001call this meeting to order I have 6:02 p.m. uh just as a reminder a nonpublic session can be called at any time we want to start public comment which runs for is it 30 minutes CH I'm going to need a lot of help tonight um so at 6:32 public comment will close um do we want to jump right to Our Guest okay want to stay till 8: I don't think so yeah we could jump them an hour I got a truck let put in the back so that' be great if we could okay um do it introduce the grade five and they want to have a a class pet discussion do you have a PowerPoint prepared that or something you want to show yes or no yes yes you guys have the floor it's all
002you confident yes that oh yes thank you just this in yeah yep how time I know is it a pony [Music] hi is it all started on the last day of fourth grade when we heard Miss curlyy was going to be our teacher next year for fifth grade we were all excited then someone said wait will will we still get Leo Leo was the original fifth grade teachers pet turtle over the summer one of our friends Parker emailed Miss curlyy and asked for permission to bring her hamster as classroom pet for fifth grade on the first day of fifth grade Parker read the letter to the class about offering to bring her hamster so then it started on the first of school we got some homework that involved choosing pets to our likings we had
003to choose three pets that would be the best choice for our classroom we grabbed our first choices to to see what possibility possibilities possibility possibilities were appropriate for our school the top was hamster we knew one of our tasks was to make sure the health of the students was not at stake so Quinn and Maddox went to nother to ask about allergies to the animals on our list or to the betting of the animals we found out that no Heather did not ask students parents about pet allergies only allergies to medicine so we did not end up knowing if there were any allergies um the next thing we did was email you all about the policy and our project we had two classmates talk to Miss R about having a class in pet Miss R
004explained to our class that there was a policy in place I about animals in school after reading the policy we had to eliminate some of our choices we had to take off is considered exotic the town po policy also said we had to make sure that all the town and all state ordinances were followed the school policy said that we had to make sure all the state rules were follow a group of our classmates Mrs fil and and the select in town to ask if there were any ordinances Rel related Mrs Flinch kindly wrote back to to us a few times and we found out we found we found out all pets on our list were okay with the with the state there were there were some the health department suggested Miss Flinch shared us
005the school health inspection form there were two items on the list related to the animals on school properly the first was checking to see if the if vle material was cleaned from the habitat like its cage the other was to make sure there was a handh station with soap and hot water for those taking care and cleaning it's important that our school passes the health inspection and we are responsibly following all the rules we have classmates who are working on creating a care maintenance plan for having a classroom pet we took off dble because the are very social and need a companion we are thinking of taking guinea pigs off because they also need a companion we learned that birds would be a distraction we love the idea of a rabbit but learned it requires
006a lot of cleaning and it would not work best in the classroom there also could be allergies with their bedding we did a small bit of research and took off took a lot of animals off our list of pets so we have narrowed it down we were working with our stem teacher Miss mcarthy learn about the food Change food chain and the food web we are seeing the science connections this project has has had to Miss Cy led us through an activity that helped us figure out a why what the top reasons were that we wanted a class of pet to make sure they were good ones not just to have for fun as a class we want a pet that help us teach responsibility we want it to help provide emotional and social support
007to us it would be a great thing because every fifth grader would have a chance to have their own pet one step of the process was to have a Financial Group who looked at things that pets would need and how much it would cost in total some of the pets needed a needed companions which would double the cost in carrying for a lot of time with research and time we recommended that the class use the pets in the classroom Grant going forward this grant would help to pay for the pet it would give us free habitat like tank it also pays for startup cost like food and D it also helps with sustaining keeping with keeping a pet by helping to pay for cost like food over time this organ organization r p station classrooms
008you know how great you will be there are many reasons why classro pets are important they allow all kids to make connections and feel what it's like to have a pet and learn from them studies show that animal lessons the tensions and stress in a classroom studies show that people with pets have a better Iman system Dr Harvey marovich put pediatrician in Ed of the archives of diseases in childhood says that they're good for for morale teaching children about relationships and they need one another a living being another living being L care helps them learn to care for people other doctors scientists and researchers say that they help build self-esteem pride and accomplishment head teach responsibility because I have to take pet Fe them as of today with lots of thinking and decisions we have
