001We will call the meeting to order at 6 p.m. on the dot and we will start with um I will identify myself a remote attendee. I'm I'm Cheryl Mcdana and I am attending remotely because I am away unavoidably for work for the week and I am alone in a room. Perfect. Okay. Okay, that'll do it. Yep, that's it. Okay. Um, a non-public session can be called at any time in accordance with chapter 91A 3. Is it two? What am I looking at? Three. Is that two? Two. Um, what is that? 191A. Chapter 3 is a non-public session. A B CDE E or I. Actually, it extends to L now. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Um, the first thing we're going to do is review our public input policy. [Applause] Yes. And this is your public
002input policy that was adopted a few years ago. Okay. Um, I think it was in 2022, 2023. And so with a new board, it just makes sense to review it and lean into the policy and just remind everyone of the purpose and what this board adopted as their policy or my public input. Okay. Should I just kind of like summarize lightly? Okay. So, um, meetings of the board will be open to the press and public. The board encourages residents to attend board meetings so they may become better acquainted with the operation programs of the schools. Uh the board will provide opportunity for members of the public to provide input and comment at board meetings consistent with the meeting and participation rules as described below. Um so consistent with RSA 18974, the board will provide the
003opportunity for members of the public to comment on school district matters at all board meetings with the exception of emergency meetings. Um what else? In in order to assure that persons who wish to appear before the board may be heard and at the same time assured the board may conduct its business and meetings properly and efficiently, the board adopts this policy the following procedures. Members of the public should not speak unless recognized by the board chair or other person presiding over the meeting. The board will generally schedule the public comment period the first half of its meetings. The board will provide a minimum of 30 minutes to hear public comment and this period can be extended by a majority of the board and individual speakers will be allowed three minutes per person. That's the the
004big one. Um each speaker will be permitted equal time. Speakers may not relinquish allotted time to another speaker. The board may at the outset of the public comment period increase or decrease the individual time limit for all speakers. And yeah, we did that last minute. Yeah. Does that seem like that? Yeah, that was the gist of it. Yep. Okay, so just as a reminder, so we will open public input at 6:03 [Applause] p.m. Have we any public input? All right. Okay. Um All right. So, our first agenda item is a school board chair update, and that is me, response to task force from the citizens. So, we just wanted to um go over what we determined is our response to the task force after speaking with the lawyer. Yep. For the dis or for the
005SAU. Um and all right, so number one, respect for voter decision. The Kensington School Board honors and upholds the wills the will of the voters who at the most recent town meeting voted against the creation of a citizen advisory budget committee. This vote reflects the community's voice and guides our actions as elected representatives. Uh number two, clarification on the task force status. While we were aware that an individual citizen is acting independently and referring to themselves as part of a citizens task force, the Kensington School Board is not collaborating with, recognizing, or soliciting input from any such group. No task force has been created or has been endorsed by this board. Number three, right to know requests. Any formal requests for information will be handled appropriately through the superintendent's office in accordance with New Hampshire's
006right to know law RSA 91A. The district will continue to provide access to public records as required by law. Uh commitment to transparency and responsible budgeting. The board remains committed to developing a fiscally responsible and educationally sound budget through collaboration with our administration, community input during public meetings, and existing budgetary processes. Uh, number five, adherence to public input policy. And this is what we sort of just went over, but I'll say it again. The Kensson School Board will be following its established public input policy. Public comment will be limited to 30 minutes. Each speaker will be allowed up to 3 minutes. The board may vote to expend extend the time for a speaker or allow individuals to speak more than once. If granted, this extension will apply equally to all members of the public. And
007these guidelines are in place to ensure that all voices have an opportunity to be heard respectfully and equitably. And then lastly, um, encouraging constructive engagement. We welcome community participation and appreciate respectful and constructive engagement through our official public meetings. Board decisions are made in accordance with local, state, and federal laws and with the best interest of Kensington students at heart. So that is that. Okay, back to Okay. Um, all right. Approval of meeting minutes. So, for the public minutes, I had a bunch of them. You did? Yeah. And I know Wendy, you noticed something as well. Yeah. Um, so if like little things. So, yeah. The f the paragraph that says Miss Larson motion to nominate Stephanie Schmidt. It says Miss Larson voted twice. One of those should be me, I presume. So, do you
