Dresden School Board 20211221

001you didn't need to do it just for so hey John I drove by whale back on the way to Maine yesterday Sunday why isn't open we don't have snow we've only four nights snow where the conditions in when what are you guys opening tely Sunday you're welcome bottom can't you guys don't enough money to build a small nonprofit a you can help that if you want a Dresden uh facility Well funny story we are now the home of Handover High School oh really yeah we made the ship this year from St is that a conflict of interest no because I don't actually make any money and it's not a school board level that we know of I'm clearly not making any the first part of the culation is allgar rush for a while they candy

002hey Lisa yeah thank you are these edible oh wait I wish they were it says the am no my kids have been making these since they were in like since they were like three and five years old I think anything bedazzled is cool you got hand to do this well as they've gotten older their production has decreased and mine has had to increase that um these were their teacher gifts for like 10 years and the only thing that makes me feel good about about them is that Devon V and I have been working together on the equity stuff for like a year and she comes to like she's on zoom and she's like I know who you are now and I'm like what are you talking about and she's like she goes you're in the

003chip clip family and I started laughing I was like well how what do you how do you know that and she goes she and her sisters because her mom was the mar cross librarian you know and the librarian would get a lot of gifts and she said my sisters and I had a very mean practice of we would line them up in order of how cool we thought versus how gross we thought they were and she said that as soon as your chip clip started showing up they were number one we were like like they were in college so they're like it's clever the kids made it so so I did I felt a little we I was like really and she was like yeah she goes in retrospect it was very mean of us

004to however just know number that me then all well you can't bring it in that would a different I me if we have a do it with like some sort of non-alcoholic you know something like a mock tail it's not so new like been up for like three weeks but I keep Master Blaster yeah that's right that's right8 I got the 108 and I'm not to oh yeah they're coming at this point last year we had many I can feel the so are we ready I think we got so start I feel like Marcel is probably to get wait you want yes she is have it on interet I not it's public he announced it it something I forget what I'm not speaking out of she it's not secret Ben do you have the G

005sound too there's sound for S oh my gosh you are so look at [Music] is Marcel in there no Garrett no Carri [Music] car we go ahead and call this meeting to order at 6m we're going to move into a public hearing to accept gifts our first gift is uh from Jack and Dorothy burn foundation for the footlighters would someone like to make a motion to approve do I need to be more specific on that um sorry yes that's okay so if you want to give it a go the language is right in board dos okay if you're not there yet I'm I I can do this one and she can do the next one can I okay think I have this you got it okay can I move to approve the donation with gratitude

006from Jack and from the Jack and Dorothy burn Foundation in the amount of $5,000 should I hand over High School foots great second U John all in favor say I I any opposed do we have somebody if we have a board member I'm online thanks Neil Odell yes Candon yes ke yes chrisy yes Nelson yes cani yes Tran yes H yes Marcel yesim cman yes yes thank you very much for that very nice donation moving on to the second one the accept the friends of Handover Norwich School donation someone like to make that motion Neil move to approve with sincere gratitude the donation from the friends of Hanover Norwich schools in the amount of $8,699 and3 three cents as presented Lisa second Neil Odell yes yes yes chrisy yes yes Nelson yes yes triman yes

007H yes Kim Harman yes Johnson yes moving on to the third another donation from the burn Foundation Ben MO to approve with gratitude from the Jack and Dorthy burn foundation in the amount of $155,000 for the Handover High School March intensive de Neil yes yes yes Christie yes yes Nelson yes yes kman yes yes Kim cman yes yes we are a well oiled machine and finally another donation from the friends of Hanover crew de move to approve the donation with sincere gratitude of two crw shells valued at $52,900 so at this point uh going to close the public hearing and move into our regular meeting so agenda review does anyone have anything they want to change add remove I just had a question um I don't necessarily have anything to change but it feels as

008if the athletic warrant article and the update on the Dron field septic thing might influence each other no yes did I have the wrong War article yeah for the baseball I I just was wondering if the septic and the baseball field were at all related in terms of what was happening at the field and if they're not then I don't care if we discuss them together but it felt like if they influenced each other it might make sense to discuss them together does anyone have a answer to that are they related in terms of like moving dirt or okay sorry not intimately there's well I mean this is a discussion yeah we're not we're not we're not voting so this will we can hear it and then at next board meeting we can okay I

009withdraw my question thank you can I don't know if this is time but thinking that uh it might given what's going on in the state houses that this board may want to take a position on both the div divisive Concepts as well as the um so-called teacher loyalty fill that's working way through the stat so the divice divisive concept didn't we do that at the NH hsba uh two months ago what I'm suggesting we may just want to reconsider I mean re re-establish our purpose there especially considering what's been put online in terms of opportunity to call out teachers this directly through online forms but also because of the teacher loyalty okay yeah so let's let's add that to the discussion and then Tom and I can kind of talk about what and de I'm

010sure you you're familiar with what it is so yeah so if we can add that to discussion um the public May address the board at this point uh the chair uh will give you three minutes to comment any on any of the items in the agenda we respectfully request members to State their name and address before commenting on agenda topics do I have any public comments um my name is John Granger I'm the head baseball coach and this may end up going later in the evening to the warrant article discussion about Athletics but um is the baseball field on that warrant article it is and I'll hold my great thank you someone online would like to make a comment Stuart Richard Stuart you should be able to unmute uh Stuart Richards uh norwi and I'd

011like to I'm not sure if I'm supposed to or I'm able to comment on some of the agenda items or whether I should wait for the agenda item to come up what is what is the preference of the chair um if it's General you can comment now if it's something specific to something on the agenda then if we can wait until we get to that point okay I I'll hold my comment until uh until we get to the actual agenda item thank you anyone else okay moving on to reports hover High School rep is she online I do not see her yeah Sor Linda Moder do you have anything to report out of the Council right now or um if you do just come on up to the microphone it's what you get for showing

012up in person here all dressed up uh Council continues discussing the honor social studies motion in various forms uh resolution actually we have we are planning to send out a uh survey to all students of Han High School to get more input uh otherwise we've talked about uh various bylaw revisions uh mostly uh about allocations and allocating money to clubs of HHS where are we on the mascot the mascot uh committee is still uh having meetings deciding about uh the plans to move forward and they're going to present a formal report to council hopefully no later than February great thank you anyone have any questions thank you good job I'm moving on to RMS principal Tim all right Julia says she's timing me so I'll go as fast as I can um we have had

013a great time at RMS uh between Thanksgiving and now we tried to bullet point a lot of the highlights in terms of things that are going on academically and outside of academics including our return to concerts we were able to have an end of year assembly in a number of different places today so we're able to people up in live stream um we paint a big exercise ball all kinds of gold glittery colors and drop it from the ceiling as our New Year's celebration at the end of the day so that was sort of the culmination of what's been going on trying to think if there's anything else that's out there we've had been able to get a lot of uh to sort of bring back some parental volunteers uh it's been really nice to

014get into the building we've been a little short in our Cafe so we've had people come in to help about in all of the restocking areas so we got a I guess a huge beverage delivery today then we were able to pull out and stack into all the crew um and the only other part that uh we were asked oh we did make meet with HPD to talk about uh crossing guards and how we're going to try to work to expand our ability to drop off students in the morning which is seems to be an especially difficult time I'm out there in the afternoons it runs pretty smoothly but we're not in the middle of rush hour in the afternoon so that's an ongoing thing that I think is is going to be nice to

015sort of work towards there was an email last week or two weeks ago was that RMS or was that Handover that there had a concern about the traffic and the pedest RMS RMS yeah and and we're working on it we have uh we do have today we had our crossing guard in our communication's getting better so the crossing guard in the afternoon got a call and had to drive jumped in his car drove to Li Road uh I had my vest on jumped in so I was able to Crossing so we got that all straight uh away so but it's something that we're going to keep working on um sort of in a highlight uh it's the last one we have an inspection going on tomorrow of our climbing wall and all the safety concerns

016that are going on with that so it's the first time since Co started that hopefully uh fingers crossed uh in the winter and spring we'll be able to reopen the climing wall as part of something that we've been doing for a while um and then the other part that's uh on here is rather long so I'm not going to go through all of it um is the work that we've been doing at RMS the past three years since I've been there in regards to equity i' just like to publicly thank both Mike leine and Amanda Yates who were the administrative team before and this and I took over who really started this ball rolling um in a lot of different areas and we' just sort of continued on with the philosophy and the mission that's

017been so I'll leave it at that thank thank you Tim any questions for Tim we do not have a glittery ball that we dropped from the ceiling but I will look into that for next year um we are happy to make it to the holidays at the high school um I know that you've all heard probably about some public public disciplinary events that we had last week um social media made it worse but I want you to know I feel very comfortable with how we're doing as a school and I think those just rep public and sometimes there are a lot of events that aren't that people aren't aware of and social media doesn't grab and so I'm I'm not feeling like fear in my belly or anything like that I think we're doing well

018as a school and that's how I'm feeling if people feel otherwise at some point we should talk um we're very proud of our staff and student body for making it through through the holiday break um our senior class is setting a wonderful tone a very inclusive tone um I haven't experienced it in a number of years in terms of just their ability to not exclude underclassmen and it's been really nice and I told them that today over our PA system which is new that partially worked but we figured that out when I made the announcement so that was good um it's a happy and stressful time for seniors so we're dealing with the ups and downs in our counseling office the decision-making group made progress on motion three they voted it in so you'll see

019that one March intensive signups which I didn't include on there are done um and so now it's a matter of navigating that especially in a world that's hard to navigate at this point um there's a lot going on there are people doing lots of work at the school but we are really really happy to be on holiday break so I saw that the Alum an Alum donated $500 for the music class what is that how does that work where's the money go does it go to Dresden into their department or yeah so we have I I could check that the music department has a number of gift accounts I actually met with a l um three days ago about the EAB that was in the budget that we took out of the budget because the

020class of 70 wants to make a donation towards something and so I mentioned you know you could the equipment in the EAB we obviously have to go through all the proper approval process and everything like that so he came in with his wife and asked about possible donations he Matt Prince had given a tour over the Thanksgiving break to a bunch of alums in the class of 1970 and they saw benches around that had class names on them or people's names and then he said I feel like the class of 70 would like to make a donation so I was going to talk to him about that but um people have been talking about things that we have cut out of the budget from in terms of tech and different alums are are stepping up

021so that's moreful and then I see Jamie hacket who's a finalist what go ahead he he was third in the nation yes yeah that is wonderful yeah it's really wonderful and so that's a piece where it just feels like that's something we could I mean what they're trying to do in our music department is we have a lot of kids who do chorus and band as they come through and people who take lessons from when they're little but they've added in the last few years the guitar class the pop rock Ensemble for kids who are musical but also kids who want to just start now and this is another one where trying to make music lovers or grow music lovers or people who appreciate music who don't have parents who started them playing the instruments

022in their since they were little and have come through our system so it's another class we'd like to add you know whether we do it through the budget process and creating this EAB or whether we can figure out another way to get the EAB up and running we feel strongly about getting it up and running thank you any questions steuart go ahead steuart sorry had to unmute Stuart Richards norit I I just want to express my concern I mean you're doing a lot of good things and I I would hope that you would continue with those I don't see that the some of the lgbtq things that you're doing as as very positive I think that there are real there's a real downside a real danger to some of the things that you're doing or

023will be doing and I think you've seen some of these concerns expressed nationally with respect to restrooms and changing rooms I mean there have been instances of of rape and we actually have documented um and I don't know what you're doing about it but we actually have documented as a result of the climate survey and I am a member of the uh sau70 Equity committee we have documented 65 instances of uh sexual harassment um moreover when you talk about pronouns when you talk about restrooms when you talk about sports participation you know it it's I think it's a huge mistake to have boys who are transgender competing with girls because they are superior in many ways and it it's not fair to the girls I have a an eight-year-old granddaughter I don't want to see

024her competing against um against transgender boys so I I think that's less than three minutes but I I just I hope that you'll take my concerns seriously and and address them and not require the things that you are requiring currently and or the things that you're going to be headed toward thanks very much for hearing me out Stuart thanks Stuart um in terms of just feel free to come in and meet with me if you have specific concerns these are the first concerns I've heard from you to me directly and we can try but also remember you know we have different philosophies you hire people to run your schools you know to what their best of know best knowledge in terms of basic in helping children and our kids and our students and I think

025we're going to differ on some things but I would love to hear from you directly and you're welcome to make an appointment and come in and talk to me anything else for Julie there another hand Richard Adams Richard Adams go ahead if you can uh identify yourself in what town you're from hi can you hear me this is Richard Adams from Norwich you can hear me okay yes okay thank you um I just wanted to um respond I think that um a lot of the things that are that's happening uh in the schools with regards to um respecting you know gender differences and lgbtq um considerations are very positive I really support um everything that uh the administrators and teachers and many people on the school board are doing um to make progress and support

026this I would disagree um in terms of you know what's happening in our community I I think the vast majority of parents uh Support also support what you're doing and we're really appreciative of it um I would not uh kind of fall into the Trap of um these sort of coordinated you know very you know subversive political things that are happening um that's not what's represents our community here uh in Handover in Norwich um I'll leave it there but I just I just wanted to thank you for everything that you're doing thank you Richard any other steart uh steuart if this is to address what uh Richard Adams just said we're not going to get into a conversation about that if it's a new item I'll let you speak Stuart Richards norwi no I just

027wanted to point out that my comments were directed to the the report of at the uh at the Richmond school so I'm happy to meet with the high school principal or anybody else and express my concerns directly yeah uh Tim Bo's coming up uh he I'm sure he'll say the same thing that Julie just said yeah I would I would welcome any and all people to come in and discuss and I think we've had numerous discussions in the building and we've talked about the fact that what we do in the building affects people in the building and to say things about what is coming or what it means in larger society are not really discussions that we get into at the school level so if you have any questions about the specificity of what's going

028on it is important to point out that the Richmond Middle School does not sponsor any sports so the whole sporting question um while it is very important and obviously something that's going to happen in society it's not something that we deal with uh on a regular basis or on any basis at the rich school so we deal with students in classrooms and the facilities that we have in the school yeah but please we're open at any time uh anybody who wants to come and talk about uh anything that we're doing be more than welcome thank you Tim I appreciate your openness thank you very much Stewart any other comments uh with regards to the reports yeah okay so we're gonna move on to the budget presentation Kim is not here so I assume Jamie's gonna

029lead it y Amy usually leads the early ones along with all the administrators and the budget committee members um share information because Jam's just the band leader that puts it all together really with direction from many other so which document should we start with so on the board docs I love these little STS um any we're going to start with the Dresden FY 2122 presentation final which is the very first document I will bring to your attention that the document to the right of that in board docs is the dresen School District budget book and Exhibits that you're used to seeing if you've been on the board a long time in the big notebook which we haven't been doing uh we didn't do last year and so I haven't really done many i f some

030copies out if you want to paper copy we haven't been doing just because of the cost and we were remote so it seemed to work that people could do electronic uh documents but if you want a full set and you need a binder please let me know recycle those and when do you need the letters from the chairs January y that is for the um annual report book which we print and make ready by February 4th I think annual report book is kind of boom boom beside each other that should be on our agenda and I honestly don't have it committed to memory um but we can look it up so if we open up the presentation it's a PowerPoint that we've all put together with help from uh everybody who is involved in building

