001M okay uh and Miss Asal is there uh as well who's helping us uh with the with the technology I'm going to um start by saying something else lest I forget at the end obviously this is a deliberative session there's a second session uh in our type of of government it's the voting session we are going to vote um on the things that we discuss here tonight on Tuesday March 12 at se from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the talbet jym in the tuck learning campus over at 30 Linden Street exor New Hampshire I wanted to put that out there in case uh I forget at the end so tonight as I mentioned is the deliberative session the deliberative session allows us to discuss ask question abouts and within the parameters of the law
002make certain adjustments to the Warren articles that are are here before us we have uh four we have a whopping number of four Warren articles here to discuss uh here this this evening and what I'm going to do is read the articles out loud turn it over to a board member to introduce and discuss them if anybody has any questions uh or comments um you're you're welcome and encouraged uh to to discuss I'd ask that you go up to the microphone here at the center of the room uh to do so so with no further Ado what I'm uh I guess the only final thing is I have rules uh for to keep the decorum uh in play here uh no one has never taken uh one and I've never had to invoke them um
003so oh somebody did take one uh so you're you're the one um all right so with that what I'm going to do is I'm going to read proposed article number one uh here to open the discussion article number one is entitled the operating budget and it reads shall the exitor school district vote to raise and appropriate as an operating budget not including Appropriations by special warrant articles and other Appropriations voted separately the amount set forth on the budget posted with the warrant or as amended by vote in the first session in other words this session uh for the purposes set forth therein totaling 24 milon $567,500 should this article be defeated the default budget shall be $4,130 24 th yeah 24,100 24 million excuse me thank you $136,100 um previous action of the extor school
004district or by law or the governing body May hold one special meeting in accordance with RSA 40 colon 13 sections 10 uh and 16 uh to take up the issue of a revised operating budget only the school board recommends $24 m567 43 as its budget a majority vote is required on this warrant article so now that I've I've articulated that would anybody like to speak on it ask questions on it um and if so please come up to the middle and um and discuss uh I'm sorry actually I'm Sorry Miss seret I what I wanted to do is turn it over to you to make comments on this that's a very important oversight on my part um I just like to emphasize that um the budget there's hours if days and weeks that go into
005developing this budget it's it comes back to the board we hold our own budget um meetings and really work through things I think that um we really work hard to still meet all of the needs of our students but also um keeping in mind how the school budget does impact tax rate I feel as though this year's budget meets both of those goals and uh we as a board fully supported this this budget any other board members want to discuss thank you mret anybody like to be heard relative to uh proposed article number one all right seeing nobody do I hear a motion to move the question and close uh discussion of article number one anyone want to make that motion so move so move do I hear a second second I have a second
006all those in favor of moving the question and moving on to article number one uh please say I out loud I I any opposed excellent so article number one is going to go to the ballot as written article number two is entitled special education Expendable trust and it provides or it reads excuse me shall the exitor school district uh vote to raise and appropriate the sum of up to $75,000 to be placed in the special education Expendable trust fund previously established for the unanticipated special education cost at exer high school this sum is to come from June from June 30 fund B balance available for transfer on July 1 no additional amount to be raised from taxation the school extra School Board recommends this appropriation on this like the prior one a majority vote is
007required I understand uh that Mr OD day will be discussing Article 2 and thus I see the floor to Mr O day all right thank you uh so one small clarification on what you read it is exor Elementary School we're not supporting exor high school with these funds um so we have a special education trust fund that we established several years ago and the purpose of this is that primarily if there's an out of District placement it means if someone comes in here and has to be placed at a specialized School sometimes those schools can cost $150 $200,000 a year and we don't plan for that in our budget um and so if that were to happen and unexpectedly of course we'd have to fund it but that would mean taking away something else it
008may mean cutting a position a teaching position for the year and consolidating classes or some other sort of impact so we set up this fund um a few years ago I think four years ago uh to uh provide a buffer and we have enough in there to provide for one person if one person comes in unexpectedly um we can take care of that person for that year and then try to adjust it in the following budget but the recommendation that we've received is to have enough for two um for the same purposes so this does not have any tax impact it's only if we have $75,000 that's unspent at the end of the year we use it to put aside for that trust fund if we don't have $75,000 at the end of the year
009it doesn't go there's no money that goes into that trust fund so it's only if there's additional money left over and it's just being prudent so that we can meet the purposes of uh the budget so all right would anybody like to be heard on proposed article number two all right I have a I have a question about it should this read this sum to come from the June 30 fund balance available um or am I misreading that that sentence no it's so at the end of the year on June 30th um at the end of this school year if there's money left it comes from that and then the transfer goes in on July 1st my question is typ graphical you know be a the in there right here gotcha vune 30th don't you
010need an article in there that's all my question yeah all right I I'm not hearing a motion to modify uh article number two and so I'm going to uh move on well I guess what I guess what I should say is do I hear a motion uh to move the question on proposed article number two okay I see a motion do I have a second second all those in favor please say I I I any opposed all right hearing no uh opposition article number two will go onto the ballot as written moving on to article number three entitled capital reserve fund shall the exitor school district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of up to $50,000 to be placed in the capital reserve trust fund previously established for the unanticipated capital cost at exiter