008see that? Um, what page are we on? It's on the on the first page under board reorganization. Okay, I see it. Oh, it just got signed out of my notes. That is very annoying. Oh, I see it there. Yep. Yeah, it just Yeah. Okay. And um I think the next one was the unidentified person and that was Ben Cole. So, we add your unidentified. He might prefer to stay the unidentified person, but that's okay. Strange dude. Yeah. All right, we'll add that in. Okay. Um, that's in a couple places. Yeah, it's also on the bottom of page, dude. Why Why is this haunting me? And my my Gmail keeps signing up. Wendy, do you want to do yours? Yeah, at 4.6 um it said community news submission. It said Josh, which really it should have
009been Cheryl and now it's me. And then um the other thing was the new business number seven that was really from March I think we just didn't get Yeah. Yep. I had said something about revisiting that because there was no discussion in April about it. Um but that was for March. Um okay. Um, in the the paragraph that were about adopting policies, I don't think Wendy voted because didn't you abstain? I abstained. Yeah. So, it should say I think I saw on she had not a chance to read through the policy and then it says a roll call vote was taken. All were in favor. The motion passes through user. Okay. So, we got two. And then my last note is that it said it was the robotics team and it's the coding team. So
010at the end to end the prison report and that is it. Okay. Anything else? Cheryl, did you have any notes? No, I did not. But thank you, Stephanie, for being such a good editor. So diligent. Um, and then I had nothing for the non-public minutes. No, that Okay. So then, um I just had one other question in the um middle of page two. Um Mr. Brandano was asking some questions in the last sentence. Um it stated KES has the highest budget in all of Kensington. And I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Go back and look at the tape to see if he said that. Yeah. I don't even talking about the town. I'm not sure. It just was confusing how it was captured. Yeah. And K has the highest budget in all of KY.
011We'll look at the tape. Yeah. Just see what he actually said. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. So, committee reports. Oh, we need a roll call vote to Oh, yes. Sorry. To um approve as amended. Yes. Um make a motion. I will make a motion to approve the public meeting. Are we should I do them both at the same time? Yeah. the public meeting minutes and the non-public minutes as amended. Second. All in favor? And then we need you to do a roll call. Yeah. You say your name and then say yes or no. Sean McKenna. Yes. Stephanie Schmidt. Yes. Wendy Larson. Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. Great. Okay. Um so now policy committee reports policy. Cheryl, what do you got? Um, I was so lucky to I was out in the state again, but Renee went for
012me. I did read over all of these policies today, but Renee might have some insight about what they discussed at the meeting. I think these are really important policies, by the way. Yeah. And that some of on the policy revision brief, it it says that they're new policies, but they're not new policies. They're current revision policies. So, they are they're not new. That's a mistake. They're all just current revision policies that are updated based on the regulation, the laws that were updated. Okay. So, um, that's really if you read through them, if you have any questions about any specific one, um, we worked with our nurses. Um, we we sought some legal advice as well when we we did the model policies. Then we shared them with the policy committee. Policy committee had questions. We
013went back and reviewed one question with the nurses and the lawyer. And then what you see in here was the final draft. So, there's a lot of conversations around these um, just to make sure we were following the law and it made sense to parents. Okay. Okay. And so the policy committee worked quite a bit on these actually. Yeah. Okay. And my only question was in the physical examination of students, is that that is that like a like a like a checkup like a doctor's visit? Yes. Okay. That is a doctor's visit. That is just an annual checkup. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great. Any questions then? Wendy, did you have any questions? Um, no. I did read through everything. Um, I the JLF about reporting child abuse and it said that there'd be uh signage
014for um people to know everything about about it. I didn't know if that's available or is that something that's housed on the website? Um the what's called the R that goes with policy is developed after the policy is adopted and then it will be posted. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right. So, I will make a motion to Is it to accept? Is that what we Yeah. To adopt to adopt um the following policies. And I say the letters. Yeah. Okay. I H B A C J F A B D J F A B E J I C D J L C A J L CCB J L C H J LF and JLP and withdraw J F A B D R1. Okay, second. Thank you. All in favor? Charl Mcdana. I I Wendy Larson I I
