001I'm going to call the uh Hollis Cooperative School District meeting to order at 6:00 PM. I'm going to call the co-op um budget committee to order at 6 PM. Um just stating that this is a joint meeting with the school board to um address and to conduct the public hearing for the FY27 warrant. We introduce you. >> Yep. We're going to I think what we'll do is we'll just kind of go around and if um you everybody could just make their introductions say state your name and which board you are on or what position you hold in the district. >> I will start with you Mr. Solan. >> Tom Solon uh co-op school board and uh co-op school board member of the budget committee. >> Thank you. Cindy Vancone, co-op school board. Lauren Daneo, assistant
002superintendent of student services. dot flarity and superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Lasamino, business administrator. >> Gina Burks, superintendent. >> Holly Dera Babcock, PA school board chair. >> Darlene man, uh, co-op budget committee chair. >> Raul Blanche, co-op budget committee vice chair. >> Rob man, co-op school board. >> Melanie Leake, co-op budget committee. >> Tony Stenis, co-op budget committee. >> Williams, co-op school board. >> Patrick West, principal of middle school. Jacob P, principal high school. >> Great. Thank you very much. So, um the first portion of the meeting about the first half an hour is really um generally a school board business. Um but some of the items on here um we thought the budget committee would um be interested in especially when we talk talk about the charter commission um petition warrant article that is
003on the ballot. We thought that the budget committee might want to hear some details about that. So just um I'm going to take the beginning of this. So agenda adjustments. I don't believe we have any. Do we? >> No. Um notifications of nominations, resignations, and correspondence. I have one. Oh, okay. >> Dear leadership in Hallsbrook line school board members with deepest gratitude for my quarter century teaching at Holl Brookline High School. I need to depart from a school I still love working at and a community I still feel honored to be part of. Family needs are such that I need to give my time there. So this is my official letter of retirement. I'd like to add a special thank you for this 6 year which allowed me to see my advises through to graduation
004add to the English specialed classes and support advisory for one more year. I also thank you for the opportunity to teach the sons and daughters of these two towns. It has meant so much to me to be a part of the journey from co 19 recovery to this year where I see joy in our halls and in our students. Additionally, working for our present administrative team has been nothing but a pleasure. I'm grateful for feeling valued and respected. Thank you for all you do and all you have done to make the town schools the places they are for growing and learning. Sincerely, Lynn Illingworth, English and writing teacher. So, we will need a motion to accept um the letter of intent to retire received from Lynn Illingworth with an effective date of >> June 30th.
005Is that right? Correct. >> 2026. >> So, moved. >> Moved by Beth. I need a second. Second >> second by Cindy. Um any comments? I mean we're grateful for her service and her time and her dedication to our students and glad that she stayed for that point six to kind of do the advisory thing. So all those in favor I think we're at five. One two three four five zero. Great. Motion carries. >> Okay. Um anything else? >> Nope. >> Okay. So, I'd like to appoint a process observer for the school board. Is there anyone willing to raise their hand for that? I don't see anyone. Tom, thank you. Um, and then we have some minutes to approve. So, I need to um I need a motion to accept as amendment with the following amendments
006for the Hollis Brookline School Board minutes of January 21st, 2026. Um the amendments are page 13 line 20 district shall be plural. Um page 13 line 21 replace her with here. Page 14 line 2038 correct the spelling of board. And page 14 line 45 replace 4 with four numerical 4 not 4 as in for Okay. Any comments on that? >> All those in favor of Oh yeah. No, I need a motion actually to move by. >> Need a second. >> Rob second. >> Yes. >> And all those in favor? >> 5 Z. Great. >> All right. And then I need a motion to accept the non-public minutes from January 21st, 2026. Um, as presented. >> So moved. >> Moved by Rob. >> Second by Cindy. Any comments? All those in favor? That's five. Six. 5
007Z. >> Five. You're abstaining. So all those in favor, can I do that again? >> All right. I've got five. Any nos? Any abstensions? One. So 501. Motion carries. And um just a note to Dawn, Amy has Amy Kelner is joining us. She's a member of the Hollis Brook School Board and she is um joining us at 606. Thank you for getting Thanks. >> All right. So moving on to discussion items. Uh we have first our co-op calendar. In your packet this evening, you'll find the draft calendar for our next school year to look at and we'll vote on um at our next meeting. You'll notice that uh we're starting later this year. So the uh teacher flex uh flex day is August 28th and their first teacher day is August 31st and that's because
008Labor Day is so late this year. >> But we are still starting before Labor Day. >> We are Yes, we are starting before Labor Day but be we tried to um move it earlier but that contractually we couldn't do it. >> Great. >> Are there any questions on the calendar? >> Just a comment on it. It just it really when you're looking at the ND I understand I looked at I understand where Labor Day falls but I've also looked at some of the other proposed and other school district it's just it's killing me that the last day is like the 24th 25th and that's like if we get a few snow days beyond what we build in like we're so close to July like I'm just really concerned about that and if there's any alternatives
009ways to get the minutes in the day like I I also come from different states and different so I don't know exactly how we do but I know in our states we've added a minute to there's ways we were able to be flexible but it just really makes me nervous looking at this. It's just like we're going to run into July. >> Absolutely. Uh and our neighboring districts for the first time because obviously this comes up every six years or so. Our neighboring districts did make the switch to the week before. Um but both our co-op and our Hollis collective bargaining agreements have language that says we cannot start the Monday prior to Labor Day. Um, and so I reached out to them hoping to have a sidebar and it just um there were too
010many conflicts already with the switch. So this is what we have, but I fully understand what you're saying. >> I just I think we're going to get more feedback on that too. Sure. once people realize maybe not right away but once people realize >> well as as this is a public meeting and we are not voting on it until next month you know we encourage public comment on all sorts of items and so um the calendar is in the agenda um it's attached to the agenda packet so the proposed calendar right >> so it's easy to find there any other comments on that >> I guess the question is how many what's the total number of days that this calendar provides how How many school days? >> The same as it typically does. So 178
011plus five snow days built in. So 183. >> So there isn't a lot of room to it's not like padding in there either. >> Correct. This is the calendar we typically see. The difference is um the Labor Day so late. >> In the past we've sometimes gone a little bit higher but our contracts are pretty tight right now. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Okay. So, moving on, we have um and if there's no further comment on that, we have a data presentation from uh Tom Solan and it's in your agenda packet as well if you um need to see it. >> I hope so. >> While that's getting set up, I just wanted to make a note for Don as well that Brian Rder um arrived at 608. The only issue is going to be
012>> um >> Do you want me to Oh, you need a mic. >> Reach. >> I think it's pretty close. There you go. >> So, it's going to be behind you, Ryan. Am I obstructing anybody's view? >> No. >> Okay. Uh, this presentation was prompted in part by recent discussions that have occurred both within our board and with uh input from the public. Uh, as you all know, there is a the New Hampshire DOE website publishes data on our on various schools performances and this is in response to that. This is a snapshot of the assessment data that is uh presented on the DOE website. Um the meaningful information is that this is supposed to represent the percentage of each class that scored proficient or above proficient. I'm not sure what the exact terminology is
013that what is above proficient or >> proficient >> uh on a scale of one to four. So three and four are proficient and above proficient. One and two are below proficient. How they take the data of the test results and convert it into percentages is not specified. But this is the information that's presented to the public and we've had concerns expressed by the low ratings that have been achieved. uh especially in my opinion they there's been a lot of focus on science grades. So how is average score calculated? Going back to probably middle school math, maybe even elementary school math, the way you calculate an average is you take all of the results, add them together, and divide by the number of participants in the uh in the event. So in this case, you would
014take all the student scores, add them together, and divide by the number of students tested. and and that's what I think most people have in their mind when they look at the data on the on the website. So the key to point that I want to point out here is the number of students tested in the denominator. That's one would think the number of people who actually took the test. But going back to 1965 with the uh federal law that brought about the the testing, it says here include in the denominator the greater of 95% of all such students or of of the subgroup. And the the issue there is that they're really wanting to make sure that everybody takes the test so that they have valid data. And it makes sense. So the New
015Hampshire DOE carries that through in their instructions for the state of New Hampshire. And again, it's got the results. It says you will be tested assuming that at least 95% of all your students are tested. So here's the snag. Instead of using the number of students tested, you have to use the results based on 95% of the students that were eligible to be tested. whether 95 took the test or not. And I I'm just surmising, but I'm I'm guessing that this was put in there as a uh motivation. This is the stick, not the carrot, the stick to get districts to make sure that all their students are tested and arrange it properly. We've got a little snag here in New Hampshire. We have rights. And one of those rights that parents have is that
016they can opt their students out of taking the test. >> So RSA says that we have to provide that option to all parents and guardians. So understanding the rule. So so on the one hand we have to create our our published results based on a 95% participation because we want to have everyone tested. But we have to allow for students who don't want to take the test to not take the test. Here's what we have in our district. That red line is the 95% level. You can see that there are significant instances where the opt out is well beyond 5% of our student eligible population and particularly in the sciences. It's very obvious there that the most recent year it was actually 35% of our juniors chose not to take the test. Now why would
017people not take the test? Well, there's a couple of reasons. Uh potentially the overlapping time frame is one of them. We have AP testing done in the same time frame. college boards. Uh they students may have other coursework. But another big thing is there's no apparent value to our students to taking the test. These are not what would be categorized as high stakes tests. You know, things like college boards and other things that that affect a grade or admissions or some other qualification are considered high stakes tests by the students. This is not categorized. There are no obvious repercussions to taking the test or even doing well on the test. And in fact, it's possible that the opt out actually lowers the average score of students who do participate. Why might that be? Well, we
018looked to see do a disproportionate number of of our students who are in accelerated classes choose not to opt out. Looking at the data for that, you can see particularly in grade 11 science testing uh for the past three years at least 25% and in some cases in in 2023 about almost 50% of the students who opted out are students that are taking AP and advanced courses. So, one could make the argument that some of our students who are most likely to perform well in the test aren't taking the test. So, what's the impact of the 95% rule and the opt out? Well, let's say we had 200 students taking the test and 4% eight students chose not to. In that case, we do not violate the 95% rule. So if the average score was
0193.4 out of a possible four which is a very good score um this the posted data would also be the 3.4 score but let's take the example of 40 students opting out that's 20%. In that case, the adjusted score would be 2.9 versus on a scale of four, which is actually below proficient. And to carry it one step further, god forbid 35% opted out, you're looking with the same average score from the participants, you're looking at a reported score that correlates to 2.5. So you've got the same average score for the students tested, but high opt out rates lead to much lower reported scores on the website for the DOE. So one of the questions that I have and I I I think it's shared by others is who should establish the measures and thresholds
020of proficiency? What does proficiency actually mean? The state and federal standards are tied to funding, but are the things that are being evaluated in the standardized testing the same things that are important to our students and our parents and do they represent critical performance? Um, I can't answer that. I have my own opinions, but I think it's a question that we as a district need to look at with greater care. So, what matters most in a school system? Uh, from many things that we've read, that we've been told, one of the most important things is to keep students in school. No matter how good the school is, how good the program is, how great the curriculum is, if they're not there, it's not doing its job. Let's successfully complete the school system. Let's get the
021kids to graduation. And school is a gateway to life. I mean, the fact is we want our students to graduate with the knowledge, the tools, and the capability to be successful after they leave our school system. How do we do? Well, in terms of keeping the students in school, we do very well. Truency rate, which is uh in for our data is students who have more than have 10 or more unexcused absences in a school year. Is that the correct term? uh that's considered in this data as opposed to on the website they just talk about people who are out absent for a half a day or more throughout the school year for whatever reason. So absenteeism is not the same as truency. In a middle school middle school for the three-year average, we're less
022than half of 1%. And in the high school, we're less than 2%. Over three years and our dropout rate is very low. It's.13%. >> Our four-year graduation rate is similarly very a very good number, 95%. And if you look at where our students are headed after they leave us, 88% last year were headed to uh college, two and four year college after graduation. Um not quite 2% entering the military and 7.4% entering the workforce. This is based on self-reported data. So So this is what the students are telling us they're where they're headed. Um, I think those are pretty good results. Now, there are other possible indicators of success that we could use. We have dual credit enrollment as something that we measure. Um, we've done surveys in the past and we can do surveys
023in the future on satisfaction. We can look at uh what people are saying about it once they've completed the program. Um, I suspect that the satisfaction rate would be decent, but it's something that we could do. We have alternative testing and these are scores that we do get. The PSATs, SATs, and achievement tests are quite common. Less common are the uh ACT. Uh there's some AP tests and the uh international balorate. Uh we in fact use the SAT inschool testing for our junior year testing, but it only applies to the uh the the English language arts section and the math section. It doesn't have the science component in it that the state requires. So in summary, it's my um it's my feeling that the state published proficiency data are tainted by ignoring the opt out
024allow allowance. The proficiency ratings are flawed and they're not universally accepted as true indicators of competence competency. Now, we can't not report, but perhaps we can find other metrics that may be better measures of success for our students in schools. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Tom. >> Thank you very much. Now, one of the questions that I have is whether whether any portion of this is viewed as information that we should consider presenting in its current form or altered form at the end. >> So, why don't you have a seat and we can talk about it a little bit. >> Any need to leave it up? >> I don't know. Do people feel like they're going to need to see anything again? So, I just want to make sure there are if there are
025any questions for Tom. I'd like to and I I welcome budget committee questions as well. Um >> I have a question. >> Okay. >> What are we doing to minimize the dropouts and the 4% or less that doesn't achieve success >> dropouts? >> Our dropout rate is like.13%. Right. So what do we do to try to prevent that for >> for people who say we got to still do try to do better? >> Okay, that's a good question. referring to the four-year graduation rate of 95. I'm >> referring to the six or eight people that don't succeed according to what we expect. >> So, does the dropout does that include kids who for graduation rate does that include kids who take the high step? >> So, that's a diploma rating and it's if you complete
026in four years. So, if you complete the summer after or the fall after, you're not counted in there. If you are with us till age 22, you are not counted as graduating um in your four-year cohort. So, it excludes a lot of the possible tracks that we have >> that could still end up in success. >> Correct. Correct. Absolutely. >> So, that needs to be pointed out. >> Okay. Thank you for that. >> Thank you. >> Question. When we look at the data and we try to analyze why our our uh standardized testing scores are looking lower, would you say the same reasons apply to maybe every other school that has the same kind of profile that Brooklyn High School has? So that should be kind of a normalizing factor if that if what's happening
027here is happening in other places. the best of the kids tied up with the uh of the test. >> Good. That's a good point, Tony. And and towards that idea, if you look at us, our performance, we do above average for the state. So yes, in all likelihood, most school districts are having the same situation and their performance as reported on the website is quite possibly less than would be indicated if not for the 95% rule. >> And the state doesn't report the opt out rates per school district. >> They do now. And so you can look um and so I'm actually on the accountability task force to revisit um performance-based accountability for the state of New Hampshire. And um you know other districts will say, "Oh, our optouts are so high. We're we're at
0286%." And I'm like, "Well, we're above 30%." So we are far out of the norm even though it's a possibility everywhere. And part of that, I think, is that our community is um intelligent and understands the rights that are available to families and um act on those rights. >> I I think that's going to be an important thing to do to change that because like the budget committee when they calculate, you know, yearover-year, you know, metrics and stuff, they often use adjusting for inflation or something like that. So you're apples to apples comparing. So if they on the website provides the opt out rate you can correct or that rate knowing the opt out and knowing how things are calculated you can do a apples to apples by checking your and and at least considering
