20232803Dresden School Board

001[Music] foreign hearing nothing moving on to public May address the board uh I will give uh the public three minutes each to comment on items that are not on the agenda the board respectfully asks members of the public to State their name and address before commenting on agenda topics do we have anyone here live anyone on Zoom if you're on zoom and you want to make a comment please raise your hand and we'll move you over nothing okay moving on to reports administrative update I would like to turn this over to Jay right and I'm waiting for Jamie who I don't see on here yet so would could we yeah no but Kim is can you add Kim Hartman to the panelists um thank you so while we're waiting for uh Jamie to come back

002I'd like to turn it over to vidushi to update us on recent discussions and initiatives on the council yeah so um is the last school board meeting Council passed a motion that would give students who miss school due to the observance of a religious holiday one week from their day of return to make up work we also discussed a CPP motion that would limit students ability to look at PowerSchool which is a platform where teachers are enter and store grades onto every other weekend and also today the school participated in a circle created by councils examining Equity committee which focused on identity and assimilation and finally one little update that I talked about a couple months ago it was sort of called the anti-prof quiz motion which required teachers to give sort of an up

003of warning kind of about any planned summative informative assessments that motion will be presented to CBP next week and we're sort of handing it over to them so become their jurisdiction and their infections thank you okay anyone have any comments or questions for the douchey thank you very much so at this point we'll move on to the high school uh principles report but tonight is going to be a vignette yeah two is going to do the principal's report Tito come on just come on up show the owl can record you introduce introduce yourself and what town you live in right right but everybody and I'm a junior here at Hanover High School um but today I'm going to be talking to you guys about HACC and the kind of programs regarded like the one I'm

004in is culinary program which is really fun like I I get to hang out with my chef basically every day like he's my my best friend kind of like he's really chill all right the environment there at hsctc like you feel safe like everybody you talk to is supportive like there's no bad conversation with you like unless you know [Laughter] right but um my school day usually like before I go to Hartford is like eight to eleven like I just get a couple hours of classes and then I get to go to HACC from 11 to 2. which is like two hours to do stuff right three hours away I finished my day here after that and njcdc made going to school better like I would skip a lot of classes and I wouldn't even

005come sometimes for real like last year uh sophomore year I had like 369 absence which was insane the freshman year I think it was more but having this opportunity to go to HACC like really encouraged me to like grow and like my mentality and my girl as a person like just being there like their motto is to respect to serve work grow and protect like they knock it out of the park like just the interactions with people there like you feel man you're acceptable when you don't have to feel judged by anybody like my stuff is like he accepts us for who we are like we always crack jokes at ajcbc like we're always like really friendly to each other and like if any students going through rough patch like we're all there for each

006other makes you feel like if you are having a bad day you can bring it back yeah like focused on what you want to do some of the teachers there that are really supportive is Mr Farnsworth he is one of the assistant directors I'm pretty sure as well as Miss Lau there are very supportive teachers like if you have any problems you go to them they'll help you like mentally like they're really supportive yeah but like some of the stuff I do at culinary is like we didn't we make like Korean cuisine um Asian Cuisine we do pies we do cookies we do um cakes actually and we do caterings as well like for other teachers who want to come in like and eat with us they do pay the teachers but all their students

007can come in and eat for free so if you are in any of the other HACC programs we figure out sometimes when we're open and you guys can just walk in and we'll start setting and like just having that gratifications from the students is like it like warms your heart kind of books like you're making their food in their life I love it thank you so much it was really awesome but um some of it oh actually before I get there as well as culinary there is computer science there's stem there's Health Sciences and there's also cosmetology as well as so right and auto mechanics as well and each of those give you an opportunity for a certification to help you even after high school like you want to get a job that certification is

008like an easy ticket there if you work hard [Music] some of the goals for after I get my certification is honestly I want to travel the world and like just learn about food anywhere I can't really like first I want to start with Spain my home [Music] yeah that's it thank you yes do you have any questions um you might want to spell out for people who are listening what h-a-c-t stands for if you know I just feel like yeah Hartford Hartford area area I'm not gonna lie I don't know maybe for all of us I like that yeah okay so so this is your first year in the program would could you have done it last year and the year before and how did you decide this year that you were gonna I wasn't

009in the right State of Mind before and I didn't realize that it was an opportunity for me I did try last year actually I believe like halfway through the year though so I didn't get to have the opportunity but if you get on it early like some of the programs are like two years long so it's really worth getting another one especially like I'm gonna put this out there for middle schoolers tonight having that opportunity would be really amazing because not a lot of middle schoolers like understand what life is like and having that experience yeah that brings up a good do we when the eighth graders are they get introduced to what's available at Hartford yes we currently parents oh okay involved in sort of an introductory program at the Hartford Center they go

010Fridays I think five or six consecutive Fridays for two hours to sort of see what the whole program is so then when they get to Hanover High School they have an idea and these are people who have to apply they're getting something but we don't set up like a a table you know during the welcome to ninth grade and you know these are some opportunities that you may not be aware of we don't do that kind of advertising I think we do that sort of on an individual basis we started that today so you know the high school counselors came and met with all of our creators today and that is part of their presentation in terms of what the whole available courses are when you go to Hanover High School tech center to be

011honest okay a lot of these Traders aren't in a great like Tito said they aren't in a great mental space right at that moment to say yeah that's what I think I want to do but um it is definitely out there so that I think when people are ready they know that they can access it great yeah I assume you're going to do it again next year and do you think you'll go to like a Culinary Institute After High School or you could with the certification also there is other stuff that you can do in your programs as well like earn stuff from your program like if you want a knife kit for Michael coordinary you can buy it by selling stuff from like doing working on the weekends or like I like Chef will

012ask you like um to come in after school or something do something for a couple hours and that'll be good enough for like a sweatshirt or something like that they have a lot of fun stuff okay any other kind of yeah the tech center also has I believe in martial intensive and uh they do come to the school year as well so I'm glad you found your uh educational home there and uh I can relate through my daughter who had a very similar experience to you too so I'm glad that you've found such a great supportive place there she did as well and with some of the same people that we were talking about too with Mr Farnsworth and and got involved in some other uh extracurricular activities there that I think that you have

013access to as well as the future Business Leaders of America and those sorts of clubs and really benefited from those and got to go to a conference in Chicago this summer is part of that too so take advantage of those opportunities too and I'm glad that you're finding this to be such a great environment negotiated too and as you said she's also taken advantage of some of the rollover credits we get through and it's going for her College inecology licensure now as you could with your corner Institute after you graduate too thanks for the presentation yeah thank you guys so much thank you for listening I really appreciate it oh yeah yes I I'm I'm curious how well the transition works start up here in the morning right and then you're going up like is

014that how is that for you honestly it's really not bad at all like I feel like everybody enjoys it like we have like I don't know how many but there's like 20 kids on the bus maybe more and like usually we get out like 15 to 10 minutes early before we have to get on the bus and we get food and then we go to sleep and just walk outside we have like usually there are double periods so we have like three classes including the Doubletree but if not then they're they're just before this so physically it sounds like a fine mentally you're in like your Edge been it's basically an escape like you get to like not stress about other stuff here and like you get to immerse yourself in the stuff or other

015programs I do feel like a lot of kids do struggle with tuition though for like HACC whether it be in Middle Schools or High School high school is like I feel like more kids having that opportunity for tuition like increase possibly my kids will want to be here more and like maybe not skip class still feel more encouraged to I want to do it because that's what ajcgc does you know I want to understand more about the tuition yeah I'm not sure that I fully understand what's going on we pay the tuition but you're talking about other kids from other school districts that you stay are struggling with tuition yeah you have certain number of spots right and so you know maybe they're students who would do it if there were more spots for ha

016CTC has a certain number of spots so right yeah so how sorry go ahead um then if if they're over subscribed or if there's more people that want to do it how do they even how they handle that um well for me I went to the office and I was like life for me right now isn't really helping me out and I feel like HACC will be a really beneficial thing in my life if you guys could get me in like I don't have the money for it but if you could advocate for me that would be really nice I'd appreciate that the opportunity to grow really do they have room Tito in culinary or did you have to ask them to make those situation for culinary I was switching from Computer Sciences to culinary

017because at the time I felt like I didn't connect with people enough so it really like helps you like get out of your comfort zone and push you through life here I'm looking forward like grow like they're really good with growing right now do you cook at home keto served me because I went to Hartford with some principals and we did a good lunch for us and in terms of your question now um they all of their programs are full except for the newest one that they created I can't remember what the new one was it's some version of computer science but it'll be full next year and so I don't know what they do in terms of space if they have 300 students there now and they wanted to go to 350. I feel