015Stash. Great. Okay. So that is policy. All right. Safety and security. Any update? Nope. No meeting. Okay. No meeting. And superintendent evaluation committee. That is me. My update is okay. Our board evaluation is due this week. Um I'm my plan is to send a draft to you Cheryl to look it over and then I'll submit it since Wendy won't have the um right yes the knowledge to comment on it. So I'm reading your mind. Yes. You get it? Okay. And the committee meets on Monday um this coming Monday to complete the evaluation. So then that will be the end of that for the year. And then who's next? Next is um school study update. There's no school study. There's no update on that one. General correspondence. Um the only thing we have is from Southern
016District YCA and us just asking to sign our annual memorandum of understanding so we can have the after school program. Planning to go ahead and sign that to give building permission. That's great. Always good. All right. Community news submission. I just forwarded you the like Yeah, you saw that. It's due the 15th. Okay. Um and um you know going with the comm getting the community better educated about what a school board actually does and being the newest school board member I thought I might give like a reader digest version as the school board report of what does a school board do. Sure. you know, uh, and obviously any other input that you folks feel that might be important to put in this. And this will come out in June, July. Okay. I think that's an
017excellent idea because it's a good tag along with the one I did about who are we in a district. Um, I would also want you to put in there if you could, Wendy, is what we don't do. Okay. We don't tell teachers what to do. We don't build the curriculum. M you know the legal requirement of a school or what we're supposed to do is hire administrators and set policy and set a budget. One, two, three. Yeah, we're not my I mean Renee, correct me if I'm wrong. No, you're absolutely right. You you supervise the superintendent. That is who you hire through the joint board. Um and then you do policy and you do budget. Yep. And a lot of people continue to say things to us about stuff we have no say in or
018if we did it would be inappropriate to our administrators. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. What we do, what we don't do. Great. Great. Well, thank you for doing that, Wendy. Um, and I would like to tag on to that again a little bit. Um, I've talked to both of you just casually about I would like to do some kind of a special meeting before the next voting season because we know there's a lot of things that are going to be coming up. We've already heard this. I think it'd be really important to do kind of a fact setting meeting. This is who we are. This is why we're part of the co-op. This is what the SAU does. This is why we're part of the SAU. This, you know, to go kind of through
019that. Um, if you live in, I don't know, let's say Brentwood, you don't have any say over what we're doing. We're Kensington. We're a different district. I think that that's really important because I think this last election showed me how uninformed a lot of great people are about how we all fit together on this chessboard. So, I think before the next election, and Renee, pipe in if you think I'm wrong, but I think an education sess session would be great. Yeah. as frequently and how clearly the board can educate the voting public about the role and especially the budget. There's lots of different pieces of information out there around how school budgets are proposed, how school funding works. So, anything that you want to share, it would be really powerful for the the citizens that
020vote. Yeah, sure. I mean, we could even tag it on to the end of one of our regular meetings on it, but just to have a session where we say, "Now, we're going to we're going to um for tonight, our public input thing or whatever, we're going to have a little bit of the meeting where you can ask a lot of questions and we're because we want to educate you before this comes around again." Um, just going back to community news again. I' I've been spending a fair amount of time on the KES website and they had in the community news the last time that our board meetings were on Wednesdays and she said, "Oh, that's I found that on the KES website." And I was like, "What?" And I found it. It's it's under
021u new board member orientation and it says school board meets uh historically the second Wednesday of the month. So, if that can get changed, I can do that right now. I don't think anybody's going to say it can't be. Nope, that's fine. It was just It was shifted this year for the first time. So, Oh, yeah. It's always historically been on Wednesdays. Um, so it was just a shift this year. So, let me see if I can make that change right now. Great. Yeah. Do um like August maybe. Is that Are we thinking You know what? just I think before things start ramping up. I don't maybe the first meeting in September even I just over the summer we're not going to get people maybe not even me to be honest with you but we
022I want to do it at the most judicious time because I think like our community we learned a lot from this last election. Yeah, we learned a lot. So, I would like to take our learning and say, "Okay, we have to grow from this." And what we need to do is reach out to our constituents and say, "There's a lot of confusion. There's a reason we're in the co-op. There's a reason we're in the SAU. There's a reason another town can't tell us what to do, right? There's all of that. There's a reason this selectman can't tell us what we're going to do." So, all of that. So, maybe September, August, you're the boss, Steph. I am just adding some comments. I do think that would be I think that would be exceptionally important. Yeah.
