Stratham School Board Meeting 04/09/25

001All right, good evening. We are going to start the Stratam School Board meeting for April 9th at 6:03 p.m. I'm going to ask everyone to please rise and salute the flag which is right here behind us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. I am going to start by looking for a nomination for board chair to nominate uh Jen. Jen, do I have a second? A second. Thank you, Sophie. Any any discussion? Okay, Jen, if we uh would you accept it if if it gets that far? Yes, I will. Thank you. That's helpful. All right, let's do roll call vote. I'll start with Cameron. Hi. Thank you, Jennifer. I Eric,

002I I and Sophie. Okay, 4. Thank you, Jennifer. Welcome back. I turn this meeting back over to you. Yeah. All right. Thanks very much. um that it does mean a lot to me and I there's some things I want to change um this year. So look really looking forward to to being on the board again. Um all right. Is there a nomination for vice chair? I'll I would like to nominate um Eric as vice chair. Um do I have a second? I'll second Sophie. Thanks Sophie. Uh any discussion? All right. Um we'll do roll call. Cameron. No. What did you say? I said nay. No. No. Oh. Uh, yes. Hi. Hi. All right. So, that is uh 310. All right. Thanks very much. Um I want to um I think we just need to add

003a couple things to the agenda, right? So, we have a donation to talk about. Yep. I have that under new business. Under new business. Perfect. And um sick days that will go into non-public. Okay. Sounds great. Yeah. And then what I the thing I would ask is if we could have um the administration do their report both on lunch services and also uh staffing for next year just so they can get back to the uh presenter that we have uh on family night tonight. So if that we could reorganize the agenda that would be very helpful. Sounds great. Do we have a student council report we want to do first? No. When we date able to come, but we'll we have one for May. Okay. Sounds good. So yeah, I'd love to hear the SMS

004report. Um, by the way, thank you so much for the SMS admin report. I think that's really helpful and um I I think a lot of people will read that. So, thanks for doing that. Oh, yeah. Of course. Am I think I was blocking this? Hey, Molly. Don't trip on my cord here. Hey, Kate. Do you want to like move it back a little bit so the board can see it as well? like the actual new line. You got it. Cheers. Thank you. Waiting for your computer. [Applause] Can you see that, Cam? Is that visible from your seat? Yeah. my hair just died. Um, so typically this time of year we report on just um sort of just the average numbers for the food service program. Um, we keep you up to date on the

005staffing that's currently in place just to kind of give you an overview of the things that have been going on within food service this year. Um, just to give you an idea, we uh we last year we started this sort of giving you like a longitudinal look at the number of meals that are served every day. Um, and then we added this year's meals. Um just noting that that's up until March 31st. Um it's not a full year of meals. These remain um these are the the hot items, the ones that are purchased most frequently. Um I imagine when you look at you're like, "Yeah, that's what an 8-year-old would want." Um and they haven't changed over the years. They're consistently the meals that we serve the most of. Um and this is just updated

006numbers as of the 31st of March. Again, um I did want to put this on here because I think it's important. Um we're currently working um roughly around the same meals, a few less actually um over the course of a year um in terms of K through five, but we are now, we'll talk about that in a minute, um serving breakfast um and lunch to our preschool students, which is new for us. Um but we're working with less staff. Um, so we've been periodically sort of reviewing and and working through our procedures of making sure that we can get food um to the students as fast as possible when they come in for lunch so that they have time to eat. Um, on the days when there's a lot of meals served, it's really hard

007sometimes. So they have a 25minute lunch block and um when it's really busy or they're down to three people in the cafeteria on any given day, um, some kids are left with 10 minutes to eat. They're the last people that go through the line. Um, and I not saying it for any other reason than just sort of explaining some of the stuff that we're working through as a as a program. Um, and Ann is constantly, you know, taking feedback from whether it's the pairs that are ESPs that are in the cafeteria or it's Kate or I going, we can't have this happening because we need to have time to eat. Um, it's just really complicated. It's not an easy fix. There's just a domino when we try to make some changes. Um, and this is

008just an update. One of the things that you guys vote on every year is an increase to the cost of lunch. Um, and I'll just briefly touch on why that happens. So, the federal government reimbures a certain dollar amount for lunches. Um, and the expectation is that if you are below the current cost of reimbursement that you're increasing by 10 cents minimum every year. And so, that's kind of what the board has been doing to sort of close that gap. Um, I imagine we'll end up making something very similar decision again this year as well. Um we do have an increase in the number of students that are receiving free and reduced lunch which is um there was also an adjustment in what qualified for free and reduced lunch this year. So the fact that

009we went up given that it's harder to even qualify suggest that there would be last year there would be a higher percentage if we were using the same equation to determine free and reduced lunch. Um but that that algorithm was adjusted. And then this is the piece that's new for us. Um this was a a federal and state law change um that we are required to not required we it's recommended it's required that we provide um breakfast for our preschool students which was um unanticipated. First of all our three-year-old students are only here till 11. So it's hard. It's great that we can feed them. It's not an objection to feed them but it's a time of a huge chunk of time that they're only here for a very short amount of time. So Anna's

010been collaborating with Cheryl and Beth on how to do that in a way that's time efficient um and provides a variety of options for the preschool students as well. Um so that's just a picture of the number of preschool meals that were being um eaten by our kids each month so far this year. They bring like the bucket down of like the waffles and the preschoolers like our food's here and they like sure for she's like I feel like a celebrity every time I drop off. They love it. They've been eating lunch in the cafeteria too as part of that new um regulations. Um and it's been really cool. Originally it was like wildly overwhelming for them. There was no table that they could sit at because the tables were so high with the stools

011that are built in as part of the tables. So we were like using furniture from all over the place trying to make it work and then it was really overwhelming. They are three and four years old. So um they were doing it on the cafeteria with the bl with the curtains kind of sorry the stage with the uh curtains like halfway open. Now they're actually eating on the floor with the kids. They just had to at tables, not on the floor. Sorry, I meant on the Yes. I'm not feeling well. Tables. Yes. But it's awesome. It's really cool to see them grow and get ready to make the transition next year to kindergarten. I don't know if you guys have any questions about it. Can I just add a couple things too, Kate? So, I

012get to meet with the food service directors uh once a month. Our five food service directors across all the districts. So, just want to let you know that we did apply for a farm to school grant. Uh we got awarded $50,000. So stratum will be $5,800 so we can use that with local farms. Uh it's got to be New Hampshire grown so that we bring in fresh uh vegetables, fruits, and uh any protein products if if it's locally to New Hampshire. So I think that's amazing that we're staying local. Uh got that grant that will offset some of the things we're trying to do. Um we also you in May we will bring you new lunch prices and we'll give you rationale to why those are going up. um of other things obviously with uh

013packaging uh and supplies uh and the price right now currently is a huge factor of why we'll have to go up. And the last thing just to highlight you'll see some new uh cafeteria tables here. Um we were able to get six K six new cafeteria tables. You again um we worked with some other schools that were looking to get rid of them and as we had had in previous budgets we've had to take that out. So we were able to work with some other schools to uh get a donation. And so it did not cost Stratum anything other than some manpower to get them here. So again, thank you. Kudos to some of the other schools that were upgrading their their tables and were able to repurpose them here. And most of them are

014only about 1 to two years old, so they should sustain um for for a good 20 years. So thank you on that. Thank you. That's really exciting. I emailed Ann about the farm to school thing. So I'm really glad that we got it. Did you say it was 50,000? 50,000 for the whole district. uh stratum would be 5,800. So it's proportionate based on the number of students you have. Okay. I undid it. Oh, okay. Okay. Can I ask a question about I didn't know if you wanted me to. Yeah. I don't know if that's on. So you mentioned the um reduction in the part-time staff. Is that because you can't find people or Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's been posted for a while. We and we have actually we have two um new people this

015year. Um and I think one of them is three hours a day, one is four hours a day, but it's still less than we previously had. Okay. Yeah. Do you guys um or does Ann hear from parents about food choices? Is that a big topic? Okay. Um our parents are great because they'll call, they'll have inquiries, they'll meet with Ann, they'll meet with me. Um I think it's um there are so many federally dictated guidelines and I think that's really hard. In addition to the federal guidelines, there's also only certain vendors that you can use. So there's a lot of parameters around the food program. Um like there's parameters around like how many grams of sugar in each meal. There's programs about how many what whole grain has to be. Um, and then you have

016like the amount of things that have to be wrapped versus unwrapped because you have to be able to like preserve the food. Like there are so many regulations. It's the things that they have to be aware of and manage and know are like exhaustive and they change frequently too. So, um, Ann collaborates with the other food service directors across the SAU. Um, we changed vendors last last year to try to help support a larger variety and a little bit easier access because things are often sold out or it's going to be three months behind. Um, and some things that we get from the federal government, we order now for next year. So, like it there's a lot of complicated, I don't want to say loopholes, but there's just expectations that you have to meet. Um,

017but yeah, parents reach out, they offer great suggestions. I think the hard part is like there are parameters we can't break. Okay. Um, and the other thing that I think is important to note is that um, we feel really strongly that if we're going to um, make adjustments, it has to be available to all of our families and we have to be able to offset the financial burden that that would cost. we can't it's not okay for us to be changing things that then our families can't afford and then kids can't access. Um and so that's also a huge part of this and as you're aware budgets are super super tight and particularly in food service there's always a negative in food service because you're budgeting for the food but then you have to also

018budget for the staffing and you're not really reimbured for the staffing. So, it's a really complicated formula um that I wish was a lot easier to manipulate or work within and a way to change some of those options, but they're pretty it's pretty strict. I just want to ask two other quick questions just about the second serving. Is that going okay staffing wise? And then also I see um we have a negative incumbrance of um 59 5900. Is that about where we usually are this time of year for the food service management line? Um yeah, I'm looking. Yes, I'm looking at you. I can answer about the seconds while he's looking that up. Um, so any uh family that would like their child to have seconds, they send in a letter at the beginning of

019the year. Um, their ID cards is what they use to go through the line to get their lunch. It'll have a punch hole in it which means that they're okay to get seconds. Um, and for most meals that's possible and sometimes we just run out of food and not everybody can get a second, but we do it for most meals. But staffing wise, Yep. Oh yeah, they can manage the staffing because typically um those are the kids that jump back in because they've had time to eat and they want to get back in. They just get right back in and go right back through it. Yeah. So to answer your question, Jennifer, um the incumbrance is not 5900. That's the change from the prior month. So every month our accountant looks at where we're at

