Public Hearing and School Board Meeting 4/15/25

001district building and rem repair maintenance fund for the following not to exceed $294,000 Maple Street School Boiler Replacement Project for a total of $294,000 immediately following the hearing at the school board meeting. The board will vote on an action item regarding the withdrawal from the school district building and repair maintenance funds. All interested residents are encouraged to attend the hearing and provide oral comments. Um, and I believe we're going to start with a presentation. We are. Great. Um, Jim Rosiki facilities, thank you for giving me a little bit more air time today. I wanted to do um a a brief presentation. There's only four slides to give the nitty-gritty of what this project is about just to answer a lot of the common community questions uh that are often asked and to give people some

002visual of the actual space. So, I dropped this presentation in the board folder. So, um I know the screen is a little cockeyed, but you guys can you guys see that? Okay. Hope the wording is too small. Do you want me to move this so you guys can see it? We got it. Yeah. Okay. So, um first and foremost, here is a picture of the boiler room of the two pieces of equipment that we are going to be replacing. On the right is a 27y old HB Smith oil burner and uh right in the back off to the left is the existing oil hot water heater. Um again you could see by the age here about 27 years old for the for the um boiler burner and 14 for the hot water tank. Um both

003at pretty much at end of life and uh ready for replacement. I'll get into some reasons why um in the in the next slide, but um that's a visual of this space. Um what's going to be remaining obviously the plet boiler that's 7 years old that's staying. And then uh when they did the plet boiler, they did the circulator pumps at the same time. Those are still in good condition and those ain't even all right. Why we replacing that besides just the age? So, um I think it was pretty uh not abrupt but vocal at previous meetings that we had some real challenges this year um at Maple Street with heating. Uh we had some some issues and some downtime with the pellet boiler which caused our oil boiler to kick in and run for

004that but we discovered some issues. So um we had a partial failure in December um and on the boiler itself which is only able to operate in low fire um with the burner. So as you could see in this this a oil cast iron oil boiler is consists of sections that are sandwiched together um and they're usually like a roping material with some um with a product to maybe seal those up a little bit better. And as you can see on the bottom left of the section, um that's a combustion leak. That's signs of a combustion leak and uh which was identified through our normal PM cleaning uh process. Uh there are ways like you can dismantle the whole boiler, have them machined out and reput together at a massive expense. Uh but does not

005guarantee at all that it will go back the same way and uh all the leaks were sealed. So again, 27 year olds cast iron uh may not just it just is not worth the risk as far as the um a couple different vendors that I've spoke with about what I should do here. So um that's that's a big issue. Um it was sealed. You could see some of this orange or maroon type uh cocking or adhesive. It's a high heat. Uh that was put in that gap to prevent it, but it's not meant to be a a permanent fix. Uh just a couple other reasons is obviously the pellet boiler is not able to handle the complete load of the of heating in the middle of winter. So we do need a backup and if

006you're asking uh again a further question on why it we're not just going all pellet we have redundant systems in each boiler room at every school. So even though we may have a machine to heat the whole building, there's always a backup just like two pumps to send it out. So you don't have any downtime in the middle of winter. So that's the pretty much the skinny on redundancy. All right. So a little bit about our process. So um I decided to uh in an effort to save some money to project manage this. So there's five different components between four different possibly five different contractors. So, first is removing the underground oil tank. As you can see in the picture, it's right off to the right here under a a cement slab. That will be

007taken out. Uh we'll have mechanical demo the existing boiler room uh with new uh liquid propane condensing high high efficiency boilers and water heater. They'll do all that plumbing work and and tie those in. Uh the propane tank installation, we would want to put those underground. Those I know it's kind of odd with the oval. Um that may not be the exact spot. Uh but we will have a gaping hole in the ground from the existing oil tank which will try to get as close there as possible. We just have to be a certain amount of feet off the building. Chances are we'll put two underground uh tanks in there. So that will be um Sorry, I'll back up. So we have mechanical contractor for the uh the the actual equipment. We have another contractor

008to demo the oil tank. We have the propane company that is going to install the new uh propane tank and run the lines to the building um and then do the connections there. Uh we also will be disturbing some of this area for pavement. So we'll have to get it repaved. probably ask DPW for a couple rocks or stones to create as ballard to protect uh the fillport and any damage potentially from snow removal. Um, and finally, uh, with some of the issues that we've had this year on the pellet boiler, I I had the owner of Rolling Energy come down and, uh, he suggested an efficient, uh, piping modification, uh, on the on the plet system into the hot water loop that they discovered is um, sorry, will be an increase added efficiency. So,

009I will probably end up having the uh our mechanical contractor do that piping um and and go from there. So, I got again four or five different contractors that I'll be coordinating through this. I've already met with most of them and got ballpark quotes. Um we did a a formal bid. I think it was a week and a half or two weeks ago. Um this Thursday is a pre-bid mandatory pre- bid walkthrough with with um interested contractors. So, we'll be doing that on site. Um, finally, when we have those, I think our bid due date is around the 19th. We'll meet with CIP. Uh, CIP will run through that and we'll be ready on that evening for the school board approval for the mechanical contract. Uh, the estimate was provided by um energy management consultants,

010which every everybody knows that we partnered with to do a facilities analysis about 10 months ago. Um, so they've been a really helpful partner in giving me guidance on, uh, the process, um, anticipated quotes, uh, equipment that we may want to spec out for, uh, replacement that have worked well in other applications. So, I don't just pull these numbers out really. So, uh, snapshot of the financials again, uh, 294 not to exceed. I with even with everything um unforeseen I feel that we're not going to hit that number but that was just a safe estimate. Anything that is below that stays in the maintenance trust. We don't take that out. Again another calculation from um energy management consultants was potentially $7,500 a year just in fuel costs going from uh uh oil to propane. So

011uh that was pretty that was pretty cool. um almost 2,000 bucks a year in operational savings. Again, I could just go back in a register and see how much we've spent with just maintaining that oil boiler and hot water heater because it's oil, so it needs a little bit more lemon care. Um plus our yearly oil tank inspections that that are mandatory that need to be done by the state. So, there are some savings there. Utility rebates, again, um we never know if they're available or not, but those will be getting sucked out. And last but not least, uh, the CIP committee was fully in favor of this project. I hope that answered a lot of questions, but of course, I'm willing to hear more. Excellent. Great. Thank you for doing it. Oh, thanks. All

012right, guys. Hi. Sorry I'm late. Uh, any questions, everybody? Jim, what's the typical life expectancy for what's going to be put in, not what's going out? like uh high efficiency uh condensing gas boilers can still do 25 um is maybe average. Again, it's all on regular maintenance, all how you take care of it and use um I just have to lay the groundwork like I want the pellet boiler to be the workhorse at this school front and center. So our control system is vitally important that I don't want this unit coming on until the building's not satisfied. Um the argument can can be made in the other way that some of these bumper times like uh early fall and spring where we just need a little bit of heat to get take that edge off

013the the condensing uh propane boiler could be very very effective on that instead of waiting for the pellet system to heat up fully. So there's a dance you kind of do but uh the less I can run it the better. And how big are the propane tanks that'll be installed? suggested two 1000 underground tanks which is typical household cylinder that goes underground and the hope is that we don't find any trouble taking when we take the oil tank out. Correct. Um that would be an unanticipated cost if that leaked or was leaking. We talked about that with that 290. I know that's a huge number again even though we expect to be lu up but there might be ledge in in the spot or there might be asbestous in the exhaust flu of the existing

014tanks. So there there's contingency for those unexpected things. But the but the good news is switching to propane lessens the likelihood that we run into that danger a second time. Correct. We want to get as close to the open oil tank hole as possible to save on excavation costs if we can use the same trash. It's just safer. Is there any I guess I'm thinking about the landfill and the uh you know all the stuff that's happened there above ground tank versus an underground storage tank now that you know we are removing it is it have we explored that option? Sure. Um can I put you on the spot because we reached out to Primeax and asked this very question. insurance. Yeah. Yeah. So, what what the risk is. So, yeah. Would you mind? I

015don't mind. So, we've explored above ground, we've explored underground, um and we checked most importantly our insurance coverage in terms of tanks and what that is. So, we learned from our insurance company. It is recommended certainly that the propane tanks come from a vendor. um that our insurance company does cover the property itself if it's above ground. If the tanks are underground um then the property isn't covered and the they cover us essentially for the cost of the tanks if we were to buy them. So our thought is to um work with a vendor to have them put their tanks underground. So we would be then like essentially leasing or renting their tanks and then they would cover everything if if there were a leak, right? Then they would be responsible for taking care of

016it, right? So similar to when we have tanks in residential areas, right? So for example, my house, the tank doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the service company that, you know, fills it with propane and services my boiler. So it is their responsibility to maintain it and take care of it. We also don't know that there's a great spot to put them above ground. Um, and that was just my question. I Yeah, I just have some, you know, I'm thinking of the what's recently happened at the question. Right. The nice thing is that we talked a bit about propane leaks and that they are less much less detrimental. Correct. Than oil leaks. An oil subsurface. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? No, I think that the one other thing that caught my eye and you

017already talked about it, Jim, is just, you know, I know you have decades of experience doing this and so just the idea of the importance and best practice of having redundant heat sources um really stood out to me. Um, and I like that we're switching over to having the plet burner be our primary source with this as the backup. So, I thought that was important to point out. The visuals are also really helpful. Thank you. Appreciate it. Lovely help. All right. Any other questions from the board? Uh, we have public comment. If you'd like to come up, please state your name, address, and we ask you keep it to three minutes. Okay. Okay. All right. We will be voting on this at the board meeting to follow immediately. All right. Thank you, Jim. Thank you.