018like we haven't heard more of our students who want to do it so I don't know at some point if we say we would love to send 15 more Hanover High School students to you I don't know if they'd be able to take them I don't know how they expand right yeah and Jay might know that more Advisory board for hctc and they have they have pretty strict capacity issues and it's I don't see first come first serve that there are there is a process that when there are deadlines for admission and when they're full they're full they can't like make another room for example um so uh the way it works out as far as which district has more students attending is is all based on when people apply so when that when we

019get notified of that it's important for students who are interested to make sure that they get on it right away and let let the staff there know that they want to apply then some limitations are set by their capacity not our budgets absolutely okay right I feel like also maybe then having advocation at the beginning of the year like maybe what freshmen's get here having that opportunity to join like right as soon as you've been here sure would really increase the rate of us going there and is and is Hartford looking at potentially expanding I assume it's just a money issue right just there's really no I mean as far as building make adding onto the building or anything I'm not aware of any expansion Jamie has your hand up Jamie oh I may be

020wrong but I'll take a stab at this um historically because I worked at Fall Mountain for many years can you hear me I can't hear you you can't hear me they can hear on Zoom thank you the other people on Zoom can hear Jamie but we can't hi hello hello um okay never mind yes please um that we have to do in order to graduate from high school because it does look in a requests if you can take care of it right um I'm pretty sure they usually do offer credits for whatever course you're taking so like if you're doing computer science I think that counts as a math and science credit I believe that's an art credit like they have a really good life you're not gonna get mine so it makes it really

021like worth it to do and that certification also like it should be really huge Institute I think Jamie's here Jamie can you speak I can try can you hear me is so when I worked at my other school district we had children who attended River Valley um collaborative and that was a Vermont tech school and at that tech school you usually couldn't join unless you were in an exploratory program in 10th Grade and then they started their two-year programs with 11th grade uh so it's it's very rare I think that they would let a freshman or even sophomores join um when they have limited capacity they usually look to Juniors and seniors first um another thought though if we're finding that we have more students that want to attend a technical school and Hartford can't

022accommodate us um I don't know that and Jay probably knows more about this than I do I don't know that there are limitations on whether or not we could send our students to one of the other you know tech centers nearby I know one year we did pay for a student I think to attend one up near Bradford um who had transitioned into our school district but uh so that might be a possibility if we're finding that they can't accommodate we could probably start conversations uh with some of the other ones that are nearby us thank you basically the same thing any other comments or questions thank you very much thank you so when are you going to invite the board over for dinner we're open the next two days but I think it's for

023a catering yeah but the next time we are open I'll make sure to let Miss Stevenson know that would be great thank you very much thank you so now that Jamie is here we're gonna go back up to the administrative update and I'll turn it over to Jay thank you very much um the public content in the on the agenda this evening says that that uh the superintendent batting would like to make an administrative announcement I just want to reassure folks that I don't have any intention of leaving but I am so used to welcome Debbie Thompson from the New Hampshire Association of school business officials who would like to make an announcement Dr Adams thank you very much and I would also like to thank the Dresden school board for allowing me to join

024you tonight whereas Jamie Teague New Hampshire certified School business administrator has served the SAU 70 Hanover Dresden and Norwich Vermont school districts with distinction and having been nominated for recognition by Dr jabe Adams superintendent of schools and as supported by chairpersons Thomas Camden of the Norwich School Board Richard Johnson of the Dresden School Board Benjamin keaney of the Hanover School Board and Lisa Christie of the SAU 70 School Board whereas Jamie Teague is commended for her work ethic as superintendent batam stated he has never encountered anyone who works as hard or as much as Jamie and Jamie has a deep sense of personal Integrity profound loyalty to the organization and steadfast support for her co-workers whereas Jamie Teague is commended for her incredible skill in managing a complex School District with four school boards from

025two states for the past seven years as stated by the four School Board chairs listed above we are in awe of the amount of time that Miss T put us into our work and yet she does it with devotion and brings humor and kindness to every interaction whereas Jamie Teague is commended for her many contributions Beyond her official duties to the educational community at large as stated by superintendent Adams she has been serving for several years as an officer of the Tri-State Association of school business officials and she also serves her hometown as a member of the Fall Mountain School Board in addition Jamie has been serving as co-chair for the New Hampshire Association of school business officials professional development committee for the last year and a half therefore the New Hampshire Association of school

026business officials honors Jamie t as their 2023 New Hampshire school business administrator of the year on behalf of the association and all school children in the state of New Hampshire presented this February 28 2023 at the Dresden school board meeting on behalf of Nathan Lonnie the New Hampshire Association of school business president and Chuck Bates the New Hampshire Association of school business executive director congratulations Jamie [Applause] wow thanks Deb you know how to keep a secret apparently over there well I look like a hot mess today I broke my shoulder on Saturday so I I apologize for my appearance and I'm working from home um yeah you guys are crazy and I love every minute of working with all of you it's been a great ride and I'm super appreciative thank you I'm humbled I'm

027humbled thank you thank you thank you we'll have a cookie [Laughter] [Music] oh well thank you I appreciate it congratulations Jamie well deserved thanks Debbie I hope to see you all soon thank you thank you Debbie and I'm glad we can spare you the ride [Laughter] so at this point we'd like to move on to the Richmond Middle School principal report I just think it's fair to say that Jamie won that Award with one arm tied behind me [Music] um um so I wanted to apologize we'll have Arvin yet in March we've talked to uh we've done a number of a little bit of work this year to try to get our sixth grade curriculum between there and promise and Richard School lined up so we have a couple of different projects that were the

028same this year both in science and in English so we're hoping to get some of the students to come and present their project both on a book and then on scientific inquiry and then I'll just do a quick uh update in terms of what we've offered what we've done since our last meeting we had one of our socials which was wildly successful everybody was very happy we had a parent Round Table where we discussed a lot of the sort of coming out information and research on what's going on with developmenting brains among students who are developing between ages of 10 and 15 and sort of how that's changed over the years and how we may have to switch our idea of the ways that we as teachers and educators are educated and how students today

029are dealing with not only all the things that we've talked about in terms of social media and lots more stimulus but in fact the way that they're actually physically maturing and what that means so we're looking at that and we also were able to talk to parents and say you know it's okay that your seventh grade boy has a backpack full of Cheeto dust and nothing else that's okay that's sort of the normal that's the way it goes they do get better um we start like I said earlier we started our transition process with the high school so all of our eighth graders in bed with they got their placement information for science for math or World Language uh before we went away and break we've had very few of them were laughing today it

030was emailing it's almost like a person walking through the forest who says it's quiet too quiet what's happening but I think we've done a lot of work this year in meeting with all the students meeting with all the parents prior to um this is what your placement is in math sort of trying to explain why and what we think will be helpful about that moving forward Jason has been great Jason herscheln at the high school comes over once a month with our eighth grade teachers so we have a fairly good idea of what that transition is and students will register for their classes on Friday with the idea that yeah we know that people are going to change right and decide I don't want to do Spanish I want to do Latin or I want

031to go up or down in science but we're hoping to make it as anxiety free as possible we're going to have another parent round table like I said a few more coming up um probably March April and May we actually started to plan end of year stuff on Monday I can't believe it but that's right now we have hired two new EAS to bring our staffing and lines and we're needed for our Learning Centers we're going to be happy about that we're able to bring people on board and actually get us up to full staff for the first time on here so and we're looking forward to our vignette in a couple of weeks and then um looking forward to the spring although seems to be have been pushed off that's where we are the

032artwork is beautiful yeah thank you for the artwork yeah no problem that wasn't yours no oh yes I yeah in my spare time no it's amazing and I as soon as I took pictures of that Sarah and Lindsay put up way more so I'm gonna throw more pictures thank you it's a pretty amazing thing we also have two brand new tables and a new puzzle uh in the foyer if you ever want to come by so if in The Woodworking Shop has gotten students who are if they can come up with what they want to build and how to do it any sort of turns them loose and what's in what's in itself well right now we have a bidding war on the coffee table than somewhere yes um I was just gonna ask um