020because like as Kate said, um we're always in a lost position because not only does the food service fund have to pay salaries, but has to pay all of um the equipment. So like refrigerators, stoves, everything repairs and it's got to cover the FICA and retirement of anybody that works in food service all the food. And as you go to the grocery store, I'm sure you see prices increase. So um that that's why that you're always in the negative. So if you look on page four of your line by line in the back, okay, you're actually going to see that it's an um incumbrance of 34,000. So we won't know what the food service loss is until we get to the end of the year. And so what we do is we take our best

021guess based off of the number of kids eating, the expenses that we're seeing, and the reimbursements that we're getting as to what the food service loss will be at the end of the year. And that's booked at the end of the year. So that's why you'll see that $34,442 incumbrance. Then on top of that, what can't be in the food service fund is um what we call bad debt from students. So parents that are unable to pay and that we look towards the end of the year as to what that is and the operating budget does have to cover that. In some districts in exit elementary and cooperative they actually have already voted that the the the operating budget covers the reduced fee because of that change and it being decreased and it's families that

022qualify would have a really difficult time paying for it. So like I just looked up the figures. I think for exit elementary it's like $2,500 for the year. Okay. But as we get closer to the end of the year, you'll be able to see that figure. Hopefully we'll have a better guess next month. Any other questions for Kate? All right. Well, thank you so much. Um, what is happening in the other room? Um, Sam Drezen from Changing Perspectives is here. Um, he was with presented to all the grade levels today. Um he's fantastic. He's a speaker about um empathy and compassion for differences and similarities. So he was born um okay with trigger um syndrome. Treacherous syndrome. Thank you. Treacher Kelman syndrome. Um and he speaks about his journey and he shares with kids about

023like the ways that they have shared experiences and then their differences and like why that's really okay. And if you have questions, you just simply ask and people want to talk about that. It's been fantastic. Okay. Did you read the book Wonder with your girls? Okay. Same. So, I was just Yeah, Millie was just telling me all about it. Yeah, he spoke to fourth graders today. All grades. Yeah, he spoke to all the grades today. Even preschool. Um, miracles um from Mimi supporting us. I asked her. Okay, great. Yeah, that's um that's pretty awesome. All right, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah, I think that's the second. You want me to project this up? Yeah. Do you mind? Yep. Oh, there's another one. One more thing. Oh, I'll blow that up. very

024little. I knew I need my computer in front of me to be able to see it though. How's that? Can I have Yes. Um so, as everybody is aware, um we had the March vote um at the annual town meet, excuse me, at the annual um school district meeting. Um, and we knew that uh with the additional $110,000 that was put in the budget that that put us sort of at the middle column that was presented, which was still a reduction of $288,000, roughly $288,000 from what we know to be would have to be salaries. Um, the board has talked about this since november um knowing that it would have to come from salaries because we had reduced almost all the other lines um in order to come up with the budget that we came

025up with. Um, and so one of the things the board did was to offer the early incentive so that we didn't have to reduce staffing that was going to be here next year. Rather, we just wouldn't replace positions. I think that was a big part of our conversation. Rifting people doesn't feel good. And so this was a nice way to not have to do that. Um, and so through lots of those conversations. Um we talked about um many many conversations between senior leadership and building level leadership about how do we do this in a way that maintains um the high quality of expectation of education that we want for our students. Um how do we do this in a way that um meets the demands of the expected budget? How do we do this in

026a way that um keeps us within what was what has been the board's expectation for class size? Um, and we know that that's not policy, but that has been the guidelines that we've been working with. So, we wanted to remain within those guidelines. Um, and then of course, how do we um do this in a way that wouldn't require us to reduce staff? Really trying to honor that. Um, and so option one is the option that we um really felt um most confident moving forward. I want to be honest that none of them feel great. I don't want to try to like sugarcoat this and make this feel good. I just want to say that this is that felt the most feasible, the most responsible um and the least impactful on our students. Um I

027also think it's really important to mention that um what I believe I heard was um really wanting to hear the community. I think that was said a lot at our meetings through October, November, December. that's been said a lot through the building renovation process and the building sub subcommittee is like really hearing um what the community also is asking us to be cognizant of. Um and so prior to the March uh school district meeting there was really a loud really a loud voice about that. Um and then I think the community had a different presentation at the March meeting. Um but again I thought we were really thoughtful and um intentional about our proposal option one which is what we're the decision that we came to around how to move forward next year. Um which

028is that we will not be replacing one of the classroom teachers that retired. It does not mean we're rifting a position and rather than replace the speech language pathologist with a speech language pathologist we're going to replace with a speech language assistant. Um, and that was a conversation that I had with the speech language department. We analyzed all of their data of the level of service delivery. We looked at the work that they're doing with MTSS at the tier 2 level. We looked at the number of meetings that are required in the number of evaluations. And we felt that we could still responsibly meet the needs of our students with a speech language assistant versus speech language pathologist, which is about $100,000 differential between the staffing positions. So, that's part of the rationale that went

029into this discussion. Um, I did put up on there. Um, the concerns that I think it still creates with that. I don't, like I said, I don't want to paint that this is a rosy picture. I want to paint the full and complete picture about the things that we waited out. Um, the concern about having one less classroom teacher is that we will have a grade that is a bubble grade, meaning it will be less classrooms every year that it goes through, which means we'll be transitioning teams every year. Does that make sense when I say that? Okay. Um, so like whatever grade it is next year, there'll be four. when that grade moves on to the next grade level be four teachers which mean that team changes because we can't have five teachers on

030there so that is a concern for us that's hard to maintain consistency and collegiality that's a concern and it does increase for the grade level that has four teachers it increases their their workload we talked about that at a board meeting in February so those are the the things that we weighed out the the factors that we weighed out um when we were making this decision I also wanted to present um because it did it did come up several times um after the March meeting um about not replacing the PE teacher that was and not replacing the speech language assistant. Um so I wanted to present that as the other thing that we really gave serious consideration to um and the reason we didn't go with it. Um so again it would require the speech

031language assistant. Um and if we did not have replace the PE teacher there are other ramifications. So we currently have um a related arts schedule that allows our teachers to have common planning which means there needs to be five available related arts at the same time because that's where the kids go. So those teachers have common planning. Is that okay? Um, if we remove PE from that, we would have to replace it with something or we would lose the ability to have common planning, which would mean that our current learning commons program, whichever which they came and presented to us about the integration of that, would mean that Steve would have to go fully back into the schedule. The learning commons would need to be the library fully. Um, which means then we would have

032to, first of all, it would damage the programming, number one. But number two, it would mean we would have to hire someone to do the technology in the building because that's what Steve does with half of his time. So that would be a financial burden that we would have to then incur in order to fill that position. We have always had someone in that position um to the tune of about $120,000 prior to Steve prior to this change. Um the last person was Sarah Glats that worked for us full-time in that position. So there would be a financial incurring there would be a financial burden that we cannot fill right now. We don't have the money in the budget for FY26 to do that. Um and it would change our programming which we did not

033feel comfortable doing. We've worked really hard to get to the place that we're doing for for people that have come lately. We've had the invention convention. That's all collaborative effort and really being interdisciplinary. Um and it would require reductions in staff which would be riffs. It would be reducing staffing in our building which would not mean not refilling. It means also reducing additional staff in order to make that happen in order to fill the technology piece. So we went with option one versus option two. And I just wanted to share our rationale and our thinking behind that and just express the complicated nature of it. Um, and also the thoughtful work that went into making that decision. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about it. Uh, so I have a question about

034the you mentioned the board expectation for class sizes. Um, so I think we talked about that was an email or something. So what's the since it's not a policy, I don't know what the number is that we're using for that. Yep. It's it's actually in the board packet on the enrollment. Correct. Isn't it every month on the enrollment numbers? Yeah. So I'm up there. So I probably should not do that. Sorry. I have it right here. So I Yeah, I have it memorized. But so it's from a email from the board decision on um back in January 8th of 2020. So the recommendations at that time from the board was kindergarten minimum of 13 students maximum of 17 students. First grade through third grade minimum of 15 students maximum of 18 students. And then in

035fourth and fifth grade a minimum of 18 maximum of 22. Again that was a a practice and procedure. There is no policy u that aligns with this. That's just what that board recommended that time and has been followed by previous boards or boards after that. And we've had years where we've had a classroom that would have a second grade classroom that had 19 and we weren't expected to then start a new a sixth second grade class for one student. We knew that we were going to be over. That happens with move in and move out sometimes. Well, I'm just wondering so as far as that weighing in on the decision, I mean is that a big factor as far as the trying to adhere to only concern is because it's not like a policy, right?

036So, and we discussed I think a couple weeks ago about trying to formalize that. It's not going to happen anytime soon, I'm sure, but yeah. Um, I do think class size matters tremendously for a variety of reasons. Um, there has the last longitudinal study about it was done a long time ago, like probably 15 years ago, maybe at this point was like best practice. I think a lot has changed since then. I think we can speak to the implications in the work that we do every day as the classes get larger, the complicated nature of that. Um, in February I presented sort of like hard numbers to try to show what it looked like when there was four more kids in your classroom versus not just in terms of like the number of meetings, number

037of progress reports, communication home, like things like that nature. Not just because we had been talking a lot about like what it's like to be in a classroom right now. Um, and I think thought the teachers and the uh ESPs and um, related services and especially did a great job articulating it and talking about the day-to-day experiences, but it's hard to quantify, I think. And so I tried to quantify it with numbers in the February meeting. Okay, this is kind of a related question, but how how can we think creatively to provide teachers with more with more time I guess more re or reduce the burden on teachers? Like are are there conversations in admin and of how can we actually reduce the number of meetings? How can we support them in other ways that

038may reduce their workload and allow them to focus on the things that we really need them to focus on? I feel like that's a conversation we have probably every day and have for probably three years. Um we we're interviewing right now for positions. Um and yesterday one of the actually many of the applicants actually asked the but it's their opportunity to ask questions asked and there's 13 people on the committee cross-section of the school. um asked like what it is that you really like working at SMS and what are you proud of? Um and I would say to a person, I'm wondering if there's anybody in the audience that was actually on the committees. Uh Julie, were you on the committee? No, it was Kayla. Shoot. Um to a person, they talked about recognizing that

