001It is 6:04 p.m. So, we will call the Cinco de Mayo meeting of the Brentwood School Board to order and begin with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Next item on the agenda is public comment. Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment? There being none, we will leave public comment open for 30 minutes. So that should be going until 6:35. Take one second here [Applause] to start that. Okay. Next item on the agenda is approval of minutes from our last meeting on April 7th. We have two sets, public and non-public. Did anybody have any comments, amendments, changes to the minutes
002as presented in the board [Music] materials? Is there a motion to adopt the minutes as presented? I would like to adopt I would like to make a motion to adopt the minutes both the public and non-public for um adoption. I will second that motion. All in favor? I. All right. The motions are approved. So next item, central office report. Okay. Um thank you for signing the manifest. I have those. Um and then just before I dive into the current year financial to give you a brief update on our um solar rebate um I talked to Dan so he could communicate it to the um the select board. So we did we the first part of the process of applying for the rebates complete. We had to apply get a bunch of documentation from Bington Power
003and reports and that is sent that gets sent to the IRS and then the IRS has to review it and then they give you um an application number. We got the application number and then we were able to use that and fill out the tax returns. Um, and then those were mailed to the IRS a few weeks ago. I forget the exact date I told you. April 10th. So, they were mailed to the IRS on April 10th. Um, I have not yet heard anything from the IRS regarding that. So, it's just shy of $200,000, I believe it was the amount. Um, I did try to call the IRS several times during the whole process. and when you try to call, they say they don't support this over the phone. So, it's super easy to get
004in touch with them. Um, so we're going to keep trying on checking in, but it was sent on April 10th, and we're waiting to hear if there's anything we have to adjust, but the part where you get the approval number is done, and we got the number. It's just the actual tax returns now have been sent, and we're waiting on a response for that. So, did anyone have any questions on that? No, I think that's great news. And just one comment, my place of work put solar panels with Bington Power on its roof uh this year as well. So I will talk to our CFO and find out if she has any insights or has been able to talk to anyone with the IRS. I suspect if anything she is as far along as you
005or perhaps not as far along, but I will talk to her and find out what I can and I'll let you know if I hear anything. And if she needs help, it took me a really long time to find a contact at the IRS who was super responsive over email, just not phone. So if you need any help with that, I Oh, good. All right. So, whoever is ahead could help the other person if that would For sure. Great. For sure. Um um and then also in your board pack, um Dr. Andrew requested that we put grant information. Now, in the last meeting, I did tell you how it's always published online. So, what's published online is grant money received. And so in order for us to receive the grant money, it means we've had
006to expend the money before because we expend it and then we apply for the reimbursement from the grant. So when you look at things online, you're going to see it by month because the requirement is that we post by month how much we've received. Um but what's included in your board pack are all of the grants that are tied to Brentwood. Um the allocation is the amount you're entitled to. And then I put how much has been budgeted for, meaning what Ron and his team has planned to spend the money on, and then the balance of what's remaining. So that's just where you stand grant-wise. Any questions on that? Looking for where the grant is on the materials on page. It's kind of an abbreviated. It might say title or Esser. There's probably a way
007to turn this Um, but if you have any questions, I know, um, Ron's usually in charge of writing all the activities for the for the grants. Um, and lastly, included in your board pack is your current year financial. Um, we actually went down $1,000 because this time of year, we really start taking a deep dive at all the open purchase orders and start to close those out. So, that's why you're going to see the reduction. uh the support service that's just a move from the general fund to the food service fund because the the FICA and retirement needs to be moved there for the the food service employees. Um I did detail on here all the expenses that were spent. We we did tell all schools across all the districts to have all purchases purchase
008requests in before April vacation because we need to get the invoices and pay them all before June 30th for the the financials. So we tell everyone to really think hard about what you need to get to the end of the year. So this financial is done before that deadline. So come next month you might see supplies and you might be like Molly why are you buying all these supplies at the end of the year. It's really we have to prepare this several weeks in advance to be able to go into the board pack. So um next month you might see a little bit of supplies. I don't think many but just to give you the heads up. Um did anyone have any questions? I do not have any questions on the financials. Okay, great. Um,
009at the budget committee meeting, Sure. Lety Baddard, who's uh on our select board, she's the representative from the select board who attends the budget committee meetings, um was curious to know um she says there's a one pager that maybe she's received in the past and she's most curious about unreserved fund balance. And so I'm thinking that the document that she's looking for is probably It's probably this one. So when Letty was on the board, so the um so the unreserved fund balance is a combination of two things. It's your expenditures less than plan and your revenues more than planned. So that's where in the upper corner here I put the expenditures less than planned and the revenues more than planned. And that total gets you to the 168841. That would be projected as of the
010time the board pack was prepared. And then what happens is any trust funds, so if you remember the annual meeting, you did vote to contribute to some trust funds. The trust funds get funded out of that unreserved fund balance first and then the balance is given to offset the tax rate. Got it. So right now projected unreserved fund balance is 168841 and if nothing were to change there be no uh disruptions to what's budgeted correct we would subtract $30,000 from that and as of now 138,841 would go back to taxpayers. Correct. Because the 30,000's the trust the trust fund. Okay. Now, that will change as we finish out the year, but yeah. Okay. Clear to me. Thank you. Okay, great. Thanks. All right. Um, next item on the agenda is school calendar. Yep. We provide
011the school calendar with you. I want Ron kind of walk it through with you. um pretty similar to last year. Um dates in there. Um you'll see also what comes with it is the MOA from the Bretward Teachers Association because their flex day built into their calendar. Um last year, if you remember, we had a lot more professional development days at the beginning of the year uh based on how our our two week uh timing for the holiday break. This year it's not like that. So it reduces back down. So you do have an MOA that we'd ask the board chair to sign uh based on their flex days. they get one in August which is contractual and another flex day uh for nighttime commitments and other things that they stay on. Um but Ron,
012anything you want to highlight uh particularly on our school calendar? Yeah, for sure. So um starting in August uh 20 is circle that's the typical uh flex day. uh we might as well call the 19th of August that MOA um uh for the additional flex day and that's to get us to the contracted days for the teachers. Um first day of school is on the 25th. Um September is pretty clear. October that circle is a pro professional development day. So there's school for staff but not for students. November 4th is going to be a conference day for parent teacher conferences, student led conferences. Um the dark ones are um holidays and days off. Um December 23rd um aligning with other districts in the SAU would be a proposed early release day for students. Um January
01316th is a professional development day. February 5th and 12th are early release days again for conferences. Those are for the halfway point for parent teacher conferences. March 10th professional development day. And then last day of school because it's not going to snow next year is the 10th of June. All right. Is the digital version of this calendar in color? Yes, it is. I'm sorry. I I got lazy and printed out here real quick, but yeah, I'll email that digital copy to all of you so you can see it. I was trying to track as you were going, but I might have missed some. Okay. Um, that would be helpful, the digital version. Thanks. And a question for you. Does this comport with your There's no federal election on November 4th this coming year. Correct. So
014we don't that's a conference day anyway but it's built in off for consistency year to year and um are town elections March 10th. Yes. Okay. And so we are hosting town elections on March 10th. And so that coincides with the town's needs. Yes. For this year. So that was my one of my other questions was that in I mean these essentially kind of built in going forward and then if there's years where there's a state election and there's primaries and then there's you know the federal elections do we need to give you guys so much of a heads up at the beginning of the year when you set the calendar or is it it can be you know when these things kind of come up in the calendar generally for the elections and what's not.