031the budget um this is your 2223 budget bill for Dresden all of the folks in the administration listed here have had some um participation in the process uh also we've listed our school board members um of which and I'll probably get this wrong because I keep having multiple folks this year moving around um Garrett Palm was involved in the budget building for Dresden as and Kim Hartman who is remote is the chair of the budget committees all of them except for norwi um and our third Oh Yes Rick and Rick sorry I was thinking you on Handover and I almost tried to put Tom on this one so that's okay Jamie's just confused it okay so moving right along uh as we did as we have done historically way before us um we build a

032budget guideline and the budget guideline helps to inform us of the parameters that we want to try to stay within as weing bring all the numbers together for many different uh schools and departments within the schools um this year we do build what we call a quick model which if people want to look at past budget documents if you go to the board docs and go to Dres in budget committee uh some of these documents started being posted in August we started meetings in August so there are many meetings there with many different attachments so the quick model takes the prior Year's budget it and pushes information forward that we know and that we project uh based on what we think we know and that's an important um caveat D So based on all that

033information on the early look in August we suggested uh a budget Corridor of 2.5% or less early on as we brought the first and second drafts together we realized that we were way above that budget for uh so we started looking into some of the reasons as to why uh when we brought everything together and took a quick look at some of the different objects codes to see what was going on um as you read through on slide I'm on three um this is some of the information that we did include and didn't include in the quick model as we built it um I'm not going to read it all to you because I'm sure you seen it before this is a this is a review of a document that we shared a couple of

034different times I apologize for document four it is somewhat smaller page four but it's a lot of information so if you pull your you can expand it um we are presenting version five so the budget build in total as we bring it together has been through five different uh iterations one and two were much higher than where we started with version three um version three which is the second column of numbers in came in at 29,41 18203 which is about 4.3% remember we started with a corridor of 2.5 after we started looking into some of the reasons on why we were coming in so high other than you know trying to restore some of the cuts from prior year years and keep up with some of the needs for the different classes um and um

035you know undertakings that we're doing in curriculum and all uh we noticed a couple of items that really were glaring in um medical costs and retirement costs it seems that when we hired many new folks over the summer due to many different reasons people moving on uh to different locations or different uh choosing to get out of the school business industry uh it's been a rough year CO's been difficult and so a lot of people are moving to different passions so as we added new hires new employes um we noticed that the elections meaning the election levels single twers family the election levels went up for the present year that we are in when we bring the um um when we bring our financials to you in January you'll see that we're over budgeting many

036of those line items um also the retirement piece which is either New Hampshire retirement or Vermont State retirement um is a choice here at Dresden and you have a choice between either retirement system the Vermont retirement system a year ago announced that they might be making changes as they were having a hard time staying solving so when that information came out I think a lot of people decided when they had the opportunity to move to the New Hampshire retirement system which is kind of interesting because they haven't been solvent for years but anyway um the cost of the New Hampshire retirement system to participate in for the employer is much higher than the Vermont retirement system so when people made that election it drove up these budgeted line so anyway we were dealing with that

037and as we brought that information forward you can also I will tell you now if you want to take a look at what some of those variables these are items that we call variables and um if you look in the budget book and Exhibits some of the variables are discussed in exhibit 1B it shows you some of the different collection changes in the dollar annc and we shared that with the budget committee the budget committee then uh looked at how much that uh increase cost was and that it represented about a one and a half% increase and so they allowed us to try to come in at a 4% budget increase year over-year so that's why you will see that our budget builds um is coming in in version four at 3.89% after there were

038some uh updates and changes uh with my colleagues in some of the line items as well as a 2% decrease in dental insurance came in a few smaller decreases in disability insurance rates um and as we put all those together it brought us in at a 3.89 after version four we had um another budget committee meeting on December 6th where the budget committee members asked us to bring two versions to the table four and five the only difference between four and five is is that five includes a 2% nonunion employee increase for wages four does not so that 0.04% that we go over for is due in part to that and the associated benefits counts is and such So Jamie in the far right column the percent difference for prop proposal five y there's some

039numbers that are red but I don't see a change I'm sorry that's a typo those those two red ones there's a few of them that are R so that's the person putting that piece together missed that so I will fix those and restate it so the minuses should be in red and the whole numbers should be in Black so apologies um I didn't have anybody checked this for me and so the person driving the train messed that up okay okay would that be J that would be Jamie and apparently Jamie also missed that this is the proposed 20 223 Budget on the left side so it's great when I love when I see all of the typos as I'm presenting sorry just goes to show you how human we are isn't it um so then

040we go to the important piece really that is the elephant in the room as we start to look at some of the numbers when we put the revenues and the expenditures together I'm now on Slide Five um we voted last budget year 2122 yes I'm in three budgets right now so um to have our sixth graders who normally were tuition into the dresen school district from the Hanover School District to become a part of the enrollment of the dresen school district in the middle school so as a result of that change those students now become a part of the enrollment average daily membership or ADM you'll see listed as part of Dresden and no longer will be represented as part of Handover School District that change is effective in this budget year that we're building

041for 2223 so because there used to be a big expenditure on the Handover School District budget which was tuition payment to Dresden okay that goes away The Interchange there of money goes away we just so Happ to this year have a very large class attending Dres in from the Handover school district and it's 1.9 million dollar in revenues for tuition so as we move into the numbers towards the end of this we're going to be looking at some very large number increases okay um for the Handover School District members when you look at your Handover School District budget uh build you will see some offsetting expens expenditure decreases okay on your side um there's also another um anomaly that we'll discuss that Norwich um ADM has been increasing while Hanover's ADM in this population census

042has been decreasing so had there not been a shift this year and we have slot we have information to show you on that and there not been a shift this year the percentage still of ADM difference for assessment would have shifted more towards knowledge instead of hand but we'll get to that so I get ahead of myself because we're talking about the change in the revenue and enrollment for sixth grade so that's very confusing I'm sure because there's a lot to it uh and we can go back if anybody has any questions reach out and we'll review what those changes mean as we have a many documents that we can share so then we break our budget down into three distinct sections okay it's one Dres in budget but it actually is three distinct sections

043districtwide includes all of the expenditures that do not reside solely in one of the different schools being Richman Middle School of Hanover High School this section includes some regular education expenditures uh in the way of technology and this is also where our District substitute and volunteer for coordinator resides um and then it is buil back to the Handover School District who also uses their services the school board and superintendent SAU Services reside in this section um we have a little bit of school administration cost which is actually the movement of mail throughout the all the district and then building and grounds maintenance and custodial all of our technicians for buildings and grounds maintenance workers reside in districtwide section the custodian cost for salaries and benefits and all of that reside in their um locations where

044they were either H high school or school then all of the debt for the dresen school district resides in the district right section if and this is review for some and new for some um please keep in mind that the Dresden School District cannot have um Reserve funds they cannot hold Reserve funds so all of the um projects that we undertake require debt to be written okay either in um bonds or at the bank in in conventional financing so major changes in this section this section has changed a bit from the first couple of builds uh the sa assessment is increasing by 9,640 we have a decrease in the districtwide tech expenses as we've made this new project and we've uh brought a lot of the different equipment up to par we'll be lowering some

045of the cost in that section um the building grounds maintenance in custodial has an increase and um a net decrease so we we're increasing salaries and benefits as the maintenance workers have a settled agreement um and we've included as we mentioned 2% for non-union w so there's a decrease an increase there of 14766 but we have increased our inter District service Bill backs for maintenance workers time to both Norwich and hover so that's going to bring in an additional $40,000 meting a decrease of 14,590 um we also were going were initially when we met with the budget committee and the budget feel it we're going to try to purchase a third vehicle so we can break up our maintenance plan to be more efficient in this budget but in looking at our budget lines for

046this year we believe we'll be able to do that now instead of later by doing transf um we also have the um the insurance the liability insurance for our buildings and grounds resides in the districtwide section we've been given a not to exceed number um that includes an increase of $864 uh we are insured with primx uh and then there are changes in debt service we've added the technology project on which is an increase of I think it's 85,000 but we had a one of our other Bond Debs rolling off which was the norwi um Fields project so the net of one rolling off and one going on is an increase of 44885 total District wide increase is $34,100 which is 64% about 3/4 of per over last year's budget and when you look at

047the 4.04% of the total increase budget to budget this makes up about one tenth maybe just over one tenth of that right of that growth year over year let's look at the schools okay it's much more exciting than districtwide although Tony might different enrollment forecast we've done this based on actual numbers some really interesting uh information occurred this year we we weren't sure what was going to happen coming off of a covid year where there were many tuition students and other students that were pulled out for either homeschooling or sent to other different options um as you can see 2021 actual for Richmond Middle School we had projected 340 students and we ended up as of October 1 with 357 although I think that number has been uh moving and increasing um the Hanover High

048School went the opposite direction and we were projecting 705 uh somewhat stable number and we came in with 69 90 part of that is our tuition numbers that we initially projected went down um so as we pull these forward we're again looking at a large uh class fifth grade class coming up from Handover an increase of about uh 12 kids so Richmond Middle School is looking to grow again uh from 357 to 371 uh and we are looking the high school has a very large class that's graduating the 12th grade class this year is 195 and the classes coming up behind them are averaging about 100 in 160s so they're going to have another adjustment year over year uh there is some information in the wording here um we're sharing some of the lower uh

049class sizes coming up um at canover over the next four years they're looking at class sizes of 85 77 76 and 81 in Norwich their class sizes are growing okay and and these numbers are as of October one so I think they're higher actually now um we're looking at 45 49 40 43 and 42 Vermont tuition students um some of the tuition numbers coming into to us are declining as some of the um school districts around us in Vermont have made other arrangements with uh more local um options and some of them have been forced to make arrangements with more local options um so right now we're down about five students from our projection and you'll see as we project forward we're going to project nine nine less for the 22 23 school year although

050I've been told by the high school that we've been adding tuition students good work um so moving on let's take a look at the middle school and this is where my U Middle School administrators are going to jump in and help out um so you wanna join me I know these are great I want to buy so do you want to go and I'll chime in or do you want me to go um Jamie Jamie talked about it uh quite a bit that we are having an expansion in the number of students that we have our population is going up and we have been looking for ways to address some of the academic needs that the students have shown and we think that the best way to do that is to basically equalize the number

051of sections that we offer in seventh and eighth grade as it stands right now uh the tradition has been seventh grade or 8th grade one has seven academic SE sections one has eight and it sort of flip-flops back and forth depending on which class has the most biggest need um it raises some Equity issues when we have classes like we have had in the past few years that are very close to each other um so you know 142 as opposed to 140 142 still more but not a huge amount and what we discovered would happen is that you would have students who would sort of historically have larger classes than their classmates throughout their three years at the middle school which didn't really seem like something that was Equitable and if You' ever been in

052a classroom with middle middle school students the difference between 17 students and 21 students although it doesn't seem like very much can be a huge amount so we wanted to make sure that we could equalize those numbers um there is a little bit of a the numbers budget to budget in terms of FTE are sometime and over the past two years are a little bit difficult to keep up with just because we made changes in our FTE last year based on remote learning based on a number of other things and we actually had to we made a change in FTE this year based on some long-term medical issues that we've had that we've had to address by sort of Shifting people around again trying to make sure that we keep everybody sort of equitably serviced

053in within the academics theate uh the part about the electives is sort of a a multiple birds with one stone idea in that we have at the middle school been examining sort of the amount and the specif of the homework that's being offered um or assigned at the middle school we've been talking about this for a while as we've made some shifts in that basically a lot of it coming out of last covid year we've noticed that a number of student the number of study halls that we offer during the year during the day has gone down the number of students who say I really really need a study hall or more than one um and as a result we need to have a corresponding rise in the electives that we can offer the other

054part that we've done a lot of research at the school level to notice is that students especially in Middle School are better able to cope if they have creative Outlets during the school day so um we don't need to be at a point where we're sort of reducing the amount of music or woodworking or art or whatever else we are offering we need to be in a place where we might be able to expand that um and it's one of the ways that we can deal with the social emotional health of our students which is one of the things that we prioritized sort of with everything that's going on and I think one of the things that has one of the things that's happened recently to us in talking to students about what is going

055on is that while the pandemic is first and foremost in everyone's mind especially now as what we're dealing with there are a lot of other societ vital issues that are out there that our students are very aware of and are sort of causing more long-term angst um than the pandemic because the pandemic to them is we go to school we wear a mask we've been doing it for two years it's okay the other issues that are out there are sort of larger issues that don't seem to them as 12 year olds they can't really make a effective things against climate change for example so we need some other way for them to to be sort of have a positive experience else so I think we've just covered slide eight which shows Staffing and we also

056you spoke about basically FTE breakdown and how that Staffing is going to look in the school uh during the school day uh We've also included some changes to the budget over the previous years um as I mentioned the budgets came in much higher than uh where we felt they they could be reasonably by what we were asked and so uh both Rich middle school and Hannover high school went back and made cuts to some of their asks and or redirected some of those costs um and you can see on slide 10 um that they are returning field trips to the pre-co levels because I them out completely last year they were one of the schools that cut them out completely um and I think you have a new way of man and we've basically we

057used to have field trips that were earmarked for specific departments at specific times um and because of the budgeting process it then made sort of figuring out what you were going to do for the next year a little bit difficult so this year we've taken all the money that we did have for field trips and basically set up up a in school system that's like csdc grants so people will write proposals hey I'd like to take these students on this field trip it's going to cost this much money and then we'll be able to be a little bit more flexible in terms of what's going to happen and not hope that something worthwhile comes to the hop which is what we had been sort of doing in the past so that was one part of

058it we use some of the money um an Esser Grant to to expand our technology this year something that we're we're hoping to do to again sort of expand the academic um capabilities of our students in terms of what they can do for assessment how they can show that they um know what they're doing as opposed to just you know what used to be pencil and paper and now is keyboard and Google Docs but there are many other ways for um middle school students to show that they know something they're incredibly creative in terms of filming and terms of recording in terms so we're trying to get all the devices to be able to do that that Segways very nicely into the fact that they are continually cutting um costs for textbooks and consumables because

059they are transitioning more to uh electronic platforms uh at the middle school during the day there um they've also reduced some professional development funds if you move on to slide 11 this really gives you an overview of what they're doing in their technology departments um many you're going to see this as a theme throughout most of dresden's budget um in that last year we cut and even at the end of the covid year where we were shut down we cut purchasing of techn technological devices um and so they're trying to get back on their regular scheduled programming where the devices are regularly updated and turned over on a schedule so that you don't have those es and flows through your budget it kind of Smooths out from year to year they've been very creative at

060the middle school and in using savings from year to year to try to you know keep this kind of stable um I don't know if there's anything else you want to mention on slide 11 I think no I don't think so we have a um we have a transition we have a new technology integrator this year Tom Hermanson came on board and it's been fantastic in sort of creating a plan um and it's much easier to do obviously we had a plan before and then Co sort of submarined the plan um but we have a plan going forward as to when we're going to replace things what we're going to do we had switched um for a couple years the eighth grade because of the eighth grade teachers had been really had loved uh the

061Macintosh capabilities uh but we looked at what they were doing at the high school um and we're we now phasing out Max for a lot of our students we're going to keep them available for certain projects in certain classes but since most of the high school is all Chromebook it didn't really make much sense to train people in the eighth grade for all the MacBook and then have them switch when they that's to the ninth grade so we're trying to make things to be more coordinated he has a great relationship with the tech people at the high school so that's something else that we're trying to to streamline going forward okay and then I think has question oh yeah I I do have a question about um cutting funds to textbooks and consumables consumable is

062not what you are using to refer to literature is it no consumables would be workbooks okay uh would be anything that you give out and don't get back okay and you know in a lot of budgets at the schools there's you know how many literally hundred of thousands of dollars for workbooks right which we really have gone away I just needed to clarify that because I think unplugging has an enormous importance in the classroom no we have actually increased and that's one of the things that um I don't know if we've increased but a lot of that will come through our library budget as well so we have increased the number of uh class sets that we have for we still hand out so everybody had a copy of Of Mice and Men which is