039there's more and more stuff put on educators plates, but feeling like admin is constantly saying like, "How do we take it off or how do we give you the time to do it?" Um I can give you an example of that. um the related service providers and the special ed teachers have to write progress reports four times a year, not um semester wise like the classroom teachers. Um and we try to find time for them to do that whether that's an inservice day, whether that's we try to juggle and help with kids. Like we're constantly looking for ways to take things off their plate or to provide the time to do the things that are being asked of them. Um I don't I want to be clear, there is not a simple answer for that,

040Sophie. I I don't feel like we're dismissive about it. I feel like we constantly are looking for ways to do that. I think we're constantly looking for ways to support staff. Um, I feel like we spend our days in teachers classrooms right now. If I'm not interviewing, I'm actually in a classroom helping. Um, and it's because of the load of the work. Um, I think I said at the meeting in February, like I actually feel like I don't, this is the first time ever in my career that I'm like, I need to get back in a classroom to actually know what it's like. Like up until now, I could be like, oh, I know what it's like to be in a classroom. I was because it felt so s so similar to what I had

041experienced and what I'm experiencing they sure is feels very different than what I've experienced. Um and so when I'm in the classroom I'm thinking oh okay um this is just a lot. So every educator in our building is hands- on deck all the time in every way. Um I reached out to a group of ESPs on Monday. I have a group of um students that are really struggling with recess in incredible ways and I'm working really closely with their families and it is a every day is a battle. they're just really have they don't have the skills to navigate that space and that that time. And I reached out to the ESPs and I said, "So, if I take them on Monday for recess, Rebecca Vandenberg's the school counselor is going to take them on

042Tuesday. Kristen Quinn, can you take them on Wednesday? Susan Kbecki, can you take them on Thursday?" Um, Liz Larkin, can you take them on Friday? I mean, I am everybody is hands-on all the time in ways of supporting our kids and trying to provide opportunities for adults to help kids build the skills they're going to need to be able to do these things independently. Um, and I feel like even though we're doing all these things, I think we come up short all the time because it's really complicated. I would add like we talk about how to use our staff meeting time, how to use our PLC time in a way that's like use that as a work session so they can do class placement not on their own time but during the staff meeting. Can

043they like little things like that that take time that's just one more thing? Um, how can we restructure PLC's so they're getting a lot can they put their data in then so it's not one more thing they have to do out you know later. So it's like creating the time and space, you know, in the contract there's only a certain number of hours staff are here. So it's like how do we use that off time? Do I dare say off time, right? In service time or meeting time um to get some of the work done. I also feel like we have some like ethical or moral responsibility to them to be like you do need to shut off. So I understand I'm the worst role model on the planet um in terms of that, but

044I honestly like I feel like if I'm not saying to them like nope, don't answer the email. I understand that parent might be really mad, but when they email you at nine o'clock, I don't expect you to respond. It can wait till tomorrow. Um, because if we want them to stay in this profession and we want longevity and we want we have got to be really cognizant of what we're asking them to do and be okay with boundaries for them. Uh, can I ask one more question about So, I know Steve says doing the technology stuff, right? So, was that I I remember like years ago there was like a main position and then there was a secondary one that was posted. So is that like a previous reduction somebody left or was um wonder

045why there's no Yep. So um we had a new technology inter coordinator every year for like four years in a row because they actually make a ton of money when they're not doing not working in schools because it's a skill that is highly paid in other you know other um businesses and so we literally had turnover all the time. Um and coincidentally or not or serendipitously I guess at the same time we were trying to bring our learning commons our library and our technology into the 21st century which is a collaborative model. It is what the expectation is. Um and it worked out beautifully that when that um person resigned um that we were able to create uh the learning college which is the library the media specialist and the library specialist collaborate in there

046together. So they're really doing it 50% of the time. So Steve is able to do all the budgeting for all the technology, all the hardware support that he needs to do, all the software support that he needs to do, or which are all things that and all the safety things, all the updating that used to be what that person used to do. So he's picked up all of that. Um he comes in in the summer to support that kind of stuff. So that's what I mean by if he went back to the classroom full-time, we would have to fill that position because somebody would need to do that. And Kim, my first year here, there were two people who did that. I was going to say, so you're pretty sure that he'll also be back

047the next? I hope so. not going to be turnover like because what I'm I'm curious about what the sentiment is from your staff. I understand you have to do whatever and and I think there was a discussion about, you know, fourth grade versus fifth grade and I'm just curious what what that is given I I understand that you don't have a bunch of great options, but you know, I think there was a lot of folks and myself included that was saying, "Well, whatever you got to do to make sure you don't get rid of a classroom teacher, right?" And I understand we had the conversation about there's a lot more behind it than than just that, but I'm just curious what the sentiment is throughout the building and that sort of thing. Uh, it's hard

048for everybody. I don't think this feels good for anybody. Um, I've had when we shared with the staff at a meeting about what direction we thought we were going in, um, or were hoping to go in or our thinking, there were definitely some like really good questions and some frustration. Um, and also empathy and understanding like I don't think anybody feels like this was a position we wanted to be in. We're in the position and we have to figure it out. Um, I feel like the SMS community, meaning the the adults that are in that building every day, incredibly support each other. Um, and us, and I think they feel the same way. And I feel um, like they felt good to come. I feel like they felt safe to come in and express their

049frustrations with me about that decision. Um, I think they felt heard. I think they also understood. I think it's hard when um everything felt kind of rushed because of the way things happened, right? Like we went into the public hearing thinking one thing in January, we came out of it thinking another. A month later we were thinking another thing. And so in terms of like having lots of conversation with the board, we didn't get to do that with you guys enough to have lots of conversation as a school. We didn't get to do that enough. Um, and I do feel like um, the school community will support the decision knowing that it doesn't feel great, but also realizing that this is the least impactful on our system currently as it is. Um, and knows that

050we will continually go back to these conversations and when we're building the budget for next year, we'll be having these conversations. Um, I feel like we do a lot of collaborative conversations, whether that's at leadership, whether it's meeting with the ST exec board, whether meeting with the uh, ESP exec board. Like these are conversations we have. whether it's not closed doors. Kate and I sitting down and talking about it, we're looking for feedback and seeking ways to make the best decision. Um, with regards to whether it's fourth or fifth grade, that decision has not been made. Um, I Kate and I both feel I hope you don't mind me speaking for you. Kate and I feel really, really, really strongly that we're going to look at the dynamics of every grade level. We're going to

051look at the enrollment of every grade level and we're going to make a decision based on that. It cannot be just because the kids are older. It cannot be. that is actually far down on our list of what we would as a factor for what decision we would make. So I didn't really understand the disruption you mentioned. I I know I've heard about like the bubble class where there's more students per this is kind of like the reverse of that where there's like Exactly. It's like because so we've had we had a bubble class a number of years ago where we had six teachers in a grade level until they were in fifth grade and then we went down to five in that grade level. Um what happens when you have a bubble class is

052so example I'm just this is by the way totally hypothetical right now for the record say it was fourth grade next year second grade next year that means the following year we'll have four teachers at third grade which means we're disrupting that team because we're going to pull a teacher off right um and then put them somewhere else so it is a necessity if we reduce and we don't have the same number of teachers at this grade level right Um it is very hard. Teams depend on each other right now. Like the success of our building is deeply rooted in the teachers that are on a grade level. They are so good right now and in tune with each other and communicative and collaborative and we'll be disrupting that. That's what I was referring to.

053Okay. I was just I was going to ask Kate, did you guys or maybe even to Chris, did you guys consider a non-teer position to eliminate I can answer that. Yeah. So, the hard part about that is the PE teachers that are not are you talking about classroom teachers? I'm saying with the feedback from the community about not producing teachers and maintaining class sizes, did we think outside the box from the original proposal we heard? So, we thought about special education teachers, related service providers who are all in that same CBA, which is an important part of that because when you think about people outside of the CBA, the num the financial numbers you're asking for are very hard to come up with. I'd have to produce many people to equate the cost of someone

054in the CBA collective bargaining agreement. No, no, I knew the acronym. Okay. I was thinking about I mean we have I'm not trying to target anything but we we have certain salaries that are probably within um maybe the guidance behavior I don't know but I'm just saying these are not part-time workers these are people so you are in the CBA so we talked about all of that we full-time right so we first of all you have to look at IEP based services so we can't reduce in special ed the one reduction we felt comfortable was the switch from speech language pathologist to a speech language assistant to ask our case managers right now to take on more kids with the complexity of profiles and the number of meetings, we would not be able to meet

055the the legal obligations we have for IEPs. Um the we're already under what is the expectation by the National Association for School Counselors? We're already under the ratio. We don't even meet the expected ratio with the complexity of profiles that we're seeing and the mental health crisis that we're seeing. So to reduce there would be significant impact on our school that we couldn't we would not be able to function without them. Um and those are the people that are under the CBA. If you're talking about other positions like non-union positions, um we only have a couple. We have a a nursing assistant which we need. We have, you know, 90 so visits every day. Um we have a speech language assistant. We have a KOD, so a certified occupational therapy assistant. Um and then you

056have admin. So you'd really be I don't you could try and function without Kate and I. I don't I mean that's really kind of what you'd be to equate the value. I was just going to say um since we're thinking about guidance at some point, Cameron, you brought that up. Um it might be helpful to know what those best practices ratios are. Sure. Just as like board information going into the budgeting season for next year, right? Um so we we when we uh it hasn't been with this particular five of you obviously or four of you. Um but when we went from um 1.6 and 1.8 to 2.0, I know we present that every year because it was a cost impact and we brought all the national standards and expectations which have actually changed significantly

057from co anyway but we can bring them in the budgeting season for sure. Eric, it just may be informative as we think about if there is a policy that makes sense to create a policy for guidance. Mhm. Well, and I think you know what sources you'd want to go to because I was you know looking at like the state of New Hampshire compar you know so I think you know we can pick from different places but I think we would probably need to come up with a consensus on what we're going to look to for that right I mean with I was looking to ASCA which is the national association but that's the guidelines that they have but you're right New Hampshire every state gets to every state gets to pick what they want it's

