001Region Cooperative School Board meeting, I'll call the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. We can all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for Excuse me. Give me a sec, just a second. Oh, they did. Great. All right, so we're just going to go around real quickly and introduce ourselves. I'm Eric Miller, I'm the representative from Kensington. >> [clears throat] >> I'm Tammy Ganst, I'm from Stratham. Aaron Garcia de Prado, Stratham. Amy Ransom from Newfields. Chris Jenkins, Superintendent of Schools. Brian Duffy from Brentwood. Bill Gauthier, Exeter. Neil Blake in Exeter. Tony Nieves, the principal from Exeter. Drew Barstow, CMS principal. Michelle Bodo, Director of Exeter Adult Ed.
002Pam Carr, principal at Seacoast School of Technology. I'm Heather Murray, I'm your Chief Human Resources Officer. Molly O'Keefe, Director of Finance. Noah Gelbmann, 8th grade CMS rep. Bobby Pace, Exeter High School rep. Great, thank you. Noah, would you like to give your report? So, lots have been Oh, thank you. Lots have been going on in CMS especially since the last time we were here, so um unfortunately Lucy cannot be here, [clears throat] so I will be talking a lot, so bear with me. >> [laughter] >> Um for spring sports, we have baseball, soccer, and track starting up for um their away games. And this year we have about 300 kids doing spring sports in total. Um and about 50 to 100 doing intramural intramural like events for um the sports. A big event that we
003have coming up is the state championship track meet, and everyone is excited to see what the outcome is. Um this past Friday, the sixth graders had their first dance, the sixth grade the sixth grade spring fling. There were sessions Sorry, there were concessions available to buy and lots of fun music. We had our very own Miss Davis from Pod 4 DJing and taking some song requests. Everyone had lots of fun and did lots of fun. [clears throat] Earlier this month, there was a tragic event in our gym one of the weekends where our floor our where our floor gym was flooded, and the water caused flood damage in the center of the room, and the repairs will go through the summer. But we were excited uh we were allowing small groups to use the corner
004of the gym to do badminton or pickleball. Currently, we are doing preparations for SAS testing coming up school soon with math SAS prep will be May 6th through 8th. ELA will be May 12th through 14th, and for science, it will be May 19th through 21st. In the CMS In the CMS bathrooms, unfortunately, we have some students that are doing upsetting actions in the stalls including clogging toilets and urinating on the floor. As much as we hate to talk about this issue, it needs to be addressed to show whoever is doing it that it is wrong and that we recognize how hard the custodians are working in order to help clean the mess up. This past trimester, for the first time at CMS Civics, we had a big final project. For about the last month of
005Civics, we spent it making we spent time making speeches and preparing for a big debate. But this is no ordinary debate. We had real lawyers and judges come to listen to our speeches and ask us questions. Some of the topics research included who, if anyone, should not be allowed to vote to vote. Why is freedom of speech so important to democracy? Should we have term limits, etc. At the end of the day, the judges and lawyers convened and chose 14 out of 115 students to certain awards for good speaking, research, and the groups that did the best overall. To wrap things up, we're excited for next month, and finally the warm weather weather is finally here, and some eventful months to come, so we are excited to see them. Thank you. Great, thank you. Sounds
006like it's been very busy over there at CMS. >> [clears throat] >> All right, we've had a lot going on at the high school, too. Luckily, our gym did not flood, but we're hoping that can get fixed up soon. >> [laughter] >> Okay, recently, 19 EHS students participated in the mock state government session at the State House and Exeter earned the best legislation award and we held several state offices. At Model UN, we delivered an impressive performance at the Portsmouth conference specifically earning the outstanding delegate award. There was also the FBLA state conference which 33 students attended and we won multiple state positions and multiple top three finishes so a lot of awesome conference outcomes. For the music and art side of things, we recently presented our spring musical Alice by Heart which was a
007resounding success and a good start for the new drama director here. And just last week we had our French art show which raised nearly $3,000 for an elementary school in Haiti and students painted um impressions of French works to sell there at the silent auction. At Exeter LitFest, we had 10 EHS freshman poets share the stage with acclaimed professional poets in downtown Exeter which was a four-year tradition and senior Lily Bezensky performed for her fourth straight year. This past weekend was NHMEA Classical All State and Exeter sent several extremely talented musicians to the All State up in Concord where students had a chance to learn from talented choral directors and to work with the best musicians in the state. And then for our spring student government conference, 70 students in all partnered with the Blue
008Ocean Society at Hampton Beach to remove trash from the beach. More than 150 lb was removed in total with more than half of it being collected by Exeter students. Bless you. Bless you. We are currently having our re-prom pop-up which is a organization meant to help reduce the cost and waste of prom wear. So that's going on right now. If anyone you know needs a prom dress or suit, it's a great way to get those. And we also had our college and career fair recently with over 120 representatives from different colleges and careers which met with sophomores and juniors to discuss future pathways. Finally, on the sports side of things, we recently recognized multiple senior student athletes in Concord for maintaining academic academic excellence while participating in at least two sports per year. And we
009have also started up our spring sports season with big wins in lacrosse, baseball, and girls lacrosse already. We also recently had several athletes sign to play college athletics including several Division 1 commits. And just yesterday four singers from the high school partnered with fifth graders from Lincoln Street to sign to sing for the flag raising to celebrate the 250th in downtown Exeter. So there's been a lot going on at Exeter High School recently and we are excited for even more to come the next few weeks. Thank you very much, Bobby. All right. I'm going to um open the public input at 6:06. If there's anybody that would like to speak at public input, just please say your name and the town you live in. Okay. Seeing nobody, we'll leave it open for 30 minutes. Look
010at the visitors. First visitor, I'm going to ask uh Principal Neavey to introduce Austin Reeves who is a student here at Exeter High School and the award he won recently. Yes, Austin Reeves. You want to raise your hand? I'm going to give a little bio and then we'll have you come up, okay? So just wanted to um recognize Austin for an outstanding accomplishment. Several weeks ago we learned that Austin Reeves had been selected as a recipient of the National Merit Marsh Scholarship. It's a scholarship that's highly competitive at the National Merit Program which be which begins with over a million students nationwide and from that pool only a small percentage advance to a semifinalist of which Exeter had three and then the finalist standing even a smaller group is ultimately selected to receive the scholarship.
011And so being named a scholarship makes us super proud. That means he's a top um recognized student in the country for not just academic achievement but he also is consistent. He puts forth a lot of effort. He's involved in a lot of school activities so he makes everyone at the high school very proud. So when I mentioned it to Dr. Andruski, he just wanted to join him and his family which is sitting with him because it's such a huge accomplishment. We just want to recognize that tonight. >> [applause] >> How are you feeling about it? What are your plans? What's going through your mind right now? Uh I'm feeling decent. I'm I have committed to college already. Going Lehigh for biostats. I just had a track meet but that's different. Uh I don't know what
012to say. That's awesome. Yeah, congratulations. >> Thank you, Austin. Congratulations. >> [applause and cheering] >> Continuing on the successes, um we have with some teachers to recognize for awards that they've accomplished recently. Uh first is a CMS math teacher who won the New Hampshire Teacher of Mathematics Richard Evans Distinguished Math Education Award uh and she was uh recognized um about three weeks ago uh for that award and it was nice to see her mentor teacher hand her the award. So Ms. Eros, if you want to come up and and just say a few words about the award and you know the work you're doing at CMS. >> [applause] >> I wasn't prepared to speak but um no, it was a full moment uh full circle moment for me. I was a graduate of Exeter High
013School and Michelle Morton Garrett was my high school geometry teacher and she was also the one who presented the award to me. Um and I was surrounded by Deb Merrill who was my cooperating teacher when I started teaching here um and fostered a love of mathematics and just working with kids. Um my students were there which is the whole reason why I do the job that I love. So the audience was full of you know 60, 70 sixth graders um and just truly honored to be able to continue to do something that I love with the kids um and spark maybe a future math teacher, you know, as I go through my years uh like Michelle Morton did for me 20 uh no, probably closer to 30 years ago now. >> [laughter] >> No, not
014that far. But um I think it was her second year of her teaching. So um truly honored and thank you to this district for giving me the opportunity to do what I love every day. So thank you. >> [applause] >> Unable to be here tonight but I think it's um we mentioned the accomplishment of Tammy Preble. Tammy is a uh ESP which is a paraprofessional at CMS and she is the New Hampshire Education Support Professional of the Year and the 2026 National Education Top Five Finalist. So she got flown out to uh the West Coast to be part of that that awards uh system. So again to have the recognition of uh paraprofessional for the work she's doing at CMS to be uh recognized both um locally and nationally is a huge accomplishment. So I
015just want to give a round of applause to her. >> [applause] >> And then finally, we'll ask uh Principal Bearstead. He just let me know of an amazing award that came up. So Principal Bearstead, will you give that recognition, please? Sure. On Friday at the um at the New Hampshire music educators association uh annual conference, uh Kevin Fisher was awarded the New Hampshire Choral Director of the Year Award. So another great accolade for our school and uh >> [applause] >> So thank you all of them. You know, it's it's deep into the school year so just to have those recognitions and celebrations are are needy at this time. So I appreciate all the work of everyone but those who are getting uh special accomplishments for the work you're doing. Thank you. All right. I will
016look for a motion to approve the minutes from March 17th. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Thank you. All those Are there any corrections or changes that need to happen to the minutes? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor? Opposed? And I need a motion to approve the non-public minutes from March 17th. So moved. Thank you. Any changes or corrections? All those in favor? Thank you. There we go. >> [cough and clears throat] >> Dr. Andruski. Yes, so we're really uh lucky. We have the the high um the football boosters um is looking to give us a donation. Um they've identified a piece of equipment that we do not have in our weight room that would benefit all students uh and student athletes. Again, the weight room is used for weightlifting uh classes,
017uh PE classes, wellness classes. Um so there is a power lifting station uh that they're looking for that has multiple capabilities for different students to work on it at different times. Uh it's state-of-the-art um and they did go through multiple quotes but they want uh I'm asking to accept the donation of $19,729. Uh the district has had budgeted 7,000 and this was a process and the boosters came and said we'll fund the other half. Uh so the total cost is 26,729. It'll be something that when we order will be ready for the summer time and then for the start of classes for next year. So um I'm looking for a motion to accept that donation of $19,729 from the football boosters. So moved. Second. I'll second it, Chris. Got you. All those in favor? Passes.