018Appreciate it. Can we make Can you attach this PowerPoint to Diligent? I just did. I just got to share it. I was waiting for him to be done. Just did. Can you ask Jody to attach that? I got good news. It's already done. Just dead. Just dead. Oh my gosh. I like when I don't have the killing. Okay. Uh, so Dan just texted that athletes probably not going to make it. Okay. So, we have to bump up if they walk through the door next minute, which I heard. And he's not here to talk about it. Okay. Do you want to go ahead and start? Did you do the raise of pets? I uh I had a long conversation with myself and said falling off is not a good idea. It didn't seem like the best

019weather. Bus wants to guys that I know who did it. All right. They should have. We ready? You're the only scholar that we're riding. Board, we ready? Okay. All right. All right, everyone. Matt, we're good. Welcome to the April 15th meeting tax day of the Hopton School Board. I am here with Rob Nato, Jonathan Cohen, Suzanne Carmichael, Andrea Folsam, I'm Dulce Madam Palma, superintendent Michael Flynn, assistant business administrator Laura Taylor, business administrator and jean jacket, Michelle Clark, uh Jody Conn, and our student repus. Um, if everyone could please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Michelle, lead us in your last meeting. Yeah. 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. Wait, what?

020You didn't think I was going to let you wait, right? Okay. We're doing we're doing some training. So, okay. Okay. Has Laura sitting right now? Um, we have two sets of uh minutes to approve for this evening. One is from the uh schoolboard meeting on April 1st and the other is from the public hearing on April 1st. Do I have a motion to approve both sets of meetings, please? Second. Okay. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Terrific. Um we are now at the first public portion public comment portion of the evening. If you'd like to come up, please state your name and address in three minutes if possible. Okay. All right, Flo, you're up. What's shaking? Um, okay. I have a lot of updates because Noah and I went to visit

021both schools in between these meetings, but then he's at baseball now, so I have to give the update on it. Um, so I'll start with you. Um, I'll start with Harold Martin. So, we went to Martin yesterday and we got an awesome tour with Patrice and a first grade student and we went to Miss Forgil's first grade classroom first and they were doing their weekend reports. So, we heard some people had like some birthday parties, stuff like that. Um, and then we went to the library special to learn about animal crossings and there were some pretty cool examples like there's a koala crossing and a crab crossing that we learned about like bridges. Um, and then we went to a music class and they told us about folk songs and how they like tell a

022story with with a song. And then the kids wanted to have a dance party with us. So, we had a dance party with them and one kid like basically tackled Noah and he was on the ground and it was really funny. Um, they we asked them like, "What do you guys like about school?" And they all just said like basically everything like everything they did was mentioned like all the specials they did. As as with all the schools, there was some debate about math and electronics. Um how much of those they wanted or like um but it seemed it was just really cute to see all the kids and talk to them about their classes. Um, and then I went to Maple Street too the week before and the first thing I saw when I

023came in was the chorus group in in here, which literally took up the entire cafeteria, like probably from where I was all the way over was just chorus kids. Um, and band has even more kids. So then we went to Miss Christiey's fifth grade class and they talked about how they love playing Gaga Ball in the new Gaga Ball pit and they're doing bucket drumming and music and ceramics. Um, and they also debated how much math time they would like to have in school. Um, and then we went to the sixth grade classes where they talked about how they liked having more like hands-on activities, like they like doing labs in science class. They like like writing on a whiteboard in math. Um, and yeah, it was great to visit Maple Street. I also got

024to see the hydroponics over there, which uh Carrie was very excited about. And then at the high school, uh, we've got the sports games starting this week. Mr. Rizzer probably has more to say about that, but but there's like games every day and the first track meet is today and stuff. Um, the Hawin and District Festival for like music across the whole district is going to be next Friday at the high school. So that's like the day before break. all the kids in grades four through 12 who are doing band or chorus come to high school and it's like a million kids and they're all like playing music at the same time and it's very chaotic but it's like a great opportunity to see all the across the grade levels. Um and then the clothing

025swap is next Tuesday on April 22nd in the cafeteria and at school the juniors were taking the SATs today and also Thursday and then they're doing science testing next week. So Joey, did you drop off all your clothes? I did. I just told her I gave her four bags. Someone's going to have a lot of condom on those. Amazing. Yeah. So that's the update. That's a great update. That's a great update. That's comprehensive. Is it And everyone's excited for break. Yeah. Um any questions for Flo? Did it remind you of being like back in the younger grades? Yeah. Yeah. Especially because we went to all the classrooms like I had Miss Forge and Miss Christie. Oh, that's really fun. That's great. I'm glad you guys did that. Anyone else? Uh, just a couple of things

026from the state house this week. Oh, yeah. Any other questions for Flo? Any other questions for Flo? Oh, no. Sorry. Okay. Great. Terrific. Go for it. Yeah. Comments. Let's go. Um, just uh some of you probably dialed in that the HB6 675 the budget caps came out uh as amended. Uh so thank you to the 35 people that uh stood forward or pushed that forward to come out. Um we will see what happens now that it's over in the Senate. The school choice feature is still embedded in their budget. So we'll see how that goes. Um, in conversation with some folks who lobby a fair bit in town, they seem to think that the Senate will see I don't want to say wiser minds, but wiser minds will prevail and a lot of that stuff

027will get stripped out. We can hope. Okay. Thank you, Jonathan. Anything for you this week? Okay, go ahead. One other thing. Yeah. Um, so today we've got from the New Hampshire Retirement System, uh, a news flash that I get because I'm a part of that system. And one of the things that is in that budget is that the state would be contributing 7 and a half% to the New Hampshire retirement system versus zero. Yeah. So maybe that piece of the puzzle would be nice to see that. Sorry. Great. That's welcome. Awesome. Jonathan, nothing. Suzanne. All right, Andrea. Yes. I went to um both shows of 12th Night on Friday and Saturday. Um and just wanted to give like public kudos to um Fiona. She was the um Fiona McDonald was the director and the students.

028I mean, this was it's all in Shakespeare and it was a lot of lines that they memorized and it was funny. And it was set to a 1970s Cape Cod aesthetic, which was very fun. Pacific coastal grandma. Yep. Exactly. So, it was a great time and just wanted to give a shout out to the students uh and to Fiona for doing an excellent job. Great. Awesome. Okay, cool. And I don't have anything. Uh all right, the uh for public hearing CIP. Um, so we just had a public hearing uh related to um the Maple Street School Boiler Replacement Project. Um, do I have a motion? Go ahead. Laura drew it up for you. She did. Looking I'm looking. I'm looking. There's the paper. Okay. Thank you. All right. Do I have a motion to approve

029moving forward with the Maple Street boiler and hot water heater replacement project to be funded through the school district building repair and maintenance and expendable trust fund. The cost of this project is not to exceed $294,000. Yeah. So moved. Al second. Great. Good second. All right. Any discussion? I appreciated the presentation. I think it's helpful to see. I just want to Sorry. Yep. You may. Yep. So with with Jim I just want to reiterate the work that he's done in the three years that he's been here as he's coming to his first three-year cycle period. People were literally recruiting him for services all the time. Um the state of New Hampshire was recruiting him. That that's the talent level he puts and the detail he puts into it. So the work that he's done, the

030change that he's made, even from Maple, excuse me, Harold Martin and the curb appeal that happened within the past week and the guy is always working with someone to try and make the things better here. So I just appreciate the time and effort. I know I get on your nerves uh with the new project that we're dealing with at the middle high school. Um it's always something and he's always just working to fix and improve. So thanks J. Just really appreciate that. Actually just at one more point I also appreciate that you took on the job as project manager. It's not an easy thing to do and oftent times we will you know bid that out have somebody else do it. You know I know it's a cost-saving measure but it's also a ton of

031work. So um I appreciate that we're able to keep that in house as well. Yeah, I would just say the redundancy is great. That boiler from those photos does not look terrific. Uh, and I know the EMC has weighed in uh quite a bit on it. You've done a ton of diligence, so I appreciate it. Um, also thank you for continuing to work on the controls because that is a huge driver of HVAC efficiency and it's not simple. Um, so thank you. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All righty. Thank you. Sure thing. Congratulations, Boiler City. Um, all right. Our scholar athletes are not able to make it this evening after all, so they will get moved to another meeting. Um, and let's go through and run go through

032an alphabetical order. Um, athletic update alphabetical order. Yeah, you can sit next to Flo. Yeah, thank you. Next to a brown sweatshirt. Oh, that's right. I mean, they are your school colors though. That's true. Okay. Uh, first of all, I apologize to all athletes. Couldn't be here tonight. We track baseball running late and we've got other things going on at school. My uh reminder email failed to go today. So, I apologize for that. We're getting at some other point. As Flo said, games have started. We started yesterday. Um, it's been a crazy start waking up Saturday morning. I did not think we would start games on Monday, but I want to really huge shout out to Skate, to Greg Roberts, and and the crew who's just gotten everything going and the fields are in good

033shape. Um, also on the home front to Jim and James and everybody who's taking care of things at the school as well to make sure that our kids can get out there safely. Um, it's been a it's been a pretty good start to things. Our coaching staff is is full hopefully after tonight especially. Um, the one thing we don't have is a trainer. we will continue what we've had all year long, which is calling 911 and and following our emergency action plan. Um, that's kind of where we stand in a nutshell. Can you just talk about last year we had track and field thing happen and we bought the new screen, but you're working in conjunction with the town to lay the cement and if you don't mind. Sure. So, last year we did have

034an incident with a discus. Um, we thanks to Mike and to you guys, we managed to buy a discus cage. Unfortunately, by the time it came in, we had about 10 days before the end of the season. Um, and one of the first things we have to do is we've got to create a new pad at the high school. And I talked to Dan Blanchad. We tried to organize around getting a a pad that was poured at in conjunction with town doing some work and our schedules just did not work out. So, we have a pad that has been um skinned and is ready to get to get um probably going to be asphalted and he's going to do that as soon as he can get some asphalt going this year. We do have to

035install the the the area. It includes digging six holes, each one about 28 in deep. Um I've got a post hole digger in my office and I'm waiting for the right day to go and do it. If any wants to join me, please uh all the marrier on that one. Um, but that's what we're gonna have to do with this one and get it cemented and get it put in. My hope is we get it in beginning of May. Okay. Thanks. So, that's questions for D. Where's it? Where's it going to go, Dan? So, if you think of um there's the tennis court and then there's the basketball court and there's one one pad already there on the side of the basketball court. The plan is to make that disc, excuse me, the shot button.

