Public Hearing and School Board Meeting 2/17/2026

001for Secretary Jody Condan, our outstanding student reps, Lucy Beardmore, Alpine Champion of Champions, and Kipling Headquist, goal scorer of goal scorers. And then we have Matt Stone in the back. Um, okay, great. Uh, before we start, do we have any board comments? We will have a second opportunity obviously at the regular meeting. Okay, cool. So, uh, the public notice is the Hopton School Board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. in the Maple Street School Cafeteria to gather public input on the proposed adoption of the provisions of RSA 194-d New Hampshire statute governing open enrollment schools. All in residents are encouraged to attend the hearing and provide written or oral comments. Okay. There's a few documents here um that we had prepared previously and by we I mean Amy

002Doyle and Laura Kelly to talk through. We've been talking about this for two months at this point I think as a board. Um but we have a warrant article um for our annual meeting on the 14th and so we wanted to make sure we could have a public hearing to talk through uh what's at hand. Um do you want to start? Do you want me to start? >> It's up to you. >> Okay. Do you want to just do a couple? I'm going to >> Sure. We presented some information at the town public hearing. So, this may be a repeat for those of you that were in that audience. Um, so at the town meeting, we will there's one article to propose to designate Huffington High School as an open enrollment school. Um, and to

003allow one student to come from an outside school and to allow one student to leave to an outside school district. um that Warrant article was done in collaboration with our legal counsel. We feel that it meets the the what the expectations of the law. Uh but we also know that this is a very dynamic topic in New Hampshire right now. Um there was supposed to be a vote last week that was since delayed um on a daily basis now. Superintendent and other, you know, school leaders across the state are getting updates from the legislature. Uh they're now wondering if it's going to move to uh committee uh to be studied. Uh but there still is a chance that it will be signed. Um lots of questions around whether what that means. Um that could be

004anything from it goes into effect July July 1 uh to immediately upon signature. So although we are having a public hearing, some of the questions that you may have are questions that school leaders also have uh because there isn't a lot of information that is definite available. So, we're here tonight to talk about from the community standpoint, and of course, there'll be more opportunity at the town meeting. Um, so RSA 194, a district may designate one of its schools as open enrollment. As I've already noted, we really feel like the only school that we have capacity, honestly, uh, to be able to offer students is at the high school. And this really does come as a result, it started to pick up, I think, speed and intensity after the October 2025 decision. um where the

005Pittsfield School District was ordered to pay um Prospect Mountain High School for some students, some parents that had opted to send their student um to Prospect Mountain. Um and then the Supreme Court of New Hampshire um issued their ruling that Pittsfield would have to pay that tuition. And as you can imagine, in a school district where um you do a lot of fine-tuning with your budget, that was an unexpected cost for them. Um, so now a lot of districts are doing what we're doing, trying to scramble and to be able to do two things, which is protect your budget. Um, and also local control. Um, I feel like the Warren article, as I said, that we've put forward, um, you are able as a town to put forward caps, at least at this point. Um,

006again, there's a lot of conversation in the legislature that that may change. Um, this the nonmonetary warn article was voted on by all of you. Um, it was presented at the budget committee meeting. Um, but we also are kind of um bookending this with a um an expendable trust to be able to save money, which we think is responsible in the event that we have a student that wants to go uh to a neighboring school district that also has open enrollment. Um the slides that we put together, what we were trying to capture is like why does this matter? um without adopting adopting some kind of limited open enrollment structure, the district could still be financially responsible for the tuition of those students. Uh we also know that this could go through the courts and

007we may be responsible anyway. So again, this is really a protective measure. Um this article would allow Hopington to define a very narrow controlled approach to open enrollment that hopefully protects the taxpayers um from un unplanned tuition expenses. And we do feel like the one student in and one student out also u preserves that local cons control while demonstrating a good faith effort to comply with the evolving state open enrollment requirements. Um we have been in the news that we are one of the only districts I think at that time that is allowing at least one student to leave and again that was at the advice of our council. Um, and then at the last meeting, we also talked about a tuition, a student tuition expendable trust, um, at the cost of about $25,000. So,

008other questions that may come from the public, we're happy to answer. Uh, but that's sort of the overview. Great. Any other board notes? Okay, great. Um, great. We are open. Well, I guess is there anything else we should say if if people do want to see the board commentary, we talked about it pretty extensively over the last three meetings. Uh our position is broadly I think I can say that as Amy said, we want to make sure that we are think we are maintaining fiscal responsibility for the district and don't just have a massive outflow of uh tuition dollars and students that we are then on the unexpectedly on the hook for. Um and also there was a little bit of conversation about um the role of public education in the state and what this

009uh proposed legislature and current legislature as as defined would do. Um thus the warrant article uh it is a complicated um thing. Uh so there is also a memo that Amy put together early in January that's posted on our website. Um and this presentation is also available online. Uh, and there's F FAQs if people want to see it, which they should. >> Um, so with that, um, we are open for public comment. We ask if you would like to comment, please come up, state your name, address, and we ask that you keep it to three minutes. >> Good evening. >> I don't think this is on. I don't think I need it, but >> it's mostly for the people who are listening. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Sean member, I'm on Wildwood Drive in

010Hington. I have a >> Sorry, what's the actual number? >> Um, 240. >> Thank you. >> Um, I have a question I suppose to start. What's the capacity? And maybe you guys address this. I did watch uh the last school board meeting on YouTube, but I haven't thought anything. What's the current capacity of the high school and what's that projected to be over the next 5 10 years? >> Let's see. right now at the high school. Just give me one minute. I have the enrollment. Let's see. Upton Middle High School right now has about 450 students. Um when you talk about capacity, I would think that there are really two parts. You're talking about instructional capacity. So seats, available seats, but then we also have to think about the students needs. Um, you know, when

011you think about one student coming in, what the law says right now is once they're in, we would have to allow them to continue to stay. Um, so if they come in as freshmen, they would be able to return. >> But physical capacity to the building itself. Um, there has to be restrictions around that. I'm assuming that there's restrictions, fire code set. >> Yeah, I don't have the fire code number. >> How many kids this building could possibly hold? >> Yeah, I can get you that number though. with the fire marshal. >> I was just curious. I I noticed um you know, Pemrook kind of put out a flag saying, "Hey, not only are we going to accept students in coming, we would openly recruit other districts. Hington would obviously be a an attractive public

012school location. I didn't feel like the conversation at the last school board meeting was had in good faith around this. I I felt like there was just complete agreement from all of you on the board about the law. Um, totally understand that. I I mean, I'm not saying for open enrollment either, but this may be a reality that the town is just facing moving forward. And I I just don't think there was enough conversation explored of how this could actually help the town moving forward. Um it it seemed like everyone on the board felt hesitation of being playing the role of a bad guy like um really sticking it to to Henker. Henker hasn't adopted any policy. So we could potentially be recruiting Henker um helping local taxpayers uh lower lower our costs, our property

013taxes. Obviously thereby occur because the city hasn't really set that. But um we may be forced into open enrollment anyway moving forward. So I just I didn't feel like there was any any conversation of like what is the potential benefit for the town of actually allowing students to come in. Um I also I don't get where you guys are going with the one to one number. I I thought there were questions. >> Yeah. Um, I guess I I I think that's it's silly. Uh, saying we could take one student in, it's it's ridiculous. Um, how are we going to determine if that one student is an open lottery? It's completely unfair. That number should be zero or 50. It should a little over three, just FYI. >> Okay. Okay, >> but that's I think that

014one to one is absolutely ridiculous. Needs usually changed to zero coming in. How would we ever select that one student do that run that process? That's also right for um issues of how how that one person being chosen. So I encourage you guys to change that. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thanks. Good evening all the street. Um I obviously been following right along here and uh also how communities are handling this. Um to the gentleman's earlier question about uh capacity at the school um something that wasn't mentioned is uh particularly the freshman class sizes up to about 100 students. So that ratio also factors into enrollment. I would think our that class in whatever grade it is uh up to 12 would have a lot of room for taking additional students but

015that factors in. Uh I am in support of the drafting the laws of one in one out um in part because it does seem to maybe potentially uh prevent us from getting into the lawsuit with groups of other school districts that don't create policy. Um, so I'm in favor of that. Uh, the second part with the setting up trust is what I have the opposition to. I think our consencing fund is is satisfactory for now for that and that's where my opposition was budget committee was but it wasn't the uh enrollment part of it. um setting up the trust for the 25. We have a contingency fund for emergencies and that's what it's there for. However, obviously if the state overrides this and 19 students move out 25,000 is going to help with that problem.

016is my understanding that we did line budget for our one outgoing student and I still do not have clarification and maybe because you guys don't whether that one student counts as a one in one out and whether if that student is so will have to pay or the district's going to pick up that tab and that's why we have a line item for that specific kid and that's going to continue for the duration. To me, >> I don't think we know. Yeah. >> Yeah. To me, it sounds like um >> we're putting in a policy that is very likely to be revised within um due time. I don't know how that works. I'm kind of curious if this gets voted by the community then do we say that subject to change or what's the what's

017the protocol that challenges if a law gets established and new things come about obviously new things come about so as things stand I'm in favor of you guys moving forward oneonone I just have opposition trust so thank you >> thanks Lauren appreciate Anyone else? My god. Okay. Well, all right. All right. So, with the format of a public hearing, I don't we won't vote on this as a board. Um, we will close the public hearing and then >> if anyone else wants to come up again, you're more than welcome to. Um otherwise we'll close it and then um discuss it at the meeting. >> Yeah, we'll take off again. >> Sure. I'll say just state your name one more time for people at home. >> Sean Meer, 248 Wildwood Drive. So we lost one student.