063one of the things that they thank you and they have a beautiful expanded library at some point if you're able to go and take a tour it's really something special They H fundraised that last year to install um and then On's got a question Tim building on what de was asking what are you doing with the textbooks for electronic resources are you away from paper yes we're moving away from paper textbooks largely because um of the things and I I think it sort of came up earlier is that it's textbooks are written it's one document it has sort of one generally right down the middle Viewpoint of a lot of different things um and it's sort of plays in with a lot of what we try to do to teach students in all of our

064classes is to evaluate the sources that they're looking at so that we're able to sort of pivot and look at a number of different sources whether it be scientific or social studies we did have we did make went back and made purchases of math textbooks because we had a teacher for a number of years John kiter created his own textbook so we didn't have to buy a sixth grade textbook so now we do we went back and bought some more textbooks when we need them um but we're moving large largely to electronic or if need be PDFs there are also a number of different um I guess uh platforms on the internet that allow you to take a specific reading and then change the reading level so that you can give the same topics to

065a number of different students who are at different reading level which makes it again much more equable so you can sort of bounce it around so everybody's reading about the Silk Road but they're reading about the Silk Road in a way that's much more accessible for them the reason I was asking is there's been a lot of educational psychology studies showing that people learn better from printed materials electron material it's not even controversial all of the materials all of the materials that we we have in the classroom are available in multiple different modalities for whatever that student okay finds as necessary so if we need to print it we print it we still make use of the copy machines on a a regular basis when I get there early in the morning people are running

066through the coffee machines to make sure that you can um certainly in our learning special Learning Centers to read to highlight to write notes is something that's very important but it does not need to be the you know giant US history textbook thank you okay as we move back I just jumped off say that's not my p no it's not your P sorry let me go back I was multitasking while you were chatting so then it shows us um what some of the budget cuts are that they were looking at making the spending adjustments I just was going out to look because we actually on the upgrade and venting of the Living Arts room we added that back in it was discussed about being cut but it's not being cut it's actually um included in

067the budget as built because we felt that that was a safety uh situation that should be included um we also do have some money still in for the painting of some of the different classroom areas back there sorry and this would be the time when I I do the shout out to our custodial staff at RMS who has kept building incredibly remarkably shiny for as old as it is with so we don't it's not like we needed the painting because anything was peeling it's still beautiful so glad to hear in some ways that we're getting the venting In Living Arts room although it tends to vent to the lobby so we get to smell whatever they're fing which most of the time is really good we'll miss that but um and then you can just

068see some of what the alternative fundings were for Tech costs and some of the tech Cost Cuts that they're making uh for some special equipment which I'm sure they'll rewrite with some type of grant funding um so at the end of the day we look at the our this budget summary by function and function remember is by Department basically and you can see where the increases are that we would suspect they would be in regular education because we are adding ft EAS to that realm um you know as well as some other items uh special education is increasing a bit as well uh R is here if you have questions on that um and then the lines all the way through so the increase for RMS this year uh budget to budget for the one

069we're building is $476,500 7% increase and it represents about 1.7% of the overall total growth for the part of the 4.04% I think that's it for you Tim thank you for joining me Tim any questions for Tim before he leaves sorry right aw sorry I know that sometimes the voices aren't picked up very well with the uh the math so I'm sorry for standing so awkwardly but I want to make sure you're able to hear me so I'm K Asus I'm the chair of the finance committee uh we have not had a chance to meet since the budget was uh made available so anything that I say is just off of or ask is just you know my own questions and thoughts um oh thank you that's better so and uh I just got a

070thumbs up from the catv guy um but I guess uh one of the things if you are at the over meeting you know that we are concerned about the $1.3 million that we're getting this year but maybe not next year so one of the things that the finance committee might uh be interested in is thinking about like well what decisions are being made in this budget that will have impacts next year where this year it feels very affordable maybe next year they W and so in particular new dollars are things that will get special scrutiny and um you know I know that this is not a new idea to even out the sections in the seventh and the eighth grade and certainly if you look at um the the class sizes in some years they're

071very close and you know it's kind of the Sophie's Choice you know which who which class gets the extra section but I do notice um that for next year that there's um you know one class is 16 students bigger than the other I guess my question was that if those numbers uh hold um is it something then that this changing to having equal sections is going to be the case going forward no matter what or is this a case where um there could still be a year-by-year evaluation of the need for the equal number of sections I can speak to that just really generally and that we looked at um obviously we do a lot of this as the district we looked at not only sort of what was coming next year but also talking

072to Lauren and Sean about how full they are at the elementary schools and that most of those students are have to go somewhere and just um anecdotally the number of people that we have had come to town in the last year and a half but we don't really see things going knock on wood uh in the opposite direction at the moment so we have two new students that were en rolling as of January who were coming in from out of town if we look at the numbers because I know people will go and look at the numbers and say we well you have two students who are going away they are going away but they're coming back in March so they had a chance to go overseas go to school in Madrid for three months

073and then come back and finish up an RMS so our numbers are continually going up so I think it's something that we can evaluate but we would want to evaluate not on the chase year byye basis that was the other thing that we're looking at here is to try to equalize and get some stability and if there's a long-term Trend then that's definitely something we got do so yeah you know so then what I heard is that basically you would want to keep the equal sections going for forward kind of regardless um is sort of that the short answer I gu true well I I I don't think regardless is is what I said I think for right now I mean I don't think I don't want to be bouncing point2 every year one it's

074untenable to hire a02 person one year and then not the next and then you just have difficulty maintaining any kind of stability so it would have to be more long term right and I think that there you know maybe there are other ways that we can address some of the money that we're looking at this year we have a huge a bigger Tech budget because we're having to replace a large number of computers which hopefully with a new uh sort of staggered process we can mitigate some of that going forward as no the certainly one time expenses like the 15,000 for The Living Arts that's this is a great year to put that in the budget and then next year it wouldn't be there but again I guess I just um I am looking at

075you know the numbers and I know they change but like if if you came up with a year where there was a 16 um person difference or student difference but it was only a one-year phenomenon then you would not want to go down to the uneven is is again what I'm hearing and I just want to make sure that I'm able to express your thoughts I'm not trying to tell I mean I think obviously there no principal is going to say yes please take people away from me that's just but I think there are ways that we can creatively look at it because not every single one of those teaching positions is an entire person so we might be able to people's what they're actually doing from year to year and maintain some stabil thank

076you Carrie go ahead thanks Rick can you hear me okay Rick can you hear me can you hear us yes yeah thank you so um a question for Jamie and then maybe a question for Tim or Jamie I'm not sure but um Jamie on page seven where you showed the enroll or enrollment forecast um you have some columns and you show uh 2021-22 projected as the second column and then um 2021-22 actual and then 2022 23 projected as the fourth column is the 2021-22 projected actually the budgeted enrollment yes yes okay so then um in terms of differences versus versus budget budget to budget because I think the do the dollar comparisons for salaries Etc are budget to budget um you'd be up 31 at the middle school um and down 44 at the high

077school is that correct yes yes okay so um and then on page 12 um I just want to make sure um these are characterized as um cuts cut in proposed um so cuts to technology are these um decline you know Cuts in the budget that was LA from last year to this year or these um proposed spending increases that were that are not being realized are they true Cuts or I mean I want to make sure Carrie we asked the the teams to when they came forward with their initial budgets to uh remove some stuff and these were what was removed from the initial budget proposals so this is like um um wished for additions that are not being realized got it so not true Cuts okay thank you other than the venting for The

078Living Arts room so um we'll we'll go back when I make the adjustment for the incorrect date on the prior slide and the colors will make that we'll highlight this because it's then added back in okay thank youie can you explain the delineation and costs of Transportation Services between schools like I notic at the high school budget is the transportation is seven times higher than the Middle School in the middle school is a very large increase can you walk us through it is yes it is um the high school has Athletics transportation for us Athletics um and the athletic Transportation includes not only two and from games but also two and from our Fields because all of our practice field the bulk of our practice fields um other than the turf field and the one

079over to the side here um they use the one in the middle back in the back or in norwi the buses are going back and forth twice every day in fall and summer to transport students to the Norwich Fields because there's that many kids that play um also within the transportation cost for the high school is the cost um that we made the conscious decision a few years ago to transport lime and hland because they were sending so many students to us U so that cost is D there as well um in Richmond Middle School I think we have very little cost because that's only the cost to transport the students in eighth grade who are coming to ninth grade PR programming um so that would be regular education cost looking at your budget's going

080from 2,000 to 30,000 where you I'm on slide 13 well that's because it would also include any special education Transportation oh that's not under special no no that's all Transportation costs so we had an increase in uh special education Transportation cost this year as for out of District cost thank you if you look in your long line I the longer expanded line item budget which is attached and go into the 2700s there's uh depending on how many different um you know at nor and Hanover you'll see five different uh subcategories transportation in the high school and Rich Middle School I think Rich middle school proba has two and high school I think probably has three four or actually and they have vocational then we transport twice a day for vocational programs to har uh Kim

081yeah I just wanted to follow up on Carrie's question so yes to clarify that those listed on that slide are kind of the cuts to proposals not true Cuts but I do want to make sure folks realize that we did have a true cut in our budget the prior year this current Academic Year and that we are kind of adding back which was when RMS cut uh true cut to eliminate uh assemblies and field trips so we're restoring that um so we're kind of just getting back to where we were on that item just to kind of clarify the difference between cuts and you know reductions of proposals and I I'd like to bring up even though it it did get lost in the sort of Shuffle to create the remote Academy is that we

082did have a a08 FTE for an intervention teacher that we never filled um because of Co so that we did have sort of we had extended and then just said no we there's no way we can pull that off right now so that was another I'm not sure if it worked out to be actually budgetary up or down but um in terms of me looking at people in the building it was definitely a person that that never got there last year's budget Kevin for this year thank you Jamie you said that um we cover the cost of Transportation with wine and Harford students yeah har so does that um does that affect how many students we get who tuition in yes so is that something that could be as we talked about last meeting about

083looking for an opportunity to expand tuition students the opportunties for them increaseing transportation to other areas and that has been brought up so we're looking into that for the there's that Corridor that sits up above us for Sharon and Strafford and Chelsea and yeah so so um Julie um and the guidance Department did reach out to some of those folks in those locations and that was one of the areas that they did any other questions for RMS okay on the Handover High School we're going to be hopping in the little white bus and drive into Chelsea kids the Chelsea parents did say that it would make it they might come if they were bus so that was the the start of that we have a little white bus we do we can drive I have

084to be trained I can train you train you right up okay so we'll start yes no actually this is uh you can absolutely and I can just bolster it so we're starting with the Han High School Staffing slide on page um and as you can see um the you know they took a a detailed look at what's going on with classes and class sizes and you know uh expected uh student counts um and they are lowering um the FTE in regular ed teacher Lines by 1.27 um there is a little bit of an increase in special ed teachers although that's a a bit of a redirect ction um the other certified staff is stable the school admin in the office um is is going down by one um and part of that they're using to

085redirect into the uh half increase in guidance library and Tech assistance um and so we've got a a bit of a movement here special education was uh we used to have this level of eight right a few years back and um you know as we cut budgets and cut budgets and cut budgets they kind of trimmed pre in that area right yeah that's the piece where we're we know our enrollment is down and we base the budget on the enrollment going down um although I'm watching that closely because I am told in the counseling department that in the case of kids coming back we a number of kids coming back second semester from Island School Mountain Institute no school and we have a potential um Refugee population coming to our area and starting next fall

086and some starting this year so I think those numbers will change we'll keep an eye on it but where we didn't trim down in terms of staff is in a specialed area there's higher need population coming from the eth grade so we'll see that the Staffing um has gone up with Ed assistance as well as a point two a special ed teacher we had a point4 and originally for a special ed teacher but a lot of the referrals we're getting we've gotten recently which have been many have not gone through so then we thought we could trim that back a little bit they haven't gone on to special we're a lot of referrals grou time to talk about that anxiety um and so trying to to sort that and how many people need the department

087on this the next slide I tried to um give you a sense of the process that we went through and and what was cut before even got to the the main group um and part of that and not cut what I asked our staff to give a picture of what they wished for or what they thought was more realistic if we could have everything we need even though we all have grown up knowing we can't have everything we want what would you want in an Ideal World um and so they built the budgets that way I don't think anyone went too crazy except for the catwalk we would love to have in the library but that didn't make it in and then we to fit more students so many students could fit up above but

088anyway we'll leave that um but in terms of the initial Cuts before we got it got to even Jamie um we had we had instructional coaching um we had some elective teaching staff we had the library furniture replacement because a lot of things are starting to break and you can look Avery peripheral upgrades um virtual teaching hybrid teaching things athletic uniforms General athletic the EAB which we were talking about about World Language travel so there's a number of things that people put in but I thought it was a good exercise in terms of knowing what we would do if we had the next $100,000 right so you know and what our staff would like to do when we met as a group to go over that budget before I end up doing the cuts we

089asked the coordinator and the CPP group to list their priorities and when they listed their priorities we took a few of those wishes and put them in the budget that our staff prioritized as higher our our leadership group and we cut the rest so that was that first round that said on October 14th so you get a sense that that's before anyone really saw it um and then the next round we did at the request of Jamie and the budget group and I wrote a few of the things that were cut there and what I think we're gaining with this budget is I think with the declining enrollment and the Staffing levels that we've left and cut some I feel like we can maintain the quality of Education that we have now um and have

090the same opportunities we have now for our students and the hope is some of those things we cut in that 500,000 round before you ever saw it if we have declining enrollments in some areas we might be able to try to to work things into those areas we I feel like we're going to meet and I talked to Karen oarn today on the way here I feel like we're going to be able to meet the special ed needs assuming we can hire the people because that's our our crisis right now we might want five EAS can we find five EAS um so we but we would have the money to be able to staff the special ed Department the way we need to with what we see coming from the eth grade um and then

091the athletic budget piece which actually isn't a huge item in terms of money but I think it's a gain in terms of this budget and what we're putting forward I put some of the reasons there why full-time assistant ad might help us at this school besides the large program and the coaches that we want to supervise well and I put the numbers there for all of you but I think um our town wreck department disappears um for high school kids I don't think that's true for other areas and we feel it here in terms of our what our kids have as opportunities for them what we tell them we don't want them to do but then don't necessarily provide opportunities of what they could do and so I feel like we will gain that piece

092that other towns have that it's provided by the rec department um as well as good supervision of the very robust Department that we have and then able to do leadership initiatives programming fan ambassador program things like that that I think were just meeting the needs right now of what we have um I do see though you know in terms of that I understand understand you know we have a lot of kids who travel who don't want to travel far kids could be involved but not travel far they can spend more time on their academics but also I don't think it's only an athletic realm that we need to make up for I mean I probably shouldn't be saying this publicly but I'll say it you know making up for where I feel like our town

093leaves our high schoolers I think that we're probably going to start moving in this direction if someone else doesn't we can control what we can control and so we're going to try to control that and and provide those opportunities for our kidss and if at some point the town would like to partner with us and try to figure out a way to meet the needs of high school students um outside of their academic life then we would welcome that but we just can't wait around um and so then the other piece is um educational technology I don't know if we're supposed to have concerns on here I'm sorry I feel like the concerns person but we're hoping to meet a lot of the tech needs that we cut from our first round and some in