011elementary school this sum to come from June 30 fund balance available for transfer on July uh 1 no additional amount to be raised from taxation the exitor school board recommends this appropriation a majority of vote is required to pass uh this article I understand that Miss CET uh is going to introduce this article and so misset please actually that's going to be Patrick okay then Mr okay well I'm I'm batting again so this is um this warn article is very similar to the last warn article um we have not had um we have excuse me we do have a reserve fund that's been that's set aside but it was established probably 15 or so years ago and it's it's down to I think $100,000 or 15359 153 okay okay and so the recommendation is to
012build that up a bit more we've spent it down very slowly over the years with un unanticipated expenses but similarly if there were something to happen a heating unit goes out that could be much more expensive we want to be able to pay for that immediately again without having a big impact on the overall budget um and then we can adjust if need be uh so this is something we don't we anticipate building it up I think to about $250,000 so $50,000 this year if the voters approve it and then $50,000 the following year and then not building up any further than that um just so we have a little bit of a buffer if there's an unanticipated major Capital expense that needs to um be taken care of immediately okay thank you and again
013I'm sorry one last thing is I know you said this in the Warren article but this is similar to the last one this also doesn't have a tax impact and that it's only if there's money left over at the end of the school year budget if there's not then money doesn't go into this fund thank you very much would anyone like to be heard relative to article please pat pat Curtis oh yeah can you please state your name uh yep how's that Pat Curtis 27 Little Pine in in exitor so you mentioned buying a heating unit what would not constitute a capital cost that would should be spent in um just normal budgetary maintenance so what what items or cost do you have as a threshold to say we're going to we're going to disperse
014funds from the capital funds versus just normal operating budget well I so I mean that's a good question so we have some things that are budgeted in terms of you know snow removal is budgeted there's there are some sometimes we have like replacement of computers a certain amount throughout the year uh replacement of carpeting or other kinds of things so that's built into the budget and anticipated by our principles um uh for the year but we don't anticipate that a unit that's I mean I can the best thing I can give is the heating unit or the air condition or something like that we don't anticipate if it's not towards the end of its lifespan that it's going to suddenly just stop working and then be unusable um I mean I'm trying to think of
015when we've tapped into that we don't tap into the capital reserve uh fund every year um at one point in time we used some of the money for example the connecting Road between um here at Lincoln Street and Main Street when that road was built um we found out what the expense of that was going to be it seemed like a larger expense than we than we felt comfortable putting into the operating budget for the following year so we took some money that this is not something that's an emergency so it's a different kind of example we took some money out of the capital reserve fund to to um help with the lighting and some of the paving for that um because it wasn't the the need sort of came up midcycle and we thought
016it was important to do because there's more concern about the safety along that path and trying to make make it operate correctly am I remembering that right yeah y another example is um some trees came down unexpectedly and then replace the fence and things like that so we didn't anticipate that but it came across as fairly large expense to remove the trees and replace the defense and often times it's to do with safety issues that arise that we don't expect that's right there's one year I think when when some of the trees came down and there's a concern that more trees could come down and potentially hit a student so we ended up taking down a number of trees and we hadn't thought far enough ahead to recognize that that need so yeah safety is
017you're right that's probably safety has has been the biggest motivator of that anything else any else like to be heard on article three all right uh hearing nothing do I hear a motion to uh close consideration of article three and move the question so a move do I hear a second second all right all those in favor please say I I I any opposed all right article three will go on the ballot as written finally we have article four investment management of trust funds shall the exitor school district vote pursuant to RSA 35 col 9A Roman numeral 3 to authorize the trustees of the trust funds to pay for capital reserve fund Investment Services and any other expenses incurred from capital reserve funds income such Authority shall remain in effect until rescinded by vote of
018the district meeting no vote to resend the authority shall inur occur within 5 years of the original adoption of this article estimated tax impact none no amount to be raised by taxation a majority vote is required for this article to pass the exitor school board recommends the approval of this warrant article now I have on my list that Pat you're um going three for three today but is that M shet all right Miss shet please um yep so the at the request of the trustees of the trust funds um they would like to use an investment company to manage our trust funds um we needed to approve them paying for the investment company with some of the money from the trust funds and that's we essentially we approved that the in the only from the
019income yes correct okay would anybody like to be heard on article number four all right uh hearing nothing do I hear a motion to move the question on article number four so moved so moved do I hear a second second I have two seconds all those in favor please say I I I any oppos no all right so we've gone through the warn articles that leads us to our last motion of the night do I hear a motion to close the 2024 deliberative session of the exitor school district de all right do I have a second second all right any discussion on this all right all those in favor please say I I any opposed thus ends the 2024 exitor School District deliberative session once again voting on the ballots will occur on March 12