036The kids can throw parallel with the basketball court. So, that should be fine. Putting another pad in between those two, the pad and tennis court. And that one's actually come out towards the school. And by putting the cage around it, we can use the discus and the cage will protect people around that one. We can still use the other pad for the javelin. This is the one up on the softball field. And that way, the other thing that would be nice, we can have three different events going at the same time, kids training, three different areas. We have a high school and a middle school track team of pushing a 100 kids total. It gets pretty packed out there. This gives us more safety, just gives us another arena to use that. So last fall,

037I skimmed the area. It's all prepped, ready to go. We just need the right day for asphalt pouring and then get the other stuff done. So, of the 40% of students who are participating in athletics, like 20% of them are doing track and field. So, 40% is is per season. That's about 40% here. Um, I would say that's probably accurate. Yes, we've got 45 I'm sorry, I said I said that say 100. I'm thinking last year's numbers. We had 46 at the high school and we about 30 at the middle school. So, we had about 75 kids. Last year, we had 63. Okay. So, about 75. So, it's not quite 40%. It's a good there. Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, do we have I have two questions. One, Julia Chapen is Leah Chapen. Is that right?

038Yes. It really threw me for a loop until I wrote it out and I was like, "Okay." Uh, and do we have do we have any insight on a pipeline for softball? Like, is the coach worried about there's no JV and baseball? Yeah. What does it look like? So, we had a really strange number scenario in spring. As you guys hopefully are aware, for the high school, we had 19 sign up for the high school. Yeah, we had 10 sign up for the middle school. Yeah, you really can't run a middle school baseball team with 10 kids. And thought about bringing sixth graders up, which we've done in some sports. For baseball, that field is huge. Seventh graders have a hard time. To bring sixth graders up, just didn't make sense. Yeah. So, on the

039other hand, having 19 at high school level, if we realistically cut there and go down to 15 kids, it's going to Those kids are never going to play baseball again and next year we're going to be in the same situation. So, in talking to Mike and talking to the coaches, what we decided to do is to wave up seven of those eighth graders. You can't bring up 10 uh seventh graders. We don't bring up the eighth graders. Bring them up and create a JB baseball team. Yeah. Just not have middle school for one year. Um I actually just came from a JB baseball game, the first one we've had in three years. They were I think they were down one nothing in the fourth inning when I left, but it was a good game. So,

040they're playing with that. We just don't have a a middle school baseball team this year. At the softball level, it was the other direction. We had 13 at the high school and we had 17, I believe it was for the middle school. Wow. But with 13 for the high school, that's not enough to create a JB team. And 17 at the middle school, you can't bring up, you know, nine, eighth graders. Even if we had that, then you've got eight kids left in the middle school team. It just the numbers were horrible. Um, so we ended up running just a varsity program. We've kept everybody in the on the middle school team. We just have a very big middle school team. And the hope is between these two programs. Next year, we're hoping to build

041these up against the varsity JB and middle school. Okay. Um I think this year worked out as well as it could and I appreciate the flexibility that you guys have shown in doing that. Um kids have a home to play and we didn't have to pet anybody. That's great. Thank you. Um, and last but not least, on buses, are a lot of our, and I should know this because I read your updates every day and apparently I don't retain them. Uh, but are any of the games doubled up in location to help solve with busing issues? I know that's like an impossible puzzle to figure out, but so next week we have a softball, we have middle school track that is going to cure. So, I managed to double up and I stuck our JB

042baseball teams on a bus with them. a separate bus picking them up later in the season with Belmont. We've got JB boys lacrosse and JB baseball. I managed to get Demetri game at Belmont. They're riding on the same bus. I haven't broken that to the coaches yet, but they'll do that one. So, whenever we can do that, um we have another one where we've got a a softball team. The varsity softball is going somewhere where the baseball is is not. And so, I think I have JB baseball going with them. Okay. It's just being creative. Okay. Y can. Anything else from the board? Thank you, Dan. Hawks. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, well, Mandy's next on all this. Okay. Go ahead, Mandy. Yeah, I think there's a better Yeah, we have reporting on what's linked

043in here. Uh, the board go to the drive. Yeah, I saw it there. That's the only reason. So, if you haven't been able to go back in, I changed the report a little bit from what I uh submitted yesterday and updated it hopefully to be a little bit more clear in what I was trying to explain, but then also not create panic, but not necessary um either. But anyway, um so spring is just busy, always is busy um just trying to do the day-to-day work of this school year, plan for next school year, and for me adding ESY into that. Um this week alone the number of interviews for case uh special educators at the middle high school and at Herald Martin we have plenty of them which is a great problem to have which

044just means we have a lot of applicants so it's wonderful. Um and we're also going to do some schoolside interviews this week. So that's really exciting. Um so we're working through all the things every day. Uh ESY programming uh this year will be from so extended school year always forget will be from July 7th to July 25th. It'll maintain that four days a week, four hours a day. Um I looked at it, it says four days a week, but I put Monday through Friday. So I'll update that. Um and it'll be four hours a day. We are talking about with um verify today that there'll be no hot water here at Maple. So Maple Street students and Herald Martin students will all be at Harold Martin. So we're just working on how we're going to

045do that. And one of the benefits of that is then we can change up, you know, how we deliver some services and add in some extra things that students may need. So we're pretty excited about that. Um but I'll continue to work with the staff for those. Um really the the bulk of my report is really about you know yes I'm preparing for the PAX process which is the program approval and general supervision. Every school district has to go through it. Interestingly though just by the timing of my role here and my role in my previous district I've never gone through one so I get to go through this for the first time too which is kind of exciting just to kind of go through and be like okay how can I be more efficient

046and effective in ways that I didn't even know but I could be. So it'll be it'll be great but we're only in that process because it's our turn. Yeah. Um there are some districts based on other pieces of information that may have to go through that for other reasons. That's not our purpose. Ours is just because it's our turn. Um but one of the areas that they look at um for the PAX process is the LEA determination that we get every year. These are all special education measurements. So it's not like a Hopkinson school district is this. It is what indicators do we really need to look at? And for us indicators, you'll see the list. It's a list of 14 indicators that they look at that then broken down. So assessments aren't just how

047do people score on assessments. There's multiple layers of how they break that out. Um so we get all the scores. They'll be uploaded eventually, but this is this is every little indicator piece that they look at. Um and really each individual indicator measure is measured whether or not we met the state target and then are we where we want to be or above or below depending on the measurement. below a state overall data. So you get a zero if you meet both, you get a one if you only met one, and you get a two if you're not meeting either one. So then you break down each indicator to figure that out. In this report, I've only focused on the overall. So on the overall LEA determinations, they break it into four categories. The results

048based one is really just graduation rate, dropout rate for students with IEPs. So this is the other part of that is that IEP dating. um disproportionality of things, educational environments, uh preschool environments, preschool outcomes, things like that. Honestly, we we did score a 30.77% in that because what they do is they here's the score you could make. Here's what you did make and then that's our percentage. So, we barely missed the meet requirement. And I'm not going to go into detail here simply because the reason we didn't meet requirement is because of one or two students. And there's really from an analysis standpoint nothing for me to analyze and say we could do this better. especially when you think of uh preschool outcomes. The way they measure that is with our we use TS Gold

049right now as a measuring system for all preschoolers. Um did students make substantial improvement from when they started to when they end. So when you're thinking about students with disabilities depending on their disability they might not meet the definition of substantial improvement according to TS Gold. they're not going to right but so what we would look at is did they meet their IEP because then we are measuring what we know they can make for growth right so some of those from the results based piece I can't change it might be the number of students moving from kinder to preschool to kinder and what is the ratio of IEPs and not in that group so it that can change every single year um depending on me the assessments part is really where I'm going to spend

050a big portion of my time and kind kind of doing a deeper root analysis. My regional director directors group we when we met last we went over briefly all of our scores. This is an area for a lot of them. We're all in the same place. So these areas are measuring participation rates in grades 4, 8, and 11. And math and reading are separated. They're their own indicator for each grade level. those we're solid on those which is great because in years previous we've kind of been hit or miss on some of those because of the way they're being measured but that's changed so that's a wonderful thing to see um then they'll also measure um proficiency so they're taking what is the number of students with IEPs that took the New Hampshire SAS how

051many of them and what percentage met proficiency there shows some good results too there's a couple of offshoots but overall pretty good um And then the other one, the real piece that I want to dig into a little deeper is what they call the gap proficiency. So this measurement is taking the percentage of all students that took it in that grade level and what was their percentage of prof proficiency and then subtracting the prof percentage of proficiency for special education. We're not far off, but how do we get deeper into that to see how we close that gap? Um, so and I'm not going to go into details because every percentage for every grade is a different target. So like fourth grade reading might be 30%, we're at like 34 or something like that. So

052it's again not far off, but how do we close that gap a little further? So I'll spend time over the next year really working through that. Um overall we did when you take those four areas, if you score in needs assistance in two areas, you're at a needs assistance overall. All that means for us is that I'm going to be working with the DOE. I've already signed up for a training. Um, I'm going to be doing some of their technical assistance work. We'll also work through this process because I'm going to be doing those root analysis things for the gap proficiency. So, I'll be working with them on how we can improve those too. So, though it looks like, oh my gosh, we need assistance, it is really just about those special education numbers and

053how we can just be more effective and efficient for kids in the pieces that we can control because some we can't. I mean, if we have a small amount of students with IEPs, well, like the graduation ones in Nessus, they're only taking drop down information from Nessa. So, when we exit students, we have to choose certain criteria. There was one student who didn't meet the actual criteria listed. So, it was actually like I I call the DOE and be like, "All right, how do I do this because this is a funky one, but I don't want him to be determined a dropout." Once you hit dropout other exits, it goes under like some of those graduation rate pieces, there was one. And because of the small sizes, our percentage scored us like a one or

054something on that one. So those are the kind of things like I can't control those. So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of energy there. I'll make sure we continue to do well um in the other areas because some there are some in my regional D district whose scores aren't meeting target because of clerical errors. in necess. So there's again what can we do to make things show what we're actually doing because we're doing some good work. So I want to make sure we continue that. But I did include what each indicator was, what each measures at the end of it. Um it's just a lot it's a lot of information that I don't want to like pop on too much, but well I can compare to the grant grant reviews like you