094our second round in different ways and if that works out that'll be great but I think that we have a tech issue in terms of I think we're making what we have looks expensive but it's meeting it's keeping us where we are and things are starting to fall apart where we might not be able to make I can't give you a date ada8 compliance or accessible requirements um we are not necessarily able to move in supporting educational initi itive with tech we are doing well because we have a great tech department that's making everything keep running um but we're not gaining ground in that department and we saw it last year starkly in terms of what our surrounding schools could do in terms of hybrid learning even um in terms of using media in the

095classroom what they could do that we couldn't was really really clear and you know that we are really excited to work to get grants and and have people donate and all of that um and we'll keep on working on that but it's it's not doesn't have bells and whistles on it right and to Julie's point they are um using some of the Esser funds in order to do the um yeah the AV peripheral the stage one I think they we have attached some of the information to the exhibit sections of the budget book so if you haven't had a chance to look please take a look um in the back there's some exhibits and there's one other one that I want to add to it which I realized hadn't been added it was a an

096actual write up about the AV peripheral um project that was brought in after our meeting on the 22nd and after our meeting on right before it on the six um so they're trying to break that down to stages so that they can fund the first stage with eser monies and then look towards other grants that might come available to do the other stages um AV peripheral is um it's you know the all our projectors all our hearing equipment so we might be fine if no students show up in that department but we won't be if they do or if they're more the projections or you know and then and keeping those that equipment running and we have all different generations of it is a bit hard because we've cobbled together all along um it's it's

097it's a first world problem um we're not in like massive crisis but I just want you to know it's there and we have really great tech people who would come and speak to the board and know the nitty-gritty about it and I can't explain all of it but um but they're good people and I I don't think they want to fce the district they just want to be able to provide opportunity for kids surrounding um educational initiatives and being able to meet Ada and accessibility requirements right and they were and they had um spoken to the tech director you know when we looked at embarking on the technology project but at that point in time we really with the covid going on didn't know what the supply Chains would look like um so they talked

098about it many times whether or not to add that in or not add that in and just do the hardware part of you know like phase one with the tech project and as we know the tech project came in much lower than we had initially expected it to for the dread and schools um so I think they're going to be bringing forward some information on you know a potential way to fund that in a couple of stages uh going forward because we've not embarked on the level of debt that initially we were going to so the purpose of this part of the discussion is what just to give us yeah just let you know I just like you to know the bottom is we like the budget we have that we're presenting here I think

099we can do good things with it next year I think the school will do well with it with our declining enrollment and I just don't want anything to surprise you along the line so I just always leave the little extra not surprise thing then um slide 18 shows the reductions that were mentioned in an earlier slide so the Hanover High School budget summary is here um and again it's by function which is like departments um you can see in regular education the dollar amount is going down which we would expect especially with a lesser FTE um and on the flip side of that we'd expect special education costs to rise with the addition of FTE uh and some other costs in that area um you can go through the different exhibits that are attached to

100the budget book and it will explain uh many of these increases to you um so on slide 19 yeah the 96,000 in athletics I assume that's for the new position correct 70 probably um probably the bulk of that is the new position the salary at 70,000 what's the 84 for building and site improvements yeah yeah is that just a whole bunch of different maintenance things or is that a large project no it's not a large project it's a bunch of different maintenance items and Tony's over there chatting so hi Tom Tony I just was asking the $84,000 increase in building and site improvements that's just a mishmash of different projects or correct is it for the whole what school hand over High School this is the high school attention there that's my fault so that

101would that includes um um I think it's yes it's improvements with fening and asphalt I don't have okay and Kevin Kevin's got a question Jam slide 18 where it says budget reduction 194 505 that's not an actual reduction that's a reduction from the first round of wish list it's not actually from the build it was from the build between three and similar to's question the the build rection as this be clear on both these we had asked them right brick at the last budget meeting to put that in compile that just so people kind of knew what they want to have correct so any comments or questions so this comes in at 4.9% over last year represents about 2 and a qu% of the overall District growth which you would expect because it is a

102double the size budget of Richmond Middle School um double the children uh so our proposed total budget oh so before we let Julie off the hook here that's what I does anyone have any questions for the high school um Garrett remember your Tech Team came and did a great job presented like which as you guys know is my like pet peeve like this F they had a really good kind of longterm plan any of those things excuse my any of those things make it in or was that yes we should somehow like memorialize that going it was really good and it basically what they did is they laid out they went around they took like inventory and they basically said like here's what we need to do over the next like several years like this

103is the stuff that's going to break and it also unfortunately comes down to they needed to do stuff in both right because you can't just buy like a couple computers it has to be done so it was really good yeah yeah it's in the budget backup sheet for Han a high school for Information Services um so yes and they're you know they're prioritizing it based on um immediate need put some of the stuff off there and that is in which so that is that in the that's going to be in 112 2441 so it's in your 1100 it's in your regular education um I can break that out I just want to make sure that we were at least chipping away and they've been working with you a little bit too and they've been meeting

104yeah they've been meeting both media and Tech with me to try to look at what some uh funding opportunities might be and being able to phase it where's the AV is the AV part of that the AV is also in 2200 the 2200 it's on their wish list of the part of it is for the different phases yeah but if you look at the 2200 line that's up 136,137 lines okay if you're looking at the expanded budget um those are the different okay yeah so Julie J I may be just misunderstanding something here but on slide 16 references reallocation from the athletic budget and else allowing us toloy time assistant ad that to me would mean there wouldn't be a $96,000 increase in right there was uman here too but there was some um with

105coaches salaries you had some adjustments to coaches salaries to try to even out our coaches because we because it's there's not a total Rhyme or Reason as to why certain people Pi that there was also previously not there not covered there's also some medical and uh retirement additions um there's also um where she where Negan would cut costs that may not be necessarily found in that line would be in some of the transportation for athletics lines um where they they limited some of the uh amounts of trips that they were going to take she also made some Cuts in the um salary lines for co-curricular so it wouldn't necessarily show in the athletic line it we in the co-curricular line so there were some offsetting cuts for the addition as well so so what is

106the addition specifically for this position $70,000,000 so that was offset by these transportation and other things but then we increased it by 96,000 for increases to coaches salaries uniforms uniform cycle a replacement cycle for uniforms other things right we had yeah we had um I'm looking at them all now so um so right because that's in the 14 00 lines and it and there is an exhibit I attached it in the exhibit did a write up as well g000 right there's some ups and there's some Downs did that answer your question yeah I just one I think I may missed this story but the uh was a survey done indicating that we would have a lot of students [Music] participating overseen by this no but so last year we added theic um last year we

107added the Nordic development team which um is a non-travel interal type thing and it's been one of our most successful programs we hear from students all the time I want to play sports two or three days a week but I don't want to travel across the state and any of our teams now all the way from Varsity to freshman level or jb2 they have to travel and play games so it's 5 to six days a week um and I think you know we hear from students and Julie hears from students you know we need gym time we need this we just want to have a club volleyball program we just you know all the time so I think that there's definitely a need for it um I think depending on you know what activities we

108do it's going to look different and we want to make sure we're not taking away from our Varsity programs at the same time um but you know these kids you all day long now with the new weight room they're in there all day and have asked for programming for that so there's lots of opportunities um that I think we're missing that you know I just can't do yes so not surprised to hear that either but the more I hear you talk to the concern also seems to be a space I mean we've got hockey teams are starting at 5:30 in the morning basketball team are finishing at 9M yeah where do we find places for these inter I mean I think again great idea but yeah where do they go to do this well we'll

109talk about that a little later with the article we have an idea for that um but I think with our existing fields we can make that happen you know gym space is at a premium in the winter but not in the fall and spring so you do like a basketball right exactly so you know it may not be in season and I think you know we can utilize the weight room um much more and the you know we have we had an indoor track program last year and have one this year that isn't running in any meets yet we still have 30 or 40 kids so there's opportunity for kids that don't necessarily want to eat but want to practice and we can do that you know and whether it's doesn't necessarily have to be

110on a field either so I also don't think if this is my opinion it may not be means I think that some of our third fourth level teams don't need to run as Varsity sub varsity teams they might run as an inter- year old team and those kids would be happy to do that and not be doing but they want to be part of something so they join this team where they have to go to plth or work you know and travel all the time and so I think we would see some shifting um from the teams that that go three or four deep right because we see sort of a drop off in participation in terms of kids coming to practices and games when it's you know five or six days a week and

111I we're hearing from those kids I want to do something so I just signed up for this but then you know I look out on the field and there's nine socer players when there's 18 on the team like where' they all go well they don't come every day what we're running a program where they don't come every day where we're paying like we should be running a program that they want you know and I think there's a big population of kids that want that uh Kim thanks Rick actually I was going to mention a lot of the things that were discussed about the athletic assistant director so I guess I'll just kind of summarize by saying um from the budget committee perspective um really this um anytime you see a slide that says reductions right

112it wasn't really dictated by the budget committee or board members that sit on the committee it was um you know Administration working with staff to figure out what you know they would prioritize so just so folks know that these um items in the reduction were deemed on the lower priority although still important obviously um but those that are remain in the budget you know really were were a higher priority for for our Administration and staff so um just to kind of give you a sense of um kind of the process and that's how how things went this year thank you Kim Ben thought you had a question could I go back to the uh building and site cost just so because some of these are obviously onetime items the this section of the budget is

113usually some of it is reoccurring like painting or flooring or you know different updates but some of the bulk of these are one-time items isue uh the carpeting here for the media center in the library is proposed around $30,000 that's what it cost to do the one last year at Rich Middle School um the we are looking at air conditioning the band room at around $20,000 and that's because we've been having trouble keeping the band instrument in good repair because the room is too moist too hot too steamy um it it messes up the instruments we had to send some out for some serious repairs um there's some classroom painting for like wings like uh social studies Department math department those are in at $10,000 each um and then there's some expansion of access controls

114and some more cameras in some of the locations where we have what I would term uh I don't know if it's a nice term prob not a nice term they're dark areas right where where things occur and we can't see them if we can't see them we can't police them and it's important uh to be sure that everybody's kept safe um and so there's uh $7,000 in for those items those are safety items so those are some of the larger ticket items then there's the the normal items that we keep in each year we also have some upgrades for electrical in the art Department about $3500 um and then in the site repairs things we do every year we do driveway maintenance tree pruning and removal PE ropes course we have to do an annual

115maintenance on the PE ropes course which scares the heck out of me every time I go out there I'm like oh my God I don't want to know um it's crazy crazy what they do you also just add too on that particular site Improvement we could spend well I didn't know yet I mean these some of these are onetime costs but the crazy thing about the way we do this is there's repairs out there that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that we cut because we we don't want to put it in there because we know get eat it so and these things are coming up you know they're going to come up so we'll talk a little bit more about that which we're going to address an RFP for a building facilities audit very

116shortly uh by the January board meeting we hope to have some numbers to bring forward uh with the help of one of our awesome board members who has a background in engineering buildings going to help out um and so we'll take a look at that would be Kevin prioritizing us you know by the year some of those items because as we know a lot of the larger debt is going to be rolling off here in the next few years so let's finish up the budget discussion um so I got Carrie online Carrie and then krie you can go up to Carrie all right so do you want me to finish the slide well I I think they have specific questions for the high school should yeah thanks thanks Rick so um Jamie or maybe Julie

117um I know on sped I know it's very difficult to forecast um needs might come up over the course of the year and it sounds like you're trying to get on top of that and address maybe a shortfall in Staffing but um on uh one of these Pages page 15 you cite the needs of rising eighth graders um presumably we have Rising eighth graders every year so is there something about the cohort that's coming up next year that's um especially sped intensive if you want to get the specifics from red but it's a they're a higher need group so we still getting them but this is a higher uh yeah just a there a a larger cohort of students that have more significant needs require the St detail in the budget is that good c

118car yes and thank you and just just to follow up then and I know Julie you said it's hard to find people and it you know the thought sort of occurs well maybe you've got some people at RMS that maybe move and I guess and the related question yeah absolutely not but um but the related the related question is um if that was a um high-intensive group that's moving is there um a budget relief at RMS where you no longer need you know all that staff yeah um you speak I guess can I just speak to the I think the situation we're finding ourselves in in general is that if we're not able to hire and find pair professionals it's forcing us to reconsider you know other other means to addressing student needs which have

119historically been supported through a pair professional um and so looking at other different Service delivery models where we provide support uh in class for you know targeted sessions with special Educators um is one option that we're considering because even though there's a shortage of special Educators as well I feel like it may be easier to hire staff at that professional level than um the challenges we having with PA of professionals then can we take your I would I would say too just um anecdotally from talking to people who have come into the district that that one of the strengths of this district is the ability to deliver to students who have educational differences so that population is not a population that's going to go down I don't think um it seems to be rising I

120think Julie talked about it we've had a number of referrals at the high school we were having a number of referrals um at the middle school especially as we're dealing with students who have increased levels of anxiety increased levels of all sorts of issues that are coming out of the pandemic um so I think it's something that is to try to our Middle School people don't want to go to the high school but I mean even on top of that it's because they like working with the younger students Middle School people are middle school that's the way it works um but even if that were not the case I think that we're going to continue that number is going to continue to go up our our number of students that we have with IEPs in

121the sixth grade this year is is very high um you know historically and I think that's a trend that's probably going to continue Lisa yeah and not to prolong this but that leads me to my question about the high school in particular um anxiety levels seem be higher and I know that the um the therapy the therapists in the in this area are full like kids can't get therapy appointments um and so they're relying more and more on the counselors I think at every school but in particular at the high school and I see that function 2100 is down 0.5 um on slide 19 it was up in slide 14 um where it was to it with library and media Specialists and so I just Julie you didn't mention it as one of your concerns

122going forward so I don't know whether it's one of your concerns going forward but I just some of that is because of change over at the TV okay yeah so it's not that it's not that the total um FTE for guidance counselors are going down okay it's that we've had turnover in personel yeah I'm sure you guys thought of all of this but I I really want to highlight it as something that to answer your question about I feel like we're well staffed okay I mean of course and if we're going to be therapists for the whole upper valley we need many more people here but which it sometimes turns out to be right but I feel like as a school with our population with the people we have okay and the talent they have

123I feel like we're well staffed in our mental health area right now okay again I assume you all had thought about all of it but just it jumped out at me um considering where we are so I guess the only thing I can add is these are discussions that we have you know with individual student teams but also as a department um our school-based counseling for students with iets has to be oriented towards education it's not a replacement for outside therapy or full child work um but then we get into situations of one impacting the other and what's School related and what's not so when there's a shortage and there's weight list it's challenging for I think everybody but we do our best to incorporate those supports into those programs as best we can thank

124you bar did you have any other points before I let K asked no thanks Rick thank car so so turnover in the counseling department because of you know people retiring and new people coming in uh was about $46,000 this year okay lower yeah yeah so thank you again I just y yeah but that's why that's why that line okay thank you Asus again and so while we're on counseling or guidance it does look at the high school that we're talking about um adding A5 FTE in guidance and I was wondering if that could get a little bit more context yeah so that one is so in our counseling office for those of you who come in and not that many people come in anymore but we have um we we've reduced a number of years

125ago in all of our department offices they EA support to halim so there's a halftime English support person and there's a halftime social studies report support person when I was teaching many years ago there was a fulltime in each department and we we tried to equalize that so everyone felt like they got the hit and so the counseling department was s of the last to equalize it and this year they had half a person um not half a person but you know what I mean and then last year they shared that half halftime person with the halftime special ed person the special ed Department needed a full-time person so they figured out how to make that work in this year's budget which left the counseling department with a half time person we asked our CPP

