001We'll start the meeting right now for East Kingston at 4:30 and I will open up the board meeting by asking for a nomination for a school board chair. Like to nominate Kirstston Sokco. I need a second. Like to nominate Kirsten Sro. Any discussion? No. Will you accept the Yes. All right. I need to make a motion. Um, so we need a vote. All in favor? I I All right, the motion passes. I hand the meeting over to you. I need I need the worksheet here. I can't get on. Thank you. My [Applause] um so uh we'd like to open up public comments. We'll allow 30 minutes for public comments. Um and each person will be allowed to comment for three minutes. So public uh comments is open now. Um any announcements? No announcements from the
002superintendent's office. Okay. Um I vice chair. We have to do vice chair. Yep. And do we have to swear on JT? JT came down to the SEU office and was sworn in. He's already sworn in. He was a early I didn't even He's all set. He is all set. An official board member. Y Well, welcome JT. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, I need to nominate a vice chair or someone does. I nominate Paul Doyle for vice chair. Seconds. Second. All in favor? I I I uh business and financials. This moment. So, with your board packets, we sent you the most recent financial. Did were you on included as your new? I did. I did. I did review those. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure that you So, so at the at the
003end of last month, we had remaining expense of 26,267. Thank you. So, we have relieved some incumbrances uh related to payroll as we go through and we scour things towards the end of the year. Um we've also added some incumbrances for supplies and alova and um some facilities and maintenance. So, we spent an additional $6,721 for the month, which re gives us remaining expense of $19,546. We have received or projecting to receive an additional $8,000 over planned in revenue for earnings on investment, which at this time will leave us with a projected fund balance of $27,546. Does anyone have any questions? Uh, I do. Do you've you've probably explained this before, but won't be the last time. Um, so if if we end the school year with the $27,000 that can either go back to
004the taxpayers or do we get to put that back into another fund? You cannot put it into a trust fund. The only way to put money into a trust fund is having the warrant. The people have to vote on that. Right. Yeah. I guess then I I asked that's not what I was asking. Okay. Um so we can we can choose to send the 27 back to the taxpayers or what are our other options? So typically the only other option would be is if there is some kind of a project that needs to be done typically a project that can be completed over the summer usually maintenance-wise facilitywise then you can authorize you in order to do that you need a quote and you'd have to create a purchase order before June 30th okay to
005be able to use some of those funds to be able to accomplish that and we would come with a request to use end ofear funds for said project and presented to the and the board would have to make a motion to approve that. So then if we don't do that though, it would go directly back to the taxpayers. Yeah. It Yes. In theory, it goes back to the taxpayers, but it's not like the taxpayers see a big bump. It just helps offset um increase in the budget. Yeah. The the way they calculate the percentage just used as an offset when they determine what the new tax rate is going to be for that year. Yeah. Okay. So it wouldn't be directly applied to say the increased budget of 32 grand. No. No. Okay. Okay. Okay.
006Thank you. When when is that for the May meeting discussion or can we discuss uh a new sign today? You you you can what we can we could um talk to the board about it. It's not on the agenda, but if the board permits us to put it under principles report could talk about it and then we would come back with estimates for the board if you wanted it. Yeah, you could you could open the discussion today knowing that you'd have to come back with options in May. Okay, that be a good idea. I don't have any further questions. Anyone else? Um, approval of the minutes. So, for March 10th, um, I didn't notice any Okay. changing. Um JT, we receive the minutes in our agenda from the last meeting and so we just review
007them to make sure that everything is what happened what happened. Okay. So I'll um vote for approval of the minutes. Need a second. I second. Sir second. I and then JT will abstain because he wasn't at that meeting. And then you two will whether or not you approve the meeting minutes as presented. Yeah. approve meeting meeting minutes as presented. Okay, great. Okay. Um principal's report. Yes, thank you. Uh so a few weeks ago we had um our school performance uh Finding Nemo Kids, a wonderful uh three days for the school performance and then parents and community members were able to attend Friday and Saturday. Uh I I do want to thank uh our staff who who spent the last four months uh with our students um for auditions, rehearsals, and then the the performance. Uh
008Mrs. Beverage, Miss George, Mr. K, Mrs. McMullen, and Mrs. Smith. Uh I want to thank the public for all the work they put into this uh really special event. Our enrollment numbers as of 43 um are 16 in kindergarten, 18 in first grade, 24 second grade, 21 third grade, 12 fourth grade, 22 fifth grade for a total of 113. Uh currently for the 2526 school year, we have uh 23 students that have registered or inquired about registration. Um last year at this time, I think it was 12 and we ended up with I think there's 16. So we expect four to five more. will be in the in the mid to upper 20s. Um is it just for kindergarten or just for just kindergarten? Yep. Um the 25 26 calendar was in your board pack.