055just every once in a while you get your term for review. So we're in review for title one. Same thing you work through the process of areas of whatever improvement. I think the challenging part for us is the numbers right so the size comparative to what the quantifi you know statistics are working within so those are some of the challenges that we now have small sample size thank you that's that's where I was going I think it's helpful too that you put in the section results scale because you know in other things you want to score as close to 100% as possible in this case you want to score as close to zero as possible And so you hear 30 and you're like, "My gosh, we're doing so bad." But it's actually we're actually doing

056Suzanne that came in hot. It's in the board folder, not I had I also question actually you had mentioned that you were going to be working all year to kind of drill down and figure what is the timeline and then what are potential consequences if we don't meet. Yeah. So my my goal is that by the end of this school year, I have a better understanding of the why because then I can do the timeline of here's all the things we can do by the time we do another Here's the problem. The measurement for this was last school year. Okay. So when we get our next one, it'll be for this school year as we work on making the improvements. But really will we know because I'm only just starting now. Yep. And they're taking

057the SAS two weeks. Yep. Something like that. So a year behind. Yeah. So it might not and part of the work is really just about being more effective and efficient and how do we document all the things that are going well because we do have a small sample size but we should celebrate that we have kids with IEPs that are meeting proficiency, right? Like that's a it's not a all or nothing, right? It's not it's not all that, right? But we also we're not that far off from the percentages. So those are some things but we might not see the full results of the root cause analysis and then the work we do until the following rubric consequences. So really for us because this is a needs assistance two years in a row I have

058to do a training do technical assistance and tell the DOE how I utilize technical assistance. That's okay. Thank you. Very helpful. Mandy, uh Rob and Jonathan, it's like drinking water through a fire hose. Um is this sort of basically like me ask for special education this process? Do other people come in in the fall or is this all internal? So the so the LEA determinations that I kind of just rattled off, that's one part of the overall what they call PADS process. This is all information that is taken directly from Nexus. So they go into our Nessa system and basically do a desk audit. There are certain indicators like when we do indicator 11 and 12 which talks about timeliness of initial evaluations or um any of the other ones you can think of right

059now. They can just go in and check our dates in NES. That's how they determine every one of these scores and then they go get the New Hampshire SAS scores and that's how that's determined through the PADS process. still be some death audits, but parts of those processes, which I'll report out on as we go. Um, they will be in district, but again, all that will be reported out. And I just got my letter yesterday. I knew before, but I got my letter yesterday. So, I'm like, okay, now I've got to like, okay, so when I come back in June, I'll just report about like what are those first steps going to look like in the fall and and just kind of talk about what each of those look like. So, they're just reviewing technical

060data, not the art of nope. educating special needs students. Yeah, pretty I mean just like how can we be more effective? Are we are we meeting this? Are do we have any significant discrepancies between um whether it's race ethnic groups or disabilities not disabilities like there's all but the whole point of the process is to just be better. It is not coming in to be like what can I find for you? It's not going to be it's not meant to be consequential. It's meant to just improve what we're doing for kids. Is the NE N nex Nexus platform better than it has been in years past where you would get the gray screen of death as you were partway through a document or is that you don't get the gray screen much anymore, but it

061has its fun little quirks. Leave it at that. Well, and it's fun because when they do if they're not doing any major updates, they'll just do the monthly updates or every other month and all of a sudden something's different and we didn't know it was coming. When you do something all the time, don't change it. It drives me nuts, but really it's nothing. Third party stuff, you know. It's all just stuff. You know, I I think back to the the zones we talked about when we were doing the budget, you know, the moving from one zone to another zone of need, for lack of a better term, and trying to get to somebody earlier to prevent them from moving. Do we track at all how successful we're being in terms of kids that are moving

062into the more need or moving down? Are we tracking those numbers in any meaningful way year-over-year? Is there a way to do that? Because I'm just kind of thinking about metrics where the rubber meets the road kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I as you see in my board reports, I check the overall numbers all the time. What does that look like? What areas of disability are we finding more than others things like that to address those? Is it additional SLD, which is specific learning disability? Are we seeing more of the emotional disturbance part? And why? Like, so I look at that data all the time, but individually, even for students, we're looking at their IEP goals. Are they making can we continuously see that kids individually, not compared to the rest of their classmates

063or anything, are making progress on those goals? We have to check that all the time legally. So, we're doing that, too. Are there other things that I think even when we have the branching minds pieces in Yeah. we might be able to start to have some additional data there too to see how things shift and if there are any patterns within that too with your tier question. So the tiers, right? Tier one, two, three, right? Um there are there depends on what level you're at. Like at the middle school, there's team data that they they hold on to for the year. At the elementary level, it's more classroom data, but the branching mind stuff that we're trying to get to a more of a warehouse so that it kind of follows sometimes. That's that's the

064goal of some of those things points. And I realize also that it's going to be a little misleading because there's environmentality major major environmental factors that are outside control of the school. So that are going to affect these things. So I I get that too. I think the overall thing that I struggle with is is trying to I mean it's such a big piece of the budget. It's such a growing need and so how to kind of make sense of it amongst the backdrop of you know confidential information. It's it's it's an issue that I'm sitting here puzzling and not for the first time like how to kind of meaningfully try to understand it. Um because I, you know, I I get that this the state metrics and all that, but I feel like that's

065a um that's one metric. Mhm. Um anyway, not not a particularly coherent thought, but just kind of a more issue spotting on myself. But if ever if you're like, can you explain this a little bit more to me? And even if it's not in this setting, just reach out. Yeah, I mean, we'll schedule it because you're not just going to find me in my office most days, but we do. I'll just walk into an IEP meeting and ask me. Good luck with that. Barely ever. Um, anything else from Mandy? Really helpful, Mandy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can we retrieve Dan for a minute? I have a question. Oh, are you ready? Can you come back for a minute? has a has a buzzer beater question. About this before, but I just want to

066talk about it again. See what happens when you hang around. So Jan, I think Jan and I have talked about this years ago and probably in the last 5 years as well. The transportation nightmare, which brings me to the small mini bus, which is effective for some of our teams. Are we getting to a point where it's worth pursuing the cost of owning our own full-size bus and hiring a driver? In my experience in coaching is there are drivers that want to drive for us. The problem that first student has is getting drivers in general and beyond that if somebody does want to drive for us, they might not be able to because of their union mechanisms. So I guess my question is yeah that's my question. Are we at a point where we start

067to look at buying a bus? What would those cost be? What would be the insurance? And what's the viability of having you know basically a full-time substitute teacher but the person's a driver. We actually have that benefit right now. Uh Joe who everybody loves who's our Indiana award winner last year. He has retired three times. He only comes back to drive Hawkins and Charters every single day. I am guaranteed we have one bus thanks to Joe. And it's getting second ones that are so hard and especially in the spring when we got all these different teams going in different directions. It's almost impossible to have only one bus a day. Um so we kind of have that benefit right now and I hear exactly what you're saying. I think if we those days that we

068do have one bus, if we didn't have Joe, I think it might be gone. Um I don't know how many years he has left where he's going to be driving anyway. Think we might be going down that road regardless if that makes sense. But we do kind of enjoy the benefit right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, we have the benefit of the driver, but we also don't necessarily have benefit of another bus and a driver. They have plenty of buses. It's a driver's ed. They do have plenty of buses. Um, and I have actually I've had parents reach out to me and say that they they'd be willing to learn how to drive. I've talked to First Student. It is a union thing. You know, you're going to pay the union dues. And second of

069all, you're not guaranteed trips. So, we could have Hock and parents volunteer to drive, but they can't be guaranteed Hinan trips. And it's like, well, as you recall, I was that person a year and a half ago. And you know, you're not going to go through the process and then be told you're not going to get trips when you know exactly what the pros and cons of unions are. The other thing, I might as well throw it out now. I've talked to Rosiki. I've talked to Laura about it. Really evaluating the mini bus and whether two passenger vans might be more beneficial. Now, you can get you can get 10 kids in each one with the driver. So, now you can take 20 kids to a spot. Coach, assistant coach. So I've actually brought it

070up to Amy, too. So that's like an evaluative process on how often are we using it. We've been collecting data, so might be time to shift to those new newer passenger bands. They wouldn't require the additional training that the mini bus requires now. So I think years ago we talked about that and the response was you couldn't do that as a public school. So is that a change in all the shortages? Yeah, we have one. So you guys have one? Yeah, we do. when we're all we can take it. Yeah. There's no restrictions. Yep. Yeah. Um and it makes it a lot easier to to get. So I'm wondering also like do we need to own one or is it cost effective to rent? Is there a rental company that for what we're paying for

071a bus and a driver? Is it cheaper to just rent for certain trips? The renting we renting was not cost effective for what they were charging us per like trip. Yep. Um, but that's why we're going to evaluate the value of the bus, the usage, like where we can take kids, stuff like that. So, it's in the works. Vans are expensive to run. Yeah. I mean, the private school that I worked at, that's we had a fleet of eight vans and every team. You never had a bus, right? You had two coaches and one coach drove each van and that was that. Yeah. Thanks, you might want to leave now. Come on here, Jim. All right. Yeah. You ready? Think of another question, Rob. So, we can do a rap. Yeah. Those are the trainer

072drivers. There you go. All right, Jim. Really, really, really wanted to come to this table for this update and say this winter was awesome and we were fully staffed. Oh, no. and we were for the more majority of the time until the very end of September, very end of March and our new maintenance guy uh bailed. So, um but we had a great winter being fully staffed. All right. So, um yeah, I just want to just start off with kudos to my staff. Um again, we have four new people within the past couple months and uh especially they're pretty much all located at the high school. been jelling, working together very very good and uh it's just been really really refreshing. U they've been really working together good. So even with the my maintenance guy

073out like they've come to me frequently and be like you know I can do that work order I can do I can take care of this and um it's it's just been really good that people are actually seeking me to help out instead of even being asked. So really want to give uh custodial staff um a big thumbs up. Um I know I gave some shout outs by name last time. um this time I just want to uh shout out um Dave over here at Maple Street um just in outages and stuff like that. He's been coming in to help out and uh just does a phenomenal job. He's like my my main stay. Like he doesn't call out. He's just does his job every single day. Doesn't complain. He just does awesome. So just