126committee to prioritize what our students what what we need as a school they felt strong that even World languages having a halftime and English having halftime isn't ideal it's fine but they didn't feel like it was fine in the counseling department because kids come in in crisis and sometimes someone sitting at the desk and sometimes no one's sitting at the desk and can't rot them to the right place or find the person that they need to get help from and they felt like it was a priority to have someone supervising that space all the time and talking to parents and kids and the crisis that rolls in the door so that's that one that any other question before I let Jamie finish up the last couple slides Jamie okay yes ma' okay so we're gonna

127some biger numbers here uh the proposed total budget as you can see we said um is 4.04% increase or 1,385 194 please keep in mind if you go out to the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration and look at our documents online uh last year's adopted budget will be higher than that what is stated here in our documents because we are not purposely including the total dollar amount that was ratified by the warrant article for the tech project in the amount of $ 84276 we know we're not spending that much we're only we've only um committed for a loan in the $400,000 range but because you vote a warrant article in that amount you have to show the total amount then you just don't spend it and you don't raise it right and that's what

128happens so I just want to caution everybody that we're doing it this way so you can compare Apple stat okay without special projects skewing the numbers so if you go to the next slide 21 this takes all of our Appropriations it uh takes and it consolidates all of the revenues from the larger exhibit which is shared in the budget book um and it shows you the changes in the revenues here as we mentioned before the sixth grade tuition is the elephant in the room that's going away uh at $1.9 million we also have a reduction uh projected in our balance carry forward as the 7 $100,000 figure from the prior year really was a result of the covid pandemic closure and our ability to carry forward more money in retainage than we normally would we

129carried forward I think in the sixth perc range um or it was a was a very large number um 4.62 Jamie 4.62 Kim almost yeah so so that that amount that 700,000 is basic most of it is because we released we went from a 4.62% of our of our um budget that we can retain um we because we are quote no longer in an an emergency we wanted we went back to what we have currently on our books for an approved warrant article which is only up to in a two and a half percent so we basically released the difference between that 4.62% to the two and a half so it's like a one-time release of of cash that ended up in last year's budget correct thank you for the clarification Kim um and then

130as I mentioned we are going to be um projecting fewer uh tuition students um we have some adjustments in local sources um interest rates are not good if anybody didn't realize that um and then the state sources change in the state sources which basically is the reimbursement for um um building Aid okay it goes down every single year a little bit until you pay it off and then our last building Aid Revenue will be the year that we pay off our last payment on the big budget so at the end of the day uh revenues to revenue revenues year-over year are projecting to um decrease by 2, 21,780 or about 3631 um and then if you look at it and you roll in the balance carry forwards then we'd be off 2, 321,750townhouse the assessment

131breakdown is shared beneath that figure and then if you go to the next page it shows you uh what the breakdown of the assessments are and it shows you also um the breakdown of the student ADM which is average daily membership these are not necessarily FTE counts but they are actually average daily membership meaning how many bodies attended school every single day for that school year okay that's why you can have point7 S of a student in ABM um so if we move on if we so let's stay there for a minute if we go out and we look at some of the other um exhibits that I attached in the board docs there is a Dres in allocation statistic and assessment difference grade comparison done on December 6 I don't believe our budget numbers

132changed no it didn't so these these two pages show the difference because of the change in the addition of FTE from sixth grade Handover into Rich into the dresen school district um and it shows you what we shared on that slide if you go to the second page I'm on a different handout on the board docs you probably don't have it Kevin on paper form um sorry it's on the it's in the board dos there if we hadn't made the sixth grade move to Dresden you can see that the Norge percentage of assessment would have really risen uh to 35. 314. you're welome because they've been growing in the upper grade level you know they've been maintaining their size in the upper grade level um and so that assessment on this dollar amount that we

133have to raise would have been higher uh so we wanted to be sure to show that difference because I'm sure the know taxpayers are probably going like wow what the heck happened right um I don't think I don't think I like this sixth grade T um so so that's part of it okay um and then as we wrap up this budget presentation that's probably longer than some people would have liked to see um my mother used to say I'm not good at making story short um but there's a lot of information here uh as we've mentioned we're going to be looking at some potential other warrant articles uh the first two we've known pretty much all year across possibly coming we'll know later tonight whether or not uh the boards will ratify So Jamie let

134me just what because this will be the next discussion let's just hold this slide right here so let's wrap up the budget uh presentation um so is there any final comments or questions for Jamie or the principles thank you that was great and thank you Kim and Jamie your whole team for putting together uh really good presentation so now we'll go on to the warn articles so if you wanted to kind of these are the ones that you think uh we need to discuss and then the board may have some other suggestions and people from the public right sure and and I'm sure that um the the chair of the budget committee um has some thoughts as as do I think the hand over finance committee perhaps um the first two um are as a

135a result of our negotiations this uh past early school year from September through December uh we met multiple times uh with both the support staff and the teachers unions we have tentative agreements that need to be ratified by both groups the support staff uh Union ratified D agreement uh approximately a week ago um the teachers union I've not heard from yet I don't know when they're voting um they they approved they ask that we talk about it tonight at okay so they've ratified the agreement so it's now up to the school board in executive session to discuss the parameters of the agreements and see if um if we bring those forward um and if if and when we do bring them forward we're happy to share the overview with everybody uh also on our discussion

136uh agenda tonight um would be perhaps any athletic Athletic Facility upgrades that have been uh discussed um over the last year or two um with yeah so is this a different proposed warrant than the one that's on the 6C athletic warrant article proposes or is this is that the same thing of these no this would all be the same it's just my wrap up SL that's going to be segue into your next s okay and then the afor mentioned facilities condition assessment um which we've not driven the cost of into the budget at this point uh we hope to have cost before this goes for ratification warrant articles don't have to be determined until later in January and when we had that discussion two weeks ago is the facilities condition assessment also include the athletic

137facilities um it can yes we were going to chat about that and write it into the um hope to write it into the r okay so although we've got some assessments which you're going to discuss you know got some early assessments by some experts in that field okay um so I'm a little unclear are we making a decision on which warrants we're putting forward or is this just this is just to let you know for December to start thinking about uh we usually ratify warrant articles at one of our January meetings Okay so Kim did is there anything else on that or anything additional to the the ones that Jamie just talked about yes thanks Rick um and so we've kind of been talking about it when we talk about retainage so the budget committee

138discussed at our last meeting in um I don't know a couple weeks ago um where we think it would be prudent if we would um and actually recommended that we put a warrant article that um increases our um cap on retainage to the 5% which is now state law um we have um I think in Dresden it's particularly more interesting to go to the 5% because we do not have Reserve funds so the thought is is that we are currently reserving the max it's almost rote every year we just reserved the max um because it's our only equivalent of an emergency fund that we have available to us in Dresden because as an interstate we can't have Reserve funds um and so the idea is if we go up to the 5% which we are

139now allowed to do um in New Hampshire law that we can think about using that extra 2 and a half% more like of a Reserve fund capacity so for instance what we were able to do um in Handover for instance is we actually ended up not borrowing as the tech project we approved it across the board in in our SAU District buildings but um as the amount of the project came in lower than our expectations in Handover we realized we didn't actually need to borrow and so we could actually dip into our Reserve funds pay with it and then knowing we could kind of replenish it um as we move forward and and kind of not have to take out a loan um in Dresden since we don't really have that piggy bank um because

140that 2 and a half% is really just bare knuckling an emergency fund um you know we really haven't had that kind of flexibility so it just something for us to think about if we move to the 5% which um the previous Max was 2 and a half% and now you know Hampshire state law moved it to the 5% I think it just makes sense for us to use it as a lever um that we uh take advantage of ially and and perhaps kind of think about using that extra 2 and a half% um as you know a pseudo Reserve fund is is an option but of course we can decide to to not um you know we don't and it's the prerogative of the board each year to vote on how much to retain um

141so for instance Even in our Emergen you know when we were in the state of emergency last year um we were able to kind of override what our prior warrant articles were through an executive order um and so we decided that we could have gone up to 5% retainage but we decided not to we looked at what we needed for covid Reserve funds and and we said 4.62% was all we needed um and then we released it back down to the two and a half% when we no longer had that executive order giving us that right so just to kind of give you a sense of how we've used it in the past and how we could use it and and how you know other districts in in Handover for instance have used mechanisms like

142a reserve fund to um to kind of help us smooth out some of um the bumps and some of our large Capital cost funding so that that's kind of something we can think about thank you um are there any other potential warrants that the board wants to throw out there before we talk about some of the ones we're just discussing okay so I guess you want to go dive a little more into detail on these potential warrant articles um I think we're good and we could probably I think B really is a part of a under budget presentation and we probably unless Kim um think differently we could probably SK to see okay so but just uh I I I guess I'd like to learn a little I understand the the union agreements that that

143as long as we ratify that that that's a given so a little more update on well I guess athletic facilities that we can talk about see what is facilities condition assessment that's what we're going to put out on on RFP and request for proposal well yeah and I know but for the rest of the board that wasn't part of that what what why are we doing that and why we think it's a good idea to put on a war um this was your because the budget is for two reasons um all of the budgets are up uh it would have to be done by warrant article on all three budgets or driven in um while we have a potential cost they can range depending on what company you look to hire between probably I've seen

144them as low as 30 but they're not very uh in depth 30,000 and probably as high as you want to go um I think a good number usually runs about 75,000 um depending on how you know how big your buildings are and how many you have we don't have a lot we only have four um and so um I've not put it in specifically because I don't have an exact cost um and then Jay if you want to kind of talk about thinking on why we're discussing sure U at the same time this is happen we're embarking on a strategic plan and part of that strategic plan is as we think five years out and Beyond uh what do we want for our students in terms of facilities how will our facilities um keep Pace

145with the changes in technology changes in curriculum um changes in what we determine are the best modalities for our students to learn in and so more than simply assessing the condition of our buildings right now we we need an opinion from a professional about what is ideal for our students moving forward and how will that mesh with the things that we outline as our priorities for our educational program and we decided I can't remember which meeting was was it the four chairs or it was one of the meetings that if we waited you know now we're another year out so we felt like if we're going to do strategic planning we might as well get the information now and not have to wait another year to do it so kind of our thinking on the

146one article D it was our budget yeah the other thing I think that was important here right is we keep talking about this big nut that's coming off and that we're to spend all this money well if we don't we don't have a plan in place for when that comes off then we're all just going to get to two years from now be like what are we G to do what do we so I think we decided at the last budget meeting let's start looking at this maybe we end up taking two small loans or something and not all of a sudden one all at one time and maybe do something earlier while rates are still good you yeah and Kevin I long-term infrastructure planning or Master planning is a lot more effective than have

147condition assessment as a baseline for so you know whether looking at maintenance issues or rebuilding issues or building issues thank you so is there any other comments regarding the facilities condition assessment and the retainage and the union agreements I guess we'll just move ahead and put language together for those three and then the other one is the Athletic Facility upgrades and the um the other athletic warrants so is this you Tony this so this would be I think you're looking at potentially two different ones although it could be written as one and I think I'm going to bow out of the seat and maybe let Tim come up along with Jonathan who um have been very involved in this that makes sense and maybe as well yeah I'm just gonna talk first because there's a

148lot of new faces um and I'm not new but I'm you know only four and a half years in um give you a little update on these two facility athletic facilities that we're talking about here and maybe expand on the whole thing a little bit one is the track um we some of you that have been here a while have heard about this in the last three years actually um from what I've learned over about tracks and I'm I'm no expert but I have talked to called experts uh tracks in this part of New England are a you know 15year product um and we're at that they're at that time um uh you know when you talk about grass fields they they contend to depend on their use uh and what kind of Maintenance you

149do to them they need a renovation every 15 to 20 years um we all went through our artificial turf field renovation back in 19 which was 12 years old and they they are that's a 10-year product um so these things aren't aren't going away when we talk about long-term planning every 10 to 15 years we're going to be replacing parts of our athletic facilities if we want to maintain the level that we're at or that we've been at over the years so and and when we also talk about the rest and I want to deviate into the rest of the facilities because it's the same same concept that things have a life cycle uh and they come do and we did it we did a we built the middle school back in 05 and we

150renovated this school in six seven and8 or six and seven so we're we're pushing that that window of 15 years out and um kudos to some of the maintenance folks before us whether it's custodians or maintenance guys like Tim had said the Richmond School is in pretty good shape this school's in Fair shape as well but it's this school was cbed together from multiple generations of buildings and I'll just put it out there that you hear a rumor out there it's probably been from me that maybe we think about building a new high school at some point that tonight we're doing facilities back to the athletic facilities um we are um we spent and I I I don't know the exact number but we spent the Fairmount doing the astro turf and the drainage down

151there back in 19 let's say it was close to three4 of a million dollars and I think we would be looking at the same for the track facility and it's funny when they talked about building these things 15 years ago they they kind of itemized out what things would cost to replace them they talked a lot about the turf field because that was a 10-year product and that came in right about the numbers that they estimated back then um and this you know the change of turf field and AST tur field is going to be about $400,000 every 10 years and so back to the track the track is is a similar product um they say you can put a uh synthetic track on an asphalt surface twice and that synthetic track should last if

152it's maintained properly maybe 15 and maybe upward of 20 years if if the sub soil sub Bas is adequate and was installed correctly ours has held up pretty well but I will not recommend and maybe some experts that we talk to I would not recommend that we tear off our synthetic top and put a new one on the the asphalt that's there I think the asphalt will need to be reworked and possibly the drainage uh on the inner part of the track and then there's from The Advisory athletic advisory committee there's been talk of maybe putting some uh uh AST turf or artificial turf in the center of the field out there to accommodate uh more Sports more programming um more access to the fields but you know I would let all you guys decide

153about that because it's these are I mean I to listen to the rest of the budget stuff it's still kind of like a buzz kill coming in here and saying all this you know it's got to spend a lot more money but that's what this stuff costs um and for the long term and for now we're we're at that point of the track and the baseball field um because of their age you have any kind of questions I'll let these other guys jump in with their thoughts that's my thoughts AS Val has to maintain this stuff and make it usable so the baseball proposal talks about cutting trees down now is there act 250 considerations does this all need to be approved not trees but if we start putting in uh more drainage and stuff

154like that for Waste uh storm water then yes um it's the Vermont development where if there's so much work done then you got to get State approval you got get permits for this stuff even if we're going to build a structure out there or or even if back to Lisa's point about the septic system if we all think that that's a good good option down the road and yeah we'll be we'll be getting on that 250 per for all that stuff but but if you're just going to like redo the the grass and stuff like that no we don't have to get in that 250 or trees okay we're going to um GNA start adding drainage and other structures okay so before we do questions is there anyone coach did you want to add anything

155or you don't have to well I was hoping there was going to be more discussion about it than mentioning it but maybe we're a step ahead then when the last time I was in front of this gr two years ago um and I could add light to why I feel like the baseball field is subar compared to all the other facilities been to In the state but know we're at that point what you guys yeah so I guess let's just ask some questions from the board and then hopefully we can if if someone has a concern about why we're thinking about doing this so Tom well my questions Bas I looked at the attachments here but I don't see actual numbers so what when are we going to get to the point where we see

156what the actual number would be tied to the warrant part and and if someone can explain this HHS track valuation to me I have no yeah I can jump in on the track evaluation so we did have a a company that does uh evaluations of atic facilities used to be called Sports lab now it's just on here it's called Firefly and they came out and looked at our track and um basically they just you know they took measurements of depth and hardness and all that again there their assumption is similar to what I mentioned that our track is 15 years old it's hard fast surface it's it's uh in Fair shape because it's not there's not a lot there's no cracks in it right there's no vertical separations there's very few uh frosties we actually

