um you'll notice

098in the um public content for the committee reports. Renee Sullivan, who had a previously planned um reason to be out of town um wonderful trip. I'm jealous. Um but she uh is our representative to the CIPC, the capital improvement planning committee um with Tara Velo um and they're also covering Hannover Budget Committee. Um so she shared with us that at the most recent um CIPC meeting there um was shared a proposal an RFP sorry request for proposals um looking for someone professional to come in and evaluate all of the finance financing mechanisms that the town is looking at to finance the projects that they have coming. Um, as as our frequent watchers of board meetings might recall, um, the last meeting we had a very long conversation about the TIFF, uh, the tax incremental funding

099district. That was one mechanism that the town had kind of focused on to fund these projects. Um, and we were just concerned about some of the unintended consequences for the schools and um, for our ability to raise revenue. Um, and so, you know, that ended up being tabled, which we are, you know, grateful for to the town for the select board for being willing to step back and and look at that again um and move forward, I think, with a little more information, making sure that we can all answer the questions that had come up. Um, but this request for proposals um is an effort to evaluate um those different financing mechanisms. Rene's one comment, it's the right move, it's great. um her one comment was that there does still seem to be a little

100bit um more focus on the tiff even in this um request. And so just um uh she wanted to suggest that we as a board consider responding and just saying you know we want to make sure that all of the potential funding mechanisms are getting their due diligence um and being looked at sort of on a level playing field to find the the really the best way forward. So, wanted to share that with you. Um, I will probably, if the board is okay with it, just send a note. Um, asking them to to make sure that that happens. I don't think it's a formal structure of any kind. Just that we discussed it and and that, you know, we wanted to make sure that that was they're moving quickly. They're moving quickly. Yeah. So, I

101will do Are you looking for an official vote on that? You think we need a vote on it? I don't like to to designate you as our spokesperson on this issue until Renee returns. Sure. Sure. And that was not me pushing for one. Would would that give more more teeth? Sure, we could do that. Um, so if anybody wanted to make that motion, you can just do that right now. That's fine. You want to make a motion? Um, let me Okay, we can come back to it, too. Let me try. That's fine. We'll come back to that. Oh, you want to know? Okay, go for it. I move to designate chair Kelly McConnell and um capital improvement program committee representative. You said that's right. Rene Renee Sullivan to be the designated spokespersons for the handover

102school board on town of handover proposals that may impact the school district. I second. All in favor? All right. Thank you for your confidence. All right. Um, other Deb, do you have any NHS stuff? No, it's quiet until it is. Okay. Before the storm and then Tara is out of town. I don't think we have anything else from the finance committee at this point. So, okay. Jay, I I don't want to be a downer. It's been such a happy meeting. Um, I just want to make sure everyone is is aware that there's legislation on both sides of the river that could impact all of us. Um, that we need to be attentive to. right now in Vermont. Um they're in the process actually they've already gone through crossover and there are two bills now that'll

103now go to a committee of reconciliation or something um to reform the Vermont education system and dramat pretty dramatically changing the funding formula in Vermont to a foundation formula that would give a set amount of money to each school district. And in the calculations so far um by really by the budget office, so essentially a neutral party, it looks like um our Norwich counterparts could be facing as much of as a $4 million uh shortage actually reduction in their um in their allocation for school funding. So a $4 million cut to a budget that in the aggregate with Dresden included is 16 million is a really substantial cut. And that's without a change in property taxes, right? The property taxes would be the same if not go higher. They would get less from the state.

104Yep. And so to to make up $4 million would require some amazing additional tax that there's currently a proposed cap on. So they wouldn't be able to tax their way out of it even if they wanted to. Mhm. The only thing that might prevent that is the fact that they're part of our interstate district, which might provide some insulation, but won't generate money. So, we are actively working with an attorney uh really from the Dresden perspective to to um safeguard our New Hampshire interests in terms of the legislative work being done in in Vermont. On the New Hampshire side, one of the things that that I and my most of my superintendent colleagues are uh both worried about and watching closely is the um the progress of the open enrollment legislation. If that happens, we've

105done all kinds of just speculation about what might happen if any resident of New Hampshire could send their child to any school. you know, would that be something that would be a net gain for us or we would we remain neutral or would or would we potentially lose? Um, that's one thing that we're looking at. The other is what does it do to every every other district? If there's a district that people perceive isn't achieving as high and they decide to send their kids here or to another high achieving school system, it just has the potential to create havoc with school funding and really hurt those districts that are struggling with funding. um and then there are so many questions about how would this be administered um that it's it'll be if if it actually