009narrowed it down to fish leard gecko hamster be Pig we are writing informational pieces on these animals we will finish this and see which ones best fit our class for educational purposes and responsibility we want that will one teach responsibility two support us social socially emotionally and mentally and three allow everyone to access it we will then write persu persuasive persuasive pieces and have a vote to see what the best option might be for our [Music] class thank you for your ears tonight appr we appreciate your time we have been working hard to make sure all policies are followed what do you think so far and do you have any questions for us [Applause] job yeah excellent job very thorough researched and great work mhm very impressed I'm excited to hear what option is is
010picked at the end yeah when's this vote going to happen we haven't really decided when vote will happen but it will probably be soon okay when you apply for the grant is there anything else that you're going to need from either me or the school board when you apply for the grant or maybe we haven't figured we maybe haven't looked at the application yet we probably have look at that we know it's out there we just probably haven't looked at the application yet so let us know if you need anything when you get to that application piece I'm very impressed that was a lot of work for not even three full weeks of school yesterday yeah and great job presenting too I mean I looked at the policy and it sounds like you all took
011a hard look at the policy too too so there's no questions or anything additional that I can add by way of that we went number by number talked about each one I think they were a little surprised that the policy was as detailed as it is yeah yeah yeah it's great for to learn yeah yeah thanks guys thank you nice job [Applause] y okay I want something flying around my head um do we want to just approve the minutes and then maybe we can jump to the business and financials is that something okay okay thumbs up from Molly um June 14th um public minutes any additions subtractions changes I had one change on three under 6.1 the staing projection under first grade maybe two teachers at first grade oh yep back too thank you everybody
012you thank you someone wants to say for this boring part anything any other changes addition subtraction nothing okay um make a motion to approve the I'm getting attacked by some sort of bug um June 14th 2023 public minutes second all in favor I I I my kids just left with those kids um I guess that's my thank you yeah um okay so June 14th the nonpublic minutes nothing that I noticed okay I can make a motion to prove that uh Jun une 14th 2023 non-public minutes a second okay all in favor all right all right business and financials all right so there we don't come typically in the September meeting with the current year Financial because years just started we're building everything with uh the team here so in front of you all in our
013manifests so those are the manifests to date and everything since the last meeting so as we close out last school year and scho um I also brought the doe 25 for you to sign okay so the doe 25 um is essentially our year end financial report and so if you remember last year we we made an effort to spend as much as we could to make them in this year's budget so we're typically used to seeing something higher than what's on this piece paper but we all knew this is coming so um the unassigned fund balance at the end of the year is $2,612 and so that would be going to go and offset the tax R this does have two pages um the same document goes to the Department of Revenue and the Department
014of Education they like two different signature forms okay so uh the first one is the doe and Alison just make sure you sign in the Box as a school board chair and the rest of you can sign in the lines and then the second page behind it it goes to the Dr and there is a line for the Schoolboard chair and then the rest of you okay um then also we wanted to talk about the additional adequacy that is available so the the state decided to change the adequacy and it gave districts more money and they also would that gave us an opportunity to use the money if we wanted to okay so looking at the spreadsheet that they sent out there is an additional 33 $2,866 okay that would be coming to kton in
015the form ofy and we can do one of two things we can either hold the public hearing which has to be at least s days hour we have to do the posting in the paper and and then two weeks after that have a time meeting okay so it's essentially like a deliberative session but you actually vote there as well you don't have a ballot vote so it's everybody in the room at that time okay and and that would be to spend topend it on something correct because it would be appropriating the money into the current Year's budget if you don't do that then what happens is it would go to reduce taxes on your tax bullets coming out okay and so Chris I'm wrong across the SAU we have been recommending to let it go
016to the tax rate because we have not seen any substantial changes in the budget since the budge process but here yes we did have the change but we plan for that change by making room in the last year's budget with the rooftop unit um and also we gave back so little in Kensington this would help bump it back up to somewhat of a normal level I wouldn't say you're still at a normal even with that but it would help do that um do have any questions going back to that 20 right with this the 30 would go on to the 20 yes yeah okay got yeah cuzz yeah it it adds to the adequacy so it it brings down the amount we have to raise in taxation yeah okay yeah I think that's so I