018Thank you. Can we try that? >> [laughter] >> Weight room's open all the time, Bill. Yeah, absolutely. So you can. >> I'll meet you in there. Sounds great. Um personal request, we'll talk about non-public when we do all of that. And then we have some guests here for a field trip request coming up. So we have Mr. Charity first, I believe on the list. So calling you second. It's all right. Look how you're super excited to say thank you. That's all right. >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> All right. Go right ahead, Rick. Yes. Um do you want to This is our president for the outing club, the student president. He's going to speak to the trip. Yeah, so um first I'll just introduce the club. The outing club here at Exeter has been an amazing
019experience for me um throughout my um time at Exeter High School. In the club we talk a lot about type two fun which is things that are hard in the moment but feel so rewarding um in retrospect. And I feel like walking 4,000 ft up Mount Washington with a pack on is the best way to get to know your friends, get to know your advisor, and really just form these lifelong connections. Um So, we're here asking for permission to do an overnight where we will um spend the night at Hermit Lake shelters, which is about 2,000 ft up Mount Washington, um near the base of Tuckerman's Ravine, and we will summit that following morning and then head down later that day. Anybody have Any questions or thoughts? Um there is a little bit of a
020an expense. It's um $15 per um occupant of the shelters that we pay at the bottom, um what's called Joe Dodge Lodge. Um and we [clears throat] do have um some members already have sleeping bags. We will need like at least a 20° sleeping bag to make sure we're warm enough. Um and I have a few of those as well if there's students that don't. Um but that could be an additional cost if students need to to buy their own sleeping bag. So, that's something to consider. Um and like any of these trips, it's very condition dependent. Um if temperatures are too low, um conditions on the trail are not safe, we don't go. So, and we would find an alternative plan. Can I ask one question? Yeah. So, I I read about the the
021I was reading about this and I have to say that if Rick, I think you are certainly the right person to go with. Your background is is made me feel good about this trip and you're taking students. Yeah. Uh nice job. So, Yeah. Uh how many kids, how many adults, and what's plan B if something goes wrong? What's the communication tool? Sure. Um so, the maximum kids we would be able to take is 10 just because we use the the school uh the high school vans. Um and there'll be two adults. Um the other adult who goes um would also be like experienced as a hiker and that sort of thing. Um the communication Typically, I bring uh walkie-talkies so that I can communicate with the other adult if we ever needed to split up
022or that sort of thing. Um there's also a uh full-time um Hermit Lake Ranger station where there's a ranger posted at all times um for emergencies, for things that might come up. So, which is right next to the shelters. Do you use these uh satellite tools that people have the I forget the name. Like a rescue beacon or that sort of thing? >> Uh they can text them. I forget the name, but they're pretty popular. Um I don't have one of those for this trip, um but I've used them in the past, yeah. Mhm. Um thank you. Sure. All right. Um Lotus and Colin, will you introduce yourselves first? Uh [clears throat] I'm Colin Garcia de Pretus. I'm a member of the outing club. >> [laughter] >> Um and I'm Lotus Gregory. I'm a senior
023who's also part of the outing club. Thank you. Um so, Colin and my other um EHS student have participated with Mr. Charity in many of these trips. As a parent, I feel really good knowing Mr. Charity's background. Um and through experience, I know that when the conditions aren't right, Mr. Charity calls it off typically the day before. Um and I can also say that I track my kids on their phones, and I have service of them almost the entire way that they're going up Mount Washington, which makes me as a mom at home feel really good. And if I might just add something, um one thing we're really conscientious about in the club and one thing that we really uh communicate well with the members of our club is the importance of staying safe. We
024understand that the mountain calls the day and not to be dissuaded by poor weather, but rather um just look forward to more opportunities in the future rather than just push for that extra mile just to hit the summit. Like we know when to turn back and how to play it safe. >> [clears throat] >> Um earlier this school year in December, I think it was, um we did sort of like a shakedown hike to this exact location, um just to see how they all would respond to the cold, um how they would layer their clothing appropriately, um that kind of thing. And so, we would it's the same location we'd be returning to. Right. Anybody else have any questions? All right. Look for a motion to approve the trip. I'll make a motion to approve
025the trip. Second. All those in favor? I. Thank you. Have fun. >> very much. Thank you. All right. Before um the London trip, I just have to excuse myself. My son's getting awarded in the other room, so I'm going to turn the meeting over to Mr. Gauthier to run from there. All right. I'm back. >> [laughter] >> Didn't take long. Hope you're ready. >> [laughter] >> All right. >> [clears throat] >> So, my part's pretty easy. Let's Colin, you're up next. >> [clears throat] >> I Actually, I'm going to pop over to that same meeting, I think, or the same award ceremony in a few moments. Uh but thank you again for the opportunity. Uh looking forward to hopefully bringing another group of eighth graders eighth grade students to England again in 2027. Um take
026a moment here in a second to recap last year's trip last year's trip, what we have planned for this year, as well as an update on some of our fundraising scholarship. Um but I was hoping to have um uh one of our travelers from last year speak, uh Eva Chicken Easy, freshman this year at EHS, uh just about some of her experiences and what she learned from the trip. Hi everyone. My name's Eva Chicken Easy, and I was one of the few to have the pleasure of going to London with Mr. Burke, Miss Davis, and Miss Holt. The trip was an incredible experience, and when I think about it today, I can't find one thing that I would change. Every teacher put so much thought and effort into not only making it an unforgettable not
027only making it unforgettable, but making sure everyone felt safe and welcomed while overseas. But our trip did not start at the airport, it started month months earlier with a lot of hard work right here at the school. One of the biggest parts of getting ready was fundraising. We knew we knew that to see as much of London as possible, we had to put in as much effort um as we could at home. Um with help from our teachers, we came up with two main projects, a raffle calendar and a school dance. To make the raffle happen, we reached out to small local businesses and asked for their support. We collected enough gift cards to fill an entire calendar. Then we sold sold those raffle spots to our families, friends, and neighbors. That That experience really
028pushed me to step outside my comfort zone cuz I had to talk to business owners and pitch our ideas. It taught me how to be responsible and stay organized throughout the whole process. Beyond the school fundraisers, I also worked a lot on my own to save up money. Doing that taught me a lot about independence and the value of working hard for something I really cared about. By the time we left for London, I knew I had earned my spot on the trip, which made the entire experience feel even more rewarding. All that preparation finally paid off once we arrived and started exploring the city. Mr. Burke really took the time to arrange trips that everyone would enjoy. We traveled somewhere as simple as two blocks away from our hotel to two hours away. Every
029day was packed with unforgettable experiences like traveling to Bath, where we saw the Roman Baths and the infamous Stonehenge. Taking the train to see the set of Harry Potter and walking around the city to see Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, and Piccadilly Circus. I also loved trying new things while we were over there. Foods and mannerisms were big ones. Something as simple as Starbucks in London felt like a completely different experience. We learned our way around the city in just a couple days, and after that, we had the time of our lives. But honestly, my favorite part wasn't just the places, it was the people. Some of the best memories were just hanging out at 1:00 in the morning in our hotel room talking with my friends about the amazing day we had and all
030the fun things we heard and saw. We talked, we laughed, and we really got to know each other. I also loved building connections with our teachers like Mr. Burke, Miss Davis, and Miss Holt. I've known Miss Davis and Mr. Burke since sixth grade, and they have always been such caring people, and to experience a trip with them was amazing. Um my roommates and I had dinner with Miss Holt and Miss Davis one night, and it was still it is still one of my favorite memories. We even met up again when we came back home, and it was like we were right back in London. Those moments created special bonds that I'll always remember. This trip has taught me so much about responsibility, independence, and the importance of stepping outside my comfort zone. It's something I'll
031never forget, and without my favorite teachers, none of it would be possible. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank Thank you, Eva. Don't please don't tell me you're up till 1:00 a.m. again, though. >> [laughter] >> It's hard to When you're that pumped up, though. I know it's hard to for everybody to go to sleep. Um but yeah, la- last year's group with Eva in 20 what's that? 2025? We had just a small group of seven girls. Um and everything went fairly smoothly, though. We had a great great time. By the end, everybody was kind of coming together. We had a couple different social groups who we by the last night, we were singing and dancing in the middle of London going through Trafalgar Square. I think everybody heard us coming a half a mile away.