157took care of we did a minor maintenance a few years ago and took care of a few of those uh but it's it's getting to that point where it it will be a s it is kind there are some safety concerns there are still a lot of deviations in the levelness of the track um and that that comes and goes with the frost and the surface is is hard and potentially could be slippery at you know I haven't heard of many accidents but I am hearing that it affects the way we uh run our program and I do agree I think our coach has mentioned that he feels uh that it's almost to the point where we probably can't hold meats here and and I think that's a viable comment that it's more of a

158going to be a practice facility this year maybe next year I'll let Megan speak about that if she thinks we have to have meets here or not so with regards to cost tone um we'll have a better handle on that in January I I um you know and we're we don't have a formal uh survey design engineered design and um although we don't have that we do have an EOC uh from a couple of different engineering firms on what that would take so we have those early costs um we're looking to one of our um partner districts who is thick in the middle of getting in estimates on a brand new track and so we've been in conversation with them to try which will give us and inform us of what some of the costs

159might look like without having to go through all of the expenditure of the survey uh designed cost to get there so um their bids are dueing in the next couple of weeks which will give us more information on what that might look like in this present environment the track so we have three bids from we have two from engineering F we will have those in two weeks that we apply to some sort of Warrant language that would come suspec I'm not going to put get that we'll have better information in order to give you an idea of what cost would look like to rebuild a brand new truck yeah without the turf field in I know what it cost 15 years ago and running the same much transition to the baseball field is it the

160same sort of I I saw numbers that were between 100 to $175,000 but last year we were talking half a million yeah I have ined those Jonathan yeah we we've talked about both of these projects for well the extent of my term so far um and the um the baseball field proposal that originally came in um the timing we all determined was not great and it was a very large project at the time um The Proposal that's now been submitted um is about a little more than less than half that so it's it's definitely cut down IT addresses quite a few of the immediate problems I think our Athletics group has felt that um you know when we first started we we asked Ean to kind of come up with kind of her depth chart

161of priorities of facilities um and if one is the track then one a is the baseball field um that's kind of where we've gone in that if we can wrap both of these into either one which we've talked to Jamie about or two separate warrant articles I think we would be supported either way um where we are with the track is that it like T said it's a safety issue um it serves more than just a track team it serves multiple Sports it serves PE classes and it serves the community um and then the baseball field on the other side is you know we piloted some Equity issues we piloted some safety issues I me they're not using it at times during the spring because it's unsafe to be on um so that's a safety

162issue um so I think you know our our group if we had to someone said you can only choose one right now we were going to support the track right now and then the baseball field next that being said I think if there's a way to be creative to fix both of these facilities sooner rather than later I think um it would be it would be very good we' be in a really good spot Athletics wise okay hold on yeah go Ahad so are we pretty confident with that 175,000 we waiting on more estimates in sorry can I so we have a student who's been waiting for two and a half hours to speak on the track and he has to leave so St hi good evening my name is Pier Singh and I am

163from Norwich uh I attend Hanover High School and I am a spring and winter track Captain uh and I'm going to speak on behalf of the track team right now uh I know it's covered with a foot of snow but if you ever have a chance when it melts just go on the track and it's evident that it is in rough shape shape uh there are holes big patches faded lines and worn rubber the condition is so poor that you can even see the hard dark rubber below the surface starting to show primarily in the first three lanes within days of starting practice uh my teammates come down with shin splints and other injuries it's not good for their knees it's not grippy uh athletes shouldn't be worried about the surface they run on and

164that it will injure them I remember last spring during races the first Lane right at the 200 Lane mark would have these like little dug up these holes you know I'd have to you know Dodge them during my race uh you know if I if I step in one of those you know it's game over and the 100 meter Mark uh start is also just completely worn away uh you know some of my best races have been here at Han High School the first Lane uh or not only if we had a better track would I have been able to run faster but I would have been able to train better uh furthermore last last spring we almost couldn't host track meets because of holes in the track uh came down to I'm not even

165joking the last day before a meet before buildings and grounds or uh someone uh put a patch on the track to fix it but that was a temporary fix uh look no further than our neighbors in Lebanon they are in ineligible to host competitions last year and this year uh this will be us within a few years at HHS prior to the P pandemic we used to be known for these big meets for example my freshman year we hosted a division-wide last chance meet before States and other meets like that meets are big for the program Friends of track get involved parents and community members get involved and we raise the majority of the money for the track program some schools aren't this fortunate to get these meets and we don't want to lose that

166since my freshman year I've been fighting for this track on Council to Administration to Athletics I was often told next year we'll do it next year I don't think we can really wait I don't think we have many more of those I think this is urgent I speak now as a senior disappointed that I will never get to run competitively on this new track but it's not just for me it's not just for the 40 or 40 plus members on the track team it's a resource utilized by other teams clubs students staff alumni and other members of the Handover Community I think recently we saw during the global p uh lockdown the in Spring of 2020 people ran and train on this track every day from seniors in our community to professional athletes this is

167as important to our community as the aser tur field uh the track has been long neglected and I think it's time we replace it completely thank you thank you Tony do you have the design drawings and theils from when that TR uh we have the design drawings but we do not we never proceed asil and for the investigation about the baseball field and the trap they do physical investigations of Sol on the baseball field we have now we've investigated the drainage system over there uh and that's about it to see what it was put in as what we had for as I mean had we had for designs um didn't they do any boring what type of site investigation is done to assess the of the fields to help the engineering firms come up with

168a reasonable design and cost they'll have to do that we have not done well he did hand coup yeah okay um so John resp just in response to Kevin um the the evaluations that were done on the baseball field were done by a third party not brought in by us it was a group of parents brought them in and they did it prono um so it's been done but that was three years ago at this point we have not actually contracted someone as a piece of pavement underneath first base if that gives you any IDE no it doesn't actually in terms of an engineering design you need a site investigation to be able help the reason C I am not you know without having that investigation any cost you get something of that cost you

169need investigation doesn't cost much design out that you're gonna either overspend or change part of the the engineering design they both put that in there it would have to be done before you get cost is what I'm saying their propos the cost is only to do that work okay then they would take those findings to build their design okay so what's frustrating as a board member right is I guess I was at the last budget meeting and it took Tim to base to say hey I think we need a new baseball B it's like never heard of this before so what's wrong I don't understand like we haven't inter I mean I come from another town I was a capital Improvement committee they've got a school district Capital Improvement plan of facilities budget plan it's

170like long term like why all of a sudden this just it just kind of happened to come in the last 10 minutes of our no so this is yeah this has been an ongoing discussion for three years years three years what happened last year was last minute there was a request to put a warrant on for the can't continue last minute plan that's what we're working on now that's those of us like we're we're two years on this board like I don't know I may not be reelected in two months which means someone else is going to be sitting the seat maybe and they're going to basically be sitting here completely oblivious to like the fact that basically we have a track that sounds like it's barely function run tra before this is embarrassing series

171of naive questions if you're um when you say series two or three and I'm Le on um for for both of them is it more weather or usage that's causing the deterioration or both uh I think the baseball field was probably not put together properly the first time around you know in the infield most the SP that we're talking about um and I think the track has gotten a lot of use and I I mean like like people have said not only our own track team that uses it Valley running you know uses it our Middle School track uses it and that's where I'm going with that would would you say that apart from high school middle school activities is public usage meaningfully contributing to the deterioration it mostly track but the way this all

172was passed 15 years ago was the commitment to community use okay so are we within our rights political prerogative whatever to ask the town to step in a little bit and help us out or that get not started you could but it's not uh it's not their land it's not their facility and I don't know that the uh Handover funds of track yeah they they might be but they're they're a a separate group that's not a part of the town of Handover where is considerably more there's more wear put on by the track team because of the spikes so if you have people going out and walking around the track on a regular basis that's not really the issue especially if you have people walking on the outside you get the big divots in the

173first two lanes because you've got people running 3200 meters wearing spikes you host these these meets right so if we were to tone down public res put up a fence change you probably won't pass the that's question keepall yeah believe me this has all been said before and asked before back to G's point where like you know I'm still somewhat new on the board well these specific question by the board back then you know you know there are some people still around that read many notes about all of this stuff uh well and that's what when Jay came on board he started this talked about a plan when we came here we talked about we all came together really right we don't have yeah so then my leading question so what would it take by

174the next meeting to have um proposal or figures that were I think reasonable enough you think would be okay to put on a warrant article because I mean it's the the tricky part here is you don't want to UND shoot but you don't want to overshoot by too much either um and so is it realistic to expect within the next month that we would have numbers tied to each of these projects that then this body could consider in terms of then whether or not we think it's appropriate so I would say yes much to the sh of the engineer probably sitting on the board um I think that we have we I think that we Poss have enough um older records of cor booring that was done in some of the locations that we're talking

175about at least in the norwi fields area and I don't know that we have as builts here but I do think that we have records that we could probably look through um for the track and I don't even know that um you know the subsurface records for the track are going to make that big of a difference in projecting what the cost to rebuild it would be because you're still going to take it knowing that the base is probably not worth um you know reusing you're still going to take it down uh and bring it back up so um yeah I have some experience in rebuilding tracks I was at [Music] M so Rick I think I would just suggest that you know to the chair's prerogative if we could get you know as detailed

176of a costess as possible for both these project for the next coordinat for them this I agree and that's what I thought we were gonna have a you know not a rough order of magnitude but at least a reasonable estimate for both and then we can have a discussion on rolling them together or keeping them separate the track one will have more information you know again based on the track portion of what the costs are from you know probably um from some up within two or three weeks that we'll be able to make some other phone calls here and a site inspection on the baseball field can that be done in the winter with I think it's already I honestly think it's already been done on the last one which was proon which is John

177and I'm trying to look it up my computer died the kind of scope of work that we've gotten from Todd I don't know if you've seen it I got it today was to go down about a foot so whether or not we have to go down farther than that I don't know but you know for all the new faces on the board 2019 we had seven days on our field where we could use the whole field and those seven days were home games we play eight home games our eighth day was at dark to give you some sort of idea of the playability of the field now that was a very bad year this past year was a very good year we didn't lose any games but usually somewhere in the middle is where we

178end up and that typically is playing eight to 10 games in the last two weeks of the season because we've been brained out through all of April because our field isn't there so that's not normal for the State of New Hampshire even this far north if you look at Plymouth there similar latitude they don't run into these issues at all Littleton who was even far of the North they don't run into it so it's not just a northern New Hampshire Northern New England thing it's this is a field issue yeah um my son played baseball and um it's more than just the game situation right it's practice um the JB I don't think practiced on that baseball field that entire season like not once they practiced on the soccer field and with makeshift bases and

179um you know so it is an Equity issue if we're going to support a JB team and a varsity team we need to support the JB and the varsity team so um it it's both games and also practices and again you know I recognize from a big perspective it's one team on this field which is a little different than the track but if we're going to support Sports we sort of need to make sure the kids are safe um so thank you L any other comments or questions I just say I'd be happy R any inform J I just located the presentation that was done by Pathways Consulting on December 17 2019 at the regular meeting so the conceptual the Field improvements that were projected in the uh infield plan can be found if you

180if you go to that meeting in board dos December 17 2019 Dresden budget presentation and regular meeting this very meeting yeah so I think some of that information could be relevant to the new updated design because I think the new updated design was done by a different group but they might have utilized some of that information that came from the original okay thank you any other comments or questions well that 30 minutes I have one we can't hear you Kim go ahead Kim um the only thing I was going to add is just how um when it comes back with a with an amount kind of just a recommendation on how it would be funded whether through debt to spread it out or um in the case of you know kind of a one-time expenditure

181I just just some thought on that would be helpful as well thanks that was under the assumption that we would do as a bond or something right Jamie yeah um yes Bond um we would look at what the so in order to do that if you want to spread the debt out to keep the paying lower um it would be we need to know what the length of the um life of it is we know tracks are 10 to 12 years um for baseball field that's a little trickier I think we could probably sell it at 10 years um so yeah you could look it going out 10 years we'll bring you some numbers because that is cheaper right now than would you have something car so I don't know if Carrie is still listening

182he's sort of one of our bond guys he is not on the call okay so I just would say that the um finance committee has been um Advocates of the Town bonding because of the really great environment uh right now and you know if you look at potentially what you could borrow it today and what the money is going to be worth 10 years from now it is really advantageous although I know that it is tempting when you see um other bonds being paid off to say oh we can just pull you know pay this uh upfront today that's attractive um but actually if you do the numbers there could be an advantage to bonding and uh you know either Terry or mat would be your your go-to uh people on that but I see

183uh Jamie saying I didn't screw up too badly on that topic abely andick it's January 20th for the letters oh January 20th thank you so I have a question kind of off topic here but Ben brought up this whole public use of our tracks and stuff like that just can anyone around the table answer so I've heard a lot of people around town talk about Dr in field it doesn't really drain can't really place even the lower fields and then you know we have all these Sports we have all these adult programs we lost a big facility for even adults to play soccer down in Grandam you know we have the sports that you can't play baseball here that doesn't stop snowing until May field hockey cross like who do we who do just tell

184me who do I talk to even about like a public private thing where someone could start looking into including like a Kua type facility down there that's covered on the Dres in fields I mean how does he and something like that get off the ground as far as it would require the town it would require the school and again maybe you don't talk who I to after J why are we not right because the track team could play the baseball team cross team right like men's women's adult leagues like I mean the quality of life because the problem with this whole town is it doesn't it doesn't even warm up for the kids are out of school and you know it's like June before anyone can get outside so you're exactly right um I think

185I mean I've heard this come up again and again I think part of um the Dres athletic advisory committee has been talking about facilities and priorities and we jokingly say we need an indoor bubble we need you know and again I I don't know who you talk to I mean I'm all for it but you know I know several many people throughout my time here not just at the school but have talked about privately funding something and when we grant them indoor clo you know where where can we put something like that how can we do that um with the covid shutdown we haven't been able to use Dartmouth so we don't have an indoor tractor running we don't have tennis courts we don't have you know all the things that we use there so

186there is a need for it in the community I think that's obviously more than is our um in terms of what school district should be doing but I do think some of what the school district should be doing is providing a track and providing more space to be able to play if you go out to Lebanon and see what ccba did those tur fields are used all the time um and it's a very small facility um but if we had more Turf here which is why I advocated to the committee to turfing the inside because we live in a climate that you can use that field for two or three months of a year if you have turf as you see on our turf you can use it all the time so I think that

187you know we have kids at practice until 9:30 at night because of the lights on the turf we need less of that we need more facilities that people can use and that the community can use um so I think this is a step in the right direction in terms of the track and potentially turfing the field there but we need and you know Jay is a part of this a bigger strategic plan for all of our facilities so we're trying not to go in blindly to say oh we want to do this here and then we're going to do this here I think the track is a need we know it's a need there's a lifespan of the track that's going to have to be replaced the baseball field is a little trickier because you

188know a we have the septic potential issue and personally I feel like we don't have a lot of data on the field and you know last year was completely playable the year before that was Co but it was pretty playable my first year here it was awful as the baseball coach said so you know not having a study and not kn exactly engineering wise are we just throwing money at something I mean that's part of the problem too we don't have money to do a study to figure out you know because it's significant amount of money for some of that to figure out what is the best use of the facility maybe it's to Turf the baseball field maybe it's to put more Fields out there maybe it's to put a bubble maybe you know