015Yeah, we we typically present the ca the um uh schedule or the calendar to the board every May. Okay. So, as long as we get it before the May meeting, okay, of what you're asking, that way we can kind of work with that. Okay. I know um this is what 25 26 26 27. So, in 27 there'll be um most likely a primary um and a state election in November. Yeah. So, okay. Oh, the primary could be in 26 if depending on other states. Yes, the primary for the state elections. Well, I mean for the federal primary as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would be 28. Never mind. I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. The state primary would be Yes. Y in but then the federal would be 28. Yeah. Yeah. And the uh
016P professional development date aligned with the other schools. Is that the idea? Um and this has already been accepted by the joint board, right? or the the general schedule. Yeah, that's how we build our this schedule off of the joy port. Even though I know that this one can't be changed this year, I will put in a plug that I think we strongly consider starting after Labor Day and ending a week later in June. We live in New England in, you know, June 10th, it's still cold and in August it's still warm. It would be nice to like have summer be summer and school be school. I just put that plug in for future years. I'd agree with that actually. Thank you. Do you know if there are other districts in New Hampshire that are
017doing that? I know Mass is probably closer to what you're describing. I I I know there Yeah, there districts are all over the place, but definitely there I don't know New Hampshire schools that well, but there are other New Hampshire schools that start after Labor Day. Yeah, we typically don't because our schedule has to be built based on seco school of technology first because you by law you can only have 10 conflicting days in that calendar and since we have six other towns that send their students there. Oh, that's why we have to send. So, how do we get that one changed? So, that one you'd have to bring to joint board and we'd have to bring that to the um the board for SST. So, that's one superintendent from each one of the towns
018that sits on that with um Dr. Carr and then they start talking about that and looking at the calendars. We start doing that back in usually in uh November December. All right. So, I'm going to talk to our future superintendent and say, "Can you bring that forward?" I brought it forward at the joint board too meeting by the way. Yeah. That that would be the most appropriate time to do that. Um because I know we have to align with SST, but it's kind of a bummer to have to like align with 10 schools if they want to be in school in the summer and we don't. And June 10th does seem early. Honestly, it's very early. Um, but it can snow obviously. Although Ron said it wouldn't. So we'll make sure that's in the minutes.
019But even but even if it snows like we we only go back a day. Is that right? I mean like isn't there like one official snow day and then the rest are So the last couple years we've declared that we'll have one official snow day and everything else will be a remote day. I'm getting some feedback on how that's really great and other feedback well that's really difficult uh for for students at different levels. So again, um we'll look at how that will advance, but yes, we can definitely work. And is there anything for next school year that's already in next school year? We were looking at again the model we used this year with one official snow day and the rest would be remote days if we And so if that happened, if we
020had one official, would this be moved back a day? Yep. Okay. So it' be the 11th for students and then the 12th for teachers. Okay. Any further discussion of the calendar? They can make a motion to approve the 2526 academic calendar. Second. All right. All in favor of approving the calendar as presented. I Everyone passes unanimously. Perfect. And then can you just sign that MOA for the And do we need a separate member a separate motion on the MOA or is that No, we just approved it then that would align directly with what you just approved. So if you'll sign that as that second page would be great. Thank you, Brian. All right. Um, next item is lunch prices. Yes. So, we've been working with and I meet with the food service directors for each
021of our schools. Uh, school lunch prices is obviously going up with everything else. So, uh, made a recommendation. Rhonda, did you talk with Shannon to get the recommendation for her recommendation? She says she would prefer not to go over a 10 cents increase to both uh lunch and breakfast. Um, and I know you and I had been talking about staying in line with uh where the other schools are. Um, I believe we're at $3.50. Um, and the thought is again staying in line to go to 375 for lunch. That's correct. So just so you know, have a perspective, the federal government is recommending a school lunch price of 385 for next year. Next year, CMS is going to be recommended for 375 to $4. EHS will go from 385 to 410. Yeah. Other elementary schools
022right now, NES is already at $4 for their lunches. They went up mid year and then we'd go up 375. SMS is going to look to go up to the 365. U exit go up till 335. Then EKS uh East Kingston and Kensington um go up to 350. They're currently at 325. So it's a recommendation for 25 across the board and new fields is hired because they're not in the program the national okay and with this I mean in the past we we've always had an issue of the school lunch program not paying for it it itself and I understand that it's consistently going to be an issue. Food's expensive and and so forth. Um, do we have any concerns about the the way the price changes might affect that or uh I'm phrasing this
023poorly. Uh, will this move the needle one way or the other on annual losses on the school lunch program? It will keep us closer to with the inflation and the cost of uh packaging, transportation, and overall food prices to be less of a negative hit on us. So, we're not going to it's not going to close the gap by any means. It's just going to keep us hopefully as steady as possible. Okay. And that's his participation stays the same or goes up. Mhm. There's there's less flexibility for those that are right on the cusp of free and reduced too. Like if they miss it by a couple dollars, then they don't qualify. So, um we continue to send out reminder reminders having conversations on the phone about, you know, um the timeline because we do
024have to make that up. Um, it's consistently been anywhere from 1,500 to $2,000 that we still need to collect at the end of the year. And that's around where we're at right now. And if it's collectible at the end of the year, the operating budget does pay for it. And I don't believe so. That's correct. Yeah. Do we have a sense of um I'm not sure how we would have this but just if people are not buying lunch because of the expense of it. We have not done a survey to find out if the cost is the reason they're not buying lunch. No. You know it's just an interesting thought experiment I guess. I'm not sure if it would be worth the um you know I there's like you I think that $4 for lunch
025is pretty inexpensive given what we get. Um and and I want to make it um financially financially sustainable ideally, but at the same time I don't want people having kids not buying lunch because they can't afford to buy lunch. And I realize that that's the idea behind free and reduced lunch, but as you said, it's like a hard line, right? Like you either hit it or you don't. So it' be interesting. I mean, we don't have to have I mean, we could do it in June. If you would like more information, we could survey families, you know, just we're discussing it and moving it up to 375. Would that be a deterrent for you getting launch? And is that a deterrent right now? We could put together just a quick three three question survey to