032Um that was That was That was a memorable evening. Uh this year, uh we with being able to plan a whole year ahead of time for the first time, um I think that really helped. We ended up uh taking 18 kids this year, which is more than I originally planned, but it ended up um giving us an extra chaperone as well. So, our overall student-to-teacher ratio. So, it's going to be myself again, Miss Davis, Miss Holt. We're also bringing um Travis Heon as well. Uh so, we have two two male, two female chaperones, and we have an exact nine and nine uh male-to-female student ratio as well this year, which is kind of fun as well. Um But the >> [clears throat] >> as Eva mentioned, the fundraising is a big effort that we have
033every year. Uh this This current year was the first time we were be able to offer offer a scholarship, uh which covered about two-thirds of the cost of a student this year, which was great. Um it was a tough decision. We We came created an application with a scoring rubric. Myself and um three other teachers looked over the scoring rubric, and it was hard. That was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make as a teacher of who am I going to give this scholarship to and it was it was heartbreaking to tell the other students who applied and it's you know, apologize but you're not we did not choose you. Um thankfully some of them still found a way to go but I know that the student we we ended up choosing I
034think was a great choice and I don't think she would ever have been able to make it without that money. So it was a I think a huge help for their family. Uh coming up if we do get approved we already have enough through fundraising efforts for a full scholarship looking for 2027. So a student who hopefully would never have any sort of an opportunity like this would be able to to have a memorable experience that they would otherwise not be able to. Um so that's something we really are looking forward to but again I will be it'd be gut-wrenching decision for me to have to tell just one student but I think that's to be able to make that big of a difference um for one one kid you know we could in theory
035split it for two but I I think focusing on the one is the best way to go. Um even with our fundraising efforts we if we continue on at the 2028 we even have a enough for half another scholarship going forward another year two years from now as well. We've been very lucky the sixth grade dance that's the young gentleman was talking about we had almost 80% of the grade there which was incredible time as well. Um so I think that's everything I had planned any questions uh The scholarship doesn't include funds for the student to do fun things. Like how does that like it's it's the flight and the rooms and that kind of Flight rooms all the activities it does not include spending money I would say but during the year some of
036our fundraising one of our dances and one of the fundraisers she Eva talked about the calendar that's an opportunity the students who are going the current year get half of what they raise from that. So if they you know we sell the calendars for $10 if they sell 50 calendars at $5 $250 so that could be their spending money as a fundraising opportunity for them. Thank you. And then the other half of that those fundraisers go towards our scholarship as well. Thank you. What's the process of awarding the scholarship is it just the economic or does Uh there's is a several factors I apologize I didn't write that down but there's you know we teach recommendation um there is um uh you know not academic of you know aspects to it if they've been working
037hard all that kind of stuff. There's we you know we can't just sit there it's hard to ask you know how much money does your family make so we phrase it as a financial impact statement how would this affect your family. We one of the things we do ask have you had travel opportunities in the past you know if a student's put there you know if they've gone to Europe or they've gone to Cancun before well is that you know something that they really need or or is there student who's you know maybe they wouldn't need the scholarship but you know is there someone who's never had that opportunity to travel before in any way shape or form other than maybe to Boston or New York City you know with this a you know to
038really you know give to someone who hasn't had that chance to go somewhere before is kind of what we're hoping for. It sounds like a great trip I'd look for a motion to approve the trip. Second. All right. Uh yes then all in favor please raise your hand. All right. All right thank you very much again. Yeah. Sure did. Thanks. Okay. Excellent all right school calendar. Yep. So the principals in the room worked together on a school calendar to meet the needs. It's not much different than what you saw in the SAU pack back in January but again it meets our contractual obligations for our employees and also meets the needs for professional learning throughout the year. Again some of those dates are set in stone because of of voting and the use of our
039schools. I don't know if you have any questions that either myself or any of the principals in the in the room could answer. Did in what did it change from what we reviewed in January or is it the same? I think the only difference is we had for teachers contractually we removed one day in June. Is that right? Yes. Yep. Okay. Because it's different than some of the other districts so we Yeah so yeah for us our numbers that was the only So it changed a teacher a teacher day and not a student day. >> Yeah. Okay. Yep. Good. Just need a Do we not do we need a You need to approve it. Yeah do we need to approve it? All right well this is new to me so I'll look for a motion
040to approve. So moved. Excellent second. Sure second. Excellent all those in favor raise your hand. Excellent. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Miss Murray she has a couple handbooks to walk you through and get approval on. Thank you very much I know this is really exciting stuff here. So [laughter] won't take much of your time with this. We do have a policy C let me just get that up C H C A and it's approval of handbooks and it's really about employee handbooks and student handbooks and there's a approval of the board and or superintendent. So we just want to make sure that you're aware of that these handbooks exist. We have employee handbooks that are done through the principals those are usually done during the summer. They don't know this yet
041but we may ask them to move that up a little bit so that we can bring it not this year maybe next year so that we can bring that to you ahead of time but we have one for food for support staff we have one for food service one for facilities and then we're in the middle of designing one hopefully to bring to you in May for our technology group and the reason those are separate even though they're all co-op employees is because normally for most everyone else we have a benefits guide but there the employee handbook actually falls under the larger scope. So for example Miss Neavy would have one for all of her employees that work at the high school right and so and so forth and so forth. So with this though
042these folks work for Brian Sands and facilities or they work with Dalia Daigle in food services not necessarily um uh only in the high school right they they work around the SAU depending on um what their location is and so for those we have a benefits guide that's included in their employee handbook. It's just a little bit different where the others are are separated out. So we just wanted you to have them in front of you and be happy to take any questions you have on the two in front of you tonight and we'll make sure that you have the one for technology in May. I would as I was reading through them um as you know I would read through them so I love them. Uh yes [laughter] no they're they're really well done
043and plus I I appreciate your explanation because I was wondering like why would they be multiple ones so that I appreciate hearing that. Any other comments? Right if you found any typos let me know. I have not. >> [laughter] >> No I didn't uh He's my saving grace on that. I think question about why they're you know if they're they're all SAU 16 employees they're all separated out from regular building staff because they move between multiple buildings but is there a reason they have separate benefits designs Yeah. beyond I mean from each other like I wouldn't think they would for the most part have similar benefits but if there's a reason they don't Yeah so some of the benefits are very similar most of our food service staff are less than eight hours a day
044they're usually three hours four hours that kind of thing so it's a little bit of a different perspective there and we're actually working with Miss Daigle to look at that handbook and improve that handbook over time but certainly the employee handbook side of things not necessarily the benefit side but those are different because of the different expectations on safety and and those kinds of things technology you'll see quite a bit in there around confidentiality and although all of them do have some Yeah. portion of that but we do like to make sure that that is very specific to the work that they're doing. Yeah. Any other questions or improvements you'd like to see? All right. So do do you want us to make a motion on the >> can make a motion to approve. Okay.
045All right so I'll I'll make a motion to approve the handbooks as presented. Second. All right I could all those in favor Thank you. Thank you. Very much. Next one's a quick one every year at the end of the year Seacoast Learning Collaborative which provides transportation for us specialized transportation we sit on a board so myself and other superintendents that use those services in the Seacoast area but the last meeting of the year we always have a board member from our board sit on that last meeting just to talk about financials talk about any budget impacts for the following year but it gives our board the perspective of what we've been working through this year. So I'm hoping to get one member of this board to join me on May 13th it is a virtual
046meeting at 8:30. Typically the meetings are no longer than an hour but it give a chance for you to understand it and ask any questions from the board board perspective. Okay. All right thank you Tammy appreciate that. Anybody want to anybody else Tammy would be a fantastic and she serves on our SST board so that's you'll you'll know that so that's perfect. Thank you Tammy. I will send you the information and then >> So would you want me to come here to do it or just do it here? You can do it right from home. Yeah. Yeah. It will be all on computer. But, if you need a spot to do it, come on in the office. Thank you. Uh and that in the packet and I don't know if we want to wait for
047Amy on this. Um but, we did list out uh we've been looking through cuz you know and um we're we're showing a large surplus at the end of the year. Uh so, we tried uh I've met with uh all the principals uh at the table as well as uh director of technology and director of facilities um to uh Miss O'Keefe was there with us to look at um and prioritize some things that have been delayed or things that we didn't not put into our budget um so that we could talk through those um those ideas if if the board wanted to make a recommendation today of how much you would want to spend. Uh we broke it down through a cost center of what we're looking at and our goal was to look at how
048we could impact the most number of of students or facilities needs or safety needs uh with with the surplus. Um so, you got two sheets. Um yellow was our top priority with green would be nice. Um so, in your packet um so, just so people at home know um a big one is is moving that nurse's office at SST. We've got a brand new nurse uh that will be starting and it's the one area that's not in part of SST. It's off and students have to go through a corridor. Um we talked about it a number of years ago, but when we actually looked at that space, there was a number of issues. So, we found a different spot. Um we talked about getting vans at middle school as you know um transportation for athletic
049events especially at the middle school has has been impacted. So, that would help out. The vans we have here are great, but they are in full swing at this time of the year. Uh upgrading our PA system uh which would be huge in safety needs. So, that would be here at the high school as you remember um when we had an event that did not uh function properly and and that did cause some uh some uh errors for us. Um the dump truck and uh sander we have is currently 25 years old and is welded together by our staff. Um so, it is really at the end of life. Uh and we use that quite frequently to clean up here uh and our campus at at the Tuck Campus and CMS. Um mowers again our
050our a lot of our equipment and um vans or machines in facilities are at the 20-year end. So, we we've started to put it in budgets, but this would be a great time to update our mowers. Um again uh of of transit van um the solar inverter that has been out here has has not working properly. So, um we're not getting the full impact of the solar power. So, to uh upgrade that to get uh some energy savings back to us, it would be about a $16,000 cost. Um the big one on there is door access um and this would be in all of our buildings to upgrade our door access and how we can get in and out of of our facilities and actually add some. So, um as we're looking at locking down
051our buildings in a more secure fashion um and then uh upgrading our servers uh again as you know technology continues to advance, our servers are at the end of life. And then um something that's really huge is uh vape detection devices here at the high school and CMS. Uh we are seeing significant uptick in vandalism and the use of vape devices in our bathroom areas um and it is causing uh significant damage cuz when an employee does go in they're getting flushed down the toilet. So, the vape detection device would let us alert us immediately and uh we could be more proactive in that approach. So, those are the priority list that we came up with with a a cost of about $880,000. And then the um next column for you are would be a
052nice have uh of what we'd be looking at. Um and again, if we had to pick and choose, there is a couple things in there. Again, that goes to facilities and and maintenance. Um if you haven't seen, we've been testing out a uh robotic uh line fielder for our for all of our fields. So, what takes it about 2 and 1/2 3 hours for a our um grounds crew to line a field took the robot 22 minutes. So, the efficiency cost uh of being able to have one person out there program it, drive it and it it it's done in about 2 hours time. Uh and that was our uh our girls lacrosse field. It was even quicker for our boys lacrosse field. So, um there's some data there. The other one would be an
053automatic uh floor scrubber of which you can put and set a path. Once it does its path one time, it will remember that path uh and then you do not need an uh you do not need a human to actually run it or supervise it. So, again, we would have efficiency in staffing with those two pieces of equipment. Uh and then there is some big ticket items that we will have to do at some point in regard regards to upgrading all of our cameras uh in the three buildings. Um as we continue to move through some of our older equipment to new equipment, it has just paid better uh pixels uh keep captures more data and it can um can actually move with with higher frequency to catch things in a in a better capacity.