020uh 2024 from 7 a. to 8:00 p.m. in the talat gym at 30 lyen Street in exitor New Hampshire uh thank you very much for everybody I I have I have a interest you want the return of the cards everybody who got one of these cards if you could kindly return them uh that would be great thank you very much everybody I shall see you next year thank you of course thank you okay I'd like to call to order the exitor school board meeting um February 6th 2024 at 6 20 6 25 630 whatever um we already did the Pledge of Allegiance during deliberative so we'll skip that um for public input we will now start a timer for 30 minutes should anyone come in we welcome them to um any public input even if
021they come in after that we would still let them talk but okay number three on the agenda um is there a PTO update okay so a couple quick updates many families attended the UNH hockey game back in January um it was both a fundraiser and a fun event for the community the PTO and the PTO actually receives a portion of each of the tickets that are sold um and the Lincoln Street School chorus um saying the national anthem at the start of the game so it was a fun night and even though UNH lost the game um the PTO also sold Spirit Weare um back in December and it was delivered in time for Holiday giving the get fit and may committee is working hard to secure sponsorship sponsorships right now um um the race
022is will be held and the events will be held on Saturday May 18th so save the date um this is the pto's largest fundraiser um it's always a good time for the community to get involved and um they are continuing to look for additional um sponsors they're also the PTO is also planning um many a few more community events for the spring including another um Family movie night so stay tuned for a date um they're holding their annual Board elections at the April uh PTO meeting um they are looking for co-president social media volunteer coordinator and hus Hospitality coordinator positions um which will all be open and available for next year um anybody that is interested can reach out to exitor Elementary PTO gmail.com thanks thank you next on the update is the sau6 administrative
023update so somewhere up there are the Manifest oh right there okay um included in your board pack is a current year Financial so we actually went down in expense a little bit and that is because we've um did a deep dive on mainly the health and dental and was able to release some of that encumbrance um that we previously had um we also took a really deep dive on some of our positions that remain unfilled and adjusted for the remaining days um and then we had some supplies um we had some professional development and just encumbrances related to utilities did anyone have any questions then this month we also added some areas of Revenue higher than PL so we had a little bit more intuition as well as earnings on investment has been really super
024favorable the last uh year with the interest rates and the change from citizens to TD how much difference does that make uh right here down in the corner it's actually like we're projecting like $100,000 wow yeah citizens did not want to budge on their interest rate so that's a jump ship yeah dve a hard bargain Mom I have a question sure um what's a tuition um so that is when we um charge parents for Community peers prek oh okay okay MH any other questions okay great I'll grab the Manifest thanks Molly is that it yeah okay next on the agenda um we're going to approve the meeting minutes from January 9th 2024 is anyone have any changes if I had a chance to look over it I do not okay seeing there's no discussion I'd
025like like to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for January 9th 2024 so I think we we technically have two sets of minutes because we have the both the budget hearing and then the um meeting they're listed they're just in terms of modifying a friendly modification to your motion because I there are set two separate sets of minuts that are in our packet okay okay so the modification would be to approve the minutes from the public budget hearing and and the board meeting okay I'd like to make a m motion to approve both the public hearing meeting minutes and the exitor school board uh meeting minutes on January 9th second all those in favor please signify by saying I I I you have have two Abend any extensions too y okay oh I
026see what he did he jumped forward okay um first up for principal report Ryan meski good evening everyone um our update for Lincoln Street School um in early January for one of our teacher in service days Lincoln Street School support staff and related Services completed CPR and first aid training um it is our intention to have our entire staff trained um by hopefully ideally next fall um we have some professional development with our I ready coaching this is our second of two sessions um and it's happening this week it's started on Monday and then we also have Thursday and Friday this week each day is a grade level where half third grade for example on Monday in the morning um worked with our consultant and then the other half in the afternoon um and the
027focus of it was um or or rather the experience was co-planning co- teing and debriefing um the teaching and learning from an I ready lesson and teachers focus on two of the instructional look fors use and connect um for mathematical representations and supporting productive struggle in math um so by all accounts that was going very well on last check-in um for math win we are in our third cycle which started at right at the very end of Jan January um all three grade levels are focusing on fractions during this cycle um and students completed grade level appropriate preest to determine um their wi group placement [Music] um moving on to field trips this is an in-house but tomorrow we're going to have um tiger return we had tiger around this time last year um but
028grades three and four will participate in a performance um by Tiger and again that's through Plymouth State University and tiger an acronym that stands for working together I guess together for the te inspiring others to Greatness I caught myself caught up on that one giving to others um showing empathy and compassion and respecting themselves and others I'm going to have to go back over that that acronym um with a special focus on social emotional skills and empowering young people to make good choices um in developing skills for what to do in difficult um interpersonal interactions um it's a certainly a performance that students enjoy but there certainly are some connections that teachers um can make in the classroom Beyond to support and deepen um our learning with seal um we just finished our second cycle
029of after school enrichment um we had a total of nine clubs that involved 111 students which was a really strong turnout a lot of our clubs were filled up within 24 hours so again we like to be able to continue to make those offering ings um one of our bigger updates um right now which would go for both um Main Street and Lincoln Street would be um an update on our literacy committee and our search for new literacy program for 2425 um so earlier in January the literacy committee selected two reading programs to Pilot this decision was made after seeing presentations from five vendors completing rating scales on priority components such as adherence to the science of reading practices accessibility and ease of use of the digital components of the program quality of Assessments Etc
