001Baptist and Matt Stone, technology extraordinaire. If we could please stand for the pledge of allegiance, that would be great. I pledge algiance 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. Perfect. We have two sets of minutes to approve. One for the regular meeting on April 15th and one for the public hearing on the 15th. Do I have a motion to approve these minutes? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Great. Okay. Uh all in favor? I. Any opposed? Terrific. Um welcome to the first public comment portion of the evening. If you'd like to come up and have a public comment, please state your name and address. And I ask that you keep your comments to three minutes.
002Great. Awesome. Uh, student reps, where are we at today? Where are we at? Um, okay. Well, it was the first day back from break yesterday. So, um, we're just getting back into doing school, which is fun, but but this is a huge week, right? We got we have prom, which is awesome. We're very excited for that. Uh, there's a lot of AP exams this week. Oh, wow. um in next week, which you know, could be good, could be bad. They're doing them at a school cuz they used to do them at the Legion, but then they moved it. Oh, interesting. Okay. And this is one of the first. Are they on in a computer? They're all digital. Yeah, almost. Well, which ones are like physics? Okay. Physics, I guess, is not cool. Um, yeah, it's
003been there. Okay. The baseball team's going to Coopertown this weekend. Wow, that's a great field trip, which will be a fun trip. Um, anything else? Like it's pretty pretty sick. Do we have the new reps yet? Is that election? We're talking to people. It's It's pretty It's pretty late. What does that mean? Like it's late in the year. It's like the last week in May. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Late. I late. Okay. So, we'll know for a dude meeting. Yo, great. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. That's what I was going to say. I have no idea. Okay. Okay. Okay. Awesome. All right. Any questions for our student reps, everybody? No. Okay. Wonderful. Thanks, guys. Is the prom at the B? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like it's going to rain, so who knows where we're going to do
004pictures, but we'll figure it out. They have a roof. It's okay. Well, I meant I will tell, but yeah, we'll make it work. Yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Okay, cool. Um, any comments from Thank you guys. Any comments from the board? This is just a reaffirmation. Yeah. No. Okay. Slate. All right. We are joined this evening by our scholar athletes. Mr. Mazer, do you want to come on up? Sure. I know one of them. No. Sure. So, thank you for having them. We have 17 of our seniors this year who recognized um the criteria for this. They have to have a B+ or better overall GPA. They have played at least two sports their senior year. They have not had a major violation of the athletic agreement of their four years.
005They all participated in community service. Um and this year we had 17 students who accompanied me up to uh to ceremony in conquered then up to lunch afterwards and we had a wonderful day and they're just a great group of kids. Um I'm sorry I didn't get them here before. There's one time it just kind of fell through the cracks and then in this one we end up with a rain day and all of our teams are inside and it messed things up. We do have four of them here. So if I get the three of them and Noah come on. I was like who's Yes. You can tell how hard it's raining because they all sure. Yeah. Right. But these are the four who can make it tonight and proud of them. Actually all
00617 of them obviously. Okay. All right. So, I'm Noah. Um, if you guys didn't know. Um, but the Hopington, like honestly, the Hopington athletic program is it's so awesome. It starts super young with it really keeps improving as you go up. I mean, is phenomenal, but the bonds you build with your teammates and you play with them for I guess I've been playing with these kids for 12, 13 years at this point. I'm I've grown super close with all these kids. And then seeing especially the scholar athletes succeed on and off the field or court or whatever you want, whatever they their respective sports are. It's or the the trail. Um the trail. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's it's it's awesome to see and it's the ceremony was was super gratifying to everyone. So, yeah. No,
007it's it was awesome. I don't know if you guys have anything else, but the the Hopington program, thank you, Mr. Wer. It's quite it's quite awesome in respect. Okay. Amazing. Nice. Not to not to get cheesy, but there was someone my dad when I was younger said, "You're a student athlete, right? You're never called an athlete student ever. If you're if you're ever if you're ever good enough to go and play collegiately or even further, uh the only time you really are never a student athlete is when you're getting paid, which we can talk about NL stuff now, but it it's it's pretty impressive though when you can balance um academics and athletics. I see the challenge with my daughter now as a freshman. Um and to do it for multiple years all the way
008through, uh it's pretty commendable. So, uh great job on the hard work. Um, it's pretty cool that because you picked up baseball again for fun, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, I have practice right now, but we only have so many schoolwork readings left. So, I was like, I got to come. That's right. It's true. It's true. Um, but you know, just it's pretty cool. So, nice work. And was it kids from like students from around the state who came to the ceremony or just like just a region? There actually four different ceremonies, one for each. We had But it was 25 schools. Wow. Wow. Great. Oh, that's excellent. Can you be a scholar athlete? Um, sorry I just interrupted you. Can you be a scholar athlete even if you're doing a non-school affiliated
009sport? No. So, it's just part. Okay, cool. Great. Do they still do the Fisher game fisher cat game? That was for champions. Champions. Sorry. Jeez. Any other questions? Everybody a threeseason athlete. Oh, one step back. Uh favorite favorite season. What is it? Oh, how could I not say the undefeated soccer championship? It was I mean, obviously it ended in a championship, but our team was so close. It was so fun. It was super close. It was a phenomenal season. What about you guys? There you go. [Laughter] Pretty funny. Oh, I already got a lunch. We went for several years. It's a crowdleaser. Just step up from some of your historical choices. Oh god. Amazing. Any other questions? Great. Congratulations you guys. This is the big conf. Wait, can we get a photo? Can you take
010a photo? Welcome. [Music] Thank you so much. [Music] Three, two, one. Hold on. Take a couple. Okay. Now you can drive. Hello, Miss Jody. How you doing? All right. Thank you guys. Okay, let's get squared away here. We want um cheese. All right. Sorry, guys. All right. So, uh we Yep. are going to talk through our board end of year goal reviews. Um there's a couple things to this. Uh we did this we set our goals. So, I want to frame the conversation and sort of what this it's about in terms of this year and then also teeing up the conversation for next year. So every um every year for the past three years, four, four, the board, this happening school board has set uh annual goals. Um we try to tie these to our
011strategic plan, which is a five-year plan. Um and depending on sort of like I think you know the the feedback from the board, what we hear over the course of the year, then we think about what to prioritize from the strategic plan in terms of what we actually want our goals to be. It is worth noting that for many of these things, there's some work that the board does. There's also stuff that is implemented by the district, right? And we'll sort of talk through what some of those distinctions are. Um the uh we do a midyear review in January and we took some notes on that. Um and then we're talking about it now. We have six weeks left in the school year, which is kind of wild. And so if there's anything that we
012want to just try to get in the last minute push around, um it's really just thinking through that. if there's anything that we've missed that we really didn't think through um or work on. Um and last but not least, we have our we set our board retreat date for June 27th. It's a Friday. Um and we'll be talking one of the agenda items at that we'll be talking through our um our board goals for the 2526 school year. And so I think as we're thinking through this, I'd love for everyone to think about what of this do we want to carry through next year? Is there something that we retire because it becomes a standard operating procedure? Is there something that we tweak? Is there something new? Right? We don't have to talk about that
013now, but I just want people to sort of be percolating ahead of June. And it's okay to carry goals from one year and the next 100%. Like some of these are multiple year pieces of things. Um I think the last thing I'd say about the process is that we try to set our board goals in June. Um because then Mike traditionally as a superintendent has worked to set his his goals, then have the administrators set their goals, have the building set their goals, and then make sure that they're all tied together. Um, and we try to do that over the course of the summer and the first part of the fall. So, uh, it's a lot of lot of wheels on the and hubs and the spokes, but I think it's a it's a really