054So, again, it's a safety and a and a um an ability for us to prevent things before they're happening. So, those are the two lists. I don't know if you want further discussion or further comments of what you're thinking about, but our goal through here and Molly, you know, gave a a nice analysis of if we did all of this, how much we'd still give back to um taxpayers at the end and um she also did an analysis I think today if we kept it in line with what we gave back last year, what we'd have to reduce from this list. So, I don't know if Molly would have added anything in that capacity. >> I handed out the packets earlier. Um so, what was in your board pack, I did put a fund balance
055calc next to these two lists so you would see how how it would compare if we were to spend anything. So, in the fund balance calc, it is your expenses less than plan plus your revenue more than plan and then since we did vote for the trust, that first 250 will go to the trust and then the balance would be returned in the tax rate. So, that was the intention of the calculation. Um you're not expending any um unanticipated revenue because as you can see in the financial that we'll talk about in a few your remaining budget would cover both of these items if you so wish to do both lists. So, in the pack I handed out today, I added a little bit more flavor in your than your board pack. So, so, what
056I did is I said if you look at the financial that was provided in the board pack, you have about 4.6 million um expense less than plan than the revenue, the 243,000, the trust would be the 250. So, that would be a projected return to taxpayers of 4.6 million um if you do not do anything on the list. Okay? And so, then what I did right below is I put what the last few years were. I did put your average last three and last five because the '21-'22 and the '20-'21 years were I guess what you call our COVID-ish years. So, they are a little bit of an outlier. So, that's why I put the average last three and last five so you can kind of see. Then I took that 6.4.6 million that we
057talked about the projected return to taxpayers and then I said, "Okay, if we did everything on the yellow list and we did everything on the green list where would that put us?" And that would bring you down to the 2.7. So, what you do is you take the 4.6 minus the 887 minus the 990 from each of those lists and that would bring you down to the 2.7 which is just slightly lower than your 3-year average number. But, if we did want to stay consistent cuz anytime you deviate from your prior year um unanticipated or not anticipated unreserved fund balance, that does impact taxes up or down. So, if you decided you want to be right on last year then you would have to put back six 562,000 from somewhere in these lists. So, that's
058how you read what I put out today. Just a reminder how we got here um because of we had budgeted for significant special education needs based on what we knew last year. Uh the team has done an a remarkable job of of some students that we thought were going out of district of keeping them in district uh which significantly reduced special education cost. Also, there was some change in staffing that happened and then also some changing in contracts that reduced that. So, that's how you got this large surplus with really the administrators in this room really looking at it and looking at the needs of students and doing it in the most efficient way. So, I applaud them that this wasn't, you know, something as an anomaly. They worked hard throughout this year and and
059this is why we've landed at this at this spot. And I just want to remind everyone that we're not done the year yet. So, we do we will have more expenses that will pop up. So, this is where we stand today with the encumbrances we know today. Um for example, we don't typically encumber substitutes. We do know we will have a level of that. Um and as we close out purchase orders, we'll hopefully find savings and then things might pop up as well that just aren't known today. I'd like to see us wait to have a in-depth discussion about this until maybe Amy's back and if Melissa comes. I'm suggesting that maybe we go on to committee reports before we get too in-depth in this. Yeah, and you I get I get it. You're looking
060for us to vote on this tonight. Is this something that needs to be So, it would be helpful tonight cuz some of these things we'll need to order ahead of time. Uh we can wait to May, but remember everything we need to do, we have to have the purchase orders and work done by the 30th. So, some of these will have a lag time. We can we can certainly wait to May, but May would be the end date of when we would have to have it approved. So, I'm fine if it's if people want to just talk about it today um and then we make a decision in May, but May is really the the deadline to to do that. All right. Would Would here be able to help me understand just how this works
061in the past years and what the taxpayers' expectations are and kind of what the conversations have been like in the last couple years? Yeah, I'm I'm happy to start there. Is that So, uh typically in the past there's been a fund balance. And that fund balance when it's large, the taxpayers go, "Whoa, why is it so large?" Um if we spend money out of that, they the taxpayers will say, "Why are you spending money out of that?" We have spent money out of it. We've bought vans. We've bought and we've done a lot of good and I think that's been very favorable to taxpayers. It's more than what we typically spend. Uh but we certainly I think that having a huge if we have 4.6, I think taxpayers say, "Wow, that's a big miss." And
062they don't typically understand that well it's from cost savings or hard work uh from from our administrators to keep that down. So, is that a good characterization? And also um just to add going into the next year's budget, we have to set revenues and one of the revenues to the district is the amount you finish the prior year with. So, if one year you finish with a tiny amount and the next year you finish with a big amount and then you're back to a tiny amount, the tax rate spikes. It causes the tax rate to spike. So, what we like to do is in years where we have a surplus like that, try to think strategically about what might be coming down the road or what does the district really truly need because if we're
063able to keep it in line with prior years, you're stabilizing the tax rate. Thank you. I would have one of my learning lessons has been that this happened in the elementary district in Exeter, too, that we run at a surplus intentionally. It gives us flexibility. So, when we went into the pandemic, we had resources that would have been available otherwise. And so, you'll see excesses, but it's it's on purpose. So, and it gives enough cushion so we can provide the quality of education we want for the kids. Thanks. I mean, I I have you know, if the taxpayers expected that the money was earmarked for a certain reason, special ed, whatever. And then if taxpayers find out that the you know, it might give the impression I sound cynical, but that the some of the
064items were padded so that you could take some surplus and use it for other things later on. So, that's my only concern. Um cuz a lot of people don't understand the process and I'm learning the process myself. But that's that's how it might sound. But it won't affect the big ones is affecting the tax rate, I think. Right? It's it's whether or not the excesses will affect the tax rate and they don't. Uh they they try not to. Okay. I mean, some of these items might have been known about before you made the budget, right? I mean, not all of them, but a lot of these on here were probably needs that were already existing at the time the budget was created. Is that correct? Would that be fair to say? Not all of them,
065but a lot of them. Uh I think some of them we we always talk about and then we look at the needs and then we try to keep our budget a certain percentage of of increase. >> So, like I said, I'm learning the pro- but I don't want you to have like a wish list and then things get padded because then you know at this time of the year then you So, there's there's no we we do not look to pad anything. So, I just want to put that out there clearly. >> maybe the I don't mean to, yeah. No, I but I just want the public to hear we are really when we budget, we look at the needs of students based on legal obligations, if it's an IEP or contractual obligations of our
066employees and we start there and then we try to project, you know, so if it's a facility plan which we've been starting to get really good at having 3 to 5-year plans of what of our short-term and our long-term needs are. We haven't done that with our with our equipment and facilities. So, that's the next step and you'll see in there um furniture replacement. We have not had a a true furniture replacement in any of our buildings. I think we're sitting in chairs that are 20 years old. So, these are the things that you know, we continue to we need to think about and when we're get to a bottom line of a budget, often times those things are the things that get cut. So, we talked a little bit about that last night at
067the joint board is that often times when you you look at your budget, you defer facilities cost, which I understand cuz they're the most, but often times you're going to have to make it up at some point. So. And I was on the budget advisory committee, so I was in all like six meetings and they don't they don't pad anything. I mean, they scrub every single thing. So, I get your impression, but that's not what's going on. Yeah, just as an example, um we I have now I've worked with two families this year that were in out-of-district placement. One was I think $288,000 out of working with that family, they wanted I don't know if that other placement wasn't working, but we pulled together a meeting with the IEP team and that student came over
068to adult ed, which and again, so that that was a savings, but you know, they left that placement of 288 and then finished their education with us. I've had two specific students like that this year that was already allocated for out-of-district placement for special ed. Um for one reason or another, they just decided they wanted to look at it Exeter adult ed. So, those savings were not I guess saved, but they came on over and finished their education with us. So. I mean, the bottom line is that you you know, I know in my town that people are screaming about their taxes, their property taxes. And so, I just want to make sure that we're protecting the taxpayers and their kids and that's sort of my responsibility as a school board member when I was
069elected. And I just if we're talking about money, if there's a vote tomorrow in the statehouse about open enrollment, which I think there are financial obligations to that that we're not completely sure about, right? So, do we need to consider holding back some money because of that or what? No, cuz that won't be until the 2027 year, so we'll have a whole budget year to look at that and that's where we'll do that uh capacity study to see and again, um we can work through that, but we really need to know the full implications of that, but we have a full year to budget for that. Because you are protected until 2027 where we sit at 00. It won't impact next year's budget. Cuz that is something I'm worried about is what open enrollment is
070going to do to the taxes of our all our taxpayers. So, I I think I'll take uh Aaron May's suggestion to wait until Melissa and Amy are back. They have a lot of context around this. I think they'd be very helpful to hear their voice. So, if we could pause this and move on with the meeting and then uh I'll come back. And I think I just got locked on my computer, but the next thing was the chair's report. >> Yep. Uh-huh, I will uh pass and let uh Melissa do that. Great. >> after uh if she chooses. And the next thing is the financial update from Molly. Sure. So, um just before the page we're just looking at um is the current year financial. So, this time of year um everybody's trying to finish
071out the spring purchases because I shut everybody off on Friday. Um this coming Friday. So, we you will see a little bit in the next board pack as well. Um but it's really getting us to the end of the year. That's why you see a lot of supplies this time of year. Um did anyone have any questions? Everything was detailed in the pack as to the changes from the prior month. Brian? Just is there any possibility or expectation of future revenue that would affect this in any way aside from you know, food service or anything like that? So, projected. Um what we have on the next page is the revenue and so we do have received to date and anticipated. So, um we have a little bit of earnings on investment left. Um we have
072a little bit of other local revenue where we we rent out space. Um we do have a tiny bit of SST tuition still to come in that we're um working on. But other than that, I'm not aware of anything cuz if we were aware of it, we would have put it as um anticipated here. Thank you. At the end of the academic year last year, um we had talked about um meal prices being increased in the co-op, but we had decided to wait on that until our new food services director had had a full year um so that she could shed light on it instead of the outgoing food services director. Do we know if that's coming back to us because last year it came to us I think in our June meeting, it was
073a little bit late to really do anything. >> We're going to do it in all our May meetings. We'll be talking about food uh lunch prices. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Thank you. I will uh continue with the superintendent evaluations and I will hand the meeting back to Melissa. So, I'll give you a second to get settled. Uh-huh. I did your chair report. It was great. Did you do it? Yeah. No, I didn't. [laughter] You can still do it. Uh so, the superintendent evaluations, so we will uh Cameron and I are are we'll partner on that, but uh Tim is leading that up and we will be doing that. There is in your packet, there is uh information about it. So, just ask the board. I I think that we decided last time
074that I'm happy to take a first shot at a draft. I will share that with all of you. And then you certainly you can make comments. Uh so, that'll be coming your way over the next month or so. And that is it. Thank you, Bill. You're welcome. All right, moving on to policy committee. All right, this should be fairly straightforward. You can see seven policies on the agenda tonight, but for those of you who were who were here last night, so everyone except Neil, uh you've already reviewed five of those. So, those first five we all voted on and approved last night. Um the other two are also revisions. Those first five are also revisions. Um You can see in the summary on page 79 that they're both uh one is to update in response
075to some changes in the law and one is uh brought by a member of the committee. I was not at the meeting, so I don't know who that was or what the impetus behind that was, but you can see the proposed changes on page um 98 and 99, which is really the board can delegate to the superintendent or designee the authority to approve use of school facilities, which I think makes sense. Um So, those are the the seven uh policies before you tonight. Do May I ask a question? Do do do we have to approve the minutes that we approved last night? I Well, I think yes, because the policies policies that were approved last night were policies that applied to conduct of meetings and conduct of board members and they applied to the joint
076board. Okay. So, we'd be adopting these policies as they apply to the cooperative board. So. Thank you. Any other questions? So, we're looking for a motion to approve the seven policies. I'll make the motion to approve the seven policies as written. Thank you. Second. Second. Thank you. All those in favor? All right. Uh >> to close public comment. Sure, we'll close public comment. It's almost been at least 30 minutes. >> [laughter] >> Uh SST governing board, Tammy. Okay, so I really don't have a new report. We met March 16th and then at the SST did and then we we met March 17th. But, I will just highlight things that are upcoming still. Thursday, May 7th is accepted student nights at SST. Thursday, May 21st is scholarship award night and Thursday, May 28th is the certificate
077ceremony. All right, safety and security. We have not met. We meet in May. Okay. All right. Um the one thing I did want to cover from >> [snorts] >> um the chair report was uh graduation attendance. So, we want to make sure we have at least one board member at every graduation. Um So, SST, sorry, you just gave that date. Is May 28th. Uh May 28th May It's a Thursday. Yes. >> Yeah. Is any Um can I just say it's really early? It's at 4:30, so if you want to be home early, come to SST's. >> [laughter] >> Do we have any volunteers for SST? Yes. Yes, Bill. Yeah. Excellent. >> out of work early. Okay. I just got permission. You just got permission? for getting out of work early. >> [laughter] >> Does anybody
078else want to attend that? And of course, if you want to attend any of these and you don't decide this evening, that's fine, too. I just want to make sure we have at least somebody in attendance. Yeah, I think it wouldn't if it would be possible to just share the dates and times afterwards, too, that would be good. I can just double check. Sure thing. Um we have Exeter Adult Education, June 10th. What time? It's at 6:00 p.m. You Yeah? Yeah, definitely. All right. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. I'll also try to be there. It's It's my favorite one. >> [laughter] >> So, what time? It's 6:00. Yeah. You [snorts] want to be there like 5:50. It's a Wednesday. It's a great one. >> a Wednesday. Right here at the high school? Here. Right here. Yeah, auditorium.