018I'm sure you guys can't say who it is, nor would I, but can we say why? Does anyone have any idea why they left district? Are we allowed to say >> open enrollment is parent choice? >> So that that's it. We don't haven't explored that any further. But if we had a let's say five to five and really fully embrace this, say we said we would allow five to leave and five to come back over the course of this, we would benefit because we'd have more students coming into town and we wouldn't have leaving town. We all know this. Um right now there's been that would transfer their kids over from surrounding districts. Sure. So, just another thing to consider is yes, we just took this hit on this one student leaving leaving district, but

019we haven't really put ourselves out there and say yes, we could take students back in. Um, and we're not we're not really doing that with the one to one. But if we if we set the number higher on both going out going in was the only district that did that, I think it would benefit us in in the long. We have no idea where this legislation is going to go about the law is going to fall. But I just don't again I don't think that it was a um open-minded discussion really looking at the realities of what we're basically trying to close off without being closed off to tiptoe around um a law potential lawsuit which just doesn't seem like that's in good debate either. And someone had asked clarification why legal council need that

020advice and it was basically we don't know it's well other towns have legal counsel what well why were they all comfortable saying yeah you can set your zero but district but do we have an answer to that why other towns have legal counsel saying yeah fine setting at zero and then ours is saying I mean, I was the one that had the conversation. I mean, really, the law talks about a percentage of your student population that is between 0 and 100. So, when you think about the number zero, as a former math teacher, zero is not between zero and 100. You have to have a number that is greater than that. So, we went back and forth. I think other districts have also looked at their council. Um but in ultimately it is the school

021board's decision. I mean we get counsel um from an an attorney but you it's still within your purview to set it as as we have >> seems to um well John Stark's article warrant article uh two will be one and zero. So they're they're saying that um they will accept one but they will not allow >> anybody to leave. So I think that different variations across schools just because the law is not you don't know >> and it all may be rendered when passing. >> Yeah. >> Okay. That's my thoughts. I mean I I just thought there should be more exploration of how this could actually benefit >> the town moving forward and there's just a concern from everyone on the board saying hey we don't like this. We don't support this on a state

022level. That's not what we're here to do. We're not here to debate state level legislation. We're here to run a school board for consider the families that would like to come in how that could benefit the community, benefit those families and benefit >> the town. >> Respectfully, I'm I just want to disagree and say we did have that conversation. Um, and we wanted to wait to see what the legislature actually says before we make, you know, our policy because there are funding issues and and sort of in a sense trying to protect the taxpayer where we might be on the hook to pay something. So until that's figured out, I'm happy to engage in that dialogue because like you, I do believe that Hopington and I've heard it from my colleagues here, it is attractive

023and people will want to come here. But we just want to make sure that >> why are we doing this war in article now if >> legally we have to have well if you don't have something then >> right then you're open >> right then then that I mean there's mostly and you've heard the conversation it's mostly a protective measure for us at this point until the legislature makes a decision really around funding as well um and there is a resource reaching higher New Hampshire not sure if you're familiar with it but they have an online site right now where they have a lot of comprehensive information that talks about the history of open enrollment, comparing it um to other states that have it. Um part of the issue in New Hampshire is how we

024fund education. Um and there was a really informative article that came out today on NHPR um about how in other states that that it's the state adequacy that goes to the sending school, not the local property tax. And so that's really part of the concern when you are saying we will allow five students to leave and take their local tax dollars that their parents and their community have put in and give it to another community. I mean there are just too many questions at least for me and I don't know about Lauren we were talking about budgeting. You know it's almost impossible to to make a determination about how many students would you would allow to leave. And then the other part of that is watching the legislature and watch school districts sue each other.

025There's also a cost to that. I mean the Pittsfield decision was months in the making. I mean it wasn't a quick turnaround time. So there's legal counsel on both sides. So you are it's that you know you're really talking about you know I I think suing other taxpayers um which is I think the conversation that you are all having. So until there's additional information that's solid, it it's hard to make a decision. But that is why we are waiting for the legislature to make a vote. Um once they do, I think a lot of your questions would be answered. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. With that, I'm going to close the public hearing. Thank you. We get to do something very special in the interim, which maybe our kid

026Governor Chase Walls will like, but we could swear someone in today. Um are you stopping it? Are you are do I do we need a motion to adjourn the public hearing? Yes. I >> there's just a couple comments I'd like to make before we adjourn the public hearing. Um >> you know, one is I appreciate the questions being raised. I also think that >> um you know, first of all, this legislation has been jammed through with little to no committee hearing, debate, discussion in the legislature where questions like this would be fleshed out. and instead we've been put in a position where if this legislation passes this goes into effect right away. So we need to scramble to try to figure out a law that frankly it doesn't appear that the legislators have thought the

027legislators have thought through. Secondly, when you talk about the benefit to the taxpayers and this is something that we've talked about and in that NHPR article they talk about the fact that not every district has the same cost to educate a student. And so the example was given, they talked about Bedford and Manchester. Bedford spends an average of 20,000 per student, but if a Manchester student under this law went to Bedford, they would be paying 14,400, leaving the taxpayers in Bedford to make up the difference. So I don't think it's at all clear that it would benefit the taxpayers to have people come in. And I think in fact it could hurt the taxpayers in Hopkin. And I think that's something that we've talked about and that we thought about that goes to some of

028the questions that you're asking. But really, I think you should go to Conquered and talk to them about jamming through legislation like this and putting us in this position. That's how my view >> I understand, but I'm just I'm I'm talking about the position that we're in and the good faith versus bad faith discussions that we've had about this legislation >> and trying to respond to it as best we can to defend the taxpayers in Hopington given the very little information that we've given about a very complex law. So, that would be just something I want to put on Okay. Thank you. Thank Thank you everyone. I appreciate one other question. >> You can ask one other question. Lauren >> coming up. >> Can you just state your name again? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Thanks,

029buddy. >> Lauren Clement, can this draft warrant be changed on the floor then or proposed to be changed or voted on? >> Yes, >> it can. Yes. >> Wait. Can it? >> You can you can change there are limitations. You can change essentially the numbers the in and the out. >> That's I guess what I was getting at >> or ask to kill it completely but you can't change the purpose of the warrant. >> Gotcha. That that is what I was getting. So >> I guess if members of the public think so strongly they can try to pass it otherwise but I listen to all this and I'm pretty conservative and I understand wanting to bring in but I don't think this is the way to go. That's personally listening to this and seeing how

030it impacts our district. So I just want the clarification on the war because >> thanks Lauren. Okay. All right. So with that we will close public hearing. Matt we're closed. >> Sure. >> Okay. Great. Laura and Mike Roller, are you guys ready? >> Yeah. In between. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is our new school district moderator, Michael Rolo. >> Huh? >> Do you want to know if he's doing another vote? Hi. >> Well, it's like moderators everywhere. You have to do that, don't you? >> Yeah. If you guys want to go right over there, >> it's a whole thing. It's pretty exciting. >> It's civic duty and it's fine. >> I will be ready. I actually think we sit up >> just off to the side >> and discharge and perform all the duties that

031according to the best of my agit and laws of state. This I do under the names and >> congratulations. >> He's in in like >> and so next year or actually at the end of this meeting all Everybody at the table, are we ready? >> All right. Sorry, I'm starting a minute late. All right. Hi everybody. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Hopkins School Board. I'm going to take an extra thin mint on today, Tuesday, February 17th at 5:30. Uh I am here with Jonathan Cohen, Suzanne Carmichael, Andrew Folsam. I'm Dulsey Malma, superintendent Amy Doyle, our business administrator extraordinaire, Laura Taylor, uh Jody Con and our board secretary, our amazing student reps, Lucy Beardmore and Kipling Headquist, and uh Matt Stone who's being the Wizard of Oz as per usual in the back. Um

032could we please stand 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 all. >> We have one set of minutes to approve for the February 3rd meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> Moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Thank you, Jody. As always, much appreciated. Uh, all those in favor? I >> I any opposed? Great. If you would like to come up for public comment, I ask that you state your name, address, and try to keep your comments at three minutes. Coming up. >> Oh, it might be for it might be for Chase. >> Oh, Chase, >> did you want to do him before

033public comments? >> Huh? >> No. >> I just take it like this. >> Awesome. So, North Google 121 Road. Um, so first off, thank you guys for all you guys do. Appreciate it. Great job this year budget and great job delivering your message to the community. That was fantastic. Um, so I'm here a little earlier unfortunately because um I am flying to Germany the week that Rob Nato is not going to >> Yeah. So I He got me. He said he was not going to be here um for me when I was going to come as a joke. Apparently, that was the truth because but he didn't he didn't know about me coming tonight. So, um but what I wanted to say and uh about Rob real quick is I sometimes we don't hear it

034enough as a board member or as a as anyone that's elected that how much we appreciate all the work that goes into what we do giving back to the community. and someone who has had an opportunity to work with Rob um on the board and outside the board. I generally have been so blessed to learn a lot from him and I think we all have and I think what's really important to me as an individual is I will always show gratitude to the people who's made a difference in my life made it in our community and to our taxpayers and to our students and to our teachers that it's really important that no matter when your time is up on this board it's always important to know that there's people out there who generally I