074want to give a shout out to him. Um even with the outage of staff, even though it's recent, we haven't really fallen behind on work orders. So, uh, we're right there out of did 180 out of 197, which is pretty good. I don't mind turning a wrench either sometimes and again, my other staff helping out. So, we've been able to keep up with the big stuff. We had a real winter in my opinion this year. So, um, I think I was blessed. My first two years here has been pretty mild. So, the heating issues didn't pop up. But, we had we had a interesting uh late January into February where I think it snowed or there was some kind of weather event every Thursday and weekend. So, uh my staff came in on the weekends

075to remove snow. I know it's drag sometimes, but it was like when are you going to give me a weekend off like if I'm working? So, but it was good. It was a good test of equipment. It was a good test of our our building envelope. It was a good test of our employees. Um the town, I got to give a shout out to them. I think they did a phenomenal job doing snow and ice removal in our team as well. All of our equipment ran good um for the majority of the time. So, just quickly on the communication with the town, it's great when I'm like, "Okay, can we open by a two and a half hour delay, whatever, and they would give us the okay, that's yeah, that's great for us." Me and

076Mr. Flynn sometimes talk about 4:30 a.m. That's really early for both of us, but it's usually usually. So, um, on to some of the fun stuff. Um, I know it's always asked, but, uh, out of all of our new employees, we did a 90day sit down evaluation. Um, some guidance. All of them went good. Um, and then, uh, in May, we're going to be doing our yearly evaluations. That's time where, um, I I want to make like an hour, hour and a half individually with the employee to review the performance, attendance, everything, and uh, some goals. So that's also for coming. So try to spend a lot of time with my staff uh in the midst of busy weeks. Spend a lot of time uh with the school safety inspection with the fire chief. Uh

077that went very very well. He just wanted to give make sure that there's been some kudos to the school staff because our list used to be like this. Now we're down to here. So uh he's always complimentary of our teaching and support staff on on safety measures in the school. We did a three-year asbestous inspection. Um, the reason why I want to highlight that is it was good for me to go through the very thick binders that I have in my office that I haven't had a chance to go through just to see some of the history. And uh, again, another compliment. It's like we there was quite a bit of asus in the reports, but the renovation, thank you to the board at that time and the people that were doing the project, a

078lot of that was taken care of. So we whittleled that list down quite significantly. So I that's big in the facility's eyes for people. It's easy to be like, "Oh, we'll just cover it up and wait another 20 years." Like no, you took the time to evade it and do the right thing and it was expensive, but it was the right thing. And uh just a shout out to that. Uh safety grant is is going full force. We got the majority of the stuff done. I think I put a picture of all the walkie-talkies lined up. That was pretty fun getting all those rolled out. Just never seen principles that excited about being able to communicate. Well, and it came into play when we had the bus act. When the car decided to drive under

079our bus, we were able to communicate from the SCU to the corner and to each other through all the triage stuff. So, admin can take the radios, communicate school, blah there. So, a lot of really good stuff. Um, shout out to Matt and Mike and it uh the cameras installation. It's it's not easy. Like you're sitting there in a computer making sure IP address is right. So the amount of time I've taken away from it to roll out the camera installs has been significant. So I want to recognize Matt and and it on that uh other winter stuff. Yeah. I I don't want to talk about the hot water tank or boilers anymore. that we had a big pipe break over at Harold Martin which was for as crazy it was it was cleaned up

080really quick and currently investigating 67y old uh cast iron radiator pipe right now which I didn't know was there but another thing to add so that was that was fun you got a picture of that too right yeah did you see it with the crack on it yeah it was and it wasn't even because it was cold it didn't it didn't break because it froze. It broke because of age. Uh, while we're on water, um, we struggle this year. I don't want to be a downer, but we struggled this year with plumbing over at the high school. We had several backups. We were just dealing with one last night, one today, and, um, just excessive amount of stuff going down the drain that's not supposed to. And, um, yeah, it it's it's been taking up

081a lot of time and money. So, I just we're dealing with that as it comes. Um, I spent a tremendous amount of time on the van uh saga, but I'm very very happy with the way with our end result. I think we got a great van at a great price. And Norm, I just want to say I don't know about you, but every Amazon driver waves to me around town. It's pretty cool. Like, they think I'm one of them. Yeah. And uh you're welcome in every driveway in America. Yeah. people even regular pedestrians smile and wave like you're a friendly guy. So I'm rethinking my my So I'm just really blessed and thankful that everybody supported that. It's it's just been a huge uh undercoating and trailer hitch next week. I need to ride to

082U-Haul by the way that Oh. Um that's what it is on the keyboard. Yes. I know. I forgot to get to that. You got it. Um I can do that. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Um, but I guess I I want to end with um, which I never did yet, but a kudos to Norm Ruple. Um, he's been on since I got here. He was involved in my hiring. He was involved in CIP, the starting of EMC, and, uh, he was just always been supportive of facilities and just to glean from his experience through the building project, um, has been extremely helpful for me. And uh I'm blessed from the schoolboard perspective and I know a lot of you guys have been supportive too. But uh Norm has just been ultra supportive of a lot

083and I just wanted to public out. That's great. I text him and tell him that but he's asleep in Turkey right now. So Oh, I just don't worry. He'll he'll watch it back. Probably watching it live while Yeah. Thank you. Questions for Jim. Can I ask about the plumbing drain backup the high school the the backups? Like what are we doing to combat that? Like you said things that people are flushing like are we posting about the receptacles? Are we making announcements? Are we So that's not his lane. That's going to be my lane. Um so the interesting part is we just finally got pictures today of what it is. There was always assumptions before when you when you snake it and what comes out one side. And so we we saw some pictures of

084art tools in there. Um so we don't know if that's intentional or whether it's down through art sinks when you're cleaning up. Um and they're clay clay cutters all so to speak. But we are going to go to the next step. We just made the decision that we are going to put a camera down there and get it evaluated to see if there's something that we're missing. Okay. Um but in regards to behavioral piece, yes, we have we have spoken. No, I know that. Jim's not going to address the students in that, but No, of course not. But like he would know. Yes. So, we are on that cuz there was an assumption earlier today that it might have been some a piece of pizza that we found out it wasn't. So, these are all

085the things that we navigate in our life in a high school building. So, um I am well aware. Yeah, it could be a pizza. But we are going to take that we are sorry. We are going to take that next step though so that we don't have to evaluate if we have to send kids home at 12:00 because of sewage because there's no pump. Yep. Okay. Okay. Uh I think that your reports are great as always. I'm really excited to hear that uh your relationship with the fire chief is great. I think it's also like kudos to working with so many different people whether it's technology or fire or sending your team to um conferences. I think it's it's great like facilities takes everyone and it's good teamwork. Yeah, I know you guys gave me

086compliments earlier but really this is a team here. Um Michelle, Laura, Mike, everybody's been valuable. Um and it's not just me, it's it's everybody working together. So, I I'm not I make mistakes. I'm inated sometimes. I think wrong decision, but it's a it's a team. Also, the floor at the middle high school uh looks great for annual meeting. So, thank you. The brand new sparkly cafeteria floor. It's good stuff. Awesome. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Anyone else? I just I love the report to the point and there's pictures like this is like differentiated. This is lovely. You teach your voice, Joe. Differentiated. Thank you, Jim. Great. All right. Thank you, directors. Jim, oh, no, no. We have Matt Stone. What are you talking about? I always He always Excuse me. You're a free night, so

087Dan is like sprinting out the door. Uhhuh. Matt's always quick. I am. Well, I'll try. Um, so I tried to pull together a few highlights since, you know, saying, "Hey, we fixed this many Chromebook screens is a little bit boring." Um, but we fix a lot of Chromebook screens during this school year. Um, but I I did try and pull together a few things. Uh, one thing I forgot to mention, uh, probably because I was trying to repress memories of it, is that, uh, we have a lot of state and federal reporting, data reporting going on at the moment. Uh Mike Cody just completed the Mammoth every two-year federal report that we do, the civil rights data collection, which I'm pretty sure wants us to break down how many like seventh graders who are taking

088math that uh have an IEP and were uh restrained by handcuffs this year, which that was zero, just for the record. Uh there's a whole section on how many corporal punishments we handed out also. I'm pretty sure that whole section was zero. It was It was zero. Not pretty sure it was. But it's a very detailed report. Um it's months of work and he completed it ahead of the deadline which I'm very grateful for. Uh at the same time we've been dealing the state is completely changing their data reporting system. So uh they don't quite they almost work I think at this point is the optimistic uh thing. Uh we are hoping for the end of year reporting window that they will be fully operational. They there's a middle ofear window that we're supposed to

089sort of try it out. It's a little low stakes for them. Uh there's not a lot of there's no funding attached to the middle of year reporting. Uh I think the deadline on that has now been extended four times, but they have assured us that you know this is the final deadline. Um and that districts will hopefully be able to complete the reporting. But we did actually get our reports in finally. Um, the problem really was that if there was any overlapping data, like let's say student left here on Tuesday and enrolled in BO on Wednesday, well, if we happen to say, oh, you know, both says they started on Tuesday because they came and picked up some paperwork. Now they're enrolled in two different districts on the same day, neither one of us could

090submit until we both fixed up that data. And if you're a district like Manchester who has many students moving in and out to many different school districts, yeah, it's an error. Uh the old system allowed you to send the data in and then fix up those errors after the fact. This system doesn't let you submit until you fixed every error until every district has resolved every other district's. It's a challenge. Anyway, uh but Mike has taken that off my plate, which I'm very grateful for. Much as Jim mentioned, Mike Monour has taken on the camera project which has been work. Um, but it is going up. Uh, we have most of the cameras operational at this point. They're still troubleshooting a few areas that we're not quite sure what's going on. Uh, some of the

091multi-head cameras that look in two to four directions simultaneously are being interesting. They require a lot more power trying to figure out what's going on. Um, I had planned to include a whole section on what we're doing this summer. Um, and then, uh, tariffs hit and pricing is going absolutely crazy. Um, typically it's not a problem to get a vendor to guarantee a price for 30 days. Um, one vendor I took spoke to said they'd honor it for a week. Another said 48 hours. So, um, it's a little bit of a challenge right now to figure out what's going on. So, we're just trying to figure out how to deploy our funds to really hit those critical areas, but maybe redeploying from what we had planned in the fall. Thanks, Matt. Any questions for Matt?