079Perfect. We'll have you up front stage. That's That's so cool. Thanks, Eric. >> [laughter] >> All right, and then we have our regular graduation on the 6th, right? June 6th. 10:00 a.m. [snorts] 10:00 a.m. Brian will be there. Neil? Amy will be there. Amy will be there. I'll also be there. Okay, good deal. All right. And we always have tradition graduating senior come up and give it give their uh diploma. Thank you. And then the charter school. And the charter school. Does somebody have that date? >> have that date. I will I will get that. I'll get that and send it out. >> Okay. Is there someone interested that wants to go and I can share that. Tammy? Thank you, Tammy. It's usually the same night as yours. Oh, was it? Yeah. All right. I
080think that was the only other thing. All right, we're going to move on to new business. Neil. I think everybody saw his proposal that he sent out. >> Thank you. So, um I'll be as quick as I can be. So, I'm going to hand out copies um of two sets of documents. One is the background that it should be in your folder and the other is the presentation I'm going to use today. Um so, I served on the cross country and track and field booster board. Um our oldest was on the team and uh it's a terrific experience. Uh ended up serving on uh the board. I was co-president, which really meant that I was Amanda Allen's assistant. If you ever met Amanda Allen, she's a remarkable person. Um and I learned a lot about
081the value that these organizations bring. Um I mentioned this to Bill last summer when he was chair. Um I've met with uh Dr. Andriski, uh Tanya Nievi, um Drew Barstow, um Mr. Miles was there. I'm trying to get, you know, just number one, show respect to the people involved this process, they deserve. Number two, um just start a conversation. Um I mentioned this to Melissa. Uh we did the a committee by email. Um and so, just walking through the presentation, I'm happy to talk about this however you want. Um but as part of that participation I had in that booster club, it one item really stuck out to me, which was that every single one, if they want to be a 501c3 nonprofit, has to file their own tax forms or forms of the state
082of New Hampshire. It is actually a significant undertaking. It is it is, you know, it in the vernacular, it's a pain in the neck. And they all have to do it. And these booster clubs do so much good. They raise so much money and they're stuck with the reporting requirement. And so, my thought was, there has to be a better way to do it. Um [snorts] and one of the thoughts I had was, what would a large booster club do? Let's say at the college level or whomever, what's the it's the principle should be the same. So, maybe there can be a an overall supporting architecture, which might make it easy. So, um let me just run through the slides. I'll take questions and we'll talk about if you want uh anything you you you
083would prefer. Um so, you know, if you just think about what the clubs do, you know, um our youngest is now in um freshman baseball and I'm looking at the game change rap at the same time. You know, they do so much in just communication, forget fundraising. They they effectively act as a part of the staff um and do just remarkable work. They raise tens of thousands of dollars. Um the high school boosters just are donating is it 19,000 this time? I mean, it is an enormous amount of money. I can only imagine how much it ends up being every year. Um they're independent. So, they're on their own uh and it's actually some of these programs are long and have incredible traditions and a lot just don't have the same um tradition and capacity
084that others do. Um so, it's and it's increasingly difficult to get people to join things just generally throughout society and that's true here, too. So, my observation would be it's increasingly tough to find people who have the time and the capacity to join as volunteers for what is really a critically important function. So, the proposal and, you know, I'm assuming that, you know, some of you had the chance to read it and some of you did not, so I'm going to try and summarize it. Um it's to create a support structure in an organization that takes provides support directly to the boosters without taking away their autonomy. Um because, you know, one thing I don't intend to do with this will be to create an organization that would, you know, supplant the role of these
085boosters. I think that would be an enormous mistake. So, this would be voluntary participation. But, it would be, you know, an overarching group that would have, you know, would file taxes or the tax forms would be one, provide um some background information, provide support in terms of just logistics and volunteer and there's a whole bunch of stuff. And one thing it would do, I would hope, would be to create a mechanism to create new 501c3 nonprofits without much effort. Like just the vote of a board. So, that that would be a thought. Um that's the second one. I gave it a name, I call the Exeter Scholar Athlete Artist Program, E Safe. That's after a college program I know about. That's my idea. That would be up for grabs. Um and then potential, like I
086said, making it easier for groups to form. Um I went to, as I do now annually, to Mr. Baddie's uh French and um class art show. And I bought a whole bunch of paintings. Uh and I wondered and it's not so, I make my check out to Exeter High School. It's not tax deductible. And I thought, I wonder if the bidding would be higher if it was tax deductible. Just a thought. That's one one potential adaptation that would be non-athletic. Um so, anyway, a bunch of things you could do. I mentioned the steps I took before was trying to reach out to people to talk about the concept, introduce the idea. Um I also contacted a couple schools um I'm familiar with to try and get them to line up to give us some advice
087about how they do it. Um of note, uh Duke has a really great booster club called the Iron Dukes. Um they'd be happy to talk to a group that would form about how their structure works because in my mind that's a program that I know about. I went to graduate school there and Duke has this incredible effort like to a variety of sports and other programs and I can't imagine they each file their own tax form. I can't imagine there must be some logistical or must be some tricks of the trade they can teach us. The Georgetown Scholars Program I'm aware of because I went to college there. They have this remarkable program that helps kids um with rap what around services and one of my visions for this is to try and help kids
088from low-income households to participate more fully in school life. For example, the question I asked about the trip abroad that taking the London was do they have money to spend on things other than just the basics? And that's a real issue with equity. Like if you don't have money but you get the scholarship but if you get the full tuition to Harvard do they give you the money to go on a school trip? And often the answer is no because nobody thought about it. MIT I did not go to MIT. MIT has this remarkable intramural sports program. It is one of the most extensive sports programs in the country and just introducing an idea of something that could come from it. So, anyway I've introduced the idea. This is the first time some of you
089have probably read about it or or heard about it and I'd ask for you know thoughts. We don't have to do anything now because I'm introducing an idea. I have thoughts about where I think it should go at some point and I'll I'll stop there. If you have any questions. Thank you Neil. So Neil and I did we we spoke a little bit back and forth about this. I read through everything and what struck me I you know just in now that my son's a freshman and playing in a couple sports teams um, you know on the golf team it's almost all corporate sponsorships. So they want to see that 501c3. And now with baseball that's also but I learned recently that softball is not. And that just seemed to me that's pretty inequitable if
090one has the capacity and the other one doesn't for whatever reason. So I I think there's a lot of value here in doing something that would take some of that I mean participating in boosters is a heavy lift for parents anyway. It really is. Um, yeah there's there's emails all the time about stuff and fundraising and different things they're doing. So to kind of taking some of that the legal part of it out of their hands and making it easier for our smaller clubs smaller teams to participate. I think it's a great idea. This sounds like a great idea. Have you vetted this though with the tax attorney to make sure One of one of the things that so I didn't want to go off on my own right at this time. So one of
091the things we'd have to confirm that the actual structure is possible and if not is there still any value left? So I don't know. Still work to be done. In my mind I would think it wouldn't be that complicated right? You have your separate bank account with the same EIN because we did it with the boosters the cross country track and field boosters we redid ours with our lawyer who does it it's Kate Miller. She's fabulous. She does it pro bono for all the boosters. Um I I think it would just be do you have the legal structure in place to then back up like the tax benefits but I don't know. So I apologize for coming in late and you might have said some of this before I came in but so what is
092the role of the Exeter Co-op board in this because normally 501c3s are completely separate from school districts. They run on their own. They have their own board of directors. I've run a 501c3 and filed the paperwork so I don't understand what the role of the school board is. So the truth is I don't know. I'm guessing though. Like I can't imagine you'd have like would you have an alumni association for a school that would not have some kind of connection to support from or genesis from the school itself? Could you just stand up the University of New Hampshire you know alumni association a 501c3 nonprofit without some kind of acknowledgement or something from the university itself? I would assume not but again I I thought about it. I don't know but that's why I'm bringing
093it here. Because my concern is I think it's a great idea. It's a lot of trust me I get all the the same emails and the same fundraising and you haven't met your limit yet and can you go sell out in front of Hannaford? I I get all of that piece of it but there is the record keeping and who's going to oversee that? Is that something you think that the business office is going to undertake? And how would this like because that's going to be a lot of work for somebody. Is the 501c3 going to pay somebody? So is a percentage of what is raised going to have to go to administrative overhead? Great question. I don't know. Again starting the conversation to get the questions. If there's interest in doing it the because
094those are great questions. Yeah and I think part of what you know when we were talking about this is that there didn't seem to be another option for where this would go. Because each of the boosters clubs are so individual. So there wasn't a Yeah. My genuine thought is they would remain independent right? But there would be some some consolidation of reporting. If you wanted them to be tax to have be tax exempt and independent they'd have to have all have their own tax ID numbers. They'd all have to be their own 501c3. They would if you wanted to have a giant one they'd all have to roll into one only. And so then they'd all have to be willing I would say to any money they raise how are you going to split that
095up amongst the groups? I mean I just think there's a lot of >> But that's why I was thinking about the Iron Dukes is there's no way like the basketball men's basketball team with Duke spreads. There must be some kind of but they must keep most of it for themselves I would think. I just think that that's a huge organization. You know have has anyone talked to the football boosters here? When I was here they were huge. I mean there if I remember correctly there's not much money in the operating budget for football because the booster club pretty much covers it all. Has anybody reached out to the football boosters? I I haven't yet but the plan is to do it once if there's an interest not to preempt the process. And this would be
096voluntary would be my way of looking at it. They may not want to a successful program like the football program they might just say thanks we got it. >> No I meant for ideas like how is it that they're successful? How is it that they they run it? That's part of that. Can I Yeah no I I've been president of the soccer's boys soccer booster club and it's wonderful to have autonomy and do what you want but that the work is significant and and you're right getting volunteers to help. So when Neil approached me with this I said well this is something worth exploring. I I love your questions and to explore and I agree that the football programs do. I'd be I'd be curious to know from Molly is like what what do we
097support from our budget to the sports? So we do have an athletic section so if we jump back to the board financial. It is your 1400 section. Yeah. Now it's not detailed out but it does support um, like uniforms, rentals, has Kathy Clermont's request every year within here. All right. That'd be good to know because I know there's some It's coaches, facility rentals, things like that. That's interesting because I've been told just the opposite. So that so this comes some good stuff could come from this. >> But it's often a conversation right between what the boosters can raise and what needs to be made up like uniforms for the cross country track and field team are extremely expensive because there's so many kids. So how much can we do this year? Do what do we