009Um and there are um some early release times for our conferences. Uh this is separate from the calendar that was approved at the SEU level. Mhm. Um, November this year, there's no voting day, which is one of those odd years where we don't have any any town state or or federal elections. Um, so in that in that November uh month, you'll see an early release day for the conferences. We typically have it on the inservice day, but uh because there is no inservice day for voting, we do have an early release date in November. Um, let's see here. That is November 7th. Um December 23rd early release day. This makes up uh the time for the evening conference in October for the teachers contract. And we have another inser sorry another early release day in
010uh April on April 10th. And to make up that evening conference per the contract we have um on the last day of school typically we have the early release day for for students um so the teachers will make that time up also. So those are the changes that were different from the SAU calendar. Any questions on on this calendar presented? Have we have we ever and I'm probably going to answer my own question but I just I'm just curious. Have we ever um surveyed parents about early release days? Yes, we did. Um I think three years ago we serviced or we surveyed uh parents because we used to have one a month. Um what we did because parents it was tough for them with work schedules. What we did is we added more full day
011inservice days for staff. Okay. And less early release days. How long ago did you survey? um 3 years ago I think it was. Yeah. And it was overwhelming with Oh, yeah. easier to have overwhelming now when it I'm sure it's half of what you were before. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to share about the staffing update even though there is I apologize there's not a resume in your packet. Um but we did um bring a teacher forth to Dr. Asbel to hire. Uh yes. Uh last month we had um a committee of six or seven of us that spent a full day interviewing several candidates. Um we um we nominated uh Michaela Ham to move forward um to meet with um Dr. Bennett and go through the superintendent's office. Uh we're really excited about her.
012She's um currently um a full year long-term sub over in Exit. Um but she is uh going to make a great addition to our 34 team uh next year and um you know we just wanted to uh talk about her tonight just briefly and answer any questions you have about her or the process. Kirstston was on the committee so she can she can speak to that too. How many years does she have teaching experience? You said she's long-term sub now but yeah it'll be just over one. Okay. Yeah. And she taught internationally. I should. So she does have teaching experience just not it doesn't always it doesn't count because it wasn't United States but um she has taught in variety of environments before. Is she local like from here originally or she is an SA16
013undergraduate? Yeah. I I just want to speak to um the interviewing process and the thoroughess. Uh it was very teen focused and I want to commend uh principal French on involving kids because it's really important that we get their intuitive sense of what what they see, feel, and hear. Um and principal French did do that with three of our students and they unanimously voted for the same same person. Um and and they came up with their own questions and uh toward the candidates. Um it was really nice. Um so thank you for doing that. I think it was it was really cool for them to be part of that process. Also great. In terms of uh candidates, I know we had talked before it's you know hard to find teachers, right? I think that's reality.