029your opt out rate to get the real numbers. Unfortunately, I tried doing that and what the missing link is you have to get back to the raw scores to do it because there is nothing there's no clear and obvious connection between the the number that they show on the website as percentage of proficiency and what the scores were on the testing that they took and how that got converted to a proficiency level. We don't have that blackbox code to know how it would work. I on low percentages you can you can infer but I tried doing it with a 35 with a 35% loss rate >> and if I just tried to back calculate the ratio it comes up with an average score of almost six which isn't possible. So there that method is not
030at least intuitively obvious and I have a pretty good math background. I think there's data. >> So So there's you're saying there's no opportunity for us to calculate that based on our own local metrics and make that available. >> I couldn't find it. I don't know whether the the district has all the raw scores number one and the formula for converting a raw score into a proficiency rating for the specific tests that are done. Those are the two factors that aren't available to the public. So all this to my mind explains the confusion that when we get people coming to our mic at any given meeting comes before us with this data basically proclaiming they have the insight that for some reason we don't have right and we're often told you know here are the
031metrics you're doing horribly and this is a conversation I think we have every year and we we understand what you have greatly pointed out. So other people but but these this fact and the way they do the calculation is well known with the co-ops members of this board. >> We know what we don't know but we don't know the results. Well, and the other thing that we know and you know and that's why there was a push about eight years ago to move to the SAT as the state test is we know anecdotally because we know teenagers that if it doesn't matter to them, if it doesn't impact their grades, if it doesn't impact their college or anything or getting a job, I'm some kids are probably going to really care because they really care,
032but a lot of kids aren't. And so we switched to using the SAT as a state as, you know, school day SAT test as our state test because we knew more kids would opt in and >> and maybe care. I'm not trying to say kids don't care, but I'm just, you know, we know that. We know the psychology of teenagers. And so we do have that. We have our SAT scores. We look at those regularly. We post them on the school profile. um they are compared to the na New Hampshire average, they are compared to the US average, they are higher. So we have that information. Um but we also don't know and maybe you know this what the state considers a proficient SAT score. We do we know what that is like we don't
033know that or do we know what do they determine is a proficient SAT score because they they change it to a percentage >> right? So, for example, our SAT scores are on our school profile and in English, our kids have the mean SAT score of the school day SAT. And I'm saying that because those of you who haven't done this, this is not the the self-reported score after a kid has taken it three times. This is the score that they take on the day that everyone takes it. The whole school, the whole junior class takes it on one day in March. It's a it's a free offering. and they get to take a free college board and they take it I think in March, right? Is it in March? >> March or April. March. >>
034Sorry. Okay. And so that's a same day test. Our mean on that is a 578 for English. The mean for for class of 2025. The mean for um New Hampshire was a 514 and the mean for the US was a 494. In math, our mean was a 548. Um, the New Hampshire mean was a 480 and the US mean was a 470. So, it's it's hard to say we're not doing well. I mean, those are those are nice scores. And then we also have, as I brought up last month, we have AP testing. And so, our teachers are taught, they work hard to get our kids ready for a certain test, and that's the AP test. and they that's a college um level class that kids take and they um can get a if they
035get a qualifying score, they can actually get credit for um that class in college. And so a three is considered a qualifying score. And I'm not saying that every school and every college you get a three and you get credit. All the colleges have different takes. Sometimes you need a four, sometimes you need a five, but a three is considered a qualifying score in a lot of schools. And in 2025, >> 90% of our students got a three or above in AP classes. >> So, those are important indicators that we don't that we need to talk about more and we need people to understand. And that's in the school profile that we get handed, but it's on our website under I think it's in the counseling department. >> And then there's on the front Halls
036Brooklyn High School page um school profile. >> Okay. And then you know and then there's also all the indicators and that's this is public information about what um you know what percentages Tom you got the percentages of where our kids are going right on that. So, >> so just to expand on that if I may. Um, the roles of of a school board is in many instances to oversee effort and time that we invest and our our um our administrators put into certain things. So we are trying to use better metrics so we can place time and effort and identify issues to fix something if we see things going sideways. Using the wrong type of data could cause us to go down the wrong avenue, spend a lot of time and effort trying to fix
037something that's not broken because we're using the wrong measure. So, this is clearly to my mind with 95% of our graduates going to a 4-year college. >> It's 88% going to college. 95% graduate on time. >> Graduate. Okay. So, it's even higher than that. >> It stands to reason that you use something like the SATs as the measure to see if there's any deficiencies that we have to focus on if something seems broken. So that's why we use it instead of maybe a state um evaluation that could cause us to make decisions that don't make sense. I just want to clarify something. If you look back at the history of why the testing takes place, the real emphasis of the program that initiated was to monitor progress, not not just scores. So it was to
038look at >> for particularly in underperforming areas are they getting better. So there is a reason behind and a a a somewhat sound methodology behind what is being collected. The problem that we run into is twofold. One is our state allowance for opt out somewhat corrupts the data and on top of that I don't think people are looking at it with the intent of the data which is watch a diagonal on the chart which is a cohort of students moving through the system and look to see whether their grade level proficiency increases. The problem that we run into is as they get older, the opt out rates increasing. So again, it's distorting the data. >> And you can argue that as they get older, they're >> they're tired of taking these tests, you know, and
039they're not they're not necessarily as serious about them. But even I I don't want to dis discount those the tests or discount the concerns. I do think that, you know, we're always concerned about testing. We want to pay attention to that, but we also really want to look at our curriculum, what our teachers are, what the standards are, what our teachers are teaching, talk to our staff. And that's why we have um a grading and assessment committee that hasn't been up and running, but we need to get that um back going to be looking at how are we grading, how are we assessing because that's the other thing that we can be looking at. We can be looking at grades as a metric. we can be looking at um what kids how kids are doing
040in their actual classes and that's what kind of matters at the end of the day too. >> Yes, Melanie. >> Yes. Thank you. >> So it seems like someone else is setting these metrics for us so we have to show these these metrics correct. >> Yes. >> Can't we have our own set of metrics that take out the opt out folks just for FYI? >> Yeah. And so um this summer we'll be revealing our data dashboard. So that will include what we typically see and report. It will include a lot of what you see in the school profile. It will include data that we put together that we value as a school district and I think that'll tell a little bit more of the story. Um, but I also want to point out that the
041high school was just recognized last month we came to the board meeting as an AP school honor role um due to increasing AP class enrollment. So we are also not targeting a small number of students to take these high classes. We're saying everybody take these classes, challenge yourself and they're still performing at a really high rate on the AP exam. So to me that that tells the story. The second part I wanted to add was I think this is very important information because I go to other towns and I hear the same thing. Our test scores are lower. Well, if people understand that you're adding in zeros with 95s, of course, the average is going to be lower. So, this is really important. >> So, like the Tom asked the question of the board and
042um is this something that we feel like needs to be presented at the at the annual meeting? Um, that's what you asked, right? Ginger asked that. >> Some of it >> I it can't be that long. That's it's too long. >> Yeah, it has to be shorter because we just don't have a lot of time and we don't want to take people's question. >> Yes. >> I just I didn't want to jump into the conversation to say anything about proficiency because I could go on and on about and that's like a whole another discussion. I wanted to just thank Tom for the details of this and I do think it should be a part of the annual meeting in a short quick way but I think it should be ongoing to explain that. Um, I
043am unapologetically a parent who's been opting my kids out for 14 years across multiple states and for a lot of reasons. A lot of the reasons Tom listed, some are different different states. The first state, they included our student test scores directly into teacher um evaluation, which I wholeheartedly objected to for a lot of these same reasons. So, there's a lot of reasons and with more education, the more I learn um the different school districts I've had my children in, I I'm happy with the decision. So, it's really important to me to share this information because every state these these things are, you know, skewed and it makes it really important for people to understand because I do hear I think we all hear that of how our testimony are and um how that impacts
044things and and it's used to sway voters in one direction or another. And I think it's just really important to share this information so people understand where those numbers are coming from. Thank you. I think it's super important. >> Anything else from the board? because I I'm looking at the time. So, >> yeah, just a quick comment. Um I looked at the numbers too and I'm concerned about it and I understand, but there's a group of students that um those that seek employment and those that take a gap year and I I look at them and it's only about eight kids in the school out of 177. Uh there's got to be a way maybe there's a way to follow up with those students a year or two and the, you know, the best and
045brightest that go on to higher education, some of the best schools, find out from them how they're performing based on what they've learned at all high school. And the same thing for the kids that have gaping and um looking for employment. Are they now after a year or two decided to go back to school? >> Can they do it now? Are they doing it? Well, >> that's a question that's been brought up many times. How do we follow up? And it it has to be a voluntary like survey. It has to be voluntary. It has to be people willing to do that. And so, um, it's a bit of an undertaking, but it's Thank you for suggesting that >> random sequence. >> So, um, I think what I'd like to do with the chair of
046the budget committee's permission and and the board's permission is move on to the public hearing. Would we do it that way and then come back to the charter commission question after the public hearing? Does that work for everybody? We have information about the Charter Commission PWA that's on the ballot, the official ballot of March 10th, and we can go over that after we do the public hearing. I think that makes more sense. >> So, um I guess I'll just call a motion to go to the public hearing. >> You have to recess. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, I need a motion that the board recess until the conclusion of the public hearings. There will be two back to back. >> There'll be two public hearings. >> Yes, we're doing we're separating them out.
047Just we'll explain. >> So moved by Amy. I need a second. >> Second by Beth. Okay. All those in favor. Okay. That is 6. So the board is recessed at 6:42 and 642. I'll take a similar motion of the budget committee to recess until the conclusion of the public hearings. >> Make a motion. >> U. Motion by roll seconded by Tony. All those in favor? One, two, three, four. Five. Five zero. Zero. Okay. >> And I'm turning it over to Dar. >> Okay. So, um before we um officially open the public hearing, I wanted to just take a few minutes. Something I do um share some information with um the community um just some metrics and some things we look at before we get into um the financial implications of the warrant that we'll be
048um talking about in March and um the individual articles that we'll be addressing this evening. So, just give us a minute. >> Sorry. >> No, that's okay. >> She's got the presentation. >> She has. >> So, while we bring that up, um essentially we'll have a warrant um this year of 11 articles. Uh and there we are. Um the first five um have stated financial impacts. So we'll be looking at the SAU budget. Um the co-op portion of that will be a little over 1.2 million. An operating budget of $31,716,292. uh the second year of the support staff contract uh valued at 131,512, a facilities maintenance trust of 300,000 and a contingency of 125,000 for a total of 33,53,298, which is a 4.2% increase over the um the current budget that we're operating under for
049FY26. Um there is an additional article uh addressing open enrollment which we'll talk about later that doesn't have a stated financial impact and there are five petition articles um to address including scores and rankings on the website adopting SB2 adopting a budget cap putting the tax impact on the warrant and adopting a tax cap. So, just to give a little overview of co-op enrollment, um the information in red is the trended information, the forward-looking view um that we received from NASDAQ. Um currently, we're operating under an enrollment level of 1091 for FY26 and essentially looking at that to be flat into FY97 with just a very slight increase of three students. And actually um the increase projected over five years isn't um suggesting any big marked increase. Um these numbers do change on an annual
050basis. Um and what we've seen over time using NASDAQ data is it's a m sometimes a magnitude change but the trend is usually um correct. So over five year the next five years at least for the co-ops. So that's for the middle school and high school. We're looking for relatively flat to very slightly increasing um enrollment. that enrollment is split between um Hollis and Brookline as the two contributing towns to the district. Looking at FY27, we're looking at a 53% Hollis, 47% Brookline distribution, which is relatively consistent with where we are for this year. Um the the only time that we got close to the kind of the 5050 um split and kind of an even distribution of students was back in the FY17 kind of to FY19 um time frame but since then it's
051been um steadily u an a majority um of Hollis over 50%. And that's projected to continue through FY31. On a cost per pupil basis, we very um on a historical basis, the co-op has always underrun the state average cost per pupil. What we did see looking at FY25 is a 3% increase over um the state average. So with um the cost per pupil coming in at 23,000, a little over 400 versus 22,700 for the state. When we look at the budget and taxes, um just this this chart is just intended to emphasize that what you approve as a budget isn't what you are taxed on. The um tax effort that directly impacts your tax bill is an amount that is lower than the budget itself. Um the budget is reduced by revenue and adequacy aid
052in both towns and um based on uh the unreserved fund balance that was reserved uh returned to the taxpayers as a result of um coming in under budget and having a little bit of excess revenue in FY25. For the current year, we came in about $700,000 below what we estimated for the tax effort for the year we're in right now. So last year we were estimating 25.1 million and we're actually at 24.4 for the current year, not the future year. So as I mentioned, those things that um reduce the budget and impact the tax effort are um revenue and state aid. And as we look toward FY27, there is um an in a decrease of of approximately $275,000 in revenue that's anticipated. And that's due to a lower expectation on unreserved fund balance. We do
053tend to be a little bit conservative and as I mentioned the amount that was returned to the taxpayers as a result of reducing tax effort for the current year is higher than what we were projecting um for FY27 by about that $275,000. So um that's the main contributor to the reduced revenue. the district no longer receives building aid um as a result of um the concluding our I believe it was the middle school that was the last school getting building aid. So we've um no longer have outstanding debt on the middle school and no longer receive building aid for state aid. Um state aid uh comes to the districts in two parts. One is through an adequacy grant and one is through the statewide education property tax. The amounts are different for each community. And
054as you see, looking into FY27, Hollis will have a reduction in its total state aid uh by just under um $90,000 less than what we received this year. Brookline will have an increase of over $400,000 just for the co-op. One of the main things driving the increase in Brooklyn's aid next year is something called fiscal disparity aid, which is a new or I would say returning component um to adequacy. What uh Brookline will be receiving in total for its whole community is uh just shy of 850,000 in fiscal disparity aid. That amount of money gets split between the Brooklyn School District and the co-op. So um that 445,000 additional is mostly due to the um fiscal disparity aid. It is you know related um just actually the the average daily membership they're projecting for Brooklyn
055and some component parts. It's it's based on uh students in addition to disparity aid, but it's that um fiscal disparity aid that's the main driver to that $400,000 increase in aid for for Berkeley. looking at just a summary of impacts. Um so while that aid helps to offset the increases in the budget and the lower co co-op revenue, it isn't enough to to um reduce the tax effort to below a point where we are today. So as a result of the projected budget, the anticipated revenue and aid, we're looking at an increase in tax effort of about 5.3% for the co-op. A portionment is the way we split the cost between the two communities. It's based on a formula that includes um students through average daily membership. The um equalized value is uh per ratio
056is used in um distributing capital costs that have um long-term debt assigned to them yielding a net um aortionment percentage of 55% um to Hollis, 40 44.8% 8% to Brookline. Once adequacy is taken into um consideration, the local tax effort estimates look at a distribution of t tax effort as 57% for Hollis and 43% for Brookline. And putting that into the split between the two communities, um we're starting with the total 33.5 million reduce that by co-op revenue. And at that third line bolded that says net to be aortioned is the point where the aortionment formula is applied. So at that point Hollis kind of base to calculate its tax effort will be is estimated to be around 17.3 million and Brooklyn's about 14 million. Then you see there each town has um that amount
057reduced by its individual uh the state aid that's estimated for each community to arrive at a local tax effort. So for Hollis, there's a tax effort estimated at $14.6 million, which would yield an a tax a local tax rate on um included in your tax bill of $6.22 per thousand. The amount that's currently in the bills that were just sent out at the end of the year is $5.94 for the co-op. So this that 622 is a direct replacement of that 594. It isn't in addition to you essentially take out 594 and put in 622 as the co-op portion for Hollis. That would be a 4.7% increase on the co-op portion of a Hollis tax bill. That co-op portion is 31% of your total tax rate, which yields a 1.5% increase in your tax bill.