058American school counselors association ASA Yeah. Okay. Is typically what's referred to as like the gold standard, but I mean it's got to be probably different as far it's not like you'd look at that and say that's the answer, right? I feel like you're going to have the ratios and everything there and they'll talk about the difference between like different grade levels. They have like different re rationale for why they're they're they're making the ratio that they're making. Okay. It's a good place to start. Same with like the same with like the National Nurses Association makes recommendations based on what they're seeing in trending data across elementary schools and middle schools and high schools and things like that. Any other questions or comments on this from the board? Okay. Anything else you guys? I didn't know

059I you had mentioned the admin update. Yes. I didn't know if there was any questions because I don't want to leave and then you guys would have a question. Um I I do have a question. Have you considered training for next year's fifth grade basketball game? Because you did not win by that that much. It was close. You can't blame me. I was second head lead and I wasn't playing. I was too busy MCing, which I think had a huge impact on the score cuz I often put up and commercializing. She was hilarious. It was well played. I usually take the mic out with me, but I thought that was dangerous to share it. We have Kyle. Kyle Duclla had the moment of his life. He will never forget when he sank that three-pointer. He

060came off. He's like, I will live off that excitement for the rest of my life. It was great. I got to say, yeah, I went with a mom who had never been before and she could not believe it. It was just such a great environment in there. So fun. Amazing that you guys give that time. And um thank you. Kids were the cutest. They they were so cute getting ready outside like they were so it was like it was really special. Yeah, that's great. That's a great tradition. Thank you, Jennifer. The only thing can I just add before Kate and Kate get back to the the parent forum. There's there was question just about the hiring uh flowchart. So I just want to share that with you because there's been question how do we do

061put our committees together. So we can just pass that out and just um review that real quickly. So um so people know when when a job opening comes open we post it internally and externally for at least two weeks. Um then the hiring committee is formed. So Kate and Kate look to um any faculty members that want to be part of that committee. Um typically they don't say no unless there's you know typically multiple repeats of a certain position. Um, and Stratum is unique because you always invite a board member to serve on all of your your committees for your certified positions. Um, once we we get our committee formed, there's typically two rounds of interviews. Uh, things that have changed this year um is that we are no longer allowing anybody that writes a

062recommendation that is in the building to be able to serve on that that interview committee because it could be some type of form of bias. So, uh, if you write a recommendation, you cannot also serve on the interview committee for for that person you wrote a recommendation for. Also because of the multiple changes at the New Hampshire Department of Education for people who are not certified for a position, we are not considering anybody unless they have their uh full certification to be able to come into a certified position. Um that is the major change and it's also a large cost for the employee of $500 to go through that sitebased licensing uh program. So unless it's an emergency um they have to be certified to be able to come up to the superintendent's office for

063recommendation. Once the committee has gone through their ranking system to get their uh their applicants uh and they'll send a finalist or a finalist to the superintendent for final um chance to have conversation and to vet them fully. Uh and then the superintendent is the one that will make the recommendation uh to to this board or myself as the design of of the final position. So just wanted to reiterate some of the changes and how the process actually happens from the start to the finish of when we get a certified person. And then the only difference is over the summer since it's really difficult to get all board members in a meeting together we often ask for you in June to give hiring power for any certified positions someone leaves uh over the summer and

064we we don't have the time to go through that full vet that we could superintendent could hire him on the spot. So just wanted to put that out for public and how the how the flowchart goes. Thank you. Any questions on this? Okay, Cameron and joining us for interviews. We'll see you Friday. Okay. Okay. Great. See you Friday. Awesome. Okay. Thank you guys so much. I was going to speak to one more thing. Restorative practices. Sorry. Sure. I have that update. I I didn't realize it was not in the up um the admin update. Um so, as you know, if you most of you have children here. Um we've been working um on restorative practices at SMS for a number of years now. Um if you were to look in our handbook and it talks

065about like um student behavior, discipline, how we do that, our practices are restorative. Um the nature of really being have the opportunity to reflect on um how we've caused harm to our community and how we repair harm with our community and how as community members we learn to use our voice to say, "I've been harmed and I need this to get better and here's what I need to really become advocates for our community as a whole." Um so we've been working in that for a number of years. Um, I think we're continually always fine-tuning that practice. Um, and we have a student success council, which is a a subcommittee that works here on um creating different protocols that we can use to to implement some of our processes. Like if a student has to leave

066the classroom, what does re-entry into the classroom look like and how do we support that? So, um, currently if the student is going to be going back into the class, say I'm the student, the adult bringing the student back to class. Um, one of the things that we're working on now is I'll go back into the classroom. Um, and I will be with the kid so the classroom teacher can come out and talk with that kid so the kid feels welcome back, but also so that they can have a conversation of what it's going to look like when they go back into the classroom to ensure more student success when they go back in. So, there's a variety of things that we're doing around our restorative practices. And there's a lot more and I know

067Kate has spoken to it a number of times. Um, in addition to that, um, myself and Tiffany Green, who's our school social worker, did a two-day course on, um, community circles and repair circles, which is a huge part of restorative practices. Um, and then we sent part of our student success council on Tuesday morning to Main Street School where um, de I'm sorry, Lincoln Street. Yep. Lincoln Street where Diana Don Donnelly, who is the assistant principal there, this is part of her doctoral work. She's done a bunch of training. She's worked with Miriam who is a who is a consultant in the area um where they our staff went over um and students and staff talked about their processes there, the things that they do there. They modeled some of it. They talked about some

068of their protocols. Um Deanna has agreed to come speak to our staff um in August in our return days. Um and we'll also be hopefully collaborating with Miriam who's the consultant that they had used in the past um next year as well. So, just kind of wanted to fill you in on some of the steps that we've been taking over the past few years and some of the steps we're hoping to take as we move forward. That's awesome. Mariam's one of my best friends, so I know she is does really good work and I'm hopeful that will help help the classrooms. All right. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. You can text me if you need me to come back. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, um I think what we're going to do, let's

069um approve the minutes and then I I will open up public comment for a few minutes. Um and then we'll have public comment also at the end. So, taking a look at the public and non-public minutes of February 12th. Um any updates or edits on those? I didn't have any either. Do I have a motion to approve those? Yep. So moved. It's all on you, Sophie. Um can we um I guess we'll do roll call to approve if we can approve both at the same time. I think it's just the three of us. Oh, yeah. Um I I I And Cam wasn't there, but we'll abstain. Yes. 301. Thanks so much. Um all right, so we'll start the timer for public comment. I think um before we go into public comment, I just wanted to

070make a note that obviously um Paul has resigned from the board. Um you know, we we really respected the work he did on the subcommittee um and I've communicated that with him many times as well. Um you know, I think he was instrumental in in um in getting that approved um at our meeting last month. Um, you know, I know the public I I think in the last month I probably spent more time on school board than I ever have and people um, you know, I know just speaking for myself, right? I got emails at home. I got emails delivered anonymously to my inbox. Um, I mean to my mailbox um, so many emails and um, letters and so I just got a lot of communication about an email that um, Paul had sent that

071was going around. And um you know I think um we all know Paul and how he talks and um obviously we um want to treat the board um with the utmost respect and integrity um and um you know that was communicated to Paul. Um Eric and I um drafted a letter and sent that his way um just to stress you know how important we felt communications from the board and that there was a proper procedure for that. So, I just wanted to address that kind of before public comment. Um, I also just want to say like how much I've enjoyed working on the school board and and you know with um Sophie and Eric and um it's been a great collaboration. I'm looking forward to doing it um in the next year and um you

072know I have complete trust in these guys. I know Cam's going to be great too. And so, um, you know, just thinking about how we we talk about the board and how we communicate with the public. Um, I just I think I have great faith in this board. Um, and I just also really want to welcome Cameron. Um, really excited to have you here. Um, and obviously we'll be looking for a fifth fifth board member who would who will fill in until the next election. Um, and so that's it. So, I'm going to open up public comment. I'll do it for 15 minutes. As everybody remembers, we're going to do um a three minute comment. Um you have to say your name, your address. Uh as everybody knows too, the the comments are um not

073not necessarily questions that we're going to answer right now. If they seem a little bit more complicated, we'll um take a minute to um do some research and get back to you. So, we'll open up public comment. Does is there any public comment? All right. Thank you very much. I'm Deborah Aler from Apple Way and I apologize I was a little bit late and you may have already covered this um at the beginning of the meeting uh but we know that there is a certification coming that is going to be required to either sign on to or not. um that potentially puts federal funding in jeopardy. And uh I I want to if I'm not the first, I would like to at least be the second, fourth, hopefully I'm the 400th who has reached out

074and implored this board to support um not signing on to that certification and to push for um our SAU. I would love for the Stratam school board to lend its voice to the collective SAU to encourage the collective SAU to join the lawsuit. Um, I think that our voices are stronger together and that we can't afford long-term to go down this road and those short-term dollars are not worth the long-term moral hazards that are in front of engaging in this certification. So, um, hopefully I'm the 400th that has contacted you, but I wanted to say that at the meeting and encourage other people to join in and I hope you will reach out to the larger board. Thank you. Any other public comment at this time? Hi, I'm Gail Verdocus Dumbar and Oaks. I just

075have a question. Um can you whether it's now or another time explain the process of voting in the next the replacement for Paul and um I also second what Deborah said. So thank you. [Laughter] All right. Thanks Gail. Um Chris, would you feel comfortable answering that question? Yep. So what will happen is that we'll put out a public letter tomorrow. I've already got it drafted. Um and we'll ask residents. It'll be posted and we'll put it out through different medias. um through the uh town of Stratam will put it out. We'll ask them to partner with us to put out a letter. Uh residents who are interested will submit a letter of interest to me. I'll collect all those letters of interest. Uh the deadline will be that Friday before our next May board meeting.