014Um how was the process in terms of like getting resumes, number of applicants? Was it better than we had hoped for? So the the I mean the challenges that we face are you we had budgeted for a mast's 5. Um so there's always that you know budget wise we have to look at for for staff that may have applied that had way more than 5 years experience in a master's degree. Uh I think I think total we had 27 total applicants which is not a lot. Yeah. Um you know in past years we've had 50 60 candidates that apply for jobs here. So there I mean there is a teacher shortage across the country. New Hampshire is no stranger to that. Um but we we we we had some quality people come come through our
015door. Uh we brought two candidates back um to meet with our students, take a tour, meet directly with me and um so yeah, we're we're we're really happy about the person we had before. Yep. Any other questions about that? Okay. Anything we need to do with that or we all set? No, we're all we're we're good. They are. Yeah. Uh and then the other thing that I just brought up just a few moments ago, um it was at a meeting was last month or a couple months ago at a board meeting. Um uh we talked about um just to sign briefly. Uh we had we had some people come look at it. Um it's it's it doesn't make sense to try to repair it because so much needs to go into it. it it makes
016sense um to purchase a new sign. Um we have had um some people come out. So we'll I'll bring the quotes to the next uh to the next board meeting. We can discuss what that would look like financially. What are you what are you what are you hoping for? Um it would be very similar to to the shape that's out there now. Um an electronic sign is way way too much. Not half. Um, so it's it'll be it'll have a similar look. It's going to be um the main sign is going to be blue. It's going to be uh much easier to maintain and the power wash and um more of a I don't know PVC um over the you know over the pulse and a lot easier to maintain. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. Yep.
017Uh, we need to approve the calendar. Oh, yes. If you guys are okay, a motion to approve the calendar, schoolboard calendar. Uh, I motion to approve the calendar. Second. All in favor? I. Thanks. Great. Uh, discussion and action items. Um, we do have policy in your packet. there was policy in your packet. Typically, the board chair who's on the policy committee brings the brief and goes over the policy for you, but that was Tiffany who um is no longer on the board. Um so, I if there was a policy brief included in your packet, I don't know if um if you have any questions about the policies. Um we're just we are looking for a motion to approve them. Uh, is everyone have five minutes just to quickly glance at them? Because I haven't glanced
018at them yet. I will say there is a ton going on uh at your state. A ton. So, do you want me to Would you like me to read them out loud? Yeah. Or Yeah, you can or I can. It's in um Well, you guys are just looking over it. So the policies are um board conflict of interest which is would be a new policy agenda preparation and dissemination a new policy quorum I think is an update of a policy um BH's um electronic communication which is an update um board identification which is new um administration of federal grants we had to add um the annual budget which is DB um inventory management and assets is also we had to add around federal grants um and then the public gift donations is all uh update
019ones that we are required to have if we want to accept donations, if we want to access federal grants and all sorts of that stuff. Um, so these are all vetted through the policy committee. I know we didn't have a representation here, but the policy committee um did look at it and um legal looked at it. So this is what that came out of the policy committee for recommendations for adoption. What would be considered a gift? Like what's an example? Sometimes um community members be they might be gee electronics. They might um it could be furniture. It could be stuff for outside. So it be for the students in the school. Yep. Sometimes for a teacher they um want to give teachers equipment. What we you can't have is just like I want to give
020Mr. French this. it really has to go to the the school board and then the administrator of the building would decide how to use the equipment. Um so it can't be to a certain person. It can just go to the school district for in this case myself or the principal to do what they want with it. And gifts is not under the same umbrella as fundraising, right? So the PTO fundraises that that automatically is ours to use, right? Well, theirs to use. The PTO uses it. Yeah. I just I was deciphering. And the PTO can do what what they want with it. Yep. Okay. Um they're all fairly short ones. They seem pretty straightforward to me. So, so uh what do I say? Approval. Yeah. Make a motion to adopt at the end of this.