017don't think we need a formal vote unless don't you don't need a formal vote unless you want to do something with that money and then again we'd have to hold that hearing you have to post so that takes about 10 days so you're talking about a month in process the issue with us getting it so late in August usually your town like to set it's ta rate by November 1st so they usually want all the information by mid- October to the Dr so you're running up to a time time onine not that we can't do it but it's going to be really tight and feel rushed um and that would be the that by that is why we're making the recommendation that that we would give it back and and help reduce the tax rate
018and that gives you about you about $55,000 You' be looking to reduce the tax rate rather than the 21 yep right and what's the benefit of of not of of going to that meeting does that mean we can basically do something that hasn't already been approved in the budget so we would have an extra so say you knew you wanted to do um gym floor or something gym floor yeah you just put it off but it's on your major plan you can say oh it cost 33,000 it's not going to be any impact but you would actually have that 33,000 to spend immediately but then you'd also have to get that approved by the voters yeah so you've got to have the public hearing to to give them the justification of why and then at
019the deliberative or town meeting they would all it would have to have a majority vote to be able to pass that yeah yeah so the analogy that the de used last week when discussing it's almost like adding a warrant article to the March 2023 vote that happened last spring really late in the game in appropriating more funds but having the inflow of adequacy to offset so essentially it would add to this year's budget if you wanted to or you could appropriate it to a trust fund but you have to write the more article specific to it yeah I mean sounds like a nice way to kind of beef up that balance that we've depleted did and also to offset a little bit of the increase through the budget this year yeah do we need to
020vote either way you don't need to vote if you're not going to do anything with it okay Marley will automatically after this meeting go back and then um make the recommendation to Dr to add that 33,000 okay and we I correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember any big maintenance project being left out there besides the rooftop unit which we not from last year yeah we did everything on our list all right um I mean I'm comfortable with that yeah okay all right yeah okay thank you mly man yes I think you're good yeah thank you bye Molly thanks um okay committee reports these probably also will be fre the um quick policy committee policy is next Thursday I believe okay but yeah I haven't had anything since last time I figured yeah
021Safety and Security same thing we haven't met since the last time um superintendent evaluation committee that's tomorrow okay um Kensington School study update that is a TBD okay um General correspondence so in um your packet I shared with you Governor new news Pro Proclamation about September is welcoming schools month um it really in Proclamation really talks about the work we're doing with diversity Equity inclusion and social justice and it gives us you know uh more of a rationale at the state level to why we're doing this work okay um to couple that tomorrow I'm really excited that um we have eight uh students from the high school who will be going with uh our director of di um Andre Mahia and social studies chair um Beth kaputa they're G to they're going to actually uh
022provide a testimony uh at the New Hampshire State Board of Education meeting and they're doing that on behalf of the New Hampshire school administrators Association and they're going to talk about why this Proclamation gives them more meaning than schools so they're going to talk about the Affinity spaces they've created about the sense of belonging and then highlight some of the the big picture things that they have done as students in high school around di so it kind of goes hand inand um so I just wanted to make sure you had that that we recognized it and that we you know we thank the governor for the support around around this work that's great that's great Chris was there anything in place before this or or is this no so I mean actually a couple years
023ago we had the divisive concept rule act that really kind of was counter to this in some ways about what we couldn't do in school and and by the governor supporting this and putting this Proclamation and said no we're not going to talk about racism you know we're not going to have racist acts in our school and we're going to we're going to continue to educate and um and it really follows line with what we've been doing so it's a nice supportive measure and really I think supports our teachers in our schools to what we're doing great um the only other General correspondence that we received was from the town of Kensington that about the reassessments of all our properties and so it just had just letting us know that that was happening and just
024our current land value building value that sort of thing sure we all got those down yeah we're all like what you all probably thought that as homework yeah that was interesting yeah building building number looks a little different on this one yeah as did all of ours um so the this sorry it's like d bombing my head um the seu communication um and that whole engagement that piece um I don't think we've heard anything okay so the only update I have from the budget advisory committee is that we are it is something you will see when we go to review the SAU budget that there is a line item for um for that for this work to get done and this is a big for it's a it's a line item for a strategic plan