076What we'd ask is anybody that is interested, they would come in front of the board. They do an interview with the board in a public meeting. They actually have to interview publicly as part of the public session. Board will then call non-public and then go in to um talk about the different candidates strengths and how they would fit on that board. that person would be elected based on the vote of this board uh who that fifth person will be and then they would join that meeting in May. Um so they'd get there and then we do the the training that we do with any board members after that meeting through the SAU. Um and so the the big thing is just to get if people are interested get the letter of out my goal is

077to send that letter out tomorrow through uh Sharon Gullard our administrative assistant and then work with the town so that it's posted immediately so we get the fifth person in. Um, and that process worked very well last time when we we went through this about about a year ago at this time. Yeah, sounds great. Okay, any other public comment? Just one other thing, that appointment is for two years because the term is still two years left on that. So, it's not just a year. They would they would fulfill that appointment for the two years left in that term. Oh, so for Tanya, she was just filling one last year. Okay. Can I ask a follow-up question? Um, are there um what are the qualifications for someone to apply or be voted on for the board

078if it since it's not like a whole townwide vote? So, are there certain qualifications or like how does that come about? No, if you can't answer that right now, I I understand. But that just was um a question I had. Thank you. want to go. Yeah, go ahead. Other than being amazing, um, you just have to be a resident of Stratum. So, that's the key factor. Resident of Stratam, you're interested. You're going to be able to go through the oath that you're going to make a commitment to the meetings and that you're going to do in the best interest of of what this board is putting forth. Uh, and then just be available um for all of our board meetings, both joint and this this board meeting. Yeah. And I know last time we had

079some set questions that we would ask and then kind of compare people's answers. It's nice to have somebody maybe a little different than what we bring to the board. And so can be various things pretty subjective. All right. So moving forward manifest and financials. All right. Um thank you for signing the manifest. They're all right here. There's quite a few just because we didn't meet last month. Also, since last month, we did complete the MS22, which you guys came in and signed at the school. Um, basically what that does is zips up all your appropriations from your warrant articles that pass and add in the any any months from the annual meeting um to get to your total voted appropriations. So, that is all sitting with the Department of Revenue right now. Um, in your

080board pack is a current year financial. So this time of year you might see a bit of purchasing because I always tell people purchase now before the end of the year because if you get too close we're going to say no. So um you might see a little bit of uptick on the purchasing. But I did put everything um we did we did have some changes in student need um some changes in the salaries lines. Did anyone have any questions? Yeah, I just had I was curious about the election ballots and services. That's for the elections that we held for the town here. Um so not for the town. So there had to be um a ballot when we voted for um Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Not related to the public voting. Yeah. Okay.

081Any other questions for Molly? Um and I don't know if you want me to cover the finance policy while I'm here as well. It's pretty simple. So these trust fund balances don't include the money that was approved. Correct. So that the the money that's approved in the meeting that just happened was from fund balance. We have to have the fund balance before we can cut those checks. Thank you for explaining that 25 times. No, no worries. That's what I'm here for. Uh can I ask a question about this section here that says return to taxpayers? I know we've talked about this like a million times. Sure. So the way this works um is in the springtime you vote on the budget, right? And then in the fall I set the revenues and revenues are very

082very minimal. It's just things like earning on investment for the money that we have in the bank. Um food service sales. So when Kate talked about parents paying for food service, um we get some special education aid if we qualify for it. Um stuff like that. And so what happens is part of your revenue source is what you ended the prior year with. So it reduces the amount you have to raise in taxation. So it's not like I write a check and give it to the town. We just say, "Okay, you finished with this pot of money. You can give us what we need less that pound of money for the following year." Okay. So it might bring down what's actually corrected to raise. Okay. Yep. So the higher you the more you the higher

083your fund balance is at the end of the year is essentially if you think of it like a bank account, it's more money in your bank account. So you need less funding from the town the following year to support your budget. And it looks like it's pretty typical for that to be I mean I don't know it was like half a million or something. So typical is a great question because um we've had some COVID years and so during CO we really we kept bare minimum when we kept it the heat on just so the pipes wouldn't freeze. So we had some years with high fund balances. Um, I would say this is typically more of a standard year what we're looking at. I mean, it is on the lower side for right now to

084be honest. Um, but we still have things encumbered. For example, snow plowing. Every time I release it, there's a blizzard. So, um, we are we are keeping a close eye on it. Thanks. And did you want me to address the finance policies? That'd be great. Sure. So the policies, anything that starts with a D means finance. And so for most of them, it's just updating the wording to match the model policy. Um sometimes we totally um scrapped the current policy that we had and just replaced it with the model. For the most part, that's what all those are. The only one that I want to comment on is DAFF. That's the monster one. That's like 52 pages in your packet. Um the major change is the last three sections. the model policy added those three

085to the to the model. Um, but what the model policy did is they changed the threshold for a single audit to a million dollars. It's actually not officially a million dollars yet, and I did confirm that with Plaza Constanderson, our audit firm. It still is a $750,000. So, in the policy committee, we made the decision to keep it at the 750,000. Now, if and when, probably after June 30th, that will have to bump back up to a million in the policy, but the policy committee chose not to do it yet since it's actually not official yet. Okay? So, you might see DAFF again relatively soon, but it would just be moving it from 750,000 to a million for a single audit. And a single audit is required when we receive uh federal funds. Are you

086a part of the policy committee? Were you I was a part on the finance night. Yeah. Okay. So whenever we So whenever we have um policies that relate to what we do, we join. So I joined that night. Any other questions on policy or finances? And Cameron, if you want a new orientation, feel free to reach out. It's very helpful. I I probably will take you up on it. Come on over. Yeah. So I'm looking at the um you know when uh so without Raymond here like I'm looking at your first line with the salary adjustments but that seems low considering we're not paying a special ed person. So that's just not one person that's that was for teachers aids and admin. So there was there's several positions wrapped up into that one number. Yeah.

087I mean, well, I I'll expect that number to be positive, though. Sorry. Right. Well, I'm just saying because we're not paying a special ed director, right? Correct. So, the negative number means it's the and it goes down from the prior month. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Just to update on that, Jennifer, we are paying for contracted services because we need an LEA to be able to run meetings, especially for re reevaluations, which happen currently right now. So, we were fortunate enough to have someone that we've worked with other districts at CMS and uh other elementary schools. They're all they're doing is coming in and running meetings and writing reports for us. So, we don't have the director position, but we are using that that money that was in the special ed

088director's salary line to pay for that contracted services. But it's less. It is less because we're not paying we're not paying benefits. Yeah. And um just so you know, Cameron, when you see the negative number, it means that the total projected spend went down. And if you see a positive number, we're saying the projected spend went up. Okay. And projected spend is a combination of year-to- date actuals and incumbrances. So we always encumber what we know because we don't want to say you got all this money and then someone spends it when you have to make all the salaries. Mhm. So I when I asked my previous question I was looking at this I think it's like a summary. So is this 163 that's the projected for Okay. That's the projected um return to taxpayers

089before funding the trusts. Okay. And you said like that number is more I mean because it's quite a bit lower than all the I mean it is on the lower side right now to be honest. Yes. But CO was extremely high. Okay. Thanks. And if it's low though, that's not necessarily a bad thing either. It just means we didn't over tax taxpayers for more than what we wanted, right? So it's in an ideal world, that number would end at zero because it would mean that we we budgeted correctly spot on. And so you'll see that um the expenditures less than plan is 93,000. So, it's even less than the 163,000. That's how tight we are. Um, but your fund balance is a combination of expense less than plan and revenue more than plan. And you

090can't spend the additional revenue. So, really that 93,000 is is very good. I mean, it's pretty tight right now. So, we're keeping a close eye on it. Thanks. Mhm. All right. Certified staff list. We will do that non-public in case you have any questions on it. Um staff request. We'll do that non-public. Um all right. RFP for the owners rep. Yeah. Ex AB. Uh thank you. So on March 25th uh this the building subcommittee met um and to talk about next steps. The biggest thing we did is we wrote um and thanks to the to the amount of work that the subcommittee and Luke's here as part of that subcommittee and other members um to get a really nice RFP drawn up for our owners rep. the first step in the next phase of the

091construction project. So, we got a uh document out and out. Uh the deadline was for 4:00 today to get anybody interested. We have two um Okay, good. two um different bid applicants come in. Uh that subcommittee is also going to interview the both of them on Friday. So, our goal is that they will uh communicate. Hopefully, Sophie's going to get there after interviews just to get a final word. Um and then they're going to give us their recommendation that we can bring back for the April 16th meeting we have. uh so we can um hire the owner's rep and start that next process. Okay. Um the other thing that we talked about was um looking at staying with Corino for our construction manager. Typically, you put out a bid, but it felt the committee felt

092that the work they have done, the knowledge that they have of this building, the the amount of uh times they've walked through and knowing the scope that um we would make a recommendation to pause our bidding policy uh from this board and hire Corino to to take that project on. It will save us time. it will save us money and the expertise that they already have in this building would be well done. So that was the the ask that the the subcommittee asked that we'd bring back to this board to make a a um a motion to accept Kino as the construction manner by pausing our policy and that policy is I'll get it for you. I have it in my documents. You have that Molly the bidding policy Thank you. DJ, sorry, I have

093it right on the the agenda. I should have looked there first. So, don't know if the board wants to discuss it. I would like to make a motion to pause policy D A G DJ. DJ um to accept Kino as our construction company. I Yeah, I agree. The subcommittee also agrees. Luke, I don't know if you want to speak to it at all, but um Yes, please. Yeah. Do we need a second first then? You would need a second then we can Sorry. Do I have a second to so that I can open a quick Oh. Oh. To open discussion. Yeah. Second. Yeah. Thanks. Uh uh Luke Picket, 12 Smith Farm Road. Um I'm on the uh building subcommittee and uh the background is Corino did a lot of work for us uh putting the

094budget preliminary budget together and scope in the fall. Uh they've since worked with um extensively with the um subcommittee members and uh we think we've identified a plan with them whereby hiring them as a construction manager we'll we will have the right kind of contract with them such that everything will be transparent. We'll be able to see their fee. We'll be able to see their overhead. Um we will bid on all of the major subcontractors. We will get three bids say the roof or HVAC or boilers. So, we think we have a good transparent program whereby regardless of who we would hire, we we would see those fees and make sure the fees are at market and overhead, insurance, uh their bonding capability and what have you. So, we think we've got a really good

095plan in place. Um they've worked really hard, know the building well as as Chris has said, so we're very comfortable going forward um under that basis. Thanks, Luke. Uh can I ask a question? Sophie. Mhm. So, as far as I know there was a lot I have been involved with that. So, there's a lot of folks familiar with construction on that and I'm just like I'm I'm sure that's the right thing to do. I'm just looking forward to somebody, you know, later saying, "Oh, you did this single source thing and you know what I mean?" So, is the owner's rep part of the oversight for that is to ensure that the cost is reasonable? Yeah. So the owner owner rep works for you for the school board and they will work directly with the construction