014worthwhile process for us to think through. Okay. Any questions about that? Great. All right. There is a doc in the drive folder. Hopefully, everyone saw it. Um, I'm going to take notes in here and then we'll publish this after the fact. So, I'm just going to read through all of these. We can talk through. will have updates from the board and then there are some things that Mike will also add context or information around. Okay, so the under the first one curriculum and assessment the school board working through the superintendent will define our district's guiding principles. Um the way that we thought about this in January and over the course of this year I think is really through portrait of a learner which was has been a two year long pro pract and a half
015long um uh pro program at this point. We defined and articulate it. We reviewed it at CNA I think in December. Um, and so one of the things that I was thinking about that I want to touch base on, Mike, was Jake, who is our outgoing assistant principal at the middle high school, like what is going to happen now that he's transitioning? So, the transition's kind of already begun. Uh, Patrice, Miss Brown, has picked up a lot of that work. She really kind of partnered with them. Even though Jake was leading it, she was a a real support in the process. Uh, we are in one of the transitional pieces of which um you'll be seeing more I'm going to say things, but um letterhead, stickers, shirts, uh starting to work towards that. The committees,
016which has been one of our best committees, they're so great. Wanted to ensure that that the work continued even though Jake's leaving. So Amy's already been brought on board, the new superintendent. Um Jake and Patrice met today. Amy is going to be meeting with them soon in regards to those transitional pieces. So that work is going to continue. um committee reiterated how important it has been um and now really getting down into the buildings uh and starting that. So, okay. Uh great. Any questions on that? Mike, I actually did have a question. How so? We're you're in the beginning stages of kind of having it kind of rolled out into the schools or embedded into the culture. the right way to say like the curriculum, the language. Yeah. You know, this started probably this time
017last year. Jake came and presented and then the committees began their work and you know, all the early stuff. But I'd say the embedded the the right word of really starting to get it into the culture like living it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm interested in that process and and hearing more as as it goes on. It feels good. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Okay. Any other questions on district's guiding principles? Great. All right. Uh, the school board working through the superintendent will develop a review cycle for evaluating curriculum across the district including English language arts, math, report cards, science, textbooks, services, etc. to be presented to the board by the end of the 24-25 school year. And it's worth noting it lays out what it ties to in the strategic plan. Thank you, Andrea. So, you have
018an update on this? Yeah. So um at by the end of the curriculum and assessment committee meetings this year um the committee has put together a review cycle that they are comfortable with. We did pause um further work on that just knowing that there's going to be a transition um both with no longer having a curriculum and assessment um director in the district and with having the new superintendent coming on board. So um similarly that work is um has been shared uh preliminarily with Amy Doyle um and will be continued next year in the committee. Great. Great. Any questions on that? Great. Thanks. Sorry, I'm sort of a trailing. No, you're fine. All right. Uh, under finance, the school board working through the superintendent will develop an analysis of increasing special education costs with a
019report to the board by January 15th, 2024. Five five. Yeah. Rob, how do you feel like we did there? I think if we gave the world any more information on special education, its costs that it's I mean I don't know what else you could do. You know, if you don't know at this point, you just haven't looked or read. So I, you know, kudos to everybody who put all of those primmers together. Um, I think that coupled with the glosseries that we have, there's there's plenty of good information out there. I don't spend a lot of time on the website. So, in terms of how accessible and where it is, um that would be my only question, but that's just a question. It's all under the budget. Yeah, that's a good note that we can
020put it under key supporting documents as we transition. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. Um can I add one more thing in there is that I felt like the and I will describe this after I talk, but the I think one of the other things is I think we created a lot of materials which was great. I think one of the other things I think we talked pretty robustly about as a board was um the rise of special education needs at Harold Martin and through the district and trying to think about what is actually the best way to mitigate what's happening and provide intervention that will a hopefully help children and b potentially mitigate costs long term that are affiliated with special ed. Does that feel reasonable? Yeah. Okay. Um, also take some thoughts. Okay, great. Anything
021else on that? Okay. Uh, the school board working through the finance committee will create a three to fiveyear financial analysis by end of year 2025. Not going to happen. Okay. Um, the continuation. Yeah. I mean this is this is the same problem and I actually have some new thoughts on this because um the presentation that I will do for budget committee in June on different budgeting styles and formats the more I read the the eight different types essentially it's like we do a little bit of probably three or four of them some of them are really easy to dial into these these are our projected costs that kind of So, could we do some forecasting? Probably. I really need to sit down with Mike and Laura about how much I'm intuiting into these different styles
022from I'm assuming there are things that we are doing. For instance, you know, some of it is um for a second if you'll give me a moment. you know, program and planning or performance-based outcome focused. A lot of education use here that but like Amplify, if Amplify is working, are we going to continue to reinvest? You know, that kind of thing in terms of how you're looking at your budgeting process. Um, but there's, you know, there's stuff in here that's just cuckoo based as well. So, okay, that's interesting. kind of hoping that maybe through that we could say that 80% of our budget is something that we can project with some certainty but the other 20% probably not which I mean salaries are tied to the contracts yeah and that's a huge piece of it
023so we know what that is it's it's and once we get the cycle in place you kind of just mentioned like if every year you know amplify is up every three years that money is allocated either towards Amplify or towards a progression Yeah, I think I mean it's all related to those projections, but it's the this notion that any one of these eight is the magic way to budget I think is exceptionally flawed. I think it's got to be a cafeteria style depending upon what it is you're you're doing. Um and just being able to explain that these are the three primary mechanisms that we use um I think will be helpful to the community. So, okay, any questions about that? Great. Describe. Sorry. Okay. Um, safety and security. The school board working through the
024superintendent will support the development of a district-wide approach to school culture and safety that involves students and staff. Yes. So, this uh started the simple words we were using at the start of the year was see something, say something. Um we really established that culture at the beginning of the year with our morning meetings at Harold Martin or you know advisory period so forth and so on. Uh it kind of transformed a little bit more at the middle high school in regards to the the culture. We had uh one two three four five one two three four five different speakers come in this year to the middle high school. um from John Brick to Chelsea Henquist 8th grade only Chris Padulus which was a motivational speaker uh Biotech Claudia Tobin from Launch now we had
025we just had multiple perspectives come in and speak to our kids um which we got a lot of positive feedback on top of career day which was a highly um successful experience for for our students but also for our community to come in and work with our students. Um, so we're going to continue that. I know Carrie and Patrice, I know they looked into I know safety and security kind of put that program aside, but they really liked the foundation of what's the school in Connecticut? New town. New town. But it's um we're on the same page. Promise. um some of the foundational stuff we were already working in and Carrie and Patrice are really starting to emphasize um some behavioral cultural pieces that we're noticing and we're going to Amy I I know you