058So basically that increase of uh 28 cents per thousand is directly is reflective of a 1.5% increase on a Hollis bill in Brooklyn. The calculated amount of $9.39 per thousand or like 33 cents higher than the tax rate that it um is on the bills right now um is a 3.6% increase on the co-op local tax rate. So again, taking out $9.0 $96 from your current bill, replacing that with $9.39. For Brookline, the co-op represents a slightly higher percentage of the total tax bill um of about 38%. That's been a relatively consistent percentage um over time. And uh what that yields for an impact to the total tax bill in Brookline is an increase of 1.4%. So just um at so at this point I'll open um the public hearing at 6:54 p.m. Um we
059will this will be the public hearing for um it's actually articles 1 through five of the original warrant and then the school board will take over and um conduct a public hearing on articles 6 through 11. um in both the the specific petition articles um require hearings in both towns. So tonight's will serve for the one in Hollis and tomorrow is the one in Brooklyn >> and that's at 3:30, right? >> 3 p.m. at RMS. >> 3 p.m. at RMMS. >> Okay. >> So um this evening's public hearing is intended to in introduce articles with stated financial impact that will be v voted on at our meeting in March. Um we are looking for um public input per article where and afterwards the public uh the budget committee and the school board will be u
060making their recommendations on the articles themselves. Um what we'll share at the um annual meeting is a 10% maximum allowable appropriation. Um once everything is you know uh completed, put forward and calculated there will there is a maximum allowable amount for public input itself. Um it is restricted to Hollis and Brookline residents of voting legal voting age. Exceptions are made for administration or others um as necessary for clarification. We're recognizing input on a per article basis. Please state your name and address for the record. questions should be directed to the chair with the speaking time of two minutes that cannot be yielded and you may speak again to an article um once all others have had an opportunity and please be brief if your point has been substantially made by others. There is uh was
061new legislation enacted that requires the SAU budget to be the first article presented on a warrant and that's what we're doing here with article one. Shall the district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of1,230,494 as the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District's portion of the SAU budget of $2,560,328 for the fourthcoming fiscal year. This year's adjusted budget of 2,540,642 with 1,221,033 assigned to the school budget of the school district will be adopted if the article does not receive a majority vote of all of the school district voters voting in the school administrative unit. The estimated tax impact for Hollis is 30 cents per thousand and 45 cents per thousand for Brookline. Um, as many of you may know, the SAU budget is the one article that you get to vote on in two communities. So,
062you'll vote in each um Hollis is um has a separate portion of the SAU budget. Brookline has a portion and this is the co-op portion. So, you get to cast a vote in Hollis or Brookline and then at the co-op. And since we are last, our moderator will be able to share the results of the vote on this article at the district meeting. So just to give some highlights um so there is an SAU budget committee uh that meets with the administration to work on eval de develop evaluating the budget that's proposed. It's uh the members include um school board members from each uh dis from each district uh the member of the governing board the treasurer of the governing board as well as um budget committee or finance committee representation from each district as
063well. So that process takes place in the I would say se September, October time frame, September, October, November. Um the the individuals that participate on that committee take the um the draft budgets back to their individual boards, discuss the elements, bring any input back to the committee itself. And this budget um had a public hearing at the governing board meeting in December um where it was discussed and um approved to be um moved forward in total uh across the district. Did I capture that? So here what we're seeing is a change of aboutund just shy of $122,000 moving into FY27 with an adjusted budget which is a 5% change off um from the budget that we have right now in total. The major drivers on this budget is for the staff at um for London
064Lane. So, it's I believe it's 19 individuals. Um, and it's really based it's really a salary and benefit driven budget. The increases total just uh $67,693 for salary changes. Um, benefit changes of just shy of 45,000 as the district is looking at increases in health insurance rates of just over 15% and dental insurance of 4.4. and then some other um smaller increases in operation maintenance costs and equipment and software. So, at this time, I'll welcome um public input on article one for the SAU budget. Okay, seeing none, I'll close public input on article one and move on to um article two, the operating budget to see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate a sum of 31,716,292 for the support of schools, for the payment of salaries for school district officials and
065agents, and for the payment of statutory obligations of the district. This appropriation does not include appropriations voted in other warrant articles. Majority vote required. Uh and in all these cases, the school board and budget committee will be taking their positions a little bit later this evening. So for Hollis, the estimated tax impact is $5.99 per thousand and Brookline $94 per thousand. So looking at um just in general year-over-year, we're looking at a just over $1.1 million increase or a 3.8% 8% increase in the operating budget moving into FY27. Um as as the budget committee goes through its process um of working with the administration to to um you know work through the details of the budget before you this evening. Um we have a pretty strict guidance process which enables us to um identify a
066target for the administration to work toward. that guidance um amount is um we like to have guimary guidance recommended in October. we finalize in November and it really does what we've seen over the years is that it's a formula and the outcome that enables the district to work toward um something we the budget committee has looked at as you know a reasonable expectation of um increases or changes in the budget that we would support. Um the guidance budget that we evaluate um is something less than the budget um that's currently in place. We start with the FY26 budget. We reduce it by certain elements um that are going to be increasing outside of CPI. So we have contracted increases like the Samber contract for the professional staff. We have documented and a legal obligation to
067certain levels of debt service. um and we know what those changes are going to be. And special education costs we tend to evaluate outside of a strict CPI related change because there are um so many things that can impact a change to special education. So when looking at the guidance budget for the co-op looking at FY27 um we applied a factor that was less than CPI and resulted in an in a 2% increase on this lower budget. Having set done that and put that forward the district was able to come in um $377,000 $377,000 below our guidance of just over 32 million. So, um there was a lot of prioritization that took place with the administration and this is I I can't remember the last time we the the district um since we put in
068this guidance process ever missed the guidance um number that the budget committee has put forward. And if we do have to make adjustments to guidance, it's with a lot of thoughtful consideration to, you know, extraneous circumstances and things that the budget committee evaluates if it's going to um shift from guidance um at all. As a as a budget committee, um we wanted to recognize that the administration worked really hard to come in that far below guidance this year. There was discussion at the budget committee level to reduce guidance to a lower amount because the number came in lower and why don't we just reduce guidance but we didn't feel that that would really um recognize the efforts that the the administration made to fall below guidance. And similarly they didn't come back and say well
069let's just meet guidance and put this money back in. They really did prioritize make solid decisions and put and and stuck with the the budget that we're looking at in um for the upcoming year. So for the major increases and decreases, there are um several key areas that we really are just facing significant um non-discretionary increases. And one of them is the increase to bonds of over $500,000. So if you recall, there were um two bonds passed at the for the FY26 uh at the FY26 district meeting. The first year cost of those bonds is always interest based only. So as we move to FY27, we're looking at a budget that includes payments that are comprised of both principal and interest. So that's the reason for the significant increase to 529,000. Next year, we have
070no bonds on the warrant for FY27. Next year, there will not be a significant increase at all for for um bonds, and we'll start to see um them trend down. And in a few years, we'll actually see some of the older um bonds and leases um that the district has start to fall off in about three or four years. For benefits, I as I mentioned for the SAU uh budget, the same is true in um the co-op district. The increase in um co insurance cost is estimated to be 15.1% or another half a million dollar increase, $510,926. Um that increase is firm. Um it's been put forward by health trust and will not change after the district meeting. Um there have been years where we've been given actually I should take out the um GMR
071uh which refers to the guaranteed maximum rate. Um that is is going to be the increase in rates that the district will see. In prior years, um we've had estimates come in at, you know, through the fall and then usually right after district meeting, we get the actual, um percentage changes in in health care costs that the district will have to absorb. Um the the risk pools have gone away from that model and are um holding firm and holding they give us the rate increase in the fall and there's no change in the spring. We've contracted increase on um the professional staff and we're looking at a $227,000 increase um in that category. We're going to be doing some additional field maintenance and seeing some higher costs for facilities rentals and athletics. And um for
072facilities themselves, while there was a lot of prioritization um of projects and things that will be pushed out to later years, um that uh 391,000 that's um we're looking at in the FY27 budget is for things for both the middle and high school uh to work on flooring, exterior cleaning, duct work cleaning, improving uh replacing ceiling tiles, which is a phased approach. um buying buying floor machines for each um each school and u many other things actually. But again, a lot of significant prioritization went into arriving at the $391,000. Other new items actually year-over-year reflects a decrease of $191,000. And so, um, the district really did, um, cut back on some of the requirements in classroom equipment, um, laptops, um, security cameras, those things are all, um, included in the 192,000 that is being put
073forward, but some of the amounts were reduced and, um, you know, some of the, as I said, other, um, things will be pushed out and phased in in later years. And for student services, we see a a pretty significant decrease of $318,000 um due to program changes and um you know, changes in student population, individualized education plans, and kind of to address the needs of um of those students. So, at this time, I'll open the floor to public input on article two. Okay. Seeing no one rise, I will close public input on article two and move on to the support staff contract to see if the school district will vote to approve the cost items for the first year of a uh sorry that should say second year. I don't know how many times I
074went through this presentation. For the second year of a three-year collective bargaining agreement reached between the Hollis Brookled Cooperative School Board and the Hollis Education Support Staff Association for the 2526, 2627, and 2728 school years, which calls for the following increases in support staff salaries and benefits at the current staffing levels. Um, so for the 2627 fiscal year, the estimated increase is $131,512. and further to raise an appropriate sum of $131,512 for the second fiscal year 2627 school year. Such sum representing the additional cost attributable to the increase in support staff salaries and benefits required by the new agreement over those that would be paid at current staffing levels. Majority vote required. Um passing this article would result in an estimated um increase in the tax rate for Hollis of 3 cents per thousand and
075for Brooklyn 5 cents per thousand. So just briefly, I think there'll be more, you know, there might be more information shared, but this is just a brief overview of and I ask the school board to jump in at any time. Um, for the salary increases that's proposed is an onstep increase of 2.75% plus movement of one step on the table and anyone off is would be seeing an increase of about 3.4%. There are are some um increases in uh the dollar caps assigned for single twoerson and family plans and this um as stated is a non-sandernized agreement um and which is why for the three years of the agreement it will be um it's brought forward um with an amount stipulated for each year and and FY28 will be the third year of the contract.
076I don't know if there's anything else that the school board would like to add. >> I think our I don't know if that Yeah, I think we're good. >> Okay. Um, at this point, I'll invite the public for comments on article three for the support staff. >> I was um curious about Oh, uh, Pam Hicks, um, 8 Maple Null Drive on the monthly, going back to the monthly cost for the health insurance, is that per month, per year? You've just got increases from 83. What is that representing? The time frame on that, >> that's per month. >> Per month. Okay. All right. And I was curious as to if you could give a number for what the impact was for uh adding benefits to the part-time positions, what the total impact what that is to
077this year's budget. I wanted to find out what that number was. >> Okay. as a as a subset of the 131. >> We didn't add we've we've been giving benefits to our to our parents and support staff from where the Hollis school district did that last year. >> Correct. >> The co-op district has >> Okay. So the co-op has been done. Our our teachers work uh >> our parents their day is longer and so they've been eligible just based on the length of their work day. >> Oh, okay. >> Years. All right. So it's just a confusion in the two boards. Yeah. >> Thank you. I I should have added too that the support staff contract does represent um the contract for our custodial maintenance food service >> and our par professional >> Administrative assistance.
078Yeah. >> Thank you. So, at this time, I'll close public input on article three and move on to article four for the facilities um maintenance expendable trust to see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate up to the sum of $300,000 to be added to the previously established school building and facilities maintenance expendable trust fund. Some to come from the Holland Cooperative School District's June 30, 2026 unassigned fund balance available on July 1st, 2026. Majority vote required. Um, since the unreserved fund balance is the source of funding for this article, you would be foregoing a tax rate reduction of 7 cents per thousand in Hollis and 11 cents per thousand in Brooklyn. The projects um anticipated for the $300,000 include um some uh specific duck work cleaning for the middle school, phase
079three of five for the middle school roof, and uh track reser the high school track resurfacing of $130,000. There is an ex existing balance in this account. Um because we are um sometimes we in while these are estimates for the costs um anything that you know is not spent remains in the account. And in addition, we are also in prior years have um some of the proposed funding has been to um put money away for elevator repairs and replacements and replacement parts because elevators are extremely expensive to repair and replace um there. So, um in addition to this $300,000, there's $391,000 in facilities maintenance that I mentioned um in the operating budget. So, at this time, I'll ask for public input on the maintenance expendable trust. Seeing none, I'll close public input and move on
080to article 5 for the contingency to see if the school district will vote to establish a contingency fund for the current year for unanticipated expenses that may arise and further to raise and appropriate up to $125,000 to go into the fund. This sum to come from the unassigned fund balance available on July 1st, 2026 and no amount to be raised from taxation. Any appropriation left at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund. Majority vote required. So um again, since the unreserved fund balance is the source of funding, you would be go foregoing a rate reduction of 3 cents per thousand in Hollis and 5 cents per thousand in Brooklyn. Um so the contingency is an article that uh the district has put on the budget for um on the artic on
081the warrant for uh annually for at least 10 years. Um because what is different for school districts than towns is that school districts cannot keep um I'll explain in a little bit more detail. Um cannot take any uh underrun in expenses or overrun in revenue and just tuck it away into a fund. Towns can do that and they are not required to return any underruns in in budget or overruns in revenue. They can keep it and put it aside. School dis districts have to return funds to the taxpayer. There are two ways that districts can retain funds. One is through the establishment of an on an annual basis of an article just like this one um that says we'd like to take $125,000 of the unassigned fund balance and make it available for potential use
082in the upcoming year. If this money does not get used, it lapses and is not saved. It absolutely gets returned as part of the next year's unreserve fund balance. what um has recently um been allowable for districts and I say recently because it's been within the past five to seven years is the um avail the the ability for districts to establish what's called a retained fund balance which our district has done that does enable the district to retain a very specific portion of unassigned fund balance at the end of every year. So, um, when that, uh, retained fund balance language was originally brought to the district, uh, the legal threshold was a 2 and a.5% increase, uh, 2 and a.5% of the the district's assessment. Um, and it was passed at district meeting to be
083a 1% maximum, and that's what we operated under for a very long time, for probably three years or so. Um I believe two to three years ago the legislation changed and allowed the maximum to go from two and a half to 5%. In order for districts to change their percentage they would have had to put a warrant article forward and change what their if they had approved you know 2 and a half% or 1% they would have had to put another article forward. It was not something that just because the law changed your percentages change. you had to take an active step and measure um with your legislative body. The district bought at that time brought forward um the opportunity to increase the rate and um we increased it to two and a half a
084two and a half% max for of the assessment. So we have this contingency which is part of the operating budget and we have the retained fund balance in another place and the way funds are are put into that um balance are is by a motion of the board on an annual basis and the way funds are used from that balance is by way of a public hearing and open discussion of how that money is going to be used. Similarly for the contingency, um while the district certainly can go just use their contingency funds, we do kind of have an understanding that if it is going to be used, it's a discussion at least with the budget committee and um you know, we're at least aware of the circumstances for what would lead to that um
085use. So, and I will also say um the the um school board has has not to date on the retained fund balance side ever um approved the maximum amount. They always um approved less than that amount and I think the amount they approved for this year is 1.5% which is about $375,000. So, are there any public input on article five the contingency? >> I just asked a clarifying question. Has the district used the contingency in recent years? >> Um the very first year that we had it uh we over the so that was probably 10 years ago at least. Um there were some circumstances that took place over the summer and at the time um when the contingency um was allowable, you had to get um state approval. There were very discreet reasons why you
086could use it. It had to be an emergency. you needed state approval. It was only good for special education um or like I said an emergency. And that summer, I think we had like two or three things happen like the well tank cracked, the elevator broke, we hadn't even started the school year. Um and so the district did um apply to the state to use their contingent funds and actually only got approval to use um the funds for one piece, one thing that they um submitted on um because the approval for the second kind of just kind of got lost in email. Um so I think that year the district started with an expense a budget freeze and they were just very concerned about the budget in that year. So, it the I I believe
087we still I I should go back and see actually what year that was. Um I don't think the funds um the funds might have been used and taken out of the contingency line at the time, but the budget still underran for the year. We were never by the end of the year. >> We haven't really >> Other than that, no, we haven't used it. >> Okay. Seeing no input, I'll move on to um >> Actually, you're done. >> I'm done. >> Yeah. >> Okay. You can close your portion. >> Do you have article six here? >> I >> Wow. How do I not have article six here? >> I have it. >> People, >> do you want to do you want to just show from the from the agenda the actual >> I can read
088it. That's >> I can read it, too. So, >> um, but if you want to just pull up our agenda, it's on the warrant. >> 57. >> Thanks. I see that. So, are you closing yours? Uh so at this time I will close um public input um and the public hearing at 7:20 p.m. >> And I am going to open a new public hearing um run by the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School Board at 7:20 p.m. >> 7:20 p.m. Um, and the reason for this little switch is that the rest of the articles are either petition warrant articles or non monetary articles. Um, and we as a we have a twominut public input rule that we will continue on except for the fact that if the primary petitioner from a petition warrant article is here, we
089will allow it allow a short presentation. But I don't think the primary petitioners are here. So, um, that being said, we will probably just go through the petition warrant articles and we won't speak to petition warrant articles and present them because they're not our articles. So, the only article that is being presented by the school board is article six. Um, so that is shall the Hollis Brooklyn Cooperative School District vote to adopt an open enrollment school program designating the Hollis Brookline Cooperative High School as an open enrollment school pursuant to NA New Hampshire RSA 194-D for the purpose of enabling the district to admit non-resident students to HBHS with 100% of its eligible resident pupils permitted to attend HBHS and 0% of its resident pupils um in grade 7 through wait a second sorry 0%