026give you more data if that's something you'd like. Do you think that it would be useful or do you think that it's just go up anyways? I don't want to create work, but yeah, I'm I'm one I'm nervous about creating work. Two, I'm nervous about um that are you going to get a large response and valid responses from families who even if it's an anonymous survey, is there uh would there be a reluctance to respond to that kind of survey? I don't know. just wondering. Three, I think we're, you know, we're pretty consistent with the other districts. Four, I think we all know that food prices and packaging and transportation costs are all going up. Um, and I think this the increase really has us essentially treading water as far as the the the difference
027between what we collect and what what things cost. Mhm. So I would be comfortable adopting the recommendation, but if there are concerns among other people on the board that maybe we need to find out more um if this would would truly be a roadblock to more people affording lunch, but at the same time, no one's denied a lunch. So yeah, I guess that's true. Does it is it work for the sake of work without really changing the end outcome? Yeah. All right, I agree with you. We'll go with that. I'd like to make a motion to accept the new price. I can't remember exactly what it was. 375. 375. Thank you. And do we need a a motion? Do we need to include the breakfast figure as well? Yeah, we could go up 25 cents
028on that as well. It's currently at $2. Okay. And 225 on lunch. Um, a second. Second. All right. All in favor of the recommendation for new school lunch prices effective next school year. Correct. 2526. All in favor? I I All right, that motion passes unanimously. Um, personnel updates is the next item. Do we reserve that for non-public? Yes, please. Okay. Uh, solar power production. Yeah, I'm going to show you um this has been shared with me and I'll get you a more comprehensive. Yep. So, we now have a dashboard so we can look at the production that we're seeing on that on a dayto day, the year month. So, just want to show it to you and then I can do a more comprehensive for future um future meeting so you can get an update
029every time of how much solar we're generating. Obviously, today with rain, we didn't get much, but there's still a lot of production that's happening. You would be surprised. I was surprised about how much is being produced. So, Thank you. Thanks, Mom. Thank you, Molly. Sorry. It's okay. Sometimes it happens. yours. I'll just share a look at my computer. While we're doing that, what I'd like to do is get Kate to log in since you were part of the solar committee or if someone else on the board and that way you can see it and be able to report on it on a monthly basis. Um there's three screens at our plant. It will show um overall history and it has some graphics and then there's a slideshow of each day of how the the power
030is growing. So you can have them three different ways. It's pretty neat to look at in a visual representation. It doesn't That's okay. Good. anticipation. This is great content for the live stream. Yeah. I'll just share with you right here. So, you'll be able to see is our current production up here. Um, total overview and usage and our year history and then weather. So, as it's projecting the weather when it's a sunnier day, it's going to have a larger production of kilowatt hours that producing. Um, and then you can add more screens to it. So, I can add uh the plan information. So this uh project up there is considered a plant with the seis plant and then environmental contributions. So what is it saving in environment by us using solar power um graphics are
031right here so you can see hour by hour the amount of uh kilowatt hours we're collecting off the solar arrays and the different inverters that we're working off it. Most of it's going to be off inverter one since it's the main inverter but there are four different inverters that we've collected on on larger days when the sun is out. And then the last one is just the slideshow that we'd be able to show with other um groups if we want how much is being generated. So you have your own slideshow really built in to share with everybody. So that is kind of the the graphics which is pretty neat. Your year you have information uh dayto day. So it's all in this comprehensive report. So if you are comfortable and if if Dr. Bonafi is
032good or if the board wants to have someone else I I'll get them a login through Bington Power so we can see it have general report. So, pretty neat stuff. I agree. That is neat. And is this something that teachers have access to to show students? They do not, but we could do it. It's it's password protected by a login. So, it's who we ever want to give it to, I can request um if there's a certain grade level or not um to be able to get that information to them. Well, I was just I know part of the um the RFP and then part of the response was the educational support materials. So Ron is working with them to bring the company in to do different types of things uh in regards to the
033educational piece regarding that. So they'll be come and and look at the different uh types of energy production that it's doing have conversations in classrooms and then they'll have different activities of work through not more particularly through the these powerpoints or just the the information but that could be used as well. Yeah. I'm just thinking of ways that could tie into the educational Yeah. pieces and Sure. Um, and then I I guess the other thing of interest, which is probably going to be a a look back thing going forward, is compare our electric bill to uh what it was the year before, knowing that because our long-term contract just expired or is about to expire that the savings would be wouldn't be as great as they actually are from the the actual spend. And then
034of course you have to put the the price of the uh panels into that. But still I think that'd be an interesting thing to look at a year or two down the line process. We'll take what we've been able to generate knowing how much we've been able to save in in electric cost then project that in a cost savings for our electricity going forward for year after year in our budgets. Okay. Yeah. So we'll have a nice six months of January through well actually August so about eight months to be able to collect that data when we start putting our budget together. That's good. That is I think interesting. Yeah. And you think we have all the data we need to do that like the kilowatts per hour. Yeah. And then you it has yield
035history so it has it by day and it has it by week or month. So we can collect it that way. So we can actually see like we should start collecting more as it's sunnier out, you know, warmer out, collecting more. And then in the summer, we are we're net metering. So when the we're generating the most power, we're selling it most of it back into the grid and we're using less electricity in the building. Building here. Is there anything else? because that was kind of an ask about, you know, how we're generating what we're getting as output from the Is there anything else that you would want on a report for that? Um, no. I think if we just um I don't know, can anyone else think of things that they'd like to see
036on solar panel production? I'd like to see like some monthly summary, you know, like the details are great. The dashboard's really cool, but like I'm still not like understanding where we're at. And so uh whether that comes from Chris or Kate or whoever it doesn't matter to me I just well I think also you know that having a perception about what how much we are using versus how much we're producing and kind of that offset you know was useful. Yeah. Okay. So like a monthly report that you know over the past month we generated X kilowatts we used Y kilowatts. Um, I mean it's going to be like if you did a graph, right? It's going to be like we're going to generate a ton in the summer and not use as much and then