026two were part of that meeting. Amy talked about something she's going to bring from Marramac in regards to working with your students and how to transition them to school. So, a lot going on in that area that I think we'll continue to to really press upon. I think we're targeting next year for the speaker so to speak to be a K to2 one which is always difficult but uh we really want to there are some out there that you know are expensive but the foundations talked about helping us um with some of that too. So those are some of those goals in that area. Great. Any questions about that? Cool. Thank you. Yep. The school board working through the superintendent will use the safety action plan to create a 3 to 5year safety plan implementation
027projection by the end of the 2425 school year. So in your schoolboard non-public documents, I placed a safety and security document in there because of safety and security. hands. Um, you're going to have to zoom in on it, but we the safety and security teams went they broke out at building levels basically through the references from Homeland Security in 2002, prioritized the list, and then you're going to see high priority, medium priority, lower priority. You're going to see what was purchased by the grants already. So, you can really see the progress that we've made in that audit that we had when I first started. um and maybe some of the things that we still need to work towards that we're still working on. But uh credit to that safety and secure security group more about
028the breakout committees. Um I can share another document with with you later. Um basically it's the committee work on how they ranked and prioritized whether it would be a swinging gate at the entrance or um film on the windows things. I'm trying to leave some of them out, but some of those things that we were working towards, we got our walkie-talkies through the grant. So now, as I said, when we had the bus accident, we could communicate all the way down to the traffic circle, we can communicate with the middle high school. So, um, that group is really worked away. And I guess if you're going to rephrase the goal when you meet with M. oil. Um, instead of having a um, kind of like Rob said, if I'm going to steal his his thought
029process on three to five years, it's more about taking that list and just continuing to chip off and target when you're going to do it rather than putting it in a time frame. So, have we had three rounds of grants? Uh, they're in there. They're labeled. Yeah. Yeah. So, we have Great. Dulce, this is related to it. Y and I don't want to jump the gun or be overly hopeful, but the discussion about entrance at the middle high school is ongoing. Um, so just where we're at, subcommittee has been meeting with the gentleman who's been doing the architectural work for us, been a few redesigns. Uh, Chris Kelly's brought it to his admin council. admin council. Uh he brought it to the whole faculty today to get feedback and we plan to bring it to
030safety and security for our next meeting with hopes to bring it to the board for June. Um June June. So something to think about moving into next year. And you know because it's predominantly an interior design, the costs are relatively low. Um, so I'm pretty excited about the possibility that this might actually happen before I die. Yeah, I was going to say and I'm sad it's going to happen after, but wow. No, no, after I leave. Sorry, let me close that sentence. Jeez. So, I don't know how you want to work that into that goal, but Okay, that's great. That that feels like part of that good messaging for like next year, too. That's great. continue to invest in that. Great. Investigate it. Thank you. Any other questions? Really exciting comments. Yeah, that's great. I'm
031excited. Two more minutes we have to look at. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be great for years. Years. Okay, cool. Thank you. Okay, next up. Uh under communication, uh the school board working through the superintendent will implement improved communications via diligent community, a board-ledd quarterly newsletter, and continue to improve budget materials which may include a mailer. Well, go for it. We did all of we did a mailer. I thought it was great. It was super helpful. It's just the facts man. Yep. Uh like Rob just said, we have more information possibly than any other school district. Yeah. on our website about budgeting and special education and you know we have another schoolboard newsletter that we're going to be looking at tonight. Yeah. So yeah, I mean aside from like personally calling people
032up and having conversations. Yep. Yeah. I think we're continuing to improve um our population of and usage of diligent community, right? Yeah. um policies are on there. Yep. Community with policy library and the document library which we can now move a bunch of stuff from budget over to. Great. Um I also will say um I think we've been trying to be reasonably coordinated and this is shout out to to Matt Stone. Thank you Matt. I think to get things posted both on the the district website, on Facebook, and a couple other and to go out through principles to make sure that like if we can update people in as many channels as possible, we can. Um Okay. Yeah. I think the only thing that we really need to improve is um getting our minutes up
033there for committees. Yep. We have a plan for that next year. Yeah, staying up to date with committee minutes. Okay, great. Awesome. Any other questions or thoughts about that? Minutes are going up. It's just been a challenge with the way diligent I just want to clarify. Yes, they are going up. It's Yeah, it's just really cumbers. Yeah, great. I will say I'm really proud of our communications this year. I mean, there's always work to do. Okay. The school board will facilitate small groupoup discussions with the community through the budgeting season. Guys, what are your thoughts on how we did? Sorry, that was loud. Anyone? Uh, I think we potentially oversaturated the community with small uh small group discussions. Uh, I think we had 10, right? Yeah, probably. I will say that the um shockingly I
034think the tours and budget discussions were not well attended. Yep. Which I know that our staff was actually sad about because they wanted didn't show people Yeah. what we're talking about. Yep. Um, I think that some of the other community events did pretty well. Like when we did the senior the senior the pre senior lunch Jonathan that was obviously great because that was something people were going to go to. We went right after cookies with Cass. We got a bunch of people. Rotary it sounds like was great. We already had a crowd. Yeah. Right. Like I think things that where they were tied to where people were going to be was great and then maybe we offer one or two. How was the library? library the week before. I think it's also people want to
035know closer to the date. PTA is great. Yeah, PTA is great. Potentially there's a few other I don't know if you want to look at maybe the Legion as a host site. Yep. Yeah. And we offered to both we offered to both political parties. We presented at Hop and Dems. The GOP did not take us up on the offer. Um so yeah, I think that's a great point. I think we should do significantly less of these. Yeah. Because I think it's because there's other staff whose time is being taken up and if we have two people there and five staff people, I don't think it's respectful of their time if we keep doing those. Yeah. They have a lot of extracurricular things that they're doing. I think it's helpful then to like Yeah. Like the
036tours, we're not going to do that again. I think if we're going to Slicer or Rotary or some other place where there's a group there. Yeah. And we can do a quick presentation. Y that makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. I think those are all the ones just looking that were the successes. Yeah. I would still do maybe one or two the week before, but I think having that just be board members and even one board member I think is okay. As much as I hate to say it, I think we should go back to uh COVID Zoom style. Oh, yeah. That's a good one, too. just timewise. Yeah. You know, um maybe two one hour, you know, do the presentation, open for an hour, do the presentation, open for an hour. Yeah. Um maybe
037a little more flexible for people who want to come in. And yeah, that's a good point. I think the other thing was we did a lot of stuff after 5:00 p.m. before the break, like weeks before, right, between PTA and some of the school tours. And then the week before was only during the day because we were trying to diversify when people could come. But I think it seemed like we weren't offering a range of times. So I think trying to make sure we collapse it and figure it out is a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you all. I know it was a lot of time, so I really appreciate everyone in We tried the thing. We did. We tried. Okay. Culture and climate. Um, the school board working through the superintendent will proactively