033because you're talking about placement whether in discussions especially about math placement whether you ever talk to students about kind of what that means because like I remember being in seventh grade and being told you're gonna be in this math and I didn't know what that meant like what classes I'll be taking in high school or because especially because whereas when you're in science it's just like honors are non-honors but in math it it changes like what classes you end up taking do you end up talking about that we do end up talking about that we end up actually doing a lot of uh discussion from the other end which is we have a number of students who are like I have to get to this math in the eighth grade or it's all over um

034and so what we try to talk about is we want to make sure that people who come into the high school are set up in a position to be successful in the math that they're in and then that sort of again developmentally the pace of math learning tends to accelerate exponentially as you get older so sort of as your brain develops you get the ability to do math faster and we found that it's probably better to say well you could jump to this and in talking to the high school what we find is that people who make the jump and accelerate using you know quotes students are aware they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there if you accelerate in middle school once you get to Algebra 2 which tends to be the

035gatekeeper for a lot of things they don't necessarily have the full understanding of the basis that they need in high school is in the process of talking about the way they evaluate whether or not people are ready to move on is a little bit different than what we've been doing so we're trying to bring those two concerts so we do a lot more retakes if you're a seventh grader who's taking algebra you might need another shot at it but if you're a ninth grader you don't get as many shots at that so we're trying to make sure that they're somewhat equivalent and then also setting people up for Success we also have the advantage of we have two eighth grade math teachers who are both math majors so and never took an accelerated math class

036in high school so they took algebra one in ninth grade managed to get into good schools I'm going to come math Majors after that so it's not this if I'm not at that level I'm not going to make it you can definitely make it it just takes a little bit a little bit of a difference but yeah just a follow-up on venucci's question um are there explicit conversations about the link of math and science because I know that sometimes the kids are in a science class that requires a higher level of math than they have when they get to high school and that just makes their science class that much more stressful or harder for the teacher to teach I just I wondered how that conversation takes place um because those conversations take place I

037mean we have them with the students to sort of try to understand where they are but then we're also in conversation with the science and the math department to sort of say um like if we're going to do one right which is the one that you feel that would be the most helpful for the student generally what we have is students who are eligible for an accelerated math which would give them the accelerated science they don't want to do that and then that's sort of a discussion that we have like look they can do the math to be able to do the science they just really don't like math they like science yeah so that's that's what we try to do right and I just needed that sometimes a problem for the science teachers here

038so right and we we definitely had and this is one of the advantages that we've had this year in terms of a true teeming model is that once all of our recommendations were put in all of the teachers sat down and said okay so who are the students who've been recommended for three honors level classes is this something that we need to have a discussion with like yes in each individual class they're probably okay is it something that they want to go all the way across the board in at least and we're not saying yes or no right it's just like we probably need to have a discussion with parents about that is this you know you want to do you know Spanish honors Algebra 2 honors biology whatever you want to do to see

039if and because then we also have other information from other people and try to play on The Varsity soccer team like that might be a tough yeah and if that's what you want to do then all for it but you need to know that that's not necessarily the standard and really what we've been trying to do is engage in this as a dialogue rather than a you're in this class like hey this is what we'd recommend for you and all of our Math teachers have had really good discussions with students to say hey this is where you are now I think you could get to a different class but this is what you need to show before you do that and if they do then they switch their recommendation so Ben Jamie has your hand

040rules well good Jamie I was just going to invite the school board to walk through the halls of the SAU as you leave tonight because unless I've taken them down I believe there's more amazing artwork it's gorgeous hanging in the halls of the SIU and I do believe that came out of Richmond Middle School as well it did yeah it's gorgeous it rotates but yeah this quarter is ours I think thank you good okay so this is not a criticism I think it's great that we were able to find two EAS um I will say of course you know wearing the budget hat when we made our forecast for next year's budget our assumption was that our um our Surplus was based on basically continuing our our staffing levels but then fully expending other expenditures

041so I'm not saying that you're not doing this and that you don't know this but I'm just I felt the need to say it we're actually below what we were budgeted for we're actually right now at the number of years that we are budgeting for next year so in one of our EAS is actually part-time so yeah it's just it's more the overall picture right as you I'm not and I'm again not saying that you shouldn't I think you definitely should have fully staff you know support I just it's just more understanding the trade-offs right if if you fully expend all your other expenditures and hire additional Staffing just know we might be facing a shortage of expected Revenue that we kind of promised voters on Thursday right and so I just wanted to make

042sure that that eye is on the ball no yeah I mean we're definitely looking at that and sort of looking at and to be perfectly honest the um I think we've talked about this before in terms of when we are short in number of EAS for an extended period of time this is one of those long-term things that I look at in terms of a principle not just on a year-to-year basis the wear and tear that we have on our learning specialists is significant so we have situations now where we have learning Specialists who were at let's say the beginning of the new year pretty much almost Tapped Out like I was worried that they were not going to make it till the end of the year but the fact that we could bring somebody

043new in and help out that you can see the change in three weeks like they're absolutely I said you know you're not walking around with a big cloud over here so it does make a difference and we do know that we're gonna have to try to offset that in other ways and we're already looking into that so yeah I thank you for bringing it up but know that I do know like okay we're gonna have to trade this off and that was one of the other reasons we had somebody who could have worked probably 90 percent but we're like well why don't we start you at 50. that way we can save a little bit and sort of see where you are in terms of next year and hopefully what we'll have right now is

044no kind of wood almost all of the people that we have in the building now will be the people who'll be coming back and being filming next year with almost people have to hire I know at least one but that's a shared position um and that that'll be a huge big bonus bro maybe it'll cut back on ourselves maybe that's where we've been covered anyone else thank you Tim thank you so uh moving on to business requiring discussion you want to hear about me asking you want to hear about me yes well I got a tail for you guys so what I wanted to do was first start with putting things in context you got a lot of well my name is Linda Dante let me start there and I'm one of the co-coordinators for

045the niask self report self-study been ahead of a high school Yana tenders is the other Co half of that and Tony Stevenson is the person who actually makes up with the two of us the steering committee so you know part of the I think thrust behind all this and the leadership is provided certainly by the steering committee but a large portion of the input and the evidence finding was done by the self-reflection committee which you commonly know as a committee on a program and procedure and the coordination and those combination of folks have really been the engine behind getting the material that you see reflected in the writing for you so tonight you are looking at a couple documents and this is not all of the self-reflection report you have a timeline which is from

046the beginning of June to now which reflects a little bit sort of the short story if you will of the work that's been done and that I understand is available to the public as well you have uh certainly the meat of the self-reflection report which is part two but you also have two other documents there the school and Community summary and looking back and what I'd like to do is is just give you sort of an overview of everything because this is not the whole story so for those people who are looking at these documents good place to start was is with the school and Community summary because that has really meant we ask intends that to set the stage which gives a lot of information about our school about where it sits in the

047district where it sits in the social economic um sort of perspective of things are you know sort of who we have attending this school it's a really good overview it's not meant just for the visiting team but certainly it orients them it's also meant for all of us and the staff will be looking at that and being asked to get feedback but not vote on that the next part is part one that's the look back and it is key to really review what has happened since the last self-study which was in 2012 and it is also paired with the current standards what we tried to do was give where we have moved to what we still need to be doing and also give you a comparative sort of analysis of what the current standards are

048just for that perspective then you move into standard you move into part two which are the five different standards that niask has identified and these really are meant to be reflective of the latest research which supports effective learning for all students yes question I'll just note I can't access the standards can you guys it says you need permission oh I saw him when you sent it to me by email but I got it you got it I don't I don't have any questions request to access maybe it's just the Norris people that have access well we were okay because I went through all of them today and made it anybody with a link could open it yeah it's people with high school kids we want this document to be viewed by by everyone um because

049it's really it's so it's really our story and we want to be sure people you know are reading it and and you know learning about it so the five standards as identified like I said are research-based and it begins first with the learning culture is standard one that standard two is more reflection of student learning right standard three looks at what support staff get to do the job to support the Learners standard four is really about what this school provides to help Learners who need additional help and support and this goes across the Spectrum and then standard five is really where you guys live and the support you give to the school and other resources to help the school do the job again for Effective learning each standard this is where it gets a little

050confusing for folks each standard has principles these principles are reflections of effective practices that support the achievement of that standard and within those principles our foundational Elements which niac defines as Al absolutely necessary their fundamental elements of that standard to be successful you have to have those the reason I mentioned this is when we are looking at identifying our priority growth areas we have to show that we need the foundational elements in each standard you will know as you review there are three areas where we do not yet and they are related to the idea of the curriculum being written right which we know the district is working on and the high school is a part of the district is working on that the other is Portrait of a graduate which we I think we've