092How many Chromebooks do we have to buy? To be determined. Um, ideally, yeah, we've still got months left in the year. Yeah. I mean, we bought 550 in 2021. Okay. So, that would be the plan to replace. Okay. That being said, we bought more in the last year trying to get ahead of that. Um, and we might have to extend some of those longer than we planned. We'll be soon about that. Okay. Thank you. Um, I also noted the part where you're talking about that students are taking um AP exams digitally now. Yeah. Um, yeah, for their first or second time. Flo, I don't know if you did any of AP's. Um, yeah, they were all on paper last year. Oh, okay. So, now they're all So, just the language go digital. That was the

093first ones that they did. And those are in May, right? The computer science also was digital last year. Okay. But this year, all of them are. English AP. Yeah. 16 are digital, 12 are hybrid. There's only like three that are right. I think all the ones like the art ones. Yeah. You have portfolio. We will report back on how that goes after May. Yeah. Be intriguing. I hope they go well. Yeah. Yes. That is the Yes. Godspeed. It was definitely interesting last year getting uh the first time around. But we have some great proctors that come in and help us out. So cool. Awesome. Thank you, Matt. Anyone else? Thank you. Thanks, Matt. All right. End of year calendar. Yes. Thank you, director. Thank you, director. Thank you for coming. Have wonderful evenings. Good luck.

094Go Hawks. Normally, we do this at the first meeting in April, but uh there was still some well as we ex storms in the area type of stuff. But we can finally lock in the end of year. Uh the last day of school is not going to change. So, it will remain June 13th, which is a Friday, which is a Friday. It will be a half day. Uh, and then our adults professionally return on Monday and Tuesday to make up for those days. Uh, so we meet all requirements for the state of New Hampshire. Um, I'm sure students will be pumped that they are not having to move and adults may be semi-pumped that they get to come back for two more days to do some work. Um, but we're definitely looking forward to it.

095Um, you wanted to review a couple schoolboard calendar things. Yes. Yes. So, just to put on people's uh radars, uh just as a board, um we have coming up uh I'm clicking through stuff here. Um graduation is on June 6th. Uh we will get calendar holds up that there is a calendar hold for that. There is senior class barbecue on June 2nd. So, instead of Thursday, it's a Monday now because of sports, which Dan referred to in his update. So, we've got second senior plus barbecue Tuesday school board meeting six graduation. Okay. Um then we have the return party on the 11th. Uh and then we are I'm going to work with everyone. Um I'll reach out to people individually along with Amy Doyle to talk about uh the schoolboard retreat um and when that

096will be. Um, so that's sort of the last last thing to happen and then we'll have a schoolboard meeting in the 17th and we'll go from there. All right. So they should all be they are all on your schoolboard calendars, but if you don't see them, let me know. Okay. I will not be here on the 17th. Nor will I. Okay. If any the 17th. So Suzanne or Andrea, if you either of you are not going to be here, we need to know on June 17th. Yeah, I will not be here. Okay, we both rescheduled that meeting. Thank you everyone for advanced notice. That's great last. What's going on? Yeah, I'm going to Seattle. No, I don't mean that, but like there's something going on in town. No, no, no. Just all points. Okay, so

097we have to reschedu. What's going on in town is I won't be in it. Not Jonathan. You go prior to the 17th. Yes. Yeah. I uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll just we'll we'll we'll talk about it on Tuesday and um Yeah. or this week. Yeah. Okay. Great. Awesome. And then just as a reminder for that, if there's any other meetings that you can't attend for any reason, just give me a heads up because we just try to maintain a quorum roster even though we're typically pretty good. All right. So, I did notify you at 408 that I had a family conflict that came up. Oana text me. He's on his way here now, so it should be perfect timing. Great. Laura is in charge. Great. Thanks. Um, okay. Any other

098questions about end of year calendar? It's great. Um, for the um, you didn't need to make a motion because nothing changed. Yeah. No. Okay. Just um, for the April newsletter, we have shipped two newsletters this year, so we wanted to talk about topics for the third. Um, Andrea and I touch touched base briefly and the things that we thought of were introducing our new superintendent again, Amy. um in case parents haven't seen that. Uh just a quick note on the budget following annual meeting. Um and then end of year um and end of season in kindergarten and transitional dates. So if there's kindergarten registrations, open houses, testing, uh when people can expect things for the next year, first date of school, letting people start to get sort of lined up for their calendars across all

099three schools. um along with graduation, all the jazzy stuff. Uh however, that is not necessarily an exhaustive newsletter list. So if there are other topics uh to include uh all ears for the budget one, are you thinking a recap of school district meeting for people who didn't attend so they know what we passed and what the warrant articles are and that kind of thing or what do we what do we think? There's not a lot of there's not a lot to chat about until we get to June. There's not a ton. Yeah. Right. In terms of what we do with unassigned unbalance. Did I get it right this time? Uhhuh. Yeah. I think it's just closing it out and letting people know sort of what the making sure people know what the results were, which

100hopefully people saw across various different channels. But um yeah, were we going to talk about special education at all? Oh, we could do that, too. Yeah. thinking a little bit about special ed. Mhm. Um just taking it as like an educational opportunity, right? Yeah. Because we actually had compiled a lot of stuff in the mailer and so we could include a snippet come area out of the special ed primer including a snippet to that and sort of touching on it. Yeah. Um the other thing we could do is either be to touch on I think parents have heard hopefully a lot about Amplify. I didn't think that that was going to be um do we have I mean any of the news to share like I mean early well yeah we could also include something

101that test scores are actually pretty pretty solid um especially in the earliest grades that you're seeing like reading and we use words reading formation as a non-educator. So, uh, we could that that could be interesting, too. And just like a little call out because I think we have a link we definitely have a link to a curriculum report on that and side has a lot of nice stuff about science of reading. Yeah, you know, uh, links. Yeah, that's a good idea. Anything else? Yeah, that's plenty. That's a lot. Okay. And I think the goal should be to keep it, I think, between two and four pages. Um, I can take a there's a lot of stuff that I think will actually probably be repackaged slash I'll be asking multiples for I would suggest closer to

102two. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Um, well like the special primer stuff we already have that put together like a little blurb and link. Yeah. Yeah. Just link to it. Yeah. So that sound good? Yeah. Okay. So I think the goal will be to have a draft for the next meeting. And then we can ship it right before the end of the month. And then we'll do a final end of year round up. All righty. Hooray. That's exciting. Are we assigning parts or are we Well, do you guys want to? I'd be I'd be thrilled. I'll do that. I'll do a budget recap. I won't be here at the next meeting. You won't? Okay. That's a That's the 29th. Yeah. Yeah. I won't. Okay. Um budget recap. Uh No, we have a meeting on the

1036th. May 6th 29th. I was going to say, no, on the 9th. Yep. Um or the sixth rather. Wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Jordan, for a loop for a second. I just looked at Michelle. We don't have a meeting on Yeah. I don't know. I was just thinking every vacation. I was just thinking every other, right? That's why I won't be um Yeah. Rob, if you could do um budget following end of meeting, do you want to take maybe getting another another statement from Amy? Yes. Okay. Uh I can take amplify so we'll send you some material. Yeah, totally. Um and what was the other thing we talked about? I can do I can work with principles on end of season and then Jonathan is there do you want to do special ed or vice

104versa? Do what do you want to do on special? I think just call I think it would literally just be I'm not sure what your vision is. So I was just thinking like highlights like what are the things that you think that people would be really helpful for folks to know and then where can they find more information? I think we did that already. I mean I don't think that we can do it enough. Okay. Well, if you want to do a draft and look at it. Sure. Is it your vision? Why don't you do it? Yes. For for special ed? Yeah. I I would focus understanding the referral process. I would just focus on that one piece. Yeah, that makes sense. Because I don't think people necessarily understand. It's not as simple as I

105want my child to have an IEP. Um so what what is involved and what are the steps to that? And that's good probably going into the end of the year start of the next year. And I don't know if countering has made a difference, but okay, that's great. I just wrote it down. Okay, great. All right. Um, so I'm sorry. Is so Andrea's doing sped? I am. Yeah. Yeah. Jonathan doing it. Jonathan's going to review sped. Okay. Uh, I'm going to do uh an end of year calendar. Okay. Uh, we can both cool. Okay. Um, if people could have do you think something drafts to me by the end of next week and then I can compile and then we can have it ready for the six. Cool. Um, excellent. And I like if we

106aim for two pages. Yeah, I think that's good. So short and then you can always link out. Yeah. Great. Thank you, team. Um, all right. Next up we have the Hess contract. So, if you go to uh the nonpublic folder uh and then to the 2025 2026 school year, you can review the HS first draft. We'll have two reads of this today. Yep. And the meeting on May 6th if you have any questions, they need to be active non-public. Um but you can go through and see what those nominations are. Wait, is that in the public hearing a folder? No, it's in the nonpublic. Okay, that makes sense. And it's because it's for 2526. 256 which gets me literally every time it is and it got me today. Sorry about that. Um we Yes, we

107are working and it's pending. It's it's definitely draft. We're working on a couple of certifications um for some of our employees. So hopefully we'll have that we'll definitely have that uh lined up by May 6th. Great. Awesome. Cool. Um excellent. All right. And last but not least, policy. Yeah. So policy, we have a few, well, more than a few. We've got three, six first reads coming um down. So I'll just go through them really quickly. The first one we have is DAFF, which is the administration of uh federal grants. There have been no changes to this, but we are required to reaffirm this annually. Um, so that's what's happening there. The next one is policy EHAB, which is data governance and security. Um, this was a policy that we had um but Matt being our