030after um thoughtful in-depth conversation the committee selected my view by savis uh learning and Benchmark Advance by Benchmark education two teachers from each grade level will pilot both programs um for three weeks each um we will pilot my view from February 12th through March 8th have one week for transition and pilot Benchmark from March 18th to April 5th pilot teachers are receiving a half to full day of PD prior to the pilot as well as some co-planning time um we expect to make a final decision or selection on April 9th both vendors have reserved the May 24th date um for a full day of PD to help launch the new program so both vendors committed to that date and making sure that they had resources available and Personnel available to support that um the training
031for my view um happened for Lincoln Street school last week and I believe today for Main Street school so teachers partic in the pil participating in the pilot have already received their um full day of PD from my view and my view is also going to be active during the pilot process and come into the schools um when teachers are doing the pilot to support answer questions Etc um just an update on one of our wheel WR trusts um the spot vision screening went smoothly and was overall highly successful and I'm just speaking for LSS but I think it's the same at Main Street um having the ability to screen students during convenient times with minimal classroom disruption was ideal and the teachers voice appreciation on how it was done this school year another plus
032side to having our own Vision screener is assessing the kids who are absent forgot their glasses or maybe just enrolled mid year and would not have had that process otherwise so we screened 411 students in just over a week at Lincoln Street school and um our nurse took small groups at a time so it really wasn't disrupting or stopping a lesson or students weren't missing um instructional minutes or minimally impacted um and then the very last thing is at the end of the school year we're going to have a um bit of a change for fifth grade um we hope to begin a new end ofe tradition for fifth grade students which is in line with many of the other elementary schools in sau6 we will host a fifth grade celebration event in June that
033will also combine with the DARE graduation the celebration will be outside weather permitting and will provide students and families with a more official end the elementary experience um previously we've used our DARE graduation typically in like April or May um to also serve as the moving on or moving up experience but it doesn't really have that same feel of Celebration or finality at that point so we want to put more of an emphasis on the celebration on finishing the elementary side of the journey while also incorporating dare into that event and we think that this will have a a nice way of doing that um and we've worked with fifth grade teachers this year to create that new tradition we're going to put that information out to families probably right around February break it's kind
034of like a saved date type of thing um and then we'll work from there to clarify details but it seems to be well received with those that have kind of been in those conversations so far sure that was great information by the way thank you um I'm just curious for the two Pilots for the liter curriculum were there elements of either both or either that really stood out that sort of got the I know it was a very thorough process but I'm just curious sort of where there things that really differentiated yeah um you know it's probably I'll try to give you the cliffnotes version because there really was quite a bit of information data gathered um you know we we tried to really look at you know all of the if you look in
035our curriculum off offes you're just going to see boxes and boxes because all the vendors sent lots and lots of material so one of the things when you're just trying to dig through because you don't have the support from the vendors when you're digging through these boxes is really just kind of looking at that ease of use does it make sense um does it make sense for a classroom teacher can they open up and say okay I kind of understand what we're trying to do here um another piece that we were really looking at is kind of that K to5 continu Continuum in making sure that whether we're looking at the different unit UNS and there's kind of like a spiral or thermatic element that kind of connects it um all the way from the
036foundational reading skills up through um we were definitely interested I think both schools looking at both my view and Benchmark did a really nice job of incorporating the contents of social studies and science um into a lot of their units and a lot of those units spiral so whatever that topic might be in kindergarten you know whether it's you know weather related you know weather related is that first unit you know at development Al stages all the way up through fifth grade and so you see some connections that will really help with like content vocabulary uh you know as well as just kind of that building that content knowledge which can sometimes be a little trickier to do with the elementary levels um certainly the science reading was something that we were looking at pretty
037closely as well and just how it supports that our teachers have engaged in OG training um last summer and we're looking to send another group this summer and so certainly when you're looking at kind of like how are we addressing the curri through a multi-sensory lens um trying to find a a program that kind of maybe not is necessarily aligned with OG but kind of supports that work that's been going on no that was good there's also like we looked at um intervention and extension opportunities programs that supported differentiation de was a big part of our rubric and looking at that making sure that there was good representation and accurate storytelling uh we wanted to make sure that there was like reading that led to writing so all these pieces have a writing component so
038that it felt like kind of holistic like you read these stories and then you get to do these other pieces and then um oh I had something else that I was thinking of oh um elll and special education considerations that's excellent so uman and Tanya then the choice will be made in conjunction both Main and Lin correct will decide yep yeah it's a it's a combined committee for both buildings thank you sure thank you thank you next up CH good evening Ryan covered like a lot there's there's a lot of duplicates so I'll I'll just do some of the additional things um in the area of safety we've had a couple of tabletop drills both at the preschool and at Main Street School this is where rich comes in he gives us a scenario if