096firm and they'll they'll give a reports back to this board and also to the subcommittee as needed. The subcommittee will will generally phase out as we start to get into the construction but the preconstruction and those conversations will still run things through the building committee but ultimately that owners rep will be here uh will be part of our weekly meetings where we're talking about construction reviewing contracts um and working handinhand with with Kino Construction. So, does the board review like if you send if they send something out for bid, does that get reviewed or is the construction manager responsible for owners rep is going to do that for you? Like like uh Luke said, we're going to ask for three bids, look at those subcontractor works, make sure they're staying under that uh 11 thou

097$11 million that we had built into that that budget that we bonded. Okay. Thanks. Just a follow up to that one. So, they're going to make they'll make a recommendation back to the board. Will the board have to vote on every bid for subcontracting? No. So, that would be something that they would work, their owners rep would work through. Um, so you don't have to bring it and and bring to this meeting. They'll just do monthly reports to you, but they'll be beholden to the policy. Correct. Okay. I know we talked about this initially when we had Corino. It seems like it's fairly common in the industry like at this would continue to be the would continue on the project and become the construction manager. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any other conversation on it? All

098right. So, there's a motion um to suspend policy DJ um and allow uh Karina to become the construction manager. Are we ready to vote? All right. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Anybody opposed? All right. So, 400. Thank you. Um, all right. Anything? Um, we're going to now move into So, that was the end of public comment. I'm going to open it up again at the end for I think we have 10 minutes left. So, I'll open up at the end after we go through some of these next few items. Um, so I think one of the things um we probably need to do is some re, you know, rechanging of who's going to be on what committees. um building committee. I know Sophie uh I've been doing superintendent evaluation. Um so there's

099um opening on safety and security communications. Sophie's been doing um strategic planning committee I think. Is that you Sophie or was that you? Um Cam, is there certain committees you would be interested in participating on? Uh, so I did speak with Sophie about I mean assisting with the communications based on the other conversation we had about the MTSS stuff. So I'd be interested in that. Um, and there's you said there's committees that don't have folks assigned to them, existing ones. Yeah, I guess. Are you guys looking to make any changes? I don't care. No, I'm happy with the committees I'm on. Okay. So, you're going to stick with building? Yeah. building and communications. Okay, awesome. That sounds great to me. Um, superintendent evaluation committee. Um, yeah, I'm happy to stay on it. Um, so we

100we do need somebody for safety and security and we do need somebody for strategic planning. And what's what's the strategic plan? I'm on that right now. Oh, you are on that. Okay. All right. Sorry. Okay. And you want to stay on that, too? So, you got three? Yeah. It's okay. But once strategic phases out, I'll I will be I'll I'll be good. Those are those are ambitious committees. So what what are your interests? I mean, I'm happy to switch to uh I mean, I was you want communication. Is there anything else? Uh well, I was I I heard before someone say that the policy was a good place to learn things. So I'm sure it's a lot of fun. Yeah, I mean it is. Yeah, it's I mean what's the I don't know what the

101commitment is. Can you speak to It's not too bad. So, it's another it's a it's another monthly meeting. Okay. and you're typically meeting with members of of all the different districts and you're really trying to craft policy that can be presented sort of I would say more generically to all districts within the SAU and then you'll take that back to this board and then usually we talk about anything that we think might be relevant specifically for stratum and then we'll either adopt it or Not. So that's that's kind of the that's the the general flow of it. Um I don't know if I wouldn't say it's in particularly like a place to learn so much. Oh. Um but it's you've been on it too. So yeah. I mean everything is a place to learn something.

102I was on it for the first year my board and I felt like it it was good to get a little bit of an overview of Yeah. kind of what what's going on and and like the the packet had the modific is that kind of the output of that. Yeah. So basically it it usually will come out in in sort of a markup. So kind of a red line. Mhm. Um what you'll never find I don't think is any policy that's out of step with with state law. So it's a good way of understanding what the latest changes are to state law. Okay. Yeah. Um, and they're also, I would say, typically model policies that are derived from the New Hampshire School Boards Association. So, that's like the inputs that go into it. Okay. Yeah.

103And and you meeting with the the other school boards, is that what you're saying as part of that? Yep. So, there's Well, somebody's on each each committee member just like we're having committee members here. You'll have somebody that's the representative from each district. Yeah. So, I think how I'll do this is um go by seniority. So Eric, as more senior person, do you want to say what committees you would enjoy being on? The only one I remember that Well, if if Cameron has an interest in policy, that's fine. Um the uh and you've got a lot, but you want to keep them, huh? Are you interested in one? No. You want particularly? No. Just trying to share the workload. And then we've got somebody that'll be coming on, so we got to think about that,

104too. Absolutely. Um Yeah, I I don't really care. The only one I remember was safety seemed like it had to meet in person. Yeah, that's in person three times a year. Three times a year. Yeah, that's not bad. It's 9 to 9 to usually 10:30, 11 at extra high school. I thought it was like monthly though. It is not. It's three times a year. The only other one too, and that's the last one, is you'll have negotiations next year. So instead of maybe having a committee, the negotiations would be something that you'd want to sit on for the duration of we do that. Yeah, I I'll leave it I'll leave it up to you, Jen. You can really assign it. I don't either. Whatever's fine. Okay. So, is that a special committee specifically to negotiation

105year? Is that where you do? Yeah. You'll meet with the union representation and it's a back and forth. We try to set that up. So, we our goal is we have um six contracts to negotiate next year uh across all the districts. So, Heather Murray, our human resource director, she likes to know who her committee is. So if we can start it early in August that we can start meeting late August and September so we can try to wrap it up um by December at the latest if we can. It's just one board member on that you we've had two previously here in Stratam. You just can't have a quorum. Once you have a quorum then you it's as you're making decisions a board. So you can have up to two. One is definitely needed.

106Um two is allowed. Okay. Yeah. I mean I think for me you are such a resource on policy. Yeah, I don't mind saying that. And I think that you enjoy it. I I sort of do. Um, so I think it would be really helpful to the board. I think you keep us honest and um I enjoy that. I think Cam if you know I I see you kind of you have young kids. Uh they're I mean I have three kids, but yeah, they're here in school. Yeah. So would you um like I think strategic planning Oh, sorry. Sophie's already on that. Okay. Sorry. Um, I keep forgetting that. Um, do you have time during the day to do like a safety and security? If it's, you know, three times. Yeah, I probably do that. I

107I was interested in the I didn't know the negotiation committee was. Would you be interested in that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, for right now, um, would you want to just take the security and the negotiation? Do you know when the next security meeting is? Not till next year. So, you're off the hook. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll have the new person by then. Okay. Next. Never mind. I want that one. Okay. And And what's the story on the you know, we had talked about the like can you just That's an informal sort of communications assisting with that or something or how do you Yeah, Sophie's done a pretty phenomenal job of defining that and um Yeah. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Um sure. I don't Yeah, I don't I haven't written

108myself a job description. I can if you want, but uh Valerie is awesome. Yeah, I think um usually I just do the notes um and make sure those are sent out after. Um but yeah, I think you and I talked about like broader communication um would be great to partner with you on that. If there are hot topics that the community is interested in, I like to try and offer um uh fireside chats or more, you know, sessions. We did um MTSS special um uh fireside chat last spring when that was more contentious and then this fall um also offered a special with Molly O'Keefe around tax season. So that was also really helpful. Um yeah, so Cameron, I'd love for you to join if you want to think through what the public is interested

109in and how to, you know, be a better liaison. Um always interested in Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I talked to a couple people about the MTSS feedback and folks, you know, I think not understanding how well that aligns with the concerns over the test scores. So, that was one of the areas of focus, I think, for that, too. So, yeah, I would be interested in that. Okay, that sounds wonderful. Thanks, guys. Um, all right. So, just going through um board reports, building committee, anything other than what we've talked about so far? Uh, no, I don't think so. Okay. And I think for the building committee, I am now chair of the building committee just as a I guess update. Okay. Okay. It sounds great. Um, okay. Superintendent evaluation committee. Um, we'll probably

110talk about this at the joint board, but there's going to be a 360 evaluation sent out. Um, and it goes out to um the boards to review and um it's the same um set of people that I went out to last year, so staff and um administration. And they have two weeks to complete it. Then um board evaluations are um due are being done at the April 21st joint board meeting. Um and then as a committee, my s my subcommittee is going to meet um on May 12th to complete the year's evaluation report and look at all the data from the 360 and from the joint board. Um you know, obviously Esther's leaving, but we just felt it was important to do this um to really, you know, kind of help Chris, inform Chris, and

111um look at at goals for next year. It kind of reveals a lot of that. That's the update on the uh evaluation committee. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Have you guys thought of are you going to maintain that? It seems to be working pretty well. Yeah. Going forward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a little bit nervous about, you know, Allison leaving because she's such a she's got such great knowledge there, but um yes, that's So, she's going to stay on for a while. So, she's staying on and we're transitioning a new board member from Brentwood to be part of that committee. So, she's not leaving totally. So, you'll be in good hands through at least um mid next school year. Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. Um, safety and security, you said, has there been a

112meeting? Yep, we met on March 20th. Uh, that was the last time we met. Um, you know, Dr. Asbel walked through, um, some of the different safety grants that we've gotten and how we've done, um, some camera upgrades, but also data analytics. Uh, so some of the new upgrades, we're able to look at preventative measures rather than reactive methods. So, we put specific cameras at the campus at Lynen Street, uh, which is the SAU, um, Lincoln Street, Main Street, Kensington, that all went in the grant. So, it can alert police if someone are coming in, you know, they're unsuspected or driving on our baseball fields. Um, so we can we can let them and let the police alert to it immediately. Uh, so that's one of the big things that we've upgraded through grant funds.