051adopted portrait of a learner now okay that's the other piece and then the final piece is the growth plan which I think across the years we probably have something like that but me ask now terms that as sort of the next phase after we have our collaborative visit we will be working on developing a growth and Improvement plan for the school okay so that's the context for everything you're looking at and I just wanted at this point to thank everybody who's been involved up to this point people have been reviewing it Robin has looked at it Deb Nelson has been to all the meetings when we were going through it she also reviewed the other documents that you're looking at tonight what you don't have there is the four C's which looks at the school

052with a learning organization this was just looked at by the self-reflection committee you will be seeing that shortly it will also be open to the public and then we'll move on to a visioning which is part four which really looks at the goals and that is meant to imagine where the school would be if where we were where we were wanted to do and then the final stage is where we identify the gross priority areas and it has to be three to five and then that will be the whole report we'll put it on the portal we'll have our visiting team come in they will stay for two days they will tell us if we're we hit the nail on the head or they've identified other growth areas that they think really should be top

053of our list then they will go away and for two years this growth plan first will be developed and then will be implemented and they will come back in 2025 arriving on March 30th Sunday and staying till April 2nd at which point that is really when our accreditation visit happens that's when they tell us whether we're you know how we do it and what I want to say is this is not in so many ways it is such a learning model because it is not you get it all right or you get it all wrong whole process is meant to be very much based on a growth mindset very much spent meant to establish a way for any organization to continue to be self-reflective to think about growing to think about what our capacity is

054to grow our competence right our commitment and our understanding of what it means to be you know to providing an effective learning environment so you have any questions it's very impressive exactly part two absolutely yeah buyers that we forgive and they sat there and read it and then were asked to vote on it and they may ask really wants to have at least two-thirds of the staff voting and the grade of 80 vote well we didn't quite hit those numbers but we had a high percentage of support for standard one we had 66 yeses and No No's standard two we had 64 yeses and only one no standard three we had 67 yeses and No No's standard four 64 yeses and one no and standard five 66 yeses and one no we took this information

055back to the self-reflection committee and what we heard one comment was made links when the links were opened not all of them worked so it was a little more tedious to vote and the Really generally speaking uh universally the members of the cell Perfection they felt like when those positive results it's very unlikely that someone who really had a problem with subtly surface you know be continued to ask for votes so we chose to take this recognizing that when the visiting committee comes they will have two days to talk I mean that visit is again at least when I did a visit I know Julie did a visit too to me that's when the visiting committee really gets the scoop on the school you read the report but when you talk to the staff members

056when you talk to parents when you talk to teachers when you talk to school board members you really get the true validation of what is really happening yes yes and to me that's when you really like I said find out what's happening in that building very impressive any comments or questions for when the Neil um rough yes number of man hours for this order people hours well I'm sorry I am well beyond the number of hours please be honest I'll tell you what it is it truly is for me um absolutely a how should I say I thoroughly enjoyed this so I think if you're ever hiring for this position you want somebody who really likes to work because I think it does take a lot of extra effort that's hard to quantify at the

057beginning and it really varies based on sort of what you're getting for example very much with intention I think Julie was there it was her brilliant idea to structure this during the school day not ask for people to do extra hours just try to use meeting time that already exists in fact you know even the idea of using a committee that always exists so what that meant was the people who were the top that were kind of the um the steering committee is meant to support all the work they had to put in extra work if you think in some ways to help manage the material that was being generated by those who were collecting the evidence and I think that's where the structure for the co-coordinators require a little bit more man hours than

058maybe was originally there's no way to know how much that time takes but I would say I would say they stubble what was allocated would be really good next year and the next year will require fewer hours because it's really um monitoring the growth Improvement plan and getting ready for the decennial visit so I think also a lot of what was created is already in place can I pretend this about that like hours so if you were given a certain number of hours we can give you an exact number and then Linda's been keeping track of the average beyond that so we can actually give you the exact Linda and Yana and then there are all the people on the different committees that have been reading in and all so we can't tell you all

059of their hours have probably spent hours yeah so there's all those hours but we can give you exactly what Jana and Linda okay that was my leading question yeah yeah I figured you asked that question [Music] um is it worth it oh I'm so happy you went there because to tell you the truth I personally be instantly involved with this think it is but I am in the middle of all this we had that question come up in our last self-reflection committee um quite honestly a member said they're hearing from some staff members why do we do this right and uh I think there are many answers if you look at the NES handbook there's a very wordy explanation of why this is valuable you know it's an outside organization there's research to support these

060standards you know when your students are applying to college and you're accredited it means something it's kind of universally understood I think it's more than that I think what it actually protects is time to have critical conversations that I hear staff members saying they never have time to have and what it does is with even within CPP and the coordinators meeting they were sitting there examining their practice thinking about what they're doing and noting as evidence where things are happening that match what the standards said would demonstrate really again I keep using the word effective learning okay things that were uncovered okay we're like well we made more collaborative time okay and while there are many things that were identified decades ago like we need a curriculum it needs to be standardized it needs to

061go k through 12 we need to have assessments all the things the Strategic plan had already identified that was happening in a parallel place to this work it was very validating to see them come to the same conclusions about what we need and what I've also seen to sort of short answer is I have participated in past being asked self-reflections and my personal observation has been that when findings come out of in the s-south reflection study things are done by The District in other words things happen and I really that's what I kept saying to people who were doing work for example people are saying you need more collaborative time with our departments to talk Julie from the very beginning has been taken any kind of recommendation that comes out of this work and not

062really even waiting until the collaborative conference happens love the idea let's see if we can make this happen so I see it as bringing in you know it's like the idea of bringing in a peer review with standards that are recognized in a knowledge as research based giving people time to have these conversations really reflect and do it in a way that doesn't kill you is like that perfect balance so I guess I'm just really hopeful that this will actually present with even more if you will positive outcomes than people can recognize because I think you ask a good question because I think there are people who are still sitting there why do we do this why don't we invest the time isn't it taking us away from the work we could be doing on

063curriculum and I think what this brings into Focus not just for the board but also for the community it's going to be you're eating this is why curriculum work is valuable like why is collaborative time value all right where what are the students experiencing here by levels of support so I think this document isn't just written for the collaborative conference visitors it's written for all of us to learn about us the other piece I would just add is if you look at test scores we're done like we don't have much to do things look good Kim did a comparison we're good like I just need to show up to every day and make sure the paper moves properly and we're done we ask their three foundational elements we didn't meet right and so we have

064work to do you all of you know that you've had kids in the school it's not perfect we have work to do this is an outside organization that's besides a test score that's telling us here are the things that research-based things that you're not doing as well as you think you are or when we're telling them how we think we're doing then someone assesses are we making it up when they come to visit or are we really assessing ourselves like I think we might have been a little bit harsh on ourselves than the visiting committee might be but it's it's another bar and we keep saying you know in the fall when we have that school sir we have Tom came and did the profile and said this is how we're doing as a school

065we keep wondering where are the bars that we need to be as a school and how are we doing I think this is I'm I had a hard time doing it as a teacher it involves a lot of work um but I did come to the leadership team I think it was last month because other Schools elementary schools and middle schools in the state also are in the ask accredited we don't choose to do that in the district I felt as an administrator it's great like it's been great for sort of lighting a fire under things we might need to work on there may be other ways we do that in our other schools but this is kind of in a certain way not easy because it involves a lot of work but it's set

066up and we're not there's no mystery as to where the targets are and it's based on Research so I I think it's worth it especially in a district where the test scores don't tell the story of the work that needs to be done but obviously given when it comes to identifying goals I mean we're not talking just naming a goal we're talking about smart goals but they hold literally hold your toes to the fire and you have to not just name what you want to do you have to identify the action steps you have to identify who's responsible and you have to identify how you're going to know when you arrived you know so I think that is going to be valuable work for us all to be doing and again linking it to our

067portrait of a graduate getting common language about what effective learning is right I mean you all who has really been putting in those man hours for this strategic plan I see this going so well together so I congratulate sort of lower self good work is what is what uh Deb Nelson thank you uh I just wanted to Echo the importance of holding people accountable I think that as a high school we benefit and as a school board we benefit when we can say to the community these are the things that we're working on these are the things we know we don't do as well as we could and we're paying attention to them and I think that's really important to do I would also say that as um as I spent about four it was