035think for all that you guys have done You don't know when you're going to be done. I didn't know when I was going to be done. But when you're done, you're going to realize the impact that you have on the district. And I hope that Rob knows that the stuff that he has brought to this board will forever be on this board. It might change. Don't worry, he'll come back in this mic and he'll yell at you guys and I'm sure um it'll be in a positive way. Um, I wanted to say to him, uh, you know, he made me a better individual in my in every aspect. You know, when it came to making decisions, he never told me how to vote, never told me how to do this or that. He just made

036sure I understood and that was the most important thing about it. And education was no matter how many times it was explaining things, he gave me that opportunity to understand. And then I took it upon myself to decide. So, I want to say thank you to Rob. Um, I'm sorry that I could not be here for his last meeting. Um, has he either missed the school district meeting or or uh, you know, go to his last board meeting, so I decided I want to be at the school district meeting, and I think you would totally understand. So, um, I wanted to say thanks to Rob. Um, unfortunately, he's not here tonight, but, um, you know, when it comes to being on this board, it is a marathon. We don't know when it's going to end,

037but you know, we were talking as the Hopkins drum society that we wanted to present him with a little medal of gratitude. And in this medal, it is to Rob with six years of service to school board. >> And on the front, >> it has Rob's silhouette of him on his bike, which is really, really cool. So, thanks to our president, >> Zack Emerson, for doing the hard work of putting this together on our wonderful laser printer that we can cut. So, I would love Deli if you could give this to him for his last meeting. Um, >> that would be great. >> That would be really great. >> Thanks, Nor. >> Yeah. No, thank you. >> That's amazing. >> So, thank you, Rob. And last thing is since he's not here, >> you guys

038can eat his cookies. Good. I don't have to share any more of my >> Thanks, Norm. >> All right. Thanks, buddy. >> Thank you. Thanks, guys. >> Thanks, Norm. This is wonderful. >> I know. >> All right. Any other comments? >> Okay. >> All right. We're gonna move through here. Um, uh, Lucy and Kip, do you guys want to start us with your comments? >> Absolutely. Yeah. Takes off. >> Ton of updates. Um, pretty busy time of year. Um, so I like to start off with a couple details that I missed at the last meeting. Um, so these are kind of maybe a little outdated, but I didn't want to leave them out. Um, so we had the poetry out loud competition a few weeks ago. Um, that's a yearly um, event happens at the

039high school in the auditorium. Um, reciting poetry. Um, people compete and there's a panel of judges and they decide on the winner. Um, so William Shepard was this year's uh, winner. Um, there was also the ethics poll. um talking to some of the um members of the team. They went to St. Anselms um college and they have a competition um against other schools. They didn't do as well as they um I guess were planning to or wanted to. Um they tied two of their rounds and won one of them. Um but they still were able to represent our um student led ethical discussions club at the high school. Um it's super popular. Um I think it was still a good event for them regardless. Um, also a couple weeks ago now, um, Kip and I

040went to Harold Martin um, to visit. We walked through, um, with Principal Brown um, talked to kids of all the grades. Um, we got to stop in on lunchtime uh, for kindergarten and first grade. That was pretty fun. Um, overall, I think we really just enjoyed the atmosphere there. Um, it seemed like there was um, just kids were in a good mood. Uh, we really liked the uh, new addition. We thought it was um we really like the lighting and some of the classrooms in that area. Um yeah, anything to add on that? >> Yeah, I mean I'll say that having travel around to a bunch of different schools um for like various sporting activities, but also a lot of math team. Um I've gotten to see a lot of like the different architecture stuff

041in schools. And I will say our schools um especially Harold Martin School does an incredible job incorporating just like daylight and I think it really does increase the atmosphere um of the school. I was very impressed with um Herald M school. I never got the chance to attend it. Um however this is so this is my first time really walking through the whole thing. Uh Mrs. Brown brought us through and she was uh incredible just like when we were at Maple Street. Um but yeah, the students were great. Um very friendly and had a lot to say, a lot to share, some questions to be asked. Um overall, it was a great experience and everyone was very enthusiastic to share um what they had to say about the school district and Harold Martin School. I

042think again that all just goes to show um like the importance of um what the school district does for all these kids, but then also like how well they're all performing at at all the high schools um despite some times there are issues which I'll address in a little bit. Not anything too bad though, but overall the tone of everything Lucy and I have done here has been extremely positive. So >> yeah, I also really enjoyed getting to see some of the teachers that I haven't seen in a few years. Um I was surprised some of them who recognized me even though I'm, you know, two feet taller um and haven't seen them in a really long time. Um it was just really nice to see them. So it was a a really good visit.

043>> Awesome. Um were there any key quotes from Harold Martin? >> Okay. Yes. So there is a wall of um these of these note cards. Um that's one of their art pieces. and they have some really cool art that their art was probably my favorite out of all the schools, >> but my favorite of their art pieces was this wall where students get to put up like this word. >> Um, now a lot of it was um words that meant something to students like love, sometimes spelled with a U or kindness. Uh, the occasional like compassion uh when it's getting very uh wordy. However, my favorite one that was on the wall was peanut butter. Um I don't really know the justification for it or um the thought process. Uh however, I saw that and

044I was instantly like yes that is my words. So uh I appreciated that one greatly. >> Yeah, I liked potato salad. >> Another great one. Potato salad. >> Those those were probably the two best. So >> Oh my god. Amazing. Okay, great. Sorry, keep going. >> Yeah. Okay. Um so for middle school um my brother's in seventh grade so I heard from him. Um they were visited by um a program out of UNH Manchester um that brings um biofabrication um programming. uh they have like a van um that goes around to different schools around the state and then they also have like a workshop that they do inside the classroom and the students get to go out and go into the van um talking about artificial body parts and things like that. Sounded like it

045was a really um interesting experience there. Um also on Friday, this past Friday, we had um our annual babysitting event for the World Language Honor Society. Um I know I saw a couple board members kids there. Um but it was again a really successful event. Um it was a little chaotic with um the middle school Valentine's dance happening simultaneously. Um but I think overall we handled it well. Um most of the kids were not able to escape into the dance which is good. um almost >> most of them. There were a couple stragglers, but um but yeah, there was over um $1,000 raised um for the Michelle Cotton Memorial Fund that goes >> um goes to >> helping to pay for the tuition for um the three exchange programs, which is a great cause. Um

046and it'll definitely help um students with a really valuable experience. Um, and then yesterday, um, we had the compost Olympics, uh, run by the Environmental Action Club. Um, it was a little rough with the timing because it was the first day that junior privileges went into effect, so half the school was able to leave. Um, but there was still a decent amount of kids there. Um, we had some really enthusiastic seniors hosting it. Um, that I think really helped to get the energy up. Um, and generally the participation was pretty good. Um, yeah. And then this Friday we have Winter Carnival. So, um, it's been pretty busy. I know I'm booked all week with lipsync and battle of the bands. Um, but hopefully it's worth it. Um, it's one of my favorite days of the

047year. I'm super excited. So, should be fun. >> Who's going to win? Great. >> Seniors, obviously. Um, every year, but uh, we'll make sure to especially crush everyone else this year. But yeah, um apologies to be like cramming so much in this week, but there's a lot of good stuff to talk about. Um quickly, the uh a couple weeks ago the play for this spring was announced. It's going to be A Wrinkle in Time, which is a book, uh series, I guess, that I've read, which I greatly enjoyed. So, I'm excited to see what's the play production of that will look like. I'm sure it'll be great. Um, additionally, probably the most important thing that happened in the last uh week was both the boys and girls uh alpine teams managed to secure two more

048state championships. Uh so next year whenever happens uh two new banners will be going up. Uh Lucy was a member of the girls alpine team. So, uh, and yeah, both of those teams too, um, managed to send a combined 10 skiers, I believe 11, >> 11 skiers to meet of champions, which is tomorrow. Uh, so that'll be quite nice. >> Um, on the basketball side of things, uh, both teams qualify for playoffs with the boys basketball team finishing third and the girls basketball team finishing sixth. The boys basketball team is hosting a playoff game tonight. The girls will be hosting one on Thursday. Um uh for ice hockey. Ice hockey senior night is tomorrow at New England College against uh Manadnok. Um and they have two more home games, but have certainly already clinched a

049playoff spot. If we win one more game, we secure second seed. If we win out, we're first seed. So again, very successful uh year in that sport. Nordic uh last week also hosted a home race on the fairgrounds which I got a chance to go out and watch and apparently conditions were really brutal during that with the fresh snowfall. Um and definitely heard some complaints ringing around while I was there. Uh but it was a nice temperate day so I didn't have to wear a big coat and wasn't freezing for too long. So, um yeah, additionally at um Maple Street School, I heard that um they implemented now on Fridays the opportunity to purchase some ice cream which some students were very enthusiastic about and um across the schools from what I've heard uh there

050is again a spirit week happening before the upcoming break. Um but yeah, and then involving Winter Carnival, which also has events starting as soon as Wednesday, tomorrow with ping pong and uh dodgeball, I believe. And then Thursday, we have 33 basketball, sportsmanship talk, and then Friday all day. One of the best days of the year. Have to agree with Lucy. Um so with all that positive stuff, there is one uh negative which I would like to highlight. Um, and yeah, it's a it's an unfortunate situation, but um, at the high school, uh, there have been some major problems with the boys bathrooms. Not the girls bathrooms at all, just the boys bathrooms. So, uh, the girls don't have to be affected by this issue, but, um, there's been some there's been repeated events of, uh,