025for the next 5 years but it has a we assume that it's going to have a big piece of this as part of it um as communication plan as part of it so I think that's coming um and more information about that is coming but that is it we haven't forgotten as part of that budget line item yeah can two quick things on that one out and so uh Dr asell and I met today with the company that's doing the survey for the co-op okay so we went through those survey questions U tighten it up made sure everything was correct in regards to how we call things here um because every school district is different right um so that really excited about that data that will go out specifically to the co-op on Communications and
026um responsibilities at schools okay and then I know that the the committee is looking to meet I believe next week as well um and they're going to be looking at another survey data that we can use for all of our schools about um uh communication we did buy a software program uh over the summer for all of our schools okay that actually does uh data analysis um it's used by higher education sat when you're collecting data and then it analyzes it for you so those are two two key components on that communication piece that we've been working on to get the ability to be able to do this at some point okay great um and when you say the committee's meeting next week Chris is that a committee are School Board are we supposed to
027that is that Communications and um the SAU Communications I believe I can I can ask okay um Jenifer Bishop who's the chair in newfields is chairing that okay um and when I met with her the other day she had it on the next week but I'll get you the date so I'll make sure Stephanie gets I that so that would be good um and then the community news submission yes we need to do that I'm not good about that um so we talked about something for that last time yes yeah mhm gosh that and Steph and I talked about it recently about we we completely forgot I they mentioned at the last um School study thing and it is right at the end of this school year so it was yeah um but Jen Jenny
028had mentioned that she had a like a letter that they you guys had sent last year so I don't know if that's something that we can work off of or if we want to I don't I don't really what is it is it to it's to the community that's sort of the idea and it's like explains what we do and um our roles and uh like dates of meetings and real basic yeah so it's not like a doesn't have to be like a a rewriting like we could sort of use like somebody had a really good idea though about what we were going to say in that someone did message like last time oh no I want to like was was it maybe the um what's the work that we did for that like review
029packet or the overview oh the board yes the explaining all the um the board like roles and responsibilities yeah resp yeah I don't know if that was it but um that that that was before you were okay yeah we kind of went through and created almost like a online one page a one pager about the school board and what the roles and responsibilities were so um kind of similar to what the PTO just put out which was nice to help understand what the PTO does and did and like their calendar and stuff of meetings so um is there a Community News deadline coming up that we could put that in now that we're back last deadline was um at the beginning of August so I suspect the next deadline won't be until next month that's
030probably good though to get the beginning of the school year yeah is it something I could just send now and just say that this is before it falls off my radar again okay just for the next Community News okay the other thing that maybe might be helpful is for you to get on the email list cuz she sends out a reminder oh yeah um that would be great and it goes to like different people in town that have contributed from different organizations so let me just send that to you can I send just forward the that to Allison and then you'll have the tielines yeah she sends out like a week or two before the deadline like remember deadlines for that's great yeah perfect I'll keep thinking too like it might not have been that
031but thought I remember in the last meeting like we had a good idea and then the not went away the my recollection is because you had just completed that before Jenny left the board orientation packet is that you were going to say one of our goals from last year was to complete this is is what we completed in why and then it had all the information in there okay that was what you had talked about for your first submission as kind of like um uh evaluation of your own goals okay yeah Jun was yes okay Alon before you move on just um that superintendent valuation in your packet I gave you Esther's goals for the year okay yes we just need to review those it might be good to do it now okay um so
032in there it just um I believe for the committee and for Esther um if there's anything that you had question about any um things you'd like to see change you'll be able to give that to Stephanie are you on that committee yeah so bring that back to the committee for tomorrow yes if you guys have any um feedback Vision okay so there's that goal number two is that the yep and something that's already started mhm is great strategic plan which is that um you're going to hear more about that with the budget Stephanie this might be a question for you it might be a question for Chris but under goal number two the first bullet talks about administrators meeting with each School Board member a couple times a year is that a is that a