037it's going to Yeah, it's going to be a little reverse. But I do I I like the idea of having a a standing item on the agenda about solar production if there's anything that works that way. Right. Um, anything else about solar power? That's it. I just wanted to show you that we have it. Now we have the capability to put together a report and get better at sharing that information out so people can see what that money was spent on. That's great. Um, it is now 6:36. Is there any uh public comment at this time? We will close public comment at 6:36. Thank you. All right. Um administrative contracts as well. All right. Uh general asurances. So um this is something we talked a lot about at the common or the joint board two
038weeks ago. Um, we have before us the general asurances that are signed every year in order to apply for federal grants. This has been updated to refer to that dear colleague letter that we debated. Um, in at the uh joint board, the all colleague letter that was not signed because the requirement to sign that has been enjoined by the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Um and so we're presented with basically the same debate here again roughly that we have um the general asurances that we typically sign um that normally is non-controversial but because this does refer to the dear colleague letter um we have u recommend a statement from outside council that would recommend advise signing the assurances as required to receive federal funding while submitting a separate cover letter explaining
039that we certify compliance with the asurances requirements and federal law to the extent not mitigated by applicable court orders or injunctions. Um while the injunction in effect as to title six likely supersedes the contrary requirements in the asurances. Um the letter should clarify that we are signing these reassurances uh based on existing law as amended by the not amended as subject to the injunction put in place by the district of New Hampshire. Um the so that's as best as I can explain it. if I've missed any nuance or anything. Nope. Okay. So, we have to have the asurances in by June 1st. So, that's why we bring to you in the May meeting. If we don't sign them, then we cannot access our money in the grant system. So, the money would be in there.
040We'd have no ability to able to access any of that grant money. I thought I I I'm confused, but how does the injunction take? I thought they said we didn't have to sign didn't have to. You have to sign your general assurance saying you're going to follow the laws and how you use your money in the grants. Yeah, if we don't sign the general asurances, then we can't access the system to be able to get our money to write our activities. I hear that. So that's that's the difference. We did not and don't need to sign the dear colleague letter. Uh but this is the general assurances which is separate. So what I just want to confirm, I was looking for this before the meeting began, is where the reference to the dear colleague letter
041is, which again the dear colleague letter itself did not specifically call out the concerns about um programs that are were articulated in the accompanying supporting documents to refer to them as such. Um, so I'm just I just would like to find what the reference is in this to the dear colleague letter before signing it. So it seems appropriate to sign these general assurances just saying that we're going to follow the that we will follow federal law. So, do we need a motion to sign? We do. Okay. [Applause] So the motion would be to sign the general asurances. is acknowledging that there'll be a cover letter. There'll be a cover letter that'll be attached drafted by our legal counsel to say that you know because of the injunction again that we do follow federal laws. We've
042always done and follow federal laws when we take federal. So I would make a motion to sign the general asurances based you know with the accompanying cover letter. Is there a second? I second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I I I Okay, that motion passes. So, we'll sign general asurances and initial all the pages. I'll do the end of the meeting. So, I'm not doing that for Great. Love it. Thank you. Two minutes. All right. Next item. Mr. Q, principal report. Apologies to Chris. I unplugged every cord I could find over there and plugged it back in. It's probably work. It's okay. We got through it. I'm persistent. Thank you. If I can get my TV working home, I'm going to get the TV working here. It works. Um, we present on
043special education every year. I don't know if I did earlier in the year or not, but um there's a list of our special education staff. We have our three case managers. Our preschool teacher also case manager. Jen Lanchon is our full-time speech teacher. We did lose our other uh 50% speech person. Uh it's been well over a month. Uh Katie Pegnum actually starts tomorrow. She's an SLPA, so it's a speech language pathologist assistant. Will be supervised by Miracle Farms uh director uh who's a former speech teacher here. Um, and she'll be working two full days between now and the rest of the year. Uh, making up services. We're going to be pushing out a schedule to uh those students, letting those families know that that is kicking back up. Um, keeping track of uh any
044services that were missed and providing those into the summer if they would choose to take up take us up on that. Um, big kudos to Jen Lanchon who has done her very best to not only work with the students on her case load but also um students from the other schools teach um we have a 08% OT um a one day a week um PT person our full-time school psychologist and our contracted BCBA is Renee Collison our BCBA BA stands for behavior board certified board certified. Thank you. That's what my wife is. That's why board certified behavior analyst. So uh she works closely with our teachers and with some direct services. And Rene is with us right now uh one day a week and then every other week it's two days a week. Next year
045we're moving her to two days a week here at Swezy. It's just a list of how many aids we have. The 5.0 0 is our two intervention people and our three kindergarten um aids and then uh 20.2 two, we have two pairs that work uh 6. Just kind of an overview of service hours and what areas I didn't know. Don't don't we have a math specialist? We have a math intervention person, not a specialist. We have a reading specialist. Sorry, the math intervention was on that list or no? No, because it's really not a special education service. It's an intervention for sure, but not students that are identified. Okay. These are just hours of uh those different services. Um 35% of prek I mean the prek is really exists for uh students that with goals
046and then it it it pairs up with typical peers. um number of students at every grade level that have an IEP um and the percentage of that grade level. You can see that we have 18 students in grade 5 with one in process at 32% of our fifth graders. Yeah. Um, so right now ending this school year, 59 out of our total enrollment of 291 including our prek is 20% of our total enrollment are on IEP. At the beginning of next year with fifth grade moving on to CMS, that number drops to 14.5%. Are these numbers consistent across you and the state? The 20% is and definitely this this bulk at grade five. Yeah. the co we believe that has a lot to do with it for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um new IPS this year.