038address goal one of the culture and climate section of the strategic plan. The Hopton School District will strive to create an emotionally safe, equitable, and inclusive environment for all students through the action steps laid out under the goals sole objective. So, MTSS, which we're partnering with branching minds, which stands for uh multi multip um going to get it right. I know. And so we've parted with branching minds uh and the first part of that implementation process is a lot of back work that Mr. Stone has been working on with Miss Hibert in regards to systems and data and information. Um we are actually the email went out today in regards to picking a date for our implementation staff members to get trained for two hours. Um so that work is on its way. also Amy
039Doyle is is aware and and also understands what's going on. Um the the dates for the trainings are in July and August and then really going to be the kickoff in September which was really our time frame anyways. Um again we talked about portrait of a learner and it becoming embedded in the school communities at the next steps. Great. What what is branching minds? Uh it it's one of I'll call it a company is the easiest way to describe it. They help uh really on the system side. Um let our systems speak together whether it's uh scoring or behavioral analysis and then their program runs basically areas of improvement or growth or gaps that are happening with the student that can be discussed far more than this piece of information being over here and over
040you know what I mean. It really consolidates the information of a student. So, it's looking at all the different test scores, all test and uh anecdotal stuff, too, like um teachers can fill out reports. Yeah. Stuff like that. So, and it combines it. Yep. Okay. Um the other thing that I think we should highlight is I think that Dan did some work at the start of the year, right? As Noah mentioned, we have a lot of students that are um spend a lot of time in athletics and Dan did some work to I think try to also loop in the coaches into a safe and a lot of onboarding training on that one especially with with coaches that were not part of the staff. Yeah. Expectations, ground rules setting safe environments. We have what's the
041program called that uh Jake's launching? Um Mr. Mororrow. Yeah. What's that called? It's letters too um with the SA student agency project. Yeah. So they launched a new one where we are now having buddy systems with our transitioning fifth grade uh sixth graders, seventh graders. We talked about this, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now they went and met their buddies. They're going to talk with them over the summer. They're going to meet with them before school starts. So basically every not every but about 30 sixth graders have an actual buddy going into the middle high school. A great Yeah. We talked about moving that towards one one or two to two to one, but this year they targeted 30 students to have buddies to transition. That's great. Well, so I kind of I like
042this. It sounds like what branching minds is going to allow you folks to do. It's like all points of contact for a student to sort of have access as their team, right? Because there's a team of adults that are caring for a child, educating a child. Um if there are concerns, right? Like I I often think that there might be a behavioral concern but be people maybe dealing with behavioral issues are not talking to people dealing with maybe academic issues or right and so there's no sort of way for those people to communicate wait a minute this should be a flag instead of it's just kind of one issue and one person dealing with it Johnny yep is having you know over here and now we're looping at coaches which I think is phenomenal because
043for so many kids. That's their person. Another data point. Yeah, it it we saw challenges here when I first started was uh the way Harold Martin was handling things and then when they transitioned here, they were handling things different. So, this is going to allow some of more of that systemic approach. Uh and as you said, as a teacher, you know, sometimes I was a unified arts teacher, so I didn't see a lot of the behavioral sometimes because they're exactly right. But now this portfolio of performance that can be put together there can be different flags that you know that you can like you said oh well in my class this is what works well uh and when we get to wraparound team there's more information and allowing everybody on that team to kind of
044figure out problem solve for the students. Yeah. Great. Love it. What's SAP? What's it student agency project agency? Yeah. Yeah. We got to say the words. I know, but I'm saying for you. Okay, great. Terrific. Okay, great. Um, okay. So, anything else about that? People have questions. How do you get informal student input? I mean, this all sounds great. Don't get me wrong, but you can still be, you know, you're in the building. You think as a teacher everything's good. Like I can sit in a classroom with 25 kids and think everybody's getting along, but somewhere in that classroom somebody's not getting along. And I have no idea because kids are good at creating environments that are not inviting. So I mean I think that's the real challenge is how do we know because there
045is the OEM America code where nobody wants to say much um and that's not helpful. Yeah. Sorry to throw that monkey wrench out there, but the reality is is there's that there's that blind spot that we've always had and you know, well, and it's I and it's a great question because I thought about it too and I'm saying this as a board member, not as a administrator or teacher obviously, but it's like you can do the see something say something stuff, but I think that really is more tied to like safe like what I would think of as safety. Um, and this tends to be, I think, be a lot more in terms of the environment at the school, more socio emotional as well as safety, but like the other part is really hard because
046kids go through a lot every day. So, I think it's a great question. Well, and Rob, is that something that we look at as, you know, a cultural and climate goal in addition like how how are we changing or or evaluating, I guess I should say, the culture of the building and our students, are we being inclusive? Are kids feeling like this is their safe space and what to do if it's not for another student? like are we giving them the tools to say hey I I know you guys used to set a buddy bench and like come sit with that like that sort of movement um at the lower levels like well I think it's it's all about teachers developing the like say that again it's all about the teachers I think I or
047at least I see it in in the school right now the teachers who really get to know students on a personal level students will come to them for pro with their problems and I I see it Um, and obviously it's hard if you have 25 kids in a classroom to get to know every single one, but I think it's a cultural thing. It's teachers getting to know their students on a super super personal level. And that's how you you get to learn and get or get to ensure that it's a safe space for everyone. I think it's hard sometimes by high school. I found that kids kind of like have if they've had a few bad experiences or like felt uncomfortable in certain classrooms that they kind of withdraw by the time they're in like
0489th or 10th grade and then it's hard for them to like believe that saying something would be able to make a difference. But I think that like I don't know. I mean relationships with teachers is important but it's sort of hard like once you reach that age. Not that I don't think anything can be done about it but Okay. Yeah. I think like the the MTSS and the wraparound teams really were looking at most often kids who have been like identified you know which is great like that is a it's happening in in hospitals and you get lots of people on board but I think this is something that we should continue to look at like it should continue to be a goal and a focus. I think that MTSS system, especially looking at just
049kind of quickly looking up this branch of minds, is going to allow more kids potentially to get some support because more people are talking. They're not siloed, right? Like people are going to be able to kind of see if there is an issue maybe in another class, right? I don't know. But I I do agree that there, you know, there's always going to be that issue. And I think it's kind of one of those burning questions that you're like, how do I how or how do we All right. Well, student vo student voice and student feedback uh how do I creating a safe spot to give us student feedback. Right. We've talked about that lots of times and the opportunity to share amongst faculty without violating HIPPA. Yeah. Which is a problem. You know, I