068maybe three to four hours editing one part of the document I know that Linda has spent an enormous amount of time because she writes a lot of this and we all know that writing takes a great deal of time putting stuff down on paper so I just want to I hope she really does tell us how many hours is spent are spent or that she's spent but um I don't think there's any question that this is really important to do so thank you Linda [Music] what does that look like for students what's the impact on our students and and because I don't think a lot of students even know about this right and and that is it's it has I'm going to answer your first part of that question it really is about the learning

069experience and so there's a couple components to that which I had not seen before and that is the emphasis on all students making effective learning experience for every student in the building so you know we talk about differentiation we talk about being aware of the brain we talk for example a very good example this is the schedule and thinking about changing the schedule so it matches how students really learn you know from again breaks right lens of classes all of that so will will it impact your courses specifically I think when it comes to how you are being able to measure how you learn what assessments might look like those kinds of things I would expect you may see well Council for example the assessment they were talking about having a common way that courses

070are assessed and graded right across so that there isn't that differences and students have to sort of struggle with those differences you would see more of that I would think does that make sense yeah and it might take a while to trickle down especially if the curriculum is worth it the hope is in fact if we ask prioritizes student learning so all of this everything in that report is really focused student learning is at the center of all this so is there a plan to um like make students sort of aware of why those changes are happening because I think right even if they're made in the interest of students sometimes if you don't know why it's happening they can be confused I think this is going to be an ongoing conversation I know certainly

071in my effort as counsel exec you heard me often say or what students want to be involved can students be involved even on this work and I think that's a big ask to ask students to come into these sort of when we're Gathering the evidence but as we go forward it's certainly starting right with the collaborative conference we will have students hopefully talking to visitors from then on I think you know yourself being a council member constantly in fighting at least high school students into many conversations about what's happening in the school I don't see where that would change we have a student on the CPP um so I think looking for maybe other ways if you have ideas and other students have other ideas of way they want to be involved do you have

072something in mind right now no I was okay okay because that is that truly is the way things will change as students come up and say I want to know more about this I mean we both know council is an Avenue we also know not every student uses Council as that pathway to have their voice heard right or to get engaged so I think the idea is how can we get more students engaged in their learning experience I know it happens in the classroom I know teachers ask for feedback are there other things that the school could be doing I think that's the question thank you Linda okay thank you thank you as short as I promise so moving on to our meeting on Thursday uh Hanover goes at five o'clock in the auditorium seven

073o'clock for Dresden in between uh typically they provide food and drink for and what it hasn't done the meetings before um for the Dresden part of the meeting I'm just going to confirm everyone knows what they're doing Jamie did send out an email today with talking points for each of the different warrants so we got Kim doing the budget that Tony doing article one Deb doing article two Lily doing article three Lisa doing Article 4 and been doing Article Five does that sound right it's Article Five the sustainability one yep she has it as a rick we'll write this piece sorry maybe that was from Hanover were you doing it in Hanover then I had you confused the packing points on the sustainable Hanover I thought you were but I could probably do it I

074haven't done it because I thought somebody at the Hanover meeting said they were doing it I believe I'm covering it at the Hanover portion of the meeting uh Jamie but I think we can probably do it in tandem where Rick and I can say something you want to write if you are so delighted to okay and I have to hand out all of the Hanover ones done I just need to mail them to you I just don't I'm just looking at them I'm looking at the minutes from the meeting this is the sustainability one okay can um Yolanda bone Barbers can she present it no it would be beautiful uh School Board um I'm just reading the minutes here uh article four I see the building has your hand up as well Lily oh I

075didn't get an email so Jamie if you did email can you resend it to me please sure I'm sorry I sent it to Dresden school board so I'll double check to make sure that you're on that um and apparently not on that on that list well my goodness you must miss a lot of emails it's either good or bad I don't know I have no idea what I've missed I will send it to you directly thank you so so can you tell us what what channel our folks are doing excuses without eating just make sure we're all the same page I'm so I'm having trouble hearing you Ben could you say that again [Music] which Hanover person is doing what for that meeting is I would have to go back and look at the minutes

076as well to to remember that because I unfortunately I did not make it into the office and all of my budget notes are in my office I know I'm doing Hanover's Article 2 and article three I can send that out in the email Ben I'll go back and look at the and look at the um let me know great or they can email me yep thank you um 23 24 school calendar this is the second or third time I've seen this has there been any changes or have not okay any questions or concerns about the calendar great moving on to uh legislative update from Kim yes hello if everyone can open their PDF of the presentation I will be talking to it so I think it's more entertaining to follow along [Laughter] hear me talk

077a lot on Thursday so here we go um so I just wanted to give everyone an update on what's going on with the state of New Hampshire um as far as our really our legislative and executive branches I really did try to focus this on just Dresden so there are a lot of bills um I think there's over a hundred bills that are um and actually more than that uh to be changes at the state level but just really tried to focus this on here I also gave a similar presentation at the Hanover School District meeting I'll try to update that based upon certain decisions and votes that have been made since then but for the most part um try to focus this just on what applies to Trenton um just so so folks in

078the public you know know you know we are a Interstate School District however we also follow New Hampshire state laws sort of by default in certain ways um and so you know there are certain things that will apply to um Hanover High School and Richmond Middle School even though we are part of an interstate District so okay so we will talk two out of the three branches um and starting first with the legislative so slide four uh shows the education themes that's happening at the state level um in Broad buckets we have changes to education Freedom accounts that's the school voucher type program in New Hampshire there's adequate education funding background checks New Hampshire retirement system changes those are hard to say which way they're heading because there's some that's expanding and some that's restricting

079and some that's changing so I can't really tell you what direction that's headed there's also building Aid I know I gave a presentation that will be made at Hanover so we won't have to discuss that but school board meetings is something that generally just how do we conduct them who gets to participate who gets to speak q and A's all that stuff um Food Service free and reduced meals how do we identify students living in poverty and the services that they are linked to the free and reduced meals and also just the food delivery service lunch breakfast that kind of thing has been a big theme a Bill of Rights for both students and parents um there are kind of competing bills let's call it from different parties for student Bill of Rights for students

080and and parents and those have yet to be kind of voted on but those are uh big bills the other one is a kind of curriculum requirements so there's certain deeper dives into certain areas that we might as on a local level think that we have um authority over to determine the curriculum of the school um but they kind of seem to be more of a shared philosophy in some of these bills that the state level can also set some of these requirements so these are the general themes um uh so Slide Five um is kind of the start of these like these are just a list of the big ones that um uh the New Hampshire School Board Association tracks all of the bills and I um they have a 27-page document so I

081just Consolidated them into just a few slides with key bells that I thought um either had a higher likelihood of passing or being more disruptive to our current operations and so um the ones that are in bold are the only ones that I really am going to talk about um but just so you know these are kind of where the latest stanzas of Last Friday um the first is um kind of more of a constitutional amendment cacr-7 and this is kind of similar what's happening in Vermont as well I mean there's differences of course but um it's all kind of stemming from a Supreme Court case um where money uh raised by taxation may be applied for the use of religious educational institutions this would be an amendment to the New Hampshire Constitution so that

082that can be allowed um and there's still kind of waiting to be exact on that um one note this is while it's similar this is the exact opposite of what's going on in Vermont right now we the bill that we are entertaining would restrict the use of public funds for religious schools because it specifically allows it yes okay thank you thank you for that clarification because it already does versus not okay one would argue that it are sorry one would argue that it already does in Vermont as well too as a result of the Supreme Court case over the summer right and and same argument being said now which is why some those who are in favor of this bill say we already do classical is that in relation to like scoot if you went

083to a religious institution they would pay for that yes so what's what's interesting is that we actually um we New Hampshire school districts um do pay for students to attend as part of their public education options so for instance in Croydon they have Mount Royal as an option which I believe Mount Royal right it's the same and then that's a Catholic school that they have is one of their list of public school options of which they'll pay um you know the tuition essentially for that so um you know the but there's a clause in the New Hampshire Constitution that basically says that we will not use taxation for religious purposes and there there's an argument that these two practices are in conflict with one another and then given the Supreme Court ruling in June 2022

084um that there wants to be a resolution about this potential conflict and so that's kind of the spirit of this film um but yes it could also be a plan station Freedom accounts and other taxation for any you know religious you know educational Institution um so that's one that hb10 is the parental Bill of Rights um nothing really said there but that is most bills are usually around one or half a page or one page this one's probably about three pages and so um and one of the things um in there is you know releases your parents can determine um educational a student's educational experience essentially um which can be very vague in New Hampshire School Board Association has you know flagged it as being of concern for other um other bills and laws that