098need to do? So it's it's like an ongoing kind of process is my experience. Bobby Bobby go ahead. Yeah go ahead. Just from a student perspective really quickly here. What I find most most interesting about this is not that it is simply athletics but also scholar and artist so I think that's the most interesting part to me about this as a student is it not only has the chance to help the athletics but also the musics and like maybe even like honor societies and stuff like that and building a lot of what student senate tries to do and build a more entwined community. Right. And so if you have like the shell that you're suggesting and hopefully I mean I don't know the the tax and paperwork side of it that much but hopefully being
099able to consolidate it more and make it easier for all these things to branch off and do their own things but also with the support of other programs. Thank you. I mean that is part of the program it's broadening out the the model to the non non the non athletic part. It's athletic part is phenomenally important to but there's there's a value capture here for creative people for creative students to develop ideas to pursue with more ease and with the advantage. But that's part of the concept of this. Thank you. Yes ma'am. So listening to what Amy said the taxes might get tricky but there's multiple booster clubs. Do they interact? They get they're all are they all just reinventing the wheel every time they do this? Could there be like a starter packet of
100this is what you need to do if you're going to be a booster club here. This is a like a model you can follow. Is there is that the such a thing exist or would that be a benefit to create? To my knowledge it doesn't exist and but I write about that is the best practices and the advice of how do you do things? How do you how do you operate it? How do you start one? That would be I think very valuable. And there's an issue of continuity right? Like you know you've got usually one or two people doing all the work. They go and maybe they leave the area they're not around to provide advice to the new set and they do have to start it up again. That that I think that's
101a a non financial benefit that would be significant. That's sort of thing we've blown by Amy's very good question about why us right? What role do we have and what role does the school take? Does the school have to I mean does the school have to approve the establishment of a booster club or uh like my time here we've not voted on you know, accepting funds from a booster club to my knowledge. So, it's not clear what our role as a board for the school is. Yeah, Chris, I don't know if you can give any historical context. I know booster clubs have raised money for, you know, facilities and even um you know, projects, even construct not construction, but those types of things. Um so, what sort of approval do they need to get? So,
102I mean, they they basically run their own platform, their own fundraising. It all comes through them and their their board of directors and again, how they're organized. Some are very organized, some are not, some are very small. Uh so, that's why this idea was really novel like how do we bring everybody to help support and and build that. As we saw tonight, you know, we were able to get $19,000 from the from the football boosters because they have so many people involved in the program. They typically make a they typically make much more money uh from what they're doing for their advertising, but as we all know, we we every season we're getting hit with different requests and it's the same request, but for different organizations. So, there's really not a uh format that they
103all follow at currently. So, that's why I think when Neil brought this is there when we talked about it, it was interesting for all of us, but then our next step is we'd have to talk to all of the heads of the boosters. Is this something that they want to do? Would they see value in it? Would would football say, "No, we're good because we raise so much money or would they want to be there as kind of a a big brother to help out some of the smaller organizations? And that's where Mr. Mr. Miles was really important like they're they're small and they have a lot of students, but they don't bring in a lot of money because they don't have those avenues. So, I think that's why it's in the investigation stage is
104really important for this of next steps. There's a lot of questions I think a lot of us have. That's why I thought Neil brought it for more input today. I I don't I don't I don't know. I mean, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I again, I can't imagine it wouldn't have some kind of version, but I don't know how it would start with or without some kind of school thing. I mean, I your your UNH example, I would assume that there's like trademark control or something over that. Then I if the district has not previously blessed the establishment of of boosters clubs, um then what what would our role be? Or is it an independent effort to create the boosters club boosters club that oversees
105them all and if possible funnels money through? I I think there are a lot of practical questions that we've been hearing. But, I think that's sort of beyond the initial step of what what is our role, which I'm not still not clear on. Yeah, so we don't have a policy here. I asked asked Chris if there was a policy. There's no policy for boosters. So, we have no say over the of them being created or not being created. And these are almost like PTOs. So, I I was here when the middle school wanted to create their PTO. There's a national PTO organization and they help them create their PTO. They have their own separate checking account, their own tax ID, their own board. This is almost the same thing. I think this is a great
106idea, but I'm really having a hard connection as to what the school board's role is in creating this. >> So, how would one progress if one wanted to do this without some discussion or connection to the district? How do they do it now? will be my question. They create boosters now without the connection to the district. Right, but but so but the I I guess what I'm saying is they there there is a connection, right? It's we don't form them, but we operate in tandem with the district. So, if one wanted us to could they operate so independently and and violate school policy? They couldn't, right? The boosters themselves, we have literally no control over the boosters. The the athletics, yes. So, they would have to follow the our policies and the athletic handbook and
107the but as far as where they raise money, how they raise money and what they spend it on, the district has no say over that. Right, but what I guess what I'm saying is so if one wanted to do this, how would one do it without talking to the board or the administration? I'll still go back to how did they form a PT how did they form a booster without asking us in the first place? That that's I mean, if they can create one on their own, if all of a sudden they wanted to create I don't know if tennis has a boosters, they probably do. But, you know, if tennis is all of a sudden wanted to create a booster, they're not going to come to the board and ask to create a booster.
108They're going to reach out to the football or to the baseball or some you know, someone on the on the soccer one or something like that and say, "How did you do it?" Okay. I it's for as a business administrator and a risk management person from a school perspective as if somebody came to me in Oyster River and said this, I'd be pushing back just as hard. I just don't see the the district's role in creating a 501c3 for this. Okay. That's just my opinion. I mean, if any I mean, it's Yeah, I I I mean, can I can I say that? >> I I totally hear everything you're saying and I I agree with you. I I saw tonight Neil bring this to create awareness, not approval. So, I I don't I don't know
109what you expected from the board except for like, "Hey, is does anybody want to come along for the ride?" As I try to >> No, no, that's why I I was my I proposed action, but maybe the action was wrong. All right, then that's >> But, I don't I guess or it's just beyond our Yeah, maybe maybe what you're asking us to do. And there's still the possibility I would guess that you could reach out to the individual booster groups and say, "Do you think something like this would work for all of you?" Okay. And I I think that would happen outside of our remit. It it doesn't seem like it's in the purview of the board, but you as an interested person could do this independent of the board. Right, but assume I'm not
110on the school board, right? And so, I'm just someone off the street. I walk around and start talking to the boosters, but there's you you would want to have knowledge of what's going on, right? The board or the administration, right? No, we don't know what the boosters do now. Let's think about this. So, the the boosters do use school facilities. They do provide monies for students, right? So, I don't I I guess my my rejoinder might be there may be no you wouldn't want to operate independently of the school or the board because there actually is a connection. I think that the connection is through the athletics department, not through the school board. Um Okay. I think if if they're if they're using school facilities, they're renting them or asking for uh an agreement to
111use them. Um I think the the extent they're using funds responsibly or directing them to the athletic teams, that's probably done through their governing documents and their fiduciary duty to use those monies. Well, it's it's coordination with the school. You know, like in that that big argument with the Well, they would yeah, they would I guess They would sit down with the athletic director or whomever and it'd be, "Well, we can afford this this year. We can you pick up this next year, right?" So, there's coordination. >> know. I can't speak to that. That's the way it works. Okay. Thank you. Anyone have any other questions before we move on? All right, we're going to move on to old business. Start with the custodial request for proposals award. >> Yeah, so Amy, thank you. Served
112on the committee. She uh walked through with um Director Sands and a couple of members from there. Um we were making the recommendation to move forward with Cushman & Wakefield. They were the um choice out of six different vendors that put in their proposals. Uh they came in uh at a fair number uh significantly under what we had looked at. So, there will be a cost savings in regards to custodial services next year. Amy, I don't know if you want to add anything in the time and why they stuck stuck it out uh compared to the other vendors. Um part part of one of the things that they when they looked at the the bid and they talked to um the facilities director was that they found ways to save money right out of the
113gate. Like this might have been what we asked for, but they found efficiencies right away. They said, "We could do this and we can do this." And also, they were ready to hit the ground running. They weren't going to have to get the get the award and then say, "I need to hire people." They had the staffing. So, that was another piece that was really important that it wasn't going to stop us from being able to keep the buildings clean and doing the operations we need to do at night. They had So, we're excited to partner with them moving forward on July 1st. And so, they will move in and they we're not the incumbents, but they did come in with a the best proposal. Um second was a request for qualifications and just so
114people know, uh a request for proposal, that's when we're we're asking someone to put a proposal together and they put money associated with it. The request for qualifications is when a company puts in they talk about the qualifications to do a project. So, that's what we asked for for the facility study at the Tuck campus where SST is involved and um uh uh GBX is involved, Delta Education and then it houses uh the SAU. So, we only had three vendors that put in for request for qualification. We'd like to award the bid to EEI. They came in with the best scope. They have the the most capability, the most experience to work with it. Um and they also have um they're doing some work right now in in some of our other schools. So, they
115have a knowledge base of the district. So, um that is uh the proposal that that we want to make the recommendation to have EEI come on and start to do that that study of the facilities for all of you. Amy, anything I missed on that RFQ? Nope. And then lastly, just want to make you aware that we did also put out a request for proposals for the HVAC system here, which is part of our uh facilities management plan. Um and that was released on um April 6th. Um, all the vendors that were interested had to do a site visit on the 20th and then that will be awarded on um May 5th. Right now we had three vendors that came through to our going to um make a proposal. So, I'll bring that back in
116the May board of where we're at with that. But, just wanted to keep you updated with the different parts of of facilities. And then also it's not listed under old business, but we did talk about it last night. I didn't know if you wanted to bring up the amicus brief in this section or if you wanted to have that at a different time. So, um we talked about this briefly last night, but um if if we wanted to um sign on to the amicus brief, um we would need to do it we don't necessarily we do not have to do it at this meeting. We could do it at the next meeting. >> Correct. We would just >> timing is still Yep. Um, end of May is when we would have to be attached. I
117did talk with the attorney to answer some questions that came up from last night. So, I can provide that >> Uh, so uh attorney Eaton who uh if you remember talked with the joint board and this is the case that um the ACLU is filing against in regards to divisive concepts and the teaching of divisive concepts um and the money associated with that the federal government. So, that has been stalled um but it gets heard again at the end of May. So, we can attach a briefing that would support the ACLU's stance uh our teachers association stance and then give background. Um uh attorney Eaton said that the cost for that total brief would be between 8 and 10,000 dollars. So, that would be shared amongst the different districts. So, again it's a minimal cost.