023And I'm happy to do the historical part. I mean, I walked through the co-op with a hard hat on and I looked good. I just want to tell you that. But I I've been here since before the co-op was even formed. Yeah, that'll be useful. I've been here when we didn't have a vote in the SKU. And people don't realize that our kids were tuitioned to exit our schools, right? So, I think we need to explain to people why we are who we are. How does it work to to set something up like that, Rene? You just need to um I think it's a 7-day notice of a meeting. Oh, okay. Yeah. And you just need to post it. Okay. You just tell me and we will make sure we post it. Another thing about
024is do you want to have a board, some school boards, and this is completely up to the board, have like August workshops. um which is which you also publicly post but it's a workshop where you guys go over your goals for the year plan out your calendar sort of this would be something you would talk about in your August workshop and do we want to have this so that you know that's something you guys could think about near the end of August you want to have a cool and that's something that's not public it is public because you're conducting but business in public but it's just not a typical board meeting it's a workshop it's a public workshop where you guys are just sort of talking about your calendar for the year your board goals
025and organizing yourselves. So, it's just something to think about. You could do that then. Then you could set the meetings that you wanted and you could, you know, if you're going to have budget time, we can ask Michelle for some of those timelines. So, you could plan meetings around that. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I like that idea. Okay. Okay. All right. Cool. And if the board wants that, then I just work with Stephanie to schedule that and send it out to you all. Great. Okay. All right. That sounds great. the um document that you're referring to under the school board orientation was a PDF created by a former chair. Um so I can reach I can't edit the PDF, but I can reach out to her to see if um she can send me a a
026new version that I can edit and put up there. Okay. I have I think I have to go to the town site, too, because I I heard it might be on the town site that way, too. I'll do that tomorrow. Okay. Okay. All right. Great idea, Sh. Okay. So, the next Oh, strategic strategic plan committee. That is me. Okay. So, where is it? We met on April 17th. We went over all the data that was gathered at the summit. Um, and it was sort of distilled down into four priority areas. And that those areas are thriving learners, empowered and supported educators, engaged communities and strong partnerships and future ready learning systems. So those are the big sort of like umbrella um priorities. And the next step is to come up with two to four measures
027for each priority area and then the key performance indicators for each of those measures. So that's the next step we'll do and basically make you know set the details and the actual goals for each of those priority areas. Um so that is trucking along. That's good. The next meeting is May 22nd. Um and we'll continue to work on the um those performance indicators and coming up with what the actual plan is going to look like. Um and that is all for that. Okay. So that's all the committees. Um, okay. Business and finances. Good evening. So in your board pack, we sent you the financial information. So last month we had remaining of expense of $68,187. So we relieved some expenses um or incumbrances for reduction in student need. We moved some expenses to appropriately to
028the food service fund which is a different fund. Um and we also had um we had unencumbered some salaries um but then after the fact um sick bank was was provided to that so we had to add back those wages. So for the month, we spent an additional $7,518, leaving us remaining expense of $60,669. We do have um unanticipated revenues. So we are anticipating at the moment fund balance at the end of the year of $92,264. Okay. Any questions? And that's before the um the trusts, correct? Correct. So that'll be 25. Yeah. I have a question. The that line that says projected um you know uh 24 return to taxpayers 67264. Is that just referring to what's in the trust funds? Which line is that? Um it I'm on the opening page to the financial
029and it's just underneath where it says trust funds. Correct. So if we have a fund balance or an anticipated fund balance of 92264 then we passed the warrant articles for the trust which would come from fund balance. Okay. So once we allocated those monies to the trust that would mean that the remaining 67 264 could be applied to taxes the tax when they determine the tax rate for the year. Mhm. Oh okay. Okay, great. Yeah, I didn't have any questions. Cheryl, any questions? I don't. [Music] [Applause] Okay. All right. Next. Okay. Um, general assurances is that just um you we talked about and you signed the general asurances last meeting. Okay. Um but you didn't. It was my mistake. I didn't tell you to initial each corner of the page. Oh, okay. I didn't Did