033net new ad to the to the goals yeah okay our our thought behind that is to be able to get you know you more than just in this Arena you um we have 3 board members and for example I met with a board member who I've known for six years and we met for an hour the other day is the most we've ever had a chance to communicate so uh we do a lot of work together and doing it you know on a personal level getting to know each other just feel like that would be you know building our our ability to work with one another so it's a brand new it's been going well um and that's the rationale is to get to know everybody in our office because you don't get to see
034everybody um sure but get to know what they do get to meet them and same for us okay and as far as like cap go does everybody have the ability to zoom if needed yep yeah yeah so yeah I I know that you have someone that's reached out to you if you can't meet like we know everyone's working too so um let them know when you're available we'll work around that that's really our goal is just to touch base and um we are asking a couple similar questions like how how are we doing and what can we keep doing that's going really well like we want to know that information see what the patterns are of what we can continue to work on as a leadership team uh through the seu okay and is it
035um just in general I know we got like that schedule email to us um are you f like did someone reach out to you about the upcoming meeting or is that on us to or is it no we'll reach out so each of us a little different I'll reach out to everyone individually calendar is a little different but some people are like I freed this time up in my calendar can you meet that time and again if you can't meet just please be like hey I'm working that time or I am you know I've got kid duty that time totally understand stand and say can I meet this time and we'll be flexible it is we will make it uh work to to meet each but otherwise they're on their schedule so it's not like
036you have to confirm it like it's that you just go yeah okay yeah like I went on on Tuesday um Esther I Just sh did she like send you an email or something beforehand okay yeah yeah so I would I would just you know put them on your calendar and okay yeah yeah great [Applause] questions okay so just a little bit more about that strategic plan budget line item as well it's a it's a budget item so that we can bring in an outside company to help us as a district do that um create that strategy that's number three yeah yeah okay yeah I think they're great gold number four is is so that's a lot mhm a lot mhm it's also you know it's a huge District I think you realize that when you
037start I didn't have any additional questions right good to me really good all right thank you mhm thank you yeah thanks Stu let us know we have than for us sure um uh principal report okay um the first thing um that I highlighted under our positive Community culture was um our um speaker at convocation which was our one of our fifth graders Carter da um he was nominated by our staff to represent KES and so he spoke at this year's opening event in front of all of the SAU um 16 employees so um about 1100 adults in the extra High School auditorium and he did a wonderful job made us all super proud the theme was trust and inspiration um and so he talked a lot about the relationships that he has with his teachers
038and how important those relationships have been to him um and relationships to um his peers um and so I think it really just exemplifies some of the things that um we hold as a core value here which is relationships um and and I think Carter spoke to that well at the um at the convocation this year and I did include a link in case you wanted to watch I watch yeah so I did include the link he comes in about 18 minutes after it starts so if he want to just forast this part so Kenington was well represented um the MC of the morning was also um a kensing a former Kensington student she's now a senior at ex high school so she was the MC and my was one of the guest speakers so
039I'm very proud of our King kids um under meaningful learning I highlighted um some of the um opportunities that we've been able to offer students um using grant money um so we don't often talk about our grant money in our regular budget process but I just wanted to highlight some of the grant money that is available and then and how that's enhancing the learning um the first thing I highlighted was Kindergarten Camp which is something that we started in 2018 um I think it's been a nice addition to our transition for students um coming from preschool into kindergarten um allowing them to come those four mornings during the summer and get used to their classroom and where their cubby is and how to line up and all of that kind of stuff um and that
040is all funded through uh the title for Grant and it has been each year we've used that Grant um in order to fund um that week for our students but um I think it's been an important addition to our transition process Ally definitely benefited from that like that was very helpful for her and yeah it's nice to see and actually Chris and I were just talking about using the um the metrics company that you were talking about the of building a a survey for kindergarten families and just being able to provide some feedback on our trans Kinder preschool kindergarten transition um because you know we have changed it and we just want to see if there anything else that we can do differently and get some feedback on things like the camp um the other
041um opportunity that I high high lated was Orton Gillingham training and we used title to money um that was some professional development um that many of our staff members participated in this summer it was a pretty intensive 5day training um um that Stu that teachers um um did this summer um and it is all based um you know to strengthen our literacy and instruction so um yeah it was pretty probably you I know you did it you yeah it was 30 40 hours it very bral it was intensive um thank you um we also using reap money this year which is um the small school rural education um grant money um we were again able to offer some summer tutoring for some students who might have received um some additional supports during the school year