118Uh, the attorney Eaton would prepare that uh uh amicus brief to match up with what um the ACLU has had as well as some of the claims from the NEA and then he would look for significant inputs how uh um we would we support equity through SAU 16 obviously with our chief equity officer and then it's it's it's in a multitude of different of our strategic um planning priorities. Um, and then how it is an impact uh teachers abilities each day when we're talking about the different things that um that limited free speech of that first proposal came through and they will send us a draft for each board to review before it goes final. So, um our timing were late in May, so you'll still be able to see it um but I did
119talk to um attorney Eaton said start writing the draft and then each board meeting will approve it so we know which different boards come in um come come in and say yes, they want to be attached to that. Any other questions? So, uh I was wondering about this last night. So, this is this was the case filed by the ACLU in the district of New Hampshire to obtain an injunction against the enforcement of what is now RSA 19340. Correct. And then what's coming up in May is a hearing on the merits of the constitutionality of RSA 19340. And the amicus brief would be to support the arguments of the ACLU and I think it was enjoined because it was impermissibly vague and the uh punishments associated with violations of it were out of line with
120reasonable um uh remedies or or other actions the state typically takes. Correct. So, um the it's un- I don't know a unclear what the it all depends on what the amicus brief says. The level of comfort with supporting it. Is that something that'd be prepared? Like last night they talked about a template or something we could see. Um, is this something we could have we could look at by May? Yep. So, that attorney Eaton's going to work on that now and I asked as soon as he can get it I let him kind of know the timeline of of our different board meetings. So, as soon as we get back in May Brent would starts on May 4th. So, I'm hoping we can get something over break so you can start seeing what that would
121look like so it'd be a better idea. But, as soon as that comes in I will share it with the chairs of all the of the different boards and or I can distribute it actually to everybody on the board so they can see that. So, I think one point to the um these briefs can tend to be repetitive if we didn't have something new to say, but I think the the fact that we do have an equity officer and are the only district that has one. I think that there's going to be quite a bit of work that that she does that would be relevant within the brief that would be new information and different from what everyone else is presenting. So, given that we want to we'll just wait until the next meeting. Okay.
122Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Do we want to go back to the end of >> Circle back to the financial >> Yeah. End of year budget. >> Yeah. Yep. Yep. I'm going to step out. Sorry, everyone. Thank you, Bonnie. A man [laughter] of excellent choice. Bye. He did. He was itching to get out on that thing. >> Just the unassigned balance. >> Yes. Yep. So, it's sort of wish list. >> Wish list. Yeah. So, for Amy and Melissa the yellow is our high priorities. Again, we met twice and that was with Director Sands, uh chief technical officer, um uh all of our building principals and and Miss O'Keefe to look at, you know, the what we have because we have a higher projected end of the year fund balance. Um, so yellow was a priority
123list that we all agreed upon and we we looked at safety needs, needs of the buildings, facility needs and and overall impact to our schools. And then the green would be um we also like to do that, but yellow is really our priorities. So, that gives you in I provided in the packet there were some that weren't highlighted that we said those are not needed at this time. But, we were brainstorming every idea and we came to an agreement on this. So, thank you to the work of the administration to to get to this point. Um, so this when the question came up do we need to approve it tonight? No, it would be really helpful because some things will need to order and some of the work that needs to be done because everything
124needs to be done by June 30th. Um, but if you don't then we can start [clears throat] uh in May as soon as possible. Question. Um, as you're looking through those just wondering I mean this is something I saw and is a little bit adjacent, but something I had liked that the Exeter Elementary Board did relatively recently was look at free meals for their students and I was just curious if you guys considered anything. I see the revenues are like 950 on the next couple pages and it just matches up with a similar expenditure. I don't know if there's anything um whether we could make a doesn't to consider in this in a way to spend money or give money back for meals for students. So, that that's a great question. That would not be
125a recommendation I would make to this board to do free lunches at CMS or or Exeter High School. Um, that's one uh area that always is in the green. Um, so they actually make money and their their prices are super reasonable. Um and there are other cost factors that um I can bring to the next board meeting if that's a consideration. Uh, but that there are impacts if you um for students and and how it would impact grant funding in the future if you gave out free lunches. So, um I'd want that board to consider that because it would impact the ability for grant funding that would be the needs for all students Mhm. uh in in our future budgets. Makes sense. I was also noticing we weren't getting a lot of federal aid or
126nearly as much as we they said they were going to get. So, but we can definitely talk about it other time. Just be curious for exploring that. I think it's a big big thing for kids to make sure they have everything they need. So, just looking at the numbers um if I'm doing my math correctly, the doors, the cameras all add to about a little over almost 1.1 million. So, that's 40% on safety and security, right? For your requests, which is obviously a priority that we have. I think it's a really good idea. Um, the vans again a great idea. Um these are going to CMS. Correct. So, I guess it would I be correct in saying so CMS has been borrowing some of ours and the elementary schools have been reaching out too. So,
127if we buy vans for CMS that should relieve pressure on us and just generally free up the fleet if you will. Yeah, cuz the tough part is those four vans are housed here. Right. So, there's none housed at CM at at CMS. So, if we needed it for uh field trip or uh athletic contest they have to actually drive a staff member over here, drive it back, go pick up the kids. So, having them there would be really helpful with athletics and extra curriculars. Would the elementary schools be then able to access those vans like they would ours? >> Mhm. Yep. So, it's the same protocol. Yep. Thank I I I think this is great. How many vans does that represent? >> Two. Two vans in there. Yep. So, what what the So, we have
128how many here now? Do you know? We have four here now. So, six total? Yep. You know what I think about vans? The more the better cuz it it really relieves the pressure on the parents. It really does. The question. So, um talking earlier uh you mentioned that a lot of these are I was thinking before about um are these on a I've forgotten the term. Um a capital improvement plan. And so some of these might be, but some of them aren't because we haven't done this for facilities at this level. And I think if we are pulling things from a capital improvement plan to fund with um a fund balance, I think that addresses the concern Eric raised that these are things that um we're just looking to spend money that we've ended up
129with. Mhm. Um, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like it's just >> that's right. Got something in there. >> didn't feel the word Sorry, I didn't choice of word padding is not the word. It just didn't feel transparent. That's really what I was looking to say. And so I think you said Chris that you're also going to be looking at developing one for facilities, too. So I think that the extent that things that are on these lists are aligned with things that have already been on capital improvement plans or we'll be developing a capital improvement plan type document going forward that would reflect these kind of things. I think that is a good Both of those are good ideas. In the beginning when the budget's created, I mean, isn't
130there an item a line item for capital improvements and then wouldn't all these items be listed, you know, we need vans, we need cameras, we need all these things when the budget's initially created so that people know, you know, exactly what is needed and that we need the money to fund those things rather than at the end, well, we have money left over, so let's just throw it at it now. So it is and it's by department. So when we're talking about like servers or cameras, that goes in the technology budget. And then it's done it's housed by building, but it's an overall budget for the cooperative. Same with our facilities. So it will will break it out by each site, but it it's one full number that the budget advisory board has to look
131at. And so we'll go through and before we even get it to the first time to the budget advisory, we will look at it and look at total overall costs of the budget and then we'll we'll make changes based on areas that are up 15% in technology and to make that in a line with the overall budget if we wanted at 3%. So that's how we put it together, but we do itemize what we're looking for, how many, and the cost of that for that budget. >> And then part of my learning experience is it's a tearing process, too. Like there's some super important stuff we need, you know, you do it up front and then we see how much at the end of the year if we if we have any excess funds we
132can use, then it's like, you know, it's the yellow list and then the green list. So it's it's a prioritizing conversation throughout the year. That's at least my reflection on it. And Chris, we've exhausted all of our options for our safety and security grants for those items that are here. We did. We did not get any of those. We were only eligible for 125,000 per school and across the SAU, we did not get it. But again, they've been competitive across the state. So some districts that have not gotten it they we started to see them get it this round. So again, we'll put in for every grant that comes through and so during >> I assume I just feel like it needs to be said. >> No, it's it's a great question. Thanks. So I
133do apologize if this was said before. Are any of these items in next year's operating budget that we're looking to be able to offset by buying them now? Like furniture or anything like that, servers, >> the server is in the budget for next year. Uh but as you're seeing with most impacts, so the what we have in the budget is already going to be because of inflation not enough that we put in the budget. So this would really help out to alleviate next year's budget and we could earmark it for some things that maybe we didn't use out of the surplus. So again, to get to Brian's comment that we are looking, but it would alleviate it then we can even out our budget knowing that things got done sooner. And one other question, I'm
134sure and again, I apologize if this was said before. Cuz has someone said why what's the main driver as to why we have such a fund balance rather than we didn't a budget appropriately cuz I don't want anyone to think we didn't budget appropriately, but there there's got to be a story behind why we have such the fund balance. So if you remember 2 years ago, we were really concerned about special education costs and when students move in and we've already created a budget and they may be out of district placement or they have significant needs. This administration in the budgeting process really looked at the needs of the students and we've been able to keep a lot of students in house. So what we projected as say five students going out of district at