021I make a motion to adopt BCB BC B I E D A F B D I D K C D. um policy. Kirstston number seven is DB. DB. Yeah, you said BD. Just want to make sure that's on the right. Shocking. Thank you. You're welcome. So, need a second. Second. All in favor? I I policies pass. Um All right. Now, you just have to decide as a board who's going to join the What? What? You have to do um committee assignments. We do have to do committee assignments. That's a discussion. It is. Um, so we each are assigned to multiple committees, plural. Mhm. Um, and we have three goals here at East Kingston. Um, so we're all assigned to one of those particular goals and then we are also assigned to multiple district committees that
022we're on and then we all are responsible for going to the joint board committee. Um also so um the three goals that we have right now for our district and are those staying the same Brandon? Do we keep those? We decided on to keep the three. Um what happens is usually in August or September you either decide on these goals or change your goals. Okay. And it these go for school years. So these are redone either in a workshop if the board would like to have a a working a public workshop in August to go overboard goals or if they want to do it at the September meeting. Okay. So the these goals would only be right now until June. Revisit and then we'll revisit it. Um so keep that in mind for this conversation
023and then we can have some other things. So, one of our goals is um to work with Brandon and the school and Dr. Bennett on academic growths in learning outcomes um so that we make informed decisions about how our kids are being taught, right? And the learning that's occurring. The second one is community engagement, right? We've you've heard us talk about the community engagement. Um, and then the last one is the oversight and implementation of an a capital imp improvement plan. Right now I am on the community engagement committee and Paul is on the capital improvement leaving the academic one. With that um I am very open to switching to the first one as it is aligned to my skill set. Um, not that the community engagement isn't aligned, I suppose, but um, I I'm
024happy to switch with you if community engagement is something that would be a little bit more comfortable. Um, I don't know, Paul, how you feel? We can all divvy it up, but we can divvy it up in se in August, too. Yeah. No, I think uh short term that makes a lot of sense. We're going to be discussing this in a few months from now anyways. Um, obviously with your background and skill set, I think the academic leaning goal makes sense. Um, so I'm in agreement with your overall suggested approach. And I mean, if I could suggest there's only a couple meetings left, maybe JT can just partner with you on the community, give you a couple months to get them up to date and everything because I know you've done a lot of work
025around that. Yeah. So my my suggestion would be I'll just continue on community engagement with you. Um and then Brandon, you can add me to the academic first goal. Um and then we'll we'll reconvene um come se August. Do we have to vote on that? Or no? Nope. This is just a discussion. It's really all all three goals are you all three own. Um, I think the point of assigning it is so someone is the point person and can report out and and whatnot. Yeah. I think the bigger conversation is is policy committee. Yeah. Can you explain how often policy committee meets? Once a month and it's either in person or on Zoom. Um, and it really it's um a representative or one or two um schoolboard representatives from other of our districts. Um and
026really the policy model policies that we the superintendent's office believe should be is presented to the policy committee. Um and feedback is given thoughts about it. Um some edits are happening. Sometimes edits are sent back to legal for advice if can we put this in here um and then sent back and then the model policies that come out of it is what the board sees. So the hope of having the policy committee meeting monthto- monthth or more if needed was so that every school district has the same policy opposed to Kensington, East Kingston, Newfields, exit having different policies for the same um procedure. Uh so that that's really the point, but um it's in the evenings. It's usually 5 or 6:00 at night. It's about an hour or so meeting depending on the number of
027policies. And and our director of HR, how's that at the moment? So right now we are the director of HR has um a policy expert running the meetings. So um depending on what the policyy's about like next month you'll see policies that come out of my office around student services on how students so that is I work with um Olivia um I can't remember her last name Puland and she um we contract with her to help us with policies. We also use free legal from the new New Hampshire School Board Association. That's why we can send it back to legal and you're not getting fees. It's cuz you pay for that membership. That is free legal advice. Um and so depending on who it is, HR coordinates and says, "These are the policies I need
028done this month. You're the team to do it." So my office is doing policies this month that you'll see next month. Um and that and that's how that's how it's and that's how it's that's how it's done. Okay. So that's the that's the committee that's open right now. Okay. Um there's a thousand others but yeah I was let question Rene so do um in terms of the policies no not policies sorry the committees that we are sort of assigned to or part of do we ever sort of re-evaluate that and make switches or is it something that you're sort of committed to based on the term? Yep. You can it the way the governing govern government governance has written the school board chair assigns policy to board members. Um but what this board has always
029done is it's been a collaborative collaborative process. Sometimes you can change it every time a board's elected and you can say I will be on this committee for three years. Sometimes a board member will reach out to the board chair and say I can't do this policy anymore because of X Y and Z. Then the board discusses it in public. who can take over safety and security and then someone volunteers. So, you can change committees at any time. I've seen it happen when they do board goals, they do policy. I've seen it happen every time a board is every time there's an election they do policy. And I've seen um circumstances change and people have had to change policy. Does the policy committee committee, sorry, does the policy committee meet every month only during the
030school year or is it throughout the whole entire year? Nope. During the school year? During the school year. Okay. I mean, I think for my standpoint, I think it would make sense for JT to step in at least for the remainder of the school year and then we can sort of re-evaluate as a whole if it makes sense for us to stick with existing assignments. Um, that's fine. Yeah, I I I really when we go into our goals because I really want to look at our goals um in August. So that's if JT's fine with that just for the last two months to step in and make sure we're just getting the information and then we can we can look at who's doing what um in August. Yeah, I'm on board. You're okay with it?