051vandalism and some destruction in the boys's bathrooms, um, which has been grounds for all the bathrooms except for one, uh, to be closed. That one bathroom has to have a bathroom monitor. Now, our full-time sub, Mr. Sable um is tasked with monitoring that feel terrible for the guy, but it is something that is understandable given the circumstances and um various students inability to function coherently and properly um and use the like resources provided being the basic resources bathrooms. Um while I'm not sure um about I know the exact specifics of it were quite unclear as to who was causing the issues initially. Um and uh regretfully there were more issues even after uh the bathrooms were closed and just limited to one. Um so it's a it's a situation that's a bit absurd. Um definitely

052childish and immature. I know the general public at for the boys at least um definitely for the girls because they don't want their bathrooms closed but um functions perfectly fine using the bathrooms and have no issues and definitely look scornfully upon these actions but um because of what's happening like we all get affected and people are quite angry about it. It's causing lines to enter the bathroom to be quite long. You need to sign in before you enter. So hopefully it's an issue that can get resolved. I'm not totally sure what the administration can do differently. It's not their fault obviously. Um students are the ones causing these issues and it's a very small minority of students. Um and hopefully this ceases quite soon so we can have our bathrooms back and be normal again.

053Um but the with the way things are right now that's just the situation. So, no real update on it, no upside yet. Hopefully, I can come back at the next meeting and say, uh, bathroom issues are fixed. Students are no longer doing this or the students, uh, who have been doing this have been apprehended, but that is not the case. Obviously, there's no cameras in the bathroom for privacy reasons. Um and without knowing really who's responsible, there is no like uh peer pressure or um student uh like comments to each other to help persuade others to function normally. But that is the given situation. Otherwise, everything at the high school has been really quite exceptional recently, I think. Um I've heard school's been going great quite smoothly right now. um especially post midterms and stuff,

054but that is a not great thing I'd like to highlight. So, >> yeah. Really quick, also congratulations to the middle school Nordic team for their combined second place at their state championship. Um yesterday, I didn't realize how many teams they compete against. I saw it's like over 20 teams for girls and boys. So, pretty impressive there. >> Thank you guys. Any questions for our student reps? >> Thank you for your very wholesome and indepth update. I appreciate it. >> That's wonderful. Thank you. I'm glad you got to go to the lower school. It is like watching the news. I love it. >> The greatest news ever. >> Yeah. >> I appreciate it. Thank you guys. >> Yeah. I mean, I would I would say I think it was a a great update. Uh we appreciate

055knowing what's going on in the buildings and particularly the way you handle giving us some news about the bathroom situation, I think, was very appropriately and tactfully done. So, nicely done. >> Thank you. Good job, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Now to our next student highlight, Chase. Hi Carrie. Dr. Sony, you want to come up with Chase? >> Yes. >> You might want to turn introduce Chase. >> He is one of the students at Street. Chase has been recently sworned as an executive council member for Kid Governor. Kid Governor is a civic program for fifth grade students in New Hampshire that really mirrors the New Hampshire state election process. So any fifth grader in the state can participate. The first step is there is a primary. So any students that

056are interested um give their pitch, give their campaign speech to their fellow students. The ones that are chosen create a campaign video. It is then uploaded to the civics website and there is a state election from that. The kid governor is chosen and six finalists include the executive council members which is what Chase did. Um there was inauguration to January at the state house. Unfortunately, we did have a delay that day. We couldn't get the school bus there. But we did watch it was live stream. We all watched Chase. Then he came in after he's wearing his full suit. They came to see his his fellow students. He's quite the celebrity. He is not nervous tonight. He's already been interviewed by WMUR. And he's here to talk a little bit about his platform about the

057impact of littering. >> Yes. So My platform is littering and I noticed a lot of trash in this community. So on Kard yeah, if you go by um Wildwood Road, there's so so much trash. I think we need to stop because there's too much trash and yeah, there's way too much trash and it's just getting like torn into the ground in like plastic bags or like just sitting there and getting covered with more trash. >> You want to talk a little about the programs we're going to do that we talked about projects? >> Yeah. So, I'm thinking about making some videos to send out to other schools about um like how littering can cause damage to the earth and how litter uh or like reduce, reuse and recycle and what it does to help our

058planet. >> If you could share with students here but also others. >> Wow. Chase is open for questions. >> Okay. Any questions for Chase? >> Are you a waste warrior at Maple Street? >> Yes. >> Amazing. Um, are you really excited to be an executive counselor? >> Yes. >> Are you just going to sit in so many meetings and understand, you know, expenditures at state and stuff? >> Very hard on like very comfy >> because they're on Zoom meetings. So, like you Yeah. every month. >> Yeah, every month. >> You meet every month. Wow, Chase. >> Okay. >> What did What did they do? What do you guys talk about at the meetings? >> So, last meeting we talked about like we said what we were going to do for this um for March and

059April. And then everyone shared and then some people like got in late so they had to And then yeah, that's basically what we did. And then we said how we can like fix it and stuff with it. >> Chase, how did you get elected? Did you make a video? >> Yeah, so I made my platform which is littering and I like made a video of in a bunch of different places like how and I told facts about how ling can affect their ecosystem and and like >> any other questions for Chase? >> I saw your interview. I thought you did great. >> You have to look it up. >> Right. >> Oh, yeah. >> Awesome. Thank you, Chase. >> Great. >> Can we take a picture with you? >> Is that okay? >> Is that

060all right? Yeah, that's >> her. Just squish a little bit more. >> Three, two, one. I know. >> All right. Next up, Thank you. >> Mike, do you want to come on up to and you can sit at Rob's seat if that's cool? >> Okay. >> Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. >> You get to have the seat. >> Yeah. >> You did just say sitt Rob's seat, didn't you? We didn't hear what you said. Sorry. Okay. >> So, we wanted to talk through school district meeting logistics and then um because we have you and Jody here. Uh and just wanted to make sure we're good. So, um your rules are set and I think are they posted yet? >> We have not posted them yet. It's our intention to so the good

061news is this year >> uh there will be joint rules, proposed rules y between the town and the school district. So there's not two different sets of rules. >> Yep. >> Uh which I think is nice for consistency for those attending both meetings. Uh of course it's up to the the district attendees, the meeting attendees whether or not they want to accept the rules, but uh they will be uh sent to you all to Jody to post uh hopefully very soon. I was hoping last week, but these are the few things we're still >> Yeah. >> working out with the town moderators. So, >> great. >> But yeah, we're excited about that. >> Cool. And then we have ballot boxes and do we need more volunteers? >> Uh yeah, I put it out um today

062and I already have six >> on the docket. So, um I just got to confirm with the town because I think they have the boxes right now. >> Yeah, I think they probably do, right? They still have. So, I got to count how many they have and then decide we need you know, five boxes out or six boxes out. >> And we have Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts selling cookies. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Um, I put the request out. So, I'm waiting to hear back from the Boy Scouts. Girl Scouts will be selling cookies. >> Uh, ninth grade uh fundraiser will be selling refreshments. And with the condition that all the board members get a coffee and a donut, that was my pride this year. Um, and Uh, we actually had tonight Amy got a request

063for the farmers market to switch out of Maple Street and come do their farmers market. >> Would love that. >> Yeah. So, we told them yes. >> So, they will be there as well and so far that's had um and then I think we decided we'll have Lucy and Kip in the same situation, same >> table up front in front of you guys. >> Y >> um and then you board members on the table. Yep. >> Um, >> Steve Lux is good to go. >> Steve Lux is confirmed. Um, and I'm sorry, who's >> Sarah? >> Thank you, >> Sarah Palmo. Um, so I'll She usually has a table right beside you. Is that still fine for you? >> Perfect. Works for me. >> Where will the farmers market be set up? >> We told

064them they could either order like the back of the big calf. So that like up against where like the ramp is the ramp is or they can have the small calf. There's nobody in the small calf. Okay. >> Um, so they could have the small calf. whichever they feel. I don't know how many vendors they're going to have and how much space they're going to need. Um, but >> usually pretty full here, isn't it? So, >> we're not worried about parking. >> No, usually it's like max 10 cards here like at the most most most. Yeah. >> And we've got the overflow parking down by the softball field, too. Yeah. >> So, no, we should be fine. >> Um, >> and trying to think what else. Um, >> are we all set with supervisors and

065checklist? I talked to one of them yesterday. Uh did not talk about the town meeting, but I'll triple check. >> I talked to Christine the other um and she um you know they're Yes, they should they should be they're responsible for pulling them together. So they should have and then um uh >> we'll have ballots for proposed secret ballot or request. >> I have Yeah, I have all the colored balls about think about reorganizing the last name letters for it. That's not our job. Yeah, just saying. I know. It's uh although >> it winds up being a log jam letters. Yeah, I actually do have those for last year becomes a log jam. >> So, um >> yeah, I mean there's been the big debate every year is whether we should have everyone register in