039there was an emergency or if there was a threat to the school like let's play that out what would that look like and so we did one at both of our schools you you guys also or you have one on the books we have a tabletop and a drill um end of February beginning of March okay they're they're really helpful it's nice to like be able to delegate and process through like what would the actual steps be we call all of the people say this is a drill I called eser during ours and and kind of walk through that scenario and then today we actually did our Alice training at Main Street School we had our whole staff there so it just ended this afternoon with Rich and um and the staff did a really
040nice job they're challenging drills but they know that they're super important and so we were able to complete that today successfully we also have been we changed up we have a partnership with Northeast passage they've been coming to do some structured recess activities we met with them to see like What's the progress how's that been going and we decided to make a couple of modifications for it because we have a student some student needs where some kids are having a challenging time joining in games asking to join in games uh when things are not going their way how do you handle that negotiating rules of games and so they're going to do like some very targeted interventions uh a couple days a week with our first and second graders so that's exciting and nice that
041they're willing to partner with us and say what do you guys need and then they brainstorm some strategies to help do that so we're looking forward to that with our learning team we've been our our last couple of meetings have been on some Resort of Justice protocols right now we have Mariam um Levy and Deb wheeler Bean that come through and they work with several different classrooms on rotations and they are helping with morning meetings and some conflict resolution and building up um helping kids I guess identify what it is that they need in their day to be successful for themselves with adults with friends and so they do these storyboard walks and it's kind of cool so she came and was giving an update to our leadership team on how those were going we
042also planned our in next intervention cycle like Ryan we just started our third cycle of intervention and we continue to read the book that I showed you guys last time that's called visible learning and so we're continuing our our book group with that there's really interesting stuff that's coming up there we had this week a training for udl or Universal Design for Learning if you recall that's just on um making sure that that all of our core tier one curriculum is accessible by all students and so it's talking about planning lessons to make sure that all kids are able to be successful in that first dip of learning we have family literacy night coming up on February 21st at 6 o' Arthur the the author Marty Kelly is going to be there he's also holding
043assemblies that day today and then we're going to be trying something new that we're calling the masked reader where we have some of our staff members who are reading books aloud with these masks on their faces and giving Clues to kids to guess and then we'll do a big reveal on family literacy night so hopefully that's fun and kids like that in our plc's we've been continuing to focus on tier one math um we are meeting this week to kind of shift kind of this balance of us leading the agenda and setting a curriculum we've done lots of modeling and now we're going to give it over to our teacher teams to kind of take that over and we are going to support but it's it's an in-depth process of our teachers looking at math
044vertically aligned K5 which we've worked with Lincoln Street to do and so they're picking core competencies key competencies that kids critically like have to know at that grade level and then going through an entire instructional cycle of let's look at that let's break it down develop common language build an assessment talk about best teaching practices giving the assessment with common um protocols and environments bringing the result results back looking at kids work together how do we score that what would be proficient and so and then they make edits to the assessment so we have done that whole cycle several times which is timec consuming and so they're getting ready to start their next unit on that together and leading the work which is really exciting and um our teachers have said that this last reporting
045cycle especially in the area of math they felt more confident than they ever have in reporting because they were able to have those conversations with each other on what are we actually looking for for proficiency and what areas do we need to grow and can we support kids who are not quite there yet so it's been really neat to hear those learning conversations in their plc's the um PD that we've been offering is the same as Lincoln Street we have I ready we've been talking about our plc's or professional learning communities and we also had a training on Executive functioning which is a big need at both of our schools and so we had a trainer come out that gave a lot of really good suggestions and that's thanks to to Diana and Abby who
046arranged that they arranged it previously for all of special education and then it was so well received they said really teachers like all teachers should get this and so we had our classroom teachers attend and so that was beneficial too we also had tiger and we're starting something new it just started today which there's going to be some hiccups along the way but I think it will be great it was from our UA teachers who asked that once a week for first and second grade that we offer during their recess block an Open studio for kids who maybe like that recess is not necessarily their jam but maybe they want to come and do an extra art section or music section or library and so we started that today and yeah kids are really excited
047about that that's it yeah any questions kids we I I know yeah and and there's some kids well like what I was saying earlier like there's some kids who is like it's hard joining a game or they don't really want to play basketball or they don't want to do those things and so the UA teachers having that little bit of an extra block said let's make some more of like that adult to- Student Connection maybe there's some kids who can come in and we can build that relationship with and so they're doing some alternative assignments today Beth helped take one of the sections down and one of our lunches well you had like 13 or 14 kids maybe yeah so secondes a lot yeah so it's pretty cool I'm a case study of one but