042um and we're able to offer four weeks of um of tutoring for them as well um really just kind of trying to prevent that what what you call Summer slide so a lot of students lose some of their their learning over the summer and so we're trying to just really help maintain some of those skills for students so we were able to use some um grant money to provide that this summer too so I'll help with our learning um and then under health and well-being um also talking about grant funding um we've been really strategic in how we're bringing our fifth graders back together again I know we had a lot of conversation about Staffing last year and where we landed we ended up bringing two classes together to make one very large fifth grade
043class um so we've been talking a lot about um you know how we're doing that and thoughtfully doing that and one of the opportunities that we've provided for them this month is to be able to work with um facilitators from The Brown Center um doing some low and high ropes elements and really working on um their leadership and problem solving and conflict resolution and um I think I highlighted in here we always expect our fifth graders to be role models in the building but I think the experience with The Brown Center facilitators just sort of pushes them a little bit more in their um you know deepening their awareness of that responsibility as as being the oldest Learners in the building and what that that really means um so they've had one of those days
044already and they have a second day with The Brown Center um at the end of the month so really positive and again all grant money so not part of our regular budget and it also then was at no cost for families for them to participate um either yeah what is the The Brown Center like what are they specializ so they so they're really known for their ropes course so but they do a lot of outdoor exper experiential education um a lot of Team trust building pration both for children and adults okay um they'll get a chance to go up on some of the higher elements on their second trip so cool yeah um Becky in terms of the grads who does all that work the grant writing and researching stuff do you do all a
045few no a few years ago the district um the SAU created a position a grants writer um admin a grants writer what is who a grants writer you you get a percentage cost that paid back and since we had so many grants with Esser okay we were able to use those funds to pay for it the best I don't even know what this year to help us with the grants but it is 100% worth whatever our contribution is no it's a good it's a just in% 75% it should be a fulltime job yeah so it's in the SAU budget this year because we don't want to lose it as as Grant have gone away we still you have to manage over 26 Grants in the sa it's a lot so it used to fall on
046the associate superintendent or assistant superintendent director of curriculum and principles and they just the time wasn't there so it's a much cleaner process for our principles to say here's what we're thinking here's the rationale the grant writer writes it you know puts all of the um the word smithing together and then submits it so they're they're not having to do managerial and task oriented stuff that they can deal with their buildings but still think of progressing so I agree with Bey it's a invaluable position okay cuz there's so much money available for us to use and just having that time I think since 2018 we've been really good at spending all of our money every year before that we wouldn't because things wouldn't get passed and you'd be like well I don't have the two
047hours to go and actually rewrite that totally y Mak and during the meeting they actually look it's millions of dollars so I mean the position is in there a budget item but it's correct yeah it's a wash because of the amount of money it brings to the district and it really it just directly benefits kids and teachers exactly I mean it's money we wouldn't have otherwise so yeah Co it should be a full-time position yeah so I don't know if we want to jump to like some of my the other monthly data and topics or sure we can do that I just cuz we already did the class the class pet discussion so um so I think under you want to do topics first yeah so this should look very similar to last year Becky
048and I um sat down and looked at last year's schedule and just modified a little bit but again the theory and this is you know part of uh Dr asal's goals is that you're getting monthly meetings on data and data that is specific to um your purview as a Bo board member and I thought it went really well last year but it also you know broke up the months into specific categories and that you weren't getting an hour presentation on on all academics with special ed and facilities and budget that we broke it up so this would be the schedule we'd like to use and again um we if we need to to make a change we would we would ask that you give us a little leeway but looking at where we have the
049ability to to share the data with you this is a a a schedule that we'd like to use yeah so the first thing for September then is um looking at our our school testing data from last year so um this would be similar to um um what we looked at last year um and I the best report that I could that I think visually shows so if you um take the first two reports and put them side by side like this y so this yeah so this is beginning of year reading and then end of year reading so if you look at the top we're we should say beginning of year reading your reading so you can see the growth um in our students from beginning to end um we we took a look at