135probably about 1.5 million of a cost, those students were able to we were able to create programs to keep them in house, so therefore if we reduced that cost significantly. We changed some vendors and contracts that reduced cost savings in this current budget and we also there were some significant staffing changes that we had that reduced costs as well, too. Okay. Any other questions? Just for historical purposes, all four of our vans, have they all been purchased with um with unassigned >> No, we we budget that. So we we yeah. >> get all three of them. I think three of them. So we we've put 2 years ago when I was working with Mr. Lister the first time, we started putting a a piece of van, a truck, mowing equipment into our budget cuz it
136had never been there. Um so that's why you're getting equipment that's 25 years old. So we do have a significant piece of equipment in our budgets moving forward. We do have that for next year as well. So if something doesn't get covered here, then we'll earmark it whether it's a new truck or mowing equipment. >> had been done with um It might have been special ed that we'd put in there cuz we also have special education buses in there. Um may I make a comment? Yeah. Uh so yeah, spending money like this difficult, but I also one of the things is that I enjoy about our school system is that we are so, you know, we we're we talk about risk averse. We're we're solid. Like we have good buildings, we have good equipment and
137we have and that really helps us in the future rather than saying oh, 3 years from now something that broken down, now we need to reverse and try to find that money. And Exeter's always been in a good position like that. So I appreciate that and if some of that helps here, then I think it probably makes sense. And if not, then we can certainly budget for it next year. Um apologize for not being here earlier if you already discussed it, but the the cameras, um that's a pretty significant cost in list two. What it what does that entail? So it would be a complete camera upgrade to a newer system with more pixels, more memory, better detection services on it, replacing all the outdated equipment, uh replacing the servers that that hold on a
138cloud base and also time for each one of our our facilities. So we did redo most of SST based on a grant that we got 2 years ago. That system is night and day to the systems that we have here at Exeter High School and at CMS. So that is what we're looking at. And based on the facility study, we could if we did put equipment in and say we're not using the the SAU portion of that building moving forward, that equipment could then be replaced and put here as an upgrade or we can hold it and and repurpose it. So that is why we put the full amount in there. Okay. And when would that Do you know when that work would be done with that? So that would have to start immediately because
139you'd want it that that work to to be hopefully accomplished by June 30th. I think it will extend a little bit, but it will make our payments ahead of time and have a contract with that set. So We would just have to follow the rules of of how we're using that money to make sure that it's meets the deadlines. Molly and Molly will work with the vendors on that. But you put that on the second tier. So the equipment you have now is pretty functional or or not? I mean, Cameras work. So it's on the green one. It's on the it's in the green, so it's it's So it's still functional for the time being. >> It is. I mean, you're talking a lot of money here. You're talking about $700,000. >> Correct. Can I
140share something from safety and security that reflects in the cameras? Tell me if this is too much. We talked about this in safety and security, I think in the fall, where if you have an intruder in a building with a red sweatshirt on, you can search, type in the word red sweatshirt, and it will identify in the building and it will track a red sweatshirt in the building. If you have a car on a field, which is something that is something that happens, you can get an alert, Chris can get an alert on his phone at home and see it happening in real time like on your ring camera instead of coming to work on Monday morning, seeing a field torn up, and then having to backtrack. So they just they're the next level cameras
141that would really benefit. >> great. So this is information, so if I'm going to vote, I want to understand why you need to replace them, why you need >> yes, our cameras probably are adequate, but we can do better. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Bill. I I have I have the same question about like the door access. I'm sure all the doors can open and close now, but this sounds like next level door stuff. It is. Yeah. So [laughter] I wish Jason was here because you'd be seeing this bubbling smile coming out of him. Right? And we don't we don't get to see it often, but when we do, it's about door access and cameras. But really we'd be able to we'd be able to have door access to all of them. So really, you know, your
142badge and then we could there's also a keypad of how we'd be able to get people in. So you can control and lock even more sections of your building out um throughout throughout the entire school. So that's a safety thing. It is it is really a safety. Yeah, tracking where people are going throughout your building. Are they also upgraded card readers and new cards so they're not copyable? I don't know if any of you know, but if someone walks a little too close to you, they could copy your pass card and then they can get into the building and make lots of photocopies using your ID. So we're upgrading those also in Oyster River so that they are not copyable. You can get that off of Amazon and just copy somebody's key card. >> [laughter]
143>> Everybody knows we're behind the times. All right, so I I think we'll be looking for a motion. I think just given the the dollar amount and this is you know, it's a lot larger than what we typically deal with at the end of the year. So could I have a Anyone like to make a motion on list one? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. I'll second. All right, all those in favor of approving list one. Thank you. And would anyone like to make a motion for list two? Motion to approve. Neil. Second. Cameron, second. Uh all those in a favor of approving list two. I. Is there One, two. Do we want to discussion? Well, I was going to say is there any way like I really like the idea of the cameras. I
144think that's important. I kind of would have like to have seen those on list one where the carpet replacement, the radios, the furniture. Like is that something we could wait till next board meeting? I know they're trivial and they're kind of small, but I Want to pull them out? >> like to be able to pull those out and Exactly. Why can't they just be split like I should have like three lists. Why do you need >> Right. And that's what I'm trying to We could do that. That's what I'd like to just see those broken off and Want to do a Would you like to change your motion to a cameras a list two cameras only? >> I would draw my motion >> [laughter] >> and remotion for the cameras. Okay. So the cameras at
145EHS, CMS, and SST. I would just ask that what we all so want to learn about these fairly small items. I don't I just seems to me like um And I appreciate the work that's been done to uh pull this list together and I think still a lot being returned. Um I guess I don't have a concern. Um The radios are safety safety and security related. Yeah. They always are. There's upgrades, but we do it we do budget for that. We were just trying to get that early. So I'm okay with that. Can I change my motion one more time? Yeah. So how about we do the cameras and the radios for this motion? Okay. All safety and security. I think you Do you want to say something? Just about the furniture. If I uh
146order in May, it won't be here by the end of June. Um this was uh uh the companies I my choices were relatively limited with the companies that I've um spoken with because just their stock and supply and what they're what's possible for them to get here by then. Do Do they have to be in the building or can you can you pay for them and then So they can get PO and then pay for it. I don't know if they need to be delivered the furniture. I mean Like they don't have to be in in the building by June 30th. Yeah, we would need to have a motion by the board, but we would have to have a purchase order in place um prior to June 30th. But the purchase order in place by
147June 30th. June 30th. Okay. >> So that we don't have to receive the materials before then. I mean technically we should have it here before June 30th. So you could technically have a purchase order for using next year's funds to give them to order it and pay with it after July 1st. You would need it to a PO for this year to approve before and receive before June 30th if using this year's funds. >> Right. So was this money in the operating budget for next year you used last year? There's a smaller amount there next year. But the radios in there are some other things that we are now paying for. So there's going to be money in the budget for next year like Jason's server. Um the radios are in next year's operating budget.
148So I think if they if this is my opinion if there is the money left over from those lines, they could offset the increased cost in your furniture. We you could still get a a PO from Molly for next year. She just has to open the year and it'll say 27 in front of it. Cool. Or we do that way. Fine. Go ahead. Two points. We've we're now arguing over the smallest dollar amounts on both lists. To think Dr. Driscoll mentioned earlier uh the more you put things off, I think inflation is going to hit some of these things. Although if you do a PO in June and get it in July, they're probably not an inflationary risk. Um So I think we're voting to spend 2.3 million and arguing and let's wait a month
149to spend $250,000. Like something. Yeah. I um I would be comfortable if everyone's comfortable go voting for all of list two. I'd be comfortable voting for all of list two. I think [snorts] the overall projected return will remain in line with what it has historically been barring the COVID years. And we will have some of the money as Amy just mentioned spent now will be in the budget for next year because we're using now funds to pay for things this year instead of next year. So I I was half flippantly, let's spend it all. No, but let's let's buy You're here. >> I I would I would vote for everything on list two, but that's there's a motion for I would draw my motion. >> [laughter] >> You want to make a motion? I Okay.
150Maybe the third time will be a charm. I would move to approve purchasing list two. Second. Second. Second. Neil. Any other discussion before we vote? Okay. All those in favor. Six. Opposed. It was two. And one vote? Abstentions? No. No. Everybody voted. Opposed. Okay. Seven to two. Carries. What was it? Seven Seven to Seven to two. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh do we have anything else before we go into non-public? I do not. No. Okay. All right. So we are going to be going into non-public under RSA 91A on A and C. So I'll make a motion going into non-public. Do I have a second? >> Second that. Second. We'll take a roll roll call vote uh starting with Cameron. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. No one wanted to say
151their name, huh? No. >> [laughter] >> Can I talk to Dr. Rendell? New board training ahead of you. >> Mhm. >> At 8:19 we are back in public and I'll be looking for a motion. Brian. I will make a motion to accept the proper resignations. I will second that. >> Second. Bill. All those in favor? Thank you. Would anyone else like to make a motion? I can make a motion. >> Accept the recommendations for hire? Yeah, I'll make a motion to accept the recommendations for hire. I'll second. Second. All those in favor? I. Got it. And one final motion. Make a motion to accept the recommendation of the administration. Thank you, Brian. I'll second that. >> I'll second. All those in favor? Thank you. Motion to adjourn? Second. All right. Have a good night, everyone.
152Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you.