085we have um there so HP 104 um this would require that multi-stall bathrooms and locker rooms and public New Hampshire elementary middle and high schools be same-sex um specifying that is different than gender um and uh there the nhsba is not having a position on this and there is in the house education they have voted on this but have had a no recommendation so in the New Hampshire house education committee which is where most of these bills are discussed um all the hb's one that means house bill um they are finding that they're in a 10-10 tie mostly Democrats Republicans if they're voting on partisan and so when that happens they can't get any um recommendation passed and so it comes out without a recommendation and then it goes to the um the house floor

086uh to decide so uh just to kind of give you a sense if you keep seeing no recommendation that's what's going on there um hb123 removes voting rights and Quorum Counts from Representatives on school board and select board on budget committees um we don't think that this would apply to the well the Dresden finance committee um as we are not a formal budget Committee in the sense that they um there's kind of two different there's an advisory budget committee and then there's a budget committee that kind of change the budget let's go that is more of a formal um this probably would apply more to the formal but we do have sending school districts that have formal budget committees um for instance um like wine for instance have noted that they that their school board

087representative which would be me in that case right when we go to a Hanover finance committee would not be able to vote on recommending the budget or not which can change the um dynamics of the vote um so that was laid on the table but that doesn't mean that it can't be brought back um and HB 514 so this is the one you might have seen in the Valley News um it's kind of known as the book Banning um Bill and this removes um so K-12 public schools in addition to higher ed had previously been exempt from or had obscenity protections right and um and that they couldn't be that teachers couldn't print or Librarians could be criminally charged for handing a book to a student um that may be considered obscene um and this

088is now um this would be a bill that would remove just K-12 Public Schools um from having those criminal protections um and it also mandates that we need to have that school boards would need to have um a policy about obscene materials I know we do already but I just wanted to flag more the Criminal part um Phelps a little bit more important and that came with a no recommendation so that will go to the floor for a house vote um HB 275 so this is is enabling that would allow people's parents to pay the difference between a receiving School tuition cost and the sending District tuition cap in a school tuition program or I basically said it's kind of what Corydon and Cornish does they kind of set a a cap and then they'll

089pay up to a certain cap and if a student wants to attend say Hanover High School the parents would have to pay the difference and this would basically be saying that they were enabling this to happen in law other school districts around the state have received legal advice that says that that this would that that practice that is done by Croydon and Cornish currently um was basically not recommended by by legal because of um the risk of having to pay the difference if it went to court and other legal issues which I don't know I'm not a lawyer but that was the discussion on the floor and that this would be enabling so that that legal advice would change and say that it's okay um HB 321 um isn't that essentially what the freedom accounts

090do so it's different it's it's the full cost of the so it's it's they kind of call it like a three-legged stool so you can either be like Publix well maybe four but a chair um so you can either be a public school student a which includes public charter schools you could be a homeschool student you can be a private school student or you can be a EFA student and this would be a public school student who would have the right to a free and adequate education that would be without cost to a student um um basically saying that they need to provide at least access to a public school a public a school approved by a public school district which may not necessarily be a public school as the Mount Royal Newport Montessori et

091cetera are kind of examples that school boards might approve to be on their list of eligible schools a student can provide but basically one of them still needs to meet the free and adequate education requirements but students still be Public School EFA is different EFA would only give you up to the amount that the state provides which is roughly 20 percent of like an actual cost of an education it's around four to five thousand and it's higher if you meet kind of like your equalized people accounts in Norwich right if you are from a low income you get more adequate education money so it's anywhere between four and six thousand dollars but the state won't give you more than that to attend say a private tuition so you basically only get whatever your private school

092to it you'd have the parent would still have to pay the difference even if they're in a new year so it's similar but front leg and who pays for it is typical what's typically happens on the public school side is that that threshold is not six thousand dollars it's say in Croydon it's around 17 18 000 which is what the Newport school district is their Public School option that guarantees to accept all of their kids but they might pick other but parents might pick other options clear yeah I guess I just did the basic part of it too you could use it to go to so for instance an education Freedom account yes so an education Freedom would count um students so you're in a completely different leg right you apply you get your six

093thousand dollars through this portal um you can choose to go to a public school you could choose to say six thousand that come to Hanover say you live in Lebanon for instance and you want to come to Hanover 6 000 of that would be the state money coming too and then parents would have to figure out the difference have they just see if this actually actually certainly I would assume can't afford the extra 10 plus thousand dollars on top of six thousand dollars would cost to actually go to a serious private yeah so it's interesting and I just realized that there was a Daybreak article which I didn't know that there was a pretty good article today but if you look at that there's a link in my response about the school I was asked

094a question about school vouchers in the event program um there's a link in there and so they they look to see how effective is the AFA program because it was it was originally originally meant for everyone and then when it got passed it was restricted to just more lower income Family Support um and so it's been two years and about 77 of students had already switched to a private school and already you know not had been a code book an EFA switcher right it was already but and even if you asked within that more students were already planning they just happened to know that they could get four thousand dollars or so to attend a private school or do their own homeschooling um so I would argue that there's probably it's not purely for those

095students who are finding low income who are low income and find that their public school is not meeting this is what it was pitched as finding that they're not meeting their needs and then using that money to to go elsewhere as a reminder we also have um you know best interest placements um educational hardships where it's not just six thousand dollars you can get you can get a full public education tuition ride to go to a place if you meet those were criteria that is a better deal in that case right um but that you have to go through the existing process and it's not just because you want to attend a robotics program in a different school for instance that's not an educational hardship okay um so that's HP 275 HB 321 is more

096of a school board meeting procedural thing and this one um is unanimously passed so let's just expect this one to probably come uh come through um so this would require public bodies to review meeting minutes withheld from public disclosure at least every 10 years to determine whether they should continue to be withheld and if minutes are not reviewed after 10 years they will be made public I don't know there are 10 years of non-public minutes and if things have been withheld I know their student matters that you know so I just wanted a flag that um if we do have minutes um you know we should probably be in the habit of reviewing if there are anything that needs to be continued to be withheld um yes does that indicate who reviews them Administration current

097School Board I don't think it is that specific but I would have I don't know thank you um so yeah so that went on house and it's OTP and so I just expect that to continue um HB 539 um this one this one was interesting so this one was heard and it was supposed to be exact on um February 15th but it was pulled off the table at the um House Ed committee level and uh not sure what if it's gonna be exact so it kind of this one's a little interesting right it was supposed to be on the agenda and then they decided not to make a decision on it this would prohibit public schools from conducting vaccination clinics during school hours or within two hours of the beginning and ending of a school

098day and this would also I didn't have enough space but this would also require parents um to have to physically be with the child or consent um so even if we had it within three hours or the beginning or end of a school day the parent would need to be present um and I will also note that nah SBA is not taking a position on this and is tracking the bill instead of doing that okay uh hb427 it requires to include a designated time period for Q a to board um to the board so this is um kind of the response to this is this bill is in response to members of the public who feel um frustrated with the lack of a q a as our meetings are structured with public comment and that

099this would basically require or to respond in a q a manner um that is a leading exec so HB 429 requires all school districts to participate breakfast and lunch and participate in the national school lunch program we discussed this at Hanover and it actually it went it was no recommendation and it was laid on the table at the house level I think that might just be a friendly death to the bill but um I guess it could come back uh but our concern that was we were discussed at Hanover was not to offer breakfast and lunch and not to support students and being reduced but actually um we do not participate and Dresden has never participated in the national school lunch program we offer free lunches to free and reduced students and so just uh

100for a variety of reasons we wanted to flag this one okay slide eight so to be clear on on that one it was just to offer breakfast and lunch for purchase or for free so it was it was purchase not for free but you would have happened you're part of the national school lunch program and a certain amount of population does get it for free exactly and and the the entire Universal School the intent was not to go after the six school districts of which we are like either one or two and depending on how they count us right you know we're interested um who do not participate in the school lunch program the intent was to go after the 38 school districts that do not offer breakfast that was the main intent of them

101was that um they wanted to make sure students had breakfast and lunch particularly those who are free and reduced lunch meal eligible so hb601 is relative to State participation in Medicaid direct certification program for free and reduced price uh School meals so this would um basically I think what in theory and it should in most cases it would increase our free and reduced meal student population which at least on the Handover side right we get paid more State dollars if we have more students who are in low-income families um and this is a a higher way to get that so previously we would be um requiring students and families to return forms back to the school district that say Yes um I am eligible for the free and reduced meal but this way would actually