048this goes for both of you I have seen this last report card again I'm just a case study of one but is so clear the report card I received for my child was really really clear on Define in the notes like why you know why the letter was assigned and not only and like pointing out evidence of why and then also suggestions of how to either approve or expand um so I'm only a case study of one but just it was so evident to me and just that it was clear to this teacher you know what those things meant in a way and just seeing that kind of progress over the time that you know we've been working on um so just I it again I haven't seen everybody's report card but it was really
049like such a lovely thing to receive and with such detail and um obvious care and so I think that that support the support networks are clearly having a an impact because it seems very very clear well thanks for acknowledging it because and the teachers will appreciate it they're very time consuming they worked a lot on what would be the best evidence to include and they didn't want them to become so laborious that people don't read them so I was trying to strike the balance well that was my other question it's just it was evident I mean it was it was like a gift honestly the comments were so thorough so that was my other question is just the labor like how we're teach we try to provide as much time as we can we both
050give up some of our staff meeting and some of our professional development time to say work together and your teams to to kind of get these done I will say for myself r i briefly talked about it but my experience we have to approve them one at a time Ryan and I do and so I we spend lots of hours even reading them and making notes and giving feedback to our teachers and they were the best set that I've read I was really pleased so it was good well that's off to you they did the hard work I was just reading but yeah they did a nice job thanks okay thank you um moving on to the committee reports um first is the Dei J committee Beth and Susan good okay um well we had
051a meeting the last the end of January I I can only say the part of it I had another conflicting meeting that I had to be at but um um we started doing the equity audit yeah breaking that up into pieces so we went through I think one section that day school policy that the school policy and then there was another was there a meeting this morning zoom and we yeah we did the uh assessing Community needs section Community needs so just working the way through the audit yeah we have another meeting we'll continue with this audit um the end of February what is the audit what is an audit on the different sections okay so they did the equity did assessing the community needs that you said yeah yeah sure so the um exitor
052School District had a like 3 to 5e plan when we originally started our de committee our last goal is posed to come up 2425 school year um the team looked at their goals and the action steps and realized that we've met very close to all of the things that we had put in place to be able to meet already so the goal this year was to go through an audit and see what are the next steps how can we develop new goals and then action steps for that to try to do another three to five year projection of where we'd like to go um so we've started on this audit it's a pretty comprehensive audit at the same time we want to support SAU efforts um and so on March 12th we'll also be engaging
053in um and I had the opportunity since I'm with sit on the deij chairs committee to be able to influence a little bit of what that's going to look like so our exitor committee will be working through this like more of a comprehensive audit really looking at um it's been kind of cool to go through because I think it's going to really uh help us continue to build some structures and systems so some of our conversations today were really around okay that's great that's happening and if that person was to leave would this still exist and so I think this is going to be a really great um conversation for us to have around some real systemic kind of changes um additionally our partic and that remember has school board members community members parents teachers
054administrators across exitor um our SAU committee is uh going to be engaging the whole SAU in a briefer audit that uh it's kind of just broader but we still allow the SAU to get some really good goals and information hopefully and so our whole teaching our whole staff will be engaged in that audit and then we'll be able to take results of both and consider them as a committee and the hopes is at the end of the year our outcome will be those goals and action steps make sense great thank you so much cool okay um moving on to policy Heather and Patrick do you want to do this now if it's in new business also just go ahead and do it okay so I think this is me Patrick hook this time all right
055so I organize this in two ways so first first I just want to I want to go over the ones that require revision their revisions or updates so the first one is uh policy code ibba and the name is limited English proficiency instruction so um so the goal of this this was updated primarily just for clarity and compliance um it's to ensure assessment instruction and exit criteria processes for students with li Limited proficiency um and it it's pretty straightforward I think the track changes that were in your packet um just some clarifying language throughout any questions on that one okay the second one that I'm going to uh go to is policy code kec and again uh this one is a revision of a current policy the policy name is public reconsideration of Library materials
056and it's former name was public complaints about the curriculum or instructional materials um so this was um an update because there are another set of policies that are really about instructional material so this was updated to a line to talk specifically about Library resources um and it is um it's it's honestly just a policy to provide some more clarity and steps on on public reconsideration of Library materials um it pairs with igl policy igl which is about selection and removal processes um for Library materials um and I think the big thing with this one too is uh the the revisions to this policy um our library media Specialists for the sa6 were also consulted on all of these revisions any questions about those too and one of the things I like the changes to where
057it also says Library materials instead of books yes it's not just books they're more than books that are in libraries and so it's it's more comprehensive as well as more [Music] clear okay so those are our two revisions and then we have two new policies um the first is IBG and so IBG is home education instruction um so this policy uh is new for us and reflects the passage of HB um 1 uh 1663 which was passed in 2022 um and so is really just outlining requirements of the district for home education families um so there's specific language around the fact that parents and caregivers legal Guardians um are to own the home education child's portfolio um and then it references um policy JJJ which is also in your packet which is um the policy