066the cafeteria. >> So, it keeps the cluster of forming, >> but then they can't hear what's being said. >> But then they can't hear what being said and then the the uh people that are doing the checklist like to be part of the meeting as well. So it's been a hard debate um as to what to do because it does if everyone comes at once right at the beginning it creates a cluster and last year we had people kind of outside and >> will there be refreshments early so if we tell people like because I think last year we really tried to say come early get a coffee >> get your seat I don't know if we did that because I think last year we just had um >> coffee stuff last year but um

067I mean that's maybe something at the meetings that we're putting or you guys are going to go around >> that's a good call just people to come early so it's >> and we'll we can set something out um because now that we are going to have the farmers market um I think I'll do a blast you know like something on the website and Facebook of letting people know that they'll be there so you know maybe come early register early >> and you know we can definitely try to >> that you know >> awesome >> that a little bit but we can encourage people to try to arrive early >> awesome and we'll talk through printing on our end The town reports will are going to print today. So that should all be good with both

068the half of the school, half of the town. And then we'll have extra probably some extra printouts just so people have a couple key things there. >> Do you have any specific things that you >> No, it's my my hope and intention to start on time, but um we'll see what the line looks like obviously. Um, but uh the the training that's this Saturday, uh, I still haven't received anything from, uh, the >> I think she said they'll send it out a couple days prior. >> Okay, that's fine. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss >> anything by maybe Thursday. >> Okay, that's fine. I thought it was coming last week and then um I'll shoot her I'll send her a reminder. So, >> perfect. That that works for me. I thought, like I

069said, I thought it was coming next week, last week. So, >> yeah. >> Oh, yeah. No, I um Well, >> looking forward to the meeting. So, >> keeping it moving. >> Should be great. Um, okay. Any other logistics? I think we should be good. Jody, if you need other help recruiting volunteers, but hopefully we're in pretty good shape. >> Yeah, if anybody, you know, >> you said you have six or seven people already, Jody, >> I've got about six right now. Yeah. So, I mean, I generally, um, if we at least have 10, that gives us five boxes, >> right, >> out there. Um, and I believe that's roughly what we have. Five. >> Are any of the six repeat people or are they new people? >> Uh, no, primarily repeat. >> Okay. Yeah, because

070I I just keep a running list of people that have volunteered and >> you'll call those people if they haven't. >> So, I send out a mass email and they they reply and some can, some can't. >> Yeah, >> it's a Yeah, >> works for me that have expressed interest. >> All right. >> Okay. >> Wait, are we having anyone present? Do we are we lined up in terms of someone singing the national anthem and doing the pledge of allegiance? Uh that is um I'm waiting um on replies. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. >> Cool. What we got? Thank you, Jenny. Okay. Anything else? >> I don't think so. >> Thank you so much for being our moderator. >> Email you all if you need it and I'm happy to come back if you

071want to talk about anything else. >> We should be good if I need you. >> All right. >> Thank you, Mike. >> Good luck tonight. >> Okay. Bye. >> The rest of your meetings. >> See you in a couple weeks. >> All right. Um, before we fully map logistics, I put another shortcut and I had shared it with the board of looking at all the info information session dates. Suzanne, great question. Were those out of order for a reason? >> No, Miss Brain, Suzanne, just like it was a way that was trying to write them in here and I was like, why are you >> I thought maybe there was something I >> I think it was based off of the order from last year which did not reflect the order from this year. I

072can um >> okay so thanks K. >> Um so just to read them out here then these will get beautified and then posted. Uh we have senior lunch tomorrow which is pretty exciting. We will do our typical PAM uh and we're going to do the precenior lunch budget presentation at 11. Um I I did that last year. I'm happy to sort of take the lead on it this year. But again, but anyone should come to the budget presentation. It's usually really helpful. Also, people ask great questions, which is awesome, and I generally love that. Uh, for sure. Then, we're going to be meeting with the Hopington Dems um on February 25th at 6:30 at the town library and presenting the school budget. That is a nonpartisan event. Uh, I think that ask is also going

073out to the Hopton GOP. Uh, we are also working to see if there's someone to run the Hopin GOP meeting on February 26 at 6 p.m. at the at the Sleser Center. Um, so that will be confirmed really this this weekend is Amanda Gilman wanted me to check in with her the week before, but Hopping and Dems is confirmed for the 25th at 6:30 at the town library. We have apple fittatas with Amy at March 4th. Uhhuh. Uh, at 400 p.m. That's at the town library. And then on March 5th, we have the PTA meeting um at 5:00 p.m. at Harold Martin School. And then March 11th, uh, we have the Hopkins Rotary at 7:15 a.m. And that's that's open to everyone as well, and that's at the Sleser Center. Um, I think this is

074a pretty good list of opportunities for people to come and learn more and ask questions prior to the meeting. Um, my only thing would be is if we want to try to do one more that last week prior to because basically we have a whole lot between February 25th and March 5th, then only one thing the week right before the meeting. So, if people think we do, we have a little bit of a scheduling complexity because there's tax people at the library. Um, but we can figure it out if people think we need an earlier in the day one or something right before the meeting. Um, but let me know. I'm happy to run logistics. Um, >> this happened last year, too. We had we went did them all through February and then we had

075like a blank >> Yeah. >> And we we lived the tale. >> It is. Yeah. So, I think I think we're good. But if anyone feels like we need to add one, let me know and I can make sure we've got that. Rob usually takes a lead on Hopkin and Rotary. Amy, we'll do apples with Amy. Um, if anyone is like, "Yes, I'm so excited to do Dems's GOP PTA." Uh, let me know. I'll be at I think everything because I'm not traveling for breaks. So, um, just let me know. All right. Great. Great. And then we also have schoolboard meetings on the 17th and, uh, the 3rd. All right. So, we're rounding the corner. Any other thoughts about um school district meeting logistics or otherwise? >> 19th. I think you meant 19th. March 19th.

076>> Yep. I didn't mean scared me. >> Yeah. Oh, no. Sorry. The 17th like tonight. Yeah. >> Yeah. Sorry. I was like reading >> on the 17th. Yeah. Got it. >> Yeah. No. Yeah. I was just talking about tonight's meeting. And then are we going to do a dry run with Matt at the middle high school just to make sure everything looks legible? >> Great. Okay. Cool. Okay, that should be fun and exciting. Um, all right, next up, um, uh, open enrollment. So, we prior to this at 5:00 PM, we had a public hearing to talk about open enrollment. Um, you know, we have our proposed warrant article, which is one in one out, and then a proposed uh uh creation of an expendable trust fund uh to start setting aside some money should the

077legislator legislature go full full open uh no restrictions mandated by the state. Um there's two things before we go into discussion here is one at the budget committee public hearing which was on March 5th so the night after our most recent public um school board meeting uh there was a lot of there was some good discussion really good discussion I think overall um Rob who's not here wanted to to put in a thought of basically potentially not moving forward with a warrant article for the expendable trust fund. Um because it not knowing what the legislature is going to do, he wasn't sure if it's going to create more confusion. Um and if it's better to just stay with a clean docket and run forward with what we know at hand. Um that said, we do

078know we have one in we are potentially opening up to one more. We already have a student, you know, that is accounted for, but we don't know if that student will be grandfathered in. So, I think it's just, you know, we we should do with what we think is best for the town, what we think is best for obviously the meeting docket that we have in two weeks. Any thoughts about the public hearing or otherwise? >> I could get behind kind of not having a warrant article. I think for a couple of different reasons. say, "Do you think it's a good idea?" Just because we're we're trying to have some cushion there, but you know, we heard that the contingency fund is there and that $25,000 should we go full tilt and and open willy-nilly,

079that $25,000 will do, >> right, >> very little to prevent any sort of So, >> right. >> Yeah. I I'm of two minds with that. I want to be prepared for it, but hopefully it's something and we really can't be truly prepared for it if it goes open. >> We need a warrant article for >> Yeah. a lot more. >> Yeah. And it's worth noting and we talked about this a little bit, the state has not moved on legislation. They may not move on legislation prior to our meeting, right? So, we don't actually know if we're going to have the the final set of voting come through from the Senate or the signature from the governor. Go ahead, John. >> Because I had to leave. Where did budget come down on the trust? >> The

080trust it was nine one. Nine in favor, >> in favor, >> one opposed. Yep. >> And that's additional money to be raised. >> That's additional money to be raised. >> Yeah. Which was the tax impact of two cents. Yeah. And then the money but but if the money is not used like if it goes sideways and they don't pass it that money can still be used >> for any student tuition right so it's not locked in to only this function >> right >> and I think when we were talking about it the the trust was the one thing that we I felt at least that we were kind of oscillating on a little bit more and I'm still as far as you know the public hearing goes, you know, I I get the different perspectives.