090is resident pupils in grade 7 to 12 permitted to attend open enrollment schools located outside of the district and further to limit the number of non-resident pupils who may attend HBHS under the provisions of RS 194-d students total with no more than two non-resident students being admitted to each grade 9 through 12 with zero non-resident students put permitted to attend Hollis Brookline cooperative middle schools Um, I'm going to let the superintendent speak to the purpose of this article. >> Um, the purpose of this article is to establish um um fiscal responsibility for the communities of Hollis in Brooklyn. Um, the way it stands right now, there are districts in the state of New Hampshire that have deemed themselves that have deemed themselves open enrollment schools. And given lawsuits that have played out, if um pupils
091in our community decide to attend those schools without consulting with our school or um with the district, um they would attend those schools and then we would be faced with paying other communities um 80% of our per pupil expenditure without consulting or without having um any discussion points. Um this article protects the intent of this article is to protect um the dollars of halls in Brooklyn to remain in our community with our students um and in our schools. Um we are open to accepting up to five students from other communities at the high school, no more than two per grade level. so that it does it wouldn't cause um a need to hire additional teachers or change our programs, but it would allow us to have a little bit of flexibility. The high school would
092be the easiest place to schedule students based on the fact that they take seven different classes. Um and then we would be eligible for 80% of those school that where those pupils are coming from 80% of their per pupil expenditure. Um, sorry, Lauren. Uh, as of right now, this would, um, the intent of this is to create some stability for our community. There is current legislation out there that, um, >> I hope I don't have your password. >> Yeah, there are there's current legislation out there that potentially would make this a moot point. If open enrollment passes in the state um, before or after our annual meeting, then this uh, warrant article would be um, a moot point. it would be null and void and we would simply follow the new law. However, at this
093point it's um my recommendation recommendation of the school board and legal council to put this forward for protection. There are so many unknowns about what open enrollment would bring the district in terms of um costs of um special ed costs um time of our um educators uh specifically for special ed students. if our students were to attend another school district. Um there's just a lot of um answers that we don't have. And so this is a an opportunity for us to move slowly in that direction. This does not mean that families couldn't choose to send their students to um charter schools or to private schools or other other means. But this would um limit families from simply taking their students from Halls Brookline Middle School and High School and sending them to other open enrollment
094schools without conversation and then we'd be faced with the bill. I'm going to turn that on. Okay. Thank you. Um at this point, I'll open the floor for public comment on article six. Joe Garuba, 28 Winchester Drive, speaking on behalf of myself. >> Can you speak a little louder, Joe? I can't really hear you. >> No problem. So there is a similar article uh at the Hollis School District and the number of students that are permitted to transfer in is one at that on that article. This article is allowing five students to transfer in. So I'm questioning why why are we allowing is there a rationale to allowing students from other districts to come here? Why? Why did you guys choose to do that? >> Why did we ch So, um, we have to have
095a nonzero number for it to be legally determined that we've made a change in open enrollment status. Um, originally the thought was limit zero in, zero out, but we needed to identify a change in number. With our high school, as I mentioned, it's easier to fit a student in because of the way that um, we schedule. So there are a lot of diverse requests. Um and allowing one, two, three, four, five would not necessarily put a demand on um increasing by a math teacher or increasing by a history teacher. In our elementarymentaries that can have a huge impact because they are in the same cohort throughout the full day. >> Okay. So it certainly is possible to reduce that number to one. It's a non-zero number. So, it's my opinion and I'm asking the school
096board to do this. I think this should be amended to one because I don't think it benefits the residents of Hollis uh Brooklyn district to have the additional traffic coming here and to dilute our studenttoteer ratio. So, I'm asking maybe tonight I would like to see this amended to one. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you for that feedback. Drew Mason Baxter Road Hollis and moderator of the district. What is the rationale for allowing zero out? >> So if we allow one out, we would be required to pay the bill uh for that student in and so we would take um 80% of our per pupil expenditure and send it to another community. In addition, if there were other costs associated with that student, um any type of special ed related costs, transportation related to special
097ed needs, um we would still what's called LEA the meeting. So we would still have to have personnel in those other schools. So that requires time and money. Um and then we would increase the number of meetings, increasing the drive time. So there's just by allowing pupils to go to other schools that has a a much greater financial burden on us and we wouldn't be able to plan that uh in our budget. >> There must be students however who would benefit from a different education environment. How how should they be handled? >> So there are charter schools. There's um EFA opportunities family can families can take. There's home school, there's private schools, there's quite a few opportunities um for families. However, Holl Brookline Cooperative School District is a school district built and founded for providing
098an education to the students to the resident students of this district in our district. >> So, you're saying basically it's it's on the parents dime to do that if they wish to educate them elsewhere. I mean, this is this a philosophical kind of question, but people move to our community for our schools. >> Yeah. >> And our tax dollars support our schools. So then by allowing tax dollars to go to other communities, >> is that what we're hoping to accomplish? So that's I'm going to limit it at that. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think we got the answer. >> So I'm taking that answer to my as a yes to my last question. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Drew. Chris Okala Hollis. >> I'm sorry. Can you repeat your name for me? >>
099Chris. Um, I too am concerned about the numbers that you are proposing in this article. Um, I'm just reading this kind of um quickly for the first time. It says um no more than five students total. And then there's a comma and it says with no more than two non-resident students being admitted to each grade. And I thought you had four grades. >> No, no, it just means that no more than two per grade. So, five students, but not all five can come to ninth grade. So, no more than two in a grade. >> Okay. So, you >> five is the max. >> Five's the max. >> But like you could get two sophomores, two juniors, and a senior, but you can't get five seniors. >> Okay. Um, is there a guarantee to those students
100that they're going to be here for four years >> because this is a commitment. >> Yeah. So, that's part of the uncertainty. Um, there's no clause to say um that we can remove those students. So, there's an assumption that they would be here for the remainder of their educational career. And I think that's part of the reason why there is a concern at the state level for this legislation because there's a lot of unknown answers. >> Sure. >> One more answer. add one thing that I I um attended a webinar specifically about open enrollment and this question was asked of the attorney and it's an attorney for the New Hampshire School Board Association and the answer that he gave was that there was nothing in the legislation that guarantees that they have that right. But
101there's also nothing in it that says that they don't. So that's that was identified as a gray area in the legislation that has districts concerned. >> And then could it be contested by that family sending that child >> that discrimination >> were admitted? This gray area is very concerning. >> Right. We're working through the law. The legislation's still up in conquered. It's it hasn't passed yet, but there's been amendments to it and changes to it, and we're trying to >> protect the district as best we can. >> So, is it do I understand that your preference is that that number be smaller? >> Zero. >> Well, >> zero in, zero out. I'm not going to be paying put it on the parents like you said to >> Drew, you know, an option of private school
102is is putting it on the parent. So, >> I just want to clarify the reason we can't put it at we didn't put it at zero is that the way the courts ruled if you have it zero that effectively is not implementing a change and therefore you are an open enrollment school. So that's why all this all these are are rushing to put a number. It's like when we added the $1 in previous years. >> If we don't have a change from zero >> or or if we if we don't have a specific whole number in there, the courts already interpreted that as oh you allow anything. Can you put in this article that there is no guarantee that the child is here until graduation? >> We we could put whatever we want, but if
103it is in conflict with the way that the law is stated or interpreted by the courts, it would not necessarily be upheld. That's why there's a lot of people lobbying to have changes made to it, but they're pulling it all different directions depending on the interests of any individual school district. >> It's a gray area and this is >> I think if you could put in um >> like no guarantee >> no guarantee that you're here. This is a one-year contract. We can we can check with legal but we don't >> suggest big we can check with legal. >> The other question just because when you speak I'm sorry >> it's very I know the your microphones are for the recording. They're not for us but it would be nice if we could all >>
104hear. So if you can have dual microphones that would be great. So I'm going to ask a question that you probably have already answered but I really would like to hear it. is what about children who are on an IEP or a 504? >> What's is is there any difference between these people whether or not they can qualify for this or not >> because that's all all students are eligible. It's um lots of gray area right right now. Um it's the sending district that would be on the hook for the cost of services. However, um um you know there there would be meetings that the team from the ascending district, the team from our district would have conversation about what's an appropriate service. And so there are a lot of um questions that we don't
105have very clear answers for and certainly that is um a very gray area. >> Can you stipulate that you're not accepting? We cannot >> but the the way the wording is it's very am it's not very detailed but the language does state that the sending district will pay cost of services. What it doesn't delineate is what happens if there is a disagreement between the sending district and the receiving district on what services are appropriate. So it does state it does state that that the sending district has to pay those costs but it doesn't put doesn't put guard rails on those costs or the reimbursement. So it's a problem. Okay. >> I was just going to say that you've got a real problem on your hands. >> We do. >> Thank you so much. I think
106we've got two minutes. So, thank you. >> Is there any further public input on article six? >> All right. Moving on to article seven. Oh, sorry, Drew. Yes, go ahead. >> What what you just said raised a question in my mind. Does the receiving district have any choice over who who who comes? >> My understanding is according to the current legislation. No. >> Well, suppose >> Oh, wait a second. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say that. If the student has there are three exceptions. If the student has been expelled from their district, if the student has a history of attendance or behavior issues. Right? Those are the three. But but that it doesn't define what a behavior issue is. Right? There's no definition of what behavior issues are. So in our school, behavior issues
107might be X, Y, and Z. In another school, they may be different from what our behavioral expectations are or what we have a really well- behaved group of students. And so, you know, there's no definition of that. So, we that's another thing that's unclear. >> Suppose you have eight interested students for five slots. How is that lottery? >> Lottery. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Drew. >> Okay. Moving on to article seven, I think. Right. Okay. Article 7 is by petition to see if the school district will vote to require the Hollis School Board to prominently display current and previous year state assessment scores and state rankings on the school district website header visible on every page with said information to be updated within 30 days of the official release of scores by the New Hampshire
108Department of Education. Is there any public input on that one? Again, this was a petition war, so we won't be commenting on it um until we discuss later. Um, all right. Seeing no public comment on that one, um, I am going to move on. Am I supposed to be tracking the time at 7:39? Um, article 8. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA413 known as SB2, to allow official ballot voting on all issues before the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District on the second Tuesday of March. Is there any public input? I'll open the floor for public input at 7:39. Seeing none, I will close the floor. Article 9, also by petition, shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 325-e, and implement a budget cap whereby the school board or budget committee shall not submit a
109recommended budget that is higher than $27,500 per pupil, cost times the average daily membership in residents of the school district as of October 1st of the year immediately preceding the Po proposed budget year, plus an annual increase for inflation using CPI-U for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass, New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as of October 1st. This requires a three-fifths majority of the school district. Um, so I will open the floor for public comment on article 9 by petition. Seeing none, I will close the floor at 7:40. It was opened and closed at the same time. Article 10, petition warrant article. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32 col 5V-B requiring that the annual budget and all special warrant articles having a tax impact as determined by the school
110board shall contain a notation stating the estimated tax impact of the article? The determination of the estimated tax impact shall be subject to approval by the governing body. I'm going to open the floor for public input at 7:40. Seeing none, closing the public comment at 7:40. Wow, this is going quickly. Article 11 by petition. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32 col5-B and implement a tax cap whereby the governing body or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that increases the amount to be raised by local taxes this year's base that is higher than the prior fiscal year's actual amount of local taxes raised last year's base adjusted for inflation using the inflation index CPI-U for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and
111change in attendance according with RSA 32 col 5-B comma I-B. I will open the floor for public comment at 7:41. And seeing none, I will close the floor for public comment at also 7:41. And that um completes our public hearing. Is that right? So, I'm closing the public hearing at 7:41 and the Hollis school board will come out of recess. >> And we have one more. >> Was there one more article? >> No, >> there was a petition article uh that is going on the ballot. >> It is going on public hearing for that. >> There is no public hearing for that one. However, we are about we are going to talk about that. So, we will um take public in I think. How would we want to do that? >> Yeah, you can take
112public input. >> Yeah, I could open the floor for public input. um open the floor. It'll be open for half an hour, but we're gonna we'll take your comment. We'll let other people speak to it and then we will um move on with our business. >> Okay, that's great. Um >> Okay, so um >> so I would I would ask that I would like to hear the discussion first. Yeah, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So um >> I would like to return the budget committee from recess. >> Yeah, we got to open for come from recess. I'm going to um >> 7:42 p.m. >> Okay. So, I just want to ask the board before I do exactly that. Um, and the budget committee, do we want to talk about the charter commission article before we take
113public in before we take public input or do you want to take public input, talk about the article and then take positions on the warrant? >> I prefer hearing public input first. >> Okay. >> Because that could have impact to my position on the item. Okay. >> The only thing I would say is like the introduction to be not just reading it but enough information so that it at least describes what we understand it to mean or be. >> That's fair. >> Y okay. The only thing is is I don't know if I have the language for that the for the what is on the ballot exactly how the question is. I don't know if I have that. So I'd like to have that in front of me. Um and then um I will do
114my best but I expect some help from other people. So do we have it? We do. Great. Just grabbing that. >> Just one second. Joe, >> I can't get into my computer right now. >> You got it. Okay. Amy has it. >> No, just what's on the ballot? Yes. What's on the ballot? Just what's on the ballot. It's one sentence. >> Right. >> Yes. It's one sentence is on the ballot. >> Yep. >> So, what is on the ballot that is on the official ballot for March 10th is shall, and this is on the co-op ballot in Hollis and the co-op ballot in Brooklyn. Shall a charter commission be established for the purpose of establishing a municipal charter which would be in this case a school district charter a charter for us school district. Is
115there something else that I should read or is that good? >> Does that cover it? >> Yeah. Okay. So >> briefly um our understanding and Tom you can interrupt Gina you can interrupt. Our understanding is that a charter commission for a school district is an elected group of people at if this passes and it needs a it needs a 50% or a simple majority to pass. Sorry. If this passes, it needs a simple majority. Um there's a process that we're going to talk about in a little while about how to st how you know who's on the charter commission and how those people get elected and deadlines and that's what we have to talk about. But my understanding is that um the job of this commission is to look into official ballot voting and to
116see if they want to make a recommendation to the voters at the following annual meeting to move either all monetary items from our warrant to an official ballot um to be voted on on the ballot or they could potentially suggest that all articles on a warrant go to an official ballot or they could potentially vote as a group to recommend to not make a recommendation like to not make any recommendation and therefore they would keep the same >> to recommend that they do not move to a charter. >> Right. Right. Thank you. So those are the options for the commission as far as I understand it and we have been working um with attorneys to understand that. So at this point we Yes, Tom. >> Sorry. >> I know. >> But I I just >>
117I'm trying to keep it simple. Go ahead. >> I just want to make it clear that the way it was expressed is that the options that exist for a school district are limited to only two possibilities, both of which are virtually identical to SB2. The difference being one is truly identical to SB2 and the other is that only monetary uh items are SB2 like and the nonmonetary would continue to be done in a a meeting format. So basically, you can take money, move it into into the ballot or any or all of the the the warrant and move it in. >> And the requirement of a deliberative session is still in place for a charter format. Like so you still need to have a deliberative session and items that could be amended at a town
118meeting format can still be amended a deliberative session. So bonds and contracts can't be amended, but budgets can be amended. So you'd still be required to have a deliberative session. You'd put things on the ballot. And if the charter commission chooses to only put monetary things on the ballot, you would still need to have a town meeting as well. And and one of the interesting things was because I specifically asked this question, why have both >> the RSA for the charter and the RSA for SB2 were both brought forth, voted on and and um >> approved the same year >> in 1994. >> So they they were both done simultaneously in parallel. So, at this point, I'd like to open the floor for public input. Yes. >> Can I just Can I just ask a
119clarifying question? Sure. Just make sure I understand. >> So, um, voting yes on that, um, petition would signal the start of a process that results in people being elected to form a commission to develop a plan to get voted on next year >> at the annual meeting. at the annual. >> So even though this is on the ballot, my understanding is that the vote on the recommendation of the commission would be at the town meeting at the district meeting. >> It happens fast too. It's it's 30 to 60 days the that whole thing has to start >> and we're going to talk more about that process a after so that the board has an understanding because we have some things we would have to do. >> Okay. >> So is there another question? No. >>
120Okay. So, I'm gonna open the floor for public input for the Hollis School District and the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District meeting. And I assume you're opening the floor for >> I don't And you're going to open that at 7:49. >> I'm opening at 7:49. Thank you. >> But you got to keep it in from 7:30 >> and it has to stay open for half an hour. So, do the math. I don't >> drive. Speaking on behalf of myself. >> This process seems similar to zoning amendments. And in the zoning amendments, the planning board gets to put on the ballot whether they recommend or do not recommend a particular uh amendment. So I assume that the same right would be afforded to the school board. So if you guys vote to recommend or not recommend,
121I expect to see that on the ballot or at least I would like you to verify if it could be put on the ballot. >> I don't know. Oh, I think the ballots are I don't know. We can find that out. But thank you for that. >> Ballots are printed. So, it's too late now. >> So, we can't >> Okay. I >> It could be important. >> So, if if that was missed, I I would be disappointed. >> Well, not that it was missed. It's that this happened after the the balance because there's a different timeline for submitting >> this specific >> Yeah. back in December the posi the petition came in and that's similar to zoning amendments. So >> usually in the zoning world >> the board would vote and that would make it
122on the ballot. So okay I don't know what happened here but may maybe it's not even possible. I don't know. This is unusual. So, uh, the other thing is, uh, I would have liked to have heard from the petitioner, but no one's here to recom, uh, represent the article, so I'm disappointed. Um, I have some questions about four of them, and I'll relay them, and you can consider them while you deliberate, I assume. >> Oh, on all of the ones that you just we just did through the public hearing. >> So, uh, my questions are about the charter commission and this particular article. Okay. >> So, I would like to know under what statute this petition was submitted. Um, usually petition articles at the co-op go to the meeting and come up before the meeting.