189all of these things that we're just sort of peac mealing without a strategic plan so I think that we've tried to cover that with the athletic advisory committee I think we've done a good job of narrowing down what the priorities are right now looking longer term at more facilities and more Community Options I think is then the next step in that and hopefully as part of the Strategic plan there will be you know a facility assessment so we can make those determinations so I will note I moved here from Williams the Williamsburg area in Virginia and they had a private public Venture with the Williamsburg School District where they built uh unbelievable sports complex with softball baseball lacrosse soccer an indoor ice rink and some I I don't know the details but somehow the school

190district was involved and they got access to those fields and the new football stadium was built so I would say you guys maybe take a look at the it's called The War Hill in Williamsburg Virginia well if you look at Maxfield and what heart a beautiful facility but it's so I was massively searching because in places all over the country if you drive by there are places called Sports Flex I did not know if that was like a national brand it doesn't appear to be but there's a huge one in De the toover the Endor tur Fields a great OPP we have other things new schol my recommendation would be if Garrett wants to have this conversation I think it just in my mind it makes more sense to start with the athletic advisory committee

191and then I think from there it probably would if if there's Merit and it seems like something should go forward it needs to fall into strategic planning I think ultimately the discussion is going to have to be between whoever thinks that they're going to want to do this and this body right here because I think the use agreement is going to be the place where if this thing gets really sticky and really tricky it's going to be there right but I think as if you want to get something rolling I think starting with John and his committee and then coming strategic planit theair sorry just to bring this right back sorry that went way off and now it's back but so the facil condition assessment we were debating is this going to include the sports

192facilities or just the so I think that would help everyone to be very clear that this is also going to be Sports which includes the Dres field and includes I think the tri and stuff seems like that's like needs to be addressed baseball field probably maybe falls into gonna be Sports yes that's I thought okay what's that okay so that half hour discussion took us two hours um so now we're moving on to business requiring uh oh wait discussion no discussion the budget presentation took us two hours now we're on to discussion items and I see we have a item about septic systems so U first of all policies Ben are you still chair okay yes and we've got three here uh probably the the biggest one in terms of possible discussion would be public

193participation which is I know hand already discuss this discuss I think maybe everyone Hasen um it did pass hand without significant discussion but it is it does have a lot of nuan changes and gets a lot more specific than our current standing one second reading of efaa IFA we had the district Librarians all four of them come to policy at two meetings ago kind of walked through some changes they wanted to do you can actually see those changes the track changes remain mostly small ones you'll see a lot of things have been exed out that is mostly just updating their different Association that no longer use those forms Etc nothing crazy substantial I think about that one and policy members are myself Kevin and Garrett the moment as well Kev I was gonna ask a

194question about one of the policies which was the the lunch policy it starts out with the Han School District but is that for I believe that is probably a um because one of the questions has to do with uh one of the questions I had was about the allart it says no items will be purchased at the Richmond School we have like our program runs with a certain amount of money per day and included in that is snack and snack is basically all aart so I don't know if that would be up to individual schools to sort of um follow that policy I understand why um and I totally understand why in terms of the the actual lunch or actual breakfast but when we have you're basically then you know mitigating the students aren't able

195to get that part of it and a large portion of what we do with this program is to try to make sure that everybody you know feels exactly the same going through the line so it's not clear as to oh you can't get that you can only get this those sorts of especially middle school that's a huge mitig J I think Jamie correct me if I'm wrong I think that reference is except lunch milk in elementary schools okay yeah I mean that's um I'm trying myp my thing died I'm trying to get where you are so Jim I think this is the issue that we talked about before where the term charge has a specific meaning in lunch that is not the same yeah I think it means getting stuff that you not allowed to

196create debt on it as opposed to not allowed to buy it okay okay that yes that that so that policy is in place that that does make sense yeah clarify that we talked about that as well yeah it's to it's to yes to accumulate Deb right Beyond a certain level we would never not see a child yeah so I I I plead with the board to come up with language right now to modif for a vote so that we don't bog down the policy committee which is having a very difficult time getting through our agendas as it is sorry so if we could just maybe come up with a clarifying sentence and and and approve this as as revised I'd really appreciate it and think your committee would sorry wait a minute for Neil had

197his hand raised and I policy though continue with this one Garett I think that's policy when we did it it was all about if you are overdue so if you're overdue can't charge all the part items okay I don't think there's anything to do with not allowing I think all this whole policy is what happens when you're basically in debt and S it a little bit because we didn't want to basically that's asking add add a statement and they're essentially saying what you're saying like we are not going to do any of that you're right the term charge which J that was clarified I know so is so hold on Le well I guess I was just wondering why we even have to have that fourth bullet point because it's required by law it is

198for NSL yes so the law says that you can't do all aart you if you have a balance on your account okay pass right a certain amount that you shouldn't be charging all of her items like cookies or ice cream or things like that before buying an actual meal because I get the overdue part I guess I I don't know I just I it makes no sense to me like let him eat what I don't know so let's let eat whatever they want to eat and get rid they're in good standing they can okay it just feels okay yeah that has happened and Jake fil our parents who have the needs to pay but are refusing to do so for various reasons up well it doesn't happen often in our district it's I've been here

199six years it may have happened with five families maybe that those four bullets right above that we could add a line that says with respect to outstanding balances and then put those down so that's you can't do additional charging that's that's those bullets are all related to someone who's in an accumulated death situation sounds good I was just thinking like can we just change the name of policy to outstanding balances charging policy off change change the title that and I actually don't think I mean I think Kevin fine but I think you can get the school meal for the day you just can't go through all so think it just J getting a full healthy meal picko me you can't go get cookies you get a meal if you're hungry I'm not going to argue

200this um yeah but you're right is confusing at we first started talking about in June yeah sequence wise it does it talks in in the middle two paragraphs about this is this is targeted people who have not applied for or are currently in our free and reduced lunch program so maybe some maybe want a reference I we're gonna have to redraft it I think it's fine from a food service standpoint and an sellp standpoint if we ever decide to participate I think it's fine with just that addition above that one line addition above the bullet so Kevin I thought you okay so did someone capture what someone capture what Kevin said what was the the statement you suggested right above the bull points those outstanding balances as present yeah with respect to situations of outstanding

201balance disect the people who have outstanding balances or negative balances negative Bal we got that sure with respect to student accounts that are over and who are not eligible for free introduced lunch sorry so that and then the change from Handover School District to D school district and did we want to change the title or is that title the title goes with the okay got it okay so meal charging which I thought was going to be really quick Neil you had a question about another policy I did I don't want to scare you I [Laughter] will okay so so this was the second discussion we'll be voting on it in the next group so any other questions or comments about the policies okay moving on a resolution regarding Kelly hery Tom did you want to

202read it since she's norit and you're the norit chair or do you want mey sure so yes Kelly resolution of the resident School Board of December 21st 2021 couple months late so I apologize that um whereas one person can make a difference through service to one's community and whereas Kelly ver serves as a member in good standing of nor Dr school boards for six years serving from January 2015 to October 2021 and whereas Kelly dur return of office served as chair of the S70 school board and whereas Kelly guided the S70 board with compassion kindness and a true concern for our students and school Community during the covid-19 pandemic and whereas Kelly Hy served on numerous committees for norch Dr and the sa70 boards including the policy superintendent evaluation and superintendent search committees and as

203liaison to the mar cross PTO and Par Area Career and Technology Cent Regional Advisory Board and whereas Kelly's passion for Education commit to every lawyer teacher and staff member was evidence and every issue brought before the school board and whereas res norch schools not only maintain but also respects improved upon their party during years of service as a board member American res we the sign extend our gratitude deep appreciation for the difference made in the lives of students in Hampshire and during her years of I will make her aware that the recording is at the hour and four minutes thank you KY she did text me at the beginning of the meeting though so so moving on update on potential septic project agreement with nor School District at the Jen FS who taking this one

204go Tom go Jamie jie thank you for the cookies awesome good evening again I don't know what happened to Sony I'll just go for it um I'm loading my so the purpose we bring this we discussed this in an earlier meeting uh norch as I think most of us now is looking if you don't Norwich is looking for a septic solution or as Jamie turned our last Mar board meeting we on a septic Journey resolution to our septic issues and in doing so have been in a threeyear four threeyear process to find that we had also employed path something you heard about earlier tonight on the baseball field um issue and uh three years ago they uh came we we asked them to look at some ways to resolve the issues we've had septic there

205were three um proposals at that time one was to look at a property that joins the mar school property the second one was hook up to the Harford Wastewater system and the third was to go to the Dresden fields and we had have basically ruled out the joining property replacement actually in place was another one and the connection to Hartford looked good but Harford was not interested in entertaining our at that time so uh we were able to do some testing back in May time frame with our Pathways Consulting team Andy geologist Steve and I came up with the results of those they were fa were quite positive of what it could handle on the res field now flash team this year I'll turn it over to what happened to the Handover option so that's

206another one that we have looked at again actually years ago when we first started this Jamie did reach out to asked came down to if they would be willing to entertain connection they said by just for the school district and we are looking back at that as another option as well so that is back on the table um but tonight we wanted to go into a little bit more detail present option because that one specifically would require this board to approve use of those lands whereas I don't think that the Handover connection necessarily to to hand agreement and wouldn't require UNS for that but yeah so not to extend your agenda this evening maybe we'll just focus on the Dres field [Music] so as Tom mentioned um we contracted with halfway Consulting and Lincoln appli

207geology and they went out and did um approximately it's 18 although I think you're only seeing here in this um U study and Report the results of 12 although no there's more than that so there have been to uh the earlier conversation there have been multiple studies done on this uh Field Land okay in and around the baseball field which you can see if you go to page six of the attached docking at the first one you can see the baseball diamond off to the right um and the reason that was brought up was because um this the field here location here has three different capacities uh to site um Wastewater beds and you can see where they're listed the largest one would actually sight on the top of it's kind of the top of

208the ridge yeah just below where it starts to rise between both the softball field which is the little uh handprints here your left and then the baseball diamond to your right um and that's the largest field Bid And Then There are two other smaller area two and area three applications um beyond the baseball diamond again more towards uh my 91 and then the third one is off to the left just barely into the woods where the packs start um outside of the softball field uh as Tom mentioned we did a few other um samples on one of the adjacent properties but they were not um they were not promising so they've gone back and looked at earlier studies uh to inform some of this information that we're bringing to you along with the updated studies

209that they did in um and so they did yeah April May June I mean they they're out there a bunch of different times um yeah and so right now the Norwich School District's current flows you know are running as low as 2500 uh GPD they our permit I think is for 6,000 6800 GPD um we've done a lot of water saving measures Within the school district in the school itself and so it's really lowered our usage of water and wastewater um need need for Waste Water treatment um we have since the beginning discussed our possibility of partnering with at least King Arthur Flower who is also looking for uh some type of relief on their um constraints for their location and their land AB buts our land for the Dres in field we look towards

210that partnership um predominantly uh to help offset the costs of building out from the Mary and Cross School uh all the way to Hartford initially um hartford's not in the mood to play with us right now so we are now looking towards possibility of the Dres Fields property also in order to allow for a structure to be built that was initially designed um and permitted when the softball field was built but the softball field had a cost overrun that was prohibitive for having that shelter built um that shelter would allow for um students out there who are far away from any uh large Gathering Spot should any bad leather kick up or something else occur um in addition it would allow for those teams of which you know there's soccer teams out there there's softball

211there's baseball um field hockey that practices so it would allow for those fields um and those teams to be able to maybe have a concession stand if we look at if we have the ability to put bathrooms in um and all of that um and so obviously you know the discussion between the two school districts the sister districts you know that would have to be thought out in the agreement between the two right who pays for what and you know to make it also lucrative for the Jen School District who pays for so you're possibly implying that Handover taxpayers are going to have direct or indirect no I'm possibly implying that um the dresen school district might actually um do additional work oh okay I might receive um additional facility needs taken care of via

212a project with other people need included and so I mean sorry see the second doent called the engineers cost it's listed as highlights there highlights because this is just the one that references the sorry 116% this is just the one that references the Dres field there were other highlight costs for other options that we' talked about earlier too the two that are in there the difference between them is the the flow of the gallons per day so the first one the cheaper one $1.7 million is for basically what we just covered 5,000 or so gallon and the second one is this 15,000 gon per day that bups up the cost about 2.2 million but would require obviously Partnerships along consider and and consider that kind of need for why would you want enter potential for

213Partnerships FL the cost so yeah and so yes it's not asking unless there was or a desire to put in this so what are for tonight this was just to give us a heads up this is more I think information try and get it in front of all of you maybe get even my head now that this might be something of interest to you for us to pursue we're at a point where we would not have this on the upcoming warrant March of 2022 March 2023 and we'll still use this time to look at these options here in addition to potential Handover and anything else comes up in the next few months but we do have to move on this in order for it to be obviously on article for march23 so then that if

214we said yeah let's continue down this road does that necessarily mean that we shouldn't be doing anything with the baseball diamonds not necessarily no why is that because the we did work on the fields this year when they decide to site the the uh fields for the septic underneath is it underneath the oh it's not underneath the so they're not even gonna be touching the baseball got it okay actually might take care of some of the trees we'll pay you back to that okay so it's a concept and I guess what we're asking from the Norwich School District would be does the concept seem as if it's something that we should continue to perhaps spend money on to see if it's feasible a partnership so from noris what is your ideal solution would it be

215tying into the Handover is that the cheapest and the most no I mean that one's kind of resurfacing as an option earlier on Ops out and like I said the other at this AR really uh they're not good options for replacement in place is there issues with the so this is where we are right now it's either the Dr in fields or more conversations with Hannah K let you had left um yeah so I'm only speaking as myself and this is a topic uh that has come up many many times of that land for septics and I just wanted to know in this iteration um has the conversation been at about what opport if this were to go forward what opportunities educational opportunities educational buildings Etc would no longer uh be possible on that site

216because when that land was first built it was you know maybe we're going to we want to land banket for another school someday and I know that that was the the the deal breaker on some previous ones and so if you tell me yes we've considered that in this iteration I can go sit back down and if you say no we haven't yet then I would just say that that is a really um important consideration for the community that we not um shut future doors for that parcel we have not considered now fation we don't we're not giving up we're only looking at it for this perspective at this point in time some of the other ones there were pipes that would have bisected most you know you know whatever and I'm not going to

217di do a deep dive on this personally myself but it is just um you know a really important consideration that that that we maintain that uh parcel for the use of both of our communities for you know educational um opportunities yeah um car point and I think it's a good one um knowing that we're not looking to place something at least on the norch side on the war arle until a year you know little more than a year from now I would recommend that this body um The Dresden board um prioritize that discussion in terms of strategic plan to determine whether or not there were future uses for the resident Fields property that some project like this may either um benefit by having AC setic already existing hindsight or somehow maybe you know detract from

218and so I think that ought to be a top priority for this body so k your previous discussions there was a concern that if you put a septic field in there that health health would Health laws or regulations would preclude suggestions that were made uh would have meant that just a great deal of the um of of the land would have substructures that you do not want to put buildings on top of and it would limit where things could go in the future um and um you know even I mean I at that time it was even well even if we had a 20year plan you know we need to keep options open for 50 years because we really don't know how our community is going to grow um you know what future needs there

219might be and then we' also to take a look at capacity that if we decided to put a new school over there right now that you've only what you said 6,000 gallons per day 15,000 up to 15 so I guess we would need to look to see if if a future school goes in there is that 15 going to be enough for Mary and cross and whatever the other school or would it be a prechool um building because there's somehow a need for that or a you know Regional um other special needs that would be a smaller I mean just you know you just when you open up the doors you know there's a lot of things that that we might need that for what people have always said you know they're just when we