031Okay. I just I really would like to start aligning things so it so that there's a thread or a connection between our goals and and what we're actually doing within the SAU because right now it's just pretty haphazard and being a little more cohesive. Yeah. Yeah. And there's different skills on the board. Yeah. So, so JT will take it on um for right now. So, can we make sure that JT is getting the information from So, you'll be invited to April's meeting and May's meeting. Um, well, no, April's meetings is next week. If you can make it, great. If not, I will Yep. Um, Yep. So, I will put you on the email list and you'll get invited. And again, you can ask for a Zoom. I think the only conflict I had was uh
032the May one. I think it was the 12th or something. Going to be a gone. And if you and I Yeah, you can send send the links and if she can get her passport. So, um, they're passports are coming back in four weeks now. I'll know this one. Okay. Um, it's the real ID thing and it's Yeah. passports takes a little less time. So, the May one just forward one of us. We'll decide who if who who can jump on the main one in the next couple weeks. That's fine. Y Okay, great. So, we'll let um Sharon know. Great. And then goal is going to be JT and policy committee is going to be JT for now or you're going to you're going to take you're going to co you're co-aking it. Got it. Right.
033So Brandon's going to add me to the academic one starting now. Okay. Whenever that is. And then um I'll continue with community engagement also to transition JT. Great. And then Paul will keep three. Right. Yep. Okay. So I don't have any updates on goal one because I I don't know Brandon if we've we've reported out on school at the June meeting. I'll I'll report on our Okay. End of view. Yeah. stuff. Okay. Um I do have quite a bit on goal two. So we want to cover off in the committee first. We didn't necessarily cover off. Oh yeah, sure. Okay. So go ahead. Safety and security. Um I wasn't at the last meeting, so I have nothing to report from that meeting, but um it does look like the next one's going to be scheduled
034for October, I believe. Yep. Um so it'll be a bit before we meet um again. Um I don't know if there's anything else. Um there was no We did have all of our first responders meet. Um we went over um some safety and security updates for our buildings which you already know about. Um there was no action that came out of it that the board needs to take. Um it was um noted that SU6 does lead the way in a lot of our safety security procedures um and and and whatnot. So, it really was just a touch point um because we're in a really good spot. There was no further meetings this year until next October. So, um I'll just cover off on strategic planning now. Um we had a great couple of days um
035during our strategic planning summit uh at the end of March. I was able to make the last two days. Um I think we had a really good turnout. There was probably what 60 70 people that participated. Yeah. Um, lots of different kinds of community members, a lot of people that work for the SAU, which is great, too. Um, so, uh, we'll be meeting again on Thursday, and I assume that we'll hopefully be discussing, um, sort of the takeaways from, uh, the three-day sessions that we had. So, um, yeah, that's my report for that. Okay. Um I I want to report um on the superintendent evaluation committee. Um so uh April is a very busy month. Um our superintendent has post like submitted her goals and her evidence for that. At our joint board meeting next
036week, all of us will be going into non-public and each district will be looking and reviewing and setting our own uh giving her our own feedback. she has um offered to do it publicly at the board meeting at the joint board. So she's going to review her own goals and provide her own evidence which I think is really um a nice way to do it and then we'll go into non-public in each of the districts in that space. We'll we'll give our own feedback towards towards those goals. So that's really great. And then um in May uh the superintendent committee will get together and we will start vetting all of that data and start putting a report together for um the superintendent. Um and we will update at the last joint board meeting. So that