102kind of circumvent that and just say it's a direct certification if you are Medicaid eligible you are free and reduced price lunch eligible and more families participate in Medicaid than they do filling out a form to the school district and so that this would kind of have a boost to those numbers what was interesting is that um that the this one's the so this went to the house it was amended um and uh the house voted on it um I believe after Governor sununu said that he would be open to direct Medicaid of which there was more of a discussion before um so this seems to have gotten a little bit more support sorry a question and Jay so we other things School related have traditionally been attached to the frl designation right does this

103change that or is this only about meals so this would change that this would change like I put education this basically this would change the free and reduce from what I understand the bill because that's what was that was a discussion of like the impact of it right and I don't know if if the switch is substantive or not like is the it's the population that you're going to pick up from the Medicaid direct certification bigger than the population that we traditionally would have gotten from the frl Declaration um no but I think I guess my question is maybe we ought to think about that a little bit to understand whether or not there's a financial implication to this change so the thing that I was thinking of that I know that through our budget

104discussions is I know this is small and I actually think an increase in um at least on Hanover side added for the education piece would be more but um students for instance who are free and reduced price um we will provide an yearbook or you know programmatic changes I think March intensive and other things like that we um provide more services and so I think that's what I was thinking of but in the back of my envelope calculation I still think it might be a wash to a positive yeah sorry but now I'm curious from the two-state perspective here right are we talking like every kid both the New Hampshire and the Vermont kids fall under this qualification for frl you're asking me legal questions and I'm gonna have to do a little research I'm

105just teasing them up for you yeah I don't know and I really was just thinking just I just knowing over the laws right or these potential s right is to try to understand what the potential implications are for our own District right so Jamie did you add something yeah so for so for Dresden I think what Neil's asking is if they are attending Dresden School District um would the Norwich students be treated under the New Hampshire law instead of the Vermont law right well for purposes of that frl designation correct and if the answer is yes then I want to know a lot of things are driven off of that designation not just meals right because it would drive potentially it would drive grant funding Title One um um and a couple of the other

106grants I think small rural schools maybe looks at that although if Robin's there she can answer that question better than I can um but but I should think that because we get right now we get separate direct cert lists from Vermont and New Hampshire for the different school districts and um I'm pretty sure that that we get direct cert lists for Dresden out of Vermont I could check that with Shannon right now and if you're really interested he's finance committee on March 7th and they will they will be talking about this because it's still this sense because there's a finance component to it it still might not get through that committee but um Governor student who did talk about it so um moving on that uh hb61 um this is kind of the response uh

107to the divisive concept spill I forget the name of that but I guess it was hb2 finally right because it was yeah um and uh that provides that no education law the state shall be construed to Bar any School Employees from teaching the historical or current experience of any group that is protected from discrimination and that is awaiting exec on at the house education SB 155 um this requires that SAU budgets be on a separate warrant article um this is a senate billed SB in the Senate bill and um it's similar to a house bill for 651 the house bill was voted itl 19-1 pretty uh pretty strongly um but it was also a little unclear if it just the house one died because the setup bill was very similar so I I don't want

108to say that we know it how that's going what's also interesting is that it was in-house the house bill was in education but the Senate bill was in Senate um election law and Municipal Affairs not Senate education um and so that is still to be exact ly okay um all right those were the major ones that I thought might be related to Dresden uh okay um so just to summarize kind of getting with my schoolhouse wow okay so yeah I'm just a bill right but um really and I like how you side to it so we don't get a copyright [Laughter] trained um but so just basically like really what did they miss and it the common theme by by watching a lot of these application companies in particular um is that you know if

109you have the attention of the chairman or vice chairman um you know the chance of this bill kind of proceeding is is a lot higher than if it's being introduced by someone not in the education committee um and so uh just these are kind of our our Representatives right so suprentice is um you know obviously these are all New Hampshire people right but um suprentice is the state uh Center and she actually sits on the Senate education committee she's really our only Hanover representative or Senator that does um and then the other two uh Ruth Ward is the Senate education chair um she's a republican from Claremont and uh representing Claremont and other districts and then Rick Ladd kind to the north of us is the house education chair from girl and so what's interesting

110is actually if you watch these education committees we really um Hanover has talked a lot about perhaps that these two chairs kind of are kind of our neighbors um and you know for for lots of reasons we are exceptions right we're the unicorn of an interstate district and we do lots of lots of really great things that people want to talk about so um I just want to give you a sense of that um so moving on so that's all the legislative side kind of moving kind of to the executive branch it's only really one thing that I want to talk about um here I'll talk a little bit more actually at the Hanover meeting on Thursday about Governor's new news budget and how that would impact likely potentially our adequate education but that's just

111for Hanover folks um but what I do want to talk about that would impact Dresden is on slide 11 is there's an ed 306 which is a rules um that uh is it seems very boring if you read it oh it's updating the minimum standards for public school approval we're already approved school what what does it matter but really what it's saying is that these are basically what all public schools will need to do as we kind of update our standards and um this was a committee that was established and is now reporting out the findings and these are the 11 draft um findings that they are recommending I am no expert on this I attended one nhsba presentation of which the couple of the committee members presented and their slides were essentially 11 slides

112with these exact words on them I just put them all in one slide um I just wanted to share but um the the points here enlisted in bold are the ones that were more asked about by school board members and our nhsba representative the um Barrett Christina um so I'll just talk about those aspects um the one focused on moving to a competency-based model going from any time any place and not a credit this is kind of kind of more of an outcomes driven model than an input driven in general um so number three is move on when ready grave grade grade levels are replaced by learning levels the idea being you can be a math learning level four but an English learning level two I asked what does that mean or what schools have

113learning levels and um I didn't hear a specific response uh so but this is the concept uh it's number four school year defined at 165 days or more which if you look at on an hour's perspective is what we have now um a personalized learning plans for every student apparently this is what they the one example was that Vermont already does this um so so this is not an IEP um but that maybe it would look something more like Vermont TLP PLP um and then kind of State graduation competencies all students achieve the same competencies at a minimum not necessarily credits or you know again that kind of the input versus output um and that graduation companies are going into minimum standards Barrett Christina um flag but this seemed to be creeping into local control

114issues as far as establishing graduation requirements and then there was a debate about the difference between competencies and requirements um and so just wanted a flag um this is also this Ed 306 um well to me I still don't think I fully understand all the implications of it um it is talked about a lot in the house as well um and kind of saying that we we need to see this before we can exec certain bills which just feels um like it is more substantial than I even know so that is that is what's going on with the state hope that was interesting thank you Kim it's a lot of work and anyone have any comments or questions so moving on to business requiring action do I have someone who wants to propose a consent

115motion Johnny move to approve items b c d and e by consent I have a second Lisa um everyone's here except here okay so I think we have to go around oh no yes Christie yes Johnson yes keaney yes Hartman yes various driving yes Allison yes McConnell yes great thank you okay moving on to uh reports in Communications so record of the chair so sadly we have two board members stepping down and we'd like to acknowledge their contributions their dedication to our all our boards um so I'm gonna go ahead and read the two resolutions since Tom is the senior board member stepping down he goes first so this is the resolution of the Norwich school board that was read on February 1st 2023 whereas one person could make a difference through service to one's

116community and whereas Thomas Camden served as the member in good standing of the Norwich SAU and Dresden School boards for 11 years serving from 2012 to 2023 and whereas Thomas Cannon provided leadership and guidance serving as the SAU chair from 2013 to 2016 as the Norwich chair from 2016 until present and whereas Tom Thomas Cannon also served on numerous committees during his terms of office including but not limited to the Nord budget SAU budget Dresden budget Norwich negotiations four chairs and strategic planning and whereas Thomas Cannon unwavering Thomas Cannon's unwavering principle to stand on numerous Topics in his commitment to good governance has served as an example for all board members and whereas Thomas Cannon has served as a mentor and a colleague to numerous board members offering guidance support and assistance and whereas Thomas