220bought it um you know and that was the vote that passed by one vote um that you know there just aren't that many pieces of land like that around you know that we can uh count on using in the future so okay so I guess what Tom is asking us is a head nod on whether we can continue the discussion and the planning and I would ask I guess it would be dresden's responsibility to kind of come up with um list of requirements that we would need a little flexibility with future buildings there and all that stuff so is everyone fine with nor continuing to Marcel Marcel is thumbs up thumbs up if you if you're fine with them to continue the discussion okay is that what you needed for tonight I I think I

221think we probably go back to Jeff he could US based upon right and and talking about highest in dep you at highest in dep before you I will buy into what Neil saying too once we do get to the Strategic plan discussion the focuses on facilities if we could prioritize this because we [Laughter] long it's now an A moving off moving off the septic fields right now uh the turf field funds so we have 30 3 2,790 that we're asking whether you still have 32790 that we've been asking you to do something for few years now so we apply that to the so you can do many different things the facilities we apply it to to the crash pads down there on the wall by so we brought this before last year wasn't at the

222school uh the scoreboard we were gonna so we brought to you two two different options three options actually a year ago probably about the same time or might have been earlier um you know after discussions with ryell who is our attorney for she's our bond attorney um we you know reached out to her and spoke to her about what we're able to do and at that point in time her initial reaction would be one get a vote of two3 to use it for something else or two use the funds to pay the principal loone and it matur so then and she gave us the RSA so then I emailed her back and I said um the nature and intent of the article included and update the surrounding athletic area and we had put that in

223specifically because we also did you know we did updates to fencing we did updates to the to the um walkways around there this was three years ago we did a lot um and so she felt that after that followup discussion that crash pads because of their lifespan right could be purchased with the remaining F I think that she we had also asked her about um the scoreboard and that was another discussion because it's a piece of equipment equipment um and she wanted to be sure that if it was an equipment purchase that it would have to have this lifespan that matches the um the length of term of the debt because that's a requirement by law um we feel that the crash pads are the most important piece Tony has had multiple quotes on those

224what is the quote they're right around 27 28,000 what do with the other 4,000 the quote is two years old so I a year old can we use it to remove the marauder from the center you know what that's you know what that price tag is that's like $26,000 so you're asking would do we need to take a formal vote okay okay I hope we have an action item for this sorry if you don't one so so we would need a formal vote from the board and and I think if you're going to do that and you don't have to do it today you could do it on in January that's fine um because I'm not gonna put the crash pads up until you know but if when we make the the motion that it

225would be prudent perhaps to say any remaining money gets paid on the principal yep okay so we'll do it in we'll do it in January uh just remind me at our next planning meeting to craft the language and then uh we'll have a motion and then we can have a discussion and then vote great moving on to business requiring action John you gotta be kidding second needs an amendment uh yeah let's do uh B through let's do B through D okay sorry I'm sorry didn't we decide that we were going to discuss the um teacher loyalty though and the well that's in the discuss yeah thank you before we move on to business requiring action so um as many people probably are aware uh uh bill is moving through the New Hampshire legislature the title

226is teacher loyalty I don't have the language in front of actually an act relative to teacher loyalty it's hp1 1255 yeah is it a long act um to B Public School teachers from promoting any theist you got to speak up a little you could you read the the proposed language again what I have yeah you so it says no teacher shall Advocate communism Socialism or Marxism as a political Doctrine or any other Doctrine or Theory which includes the overthrow by force of the government of the United States or of this state in any public or state approved school or in any state institution point two no teacher shall Advocate any Doctrine or Theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and History of the United States of America in New Hampshire Public Schools

227which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and discouraged practices I'm not sure what that means I have verification such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism a violation of this section shall be considered a violation of the New Hampshire code of ethics and code of conduct for educational professionals and shall justify disciplinary sanctions and it will take effect 60 days after its passage and it's a expansion of um I believe a bill initially proposed during the Cold War period Cold War era or law that b Educators right right And to clarify the point that you made um it's because the representative who's sponsoring the bill who not aan not the same person who did this that I said anyway her name is Alicia

228leus she's a republican Hudson her explanation for that was quote slavery was a terrible thing but a lot of people don't know slavery happened all over the world that's the setting you need to be teaching if you're going to teach about the founding of the country you teach it in its proper setting um that's what the proper world I looked this up her math degree I think positions are very well to figure out what should be taught in terms of these things right was ma she's a math teacher has a math degree so uh Neil um so I mean a lot of board members will recall because this body said up before we have a process essentially a resolution process right that allows this body sort of debate and decide on what position we might

229want to take relative to whether it's pieces of legislation or things that are being considered at the state level I suggest that that process would work well here in relation to the proposed Bill language but also in relationship to the divisive Concepts rer that got attached to the budget bill that was passed last year that has now been challenged by two um separate parties um that challenge the the legality of that um Bill the other thing I will add to is that I did have chance to speak with a board member from the rivendale school district the one other Interstate School District that we shared here in the state states of Vermont in New Hampshire um there is a provision in the Vermont's New Hampshire interstate contact if folks are not familiar with it um

230I don't have the exact language in front of me right now but essentially says that neither State can pass a law that adversely affects the citizens or of the other state um we had some discussion one night on the phone about this um Rivendell is in a little bit of a different situation how they formed their Interstate school district and then essentially follows completely Vermont law we're split here so part of our one of our districts is Vermont I bring that up to say that I believe that if this body were interested our neighbors to the north might be interested in either collaborating on a resolution or maybe digging in a little bit deeper on the intricacies of the interstate contact determine whether or not some of these laws that are being either passed or

231considered in your answer may or may not apply to the interstate schol interesting so what what do you proposing um I think that the first step would be for this body to consider a resolution relative to the language that's being considered in New Hampshire um and at that point then after approval of a resolution language then maybe deputizing the chair or someone else this board to reach out to rivendale to see if there's some collaboration on a joint resolution that that District might be willing to proceed with and then we could take it from there based on that so when we've done the resolutions in the past didn't we form like an ad hoc committee to to work on it is that is that right less okay so um and I sorry I will add

232one other thing this isn't new so when I was dressed in chair at the time there was another piece of legislation that's been considered in New Hampshire and I actually reached out to Boards of in this Upper Valley area to collaborate is that the weapons in school yes okay so do we take a vote is it a motion no I think somebody just needs to come forward at the next meeting with some proposed resolution language this body get consider so would uh I guess anyone be interested in leading the ad hoc or working yeah I'm happy to work on it but I don't know what the resolution language is supposed to sound like I don't know if it's supposed a whole bunch of where to do I'll share the device of language or the devisive

233and okay right I think we can also use the language from the New Hampshire School Board Association looking at what was passed that King yeah did maybe more effective um yep I know it's not going New Hampshire Board of Education says the school boards are supposed to be apolitical and not personally I I said this when I was around for the school board I don't think school board should be takal position that's my personal opinion I I understand that's not maity I think being political on yeah I I guess the counterargument is it's not political it's uh they're impacting local control of schools and parents to I have no problem with that my issue is and you know when we talked about the equity thing in handle School District I voted for that because it

234wasn't about a specific Bill State School Board ass but my understanding is doesn't the nsba pretty much ask for districts to weigh in on pending legislation so it's not it it it's I guess common practice and I get it okay got it and I the the resolution we wrote last year was from the local control perspective um that's what the focus was so address it was addressing a specific bill from the but our argument was local control so uh no I just have a second thing I need to at least tell the board about okay uh so do we uh so I Deb and Marcel wait raised the hand to work on and Lisa we just also get a head nod that we can work with our lawyer to to follow up on the interstate

235question that Neil brought up yeah J that sounds fine and I'm just looking for the provision right here just read it today as a matter of fact so I'll let the three of you work and then um just as we get closer the January just let me know if you have a resolution that you want to present and we'll put it on the agenda okay um is this a resolution just for the 1255 yeah or is it a resolution for 1255 and the it's on the budet right no no no the um yeah Neil I mean I would suggest taking a look at the language of both of those and seeing if there's resolution that might broadly cover okay if you're unable to do that then I would split it up of back on this

236Comm yeah that's what we did before we just sent out um yeah please your good news okay I'm really glad that Ki is still here um the house education committee has recommended that lawmakers pass us second Bill HB 607 um and this is a proposed law that would create local school vouchers that are directly funded by local school district budgets the local school vouchers would give parents between $291 and $41,000 per student to use on private school tuition homeschooling expenses and other education related costs just a couple things for you to know that once a um if the bill is passed even if it's overturned it's still in effect voters would have to though approve the program in a warrant article so we could put it on the school district ballot and it would have

237to pass with 60% of the eligible voters if we said we were not going to support it the interest T doesn't allow the state to dictate local funds well they you have to understand that the people in the New Hampshire house right now are not paying attention to the way things have always been done the I I think it's fair to say that the commissioner of education is no he's actively promoting private education and undermining public education he's never sent any of his children to public schools and he doesn't support them so once adopted the amount of the student School voucher cannot go go down once the school voucher program is adopted the school district is on the hook for funding the enrolled students even if they repeal the program there is no income limit

238for families all students are eligible for as long as they legally reside in the district unlike the state school Voucher Program there's no income threshold to qualify for the program school districts are responsible for paying for all special education services current private school students are not eligible but current homeschool students are and there is nearly no oversight by any public body so these are some policy statements from an organization called Reacher reaching higher New Hampshire about this bill and I think it's just prudent for people to know Kevin asked me when these bills 1255 and 607 are going to come in front of the legislature and they go in alphabetical order so this would be an education Comm committee so you know there's Commerce before that but then there's education and um so I would

239say early so that's just an FYI somebody emailed me with this I had heard about this but I didn't have this particular document before the board meeting so that was in the in the paper recently and it said that even if it does F at the state level it's up to a local community whether they want to act it or not but you have to have a warrant article and a vote on it so I think we we would just want to be mindful of this if we are talking warrant articles at the January meeting to get out ahead of it great good news um there's been um a lawsuit already LED about this one and there's been a lawsuit that's already been brought forward about this one the local school out yeah um and

240so um I don't know I don't know how long it's Lifan this GNA be I was that be great yeah I think adal was actually named personally in the law because I don't think they can force a school dist War articles okay so just to clarify the the it's the portion of the compact that Neil referenced it's uh under Article 13 miscellaneous Provisions it's under amendments subh neither State shall amend its legislation or any agreement authorized thereby without the consent of the other in such manner as to substantially adversely affect the rights of the other state or its people thereof goes on from there y so if we could have our lawyers start taking a look at it we'll have the ad hoc group start working on one or two resolutions and we'll keep our

241eye on 607 great any other anything else de no I got nobody waiting for me at on tonight so keep on going so now moving on on to business requiring action so can we get a motion for B through d uh John go ahead I'll let you try it again move to approve items b c and d by consent Lisa second Garett christe yes yes Nelson yes yes what yes Kim artman yes yes okay then moving on to the policies policies go ahead move policy efaa Neil's charging as a second John Neil yes yes christe yes Nelson yes yes yes yes Kim yes Johnson yes those were those are for discussion first that'll be January okay moving on to reports and Communications I would love to hear from um our committees and our superintendent and

242our assistant superintendent and a business administrator in I would ask if we could keep our comments short for tonight um so report of the chair I have nothing to report I will I will move on to any committees have any to report Neil um just two really quick one is negotiations committee we're going to be Mee non tonight overend second is I know it is not a committee of this board but since this board contains the same membership as SE the equity committee did meet in December um we made it through one agenda item but that was okay we had a really good discussion on things The Works forward we are proposing that we actually increase the meetings to twice monthly so that we can get through the items that are currently our Lisa I'll

243go quickly um as the leaz on to CTC and Council I want to thank both the teachers the staff and the students for all the work that they're doing um it's pretty amazing to be privileged to go to those meetings every week and um it's been a tough couple of years and I don't think we can say that often enough so I just want to say thank you um than you moving on to Jay I had a lengthy appre app for all of our sta that I will reduce to writing and send out to the entire Community tomor we do appreciate everyone but I think in writing would actually be even nicer sure and and that that thank you concluded with finally our school board our school board members have done their part as well

244at last week's Handover board meeting I shared some statistics which I've since updated to include our Norwich counterparts since the school year began they have met 75 times for regular meetings committees planning sessions budget meetings and negotiations and if you throw in all the meetings that went in to prepare for the school year in July and August that count goes up to 87 meetings so I just want to thank you as board members U for our brief meetings that we sometimes have as well as our marathon sessions like tonight and um and wish all of you happy holidays and and a much deserved break for at least a couple days bless you and that concludes my [Laughter] uh Robin I'll make mine bre have a free safe holiday Jamie can you top that I got

245nothing great okay so we need we do need to move into nonpublic session for person now and to uh approve hopefully approve the contract um so at this point if I have can have someone give a motion move us into non for Kim you want to join us you have non uh yes or I could just join yes Zoom would probably just call me on myself okay okay someone move us into non public second kinin no we need a motion have a second Kevin yes yes yes yes christe yes yes yes yesman yes yes okay so Kim give me about two minutes and then give me a call on myself so everyone else that's here we're going to move into nonpublic we're going to come back out quickly vote adjourn this meeting and move right

246into a Handover special meeting um Tim Julie R Robin I can handle this if you'd like to call it tonight I know I can handle it thank you very much [Music] I didn't I know accident year Tom thank you J [Music] okay yeah thank do I have meetings tomorrow good luck yes right e e e for e e e more e for for she for e e e uh conflict of interest when they discuss discuss contracts by wife teaches in the district yeah yeah get out por what oh e e e e for e e for J e for e e e [Music] uh Kim's calling back in on zoom and are you managing Zoom [Music] [Laughter] [Music] addition EAS truck be try to unst [Music] drive it's Arrow yeah is that yeah I have

247no idea Tex so um we're gonna move back into public is Kim on now y okay so can I have a motion to approve the sabatical move to approve Stephanie Harold's sabatical request as presented Ben seconds yeah yeah car yes are you voting or I think I should vote okay Neil yes Tom yes Christie yes yes Nelson yes yes yes Kim don't if she's joined yet uh Johnson yes oh she's calling in on my phone now Richard jman yes okay so unanimous moving on to oh I'm sorry yeah one one no um I'm missing what was the other PT learning specialist have a motion to approve hiring Eric a part yes Christie yes yes Nelson yes yes yes yes kimman yes Johnson yes okay we're going to split the contracts into two separate so we'll

248do the support staff contract first I have a motion Mo to approve the hand over support staff contract as presented second Lisa christe yes yes Nelson yes yes yes kimman yes yes okay moving on to the teachers contract I hand over Neil move to approve the twoyear teachers contract with the Education Association as presented seconde yes n yes yes recusing du a potential conflict of interest potential are you trying to tell us something Harman yes and Johnson yes great okay so we are uh please get me any uh agenda items uh our next board meeting is January 11th 2022 um so let me know from the ad hoc committee if you're ready to add that to the agenda by I think we'll probably have our planning meeting on the 4th okay like that no I

249think there's a second meeting at on the 20th or something yeah it says public hearing it says right here next meeting Tuesday January 11th public hearing Bud early well we might be trying to do it all one which you know we never really get there yeah well was it's aspirational before I there was one other thing that I think Neil you recommend that we bring in January that we discussed resol there was resolution I thought there was one other thing we'll see in the minutes okay punchiness is gety um so at this point I'd like someone to make motion John move to the meeting at 1019 pm. and just a shade over four hours I have second Lis Neil yes christe yesel yes what yes yes sorry bye people happy holidays everyone you're welcome he

250can't your kids can steal them as an idea for teacher gifts for the next 12 years yeah you can V teacher for forever [Music]