113Talked about best practices. Um, looked at other things to to keep kids safe and all the things we had. And as you know a couple weeks or last week actually we're dealing with that in practice. So just reviewing what we do so that we're prepared if a situation does occur how we handle it and best practices. So again really rich conversation and we are joined so Cameron knows by first responders both fire and police from all of our communities to get their input and and talk about things as a collective whole in regards to staff and student safety. Yeah. And I know for last week too it was like at dismissal. So, is that something the joint board will talk about or uh I think if you put it on an agenda item to just

114to kind of debrief, I think it could be helpful. Um because there's a lot that goes in that. Uh again, that might be a non-public since we do we would talk about specific safety things that we had to respond to and how that comes about. Yeah. Okay. Um communications. Um no new updates in and of itself. Okay. um chair update. I don't think I have anything other than sort of what I wanted to address at the beginning. Um definitely plenty of emails coming into me um you know this month and um some of the things that are going to be future agenda items too. So I'm definitely reading those. Strategic planning committee. Yeah. So two weeks ago we had um a strategic planning summit for three days. It was 3 hours um for three days

115in a row. So it was pretty intense and um we really dove into there sorry there were community members, board members, um principles, anybody in the SAU who wanted to come was allowed to come. There were probably what do you think 100 people there? Uh we had 70 RSVPs. So 70. Okay. Um and we really honed in on what the core values were of the SAU. Um, so that was a big part of the focus and then also just kind of what we wanted to get out of a strategic plan like what what would success mean. Um, and from there we're going to meet um, next week and kind of move move forward from there. I think the idea is that we would have a a kind of a dashboard that we could see on

116our website of what are our core values, how are those measured and then how are we doing like measuring those um, strategically. So uh and what's the like what percentage are we on the um like measuring struggling with words right now? No. So how do you measure the success for that particular value? Y you know those are going to be like climate survey like what are the inputs for all that stuff? I mean you haven't defined them yet. Yeah. So we had the survey from all of our staff and and students 6 through 12 parents community members. So we we use that a lot at the sum at the survey to look at those how those results came in and to help us you know look at what the core values were and how they

117were ranked from those different uh stakeholder groups. Um and I'm really excited that you know the the dashboard Sophie's talking about that will be a forward- facing dashboard that can be updated in in real time so that it talks about what our core values are and how we're measuring up to those. Yeah. All right. Thanks very much. All right. Policy committee. You have a few policies. Yep. Couple of policies. Yeah, we had a long long meeting that night. That's for sure. Um the one that Molly was on. Okay. And that one was the big one that DAFF or whatever. However, I personally think it was the least interesting relative to what we do on a day-to-day basis. Um so, you know, whatever you whatever you folks want to do. if you want to do a

118first read. I will tell you that all the other ones were again just like I described earlier fundamentally were alignment to RSA. So there have been some new things that came down um specifically as it relates to like notifications to parents for things related to let me see how they describe it so that I don't go too off track here. health education exemptions, parental objections to specific course material. So, these are things that I think we hear about more than we hear about things like, you know, grants and how we how we respond to grants. Um, but all those are related to um uh the new uh the new RSA statute or an update to the RSA statute. Let me uh just bring that up here quickly. Um so Kim, just so you know, we

119can either take these as a first read if we need more time with them or we can um move forward on them tonight. Okay. And that was HB1 1312. Um and then there was a c there was a number of other things that were I think probably of interest here just you know in things that we've heard from the community uh relative to the you know some of the recent events but there were things just around electronic communications um quorum board use of electronic communications they're all really good things they don't deviate tremendously from uh any of our practices and they again align to RSA Um, so any of those things that you feel are interesting to to talk about. What we did was we basically looked at those model policies. We looked at the

120law and then one of the good things is we actually have quite a few lawyers that are that are board members who are on there who will advise. Um, so that's that's been very helpful. And then what we'll sometimes do is just craft certain language to be a little bit more indicative of um what our particular boards might might need. So, for example, like the annual budget preparation. I think that's one of the very last ones. Um, we all kind of do it a little bit different at district meeting. I didn't really I didn't realize that that within the SAU some of the districts all do some of those voting things differently. So, what we'll do is try to make the policy homogeneous so that it can apply everywhere. Um, but anyway, I I don't

121I can answer any questions that you might have, take a first read or you can accept them. I'm comfortable with, you know, whatever you want to do there. So the the items that are in here, this is like this red is additions and they're the verbiage is from state law. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So they are usually usually what you'll find is so the markup is there will be strikeouts for anything that's being removed and then and that'll be in red as well. And then anything that's in red that's not a strikeout is an addition. And so if it's, you know, it's just like a typical red line uh for a document where if it's a strikeout and then something is is updated, you'll find that next. Now where the content

122typically comes from is from the New Hampshire School Boards Association model policies and those policies are are updated. They they keep a close eye on what the legal changes are, right? And then they will draft new model policies and then they'll present those out. And so we have people at the Chris, how would you define that? I know Heather was working on it, but now we have some we have some new folks that she's delegated that to on the policy committee who help bring things from the New Hampshire School Boards Association. They they closely monitor that. Do you want to describe that just do a better job than Yep. So we've hired someone as kind of like a consultant to us for policies to take it off Heather's plate. And you know right now if

123you just look at Heather this week is going through seven different interviews through the entire every you know throughout the five days. So think about what her time is and then any personnel issues. So trying to get the policies and be very cognizant in the write up that she gives. So that person looks in depth of what our policy is, what needs to be reviewed and then we'll look at sample policies and then give guidance to the board on where we should go, any language we should change and and does it have is it required by law or is it a recommendation and and is it best practices. So that's what we have. That will become the position of the assistant superintendent that we're looking for to hire for systems and operations that will fully

124function in that policy regard. And then Heather will always ask, you know, depending on which departments we look at. That's why Molly wanted to give you input on the the financials. Molly will go back and look at those financial policies to give her expertise and guidance to the financial department. And then I would say that with these they're 98 they're 98% from those recommendations. maybe 2% is is modified by the group during discussion because there's something in there that we want to tweak a particular word but never out of step with with the with the legal basis that's in the RSA. So I guess that's that's my question. So most of this verbiage where is that that comes from state law like state lawmakers put that in. I'm just trying to understand because I'm like

125there's some of the things in here that I'm like I don't know is that something that comes up. My thing just went off but there was like the policy about the parental objections to course material. I'm just curious because you know I haven't. So the evolution of that is we already have a policy in place for that right and that's going to be the basis of it and that's that's been passed and probably iterated on a number of times. Then what this individual does who Chris had described is they're looking at the New Hampshire School Boards Association fundamentally for changes that they identify relative to legal changes that are occurring in state law. Right? So then they'll say, "Hey, we have a policy that's on this and New Hampshire School Boards Association is going to

126come up with they're going to draft a change to the to the guided policy that they would produce and then that individual brings that to the policy committee on a monthly basis. So, what you're seeing here that would be any changes are the New Hampshire School Boards Association's guidance relative to a change in state law. And then that state law is referenced typically at the bottom as a source. We'll discuss it and if there's anything that's within the bounds of the law, but that we feel is more applicable for our SAU generally speaking, then we'll weigh in on that and then that will be what you will find here. That's what I'm saying is probably the one or 2% of the changes. The fundamental draft of the of the language is coming from the New

127Hampshire School Boards Association. So, does somebody have to review that to make sure that you're complying with the law? That's what you're somebody like if you make a change because I'm I mean some of these things I'm looking at going well whether it reflects the values of the SAU or whatever. Yeah. And and we'll actually look at that. Sometimes those are challenged on the calls and we'll bring up the law and we'll see if if anybody's suggested edits are are different than that. And if we really feel that there's a question that needs to be asked, we'll we'll refer that out to council. Okay. Yeah. So, would you be the correct person to ask questions about like I I'd like to if we can if we can do that. Yeah. Like you said, we don't

128have to vote on this if if I know it. Um Okay. Or what I could do is I could take it as a question and then I could either respond to you offline because it's just you and I or we could bring it up again if you wait a month. Okay. It may take a while depending on the nature of the question and then we can bring it back up for a vote. Okay. And then we can also vote on policy by policy, right? Or we could do I guess all but an exclusion or we could do or we could do none of them or whatever you want to do. So that's how on the voting on the on the policies would take place. Yeah. Thank you. Mhm. Yeah. And obviously the policies are all

129in our packets. And um does the committee itself like obviously what I'm seeing is what's been approved by the committee. That's right. Yeah. And do you guys vote as a subcommittee? No, we just make Well, sort of. I guess it's an informal vote because we're not we're not like a Yeah. I don't I don't think we go around the room or do like an all- in favor, but it's usually unless anybody has an objection, but what we're looking at is usually unique. That's the final that the final product of the committees um recommendation across members of of everybody from the districts. Yeah. And I'm just more curious about like some of these things like did this come from complying with the state law? Like that's I guess that's the question I'd like to ask you

130is like did this edit why would this you know where did that come from? Yeah, feel free. I I I'd say it'd probably be better to do if you could do it in writing. Okay. And let me ask. Yeah. That'd be more more convenient and and I'd capture probably more accurately whatever it is that you're asking. Okay. Thank you. Y So with that in mind, Cameron, do you want to take all of these as a first read or what is your idea now that you kind of understand a little bit more about how this works? I I mean, so I kind of So, is there a negative to not other than kicking the can to not doing it because there's going to be more next month, right? Is what the This is actually a huge

131list. It's not usually this this big. Okay. Uh Eric just did a lot of work this month, but normally um it's like four or five. Yeah. I mean, is there anything timely? No, I don't think there's any harm in any of it. The only thing would be there are some that are fairly significant that if we if we if our practices were out of step with these policies then it could we would be in legal jeopardy right now. That's regardless of whether we adopt the policy or not. I mean you're still subject to to the law. Um, so I don't I don't think that I don't think there'd be a problem in waiting, especially since we have somebody who's new, you know, to the process and and um has questions. The only alternative I'll give

132you is you you'll have another new board member in May. So you're going to postpone them again. So I you can do what you want, but if you three of you feel comfortable with it and and Cameron abstains from voting because he just hasn't had the the familiarity with the process and then gets sent into May because you will have, you know, close to 40 to go through. So, I just I want to put that on the table as an option as well. But if he has questions or concerns about it, I don't necessarily want to pass it tonight. Well, like I said, I kind of I kind of went through these. I mean, the ones I'm looking at specifically is this and the uh IHAM. There's I'm just curious about some of the verbiage

133in there. I mean, some of them pretty non-controversial like the closings and that sort of thing. Is it like an all or nothing? What was the second one you mentioned? I see. Uh, there's IHM and IG. There's like I'm just curious about the verbiage and where it came from. Okay. So, like Eric was saying, we could do all of them except those two. Mhm. Uh, yeah, that would that be okay. And I'll just Okay. Yeah, I'm comfortable with that. Um, I guess Do you want to make a motion? Do you want to make a motion? So you can make a motion to approve um all policies with the exception of IG and IG. What was the second one? Uh IG and IHAM. Which one is that? Can you just tell me the number? Health education.