117Cannon approachable to meet demeanor and subject matter knowledge have made him a sought after community resource and whereas Thomas Cannon had led not only the board but the entire community Through the murky complex and challenging process of replacing the Marion cross septic system and whereas Dresden and Norwich schools not only maintain but also in many respects improved upon their quality during Thomas Camden's 11 years of service as a board member in Norwich and Dresden we the undersigned extend our heartfelt gratitude and deep appreciation for the difference Thomas Cannon made in the lives of students in Norwich Vermont and Hanover New Hampshire during his years of service and for many years to come thank you [Applause] Marcella make any comments that they would like so this was the resolution of the Hanover School Board on February

1188 2023 whereas one person could make a difference through service to one's community and whereas Marcella de blasi served as a member in good standing of the Hanover SAU 70 and Dresden School boards for three years serving from 2020 to 2023 including as Hanover Vice chair and whereas Marcelo de blasi served on numerous committees during her term of office including the equity and policy committees and whereas Marcelo debolasi served the boards through the onset of the covid-19 pandemic with a plum in distinction and whereas Marcelo de blasi has been a tireless Advocate and spokesperson for students parents in the board the board and personally contributing as many future students as possible within a three-year time frame and whereas Marcela de blasi's unwavering principled stance on numerous topics has served as an example for all board

119members and whereas Marcella de blasi has served as an invaluable asset to board members and will offer for guidance and direction for countless generations of future board members in Hanover and Dresden and whereas Dresden and Hanover schools not only maintain but also in many respects improved upon their quality during Marcella de blasi's years of service as a board member in Hanover and Dresden we the underside extend our heartfelt gratitude and deep appreciation for the differences the difference Marcelo de blasi made in the lives of students in Hanover New Hampshire during her years of service and for many years to come thank you [Applause] so Tom do you have any closing remarks I I gave my remarks up in order snakes and my gift to all of you will be a very short uh I should

120nearly nine o'clock thanks to everyone it's really just been truly an honor working with all of you it's been a pleasure to serve I couldn't walk here I think I counted the number of all the board members in 11 years in the about 30 or so and uh it's it's just been a great run we've got a great Administration here staff students people ask me if I am happy to be leaving and it's mixed it's been great I think I'll miss a lot of things but thank you all it's really been my pleasure thank you Tom [Applause] Marcelo is it quiet at your house finally quiet at my house yes um yeah I mean like Tom said I already spoken um the Hanover meeting but I do just want to say thank you so much

121I've learned so much more about how the districts are run and it's been a really you know beautiful experience I've gotten to know all of you um and I have so much more appreciation for how complex a system it is um I'm hoping to come back in a few years but this isn't the right time so uh I don't have any other report uh we'll move on to committee's report anyone have a committee report seeing no one moving on to the superintendent's report I am happy to um report that I'm continuing our strategic planning work by reaching out to students and I met with students at Marion cross the Friday before break and uh it was a group of sixth graders or at least 20 kids there and I kept it rather General we talked

122more about how they viewed their education what they what they thought about when when they thought about graduate like what what will the school be like when you graduate what do you hope to get out of school and they had a lot of really Keen insights and at one point one of the students when I asked about what things we could do better what things they'd like to see change this group of sixth graders is this one person Anyway said um I really feel like we should go to school at RMS for sixth grade and that set off a chain in which every student except one in the room agreed and so I went around the circle and asked each for a reason and they all gave really compelling reasons that ranged from because we're

123now pre-k through six it's it's such a great span that the focus has to really be more on the younger children which I thought was a very sophisticated argument uh there was a discussion about how a lot of the events they have are again have to be inclusive and so that so they they're finding themselves doing what they consider to be more childlike activities and they also said that they felt like if they were they said they sort of enjoyed their status as being the seniors if you will of Mary cross but that they felt the fifth graders could handle that responsibility and they sort of welcomed the idea of being the the New Kids on the Block as sixth graders since they would get to start to work with their peers and and even

124express some sense of unfairness that the race School fifth graders get to move into the the big school before they do and so I thought that was really telling a few of them said that I don't think my parents would agree which is really something I think we as a community will talk about more during this strategic planning process but it was a great a great discussion I have a meeting first thing tomorrow morning with uh with some RMS students and then Friday I meet with some Hanover High students and then the following week I have a session set up with uh with more like focus groups of students at the ray school so they're great meetings it's just it's really fun to hear their insights and it's there's it's just their thinking is very

125sophisticated and uplifting so that's all I have for you tonight thank you Jay any comments or questions for Jacob moving on to assistant superintendent Robin hello everyone I had lots of time over break last week which was great to catch up on a lot of Grant work so I've been working on a few areas there we did receive the title for grant for funding about 46 4 700 toward the new plus one creative engineering program so we'll be buying some good robotic and programming equipment for them so that was exciting and um I've also been working with a high school as you know they're moving to the block schedule fully so we're looking at some blog scheduling PD and books and working on some funding during title two for that and finally also working on

126some summer programming so we're looking at doing another transition program for the ninth graders incoming ninth graders from RMS to the high school and then some tutoring programs so we'll be working on that providing the funding through some Title One grants and I've been working with Julian other members of the team that made High School on those we have been wrapping up curriculum work we have one big day at the end of the month with the high school any of the Departments that are not proctoring the SAT will be working on curriculum that day and if now we're working I'm making up some of those days that we couldn't have because of lack of substitutes but hopefully we'll get those in and we have our gym night conference the one day conference that has been

127rescheduled that will be next week and we have about 27 people from all the schools attending that which is exciting that's it that's my report for tonight as in that you're just naming her because everyone's meeting in the gym James [Laughter] University of Kansas thank you Robin any questions or comments that are you know smarter than mine I like that idea okay uh we don't need non-public tonight do we no but you have a business administrator still on board here this is pretty good yep um so I'll just take a moment uh now that I've composed myself I want to take the opportunity to thank my co-workers um as no one in this business is successful on an island it's a huge team effort here and we have a great team at SAU 70. in

128addition to the school boards the SAU officers and the finance committee who have all been super supported over the past seven years they've allowed me to grow in the position and worked as a team with me towards amazing accomplishments um so thank you again for honoring my work I appreciate that it's one of the biggest compliments you can receive um on another note we in the finance office suffered a loss of a co-worker as you all know and we are making arrangements uh to work towards how we want to possibly restructure some of the duties that are in the office so we'll be bringing that to you as part of the Strategic plan for for the HR portion um and working with all of our school teams to see what ideas they may have as

129well um so we're doing all right and I will be bringing you a projection uh finally at the next meeting so you can see where we're gonna end up I don't have any concerns or worries for Dresden School District or any of the school districts um we do have an RFP that went out for the Dresden baseball field they met with last Friday right after it snowed right you couldn't see the field anymore but that's how it goes um so they met with potential folks on site there I honestly haven't had a chance to follow up with Tony to find out how many people showed up it was not a mandatory meeting I do know there are a couple of contractors who have filed because they notified me we should have the track RFP I

130just got the wording for it today to look through it so we hope to have that filed out by either this Friday or next Monday um then moving on after that let's see the next two oh Richmond Middle School we would look to put out an RFP to hopefully do the Outdoor Classroom um shortly thereafter and the other two I think one is Norwich which is septic hopefully we'll keep our fingers crossed that passes um and the other one's hand over so that's what's going on in our buildings um transportation has been a little bit challenging the last couple of days with all the snowstorms uh I want to just thank all the parents for your patience um it's been so quiet for so long that sometimes when we get these little snow bursts or

131snowstorms we may forget to do some of the required notifications um in past years we let folks on Montague know that if the road is covered we're questionable that we don't usually go up it and we've had a few new families move in and so apologies to them for not letting them know that this morning um food service is rolling right along um in all of our Realms things are going well we feed all of our children who are disadvantaged or need some help um so no worries there with the state of New Hampshire we don't need a law to know what to do um I think we're good I think we're good so thank you any comments or questions for Jamie congratulations again well deserved okay so no non-public tonight um their next Dresden

132meeting will be Tuesday March 14th that'll be our organizational meeting after the elections uh I held our planning meeting yesterday yes so what was it today okay so uh I don't think rhian's gonna publish our next meeting for until probably March 7th so if anyone's got any items that they want added to the agenda let let me know before March 7th any other comments or questions um at this point I'd like to allow the public to address the board no one here in the audience anyone on Zoom okay great can I get a motion to adjourn move to adjourned second Lisa Neil yeah and then yes Christy yes Johnson yes genius Barrios really Diamond S Nelson yes McConnell yes thank you everyone thank you Tom thank you Marcella Thanks James oh and for those here

133so we were hoping to plan to go out after the budget presentation on Thursday night to celebrate