047Actually, let's go back really quick just so we can see uh we're not quick to just say uh we're going to a referral. We make sure some some learning is developmental. So we want to make sure that we've provided every last intervention possible, collect some data, try a lot of things in our classrooms and with support people like those intervention people and then eventually uh we'll go to a referral. So we see a lot of students starting uh this journey uh in first going into second grade and third but it's not it does happen when we have fourth or fifth graders that get identified as well. Um, and I don't have the specific data, but we do have students that are discharged from special education. They've met their goals. They're on target. So, I next
048time I will bring that kind of data to see where we're at at the end of the year. New IEPs this year, again, preschool is I mean, that's what happens. We have two or three that just came through the door in the last month or so and we need to meet with these families prior to the third birthday so that there's an IEP developed before they're three. Um five five new IEPs this year in K to2 and three in grades three to five. These are our averages from this year. SA 16 average uh state of New Hampshire and national average. My question was too early since you've already had it answered in your materials. Okay, good. I'm glad. No, I'm glad as well. And I'm glad I got this screen working for my presentation, too.
049Just want to make that aware. So, that's just the overview of special education. Do y'all have any questions about um our fifth graders that are moving up, there's a lot of them. We've had transition meetings already. They have a really strong team over there. We have a great partnership with CMS. So, all those students, we we make sure that the plan that's in place here is amended and changed to make sure it fits the system for the middle schoolers. Um the second part of the presentation is a quick video of uh of our proposal to move to a new SEAL curriculum. Um right now we don't we did not renew our subscription with Fly 5. So we are looking for materials. We did have a couple classrooms that piloted uh uh Character Strong's purposeful people
050curriculum. Um this is an SAU wide at the elementary. I I believe every school, if not most of the schools, uh have purposeful people as their tier one program. We're the only one who doesn't. I believe right now. That's why we'd be looking to move that. Yeah. And I believe that's something that the board has to kind of agree upon because by policy you would be that's why we' be bringing it to you to make that switch. How long did we do five for? Three years. Yeah. and their their discounts were not a discount at all. We did not feel like we were, you know, it was it was going over $22,000 a year. Really wanted just a digital subscriptions and um they insisted on a few different things. They couldn't cater to what we
051wanted and um so what we did was just go with our our knowledge and the resources that we had for the last two or three years. So, this coincides quite nicely with buy five at a lot less price. And just a quick video for yall to watch. Hello, my name is Julie. Welcome to Character Strong's Purposeful People. We're a preK through fifth grade curriculum designed to teach and integrate social skills, emotion regulation skills, and character development. We do this by starting with the foundational character traits you see here along the bottom. We combine those, teach them alongside skills like pro-social behaviors, executive functioning, and emotion regulation skills. All of this is designed to lead students to these three outcomes: be kind, be strong, and be well. Here in our curriculum site, I can see nine
052character traits at my fingertips. I can click into one and see a month's worth of lessons right here in front of me. Starting with a staff challenge, a family focus. We believe in partnering with families. I can even download a newsletter right here to send home. And then I've got five activities that I can use throughout every single week. I've got a start activity, a connect activity to help build relationships and a strong classroom culture. This grow lesson is a chance to dive deeper into those skills like conflict resolution or executive functioning. Respond section allows me to choose from a brain booster, a mindful moment or a series of circle prompts every week. And then finally, an exit activity helps me thoughtfully reflect on the learning and a challenge to take that learning with me.
053and click into campus resources and show you nine pages full of strategies to help you take this learning campuswide. I've got implementation supports, getting started videos, even an overview for your staff. This additional tools page is full of resources for download, including boarding announcements and student recognition tools. I've also got libraries like a video library, a music playlist library, and of course a book library, staff pages, family pages, even resources for the playground. We've truly thought of everything. We hope you will join us for a demo where you can dive deeper into all of this and more. Or you can book a call to find out how you can bring this to your campus or district. We can't wait to meet you. The um the annual expense we've been quoted for next year to start
054this program is uh $3,400 and that's down from $22,000 with what fly five Yes. And Chris, you mentioned other schools in the SAU are using this. That is correct. Yeah. They've been using it for a a while. or is it uh some as long as two years. So we looked at adopting other people are adopting different things. That's something that we talked about at the SAU is when we're going to do curriculum adoption rather than having six separate at six different elementary schools because we start to adopt things that are common since all of our students are going to middle school together. Um so that's been starting the process. So we're starting to catch up with that and that's the reason why u this was a strong recommendation from the other elementary schools on what
055they're seeing with their curriculum and supports at the tier one level. I like the balance of the teacher resources, the overview for staff to have a little challenge, uh, family resources so they kind of truly understand what's going on as far as tier one instruction, um, the songs that are sung, um, the characters that are involved. It really aligns well with the language we've been using with Fly Five and the core values that we looked into when we were working on our our mission and vision statement. So, do we know what the um other schools have been saying about it? Do they do they like purposeful people other schools in the SE? Yeah, some of it and it kind of is really perfect timing because next year as part of our compy review cycle, we'll
056be looking at our work studies or our CARES which aligns very well with this schools that are using it and when they're filling out the CARES on the report cards, you have been finding a lot of parallels from this program to when they're translating it over to the report cards for for parents to talk about, you know, the students and the character building of the students in their classrooms. the car's goals that's not from fly five that's from it's not that's something we created based in that that aligns with the work study habits when you get into middle school and high school so that is the vertical alignment that's how we built that but our cares does align very well with with the purposeable people but we don't do cares in middle school and high