050mean, my first teaching experience, every day we had quote unquote milk break, faculty met in the library, the kids went down to the cafeteria, and you talked about kids. Um, but it was a different environment, but there were not a lot of places where, you know, things didn't get left. If something was cooking, everybody knew it. And I mean, everybody knew. And we don't necessarily have those things. And there are those stone walls because of privacy. Um so it becomes difficult where something could be happening in one classroom but not happening elsewhere or or not being known elsewhere. Okay. And that's that's not good for the kid and it's makes it difficult for the teacher because if you don't have that knowledge it might change the way you interact with that student. Yeah. Okay. probably
051not surprisingly, you know, I listen to this conversation and I think about if we had no cell phones from the beginning bell to the last bell in school, it would take away this whole area where people are existing that nobody can see. Also, I think, you know, I was just reading an article this morning about how in schools that have gone phone free, uh, one of the thing, one of the effects that phones have is they take away the ability to have conversation, to interact. And I think that so much communication happens um, in cyerspace as opposed to in the natural world when there are phones. To me, that goes to culture. It goes to safety. It goes to a lot of these issues that we're talking about. It doesn't solve the problems, but I
052do think that there could be a huge benefit um along the lines of things that we're talking about here. I absolutely agree with you. Thanks. Thanks for bringing that up, Rob. You're welcome. It's very important. you guys have done so much more to like like look for the student voice since I've gone on on the school board and it's made it so much better. I think I I mean I think the other just one other thing to add to this is it's not just like touchyfey emotional stuff like you cannot learn if you do not feel safe. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and if it's about learning, the best way for kids to learn is to get their needs met. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I will You went deep on that one. That was a good
053one. That's a good one. That's a great area. Thank you everyone. That was great discussion. I'll figure out how to put together my notes on that one. Um, anything else there? Thanks guys. That was great. Okay. Uh, sustainability, slightly different topic. Um the school board working through the energy management committee and using work from resilient building group and energy management consultants will prioritize and down select the first round of projects to mitigate and minimize energy outlay and cost for the Hopton school district. Um I would say that the reports that we got from EMC in terms of the broader thing has been started to be incorporated into the work of CIP. Um and then I think EMC the committee also asked for a few scenarios from EMC the company to do in terms of looking
054at a few different scenarios and levels of work to basically give to you guys in terms of a energy management lens that you can use to think about how you might structure projects across the course of the CIP and otherwise. Um but that's work is happening in real time which is great. Any other questions there? No, I mean I just I I think that the that the recurring theme is this sort of the tolerance for sort of short-term expense for the benefit of long saving long-term expense. And I think that's just a theme that just comes up in CIP all the time. Yep. Yep. Great. Okay. Okay, good one. Uh personnel, the uh school board working with the superintendent who will support resource allocation to implement a multi-tered system of support. Do we have anything
055else program? They're implementing it. Yeah. Okay. Anything else to add there, Mike? I think we have it all. I just need to move it around. Okay. The school board will negotiate a new three-year contract in good faith with HA union. Done. Check it. It was passed. Great. And the school overwhelmingly passed. The school board will negotiate a new 3 to 5 year contract in good faith with a team sharers union four years and check. Great. Okay. Overwhelmingly passed. Yeah. Overwhelmingly passed. Makes you note. Yeah. Um, so those are all of our goals for the year. So, I think we're actually there's stuff I think that we will have ample things to talk through at the retreat obviously, but I'm this board I think this year has worked incredibly hard and that tied with the I
056think the incredibly hard work as a district. I feel pretty pretty proud of what we've done thus far knowing there's six weeks left. Yeah. Any other thoughts on that? Great. Okay. Great work, guys. All right. Next up, the 2026 annual district meeting date. I know we've talked about this before. Yeah. Uh May 8th, Thursday is Neil's last date. He had gone through and drafted a budget committee schedule that Rob shared with us uh for 2025 2026. Uh and one of the things we want to do is not have to move the school district meeting date ever again. Uh so I just want to talk through there's really just two things that we need to do. Um, I put a terrible screenshot. Sorry guys in uh the board of materials. Um, uh, but if you take
057a look at it, um, it is, if I can find it, I think it's some place in there. Yeah. Uh, I think really the discussion for us is we have traditionally our options are basically to have school district meeting what's set right now with budget committee as March 7th, which is the first Saturday back from vacation, or to have it the following week, the 14th. Um, if we do it later, there is ample room. I think based off of this, I need to go through and Laura, I'll ask you to also second check that we have the number of days and 30 and 20 and all the things, but do people have a preference based on how much work goes into it? I I would like more than one week following the break. Fair. Okay.
058I think I think it went so much better this year. Yeah. Um, yeah, having two weeks. I mean unintended outcome of it. It it was just so much better. Yeah. I think what is the what is the likely sports we do better the further out we are. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Be in between seasons. Okay. Yep. Versus being at championships. Yep. I would also say I think given the context of what we just talked about with small group meetings, if we do less I think we can do a little bit before school break. Yeah. And there's obviously lots of people in town who don't have children in the school district who aren't affected by school break. But the more that we can consolidate and do it after break, the better. I really really think. Okay. Yeah.
059I don't think we need to vote on that, but I think it's more of a Suz were just saying then instead of having it the Saturday right after that break that we would have it two Saturdays after. So instead of March 7th, we'd have it March 15th just to give us more time. Yes. Thank you. March 14th. March 14th. Sorry. 14th. The 14th. The 14th. 14th. Yep. Saturday. March 14, 2026. Yes. Okay. So, if that works for everyone, we will confirm and make do the dates, check all the things. It it it definitely aligns um because the public hearing that they have scheduled right now is February 4th. So, we have more than 25 days safe there. Great. Terrific. Great. Way to go. All right. The other thing that I want to do just on
060the back of this is I had we cannot we had found out at the last board meeting that no one's going to be here for our June meeting as people might recall um for the the June 3rd, right? No one was going to be here for No, it's the next one. The June 17th. So, we're talking about collapsing those two into something on either June 10th or the Tuesday or June 12th. Did people have a preference? So, just to reiterate, June 3rd was because my daughter's first communion is that night. Correct. I can't be here. You guys can still have the meeting if you would like. Um, well, no, we're not having you miss your last meeting. Let's try. I've tried repeatedly. Okay. So, then it would be that second week we need to figure
061something out. Yeah. So, the 10th through the 12th. Okay. How do people look for the 10th? I'm sorry. be June 10th or June 12th. You can't make the 10th. No. And I I cannot make the 10th. Woof. I think you just have it on the third. That's true. I think I will also say, thank you so much for your input that I think it's hard to have our last regularly scheduled meeting before we go into summer break be before that close like two weeks out before the end of the year is wrapped. I think it's nice to get a little more time on the docket. So, I do I do appreciate your feedback. So, thank you. Um, uh, okay. June 11th, Wednesday, June 11th. Can we do a Monday? Um, I think there might be
062Is there a committee is June 11th? Is that correct? Committee is the 11th. Yes. Yeah. So then Monday. Yeah. And there's also Monday. Can we do it backtoback with select board if there's select board meeting? I think it's fine. I could do Monday. Monday the 9th. Okay. Can everyone make Monday the 9th? Yes. Hold on. Triple check. Checking Monday. So, not are we doing the third or not? Not doing the third. Third. We would drop the third and move to the 9th. We'll see. We drop the third and the 17th. Which I think is fine. Okay. So, we would do it at the 9th of when the 9th of June. 5:30. 5:30. Look good. My calendar. All right. We if that works for everyone that we'll go toe-to-toe with select board. I think that's fine.