106does happen. I read some comments from the primary sponsor of the bill that is is saying essentially it's because of all the push back against the education freedom accounts that this is sort of his legislative answer to that and it's like a bad answer to a bad question. Um and and so you know we we'll keep on watching. I'll keep you posted. This is something that we'll be coping with and thinking about a lot. And if both of these things pass, it's going to be a very interesting budget season next goound. So stay tuned. Can I just ask would this um any of this hit in the next school year or would this all be one year out so that our current voted on approved budget would be okay? it it would all be out

107at least well the the right now what's being considered is an implementation in January of 2026 mid year so mid year um so it could and that's I don't know if that if that date means that's when they start putting all the the infrastructure in place to deal with it for the subsequent school year I can't imagine they'll be ready to go wheels up January 1 and suddenly figuring out a way to take 80% of the per pupil funding from districts who lose kids and transferring that funding to us or whoever else is a recipient district. I there's no way they'll they'll have that ready. So, I think the January 1 date would be when they start to put all those things in place. Vermont, it's hard to say. The Senate came out with a

108very different bill than than the House did, and it kind of depends on what they come out with. Um the bills themselves are the bill is horrible just in terms of it's over sorry opinion but I have one um it's a horrible bill and it's not I don't think it's good for kids or education or anything um because they basically took the provisions that were well thought out in the house bill that were addressing some very real concerns about things like consolidation decline population and just like jumped it and I I think that that's mostly attributable the fact that most of the lot many of the people on the Senate state board in Vermont are either big proponents or actual products of private education and want to preserve the ability in in Vermont towns to

109use public dollars to fund uh independent school enrollment. And so so that stuff was essentially just rinsed out of the bill. Um and really they they but they they really did continue the whole discussion about funding and they're looking at giving the governor we want essentially and uh so it's it's it's worth watching because it will it if it does pass it will have an impact on our relationship with Norwich and mostly through Dresden but there's so many other complications for us as a handover board to be thinking about in terms of what does that do budget was it due to so many things. Um so we'll continue to work. We have again like I said we have a law firm working on it as that as that as that work develops. It's it's a

110lot of chasing your tail because these things keep changing and we we try to sort of prognosticate about what we know at the time and then they they change it. It goes to the Senate and something new comes out. And so it's it's uh it it's rapidly changing, but the one thread that seems to be staying steady through the whole thing is funding formula in Vermont's going to change dramatically and it's not going to be to Norwich's advantage. So yeah, in terms of and we can potentially hold the non-public on this setting if we need to, but there have been arguments made previously about how for the compact that the actions of one state cannot cause undue hardship to the students of the other state. Is that been something that's been is being discussed on

111these things in terms of actionable? It is. It's actually there they're they're actually in several versions of these these bills were just like carveouts because they just don't know what to do with us. Which could be good. Um it it could be the only thing that sort of staves this off for us and gives us a little breathing room to try to figure what are we going to do. Um because they they they've acknowledged that they really just can't touch they can't touch us. They can't in any meaningful way. they they can't dictate something that is contrary to the existing compact without without going through Congress. So, you know, I think that's unlike I can't see, you know, Becca Balent and Bernie Sanders like Peter Welch getting on board with some radical transformation. So, so

112we'll see. Um and I I and we'll keep you posted because it's things once things go to um conference in Vermont like something's at least what I'm hearing is that it's a high likelihood something's going to come out of it and it's going to happen really really quickly once they start going back and forth between the House and Senate and we should have something may come out of that as soon as May 31st. Um, so and and I've got that on pretty good authority. So, um, when I say I'll keep you posted, it will be I'll keep you posted before the next board meeting with a message to the chair and a BCC to the rest of you. But, um, and links to whatever coverage we can find through Vermont Digger, other sources. And we'll

113also be keeping our eye closely, Robin's been keeping a really close watch on the New Hampshire legislation. And uh if anything pops there that that uh is of concern, we'll make sure to get that information to you as well. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Strange times, Robin. That's perfect transition to your I have one other good piece of legislative news. Good. Not really, but sarcasm. Been a long couple weeks. Now, one of the things that they've added to one of the bills is actually it's related to curriculum, but adding one hour of enter safety and weapon safety to every grade level K through 12. So, that has been added to it's mandatory. Yes, mandatory. one hour of firearm safety training and it would be part of health and sort potentially. Are they God? So yes, are

114they dictating the curriculum and they added it to really random? Yes. And the curriculum is an NRA curriculum. So just brighten your days even further. Yes. I will say though that way back before the NRA went crazy, they did very good hunter safety, gun safety program. Yeah. So and well, yeah, I will say I will say my question was related to I know you have been encouraging the schools to take a more active role in advocating for asking about gun access in homes. this could play into. So that's why I asked about curriculum whether it was mandated or not. So we'll see what happens at this but right now it's moving full state ahead. Is there an opt out option in there? Can we make a religious exemption? Well, parents would have the option to