134A health education instruction form. Uh from instruction exception from instruction 68. What number is that? 68.12 and 68 61 62. Okay. Because I see the not there's notes. So I'm assuming these notes at the bottom are the RSAs that you referenced like the Mhm. Okay. Yeah. At the bottom at the bottom of every policy is a legal reference. It's just really tough to like look at that and then go look at that make a you know what I mean and don't have any questions in the next 10 minutes. So um okay. So yeah. So I I would like to make a motion to approve or the policies other than I am and I'd like to ask some questions about that over the next month. Do we have to actually do that the inverse like approve

135policy? Oh, eg. For Sharon, should I should I look? No, you can just say we're going to approve policies 6.8.3 through policy 6.8.16. Um, and if if people are comfortable doing all those groups and that's that we can capture that in the minutes. Do you want to do that by referring to these numbers? I'll go through. So, you want to um make a motion to approve everything except tell me the two numbers that you don't want to. Uh 6.8.1 and 6.8.2. Good. Thanks, Sharon. Can you hear that? Yeah. Um okay, sounds great. So then, um do I have a second to that? I'll second it. Okay. Any discussion? All right. Do we vote? All in favor, please say I. I. Anybody opposed? All right. So 400 Z. So we'll put those two um on the

136agenda for next time. Do you do you have anything right now that you wanted to say about those two or No, I mean I would just like to look at the references and that sort of thing. Sounds great. All right. Um I'm going to It looks like we're closing in on the end the agenda. So I just want to I'm going to start the timer again. Jennifer, just before you leave, there are some policies to withdraw and I don't know if you want to revisit those, but policies 6.8.17 8.17 through policy 6.8.21. So there's five to withdraw and that's because they're included in other policies. I'd like to make a motion to withdraw those policies. Thank you. All right. I'll second. Uh any discussion? All right. All in favor? I I. Anybody opposed? Great. So

137400. Thank you. Okay. Is there any public comment at this point in the meeting? Okay. All right. Any old business? Um, yes. Just wanted to let you know that we finally got state approval on building permits so that we can start working on the um water treatment plan for the PFOA. So, that's great. Since it is a state, uh, there's a lot of more hoops that you would have to do than we do regularly. But the permits have happened. Arthur has those. He's working with Rhonda and CMA. Um so we do have we have everything second wind will be working on it. Um so we are are that process. So I just wanted to share that that is happening. Okay. Do will that be completed you think by the next board meeting? Uh I don't

138know if by the next board meeting it is anticipated by the end end of the year. Okay. Can I just ask was that was that the original timeline? I think it's it's expanded a little bit. Again we have to do proposals get it to the state. State has to approve it. Um, so it's just as quickly as the state gets it back. And I think it's it's going a little bit slower. Um, we've heard that there is a um there is also a hiring crisis and a lot of shifting happening at the state as as we know. So we're anticipating a little bit slower return times on some things. Yeah, I I figured as much. I just wanted to make a note of it in case anybody was Great question. Keeping score at home. So

139you think that like the whole thing will be completed by the end of this year? Yeah, once we get all the permits and can start building, then we're good. So we're we're we're on we're on our way. Sweet. Thanks for reporting that. I know I get a lot of questions about that. Any other old business? Any new business? Yeah, we got a letter uh of a possible donation that needs to be accepted by the board. Again, um Tanya Scales said that she would like to make a donation of $700 for any students in need at SMS. And if the board is willing to accept that, we can get that. I'll get an official letter sent to Molly so that we can have that documented as such. But we do need an official motion to accept

140that $700 that would go specifically in the letter that she had documented to students in need. Yeah. So, just so everybody knows, um Tanya, who was on the board, um had some extra money left over from her campaign and so she wanted to make a donation. So, that was very generous and we really appreciate that. Um do I have a motion to approve that um acceptance of that donation? Sure. So moved. Thanks. So um do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. Um all in favor? I I. Anybody opposed? All right. Thank you, Tanya. Thank you, Tanya. That's really sweet. That's very nice. Um Okay. Any other new business? Yep. Just want to give you an update. So at Brentwood, we um talked a little bit about House Bill 675 and Senate Bill 297. House

141Bill 675 is about the tax cap um that would come on local districts and how that would impact us in budgeting season and also Senate Bill 297 is from health is about the health trust conver conversation about um your your pulled risk budget and insurance and how that could come back on the um us and into our budgets in in a year. So um Brian Duffy who does a lot of this work and is also a lawyer brought that conversation up. He's in the process of writing a letter of how that would impact that he's going to share with all boards so that you become all more educated. It will impact our budgets if those both of those bills do pass. Um so just want you to be very well aware and also our residents

142to be aware if those things are passed more is going to come into our budget that we're going to be responsible for as well as if uh universal vouchers come in and how those are funded. three major things that we really will not have control over in our budgets and how that will impact and how we're going to have to educate um our our our residents and what that will mean when when when our budgets come and what we're going to be able to afford and what we will not be able to afford. So um just want to say thank you for the work he did in the conversation. Um and I don't want to get into it because he's going to have a very well done letter that we will share with all boards

143and and talk more about it at the joint board meeting. Okay. Yeah. And I know um I think you know obviously um we had um state reps come to the joint border which was great. I think I'm just struggling like trying to keep up on all of these issues. You know everything you just talked about and everything you're talking about. I'm just wondering if for for people in the town what's the best way to get information on what's happening in terms of the school board in terms of schools and and Yeah. I mean our local reps and maybe Deb can speak to that. I think anytime we have people that can give testimony one way or the other um is impactful, but I think Deb is the the expertise to talk about how they can

144get involved. So, I guess I'm wondering so the things you just mentioned and the things you mentioned during, can you send some information to me so I can Sure. If if for anyone listening at home, if you want to follow just just only what's coming up for education policy, which that's what we're talking about here, um reaching higher new hampshire.com, um posts, you know, regular updates about what's happening and um I'm happy to answer questions anytime ever. I'm on education, education, finance and oversight of the um the voucher system program. So available whenever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I really really appreciate when you give me input because it gives me something to go with and say like actually heard from 17 people. So yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And it's nice to see the state reps

145at the budget meeting and here. So thank you. And I've seen I was gonna say NEA like New Hampshire specifically posts a lot of like hey here's a bill coming up Wednesday. So they I that's where I usually see a lot of that too. Yeah. So that's a good spot. Seems like there's just so much. I mean I don't know if you can break it from a fire hose. NEH. Yeah. They they usually post like legislative actions associated with education that sort of thing. Have you been following that? Yeah. Yeah. As much as like you said, there's a lot. Okay, good. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things we'll be doing is kind of looking at board goals and and what do they mean? Obviously, once we get this new person in

146and um you know, I know you come with a lot of ideas, so I'm looking forward to maybe having some of our goals reflect um you know, what's happening and some of your ideas, too. Um, okay. Anything else that we want to talk about? Okay. So, we're going to go into Can I still have three minutes? So, yes, please. The So, I don't know when you discussed these like there was feedback that was sent like to the whole board, right, about something that I was like, is that a real thing? And I'm like, I don't know if this is the right venue to bring that up or if it's I guess that's the question is is if we get something and there was a specific question about it, like where's the best place to do

147that? just discuss that with you. Yeah. So, um in general as chair, I reply back. So, a lot of times people will um send emails to all five of us, right? And then as the chair, I write back. I will not CC the whole board because that becomes a quorum issue and then um that's I usually just reply directly to the person that's asking us. But you can assume that when somebody emails all five of us, I'm replying. Um but I'm always happy to talk to you. But what in particular? I was just talking about Well, so this was the one about a policy for children of teachers and I was like, is that a real thing that I hadn't heard of that before? So yeah, we did talk about that a few months ago

148and it's not on the agenda right now, so I wasn't going to go into it, but Okay. Yeah. Well, that's wasn't sure where to Okay. Yeah. Okay. So it is it's not just something I didn't know of, you know, it came in an email. I'm like somebody might have read that somewhere and Okay. No, it's absolutely an item we talked about. Okay. And did you respond to that email, Jennifer? Yes. Okay. So, yeah, I will respond. Okay. Yeah. Anything else? I do not have anything else. I was just And you're not responding like for anything that we would need to vote on. Oh, yeah. She's not going to more of a Well, I How would you characterize that? Just the PR, right? I definitely want to acknowledge and be grateful. And then also there might

149be like an education because a lot of times people will talk about classroom ratios or something like that. So if it's a fact I can reply and and share that um hard information but if it's something we vote on I'll just indicate like we're going to vote on it next time or um is that answering your question? Yeah. Yeah. Just how things get on the agenda that sort of all those sorts of things. Yeah. I guess that yeah that is kind of the question is about like you know where was the correct place to ask that question you know um and so Chris and I will meet the week before a meeting and create an agenda and generally I do try to like reach out and say if you have any items and then that's

150a great time for us to put them on the agenda. Um yeah very open to anything you want to add. Great. Thanks. Yeah, I feel like that's even a policy thing that we adopted recently was about anybody can add something any one of the board members can add something to the agenda. So it doesn't have to come up and particularly in like new business even though that is an opportunity to be able to do that but and that's just anything can be added a week ahead of time what you're saying. Yeah. Um because then Chris has to post it publicly so everybody knows what the agenda is. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. We got five seconds. All right. [Music] Um we're and we're all set. So headed into non-public. Um Chris, what are we

151going under A and C? All right. Do I have a motion to go into non-public? So moved. Thank you all for coming. Yeah. Thank you guys. All right. Coming out of non uh non-public at 8:26. Uh is there a motion on the floor? I'd like to make a motion to approve the certified uh employee list that was presented. Sounds great. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thanks, Cameron. All right. All in favor? I I 400. Is there a second motion? I'd like to make a motion to approve the personnel request. Thank you. Do you have a second? I'll second, Sophie. Thanks, Sophie. All right. All in favor, please say I. I I All right. 4 0. All right. Uh do you have a motion to dismiss or motion to uh adjurnn? I'll make a

152motion to adjurnn. Thanks, Cameron. All right. Uh we'll do roll call. I I I All right. 4 Z. Great. All right. Think guys.