057school do no they do our study habits so that it's it's very similar they just call it something different as it gets a little bit more age appropriate And I don't know if this question is accurate or not, but is this are there state standards that align with this or does this align with New Hampshire state standards in some way as far as or is this just sort of complement that and allow the children the students to to meet their competency requirements and so forth? in health, PE, um, counseling that would align with purpose people. Fly five had it there, too. That's why we originally adopted it, but purposeful people we feel aligned better. Okay. Do they have like data dashboards that show like usage, completion, any like stats like that? The only reason I
058ask is because knowing that other schools are already using it, I'm curious if if the kids are using it, like if they're right. I don't know if there's a student assessment part that can track progress. I mean, it's I bet you that's data that we can keep. I mean, that's that's really where we want students to succeed is to hear these lessons and then also apply them on the playground, in the lunchroom when it's more unstructured. So, it will take some kind of um tracking of data and pulling of our teachers to see if we're seeing a connection between what they're having conversations about and how students are using that on their own. Does that make sense? Yeah. I guess I'm still not I'm just curious if the the platform itself has like an admin
059dashboard where I thought I saw like exit tickets or something up there on the screen when that video was playing when that woman was talking. Right. And I haven't really been able to dive too much into much of it without like a full license. So, right. Yeah. But I totally agree that the application of the lessons in real life with other kids is where where the magic happens. Right. Sounds very appropriate. Yeah. Do we have to do something new? We just have to give approval to for us to adopt it since it is a curriculum that we'll be using per policy IG D. I'd like to make a motion to allow the school to adopt the curriculum of character strong purposeful people. Second. All those in favor? I I thank you. Perfect. So, April vacation
060has ended. We're diving into our state testing. So May is going to be jam-packed with that. Um next week our fifth graders are headed to Alnova Camp for 4 days, which is really um exciting. So um great opportunity for them to be outside. Hopefully it's a better week than we're getting this week. Uh fingers crossed. It's in truly um just like the days of sergeant camp, the purpose is to get them introduced to students from other towns uh some of the smaller towns so that they see and recognize some people that It's a day camp though. It is a day. It's not an overnight, right? Um one question back to purposeful people. Uh will there be uh staff training required for that or is it seems pretty intuitive? There there is a modular that we
061can purchase. It's a 2hour online training that we could purchase. But thought the expense was a little steep, $2,000 for a twohour like online PD. Yeah. So I'd asked, you know, can we purchase this without it? And that's the price that I brought tonight. So, we could add, you know, we could make it 5,400, but I just see it's it's very steep. And we have people that have been piloting that I could um asked to um um have some conversations about and kind of dig into the materials, trying to save that taxpayer money. No, I'm just uh No, no, no. Yeah, you know, it's a good question because we want to we want to use and I think we'll spend a lot of time digging into it too and provide time for that and it
062it seems like something that would grow over time but it takes a while to get familiarity with it and then you do have the experience of the other schools and the SAU so you can talk to others and um are there like support people that you that Oh, for sure. Yeah. All right. Um, anything else? No, that's it. Thanks. Well, thank you. That was uh very interesting. It's invaluable. All right. Um, so report from the chair. [Music] Um, the representative of the safety and security task force is not here. We did not No meeting. No meeting anyway. All right. Uh we do have superintendent evaluation committee matters to discuss during non-public. Um I'll skip policy and put that last as usual because it's long. Um we'll go to uh budget committee. Uh so we've had
063two budget committee meetings since our last school board meeting. Um, I would say the biggest discussion topic right now is the new 4% tax cap in town and how to budget with that in mind. Um, I had to leave the meeting early. We're shooting for 5:00 on Mondays for the meeting. Um, and there's a lengthy presentation that Jim, the chair, is going through now. Um, so I'll study that and uh see if there's anything noteworthy for the school board. Uh, the budget committee was very interested in updates on the solar project. Molly's all over it. Um, so I've been bringing those updates back. Um, everyone really appreciates um the status updates on the tax credit and the uh bond repayment schedule and all of that. Um, and I know we'll also really appreciate the data
064dashboard type reports too. Um, just as like learnings for the town in general because solar's all over the place now. So, um, and then, uh, select board member Letty Baddard wanted uh, was curious about unreserved fund balance and where we stood on that for the year. So, um, Molly gave us the report. I'm going to bring that back to the to the committee. Um, and that's that's all I've got. Well, that's a lot. I think to my reports from last year, they talked about XYZ. That was it. Yeah. Um, thank you. So, um, strategic planning uh, strategic planning committee met um after the strategic planning summit um to kind of go over the um, what came of the strategic planning summit and summarize that. And it was a fairly short meeting um which I missed
065a lot of actually. Do you have anything more to add about more of a summary? What we're going to build tomorrow or Wednesday SLT we're going to build metrics so that we can build the graphics that can be forward facing to the community of how we're going to measure the growth in the different four key component areas. We'll bring that back to the strategic planning committee on May 22nd I believe. it it's I believe it's May 22nd to finalize that to get the final approval from that committee and then we can start sharing that this is what it'll be built and then um isabar will build that that dashboard that will be implemented and can be updated on a daily basis. So it's kind of where we're at that we'll build up the different ways
066that we want to um show how we're growing based on the the core values that we built and the four different key uh metrics that we built as well. May 22nd is correct. Good memory. All right. Um so policy committee um there are uh quite a few policies here but fortunately you have the summary prepared by Olivia in the board materials explaining um what these policies are and why they are being introduced. Um there's a mix of new policy and revision of existing policies. Um again these are all driven by changes in or updates to the law. Um we did discuss them at a policy committee meeting two three weeks ago. Um there were no uh significant discussions. One discussion we did have was on this uh JICDD which is 7.3.4 for um student discipline
067of out of school actions. And that was because um as drafted um and then presented, you can find it in the materials here. Um there was a discussion of uh student discipline by school boards and uh had the question of whether or not that was appropriate. Um because generally we are not going to be involved in student discipline. But the question went back to Olivia and I think she got support from council that uh we may get appeals. Um but that's why we are mentioned as board members in JICDD for uh discipline of um or actions that we could determine uh constitute grounds for disciplinary action. Are there any questions about the I have a couple of questions. Okay. One, um, so teachers are mandated reporters for child abuse. So why do we have to