063I can give Breenia a heads up. Jody, if you can update the calendar invites, then that would be extraordinarily jazzy. Oh, you're going with the 9th. Yeah, we're going to drop the 17th, move the third to the 9th. Should we go then? What? Should we go then? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've just graduated. You're welcome to come. This is Noah's last one. Well, maybe maybe I'll be here tonight. No, baseball game. But I have baseball the next game. I skipped baseball today. You can skip there yet. All right. It's okay. We're recognizing you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You're not kidding. Yeah. So, come to the night. It's fine. Yeah. So, come come on the night. Come on the night. All right. I'll come on. You, too. Great. We love you. Uh, which I'm
064probably not supposed to say. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. Moving on. We have the Hess contract. This is our second and final read. As a reminder, um, any any questions or comments about this because it's related to personnel, we have to go into non-public, but this f file is in the 20 2526 non-public folder of the board. Do we have a motion to approve the 2025 2026 test contract nomination slate? Correct. So moved. Oh, I'll second it. Okay. Any discussion? A reminder, we need to go into non-public, which we absolutely can, but okay. Thank you to our Hest workers. Yeah. Um, all in favor? I I Any opposed? Great. And I should say our H staff, as Jim O'Brien said it four years ago, and I'll use it forever, are essential employees. Yes. Highly critical.
065Um, next up, we are doing a first read this evening in the same file folder of the admin non-union teamster staffing contract. So, if you look in there, there's three tabs. Um, uh, go ahead and take a look. Again, we would go into non-public for any of this, but, uh, take a look. Also, call me if you want, but otherwise, we can, we can talk as a board if anyone wants to. Does anyone want to go into nonpublic to discuss? Okay. We'll also look at this um, at the second meeting in May. Okay. Do you want to talk about the Deor Scholarship Trust, Mike? Uh Laura's been kind of doing the work on this, but if if you remember, not all of you attend awards night, but last year the 2023 class uh gave a
066scholarship in memory of Dave Shory, and now they are looking forward to moving that to a permanent thing rather than just a oneoff. Um Laura can talk about the I'll call the rules behind it if you would like. Just a and before we get there for people who might be watching at home, you might be new to the district. Can you remind us all who Dave was? I can. That's okay. Perfect. Go for it. Thanks. The Dave Shy Scholarship Trust that we are trying to create tonight um has an application that with it that comes with it and on the application has a blurb and it says, "Who was David Shy?" David Shy dedicated 11 years to teaching at Hopington Middle High School and approximately 40 years of his life to educating students in New
067Hampshire. He taught a range of courses from AP calculus to middle school pre-engineering. Mr. Shy was a welcoming, warm, and kind to all students at Hopington, not just those he had in class. Everyone in school knew he was always ready to give smiles to strangers and assist anyone in need. He was a dedicated teacher who had an amazing ability to educate all students, and he truly believed all students could learn. He cared deeply about student success and would do whatever he could to support them in their learning. Mr. Shy was also a committed Hawks fan, running the scoreboard for basketball games and offering continued support of multiple school sports teams. In fact, there were few basketball games that he did not attend. He will forever be remembered for his stories of living in Japan, his
068college basketball career, flipping houses, and opening his family restaurant, Shor's Grilled Cheese and Ice Cream, in Franklin. Mr. Shy was an easygoing, hardworking, and compassionate man as both a teacher and a person, and he is sorely missed. That's wonderful. So, they have asked to make it very similar to the Michelle Potmar Memorial Scholarship that we created earlier this year. It will be a trust fund that um pays scholarships out of principal and interest every year. It will be started by donations from the class of 2023 and class of 2024. And the Shy family themselves would also like to contribute to this initial donation. and um they asked that we approve it and they would like to give out the first $750 award on the May 22nd awards night. Wow, that's amazing. So, we'll move this
069if this is approved by the board, we'll move it through with New Hampshire Trust. The trustees of the trust funds in town are already on board and um we'll get that ready for May 22nd. They already have an applicant and somebody that has is worthy of scholarship coming up. That's wonderful. Do you need an official motion? We do. Do I have a motion to approve the creation of the David Shy scholarship trust fund? Yes. Moved. Second. Any any discussion? It's wonderful. Thank you for doing the leg work. Thank you, Dave. Yeah. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Great. Okay. Thank you so much. They'll be very excited. Yeah, that's lovely. Um, sorry I forgot to have this formally added to the agenda, but there's one quick other discussion that I wanted to have before
070we move to policy and close out the board comment. So, one of the things that we wanted to get rolling, um, my apologies was to talk through committees. Um, and so because I think there's some committees that we'll continue to meet through the end of the year. Um, and so I was really excited to to sort of talk through this and I've had um, you know, I think hopefully people have been thinking through it and have sort of touched base. So just so everyone remembers, we don't have any contracts that are up next year. So there's no negotiating teams. What we do have is policy, curriculum and assessment, CIP, safety and security, EMC, finance and budget. Um and we have traditionally in in the past had a wellness committee, but the board has not sent
071a board delegate for two years. So the district still has a wellness committee. The district has required the district still has required by policy. Yes, that's right. We just don't have we have not sent a board member. So for policy uh this year it's Andrew and Jonathan. Um it is like to stay on. Okay. Unsurprisingly. Yep. Um this is a great thing for I'm going to look at Suzanne for first year board members. It work. Would you like to be on policy? Yeah. Okay. Jonathan, are you okay rolling off policy? Terrific. Okay, great. Okay. And uh Amy, I just agreed to. It's weird. No one ever stays. Okay. I I'm s for tears. And then uh Amy Amy Doyle will also sit in on that. And that's also just for everyone's knowledge. Um the admin
072team has been being involved in policy as well and that's becoming and will become I think continue to be a common practice. All right. Curriculum and assessment which will also be an Amy admin thing. So Andrea, do you want to stick around? I do. Okay, Suzanne, you and I are gonna see a lot of each other. I know. I Because I sort of feel like you don't want CIP or finance. Like that's not my wheelhouse. I don't know. I mean, I'm willing to learn. Um, but come join me. Yeah. I feel like curriculum and assessment is kind of my niche. So, I would love to work with you. That would be awesome. That's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Be thrilled. I'll be sad to make chatty conversation with our teachers, but they will appreciate me not dragging
073minutes, so that's okay. Okay. CIP LA this past year for 2425 with Jonathan and Norm with Norman off. Um I think my understanding was that Rob, you're moving in. Does that work for everybody? Great. And I love CIP. It's a tough tough thing, but I will look forward to talking to you guys about it. It's wonderful. Jim Renziki is the uh the key uh member of the district admin team that attends that and obviously the superintendent comes as well and BA. Yeah, safety and security. This was Rob and Jonathan this year. Uh Rob, you want to stick with it? It's a quarterly meeting. Sure. Great. Uh I would love that given that this will oversee the potential entrance project. Jonathan, if you are not feeling like you are wedded to this, I would love to
074be on safety and security. Sure. Is that okay? Yep. Great. Is anyone else dying? Okay, cool. Thanks. Um, EMC. Um, oh, and Carrie is the the admin rep for safety and security for EMC. This is another Jim Rosiki. Um, oh yeah, stick around on that one. Andrea. Uh, energy management. Yeah, yep. And then if you guys are good with it, Andrea and I could stick with that unless anyone is jumping in. I never work with them. That's right. Yeah. Apparently, um it's worth noting we have flagged this I think at this at a meeting before. Um we will talk at the board board retreat in June about like now that CIP has the work from EMC the company and EMC the committee are there like what are the two lanes for each and what does