108head of technology um updated it and included um there's just a small section that was added. Is that because I looked at it, I didn't see where which sectioned. Yeah. Oh, did it drop that? Oh, yeah. You can't see. When I looked at it, I wasn't sure what he added. the same thing with Mike, although I think I remembered what Mike added to the other. Yeah, I see only one comment, but um I'll look and see if I can find the version history. Um I wonder if I can pull up a previous version. Yeah, I don't know why that comment dropped. Uh, okay. I'll look for that if that's helpful. PayPal. Um, the next one that was pulled up is the building EC, which is buildings and grounds management. Um, and you could see this

109one, right? Because I think I highlighted this in Yes, I made sure that this is at the building level. The principal in conjunction with the director of facilities is responsible for everything. Well, I remembered that that's what he had said. Oh, okay. Can you see that? That highlight. I saw the words in there, but I didn't see it highlighted. Yeah. So, that's what I was saying. So, I I I remembered that Mike had said Okay, gotcha. I'll go back and highlight them in actual yellow. I thought that you could see where I had highlighted stuff like commented. I looked at it just before we started and noticed I couldn't tell. Yeah, sorry about that. I think you change permissions. That's what I think. I think it might be who has view versus edit. Okay, maybe

110update those. That's my guess. Um, so that was the one change there. Um, for policy GFABD, this is admission of homeless children and unaccompanied youth. This was a policy that we already had. Um, this is one we already had. Want to misspe? Yes. And so there haven't been substantive changes made, but there have been formatting changes made. Um so there's a link to the previous policy in that policy so you can see them. Um there is policy D AFB which is equivalence in instructional staff and materials which essentially says that we don't favor one school over another school that we're going to provide all of our schools and our teachers with the things that they need. And then CHA, which is the littlest, smallest, little cute required policy you ever did see. And it just

111says it as a board. We think that doing academic stuff in the summer is good. Great. And it's a required policy. I think it's adorable. Perfect. Um, so if there are any uh questions about those, let us know. Policy committee will be meeting. I think we have to unfortunately don't have a forum for this Thursday. So, we're going to need to change our meeting time. Um, right. And Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz Jake can't. Yep. Yep. Yep. Um, so that's it, right? For policy. Here's policy. And as a reminder, we get three reads. So, second read will be on the six. Yep. And then we ask for any major comments it goes to third read and third final. Yep. All righty. Thank you, policy team. Appreciate it. Okay. Last but not least, I think

112that's it, right? Are we moving over to What's that? Go for it. Great. Personnel report. So, see, I'm starting to be the end of the year. We're starting to see more uh new hires and some resignations. And so for new hires, we have Kristen Allen who will be an AP exam proctor and Nicole Sloan who is being nominated for a long-term substitute as a point8 preschool teacher for Marissa Man who is out on leave. Did you go up? Yes. Hooray. Last Friday. Amazing. That's exciting. For resignations, we um Jim alluded to this a little bit. Joseph Parent, our maintenance worker. um effective date of resignation is April 10th. And Tara Terrion, who is a kindergarten teacher over at Harold Martin, she started with us this year, um has resigned effective June 30th. For leaves of

113absence, Trish Walton, longtime 8th grade English teacher, is requesting leave through the end of the year. Mary Grace Pratt, who is a kindergarten teacher over at Herald Martin, is requesting a leave for the 2526 school year. And Lauren Frankor, who is an eighth grade math teacher, is requesting a leave um from the beginning of the school year next year until October 10th. for schedule B Springs. Any questions on personnel for that? Schedule B, we have three nominations and we believe that this should be the last of the nominations for spring sports. Um Hugh Price is being nominated as our JV baseball coach. As we heard from Dan, they're going to have JB this year for the first time in a few years. So Hugh is going to fill that role for us. Um he if

114I remember right was previously our middle school coach. Middle school softball assistant Alyssa Mcdana. She is a PE teacher currently at the middle high school and um she is willing to assist with the softball team. It is 17 um 17 kids. So having just one adult traveling with those kids, we do recommend that we have an assistant go with them. So Alyssa has volunteered for that role. And then um middle school track assistant Gregory Santini. That's great. So because middle school baseball is not running um Mr. Merve asked to transfer that to middle school softball because as we know sometimes baseball and softball travel together and so you have adults present but without the middle school team they can't do that. Okay. questions on schedule B? No. Great. Thank you. Um for donations tonight, we

115have three donations, the Hopin and PTA has put forward two field trip um donations for us. One for $930 to the Montshshire Museum and one for $500 for the Science Center in Manchester. Right. And then the Mary Elliot Fund, which has been a longtime fund we've been working with collectively, has provided an additional 4,500 for student support donations. What does that mean? Student support donate? Like what what's that basket look like? The Mary Elliot fund is written for students in need for the district to use for students in need. So whether that may be that it is students that don't quite qualify for free and reduced lunch but need assistance with their lunch plans, it can be that. It can be for clothing or food for students that are unhoused. Um it can be for

116supplies that a student's family can't pay for if it's something that they need but it doesn't fit an IEP, you know. And if we ever have any questions, we have a wonderful contact at um Mary Elliot Fund that we work with to see if they approve. Oh, that nice. And a little internal is that the principal is the one that gives approval but works closely with the guidance counselors as well as sometimes even the nurses. Thank you. Great. Amazing. You're very lucky. We are. Very wonderful program. We're very thankful. Just a question. So when uh there's a donation for like a specific field trip, how does that work? Like for the Montire for instance, like what where is the money how is the money spent? Sure. So it depends on what they're asking for. Usually

117it's to help with transportation costs. So that goes through our other grants and donations fund and so it doesn't hit um the individual schools budget and so we um put in a budget amount for that once we know what it is they're looking for the PO for and then we um pay that invoice or that charge. So like transportation cost usually it's for transportation. Okay. Thank you. Cool. Lovely. I've done that field trip. very field trip. It's a cool museum. It's a fantast. Um before we get into the March financials, last meeting we had a vote to do cafe tables from the maintenance trust. We remember we were able to go out and get that quote. Um and I want to present to you with an option. Um, that quote came in at $26,800. Policy

118DJ for bidding requirements says that all purchases between 25,000 and $749.99 um should have three competitive quotes. Jim did a lot of work last year um to be develop this multi-year plan for the cafeteria tables. They are proprietary. So it means that it's one this this one type of table that we purchased last year has been is only sold through this one company. So in order to get Jim to do three competitive bids for this process, we'd have to look at different tables as an option. And so I'm coming to you asking if you would consider waving policy DJ for the purpose of c for the purchase of the cafeteria tables due to the fact that we did competitive bidding last year and it is a multi-year plan. Uh the quote for the tables this

119year is three and a half percent higher than the quote for last year. So it's in line with what we've seen with inflation and vendor changes. It's pretty standard. That would be a separate motion if you are interested in doing so. So So I would make the motion. Yeah. Do we have a motion to wave the bend? Yeah. So, I'll make I'll make the motion to wave the policy for requirements. Yes. For the cafeteria. Yes. I'll second it. And so we can have discussion. And and I would just say, you know, my my thought on that is it feels like make work to get to get two more bids when we want. I mean, it doesn't make sense to have them not match to me and it it feels like Jim's time is pretty valuable.

120So that's my take on it. I do have the quote here for this year and I have the policy DJ. It's also in the board support if you do want to read the language of the policy itself. How much were the tables? 26,800. It's seven of them. So they're like just under 4,000 a piece and then um and they're the round. No, they're rectangular. Um, and so 26 808 and last year they were 25888. I'm just going to throw out there that I've seen other cafeterias where there are different types of seating and explore, you know, there are like pub tables along the side and there are different do they all have to match? If we're looking at a difference of, you know, seven or $800 a table for potentially a different I don't know.

121I'm not in high school anymore, but I do work in a high school. And my experience is we do have a cafeteria. We brought in we have actually have three different types of tables. Um, and the kids kind of like like this one's more intimate obviously with three people versus this one has eight and this one has 12. Those long ones you actually can't talk to people. You can only talk to like the four people in your space. Can I actually ask Flo like for Well, we have we do have two types of tables because we have the big cap and the mini cap and the it's it's like a different it's a different vibe with the the longer tables with more people, the circle tables with less. But I don't think students would really

122mind whatever type of table was presented to them. They would just sit at it. I mean aesthetically like I get they should all look but well no my only other thinking is that it was already competitively fit right I think that part of the process you can remind me Flo was the change in the big calf they were all loose chairs so people were moving stuff around and it became sort of this um unpleasant game of who am I going to sit with and that part of this new configuration was to sort of not have that yeah standardized with the benches. I mean, I think that's a bigger deal for the custodians than for us because there were just chairs everywhere. Like, we just take a chair if we found it, but they they were

123the ones having to clean it all up instead. So, that was the part that they went through that from the social side of things that this was a problem uh in the big calf and then in the smaller calf. Maybe it's still a problem, but theoretically, you're more mature, so who knows? You are. theoretically. Well, flow is of course I don't know. I haven't really heard about issues with the with the chairs or tables or whatever. And the current condition requires replacement. Yes. Yes. Y and this is planned as part of our maintenance that we do, right? Yeah. We do we do a small amount of tables every year as a rolling Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think since the bid process was done, you know, last year, the competitive bid process was done last year

124as well is similarly why we're not like shooting from the hip. No, I understand. I just I'm to be honest, I'm pulling up like the same table and it's like to me it looks cheaper and I'm trying to find the skew number and and everything, but I'm right. I $25,000. I feel like there's other things that So, I mean, that's how I But you guys do you. I'm going to vote no. But I don't I think we can do better. There are so many other things that we need like we're talking about buses. We're talking about And $25,000 feels like a big expenditure when I think we probably could knock off some. So Suzanne, just for clarity, you're not saying not do the tables at all. You're just saying to you're you would want to

125competitively bid it. Well, I don't know to be to be honest. I I I don't know. It depends what it would come in at. Um whether I would say yes or no, but I don't think well I mean made the vote to Yeah. You did you made the whole table. Right. And so the one thing that we're specifically talking about this time is whether or not wave policy or not policy. Right. Right. If you want to also, no pun intended, table this until the next meeting, that's also an option. Rob, do you have any thoughts? Um, I I just remember the conversation of this was a long-term plan and it seems like that decision was made as a part of a long-term plan, but for cost reasons, it was going to be executed over a