115opt out but it would not be our option to opt out. Um, we do have our last ELA committee meeting that's happening tomorrow. So, we've been in the process of looking at programs and evaluating those and we'll be continuing to move forward with that. I'm hoping that I can set up some time with the committee over the summer. We met last summer and then move into the beginning of the year full steam ahead and our final science and GSS meeting will take place in another week and we'll be looking at all of our combined units with both teams at each school for each grade level. So, those we're putting into the curriculum drive at this point and then over the summer I'll work to get those onto our drive for the public which will be

116nice to have all of our math all of our science students included in that as well. So, but I did submit my report and I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have. Thank you. I will just apologize for my initial strong reaction to that new, you know, I I will say anytime that the state mandates curriculum and it and it seems to come very quickly and for next year you will do this and there's such little leadup time and I it's very difficult for schools to react to well 8 through 12. Yes. Yeah. So and I assume that's unfunded mandate as well. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Start paying that arena now. And there are some other bills that relate to curriculum too that including various things and health curriculum and things like that. So

117I mean we've been watching all those closely but all right. Uh moving on to Trace's report reports there any documents? I have uploaded the financial reports and supporting documents. Um what I have is um at this year our budget obvious 15,740,723. Um when we ended FY24 at the time um we ended our year we had 1.692 692 million um to in our fund balance with FY24 to go towards um setting our offsetting our taxes and everything else to um when the auditors got done it's actually 1.7 I'm I'll say it this way 1,723,288 um and you can find that on page 14 of the audit report. Um, so that was an additional $30,832 to our FY24 fund balance. Um, so far this year, we pretty much have um the anticipation on the revenues is coming

118in as anticipated. I think just the Medicaid, you'll see the 34,000 and the red. Um, right now it's it's not looking good that we'll receive that. And then down on the expenditures, uh the biggest things I'll highlight are the 1100s which is regular instructional programming and the 1200s which again special education programming. The surplus that you see in there is primarily benefits um to tutor remedial um remedial salary. Um some of that's related to some bill back um for Dresden for shared employee and then as I stay in the 1200s between a salary and benefits of vacancies and there's a $416,000 surplus but then there's also out of district private tuition supplies that went over 133. So you it nets out 22,000 [Music] um the rest are kind um in line with what we anticipate

119right now so far this year um as we're trying to wrap everything up. So with the potential revenue variance of $38,984 and a potential expenditure budget balance of 937,191 um we potentially have 976,175 and as I mentioned before from last year's bond balance we took 1.4 4 million for a revenue offset. Added in our additional 30,000. Um the retained fund balance from FY2324 we kept the 55,000. Um so right now I'm looking at 197,59 the fund balance for this year. Great. Thank you. Are there questions for Teresa? It's pretty healthy financial position you've both both left us in or all left us in. So, thank you. This has been a tough year to navigate. So, thank you for your stewardship. Uh any other questions? Okay. Um so, we have here nothing online I presume. No.

120Okay. Um we have here the options move into non-public sessions. So, just to clarify, I know you guys know this, but for Carrie, um, we have a couple of personnel items here. We can move into nonpublic if we'd like to discuss them in nonpublic. We do not have to. It's not a requirement that move into non-public. So, if any board member would like to move into nonpublic to discuss these two, um, I will take a motion. We will stay in public session. Seeing yep, I I have no need for public, but I do have a generic question. I think it's generic. Um, is there an intended grade target for this incoming teacher? Okay, you're raising your hand, but yes, no worries. May I answer that question? I hope that's my only question. Okay. All right.

121Uh, that Oh, I was just moving. Oh, please. Yes, please. Okay. So, uh, we can go on into approve new hires. Okay. You want me to do it? Yes, please. Go ahead. I move to approve hiring Kathleen Katie Lamb as a 1.0 learning specialist and Terresa Verna as a 1.0 FTE elementary teacher as presented. Is there a second? I will second that. Hearing seconded. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you all. Um last opportunity for the public to address the board. Okay. Um agenda items for next meeting, please send them my way. We've heard quite a lot tonight, so thank you in advance to our note takers. Um, I will also send a note to uh Ryan about a couple of things we mentioned. If you think of anything else, please let me know.

122As I stated, our next meeting is June 11th. If there's nothing else, I will take a motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn the meeting at 8:44 p.m. Second car. And Carrie would do a roll call vote for this one. Russell, yes. Keeny. Yes. Nelson. Yes. And McConnell. Yes. Thank you guys.