081I understand, you know, wanting to open up our school for like the floodgates of yes, I think we would be an attractive school. I am still like morally opposed to um cannibalizing other districts. Um and I think the onetoone is a protective measure, which is what we were wanting to do. Um I do worry that the trust confuses like gets confusing. I think open enrollment itself is confusing um and may change on the floor and I you know you're already going to have the potential for the open enrollment to be changing and then what will that look like as far as how it will impact the trust warrant? >> Do do we know Amy other districts are now voting on this? Do we know if other districts are establishing trust to fund? >> Not that

082I've seen. I I do think though that they are keeping their the majority of them are keeping their number at zero. Right. >> So they're anticipating not to have a need for a test because they're setting the number that they would allow to go to zero. >> Right. Right. >> Although I believe there was one school that had contingency of $100,000. Um I haven't needed I'm in a trust. >> Mildly quote me on that. >> I won't put it in the >> I don't know if it was in a trust though. Um but I believe it was somehow part of their warrant article. >> I would have to look it up. >> I think I think if we're playing the odds, the reality is that if we send one, we'd be paying 80% of a

083student that we budgeted for anyway. If we receive one, we're receiving possibly a few thousand less than maybe we're spending to educate that student, but it's it's pretty small compared to the overall budget. If the legislature kicks the doors open and it's not and and our other warrant is is meaningless, um then I think we like every other district is going to be it's going to be completely unknown and $25,000 isn't going to make a big difference. So, um, you know, I I think I mean I think I was lukewarm to the trust anyway the last time we talked about this. Um, I am one that likes different buckets. That is how I think and do my own budgeting. So, I do that does appeal to me. But I just wonder practically speaking if asking

084for 25,000 more doesn't just spin this thing in a way it doesn't have to >> right >> go right now. >> Yeah. >> Laura, what do you think though? >> Well, the other thing we could do because we have the a trust can only be created at >> at a at a district meeting, >> right? So then the other thing we could do is create a trust and then depending on whether or not we have fund balance this year, whatever that looks like, we could look to add something at the end of the year, but then at least the trust has been created. It's worth noting though that we do have the contingency fund. So if there was money, we could just use the contingency, >> but we could use that without the trust. >>

085Right. Right. >> Like we don't really the trust doesn't really do anything for us. >> So I mean we could create the trust next year if we really need to. >> Right. You can um we have finalized the we actually have finalized warrants for you guys signed tonight. So um we would just need you to kill it on the floor. >> Okay. >> Which I also think is okay. Like I think we can say we restrict. >> I actually don't think it's a bad thing because it allows us to emphasize the cost of this this legislation >> and that you know we would anticipate if this if districts are forced to accept as many and send as many as want that we would have to establish this trust and probably increase the tax burden in

086preparation. Yep. >> It's probably not a bad I mean it is true and it's probably not a bad message to emphasize >> even if we kill creating the trust on the floor. >> Right. >> The trust is is there >> was my idea as a way to mitigate our risk. Totally. Because open enrollment is not going away. >> Right. >> Um >> if you choose not to do it this year, then you know may come up again. >> I don't know that I agree that open enrollment is not going away. Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. I don't know. >> They'll keep trying to push it through every year. And I worry about when we talk about Hockington being attractive because I I do believe it is an attractive district. We also have no idea

087how this is going to play out. And there are so many other factors like when we think about our academic record and the rigor. I think those are all attractive and and we're a nice little D3 school. But I also think there are a lot of things that play being like a parent of an athlete. I don't think I ever would have moved my child based on athletics, but I know some parents who would have and said like let's let's do a D1 school. So, and we know that like 70% plus of our percentage of our kids play sport and things. So, I don't I don't know what this is going to play out until we how it will until we live with it for a year or so and see if we could have

088kids leave. If you are comfortable having a public hearing and using contingency funds in the event that this moves through um then that is the alternative to the trust, >> right? >> But we might have to do that anyway. >> Even if we fund the trust of 25,000 then like the gates kick open, >> we'd still probably be going to contingency. >> Like it probably wouldn't prevent that. >> True. It would just assist in covering some of it. >> Yes. And if it only winds up being a couple, maybe it does cover it. >> I do know that Conval is one that is looking to put a trust in place for and their their language is specifically for open enrollment tuition. >> Yeah. >> So, they're actually um but they're putting right now I think

089they're starting it putting a dollar. So, they are putting it on the warrant to create the trust, right? in the event that they want to hold special meetings or every annual meeting, >> which I'm not I'm not opposed to either. I mean, the idea of creating it and not funding it. >> Um, I'm not opposed to either, >> right? I think I think it's okay if I think I think also I think we keep obviously the warrant is set, right? >> Yes, the warrant is set. MS-27 is set and with the 25,000 in it, but you can kill it on the floor. >> Change it on the floor. Also, we have two almost a month left to see what the legislation's going to do, which will give us really important data to know what we

090have to do. >> We don't have that. And we also could And is this dead last this morning? Which >> fun? No, it's >> No, it's it's fourth. >> It's fourth. >> So, it's it's the one in one out operating budget and then this. >> Yeah. >> Because that would give us some sense as to where the floor's at. >> Yeah. But it's I think it's all right. I think we'll see where we're Yeah. Okay. Anything else on open enrollment? Do we have to vote to approve? I mean, the warrant article voted to approve the warrant article, >> right? So, like we don't have to do anything else. Anything else in response to the public hearing? >> I I anticipate that this portion of our meeting is going to be quite long. Just going to

091put that out there. >> Yep. I would also say to the uh gentleman, you know, who came um I I do feel I would second to you, Suzanne, and that we talked about what having students come to Hopington would look like. Also, I think we talked a little bit about the fact that like we are education, educators at public school districts are not marketers. Um and it's really h hard to put marketing on top of the work that we already do. And just no extra money, right? The CTE centers do have them at comfort all the time. They have these beautiful little glossy >> flyers and and right because that's part of their budget. >> But we need to I think our reputation does speak for itself and there are kids who are going to

092be attracted to us, >> right? >> But until it plays out, we don't know that. >> Right. >> This isn't something that I want to be an early adopter of. It's not >> right. >> Yeah. Yeah, this is not universal design for learning. Like I it's not something I can get behind until I know all the rules. >> Right. Exactly. It's a lot It's a lot lot lot of risk. Yeah. >> Okay. Anything else in open enrollment? >> Well, except the point that I made before, which is it's unclear that you would even profit, >> right, >> from taking students in. So, I'm not even clear about that. >> Yep. >> And I think that's a narrative it's important to >> Yeah. >> keep our eyes on. like it's not like >> this is just

093found money, >> right? I would also say in terms of the occupancy like the occup the the fire marshall's occupancy of a building is not the same in terms of the actual classes that we can provide for students. And so we have a set number of teachers with a program of studies. We already have a lot of students in study halls depending on the time of day and what's being offered. And so I really think about you you could have bodies in the building, but are they actually able to be educated in the way that we think about education and being in classes and being >> right >> engaged? How much time did we spend talking about class size, >> right? >> And setting a policy on class size. I mean, how much time have

094we spent over the last three years, >> right, >> on class size? >> So, it's not how many people you can fit in the building without creating a fire >> hazard. what's how many kids you want to have in proportion to a teacher so that you can get a good education for the students >> right >> and that was why I think the first inclination to choose a program or a pathway was probably in our best interest because right if you look at you know engineering classes versus say an AP or something you know the se number of kids are different you know you can only have certain number of kids in a science class if you have a kid who's super interested in in the sciences that's going to change the numbers or perhaps

095the offering for a Hopkins student versus you know a kid who does want to I could take another one in AP English you know that's that's a different animal um so that may be something moving forward that we have to think about the programming capacity of of some of these specialty pathways >> okay yeah >> the other thing that I'm thinking about this is slightly rel this is related to open enrollment but it's also related to the school district meeting are we talking warrants tonight too. >> Yeah, we're going to do assignments. >> So, when we are thinking about warrants and how this is being presented, just the the type of education that will need to go need to be presented around this will just need to be both basic and really um pretty expansive.

096Yeah. you know, really kind of explaining these things, explaining that like we have a class size policy that dictates how many kids are in our classes. You know, this is like kind of the basics of open enrollment and also um a little bit more about like how our >> happily do this. >> I'm new. >> Yeah. I really think that like there's there's a lot that we'll need to go into. I keep >> presenting this. Yeah. >> God, >> because it's it's going to be a lot that that people are gonna >> it's going to be a lot of information to put out there. >> Yeah. >> Um and I think there are going to be a lot of questions. >> Yeah. >> And I think too you pride yourself on having answers, >> right?

097when people are asking questions about such an important vote >> and we there aren't a lot of certainties and that's really hard to prepare for because I I've been watching some other town meetings and those are really good questions um I think the article that was about um I think it was Penroke no it was it was just in the paper this week the gentleman was like can you explain it to me on a very very basic level >> I think it was the NHBR >> yes and it was interesting the questions they had >> saying well what about this unknown what about your I mean even what Mr. Meford was talking about what about your entrance criteria? How do you special ed services? Who pays for that? How do you, >> you know, get

098the difference between the cost per student if it's higher or lower? You know, what happens to your adequacy? There's just a lot of questions and each state is also very different. >> Um, because that's really the the questions that I'm getting are, you know, really around local tax money being sent to another town. That part I think is turning you know some questions. The state adequacy is part of is one thing but >> yeah that was an important part of that article is that >> many states have adopted this but those states adequately fund an education on the state level. So the state dollars follow the student. That's a lot different than a state of New Hampshire which is so poor on that metric and all of the money going to educate per student is

099coming from the town. And so for those town dollars to go away to another district, that's a very important point. >> And then also how difficult it is that once you're in the hole, how impossible it is to get out of it. you know, once you start losing kids, you know, you lose four kids, that's $100,000. You can't just cut a teacher >> because four kids doesn't, you know, >> doesn't mean that you >> Clarmon is talking about closing an elementary school. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Right. >> Um on So on paper it looks like you could remove a teacher, but in reality certainly cannot. Right. >> So, >> all right. Thank you. Thanks, Laura. >> Okay. Next up, guys, this is it. We get to talk about who is presenting what warrant article. All