058to access public programs by non-public charter school and home educated students um so that also was revised because of the passage um of HB 1663 um to really coordinate equal access to the provisions programs activities and courses that um are open to hone educated students and other non-enrolled students in the district um and it was also changed from a recommended policy to a requ a priority a required by law policy so it's pretty lengthy but very specific in terms of outlining um what parents and Guardians need to do to access those programs um and policy IBG um design indicates that someone can choose the district as a participating agency and work with us to or the district to um meet the essential requirements by law for public education or for education so what does that
059look like if a homeschooled student or someone well that's just not enrolled in our schools in our district like what does that require of us or teachers nothing you don't have to give them passwords to like different online resources no um the the most oftentimes they'll want to participate say in music or something like that so then we just they just come in and participate in that class the academics it has been my experience that uh I've gotten a call for to participate in English class more it's usually an extracurricular activity or have access to Sometimes they come in to do the SAT date testing sometimes they want to do that um but generally speaking it's usually one of our UA opportunities that they can't build into their home school program but they want their
060student child to participate okay thank you any other questions on either IBG or JJJ okay so first I'm going to move um to approve there are some that were suggesting we remove but I'll do these first um the revisions to ibba and kec and to approve new policies IBG and JJJ give a second second all in favor I over your Ro I to be doing that fine okay and then policies to withdraw there are three um pretty straightforward the first two are kec R-1 and that's request for reconsideration of instructional Library resources um and the other is kcr2 report on reconsideration of Library instructional materials um and they were samples and so the recommendations is that they are not really needed in the policy manual um and the second is Leb advanced coursework advanced placement
061course courses um and it's about Advanced course work at the high school level so I I it's not needed for so I'm going to move that we remove um three policies uh kec R-1 kec r-2 and Leb I'll second all those in favor please signify by saying I I I and I think that was it okay we'll have plenty more for you next time okay policy okay um the superintendent evaluation committee meets again Thursday there's no real update we are just moving right along and um I'll have more to say probably at the beginning of March um do we ask both feedback on the process the oh yeah remember I received no feedback from you um I had sent you all an electronic copy of the process and um it came up at the Joint
062school board meeting but um exitor had no extra input um The Wellness committee I couldn't okay so um I both of us could not attend so I tried did you go I oh great I took a ton of notes from what um we were given but I couldn't get on I I came a little late they were talking about there was a policy that they referenced was kind of like the gold standard for health and wellness yeah and then there was some discussion about like is can should this actually be policy because it was very detailed and specific and so then it was like well not all the schools may be able to actually meet that criteria and is this the appropriate place to be mentioning curriculum or do we need to go through the
063curriculum committee so it was just a lot of like reviewing that recommended policy and then realizing that that may we may want to take elements from it but it may be too in depth and so we're going to like pause on it I think and then review something next time yeah I do have an update just because I happen to walk in with Jean Parish meeting with Heather today about that topic and so I believe Heather is going to send an email and work to attend the next one to have a model policy and then what would maybe perhaps be more procedure Etc and identify the differences and then work through it that way yeah it was intense it was a very in depth with a huge C okay um the School Safety and Security
064task force meets again um on the 22nd at 9:00 a.m. in at the exitor high school um the communications and Community engagement we meet um the end of this month last I heard 700 responses from um the um survey that we sent out I don't know where it stands Now esther around I didn't I didn't check yet this week uh it closed the 31st so our meeting um I think it's 22nd the February 22nd we'll be um with Nick we'll be there our qual Turks guy and have those all disaggregated and go through the data with us so that um then we can prep it and prepare for a joint board presentation for April and Esther could you just remind the listeners out like what what how are you hoping to use the what we
065learned sure um what we learned um is hopefully some areas for recommendations right um and then take those recommendations and move forward in strategic planning so this fall certainly have we had one communication survey remember that that the co-op just did we have those results now I just got that report uh once it's presented to the co-op board in March um I then have that information going out to everybody for the co-op families um I will do a similar kind of um outline of the process and then um kind of the real data and then recommendations and then next steps so we'll push that out um probably in May because it's presented to the Joint board in April then we'll take that move that into strategic planning uh I anticipate there'll be an area around
066Communications and they can take that data and begin to look at what would a goal be and some action steps based on um the recommendations that we got from both of those um surveys okay um moving on to sabatical each of you in your packet um got the same request that the committee reviewed um I think it was last week uh the committee unanimously approved this request um she the educator put together I I felt a very impressive proposal and if there's any discussion about this we will go into non-public looked fabulous yeah and we don't have to vote on it because the committee decided okay um professional growth fund so we're meeting on the 22nd of February and there to review the requests from staff for um allocations for um requests for their professional