050some of this data as a staff at our last staff meeting just to kind of see the areas um you know where students where students are growing and looking at that green growing and yellow shrinking and red shrinking through the year so there was a lot of good information for us and then um as teachers we can dig a little bit deeper obviously into each um into each grade to specific students and subcategories and that sort of thing but this is sort of the overall growth that we see in our kids from reading and then if you take the next two assessments it's the same um growth in math so math beginning of the year and then end of year in math as well so again we saw some nice growth in our students and
051I obviously teachers drill down a little bit deeper to individual to that is our overall and have like when when are we going to start the process again for this year or has it already y so the beginning yep so that's sort of the assessment schedule that we we do this assessment three times a year I did have a middle of the year one but I figured that was a little buky you need to see the middle of the year one um so students when the Wi-Fi and clever is working have already started um doing the beginning of year assessments I think that that can Miss Po's class this morning a lot of nice independ because that was a I believe in a national issue with clever so that was not a school-based issue unfortunately
052but um that to the 23rd [Music] grader um so that has already started so the beginning of the year assessments have started on I ready and then we've also started all of our beginning of year curriculum based measures and so those are more informal more sort of paper pencil tasks um not not computerized um so yeah we're collecting all of that beginning of your information for kids right now was it today like the first day that it started or in third grade today was the first day we attempted to do it okay yeah we did get on later in the day and accomplish something how how long does it take to go through the exercise like the I ready testing um it depends on the child so it's it's unlimited it's not time they have
053as much time as they need to finish so some students after 8 minutes are done and we like hang on um and then others days will take days okay okay kieran's like I had all the time I wanted to I was like oh God how long were you sitting at the computer for he love that though say something that I think kind of got taken away a while ago because time timed things just add stress to students it's a different you're measuring something completely different yeah um so it's they do know they have as much time as they need but that does vary from child to child pretty greatly good to know cute um so we'll collect uh beginning in the beginning of the year midyear data usually happens in January um and then end
054of the year data usually in the May ish time frame which Sumit testing still gets pushed into June Al we try as much as we can to get to finish up in May but and that's what families get home in the mail yes yep so you families get their individual child's growth report perfect thank [Applause] you computer scre ni person um yeah you do that under person goals goals do you want to do you want to jump or do you want to stay with new business we could do your board goals okay yeah we do have one thing under Personnel that Becky will so so let's do um board goals for 2023 2024 do we yeah so that's looking at these three and seeing if we want to change them for next year is that
055the idea uh yes right or make new ones correct sorry got lost yeah it's right at the very very top page one why can't I find it oh yeah a little further up all the way right there yeah those guys so data discussion reports educational program like that's that's that first one yeah I think that's great I it's been great I think it keeps us informed of what's actually happening at a building level um and what's going on for students and staff so I think I I mean I I don't know if I would change that one I think it's a good process that we have I agree I like it too um number two is compl completed question mark I mean I think we did that right so I guess we probably should not
056have that on there again yeah okay yep that one's definitely going to come out so then the last and boarding community community stakeholders and scholas I think we can continue to have that yeah considering there's so many people yeah crowd gold St yeah um so we have two Chris is it generally recommended that we have three goals uh I mean it's what you can handle um some boards have six that's the most in the district uh most have about three okay okay so I would just refer you to your annual goals so that's policy ba um you know most the goals can be written about your board meetings policy development fiscal management um your role in educational program development m M orientation which you just completed which was a great goal um board member development
057was there officer performance relationship um board staff relationship Community relationship legislation and governmental relationship and risk management so I don't know if any of those pick your fancies the other thing you can do is that we know that you want to take out number two which would be appropriate yes if you want to keep one and three which would be now one and two and then each every of all of you come with a thought of of revie policy ba okay sure and saying is there something there that we feel from last meetings or this year you think we could and then have have a discussion about that yeah um fiscal I'm just thinking the two that jumped out to me just really quickly fiscal responsibility I I mean I I I think we've done