100right, >> volunteered myself a lot. >> Okay. Oh, wait. And before we get there, uh, can we just do a postmortem really quickly on the the budget committee public hearing? Um, so the budget committee public hearing went until >> 10 11 >> 11. Yeah, it was it was it was dues. Um, that was a big one. Yeah. Um, I think >> it's not out of character. >> Sure. Um, but it was I think overall um I'm trying to think through I sat there the entire time. There was there was uh good commentary uh an engagement uh a number of warrant articles passed 100, some passed 91. Um and you can go back through and look at the the logs for that. Um Rob's feedback coming out of it was really thinking about that creation of

101the expendable trust fund for tuition. um which we just had a discussion on. Um and then the there was a note on basically thinking through like what was on the cutting room floor to date just so if people wanted to know what had been cut, do we have that? And so um Rob had started to pull together what we had cut from our first October meetings um until now. So that will be ready um and we'll do our usual prep going into annual meeting of thinking about likely questions that are answered in the FAQ or otherwise. But um we have the annual report that is in the drive folder for you guys to look at. Uh Amy and Laura did an amazing job. Uh for those of you who don't know, uh Michelle used to

102basically hand create all of the graphics. Um which was amazing, but also meant that there was like not a paper trail or an easy way to update everything for our 80page report this year. Uh so kudos to these two ladies for I think making a really great uh report and also excellent letters from our administrators um and just really good information there. Okay. Anything else about the public hearing or otherwise? Okay. All right. Warrant articles. You have the warrant articles in your drive. The article one is to hear reports of agents, auditors, committee and officers. So that's a nothing burger. Article two is open enrollment. Andrew, do you want to volunteer? >> Yes, sure. Do >> Okay. Is that good? Okay. >> I'm fine to do it, too, but I'm happy to have you do

103it if you want to. >> Okay. >> All right. Yep. >> Yep. You did. >> I did. >> Okay. Um, article three. I think Rob's planning on doing that given his exceptional uh preparation to date with the budget committee. So unless anyone I think probably wants to like really lie on the tracks for that one, I think we'll just say it's Rob and his swan song to school board. All right. Uh article four is the potential. Do we have do we not? But we will see student tuition expendable trust fund. >> I mean if you're doing the one want to do that too. >> If not I'm happy to do it. But >> okay >> I'll I'll I'll let you take this one. >> Do you want to do four? I think that would be

104>> I don't even know what we're doing with this one. I mean, honestly, like that's prepare for that one. I mean, I think it's it's really one slide. >> Yeah. And I think as we see what happens like it's we got to see how the real time stuff >> article two goes. >> Yep. Exactly. >> And three. >> And see what happens at the state. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, >> well, that's fine. >> Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Um, article >> I can't take it. That That's weird. >> I don't care. I'm happy to do it. If you want it, let me know. >> Um, article five, student special education expendable trust fund. Suzanne, do you want to do that >> or do you want me to do it? >> I just

105want to be able to answer all any and all questions and speak articulately about it. Uh-huh. >> So Amy, I'm going to have to like I just want to make sure I I like to know historical like I So yeah, I'll do whatever as long as I have a chance to like thoroughly prep. We'll make sure you have the information you need my eyes. >> Are there one of these that you would feel more comfortable with? >> No. Oh, >> also it's worth noting in particular that you're like actually. >> No, I mean the only one like I I do understand like the ins and outs is open enrollment, but I don't No, not for my first time. Give me a let me get through one meeting with everybody. >> It's also you can I

106don't like this set up. >> You can present it and then you sit down and then we can do questions as the board too. Yeah. Uhu. Yeah. Great. >> Yeah. You'll be great. Yep. Great. Specialist. >> I used to do pageantss, odd, oddly enough. So, you think I'd be I know, right? Let me know back. You think I'd be okay? >> No, it'll be great. >> Okay, that's awesome. Um, school district building repair and maintenance. Jonathan, are you ready? >> I mean, I would. The only thing that I wonder about is is that going to lead into the redesign? And if it is, then Rob can do it. >> I don't Well, redesign's not in here, right? >> No, it's not. But this is the CIP. So if anybody was going to be asking questions

107about it, it would be here, >> right? >> He could still answer questions. >> Yeah, he can still answer question. >> Yeah, which is fine. Otherwise, I'm fine with doing it. >> Okay. I'll double check with them and see if he wants to do it. Um >> I mean, I'm fine with doing it. I'm not saying I won't do it. I did last year. I had no problem. >> Thank you. Um technology, >> what do you want to do? >> Well, should I just close it out with article 7, article 8, keep moving? >> Yes. >> Yep. My uh $40,000 Does that sound good? I'll take it. Uh, and then article nine is to transact any other business that may legally come before said meeting. I think the hope is that Steve Lux does his

108annual and report the voter numbers because that is really helpful for the log. There was one year where we didn't have it at the back of the bulletin and it was a real pain in the chest. So, thank you to Steve. All right. So, that's it. >> Does that sound good? All right. Great. >> Thank you for taking it easy to me. >> Okay. Um, next year >> paper warrants. >> Y, >> we have two of them for you to sign tonight. >> Y, >> we did get DRRA, Department of Revenue feedback and they asked that we just clarify that it is a technology expendable trust fund >> and a special education expendable trust fund. So, um, >> add the word expendable. >> We have added the word expendable. I don't know if you'd like

109to make a motion to amend the language. >> Yeah. Right. So, uh, do I have a motion to amend the language to add the word expendable to >> Article five and article seven >> and article 7. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. Any discussion? >> Glad for the catch. All right. All those in favor? >> I. All those opposed. Great. Motion carries. >> With that, would you pass that down? >> Sure can. So these will be posted along with the MS-27 which is the budget committee version of the budget. >> Wait. So I we signed in two places on each. There's two copies and I spill coffee on one of them. That's right. Which is not going to happen. Don't drink coffee. You want to give one pants? Yeah. Okay, cool. >> Excellent.

110>> Um, when do we need the Bible done? When do we need everything submitted to >> me? Yeah. >> First slides. And so what so Suzanne just because this is your first so we I will volunteer with this the three of us on any help with slide creation. And I think also it's helpful to have consistent formatting. So if people want to draft a slide, they want to ask us to help with slides, happy to do so. If you want to write a script, um the slides will get compiled into the master PDF so that we're not going between presentations. So just try to share your stuff before Thursday >> of the slides. No, the week before. >> Well, when do you want >> the week before? That means we'll get it Thursday of >>

111Oh, have it this weekend. like the 15th. >> It depends when you want to do the dry run with Matt, too. >> Yeah. So, maybe if people can try to get it done, I'd say probably the Monday, Tuesday of that week, it would be good. Um >> I'm sorry, the Monday, Tuesday of >> March. So, it would be like March 12th. Yeah. March 9th or 10th, right? Because the meeting's on the 14th. So, I would say because he probably will try to do a dry run usually that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. >> Wednesday. Yeah. Couple days prior. >> Yeah. Do do you just want it in like a like a Google doc format with any graphics that you're going to put into slides or you use a Canva? Jody, what's your >> I don't do the

112slides. >> So slides is us. So we use Google. >> I just need the Bible. I just need what you're going to put in. >> We use we use Google Doc. So if everyone just sends us a Google slide and then uh your your script if you like want something to read like Kentron then that's a doc. That's a word doc and that just goes to Jod and she'll have it in the print out copy. >> I mean really the Bible is is mostly just your talking points. Um >> and then the slides is separate. So >> I don't put the slides in that. >> Yeah. >> Bible. >> It's pretty. >> And if you have the Bible, but we do like >> Yeah. And if you have and you can hand write out stuff

113too, that's okay. Sarah Polmo, we usually try um if there's going to be a lot of stuff that is presented, try to share with Sarah any copies of comments just because she it's easier for her to look at what we were saying versus like necessarily transcribing at all. She's our our school clerk, but again, she's listening and is a reporter, so it's she's great. >> You can also said Google Slides is fine if that's easy enough, >> right? You can also ask that somebody share last year's slide warrant so that you can have a look at the start. >> Yeah. Look at >> Yeah. Uhuh. Yeah. We got it. We got it all. >> Exactly. >> All right, guys. We have one more meeting and then we're up to feel like Santa Claus and elf

114with a big show. Okay, great. Anything else as we approach our final annual meeting of 2627 prep cycle? Anything else, Lauren? Okay, great. Awesome. Okay, that'll close it out. Policy. Super. We got some policies. Um, okay. So, tonight Oh, man. Matt, they've still not fixed their nope. >> error. So, uh, for board members, for you guys to look at the policies, you have to go to the public >> public site to look at them. I'm so glad that the public site works though. Um, too bad that our site doesn't. Um, so we have three new policies that are coming forward tonight. Um, these are all three policies that we already had, um, but needed to be updated. They were quite old. Um, they had last been looked at in 2006 and 2013. Um, oh gosh,

115I'm so sorry. I said six, seven, uh, by accident. So, the first one that we have is policy um, BBA, which is school board member authority. Um, the next is policy FE, supervision of construction, clerk of the works. and then policy did inventory and management of assets. Um so all three of these policies have had statutory changes um in the past few years and so they required updates that were updated in 2425 and so we have also needed to update our policies. Um so those are for you guys to read. If you have any questions, comments, what have you, please let us know. I will say that for a BBDA, board member authority, that we did effectively cover this in our most recent school board newsletter by talking about like why schoolboard members can't speak