126period of years. So, it seems like the decision to do this has already been made. We could tap the brakes and say, do we want to do it or not do it? But it u my experience in that cafeteria is this is a good idea. um this reconfiguration is a very good idea and whether or not these specific tables but I trust people's due diligence when they did that. Uh so I would support waving the rule and moving ahead as just one other consideration I well I guess I mean I guess getting other bids doesn't slow it down too much but I'm just thinking about the current environment with tariffs and rising costs and to me at le purchase something right now might be better than purchasing it in a week. So I think that's

127the only that's inclusive of delivery and all the shebang. So Oh yeah, I think that's a good point that that this is inclusive of delivery of tables which any further discussion. All those in favor of voting to wave the bid policy for purchase of cafeteria tables at the middle high school. I I post oppos. And Laura, what else do we have? Thank you for that. So, the March financials are in your board support folder. Um, this is my first run at the financials. So, I put these together. Michelle's been kind enough to review them and um give me some feedback. So, as we get closer to the year, we are seeing, we spoke last time about that we had savings and salaries from new personnel coming in, personnel leaving. And so, we are seeing an

128increase in our estimated fund balance. Right now, it's approximately $753,000. It is higher than what we saw last month. Um, that makes sense. We did I did work with Mandy and we closed out all the rest of the ESY POS that we didn't need and so that also released some funds. This 753,000 does include the 100,000 that is promised that we promised at town meeting. So that includes the 100,000 that's already been subtracted. Nope, it's part of the 753. Okay, that that was my question. So, with what we've got committed, we've got 125 committed through the revenue process in the two trusts. Yes, I took 25 out. If we take a look at the balance sheet on page two, I did take the 25 out to the donations or not donations, but the transfer to

129the um the trusts that was voted on, but I do have the 100,000 within that 753 number as it would all be tax relief. Uh, I do want you to just remember also that um this does not include the 753 number. It I didn't take anything out for a replenishment to your contingency fund, which is up to 5% of our net assessment, which this year sits over just over $1 million. So, you did promise 400,000 um to return from the contingency. So, if you want to consider replenishing that, the 753,000 be part of your replenishment that you could do. And as we continue to get closer, we will certainly continue to watch it and you know, our April statements will be an even better indicator of where we're going to land. Great. I will say

130that Janette in our office has been doing a wonderful job with Medicaid. So, thank you to Janette. Revenue is coming in as anticipated and Medicaid is starting to catch up. We've been talking about it month over month. We are still potentially going to see a deficit in Medicaid at by the end of the year. Okay. But we'll continue to track it. Okay. And then for food service, we still have three months, but it is it is still appearing that revenue is coming in a little slower than last year. And so this 753,000 number does include that 100,000 transfer to we've already we've already planned on that. So I've taken that out already. So please know that that's already been taken out. um as we are seeing right now that the food service fund balance is

131upside down. Great. Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about the I mean the big changes on the expense side seem to be in special ed. Um pretty if I'm reading this right? Right. We were at 314 down and now it's 94 on special education and so we got the money from the special ed trust. Right. And so that's what happened for the month of March. Okay. So that's so we had to take out of expenses the amount that we withdrew from the special education. And then on the transportation that also dipped um it was at 205 in the February financial and now it's at 158 still in the red but so what happened is there was changes with students and situations and so that was adjusted as well. It's looking a little better

132financially. Okay, thank you. Nice work. Yes. Thank you. All right. And then lastly, superintendent updates. Uh in your board support folder, Mr. Flynn has two field trips, overnight field trips. One is to Quebec in 2025, uh 26, so next year, and then one is to Washington DC. So he asks that you approve those field trips as well as part of the consent agenda. And the DC trip is for next year as well. They're both for next year. Yes. They're both for. Thank you. Okay. Great. Uh do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Any discussion? I just wanted to make a comment. I'm really happy to see the DC trip coming back and I'm glad that next year's eighth graders will get to go on that trip. I also encourage

133the high school to figure out a way if possible um to allow the other grades that did not get to go on the trip to go on the trip. So, I know that it had to be paused for a couple of years. Um, I know that is outside of the schoolboard's purview, but take this moment to put my preference out there. I think it's also cool to get to go to Philadelphia and Mount Vernon and Baltimore. So, it's a nice It's very brave of someone to take a the eighth graders there. Yeah. Oh, any other discussion? That's why I misinterrupted. All right. All those in favor? I Any opposed? Great. All right. Uh we are back to uh committee updates. All right, let me just pull this up real quick. Uh anything for budget? Uh

134we had a budget committee meeting the other night. Sort of just a reset. Um everybody did their recaps of their town meeting, district meeting, etc. Uh we won't meet again now till June, and that was really not much to talk about in May. So when we get to June, which will be I think gets June 11th. Um I did offer we had talked about last year looking at different budgeting models that schools use. So I offered to do a little bit of research and do a short presentation for the budget committee on that. Um which I'm currently working on different models. Yeah. So, you know, zerobased budgeting, you know, some Oh, right. Like performance performance-based budgeting. There's about eight different uh metrics that people use. Some of them are quite bizarre, but anyway, we'll have

135a discussion. Not. Yeah. Great. Uh for EMC, we met last Thursday. Wow. Uh, and we talked through uh a few different um scenarios of there's a couple pieces to this conversation. A few different scenarios of of things that we wanted EMC the company to look like at in terms of thinking about like bulks of work. The other part of the conversation we had tied to that is that we're at this funky juncture now between EMC the committee and CIP and we sort of need to I think at this year's retreat have a thoughtful discussion about if like now that we have EMC as a consultant and they're doing a bunch of work like we don't need to necessarily have two committees thinking about what is infrastructure work. The goal of EMC, the energy management committee,

136I think, just wants to make sure that there is a sustainability or a energy mitigation or minimization lens that CIP is going to look at, but I think that will take some conversation. I just wanted to flag it. Um, I can tell you in CIP, Jim and I talk about that frequently. Thank you. Um, and then we also talked a little bit about the fact that recycling is way off at the middle high school and Harold Martin and Harold obviously the kids are little and at the middle high school the kids should be able to recycle a little more and rebalance those numbers between what's going into waste and what's going into recycling. And so we talked about a few different things that we're going to try to do to increase recyclability at the schools.

137And I also I forgot to put this in the the report at the beginning. We're doing a trash audit on Friday. So, sorry at the high school just from from lunches. So, then which will be great. Yeah. Yeah. So, keeping that going. Um wonder if that's a cultural It's a cultural thing. Like a cultural thing. It's a It is a No, I got some other intel. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but we do have I don't know if everyone knows this a recycling Dian extraordininaire sitting at this very table. So, we might be bringing in a heavyweight uh to to help think about that. So, yeah. Um, safety and security. Don't think we met since the last No, we haven't met. Um, we got a meeting next month. Yep. Cool. Got walkie-talkies. Walkie talkies. That's

138right. Big time stuff. Uh, CIP. I think we met either. Great. And then CNA meeting next week. Yeah, I think it's next week. Okay, great. And then policy. I already did. Great. All right. Uh we are now to the second public comment portion of the evening. If you'd like to come on up, please do state your name and address and three minutes. Trisha Lambert 305 Galloping Hill Road. So just for the record, it's 75.5 degrees in here and the windows were open and it's we're sitting right underneath. It's been cracking the whole time. It's hot in here. But anyway, you could probably save some money by dealing with it. I know each build the build buildings are different. I get that. Um I just want to go on record as agreeing with Miss Carmichael. I

139think she's correct. I know it maybe sounds like a little late. I would not have waved it. I would have gotten the two extra quotes. If they go back and get that same table, then it clearly would have been higher. At least you're transparent and you went and got three quotes. I would not have waved it. Um I can tell you the state makes us get three quotes. So that would be my recommendation. So, I agree with you and I just want to go on record to say that. Thank you. So, do do these things collapse and have seats on them? Like, do they did I hear that there's a bench or they come up? They're they're attached. The seats are attached seats. Yeah. And I think they So, I I would agree with Miss

140Carmichael on that too because I think the way things are going, especially in the workplace, is is unique seating um for kids to for employees to work. I think that the high tables and different areas to sit are better. I think we're trying to get away from the prison like I mean it mimics a prison. It's what it does when you have tables that sit long ways and they sit there. I would simply look at something different. Sounds like it's a little late, but down the road I would be looking at alternate seating that fits the student population and that provides them that atmosphere. I think they'd be more creative and I think that it allows for better communication with each other. So, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. All right. Um, any other old business?

141I have other business. Yep. Um, I just want to point out briefly that uh Neil Cass, our long-term town administrator, will be finishing up on May 9th. So, Neil's been with the town for 15 years. I spoke with him at the budget committee last week. We had a wonderful conversation. Um, he is looking forward to moving on. And so I want to thank him all uh thank him for all of his years of service and to let you know that we do have a meeting with Neil before he leaves just to iron out um all the agreements to kind of pick his brain. Um so Mike and I are going to be meeting with him uh before he goes and I'll come back on the May 6th meeting and let you know how it goes.

142Great. So thank you Neil. And his going away party is May 8th from 3 to 5. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's going to be great. Well, huge loss. Neil's been great. Yes, great. Did you say May 8th? May 8th, Thursday. Yeah. Great. Okay. Um, with that, we do have a nonpublic tonight. Uh, under RSA 91- A 3, 2 L for legal. So, we are going to adjourn. Go into nonpublic. Go ahead. Before we do, the new cast. It's at the uh town hall. It's at town hall. Yep. You said 3:00. 3:00. 3 to 5. 3 to 5. I connect you guys to that calendar and find we are going to go when we go into this meeting. We are not going to come out for any other business. Do I have a motion? I'll make

143a motion to go under nonpublic. Yeah. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. All right. This is a roll call vote. Rob Nato, yes. Jonathan Cohen, yes. Suzanne Carmichael, yes. Andrea, yes. Duly, yes. All right. Thank you everyone. Happy evening. Thank you.