068have a whole policy around it when it's I guess because anytime there's a law around it, you have to have a policy around it. I mean it just seems like redundant to basically be restating that something that's already a law like that you have to report. Like for example, my organization doesn't have a policy around me reporting child abuse as a doctor because it's a law that I report it. We don't have a policy saying you have to do it. You have to do it because it's the law. I don't know. It was it was just interesting to me that there's a policy around it. I'm inclined to agree with that analysis and we had this discussion on um the divisive concepts bill like it's the law right why do we need a policy and
069the policy provides an extra layer of protection should something happen so should a teacher not report uh in violation of law well we have a policy we've put the policy in place that requires teacher to report so we have taken a admittedly administrative step to um implement the law in some way. So that is generally why we have policies to essentially restate um I found it interesting on that par that because I actually when I was reading I was reading it too quickly and I thought that it was saying that you that you had to notify parents of there's a parent parental notification right after the child abuse. So you're a mandated reporter, but as a mandated reporter, you don't have to tell the parents that you reported. And so it's like interesting thinking like
070if you've reported on a parent about a kid, right, for the law, you don't have to tell the parent, but per our now since it is involvement of a student welfare, do we then have to tell the parent that we reported them? So this is JLP. Well, it's kind of a combination of the two, right? that we have this notification like I guess it's not it's not saying you have to it's saying you won't discourage it. Is that kind of what that one says? So I'm talking about Yeah. JLP in regards to something like if you've reported child abuse, right? That is directly talking about the child's well-being. But I I don't I guess I don't I think this seems like a I don't really understand this this last JLP because it seems very much
071like we're not going to stop you from doing it. We're not going to say you have to do it, but we're not going to stop you. Is that kind of what that is saying? I think as I read it and as I read it when we had the meeting a couple weeks ago, it's provides flexibility to the school that says it doesn't say thou thou shalt thou shalt not, but you can adopt a well I guess thou shalt not adopt a policy that prohibits the disclosure of information. I think um we are or the superintendent is authorized to adopt policies that do with does withhold information. Um I don't do you have a good way to square this circle hunting. No, I mean as I'm reading it, if there was major concern that if I
072had to disclose it or the school had to disclose it to a parent, we f thought further harm may uh result in that that we could have a procedure not to inform the parents of it. I think JLP is silly because it doesn't really say anything. It's like it doesn't it's like a non policy. It's like we have a policy that says that we won't discourage something you know it's like silly but if we want to adopt if we need to adopt that for the law then we need to adopt that for the law um my other question I have lots of questions today is around um physical examination of students they've taken out that it has to be done by a licensed physician APRN or PA so Like that basically is there no rule
073about who gets to examine the patient like that or the kid? Basically anyone could say they look okay like their parent could say that they look okay. Now which goes back to why do we actually need a physical exam of a kid before they enter school? Because we wouldn't stop them from entering school. But do we know why we have to have a physical exam before kids enter school? That's required. by law. Yeah. Check on that. It wasn't part of all of these discussions, but um however, seems like if we're going to have physical exam, it seemed should be by done by someone's license, not just like the parent does a physical exam and says my kid's healthy. Like it I guess it's an interesting thing because it used to say that and and it
074has taken that out. I don't know if they're trying to like open it up to like if someone has their chiropractor do it or something. I'm not sure if it caused a problem to have that in there. My cheat code is always to go to the statute that's cited at the bottom. Um so the underlying law is RSA 232 physical examination of pupils. Um shall be there shall be a complete physical examination by a licensed physician, physician assistant or advanced practice registered nurse. is the law is the law. If that's a law, then that's the law. And I guess we don't have to have a policy to restate it. I don't know. Suddenly realizing that it's some of these policies are just restating lost. I'm almost the time to cover us. Yeah. I guess my
075question would be is that should we state that if that's the law because otherwise people could say your policy is that I have to have evidence of a complete physical exam within a year and I examine my child and they looked fine. Right. My preference is always to mirror the law to the greatest extent possible. So I think we could amend it internally or amend it as a board and we have done differed somewhat from um from other boards in prior years. I'm just going to the official um state website on the RSAs. So we could adopt um we can carve out JLC A from the other list of approvals and then I have a separate motion to um uh have the first sentence read there shall be a complete a complete physical examination by
076licensed physician physician assistant or again matched the language from yeah RSA 232 and novel was cut from the prior version. Um I'd like to do that. Okay. So we will do two separate motions on the policies um so far unless you have other comments. Those are all my those are all my comments. No. Well done. I'm glad you read through everything which is I assume everyone does all the time. Yes. Always word for word. Um, I would like to make a motion to accept policies I HB A C and JF A B D and J F A B E and J I C D and J L C C B and J L C H and J LF and JLP. P. I second the motion to accept all of those policies. Okay. I just All
077right. That was all. Yep. That was Yeah. Yeah. Those are all withdrawals. All right. Um motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. All right. And I'd like to make a motion to append. Amend. Amend. Amend. um policy. Wait for it. JLCA. JLCA. So that the first sentence says hold read what it used to say. Well, I don't the what it used to say isn't quite the same as what the statute. Okay. What does the statute say? um that the first sentence uh be amended to reflect the first sentence of RSA 232, which is there shall be a complete physical examination by a licensed physician, physician assistant, or advanced practice registered nurse of each child prior to or upon first entry into the public school system and thereafter is often deemed necessary
078by the school by the local school authority. And then just replace that first sentence for the first sentences there and keep the rest. Is that a clear enough motion for the minutes? Okay. You said it was RSA 200 col 32. Correct. Then we're good. I'll we'll get that from the minutes and be able to type that in there. All right. Thank you. I will second that. All in favor? I. All right. That motion passes. Thank you. And I will make a motion to withdraw policies IHBDA, JFABD-R1, JFAC, JKB, JKD, JK E. Second. All in favor? I um have we had any uh queries or correspondence? I did not have any. No. Okay. Um, I received uh to my personal email address um was a gentleman who's the mayor of Summerssworth um and it looked like