116on behalf of the board or just do things independently. So true. >> Yeah, great work. Cool. >> We can only work as a group, not as individuals. Um, we have a whole bunch of policies that moved to a second read. Uh, as a reminder, two of them are dually coded, three of them are tri-coded, which is not usual. Um but it is what it is. Um and then we have several policies um that have made it to final reads. Um so tonight we are looking for a motion to approve the final read um and approval of the following policies. Uh BEG meeting minutes DFB equivalents in instructional staff and materials. EB CH chemical safety and chemical hygiene plan. EAB establishment of bus routes. HP employee job actions. HPA employee job actions unauthorized employee absences. IKB

117homework and LDA student teaching and internships. Is there a motion to approve those policies? >> Yes. So moved. >> Second. Super. >> Any discussion? And as a a reminder, these policies um all of them had statutory changes and HP and HPA um they did not have any statutory changes. They were just super old um and just needed to have some realignment. So there were no substantive changes to those. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> With that, all in favor? >> I any post? Cool. Great. Great. Thank you guys. >> Thanks policy team. Who is our transportation coordinator? Is that you Laura or is that Herby? >> It's exciting. >> Many hats. >> Wonderful. All right. And with that, we are close. >> Yellow and reflected. >> Yes. High biz always 100%. All right. We are

118moving on to the consent agenda. All right. Personnel. >> Personnel. For new hires tonight, we have three. Jennifer Cota will be joining us at Harold Martin as a special educator. Uh last meeting we approved the transfer of Jenny Needlin to the middle school and Jennifer Cotto will be taking her spot after February break. Laura Ramsey is a new IIA at Harold Martin and Robert Childs is uh coming back to be a longterm sub for Lauren Proep who is on a leave of absence through the end of the school year. Crazy. Unfortunately, we have one resignation tonight. Michael Andosa, who has been the day custodian at the middle high school, has resigned effective on Friday. So we are actively looking for a new daytime custodian. We are also looking for custodian subs. Great. That's our new

119hire sheet for tonight. No schedule BS. Any questions on the new hires? >> No, we don't have any donations tonight. Oh, Jonathan. So what what are we down to in terms of So that's an IIA for like what are we down to four? I >> think it's four. >> Okay. >> Closing the gap. >> Yep. >> Great. >> Um we do not have donations tonight. And in your board support folder is a draft of the financial statements for January. the they are in draft form because we with finance committee cancelled um I felt it was easier to make this draft until finance can meet or the school board can vote to approve it without in lie of finance seeing it. It's up to you. >> Great. >> Um right now our anticipated end of year

120fund balance is $330,000. It's a change. >> You'll also see there's a change a difference in the financial statements. I just want to note because um you voted to accept and expend that $19,000 that we've received for HVAC rebates, that changes our revenue and expenditure budgets by $19,000 um in order to allow us to expend that. >> So, there's a small change there. And food service is doing well um with the implementation of the ice cream that Tim mentioned. Um we're hoping to bump a little bit of revenue going into the spring without sales. >> So, where is ice cream offered? at Maple and at the middle high school. >> It's at the middle high school every day and it's gonna be here at Maple on Fridays. >> And is it ever gonna go to

121Harold Martin or is that just a bridge too far? >> I think it's I think that's too far. >> I will say that I I'm not a huge fan. I appreciate the revenue, but I really don't you know I didn't get ice cream or candy at school and I I I'm kind of shocked at how much sugar my kids get. Um is a non-programmed food. So, it does not qualify for reimbursement. And parents do have a very legit ability to call food service and say, "My children are allowed to buy this." >> I know. I'm just thinking about generally it's a their buildings of education and like nutrition should be part of it. It bothers me. >> Um, you know, even we just had Valentine's Day and the amount of sugar that the boys get,

122it's it's it's distressing to me. I just point it out. I'm not asking that we change anything, but uh I don't necessarily think it's the lesson we want to be teaching. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Thank you for the financials. Anything else noteworthy there? >> Not on my part. >> Great. All right. So, at 3:30. All righty. All right. And then any other superintendent updates? I just want to wish everyone we're coming up on a February on a February vacation. Um this is really a tough stretch between December and nice weather. Um I'm already stressed about a possible weather event tomorrow night. So if we can just get to vacation, that would be great. So I want to thank all of the families. You know, we will have your students back in March.

123We'll see you then. >> Are we supposed to get weather tomorrow night? >> Yes. It's going to snow. >> Plowable snow up to 3 in. >> Yeah. Are you serious? >> Yes. freezing rain. >> Yeah. >> And it's going to be zero. A child watching down at her march today did inform me that it's going to be zero next week. So, if you thought we were clear, we're not people. >> Yeah. Um I would say thank you to our facilities teams for keeping our buildings um clean through pretty crappy salty weather and also warm. And also to our teachers. I know um at least at Harold it's been so cold that they can't go outside uh over a lot over the course of January which means there's a lot of kids inside all day due

124to the ultra cold temperatures um which is a lot for both energy reasons in terms of human energy and um viral reasons. So thank you to our teachers across the board. >> Yes. >> All right. Do I have a motion to accept the um consent agenda as uh presented? So >> second. >> All right. All those in favor? Any discussion? I'm so sorry. Any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> I I Any opposed? Great. Anything else for pol? And now we're going to move on to committee updates. Sorry, I'm going really fast. Okay. >> Anything on policy? >> Um, no. The only thing that Well, I think it is very nerdy, but I will still share it. uh policy committee has created a standard operating procedure for creating all policies which is very exciting

125>> and not ironic coming from a policy committee to have a policy about creating policies. >> Yes. Yes. So we now have standardized practice for creating updating and implementing policies. >> Amazing. I also want to say that that same policy committee is really Andrea really. Um we were able to find a way to um working with Matt. There's just one location now where all of the policies can be found. Um we did spend a lot of time sort of on a scavenger hunt. So now they are just under school board and policies. Great. >> Um and so that's >> and so they're not on diligent anymore. >> We Yes, they are no longer on diligent. >> Okay. Schoolboard and policies. Great. Okay. Yeah, we should include a PSA just so it's out there. >> Yeah,

126I think and I think if you just click or if you do any searches on our website, it'll now take you to that location. >> Awesome. Okay, cool. This is great. Um CIA, >> we're meeting this week. >> Yeah, we meet Thursday. >> Oh, man. >> All right. I want to hear what's happening. >> Okay. Uh CIP, >> we have a meeting. I don't know. We have a meeting coming. Uh, >> it's on March 3rd. >> There you go. That's what I was going to say. >> Great. Um, Rob's last. >> Yes. >> All right. Safety and security. >> That was Rob and I has met since January. EMC. We have a special edition coming up for energy management in March where we invited >> Oh, yes. our superintendent and district administrators to come and

127learn about our multiaceted uh policy that we're proposing because it will take cross stakeholder buying. So, we're trying to make sure we can talk to everyone and get input prior to bringing it to the board. So, get excited. It's going to be awesome. Amy's >> with Suzan's like great. Um, okay. Finance budget was going to meet today, but it's canceled. Rob is traveling. Anything else there? >> Nope. >> Okay. Uh wellness has not met March. >> So March March >> uh professional development I I did actually uh speak with someone at the DOE. We are good to go and to start that and you will see the professional development plan brought to the board for approval. I think there was at least on my part some misunderstanding that it had to be approved by the

128DOE, but that used to be the way it was. Now they're just submitting them. >> It's unclear. So, we will be able to start that after the February break. >> Great. Thank you so much for all of your work on this. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you. Appreciate a lot of work. >> Yeah. >> Um it's worth noting so we're going to be bringing on a new school board member effective our reorg meeting on the 19th. we will be thinking about um committee reshuffleling. Um and so if you're everyone should really start thinking about hopes, dreams, um capacity, I would say uh as we think about that, I'm happy to have one-on-one conversations with people. Um and uh just just think about what you want to do over the next year. Last year we

129had thought about so a couple things that we wanted to talk about as well. um you had a rough start like basically starting the Tuesday after a very exhausted board running their into the contract and annual district meeting. Um and then I think we had also thought to maybe not change over um change over committees until the end of the school year which I think is hard for a new board member. So I want to think a little bit more intentionally about how to bring a new school board member on transition people think about transitioning committees um and keep them running through the end of the year. So, I'm very open to thoughts and comments, but um as a board, we're trying to to get better on all of these things because it's a lot

130to plop into this. >> Yep. All right. >> I may just remember we also have a HS negotiation starting in the summer. >> Yep. We've got contracts that'll start next year, too. >> So, thank you, ma'am. >> Just just the one, right? Just test. >> Just then and then off of our after that will be HA >> and then it'll be Yeah. So, we're back to one a year, which >> one a year. >> Yeah. >> All right. Cool. Um, all right. Uh, now with that, uh, we are up to the second public comment portion of the evening. If you'd like to come up, please state your name, address, and we ask you keep it to three minutes. Go. Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Any other business? Not that I can think of. >> I

131think we're good. I hope everyone has amazing vacations. There has been a stomach bug going around the small halls of Harold Martin. So, wash those hands everybody if you know small humans. Uh and we will see everyone after vacation on March 3rd ahead of our district meeting on the 14th. All right. Thank you team. Really appreciate it. Thank you Lucy. Thanks Matt. >> Have fun on. >> We have a motion to adjourn the meeting. So sorry. >> So moved. >> Second. face.