075that look like so that we're not duplicating work. But we can have that discussion and figure out what those lands look like. Finance and budget. All right, Rob. Look at you guys. Terrific. And do you want to stay as the budget rep? Yes. Amazing. Jonathan, I heard Yeah. Great. Okay. All right. Going going back to your roots from budget committee. Oh, man. Going to feel like going home. That's right. Um, and Amy, obviously, uh, the new superintendent and Laura spend a lot of time in and around as well. Yes. Okay. Do we want to send a board member to Wellness? Are we okay not sending a board member? It's a interim meeting. You go, right, Laura? Do you want to just report back to us? Sure. When does that typically meet? It's quarterly. It It
076doesn't have a defined date at this point. Um, but like time of day type, afternoon, 2:30, 3 o'clockish typically. Oh, mostly teachers, staff. Yeah. I just like trying to figure out if I volunteer, could I get there? Uh, do you guys meet in person? Right now, we meet in person. I think I'm certainly open to having it be, you know, on on Google Meet instead to have everybody have it easier to get there. However, not all of our staff that are on it have devices to be able to do an an, you know, a virtual meeting. Okay. So, it is in person. We move it. It's been at Harold Martin in the conference room this past year. And we also have a health health trust rep that actually comes and sits on the wellness committee,
077too. So, our May meeting if um is coming up and we're going to be looking at items to do for 2526. If someone wants to just come in and see if you feel like it would be a benefit, it's wonderful. We also are trying to get some community involvement because that's part of the policy. Okay. Does anyone Do you want Do you want to try? Yeah, I can try to You can try. What is What is your work schedule? Is there time? You're not out till 3, but if it's a quarterly thing, we'll we'll see, right? It's something that I can be like Yep. Got my my chairs for the last 15 20 minutes. I believe it normally starts at 3:00. Okay. All right. Well, let's try and we'll see how that great. Okay. So,
078chairs of committees, if you have upcoming meetings before the end of year, please um make sure you're looping in all the people. All right. Terrific. Okay. Last but not least, policy. Policy. Yep. So, we have a bunch of second reads tonight. Um I put in felt very proud of myself figuring out how to put in briefing notes. So, um, the policies, uh, DAFF, Administration of Federal Grants, EHAB, data governance and security. Um, oh, I skipped EC in my write up. EC, buildings and grounds management, and JFABD, uh, admissions of homeless children and unaccompanied youth. Those four policies were policies that we already had in place. Um all of them are required by statute and all had statutory updates. Um so this is our your second time seeing them. Policies D AFB which is equivalence and
079instructional staff and materials and summer activities are also both required by statutes. They are new policies that we did not have on the books. Um, so if there are any questions about those and these are our second reads, so we will they will get published live tonight and then we'll do a third and final read at the end of night. Correct. Questions about the IHCA the the summer activities. Yeah. Um, right. So, I'm still learning, but the ED 306 rules, right, are kind of in flux on the regular, right? And there's been some um proposals, but nothing new has been adopted. Am I right? Right. A bunch of stuff went to committee but it sort of was stalled because this previous year I had questions because the summer activities in the 306 rules that I'm
080seeing couple of things that on the New Hampshire schoolboard association that recommended policy has not been updated since 2014. Yeah. And if you look at the ED 306 rules, the summer activities is in reference to ELOs's. And I actually don't think that this policy addresses the actual the what? Yeah. So these address I mean you can see down and I did I did all the research. So the the actual where this is it's like bullet point like E underneath ELO's and ELO's right are talking about opportunities to earn credit and the last one is like summer activities in relation to earning credit over the summer. Yeah. So that's my question in terms of like this doesn't really address credit. Yeah. We have a separate policy for ELOs's. So that if it is regarding earning credit,
081that would fall under the yellow policy. The summer activities policy, we basically are just asked to say, "Yes, we think you should continue learning in the summer." So I don't think the the purpose of this policy was not to get the credit aspect, right? But that's what it's nestled under in 306 rules, right? It's under that particular like on the list of I question because the school board association hasn't updated it since 2014 right because I don't think it had so in multiple different places either it's not right even there under the ED 306 rules or it's nested under the ELLO and so I was like I don't think this addresses I mean and the other part is I have issues with having a policy where it's like read a book if we're not helping
082to facilitate that in any way shape or form like to have a policy where we say and I think that's the why it is. So this is the what I found interesting about working with Jonathan in policy this year is that you know if you have it in policy you have to do it um and so sometimes it is better to have a policy that it's going to be correct me if I'm wrong like it is not going to restrictive yeah like and I appreciate that but again I would argue that doesn't have to do it and so I would say how are we encouraging students to have a plan for summer activities Well, it says encourage. It's not actually encouraging. Yeah. It just says that we encourage. It does not say we shall. So,
083it's like when you're looking some AP courses give summer packets. Some other That's what I'm interested, right? Like what are we doing? Uh ELA classes give summer reading. Um we didn't have anything on the book. So, this is we're essentially doing it without a policy. Can we touch base with M schoolboard association and see if this actually is still it is still policy? Yeah, it's in so it's in I can show you I I I did it has not been touched since 2014 and it doesn't match up with the New Hampshire 36, right? Yeah, this is this is I've called them. They're super they'll talk to you. Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is like maybe we can talk after, but my issue being that it has not been updated correct on the actual policy
084and it does not reflect. It's actually printed on the like gener 306 rules. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you all know your own policy. Yeah. We have policy meeting on third day. All right. So, I will flag this one. Awesome. Thank you. Um and the rest of them if you have questions between now and the next meeting because ideally at the next meeting this one sounds like there will be discussion around it but on the other runs if you have questions please get them to policy prior to the next meeting. Yes sir. Get them to policy right now. Yes. Um so the equivalence in instructional staff and materials um under A1 the maintenance of effort. I think this like we have a class-siz policy for the elementary schools, but we don't have a policy that
085supports our vision of programmatic budgeting for the middle high school. This sort of speaks to that. So, as you're reviewing, maybe have a discussion about whether or not this supports that notion through a policy, not just our expectations. Yeah, that makes sense. In one on the one hand it does and then the other it doesn't because of the or attendance make such allocations unfeasible. I don't know what the heck that means, right? I mean, I know what it means, but I don't know what it means in application, right? Okay. It would be good if it could be in there. Which policy was that specifically? D AFB. Yep. The equivalent of instructional material materials. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that one was a weird one. Okay. Okay. Anything else on any of the other policies? Again, if you
086have any questions, please send them to Andrea and Suzanne. All righty. Woohoo. All right, with that guys, I think we're at the end of our current business. Mike, what's up? Uh, we got a lot going on in our district right now. Laura is going to run out of breath going over all our hiring. Uh, but in regards to hiring this year, um, it has been, uh, well, I'm excited for the people that we have coming on board. Um I I am going to see say as you're going through nomination packets that uh last year we saved nearly $500,000. I have to say that again. This year we have targeted a few areas that have been struggling over the past couple years. Um meaning you might see some higher um higher on the salary scale this