123So, this is unusual and I'm not used to it. So, that would be good to know that. Uh I would like to hear how many school districts in the state have formed their charter governments using this process. So I did a little research. I didn't find a lot. I assume that uh the school district attorney can answer this question. It also seems important. >> What's that? >> One district. >> What district? I don't recall Karge. Just K. >> That's useful. Thank you. Um uh I would like to know if this action ties into any present or future bills in the state house. So I haven't read the LSRs or what's going on up there, but it's potential that this like the other thing that we saw is concurrently going through with something in the state
124and I I would like to know that. Um, and uh, I guess, you know, my question is what government is to be changed? Because if you read the language that was submitted, >> it's not really clear to me what organization is this charter going to represent or this group. It says, it says municipal, >> right? >> Um, and and last of this article, a school district. >> That's okay. So Drew, >> I didn't find support for that in the RSA. It could be. I did a summary search, but I didn't find support for that. >> There is support for that and um we've been working with legal on that, but yes, um the municipal can be referred to as the school district. Yes. >> So if there is support, I would like to know what
125that is. >> Yeah, we'll try for you. >> And uh I think that my last question was covered. So I I appreciate you taking the input and uh >> and we're going to go over some of the details of that in a little bit. So >> So thank you. You're welcome. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, moving forward. Is there any more public input on anything? Actually, that public input was for anything related to our agenda. So, okay. So, we're going to move on with our meetings and I'm going to ask the board how you want to proceed. Do we want to talk about charter commission more or would we because I have some information for the school board or do we want to take positions? >> I I think maybe we should finish the
126charter commission discussion. Okay. >> And then we can just >> So just for information for the school board that I needed to give to them. Um so my understanding and first of all for the members of the budget committee and the school board, we have been working with legal on this and Gina, Darlene and I are meeting on a Zoom call with legal tomorrow for like a half an hour just to kind of answer any more questions that come up about this. Um but as I said, it's a simple majority to pass. If it passes, a charter commission needs to be created. A charter commission is a nine-member elected board and it would reflect each town's proportionable membership on the current school board. So, we're four or three. So, it would probably be like 54
127within five days after the deadline for the recount or actually a within five days after the deadline for the for the recount request or 5 days after a recount is completed, the school board needs to meet to set the date for a special election. And that is why I put this on the agenda because I need you all to know that although I can't tell you what date that will be because we don't know and one question we're going to ask tomorrow is is the recount deadline the same as the recount deadline for candidates. So that would be March 13th is the recount request deadline. Um that's what the candidates have. We want to make sure it's the same for this particular PWA. And then it's 5 days and it's not business days after within
1285 days. So our deadline I think is going to be March 18th unless there's a recount. So if there's a request for a recount and we would have to wait for the recount to be completed and then we would have to meet within 5 days. So we're not setting a meeting today. I'm just warning the school board and letting you know that we will need a quorum to set a date for a special election and I am guessing it's probably going to have to be from what Due and I talked today March 18th. I am going to confirm those dates tomorrow when I talked to the attorney but it looks like that might be the date if there's no recount request or before that. But again, we have Holla school district meeting on March 17th.
129We have our district meeting on the 19th and I think the 19th might be too late. So we're trying to figure that out tomorrow. >> The election must occur 428,55 or 512. >> Yeah, that's see. And then and then that's once we meet to set the date, we have to set it within no more than 35 days, >> no less than 35 days, not more than 60 days, and it has to be on a Tuesday. So we would be limited to three choices. Yeah. So that's just for you all to know. So we would have to meet and it would have to be a publicly news meeting and we would have to set the date and that's all we would do and I think we'd have to do it on March 18th. Um and then
130just for information if you are interested in running for the commission interested people make a declaration of candidacy much like you do for the school board. And that period begins the fourth Wednesday prior to the special election date. It ends on the following Friday. And yes, school board members, budget committee members, select board members are eligible to run. There's not a conflict there. >> Do you have to wait until after the election on after the ballot vote to put your name in for >> Yes. Because the the it'll open based on the date of the election. >> You can't do it preemptively just in case. >> no, I don't think so. You have to wait until >> How much time is there to actually do it? >> I think it's like a couple. It says
131I don't understand the language completely, but period beginning the fourth Wednesday prior to the special election day and ends on the following Friday. Is that the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? >> The Wednesday, >> the fourth before ends on the following Friday. >> It'll be a week. >> So, it's like a week and a half. >> It sounds like It seems to me like it is a week and a half, but I'm not 100% sure. Again, a follow-up question for tomorrow. Um, and then I I have a list of questions that I've gotten from Drew. I just um think we've gone over what the commission can do. We've explained that. >> I just I I just would want for the record to just ask this clarifying question. >> Sure. I want to ensure that the focus of
132this commission would only is only on the voting of a warrant, the mechanism for voting on a warrant and cannot in any way address the articles of the agreement and the components of that which include schoolboard composition, grades in the co-op, a portionment formula um among other things. So I just wanted on the record to be clear that the articles of agreement are off the table. >> According to legal counsel they the this commission could not modify articles of agreement. They cannot modif modify aortionment. They cannot change the composition of the co-op. They cannot change the composition of the co-op. They cannot change aortionment formula. They cannot change the um articles of agreement. It is simply the mechanism by which we vote on the warrant that they can change. Um, is that clear? I mean,
133am I right that like the way I'm seeing that's accurate, right? >> Correct. I just um one other way to look at it is this is um could be adopting a charter that um puts the district at SB2 or it could be splitting it so that financial articles are voted on by ballot via like an SB2 format. All others would be by annual meeting. SB2 requires a different um level of support than the charter commission which is a simple majority. So it's um >> right a different mechanism. >> It's a different mechanism because >> is the petition warrant >> um available is that a public document? >> You mean the petition? Sure. Yeah. I mean >> posted anywhere or is it available? >> We can have them posted tomorrow. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Pam,
134did you have did you want to speak? I just I have a quick question about the SB2 and is this basically a back door into it and I don't know what you all can do or the district can do to explain that because this is going to be super confusing to people. So, one of the questions I'm going to ask tomorrow is what we are allowed to do in terms of publicizing this. And we won't I as a per I would never advocate for how a person should vote, but we do feel like the information as to what this means and how this plays out because the question in my opinion it almost seems like a committee like but this is actually a formal process. So, it's it's important for people to understand that it's
135a kicking off of a formal process that could change the way we vote and it is a simple majority versus SB2 which requires three fifths, >> right? And where the where it has been voted down, this does seem like kind of an end run, >> right? And voted in. >> We've had way, right? We've had very respected members of our community suggest a charter. It's just that in a municipality, a charter has a lot more flexibility. they can they can make a lot more changes and what we're what we are learning and this is new to new information to us is a school district is much more limited in what we can do. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Do we know what Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Yeah. I just
136wanted to add that Brookline also has the same charter commission um on our town meeting. >> On your town warrant. Yes. On your town ballot. >> On a town ballot. Yes. I want to make clear if this passes and we have to run a special election, people who wish to file for the position need to file with the clerk, not the office. >> Okay. >> The town clerk. >> No, the district clerk. >> The district clerk >> happens to be the the Hollis town clerk. >> What about for Brookline residents? They can't file in Brooklyn like can for >> No, we need to file with the district clerk. >> Yeah, that is in the that is in the language. Yep. So that thank you for that distinction. That's important. So that would be filing at
137the district clerk which happens to be in she actually works in our she's our town clerk so in Hollis >> but she does have uh substantial office hours. So >> right right you can't go to the siou office. >> Please don't. >> Do we know what happens if both the charter commission gets uh approved and the SB2? I don't know. Good question. >> It's gonna be a traffic accident. >> Any co-op meeting is a good day for >> Okay. Is there anyone >> further comments or questions from >> Well, the the the overriding question is do we take a position on this tonight? kept uh um in the off chance that we are allowed to have a position and it can therefore be publicized. >> Yeah, I think we I think we should take a
138position after we take all positions on everything else. I think so. Is that is the board on the on the same page as me, Rob? >> Yeah. So, that would allow us to comment on that once we put it on the floor and it'll be open for discussion. Okay. Yeah, I'm fine with it. We just have to add a motion in this outline somewhere. Okay. >> So, moving forward. >> Do you want to just do that now since we >> um I'd say just put it at the end of everything else and we'll just move we're going to move forward with taking positions on all of the the the way we do this. >> Okay. So, um, we're going to move towards deliberations, but we can talk about the charter commission more when we get
139to that deliberative item. Does that make sense to everybody? >> Great. So, um, we're going to see what action the board will take regarding the proposed Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District budget for, um, 20. Well, actually, we're going to go through each one of these. um the the budget the board warrant articles and those sit submitted by citizens positions. So the board will probably take positions on all of the items on the warrant. Um the budget committee doesn't take positions on all of them. They stay focused on ones that are >> we're going to chime in on some of the petitions. >> Okay. So, article one, shall the district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $1,230,494 as the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District's portion of the SAU's budget of 2,56328 for the fourthcoming
140fiscal year. This year's adjusted budget of 2,54642 with 1,22133 assigned to the school budget of this school districts will be adopted if the article does not receive a majority vote of all the school district voters voting um in the school administrative unit. I need a motion to recommend the article as presented. >> So moved by Beth second and I need a second. Thank you. Second by Rob. I'd just like to make a quick comment just for folks sitting at home and possibly here. Um, these type of motions that come on the floor usually go to a vote very quickly. Um, that could be construed by people that were rubber stamping or being flip about the motions and where we stand on these things. I just want to point out for folks that we have lived
141with these articles for months. we probably could recite them by memory and the numbers that are in them. So, it's not that we're flip and not giving it the time it needs. It's just that we're very familiar with these and we are very familiar with each of our positions on each and every one of these. >> Great. Thank you. Um, do you want me to take the my vote first and then you go? >> Okay. >> Any other comment on that? Okay. All those in favor? 6. >> Um, I'll take a motion to approve um to recommend article one as written from the budget committee. >> It's approved >> from Tony, seconded by Brian. Um, all those in favor? >> One, two, three, four, five. 50. >> I would like I would like to say
142that unfortunately our schoolboard member cannot vote as a budget committee member due to legislation that removed his voting privilege. Oh, and one other thing I wanted to um mention. Um we are missing um several members this evening, but Tom Enright um specifically at a prior meeting um he knew he wasn't going to be here tonight. He wanted to voice voice his support for all the article the all the uh financial articles one through five as written. Um he knows his vote can't count. he wanted it um you know on the record in some way, shape or form. Um but he very much supported the process and the information that was put forward. So I I said I would bring it up today even though his vote can't count. So >> okay, >> we did. Okay.
143>> 500. >> Okay. I'll read article two and then I'll let you let you read in two. Article two to see if the school district will vote to raise an appropriate sum of $31,716,292 for the support of the schools for the payment of salaries for the school district officials and agents and for the payment of statutory obligations of the district. This appropriation does not include appropriations voted on in other warrant articles. Majority vote required. I need a motion to recommend article two as presented. So move >> by second by Rob. >> Any comments? Okay. All in favor? 6 and Kate stole is also regretting that she can't be here as well and supports it. >> So at this time I'll take a motion to approve article two um for the operating budget as written >>
144from Raul seconded by Brian. All those any comments questions seeing none. All those in favor >> great 500. Thank you. >> Would you mind reading the >> Sure. um to see if the school district will vote to approve the cost items for the second year of a three-year collective bargaining agreement reached between the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School Board and the Hollis Education Support Staff Association for the TW 25 26 26 27 27-28 school years which calls for the following increases in support staff salaries and benefits at the current staffing levels. Fiscal year 2627 estimated increase $131,512 and further to raise and appropriate a sum of $131,512 for the first fiscal year second fiscal year um 2627 school year. Such sum representing the additional costs attributable to the increase in support staff salaries and benefits required
145by the new agreement over those that would be made at current staffing at current staffing levels. Majority vote required. >> I need a motion to to recommend article three. >> So moved by Beth, seconded by Rob. >> Okay. All those in favor >> and that's 6. and a motion from the budget committee to recommend article three as written for the support staff contract. So >> so move from Melanie. Let's mix it up and seconded by Tony. Um comments, questions, seeing none. Um all those in favor? Oh, wait. >> I have to abstain. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> Four opposed. Zero abstensions. One >> one. I'll do article four to see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $300,000 to be added to the previously established school building
146and facilities maintenance expendable trust fund. The sum to come from the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District's June 30th, 2026 unassigned fund balance available to for transfer on July 1st, 2026 and no amount to be raised from taxation. Majority vote required. I need a motion to recommend article 4. Second >> by Beth, seconded by Rob. Is there any conversation, discussion? Seeing none, all those in >> I give up. >> What? >> I give up. >> You give up. All those in favor? 6. >> Um I'll take a motion to approve um article 4 for the maintenance expendable trust as written from roll seconded by Tony. All the uh comments, questions? Seeing none, all those in favor? 500. Thank you. and article five to see if the school district will vote to establish a contingency fund for
147the current year for unanticipated expenses that may arise and further to raise an appropriate up to 125,000 to go into the fund. This sum to come from the unassigned fund balance available for transfer on July 1st, 2026 and no amount to be raised from taxation. Any appropriation left at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund majority vote required. >> Okay. So, I need a motion to recommend article five as presented. moved by Beth and second by Rob. >> And if there's any comments, okay, seeing none, all those in favor? >> 6. Um, and from the budget committee, I'll take a motion to approve article five as written for the contingency fund. >> Motion >> from roll seconded by Tony. Um, all any comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor?