079was reaching out to a number of folks in local elected positions um in this area. Matt Gerting, dear fellow local leaders as mayor of Summerssworth. Um basically um asking for me to sign on to a letter to uh protect our communities from budget harm, as he put it. Um, and I read through it and agree with a lot of his points, uh, but didn't want to take any action without bringing it here first. So, um, I can forward it along to you first, Brian, for starters, or whatever would be easiest. I wish I had already done that. I assume I assumed it went to everybody else because it came to me, but um, it seems like that's probably not the case. I did not receive this email. Um I would say yeah know first and
080foremost that individually we do not have capacity to to act. Um everything we have to do has to be through and as a board. Yeah. Um if we want to act individually we can do so. We can identify that we do sit on a board but we are acting in our individual capacity. Um and correct me if I'm wrong in any of that. All right. Um, so I guess we can Who's the Who was the guy? Yeah, I can look and see if I got it. He's the mayor of Summerssworth. Um, he's also a teacher in his local schools and a parent. Matt Girding is his name. U, last name is spelled Ger D I N G. I didn't get that. And so you're saying, Brian, I can act individually and choose to sign if
081I would like to. Yeah. Yeah. Through your personal email would be fine. Yeah. That's where it came to in the first place. Say it would not be because you'd have to act as a board. Yeah. Cool. All right. Um the last item under uh report from the chair is uh um newsletter article and there's a reminder out today from the Brentwood newsletter. Um, does anybody have anything they believe they believe would be an appropriate thing to report out on for the I guess it'll be the June issue. This is always the hardest thing for me, this topic. Um, whatever happened to our schedule? It only took us up through now or the schedule was like more of a what we've done. It's what we've done in the past. Um so last month's was the uh
082legislative update. Um yeah, that just came out which was yeah in my mailbox today. Um, I do not have a good idea of what um would be good to report on. Is there anything particularly fun that's happening at the school, Mr. Q, that would be well worthy. Dale Nova Camp. Yeah. Um, talent show. Talent show is coming up next week. So, this would be backwards looking. So the kids enjoyed kids put on a great talent put on a great talent show. Um and the fifth graders enjoyed a great time at Alnova camp. Yeah. Uh and met their other small school colleagues that they will When does the newsletter come out? The first of the month or Yeah. generally the first weekday of the of each month. Yeah. And so um deadline is the 15th of
083the prior month. We have all of our traditions and one that's really cool um is which would involve the community because some of them don't have kids here anymore is when our EHS seniors come back here. Uh I know it's it's it's a great uh tradition for them to wear their captain gowns here and do a clap out. It's another fun thing. There's tons of fun things going on. But so I think that actually be a great you know it's June. at the end of the school year. So, we have all the talent show and the the Alnova camp and then the full circle where the kids come back in the cap and gown and um something that I think would be great once we get a little like all the information. I don't think
084we should do it now, but is like like the solar report. I think we talked about that at the last meeting that will probably wait until after the summer. Yeah, doing that in the for like the fall the September article cuz I think we'll meet in we have an a we don't typically have an August meeting only if we do a retreat but yeah we've been really efficient with your goals that we've done our goals in September so we haven't had to do an August meeting. Yeah. And we have a consistent personnel on the board as well so we haven't Yeah. So uh then that would be like an October article but still Yeah. I think that would be good for in the in the fall. Okay. Brian, would it be helpful if I did
085like a May and June traditions at sea school and send it your way? I think that would be marvelous. Yep. I'm glad to do that. Okay. Thank you. I like the like the theme too of like the whole student journey up through middle school and high school and like the continuity of like it all started at Soy. I don't I feel like sometimes I hear people like trying to separate out like this is a local school only like it's it's all part of the SAU, right? It's both things. It is a local school and it's part of the SAU and so it's it's cool to hear that like student journey comes full circle in that way. And the ALNA trip is also like evidence of it's like one step of that journey too, right? Because
086they're about to join with all the other elementary school kids. Yeah, absolutely. At CMS. Yeah, it's bittersweet. Yeah, we're happy for them to move on. We'll miss them and um that's it's wild when they come back, too, because it seems doesn't seem like seven years has gone by when these seniors come back. It's it's wild. Um one of our seniors came back and he stayed. He's one of our paras that works with Travis and Logan. We did um we did a teacher swap, freaky Friday, the Friday before vacation, so teachers could switch places. And Logan, who's 22, wound up being principal for the morning and he dressed in his Beatles t-shirt and I don't wear a Beatles t-shirt all the time, so I don't know where he got that idea, but it was great. I
087was a pair of professional for an hour. It was It was fun. Kids really enjoyed it, too. So, how'd you hold up as a PAR? Did you do okay? I did great. I just looked at the teacher and said, "No, probably back an hour." He said, "One hour." One hour. Did you hear that It was in first grade, too. No, that's great. Um, I'll get that to you by uh the end of the week. Sure. The due date is not until next week, so perfect. Yeah, I'll get it to you by Friday. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you. Yep. Uh then to your point Dan I think the we talk a lot about the alignment with the other schools like the uh SLE curriculum how that aligns with other schools. I think there's been a lot
088of work to align the curriculums across the schools and make sure that feed appropriately into uh the CMS curriculum to ensure that kids are primed for success at CMS and then that carries on into the high school. Um, and kids, some kids at CMS can take high school level classes and like it all. I think it functions pretty well as a one almost as if a one town system in a lot of ways. Yeah. But kids still retain that identity of where they're from at the same time. Um, all right. Any old business left over from prior meetings? Nope. Any new business uh that we have not yet? I don't have anything. All right. So, we will have to go into non-public. So, uh, I will make a motion to enter into non-public under RSA
08991 A3 I A um I3 A3 I I uh letters A and C A and C. Uh, is there a second? I'd second that. Okay. Roll call a vote. I I All right. We're entering nonpublic at 7:27 p.m. Thank you. Uh we are back in public session at 7:53 p.m. Uh I will make a motion to accept the letters of resignation that were submitted. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? I I I. That motion passes. Um, and I would make a motion to accept the recommendation of the administration on administrative contracts. Second. All those in favor? I I u entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. Okay. I I I will make a motion to adjurnn. I thought you said I would entertain. No, I would make a motion to adjourn. Okay, then
090I will second that. All in favor of adjournment. I I the motion was adjourned at 7:54 p.m. Thank you. Our next meeting is June 2nd.