067from our professional growth CL okay so the 21st I have the 21st also 2 yeah 345 thank you I've got my list and I think yes I think I was invited to that as well as a second person yes yes we knew you had been on it I had my notes that Susan was on it so it was uh courtesy you're welcome to come or not it's yeah I can come if we if we need a second person up to you unless someone else yeah sure I can come um okay new business we already went over all of the policies I don't know if this falls under new business but can I say something you can okay um at the Joint school board meeting we um as an SAU all voted to approve a two-
068week December vacation next year which made a lot of sense for a lot of people but there's a lot of students in our district that are going to probably need to be looked out for and I'm I feel like we need to just stay on top of that and work with those families to find somewhere safe for those kids to be for that extended an amount of time and make sure that we maybe partner with 68 hours of hunger St Vincent just start thinking about that ahead of time um so that you know the people who who are struggling or that need extra attention or to be safe are taken care of and we're thinking about that in advance can I add yeah um and then you will you will be getting a calendar for
069the exitor elementary school district probably in your April packets to look at and approve it will contain the days already approved of the joint board but there'll also be um probably an additional professional development day also um teacher contractual days will be in there so we're working through that to hopefully build those Elementary um calendars as consistent as possible a heads up um September 13th I think whatever that Tuesday is is another voting day and it will be one of those days that the elementaries will do professional development but the co-op will be running running because again it's that SST law I can't have more than 10 days different than the sending districts um and the way the calendar worked out I can't take that day too for the co-op um so you will see
070that difference other than that we hope to have a lot of those same days in the SAU budget um the full days for all the elementary schools to hopefully bring some consistency because we did hear that at the Joint board but you should see that calendar for here in April okay okay so before you before you move on can I add to the the same comment yeah which is um one of the things I thought about is uh you know I wonder if we want to reach out to some of the groups that we've partnered with like Great Bay for example that comes to our school and I know during this February vacation coming up they offer a program there is a fee for the program it's a few hundred um and that could be
071burdensome to some folks and so we also could think through although we don't typically do this whether or not the board has the wherewithal to provide some sort of um cost reduction with those fees essentially to propose some sort of expanded type of program during that period of time I mean I don't know what great Bay's capacity is and they may be close to the capacity of people that normally pay to participate in that but we do have two schools and they have used both schools at different times so there may be a way that it with enough advanced notice and planning that they might be interested in having something going on at Lincoln Street and Main Street and expanding it and the uh the Y also Services kids so we both programs yeah to
072give them a heads up that there's a two days extra and see if they can right to see if they could do that and then I think on the other side to see to speak to Patty's concern when you mentioned 68 hours of hunger that tends to be more for students that uh are you know are free and reduced lunch kids for example that uh that might have some sort of economic qualification maybe we can do something with those program prrams to provide some support for that right where where would we be able to pull money from if we wanted to offer reduction or scholarship or something for the vacations that's couldn't we since it's next year couldn't we look at that as in as part of will right is there any reason why we
073couldn't use no will could be for anything it could be for anything right yeah could it be I think it's anything in the exra school district pretty much the benefits kids exra school district yes and um I think it would require kind of a lengthy conversation because if you didn't have the two days in December you would have two additional days in June right and we never have looked at supporting when we get out earlier for the year let's say there's less snow days in a year things like that so I would just caution the board to have a lengthier conversation about a precedent you may be setting um for they're not additional for a very unique situation right it's still the same number of school days that are that we have we don't have
074additional school days I think the difference here is it's just it's it's a continuous yeah there's no checks and balances between the students and the schools right the it's it's a twoe disconnect and sometimes that can not be great for all students so um okay well I just wanted to make sure we keep thinking about that and just to just to be clear I'm not proposing this right now I think it's just an idea just I wasn't going to bring it up as a proposal but it just it got me thinking listening to the discussion that there might be things that can do some would have cost some don't have costs just to alleviate the impact on those people that might be impacted one of the things we heard during Co from working parents was
075that it was really disproportionately burdensome to certain families and so other families you know working from home no big deal have their kids go there no big deal but particularly for families with younger kids it tend to have more of an impact because they couldn't work and you know their their kids aren't just going to go watch TV somewhere as easily as a teenager might you know go do something so anyhow it's just I don't want to be back we're not it's it's not uh similar to Co in terms of the length of time we're talking about it's a very short period of time it's a very minimal impact in comparison to something like that but I you know I do understand how it impacts on people yeah well I think it also just goes
076to Beyond being incredibly intentional about and we have time to to talk to those Partners it's also about being intentional about how we're communicating and getting out ahead of it and making sure people really know it's coming and that we can they can ask for help yeah and I don't really think we're setting a precedent because every year this calendar changes and where the holidays land is different so it'll be a very unique circumstance if it happens again in the next couple years I think Su didn't you say this is you had it like once in your like 20 years where you had two weeks off yeah it's just how calendar happens to fall it made sense for this particular year okay all right um I believe we're adjourning our meeting at 710