030you bring them? Yeah, I didn't bring them. They were in there. No, they weren't in there. They were No, cuz Stephanie signed them last week and we talked about them last month. Oh, okay. Um, so can you swing by and initial the corner pages? Um, and I meant to grab them from Cheryl and I didn't. So that's my fault. I was going to bring them. You just need to initial. You signed them to sign them. Um, just signing bottom each page. Yes, there's a little spot and I totally missed to tell you about it at our last board meeting. So it's my fault. Okay, not to worry. I can do that. Okay. Um, principal's report. Um, sure. Just a couple updates. Actually, I think on my last report, I had talked about um the money
031that we raised um in the kids heart challenge. That was the jump rope challenge with Mr. Straml. Um and our actual final dollar amount came through and it was 3,600 $3,61452. So, it was um about $1,200 and I had reported before. So, that's a lot um that our little community has raised for the American Heart Association. Um it's the start of staff appreciation week and our PTO is giving us a lovely outpouring of food and gifts and flowers. So that's always nice to start um coming back on a Monday after vacation, a rainy Monday after vacation. We were hoping to also um launch bike week um because there's about a 100 bikes in our multi-purpose room right now that they are waiting to ride. So we're hoping the rain um dies off tomorrow. Dom has
032been waiting for this since last year and not we're not going to change the week. I was like I know cuz I said let's just do it next week. It's going to be nice. He said no because fifth grade is not going to be here next week and Dom has been waiting for this for a year. So we are going to ride this week at some point. They are all just parked nicely in the multi-purpose room, but it'll happen. Um so update on positive community culture, update on our coder Z team. um they traveled with I think I mentioned at the last uh meeting that they had um qualified to go to to the state competition. So six of our fifth graders traveled to Pinkoin Academy with two other teams from SAU16. So they all
033shared a bus together. So a team from Brentwood and a team from Stratam. So it was really nice to have a small SA16 community of coders traveling together. Um this was our first time in that competition. So, we were in the novice division since we were first timers and we placed second. And so, I'm super proud of our team that went um even sort of had our um understudy go because we had somebody on the original team that wasn't there that day. So, we had somebody else take his place and so they just did really well and I'm I'm proud of them and all the work that they have put into it because they do work on this at home and all hours. Um, and Miss McCarthy has spent a lot of time with them,
034too. So, kudos to her in our STEM lab. Um, under meaningful learning, I was highlighting um, our fourth grade Oregon Trail simulation. And so, as they are learning about the western region of the US, um, they did spend the day out in our outdoor classroom, some of them with lovely pioneer garments on as well. Um, we we got a permit from our fire chief to be able to u build a fire out there. They did do some cooking over the fire, some authentic um Johnny cakes, which they said were good, and they actually ate, so that's great. Um and then they just really just kind of immersed themselves in playing games and just being outside all day long, um making up some of their own games as well. So that was just a great authentic
035learning experience for them. And then under health and well-being, I um highlighted the uh community time that we had just before break, which was um our celebration of Earth Day in which the students really take the time to beautify the outside of our school. Parents donated donated like three yards of mulch and we mulched and we planted flowers and um cleaned up and just made our little piece of the earth look more beautiful. So, it's a great way to kind of end the week before vacation. Um, and the kids the kids will rake and they will mulch and they will they won't do any of that at their houses for their parents, but they will gladly do it here. That back that backyard is like so raked. It's ridiculous. I walk my dog back there.
036It's so nice. Yeah, they did. They they love helping here despite maybe not helping at home. But that's okay. We'll take it. All right. That's great. Thank you, Becky. Um, okay. New business. Superintendent's office has none. Okay. Can I just mention um the because I just got a text the PTO golf tour their first annual PTO golf tournament today. So, this was a never done this before. We're going to give it a whirl. They made over $13,000. That's amazing. Wow. In the rain. Oh, wow. It's a great idea. Then I'm like, why don't we just have golf tournaments every weekend? I just And it needs to not be on a school day so that teachers and administrators can participate because none of us could go, right? Yeah. But they still made $13,000 which is Wow,
037that's great news for our school. Go PTO. Go PTO. Yeah. Strong. That's great. All right. Um Okay. Old business? I have none. None. Okay. And any people related matters? Nope. Okay. It's only 6:30. Any personnel matters? I don't know of any. No, nothing. Nothing to update you on that. Has it been 30 minutes? It's been 30 minutes. Okay. That's it. That's it. That was easy. Yes. I will Good job, Steph. I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 6:30. Second. What do we need to do? Roll roll call vote. Uh, yes. I, Wendy Larson. I Stephar.