148500. Thank you. Okay. Article six. Shall the Hollis Brooklyn Cooperative School District vote to adopt an open enrollment school program designating the Hollis Brooklyn Cooperative High School and open enrollment school pursuant to New Hampshire RSA 194-D for the purpose of enabling the district to admit non-resident students to HBHS with 100% of its eligible resident pupils permitted to HBHS and 0% of its residents pupils in grades 7 to 12 permitted to attend open enrollment schools located outside of the district and further to limit the number of non-resident pupils who may attend HBHS under the provisions of RSA 194-B to no more than five students total with no more than two non-resident students being admitted to each grade 9 through 12 with zero non-resident students permitted to attend Hollis Brookline Cooperative Middle School. I need a motion
149to recommend article 6 as presented. >> Moved by Beth, second by Rob. >> Yes, I'm going to let you talk to this one. I had >> you can talk to it. So, we did receive input this evening >> on the amount of students allowed into district incoming. >> Um, I would like to understand what implications there are by changing that number >> and how that would what implications there are from from the superintendent. >> Would we still be compliant with, you know, RSA? Um would changing that number open us up in or create any unintended um exposure of any kind? >> Point of order >> changing it at all. >> Are we do we have the option at this point? >> Okay. I just want to >> Yeah, we're supposed to take feedback from >>
150Yeah. >> the committee. I didn't know if we could only take a position on it as written or if we could actually amend the warrant article at this point in time. >> Yeah, you can amend it. It's not final. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And it can also be amended on the floor at annual meeting. Um are you saying if we change the five students total to >> if we increase it, decrease it, whatever, what implication does it have from our standpoint to meet current RSA? Does it open us up in any material way to unintended costs or does it cover us from unintended costs? Um, I am open to the idea of changing it. I just want to make sure before I even enter and even think about that, what are the implications of
151changing it? So the implications of saying >> Gina >> of changing >> speak >> the implications of changing um the the number that we will allow out could have a financial impact on the district. >> That makes sense. Yeah, >> the implications of changing the number in would not necessarily have a financial impact. Um other than >> depends on what you changed it to. >> It depends on what you changed it to. Um if you changed it to zero out zero in then the thought would be that is um no change at all. And so we would not have >> opened up >> correctly. Correct. >> Right. um another um factor that you know is it's not a huge consideration but something to consider. So if we allow five or one or 10 pupils to
152come in, we then have to start invoicing other districts based on a per pupil expenditure that's different based on each district and create vendors and collect money and >> you're just creating workload. Um, and so there is a bit of a cost to that, if you will. >> So if we changed it tonight, >> changed it down, >> you're specifically saying move that five number to a lower number >> to one. The concern I have is that if that change is done and you bake it in and it's approved, >> are we opening ourselves up to any kind of >> agree >> contesting and saying, "Well, look at SAU41. They changed it, but they did the absolute minimum and maybe I want to take that to court for something." >> So other districts are have,
153you know, some have really small numbers, some have larger numbers. It really depends on um you know decisions that the board and the administration is making based on their enrollment. Some schools are looking some districts are looking to utilize this as an opportunity to increase enrollment in their schools because they've seen declining enrollment over time. Um we're pretty steady so I don't think we're trying to to add students necessarily. So um I you know we didn't want to open ourselves up for um any legal battles. So legal counsel advised the the one um in trying to go with um the spirit of it. I I I said, well, we could probably do five without having a huge impact on our schools, but if the community feels like that might be too much for us to
154take on, you know, certainly one is easier than five. >> So, if I were to motion to change that number down for the incoming number from five to two, what kind of concerns would that would you have in doing that, if any? >> I would have no concerns. >> How about you, Tom? The concern that we voiced earlier when talking about why it said it five versus one there there was the feeling there are members of the community who view it as a potential significant revenue stream. the the the whole idea that if we had five or 10 more students in the building in the same way that we say that losing 10 students in enrollment doesn't significantly lower our cost. No, >> the flip side of that same coin is that where we are
155now, does increasing enrollment by 10 students, whether it comes from within the district or outside the district, change the cost of us running the school. And if the answer is no, not significantly because with the constraints that we have about no more than two per class, >> Oh, thank you. Can we can we take in some quantity of of students and the additional revenue that comes in that doesn't come from local taxpayers. So if you at five or a number around there perhaps you can make the case that this is a manageable number that isn't going to impact it but that 10 would. But if you're at one or two can you make that same argument? I don't know. That to me is is is a risk of it being amended on the floor >>
156or amended here. I think Rob is Rob is suggesting. >> No, but I mean if we amend it to one or two then someone at the meeting coming in and say that's basically none and we see from our enrollment variations that we can tolerate fluctuations of 10 or 15 in total enrollment in the building. Why are you limiting it to one when this is a a potential revenue stream that comes from outside? That's the argument that might present itself at the annual meeting. >> Well, that that could happen regardless. >> Could happen if we only have five. >> Granted, granted going to be a debate on the floor at the annual meeting regardless. >> Right. But but five looks like a considered number whereas one doesn't. >> Yeah. I I'm not supporting one necessarily, but
157something other than five. >> How about four with one per grade? Sorry. Go ahead. >> Seven through 12. >> Yeah, that's like >> So, it's specifically for the >> high school. Okay. >> Yes. Roll. >> It says um in this though, doesn't it say? >> So, it says 0% allowed to go out to other districts in grades 7 through 12 and up to five are allowed in through 9 through 12 with no more than two per grade level. >> Thank That's what the bill says. >> So I would I think there's a better rationale >> to change five to four. >> Okay. >> And then if if questions we can say well because we feel that there's four grades, one in each grade at least it's a rationale. >> Okay. >> Then to just go
158to one for all four grades, right, >> Tom? something that was new, new information for me tonight that was brought up during the the discussion on it. I had thought that uh the responsibility to pay for special services was better delineated than what it sounds like it is. That's number one. And number two, um, from the presentation that I saw from NHSBA, I got the impression that, uh, where am I going? What was I think that Will talked about? Um, oh, that that there is no no guarantees whatsoever to continuation from one year to the next. Can can our administration go a little bit deeper as to how uncertain that is? Because I I thought that that that was pretty clear the way I had earlier heard it presented, but it doesn't sound like it's
159real clear. >> In the in the the letter that I saw, it was one of the questions one of the questions about the bill is that what there is there a guarantee? Is there not a guarantee? who was raising the question? >> The the group of people that the people the group of administrators and um board members that sent a letter to the state on this. >> So their interpretation is it's not clear. >> Yeah, that's one of the question >> because that's a that's a strong argument in lowering the number. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> The other question I have that's come to comes to my mind. It's just on the same thought process if you indulge me a little bit, Rob. >> That's okay. >> Um >> you have the floor >> because
160I'm about to make a motion. Before you make the motion, I'd like to say a couple things. >> Very well. So the question I have is that for other situations where we are looking to recoup monies from other districts, whether it's services rendered or whatever, what kind of um difficulties have we had getting and receiving payment uh with from other districts? Have has has have that has that been difficult? Have we had to you know make multiple calls and cajol to get paid? Um are there other examples of this that may not may or may not be related to this article just generally? >> Uh well I don't have a big a long historical perspective on this. Uh usually districts are pretty good but there can be some debate on amounts and figuring things out
161and and dialing that in. Um, so I I think districts are usually pretty good about paying when it's required. >> Um, then if there's ambiguity in in in payments, such as uh special ed services, uh that could potentially pose a challenge if if >> the sending district and the receiving district have different opinions on what should be paid, >> right? >> The other piece to that puzzle is not is then Les is right. we usually do get payment in a you know um accordingly but every district has a little bit of a different process with what paperwork and pieces they require that they want for either invoices or or contracts or what have you. So all those different paperwork pieces can cause a different level of just time and >> resources. >> So in my
162my mind and I'll let the I I'll stop here and let you go. Um, another that to my mind that's another fact that supports lowering the number, keeping the exposure of collection for services or costs incurred. Um, at a minimum, I'm not looking to make more work for our administrators. So, um, go ahead, Rob. >> Well, did you have something? Yeah, I just wanted to say that this sounds to me more like a perhaps a good idea, but there's still a lot of work to be done to be specified and so I'm concerned about potential liability or things that could go wrong that we haven't anticipated that are not clearly described in the petition article. The other thing is if the whole school district already went through the process and they agreed that one seemed
163to be their magic number. I would like to find out more about that as to how they came up with that rationale because it seems to me I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. If they went through that process and they came up with one there must be a very good reason. So, we can gain the process. We can maybe try to minimize liability, but at the end of the day, it seems like we're going down a path that we're not sure where it's going to end up. And so, I'm personally opposed to this thing. It does it isn't clear to me that if we do not we want to pass this bill to minimize liability, that isn't clear to me. So, I I don't it isn't clearly stated to me how we're going
164to prevent issues by passing this warn article. >> I got Cindy and Beth. Cindy, did you have something? >> Yeah, I think we should caution on the lower side because until we know whether it's guaranteed or not guaranteed because you're talking to a four-year high school that's we could have 20 students. If this is a cumulative thing and they're all guarant >> this year, but then this year, >> no, it's five kids total. >> It could be the same five kids. If it's a ninth grader and they want to stay for the four years, that's only one ninth grader that we can have. >> Yes. >> So, if they have to so they would have to like reapply. >> So, so >> well that that's the piece we don't we don't know yet. >> We
165don't know. >> So, if we end up with four say those four have first priority moving forward. >> We don't know >> possibly. We don't know. So that's the area. >> Again, another uncertainty that we really >> So the law is uncertain. The this is just an attempt to protect us from what we know of the legislation. Now we have a lot of questions about the legislation that they the the legislators do not have have not developed answers for yet. So this is an attempt to protect us, but it doesn't guarantee us anything. It's just a an attempt. I was going to say I I definitely appreciate that comment and I don't like to vote in support of anything if we don't have more information. But it sounds if we don't do anything, we're more
166open. So the the the bill could go through and if we don't have this in place, we could be open to just having everyone. Correct. As the as the bill has been amended, we may this may be null anyway and we may have to take everybody like >> but but let me just say this. Having had the experience of being involved in attempting to pass a bill in the process, the final day of legislation, but at the state level, I think it's sometime in August. >> So, >> uh it isn't clear that this is going to pass till the end because it's seems like it's very complicated to begin with and it's going to bring a lot of discussion. So I suggest that even if this passes say at the end of uh early August
167say of this year without making any changes, we will then have the specific bill and then we'll be able to craft legislation to support what we need to do about it. >> The problem though is that we've been hit on state and federal levels with really unbelievably fast implementation for things with no warning. So even if it does in best case scenario not get you know resolved until August we still could be faced with implementing it. >> And currently the way the bill is written if it passes it will it it goes into effect July 1st 2026. >> Exactly. But the thing the thing to keep >> goes I think it's July 1st. >> This warrant this warrant article is intended to affect the law as it currently exists. It's not this is not dealing
168with the new law that is being considered. >> Do we know the bill number >> something from previous bill 751 FN and what's the the current >> Oh, sorry Tom. Go ahead. >> So in previous years open enrollment has been approved. It's it was in place last year and it was the execution of billing that occurred because of existing RSA that towns are school districts are reacting with warrant articles this year. The bill that they're that's under consideration would negate and override this and that's a whole separate issue that we know nothing about. >> Right. So this warrant article is to address the current state of the law, >> not anything that's pending or ambiguous >> or has to survive forward. >> Right? So because the current law actually says you have to have two
169districts who agree to be open enrollment districts. The problem with that is that there was a lawsuit filed and a judge um reinterpreted the law and made districts liable for the cost. So that's >> whether they were open enrollment or not, >> whether they were open enrollment or not. So that's that issue and I appreciate your clarification that this is to address that. The other piece and the timing is a whole different issue because what they're what is happening in the legislature now is that the they added the legislation for open enrollment to a health and human services existing bill >> as like a what is that called me? An amendment >> as an amendment or continuing language. >> The Senate passed it. It went to the House and they were trying to push the
170vote through last week so that it would be implemented faster. And while districts are going through the processes they're going through now, they thought they could affect budget issues and they would have time to budget. Well, it's too late for anybody to budget for anything because of the concerns raised by the letter and the questions that Holly referenced among um school administrators, boards, and budget committees. It seems that it was slowed down a little bit because they didn't vote on it last week. It doesn't mean it's gone. It doesn't mean that it necessarily is going to a committee of conference that which would kind of get us back on track and enable but it looks like there's a vote looming. It just wasn't looming last Thursday. So they are looking to move it sooner still
171sooner rather than later I think is still a fair statement. So depending on what the timeline is between now and the district meeting, are there any plans to monitor it closely and make any adjustments to the war article itself? >> Yes. >> I I don't know how we'll adjust the warrant article once we approve once we vote. Oh >> yeah, because if if the other thing passes, >> we could No, if if if the law passes, the law is the law and we don't even need >> we'll we'll move to pass over. >> So the law needs to be signed by the governor ultimately, right? That's what's that's >> that's the tough part. That's what I'm getting at. >> That's what they're trying to get to happen immediately. >> That ain't that ain't going to
172happen. >> So, this is this is to deal with the current law as it is to keep us from ending up with more students then. Yeah. >> So, I'd like to get on the board here. >> Okay. Yes. >> Um, in the interest of also demonstrating that when you come to the mic at public hearing, you can actually have an effect. Mhm. >> We've spent a lot of time kicking and dusting this up. I motion that we change the number of this article from from five input stu students in to four and we leave the outgoing number at zero. >> And do you want do you want to change the two per grade to one per grade? >> Essentially, that's what I'm doing. >> Okay. So, it would change the five to four. So, you're
173you're making a motion to amend the article changing the five to four and changing the two non-resident students per grade to one >> to one. >> Okay. >> Do we have a second? Beth, is there any discussion on the amendment? >> Okay. Be all night. Okay. Go ahead. >> Oh, I'm just uh I'm I'm trying to weigh the the the balance of four versus one. I mean, if we really don't want to have them going in and out and we're getting a sense that the public doesn't either, >> should we be should we be doing that as well? I mean, I haven't got a lot of input, but all the input we've gotten has been for one. >> I feel like we changed this. According to Rob, I would say go with Rob's amendment. Simplify
174it. We're there for one person grade. The truth of the matter is is if this lives because the law is not passed to the meeting, it can be amended by the legislative body at that point. And >> one more >> if it if it if it if there's no law that gets passed to change this and this is still a legal warrant or article, then it can be amended by the legislative body >> at annual meeting. >> But can it be a can it be amended by us at the annual meeting? Well, sure. We can amend it, too. >> So, we could we could have a second vote tonight for a different number, >> but I'd like to move forward and have something. >> No, I'm just questioning whether >> I'm just a number should
175be four or one. >> I'm just putting a better shine on this and I'm totally fine if somebody wants to change it at annual meeting down >> but the people at annual meeting are looking for us for guidance. >> That's why I'm That's why I'm making this. I I support one for grade >> and even though I I love your rationale for consistency with the Hollis district, I would definitely want to spend time reviewing exactly the analysis they did. I I support at this time the number one. >> Would you like me to chime in? Um so >> originally I um recommended to Hollis and Brooklyn zero in zero out because they're faced with space concerns. Um, I I find it hard to request an expansion of Hall's Primary School and also say we'd like
176to take so many students from all over the state. Uh, those are in conflict. Um, but when I heard that zero in, zero out meant that that would probably not hold up in court, um, we we switched to one in. It's much more difficult to fit a student in an elementary school because you're you have um you have a home room and you're with that class the entire day and you have um a a cap per per class size. And so we would more easily have to add a teacher. Whereas at the high school, there's no guarantee that a student coming in would get all the classes they wanted. If we didn't have room in my favorite class, AP chemistry, then that just wouldn't be offered for, you know, we wouldn't guarantee that they would
177get every class they wanted. But if we get a second grader, we'd have to guarantee they get second grade. So, we have more flexibility at the high school. We also have um more room. >> Yeah. Ju just to piggy back, the recommendation that was made to us by the administration of five was made by the same people with the same thought process as the people who made the recommendation of one in the elementary school. So it's it wasn't the Hollis district thought something different >> when when it was presented to us as a school board and we initially voted to approve putting this on the warrant. It was the same people who said won in the elementary schools. The only the other issue that I forgot to mention earlier is I don't like the idea
178of being dependent on a lottery. Okay. >> On a lottery because regard if if you want to get in and you are not part of the five or the number that we set up, people are going to uh perhaps take some action some other kind. So >> So can we move to a vote on the amendment? Are we comfortable with four and two for four with one per grade? >> All right, I'll just take a vote. Let's vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment. >> Okay. That so that was a 6 vote on the amendment. So the we'll change the language to four and one per grade. And then I need a um vote on the article as presented. We already have that motion on the floor. >> Position of recommending.