037will be a busy meeting next Monday. Um the wellness committee um not many people came to that one. It's still building that toolbox that we were looking at. I am going to step down from that. I am the parent uh representation for that particular um committee. And so with that, I'm I'm willing to probably take something else on. Um but it's really hard for me. They meet in the morning and I'm in school and it's really really hard for me to kind of bow out. So um they're they're plugging along. They're also looking for a I don't know if I can say this. Um there will be a a transition for the chair um in that in that role too. So things might be be shifting a little bit. So we'll have um one more
038meeting. I think that will be in May or June also. I do want to close public comment. I think we had a minute. Yep. You all set? You're all set. Okay. So, I'm going to close public comment at this point. Um, okay, goals. We're all set for goal one. Uh, Brandon uh will report out um in June at the end of the year. Um, goal two, uh, community engagement. So, it's been very busy. Um, community engagement has met uh, formally, but there's been a lot of emails and communication behind the scenes. um one of our teachers and I want to really thank Carolyn Jablowski for really stepping up. We had a um community oven pizza fundraiser and she spent four hours at the community oven by herself fundraising doing a basket. Um it was really
039outstanding to see her dedication to to this school and so I I really wanted to give her a shout out. Um, Brandon has spoken to SST to get that ball rolling again and and that's fantastic because we want to get um our kids over at SST involved with this as much as possible. Um, I had two productive meetings. one with an Eagle Scout who would like to make this um possibly his Eagle Scout project and two um community members stepped forward and came to the library and met with me for an hour and a half um on how they could help and be part of this and really want to um be fully engaged with what we're going to be doing out in the community park back there. And I have those two names um
040to add to our to our list. So, as slow as as slow as I felt we were going the last year and a half, I honestly feel like it's been a really productive couple months with our King Fisher Community Park. And I and I want to thank the PTO again for um really kickstarting that with giving us the money to do some What did they do? What do you They fled everything. They crushed everything. trees, um, brush, um, got rid of, you know, they made an open classroom, outdoor classroom space. U Mr. Mizzy, I want to give him some credit, too. I didn't update you yet, but Mr. Miz has been trying, our our maintenance coordinator has been trying to find a company that would be willing to donate wood chips. We do have someone
041um at any time they're in the area, they will drop wood chips off back there. Um, so now we just need to figure out um working with the SAU using their machines to eventually pick up the wood chips and move them to the trails and figure out where we want things to to go. Awesome. So yeah, so that that just happened I think Thursday or Friday last week. Um so he's he's done a great job working with us too behind the scenes. Oh, wonderful. So a lot of a lot of people um pulling together to do it. Uh so we are meeting in May May 7th. May 7th soon. Um so at that at that meeting I'm hoping to really start organizing um when we can get some people back there and looking at it.
042We have someone who is willing to cut down some more trees for us. Um and so far we've not spent any money and that's just fantastic. So there's some excitement around it and I'm I'm you know really grateful to the committee who's put so much time into it. U so moving forward um I think that's it for that one. Yeah. Yeah. Paul uh in terms of capital improvement um you know we talked earlier about the signage up front and uh look forward to getting those quotes. Um there is if there's anything else you want us to report on in terms of progress for other No, we have those other um two bigger jobs happening in a couple weeks over April break. Okay, great. So we'll share an update once those are in the works completed.
043So okay, there's no new business to present to the board. Nope. We also I don't have any old business to revisit for the board. Any reason to go into nonpublic? Not on this end. I was, but I don't need to know. So, I'm all set. Okay. So, uh it is 506. Need a motion. I need a motion to close the meeting. Motion to close the meeting. Second. Second. Need a second. Sorry. Motion. Second. All in favor? I I need to adjourn.