087time around because we really needed to target some of those areas for support and growth. Um but we have we have balanced it pretty well with uh upand cominging young professionals new to the profession uh as well as some veteran people. So without further ado if you want to begin sure reading. We as Mike said we have a significant amount of new hires tonight. Most of them are for the 25 26 school year. I am very happy to say that we found a school psychologist which is a position that has been vacant for a few years. I heard Jessica White will be filling our school psychologist role. And where is that? Which building is that for? District wide. I thought it is districtwide, but right now more middle high school. Okay, great. Laura Laura's been
088covering Harold um in not Yep. Um Selene Gordon, do you do you need to know who they're replacing? Do you need me to say that out loud? say with the positions. Okay. Selene Gordon will be taking the one-year fifth grade teaching position at Maple Street School, right? And Cassidy John will be filling the one-year leave of absence position um in kindergarten in Harold Martin. Great. Cheyenne Welch, who uh currently is a IIA for us, recently finished her degree and became an IIA and has is being nominated as the replacement for Terry Grady, first grade teacher. Isa Hino has been a long-term or a substitute for us for a while, has done some ESY, has done some IA work. She is being nominated as a kindergarten teacher. She is completing her master's program in as we
089speak essentially in May. Amazing. Jacob Bosch, high school English teacher. This is the new 1.0 English position that we um created in the budget process. Allison Smith, 8th grade English teacher, taking over for Patricia Walton, who is retiring. Christine Lightsy, second grade teacher for and replacing Meredith Post, who um her resation is late is a little bit later tonight. Two more. Uh Nicole Sloan will be taking the new HMS special educator position created this year. And then lastly, um Rodney Nrea is being nominated as the new maintenance worker for Teamsters who and he's replacing Joseph Parent. Wow. So, we have been busy a lot. Great. Excellent. Any questions on the new hires? No. Okay. For resignations tonight, Meredith Post, second grade teacher, effective date is June 30th. And Victoria Periggo has been a part-time IIA
090at the middle high school. Um, she has been off quite a bit this semester. She's back at school and she has unfortunately told us she's not returning after school is done. So her effective date is tonight. Okay. And then finally, current employees with additional contracts. Anner is an IIA at the high school. She will be doing some additional work after school for extracurricular activities for one of our students who is participating. Great. Amazing. We got to go hiring teams at all the buildings and it's a lot of work. That's right. It's a lot of work. A lot of work. Lot of work. But getting them locked up now in May is was really great. It's huge. Great. Um, we have no donations or financials tonight. Uh, the financial update from me will be in regards
091to our fund balance discussion that we have at this time of the year that comes around. I know finance, we're going to schedule a meeting here soon. Uh, met with Mr. Rziki today, talked to Matt Stone, Laura. uh we're going to be putting together our list uh basically of of things that the board can vote on either to move forward with or whether you move it towards the contingency fund. We want to have all that information for you. Uh we're going to have um a draft for May 22nd so that you can then make a what is it? May 20th. May 20th and then you can make a determination at June 10th on what you want to do. So June 9th. So, any of these dates we have coming up, those meetings, you're going to
092have information provided and we'll go from there. But, um, we'll have a list of multiple things, whether it's from the CIP or whether it's hanging that's been hanging out there on stuff. Um, and you guys get to make those decisions. Great. Super. Great. Okay. Anything else on our consent agenda? Superintendent's update, teacher appreciation week. Thank you, teachers. Yes. You know, it's it's always interesting to see. Uh I sent an email on Sunday as I was returning from vacation and just to wear jeans all week, as you can see, we're casual, most of us. Um and I I think it might be my the most thank yous I've gotten all year. So, uh little things go a long way in a teachers world when they don't have to think about their outfits. But, um definitely what
093they do all all year long, not just the teachers, it's really staff appreciation week. Yeah. Um, and and as Dave said, I mean, you guys were It was pretty neat to hear you talk about relationships there. And I think I've been saying it since I've been here, the relationships that our teachers develop, um, is pretty remarkable. So, I hope they have a good week in their buildings and and the little things that the principles in the buildings are doing can go a long way, but we certainly thank them. Yeah. Yep. Thank you to our teachers and all our staff. Great. Okay. And with that, do I have a motion to ex accept uh the pre consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Second. Okay. I Great. Okay. I I
094I I uh Yeah. Is that a I do I get have a final eye? Great. Thank you. Any opposed? Thank you. I know we're almost there. Guys, I have one more thing before we go through committee updates uh that I forgot. Uh we have our draft newsletter in the folder. Um, thank you everyone for getting all of their reports over um, this lovely weekend um, or Friday. Um, and then also Andrea for putting this into Canva since we know that's not my strong suit. Um, so the things that we're covering just so everyone knows is announcing Amy Doyle. um an amplified and strong reader update talking about a finance update coming out of the school district meeting, the special education IEP process, and important end ofear dates for people who are jazzed to know what
095are what are the big things coming up. Um I think this is great. Um we co-wrote it together, but please review it. Um let me know if you have any edits, changes. Uh otherwise, Matt Stone will be looking to send it out, I'm hoping on Thursday. if possible. Thank you. I'll send you a note, but ideally via amplify and then we'll ask uh Susan to post it as well and get on the website all the things. All right. By car. Sound good? Yes. Terrific. All right. With that, committee updates, party people, let's do this policy. Anything else I think you talked about? Nope. We have an upcoming meeting. Great. CNA, nope. Nothing for the rest of the year. CIP, anything else new? We just had a public hearing. Uh, safety and security. Rob, you're meeting.
096We're meeting. We're meeting this month like um we are meeting on the 20th. Wow, great. Okay, cool. Um EMC, we met right before um right before break. Uh there's a couple things we talked about. One is at the meeting prior we had talked about if there was any work that we could do um at particular at the middle high school trying to reload balance uh the waste at the schools because uh there's quite a few things that could be composted or recycled that are going straight into trash and so I think we developed a pretty good plan around that. Um the students there did a waste audit. Amy Roth also on the same day was doing a waste audit here at Maple Street. Um, and we went through some of the scenarios that we got
097from EMC. So, I think it's a great and really fun committee. Everyone should come. Uh, but we have we'll probably have one more meeting um before the end of the school year. And we met our new student rep. Uh, Flo already took care of that, which is great. So, yeah, Lucy Beardmore, which is great. Okay. There is an upcoming CIP meeting on May 20th at 4:45. Okay. Um, we'll be reviewing the bids that came in for the Maple Street Boiler project and hopefully bringing them to approve, potentially bring them for approval at that night. Great. The bids are due on Friday. Great. So, somehow that's not on my So, that's good that you mentioned it. May 20th. Yep. May 20th, 4:45. 445. Do you want me to send you the invite again, Jonathan? Yeah, if
098you don't mind. You don't mind. Cool. And then finance and budget. You guys will meet before the next meeting. Yeah, we need to set some up for Okay, so there's nothing set. Perfect. Great. Okay. And with that, let me go back to the old agenda. Um, we are now to the second public comment portion of the evening. Want to come up? Name, address, okay, thanks Lauren. Um, any other business, old business, otherwise? Okay, we do not have a need for non-public at 653. I told you, Jonathan, I was predicting 7 p.m. Uh, do I have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? All right, you guys.