179>> Right. So all those in favor of recommending. >> Do we have that motion already? >> Yes, we made the motion. We amended it and now we're >> Okay. So that's >> 6. Okay. Okay, moving on. We have um Oh, sorry. Does the budget committee want to take a position on this? >> I'm going to look to the budget committee to >> we had pre we had a previous meeting. We said we weren't going to, but I don't know if our kind of mutually based on the conversation that you heard. >> I'm kind of conflicted about whether we're taking a position on it or not. But I do have a question I would like to like like to pose though. Um what happens to the money that that comes in from these students? because this
180is kind of a flow of revenue that comes in that's kind of outside of the budget. Where does that money go? Can it be spent? What happens to it? >> We have a tuition line. Would it be captured there? >> I would imagine it would have to be in a different tuition line, but I mean there's a there's a an account group, right, that it would have to go into? >> Yes. And I don't think there's restrictions on how it would spend be in the general fund. >> Okay. But it's not necessarily it gets added as local like tu local income or tuition but you can't you can't spend revenue. It would just it would just increase our so where we had estimates of what our revenue would be at this point our revenue would
181be higher. >> Okay. So you can't really spend it but it adds to the total amount of money there that >> you have left over at the end of the year. correct return for the tax base. >> It would increase the fund balance and with limitations on it. The idea is that there wouldn't be a financial impact up if there wasn't limits and you know we had 30 students enroll there'd be increased costs because hiring and and things like that. Um and it'd be used to offset overruns in the potential budget. But in this situation other >> Yeah, I thought the budget still set a a cap for how much you could spend though aside from special funds. So if it doesn't go into a special fund, it goes into a general fund. Aren't you
182still restricted by the budget though? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> Um just a question that came to mind based on his question triggered a thought. I did read that that students that come in through open enrollment add to your ADM. How would that be factored into our aortionment? >> Well, that is such a good question and we don't have the answer for that. No, but when you're having your when you're having your questions tomorrow, I'm wondering how they how they would aortion >> the most. >> That's a good question and we might have an answer, but >> I actually thought it that that from an adequacy perspective, the count stays with the descending district. >> I thought it did too. >> It's it said it said in the thing that tuition tuition students
183in are counted as part of your ADM. >> So, we will have that answer for the meeting. Okay. Can we move on? Yes, just want to make a comment. >> Yeah, sure. But quickly, please. Yeah. >> Okay. But this is a preemptive move. So, I think it's important that we we put a number to it and support this because it is >> probably going to pass and we don't want to be forced to take a number. We're giving them the number. >> so you would like the budget committee to take a vote. >> All right. Budget committee is going to take a position. So, um, at this point, I'll take a motion to, um, recommend petition warrant, uh, article six on open enrollment as amended with, um, what is it? Zero >> we added to
184four >> four in, zero out, one per grade level at the high school from Melanie, seconded by Tony. >> Any additional comments? >> All those in favor? I >> Okay. Opposed? Okay. 410. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, we've got some petition warrant articles um to see if the school district petition article article 7 to see if the school district will vote to require the Hollis school board to prominently display. Actually, that petition does it say Hollis School Board or does it say Hollis Brookline School Board? >> It says Hollis Brookline. >> Okay. And on this it says so Hollis Brookline school board to pro prominently display current and previous year state assessment scores and state rankings on the school district website header visible on every page with said information to be updated within 30
185days of the official release of scores by the New Hampshire Department of Education. I need a motion to recommend the article. >> So moved. >> Moved by Beth. I need a second. Rob, >> is there any discussion on this? Well, I I would just make a general comment that uh I would just like to point out that as usual, all petitioner sponsors and uh for for the petition warrant articles uh this evening, including um you know, the commission uh that we're going to talk about shortly are not in attendance tonight to represent uh present rationale or take any public input on these initiatives. So I personally find it curious, puzzling and disappointing. Um but related to this particular item, I have uh issue with it because I think having the scores on every single page
186of our multiple pages in our on our website, I find it excessive. I do support making it easy to find this this information for community members, but I don't see the need to take all this extra action and um effort to basically paste it on every possible landing, you know, page of our our website. So, I I I think that's probably the first issue I have and I could come up with several more, but I'll just leave it there. >> Thank you, Rob. Tom, >> uh, in line with the the, uh, presentation I made tonight, I'm opposed to this because of the the data that that is being asked to be displayed, the the numbers that they're asking are the state numbers that we know, especially in the co-op, are not representative of the district
187performance. And for that reason alone, I think it's propagating misinformation to put that on the website. Um, I'll leave it at that. >> I'm just going to comment that if it were on the website on every single landing page, uh, prospective home buyer might think that this is a priority of the um, Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District that it is a metric that is most important to us. And I'm not saying it's not important to us, but I'm not sure if it's our most important metric. and having been a teacher who worked in a school district that specifically focused on getting kids to teach take do better on those kinds of assessments. We were not teaching kids and kids were not learning. They were learning how to take the test. And I really um am
188not a fan of that kind of mentality and that focus. So, I'm going to vote no on this. >> I just want to comment that this would be advisory only. Um it's not binding. Um, and as I mentioned already, I do have um a plan for a data dashboard to be released this summer. So, all the data would be readily available and on that homepage of of the school. So, is there anyone else with comments? All right. So, you are voting to recommend if you vote yes, I will call the vote. All those in favor? >> All those opposed. So, 06 the school board does not recommend. Are you guys >> So, are we going to put it on the thing? The votes 6 not to recommend or against >> what does it get written
189down on there? >> The school board >> does not recommend. >> 6. >> Right. >> Okay. And then moving on. You guys aren't taking a position on that one. Um shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 4013 known as SB2 to allow official ballot voting on all issues before the Hollis Brooklyn Cooperative School District on the second Tuesday of March? I need a motion. >> Beth second. Second, >> Cindy, is there any comment on this? I think we can just go back in the record and see our comments from the last 10 years. Okay. >> Just cut and paste. >> Okay. Um >> I I do want to say we want our voters to come out and vote. So, um so if I am going to call the vote on this, all those in favor
190of what we call the SB2 article, petition article, all those opposed. and that's 6 06 I'm sorry it's 06. Similarly for the budget committee I'll take a motion to recommend um article 8 for SB2 from Brian seconded by >> Ro all those in favor all those opposed >> so the budget committee is not recommended >> right article 9 is also by petition shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 325-e and implement a budget cap whereby the school board or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than 27 $7500 per pupil cost times the average general membership and residents of the school district as of October 1st of the year immediately preceding the proposed budget year plus an annual increase for inflation using CPI-U for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass New Hampshire
191area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as of October 1st requires a three-fifth majority of the school district. I need a motion. >> Beth, I need a second. >> Second, >> Cindy. Yes, Tom. I just want to for people who weren't there in Brooklyn, they have similar um article and uh it was amended during deliberative session because we couldn't take it off. It was amended up to $100,000 just as a indicator of what uh what and that >> how about a million that be careful when you wish. >> That being said, there's no further comment on this. >> I do have a comment. Uh I think the fact that we have a well first of all I think this this petition makes the budget committee moot >> irrelevant >> because it makes it
192irrelevant. I think what it tends to do is force budgets just to go to the cap. So there's no need to have a conversation. There's no need to really sharpen our pencils and go through four um rounds of budget building and so forth. We just make simplify it for everyone and just peg to the cap. And I don't support that. And I think again that I think want to just point out that I may be slightly biased here, but um the budget committee I think does an outstanding job at their analysis and bringing forth guidance for us to meet. Um and I think also we could also show through metrics that you know but um with with inflation adjusted numbers that our budgets have been in line and within a reasonable amount of growth. And
193I'm worried that this type of uh petition just makes all that work and collaboration useless. >> Thank you for that. >> I won't will not be supporting this just to if every anyone was, you know, if I was ambiguous in any way. >> I just want to second that I do think our, you know, I'm very appreciative of our budget committee and the work that they do and the guidance they give us. So that being said, I'm going take a vote. A vote. Yes is to recommend. All those in favor? All those opposed. So 06. >> Um so I'll take a motion to recommend the petition article nine the petition war article for a budget cap >> from rul seconded by Tony. Any comments? >> I just want to echo his uh comments >> and
194I'm going to double it. Okay. >> So all those in favor of recommending um the budget cap, please vote. All those opposed. Uh, so the budget committee is not recommending by vote of 500. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. >> It's the not recommend. Yeah. >> Article 10. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32 5V-B requiring that the annual budget and all special warrant articles having a tax impact as determined by the school board shall contain a notation stating the estimated tax impact of the article. Determination of estimated tax impact shall be subject to the approval by the governing body. I need a motion. >> So move. >> Beth second. >> Second. >> Can I Okay, Amy. >> I think we sometimes struggle to put these on the floor. So, okay. Um, are there any
195comments? Okay. All those in favor? All those opposed? 06. Similarly for the budget committee uh motion to recommend article 10 um putting a tax cap notation on the warrant. >> I'll make a motion to recommend >> by roll seconded by Tony. Any comments? >> I have a question. Uh can you elaborate on why we wouldn't >> um >> someone share? >> It's really the the law is very the way it's been explained to us in the um I don't know five to eight times this has um come forward. Um, the way our attorney has explained it is that the information is what you're allowed to put on the article is very limited. There's no point of comparison. You can't say it's x% higher or lower than a prior year. Um, >> I think I it
196I I think we do an excellent job of sharing estimated tax cap information here at the public hearing and at the um district meeting and we put it in context to what people will see on their bill. Another problem with the co-op is you cannot find a co-op tax rate on your bill. You can't do it. It's combined with the local school rate for the um elementary districts. So really um there's just a lot of explanation that needs to go with >> um what you would compare it to to know if you're making an informed decision. >> Sounds good to me. And I think on top of that, first of all, her presentations at the district meeting have all that data already. >> Second of all, if you try to present a number, there may
197be arguments with that number and there may be some people that won't like that number. And so, uh, because there's not enough explanation behind the number, then there may be some confusion or people not liking it. So, think this just complicates the whole process. There's also um legislation that says if you have um passed the an article like this to put tax cap information on the budget if you are in um multi-year contracts you would need to put the tax information estimate information for all the years of the contract. So there's a lot that goes into into estimating a tax cap I mean a tax impact and to project that then out two to three years it your assumption set is really it it becomes more frail the further that you go out you have
198to make a baseline assumption that says oh you know for the past x years we've um you know assumed you know whatever percent change in valuation um I'll just continue to assume that or maybe you don't maybe you be really conservative and you say you know what I think I'm going to leave it where where it is. It would be the like worst case scenario and so you're really not you know the the best information we have is for the the one year that we're going out not two or three years of a contract or potentially um you know we have in the past for um bonds and long-term debt. We have provided information about like what we've estimated the impacts to be for the outer years, but those things go out 20 years. The
199co-op also has an issue with aortionment. Any tax rate that we put out going forward over a five-year period, we can I think we're in the second year of that 5-year period. So for the next three years, we could say, okay, we know what the aortionment is going to be. We would just have to assume that going forward, but aortionment can change at year 10, 15, or 20. And so, you know, there are all these other implications as well. >> So, it sounds like it would be something very easy, but it it is very >> it isn't. And we and we and we do share that information. We provide it here. We provide it in at the meeting. It's posted to the website. And we really do provide the best information that we can to
200inform voters of how the co-op how how the co-op is affected and how it it fits within the whole um the composite bill. >> Thank you. plus or minus percentages and it gets ridiculous because it's an estimate of >> um so I've supported this in the past and I'm going to continue to support it now as well. Um the issues that you raise are fairly minor really. I mean, yes, you have to have separate tax rates for Brooklyn versus Hollis. Um, because the impacts of that are that are different. But when you you calculate a tax rate, it's, you know, it's it's the price per per thousand dollars of evaluation. Those are not very fine numbers. They are very vague. They're very they're very generalized. It takes a huge amount of money to to change
201to change at 1 cent uh of that. So, okay, the to me the value of having this on there is that and we put it on there for for the for the ward artist for the presentation, but it gives people a sense of uh the scope of what they're looking at. Um it's a it's a rough estimate of the scope. Um so, I'm going to continue to support it, but um that that's my that's respectfully, but that's that's my explanation for why Uh if if >> we already voted, didn't we? >> We did. If >> Tom's also a member Oh, that's right. Sorry. >> Go twice as much. >> If this were soon forget >> if if we were an SB2 district, >> I could certainly see the reason for it because >> there is
202no other access to anything. But where we are currently uh a district meeting district, the difference between having it on the ballot versus getting it in the context of our presentation is huge. So as long as we remain a meeting district, I will con continue to advocate for it >> against it. advocate for it being left off. >> Okay. >> Even though I can't vote. >> Okay. Um Okay. So, all those in favor of recommending that the tax uh the cap tax cap notation be included on the warrant >> or tax notation, not cap. >> Tax I'm sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Tax cap. >> Tax notation. Thank you. All those opposed. So, it's 140. Budget committee will not be recommending. >> Okay. And then article 11 by petition. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32
203col5-B and implement a tax cap whereby the governing body or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that increases the amount to be raised by local taxes this year's base that is higher than the prior year's fiscal year's prior fiscal year's actual amount of local taxes raised last year's base adjusted for inflation using the inflation imp index CPI-U for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and change in attendance in accordance with RSA 32 col 5-B, I-B. I need a motion. >> Some moved >> by Beth, second. >> Second >> by Cindy. Um, is there any comments? Okay. All those in favor of recommending? All those opposed? So, the school board does not recommend. >> So, for the budget committee, I'll take a motion to
204recommend um article 11 for the tax cap. motion >> um by a roll seconded by Tony. Any comments? Seeing none, all those in favor of recommending the article opposed. Budget committee is not recommending by a vote of 050 5 to not recommend. >> Okay. And then finally, we'll put a motion on the floor about the charter commission. We can still talk about it, but um the petition warrant article reads, "Shall a charter commission be established for the it reads on the ballot, shall a charter commission be established for the purpose of establishing a municipal charter?" I need a motion to recommend the petition warrant article on the official ballot. So move >> moved by Beth and I need a second. Second by Cindy. >> Is there any further discussion on this or comments? >> I
205would just add uh to our previous discussion that um to my mind and I've I've reviewed the questions we sent to um legal counsel and the responses we got. So uh and I feel the conversation we had earlier is consistent with my understanding of reading that that content. Uh so to my mind this just adds an unnecessary layer of governance to the co-op and that it is really not clear to me what the point of having this commission for what problem are they trying to solve. It's completely unclear to me. So I I only see this as just another back door to SB2 and um it's just a strategy. It's another avenue. So I just I think this is silly. >> So I'm going to follow up with I've done an extensive look I had
206don't have it in front of me but last year I did at the vote that we've had on SB2. SB2 has been on the ballot and it lost. It's been resoundingly it lost resoundingly. It's been in the meeting and it's lost resoundingly. But really the most significant de vote I think is when we look back on our driveth through vote in June of 2020 when people could literally drive up register and vote. It was you couldn't get a more convenient way of voting and it all day. >> It was an all day. No, it was like two two or three hour voting period but it was like it was on a Saturday. It was drive up, check in. It was a crazy day, but we did it during 2020 and it lost resoundingly on that
207day. I I wish I had brought the numbers. This is exactly what Rob described it as a backdoor to um SB2. I thought originally that charter commission had a lot more flexibility and we could, you know, do a lot of different things and I would have supported it if it would could. But what I've learned is that it really is just either move the warrant, move the, you know, move the monetary articles and I certainly don't want to go that direction because Drew would have too light. >> Yeah. SB2 light. We would have multiple meetings and um it could be chaos. So I am not voting for this. Yeah. So, any other comments? Okay, school board members, all those in favor, all those opposed. So, 06. I don't know how we get that recorded, but
208we will um try to get it out to the community that we didn't recommend it. Are you guys >> We ordered this. >> Uh I'm going to look to the budget committee for >> Okay. Um so I'll take a motion from the budget committee to recommend um the charter commission petition article >> from Raul seconded by Tony. Any discussion? >> I want to make a comment that that is on a lighter note for people who complain that our once a year meeting is too long and too difficult. Instead of trying to improve that this seems to make it more difficult. Now that you have one meeting, we're gonna have two meetings now or two >> times to deal with this. So I I'm I'm opposed to it. >> Anything else? >> Seeing no comments. Um
209all those in favor of recommending the charter commission article. All those opposed. So budget committee is not recommending um by vote of five five votes 050. >> It's not recommended. >> I'm hoping Don's catching a lot. She'll get it. >> Okay. >> One one other comment in general. If if if we had the people who are proposing these things come and have a conversation with us, that would be that would be more amendable to listening and to accepting. But when we don't see them for a whole year and then we have a drop of war articles shortly before the district meeting, that to me is unacceptable. >> It's a governance by petition. It makes it very difficult for me to to support something like that. >> I want to expand on that. What I would
210really like is for the people who are making the laws to come in, our representatives to come in and talk to us about these things before they do them and to take our considerations as part of that. >> Great point. >> I'd like to make a suggestion that we invite them. So >> I think they've been >> okay. So you guys are adjourning, right? >> So yes, I can I'll take a motion to adjourn the budget committee at 9:04 p.m. >> Make a motion. >> Seconded by uh by Raul, seconded by Tony. All those in favor? >> Thank you. Z 500. Budget committee's adjourned, but you're welcome. >> Have a good night. Does the school board need a quick recess or are you okay? >> Soldier on. >> We have some really interesting. Do we
211have to take an official recess or go? >> Don't want to mess. >> We have a few >> public hearing stuff. >> No, we're we're we're back in our meeting. So, >> what else do you have to >> You go. It's okay. All right. Do you want to postition? >> A rare appearance. >> Post where? I'm sorry. >> Um, do I want to >> Everybody do. >> Do we have nonpublic tonight? No, but I don't. No. No. No. Yeah. >> Um, there was a comment earlier to post the petition board. >> Yeah. Do we want to post all of them or just the charter? >> Oh, we want maybe separate the chart. Oh, they want Oh, I don't know. Tom, was it Tom who asked? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Talk. >> Probably
212want to reset. >> That's a very nice postition everything. >> Thank you. I mean they're >> I got to stretch my legs. >> Hey, good night >> because they have to be verified. >> They got sued for putting their recommendation on the ballot and >> I'm listening. >> Well, they won. Okay. So, >> well, it's too late. We don't We don't But we can >> It's not necessarily too late. You could get the ballot. I mean, obviously too late for this, >> but they Lord. They are general. We you guys are here for like the next thing I think. I'm sorry. I could have I >> Thank you. >> That's really Yeah. So, honestly, I think what you're >> Are we back on? No. No. >> Yeah. Okay, we're on. We're on. Everyone have a
213seat, please. We're back to order. Do I need to gavvel? Um, no. Gentlemen, I do thank you for staying. It gives you a little um taste of what you'll be seeing on March 19th. >> Okay, so moving on >> to our agenda. We've covered all of our discussion items and we're up to deliberative items. We've passed the public hearing. Oh, public input closed. Public input's closed. Um >> and at 8:20 Oh, no. So, the first deliberative item. >> Okay. >> Tom, we're starting and you have comments about the first deliberative item to see what action the board will take regarding the proposed Hollis Brookline Cooperative School Digit did. Oh, that's the wrong thing. We did all that. Sorry. To see what action the board will take regarding model UN field trip. So um there was
214a request made and it is not quite in the same timeline that we always have but it is uh more immediate so we decided to take it up right it's the date of the proposed travel is the 20th right of March so um >> you need a motion >> I need a motion to approve the request for the model UN club to attend the model U United Nations conference hosted by Boston College March 20th 26th through March 22nd 26 I need a motion motion by Rob second by Beth. You guys have went backwards today. Okay, >> too fast. >> We're mixing it. >> Okay. So, are there any questions on this or Jake sent us an email about it? Um, >> I was just looking to to clarify the funding is 100% coming out of
215the organization and they're not looking for any additional support. >> Correct. So, this is a a co-curricular club. Um they've raised $2,400 already through fundraising and donations. Um they decided as a group they could have gone to a local one. They decided no, we prefer to go to the Boston one. It's a better experience. We'll pay any extra costs associated with the registration fee. The students are elected to go. It's not required that they go and they are going to use our ban for transportation. So that is not going to be an extra cost. Is is there um common understanding among the potential students to participate that funds will be made available to them to participate that funding their personal money is not going to be a a gate to someone attending. >> Correct. >>
216Yes. >> Okay. All those in favor 6. That pass. Okay. Next is our policy memo. I'm sorry my my hand doesn't move as quickly. >> Okay. >> Can we let them go now? >> Yes, please leave. Please leave. >> I mean, you guys are welcome. >> Assist otherwise. >> I don't think that there's anything on the policy memo that the principles need to stay for. >> Yeah, I might have this question, but might be able to answer it just one of those. >> Okay, so let's get to the motion. >> Where is the motion? Okay, I'm sorry I can't find the motion. All right, so I need a motion to accept the policy memo as presented. >> So moved. >> Moved by Rob, second by Okay, just quickly to go through the policy memo. We
217usually do this quickly. I'm sorry I'm not fast right now. Um we are presenting for third read and adopt with minor changes JICN prohibition of digital deception and other media dot or Amy or anyone. What were the minor changes? >> The minor grammar changes um moving some uh lowercase to capital letters and changing in the underneath potential to harm the word causing to cause. >> Okay. And then we are presenting for second read with minor changes. JLCE EBBC emergency care and first aid and JLCD administering medication to students. This is a second read with minor changes. Nothing substantive. >> Uh JLCB does have one sentence uh on the second page. One, two, three, four be the fifth paragraph right above um the Narcan line reads, "The district make uh the district makes it possible for
218parents and guardians to subscribe to student accident insurance at low rates. This program is offered each year during September. The district does not provide student accident insurance. >> Just to clarify, that sentence was previously in um the policy. We just moved the location. >> Y Okay, great. and we're removing um appendix under legal references the appendix L JLCE-R. >> Okay. Are there any questions or comments on either one of those that are for second read? Yes, >> that's what I wanted to ask. Um under the Narian I just wanted to ask and that's why I just when it says that medication like Narcan needs to be stored in a secure place like this may have been discussed but when you say secure secure like you know we have e mergency meds at both the schools
219like asthma medications. They're secured because they're in a school nurse's office that does have a locking door, but they're not secured like double lock. But narcine is something like you want to get out very fast if you need. So I just wasn't sure if secured like if there was any need and it's just something maybe for the committee to >> so we'll look at like that's a really good comment. >> I didn't know if that had come and you guys had discussed that because if that happened so that was one. So we'll make a note of that and to you know address that for the next meeting because it's second read >> because I know you guys are all private. And then the one other question and this is definitely a takeback. Um the last
220line local law enforcement and emergency medical personnel um will be notified if such medication is administered by the district. This is a comment like I would highly recommend you put some kind of timeline in there. You shouldn't contact them next week. You should contact them especially emergency. So there's no timeline there. >> Perfect. Sure. Thank you. >> Like the secured one makes me nervous, too. Just because it should be secure, but it shouldn't be too secure. >> Like secure enough that people can't just get to it, but not so secure that the nurse can't get to accessible. >> Accessible. I got you. >> Not to like over like I don't want to take any more time, but like the asthma medications are very accessible in the offices, but we do store control medications. Those are
221accessible. They're secured, but they're really secure behind locks, so it's easy. You know, that's fine. But I just worry when we say secure like My suggestion is like to find that a little bit more or like at least and it might be more procedural for that but the time should be in when we notify opinion for that. >> Okay. Thank you. So we'll make a note of that and make those changes. Okay. And then for first read it's beb which is um agenda preparation and dissemination. And I was hoping someone could speak to this. >> I can speak to this. >> Thank you. >> Um so for this the bulk of the content remains the same as we had already in place. Um when reviewing it, I noticed that a couple of pieces um should
222be altered. On page two of the policy, um the supporting materials should be um disseminated 3 days prior. It was seven. Legally, I don't have to have any of the supporting materials. I just have to have the agenda posted for 48 hours. So, I felt that 3 days was more appropriate because sometimes the materials are still being prepared. Moving on to the next paragraph. When the final agenda has been established, it will be made available to the public posted on the district's website. Um, we don't make the public um request the agenda. It's just available. So, I thought that was an appropriate change. And then finally, the the biggest change would be the addition right at the end of a consent agenda. Um, and this would be at schoolboard meetings to cover the following actions.
223Accepting resignations and or nominations for professional staff persons when supported by written documentation. So the idea would be um you would be provided with a list of um resignations, retirements and nominations with the name of the individual um the salary you know for nominations like this all the information that we typically go through but it would be um one lump approval. So that would help speed up the process at meetings as we go through um rather than reading through all of the letters of um resignation over time. I think it would also assist um our recording secretary when trying to gather that information and capture it. Are there any questions or comments? Tom, >> uh, I'm not in favor of reducing the advanced time on the agenda and and the packet. I I like having
224it the getting it the week before, especially >> because if we get it three days before, that's basically sun Sunday or or Monday for a Wednesday meeting. Um, if I'm going to have a chance to read it in advance, it's usually going to be on the weekend before. Um, if it's unreasonable to to do so, then at a minimum, I would like to have the agenda and any available documents done. I I I'm more likely to accept the fact that something comes in late than to have the deadline moved because I think if the deadline is moved that will become the norm. >> Sure. Let me clarify. The intent was so that we're not violating a policy if a component of the agenda was late. So right now we post the agenda on Thursday for
225a Wednesday meeting. So we're already doing six days um instead of seven like the policy states. So what I'd like to do is a compromise and split this. I'd like it to be that the agenda is posted seven days before a meeting, but materials, supported materials would have three days. And I understand what you're saying, but even you would compromise, >> right? Even today, we didn't have, you know, we got the presentation, the data presentation today. >> So, I understand. In fact, there's no >> I don't want to break policy. >> There's no requirement that any supporting material be put in there. So from from that standpoint, right, I'm I would be fine >> if the policy did not even require supporting material. >> Yeah, we could also consider that. Check that out. >> I
226would like to have it and I I don't think there's any >> good reason in most instances to withhold it, >> right? >> But I just don't want to be against policy. >> Yeah, I would like to get as much information as early as possible. >> Okay. So we will address that a little bit more in policy and talk more about whether or not we even want the packet in the policy. >> Yeah, that was not the intention. >> Okay. >> To change. >> Okay. And the only other >> comment I have is when this was being explained to me, I was told that one of the goals was to um tighten up the expectations or lack thereof of individual letters and stuff being read entirety in in in part. I don't understand how this
227accomplishes that because um uh the policy as it existed before did not make any reference to those uh let the specific documents >> reading letters right >> and it still doesn't you know if if you want to control that I would suggest potentially adding a line that sayu uh individual letters and stuff will not be included in it. >> Okay, thank you for that feedback. Appreciate it. All those in favor of first read and um we will always, you know, I'm always the policy committee will also accept emails, you know, if you have more information you want. All those in favor of first read and that is a 6. So first read, we're through. Okay, I think that's it. I have to bounce back. My left hand does not like to do that. So I
228think we are done, right? I just need a report out from the process observer. >> One question. >> Sure. >> Can we get a copy of Dian's I mean Diane Starling's slideshow before the meeting because last year I was downloading it the night of the meeting because we didn't have it. I mean I not we don't need it now because she's probably going to do some stuff to it. But >> I don't think it's posted. No, I know it's not posted yet, but it's before the March meeting. Can we get >> it more than the day of? Early than the day of. >> I would love to. >> Okay. >> We can request it. We can request it. Oh, one other thing is the young young lady who was speaking to me between during the
229break, she had a copy of the warrant. I don't know when she got it or or where she got it, but it did not have the addition. I don't know if you read it that had the middle school um at zero for going out. It just had it only had the middle school zero for oh middle school zero coming in. Can we check to see that any places that we have it posted that it has the >> So the the um yeah so the the warrant um you know I asked specifically the question it the way that it's written right now it says that um 100% of eligible resident pupils permitted to attend HBHS and 0% of its resident pupils in grades 7 through 12 can go out. Um, so the assumption is 100% can
230of eligible resident pupils can attend HBMS, but we're only establishing the high school as the open enrollment school. So therefore, it doesn't mention the middle school. Um, I asked legal about it because I said we're forgetting the middle school here. And that was the response that it's just that the high school was identified as the open enrollment with one, four or five or >> doesn't that leave us vulnerable in the same way as if we had not done it? I mean I >> well the co-op is allowing open enrollment just in one school. I mean it would be like the elementary school saying we'll take kids in pews but we won't take kids into the primary school. For example, like Gofftown is um looking at a warrant article that um creates Gofftown as a local
231as open enrollment, but they only allow kindergarten. >> Then in the if you if you've got clear legal backup that you're confident in that, then I recommend that it be explicitly stated in the explanation >> because we have work to do on that. Um I I have a non-p policy item but very quickly >> we're just moving to the process so you're good. >> Okay. So one other thing is uh this has been a past practice um with other superintendent uh in SAU 41. We have a um an annual meeting coming up as everyone is well aware. Um, I'm interested in what members feel about having the superintendent speak to a year in review of the co-op, what we've done with your tax dollars, what what how how have we, you know, um, taken tax
232dollars and turn that into value and have an opportunity to promote not only the the the gracious money that has been given us. But what we do with it and what we turn it into >> um >> pictures and stories. >> Yeah. Well, whatever it takes. >> It has to be brief. >> It could be it could be a video. >> A prepared video that works very well. Three minutes. >> You can hire a videographer. No, I'm prepared to speak. >> Whatever you want to do, however you do it, but let's take the opportunity to shamelessly self-promote. >> And the board supports that. Okay. Um, and right does the board support that? Yes. Okay. Um, yeah. And I've already spoken to the moderator. So, um, >> time to record out. >> Yes, please. But I
233feel like there's something else. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Mr. Garuba brought up that, um, Ker >> did Kir, sorry, from New Hampshire. Um, they put their recommendation on the ballot against the charter commission. it was they were sued and they won according to him. I I have to follow up and so if we felt strongly that we wanted the recommendation to our nonrecommendation to be on the ballot, we could potentially ask to reprint the ballots. >> I'm not sure I understand what what you just said. What happened? They they did put kerage when this they went through this put that they the school district or whatever the district article >> they they had a I guess so you just said they put that they didn't recommend it. I don't know if it was a select
234board. I don't know if it was a school board, right? School district. They did not recommend the charter commission and they put that on there. It passed anyway. Um they were sued but they won. So they won the board was sued and they won. Can we get a little more information? >> I can get more information. >> The board was sued and >> and they were acquitted. You mean >> right? They were they didn't they the board won like the judge said you could do it. >> You were you were allowed to >> So they were sued saying they weren't allowed to put the Okay. I didn't understand what they were sued for. Yeah. >> So, it's just a potential, I guess, if we felt really strongly that it could it would be important for
235it to be on the ballot that we don't recommend it, we could potentially make a motion here to put it on the ballot if if it's legal and then um >> we could ask >> So, I'd like to make that motion. >> We could ask the town to reprint the ballots. I think we would incur the expense >> practicable to do it. >> I think um having our voice on the ballot makes brings a lot of weight and um insight. >> So we could we could make a motion to ask the superintendent to >> see if that could be done and you know >> do we have any idea >> and that would also include the budget committee's position. Correct. Because they did take a position on that. >> They did take a position on
236that. I mean, >> well, I would include their position as well. >> Yeah. >> So, we could we could make a motion that we support the superintendent looking into that and I don't know how much it would cost. >> I wouldn't say even looking into it. I would say looking into it and if permissible doing it because we don't have any time to meet >> regardless if we incur a cost. Is there a cost limit that you're willing to >> $1 million $100,000? >> So, we have >> We have no idea how much I have no idea. Yeah, we have no idea to put a limit on it, but >> I think that there's a lot of people that where they're going to make a decision is what the board recommends and they don't recommend.
237So, I think I think it's valuable to put it on there. >> Yeah. And I think we have we can find the funds for it. What do you think >> to print it? >> It seems >> I don't know how many she printed already. >> Well, not only that, but the petitioner warrant people are all about putting extra stuff on the ballot. So they would I expect them to be in resounding support >> it being more than $5,000. >> I mean >> no I can't imagine >> I mean it was >> you can't print something in the newspaper. >> Yeah. To put our >> No more than 7500. >> I I think Okay. You guys choose the number. I think you you choose it and and >> All right. No more than 10. Let's just
238get it in. >> Okay. So, Rob, you make a motion. >> Yes. >> To >> and that motion would be >> the superendant >> to to investigate having the ballots reprinted with the uh >> position. Thank you. Position of both school board and budget committee on the new printed ballots. and not to exceed costs of up to $10,000 or up to$10,000. >> Can I suggest say at a cost of up to $10,000 without additional approval? >> Yes. Yes. I like that. >> Let's hope it's not 10,000 and one. The worst that happens is you come back and you say it's going to be 15 and we decide if we want to have a special meeting to the group. >> I will personally drive to the SAU and put the dollar on the table just for
239you. >> Well, it's only one one form. I mean, the rest of it >> Yeah, they don't just the one page. I don't think it's going to be $10,000. I don't think it's going to be >> I mean, if she had to do the whole, >> but it goes to both towns, right? both right. So, so the co-op ballot. So, it has the election officers. >> I was just going to say I totally support this in theory. I think it's going to be it used to be a dollar, >> right? That's okay. Philosophical. >> That's okay. That's fine. >> So, can I call the Is there any more discussion? Beth is is not going to vote for it, but the rest of us, all those in favor >> and opposed. Okay, we're 5-1 on that
240one. So that gives you enough direction. Okay, that being said, quick process observer report. >> As uh as you all know, we ran a little long. The biggest area that we exceeded it was in our discussion um during deliberation particularly about our positions. So I guess the learning thing is we should anticipate a long-winded board and the fact that we had the budget committee here as well. I'm not sure that that was taken into account in the scheduling. >> Well, and in some ways though, we saved time because the petitioners did not come and I wish they had and they didn't do a presentation. So, >> we had a compressed schedule. We started that deliberation at 7:54 as opposed to 8:20 and still, >> right? So, the deliberation is what Okay. >> Absolutely. >> Okay.
241I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Moved by Rob and seconded by Beth. All those in favor? >> I think Beth voted. I did >> six 6. >> Okay, just >> Gina, sorry for giving you