058a really good job and we still ended up with like a a massive budget increase I don't know if there's anything any if it's even worth creating a goal there or looking at that um so I mean I'll just even throw that out there as like food for thought and then staff board relationships I don't know if you've seen things created under that Chris but um that's the one that we try to kind of that's the one that can get murky I don't know if we like my thought was coming in and just observing a like just coming doing a tour of the building you could bring us a cake okay I can we can bake cakes or cookies um get well you'll definitely have to visit fifth grade once they've determined there yeah that's
059true true but that could be a goal that each of you make you know have a day or or time spent in the classrooms here yeah that's that's what came to mind it's just to get that kind of again on the ground feeling for what it's like to be in the building def an area of improvement I have seen that written as goals before have an orientation in the school a tour a day I mean I would love the kids to do it even yeah so I've seen that written in in those those three different ways Okay so maybe something along those lines but I mean I think taking it some time to step away and think about it would be so I'll put it on the agenda that will everyone will come with something
060and we'll really finalize those at the next okay okay that sounds great thank you and cookies can be number four I'm fine with that um any old there's nothing listed under old business no okay pupil related matters nothing for that okay um so Personnel um just a couple of things to update um it was a very busy summer Personnel for hiring yeah um no we're fortunate we hired our first grade teacher we hired our new art teacher we hired our new special education case manager and we hired our Music Teacher so I was pleased that we started the year with all of our professional phans um you should get a huge round of applause for that cuz that is not easy in this current environment yeah right at the hair R chin and process through
061HR yeah um we unfortunately did have a resignation of one of our pair professionals over the summer um and that's something we can talk a little bit more to when we get to budget development again um the reason was because we don't offer health benefits here and so she accepted a position at um another school in sa 16 because they do offer health benefits so that is something we've talked at the board before about trying to offer um some health benefits to our Paris um we also received another resignation of a pair of professional um when school started so um we've hired some we've lost some so we're still we still have a couple open par professional positions um that we're still hiring for um what I'd like to um talk to you a little
062bit about um is uh a proposal to increase um occupational therapy time um at Kensington elementary school because of our increased numb so I'm actually kind of going to start in the middle of the page where you see the bolded numbers um our special education numbers last year um 15.2% of our students were identified um as having a special education disability um to start the year we're already at 19.5% of our student population identified and we have already have four students in the referral process so we've had a pretty significant increase since we did our budget um a year ago um so one of the areas that um that we're looking at is our occupational therapist who is not currently full-time right now um increasing her time to full-time to be able to um to
063service the requirements of the students IEPs um and we're also looking at some additional responsibilities for her within the school um we don't have a school psychologist on our staff this year and so we're looking at our occupational therapist to be able to help with some of the things that that person had done in the past such as Behavior plans regulation plans for students um that sort of thing um I'm also looking to um have the person in this position assume responsibility for preschool coordination because we're no longer um sharing the cost of the pre program with Brentwood um so that was a shift again that we hadn't anticipated when we did the budget last October that was a shift that was made this past year so there's some additional responsibilities that have that are
064sitting on um our plate here at school and we're needing someone to do that my proposal down at the very bottom the cost to increase um the OT to full-time is um and I'm proposing that the additional cost be covered entirely by our idea Federal grant so it won't impact our KES regular operating budget how does it fit into that Grant Becky like what is that so that's a special education grant you can only use that money for special education purposes so unlike some of the other title two and title four grants and re money that we talked about earlier um the ID Grant can only be used for special education purposes go so um each school is allotted X number of dollars for unanticipated unbudgeted kinds of things and so um I'm proposing that
065we use that money I don't NE we don't necessarily need your approval this is more for your information so that you're well aware of this pretty significant increase in need um and a shift in her responsibilities um just because of some staffing changes and the building so you can see that our um just comparatively I just gave you some national numbers SAU averages New Hampshire averages um because I think probably um a full-time ot to building this size might um seem that that's unusual um but we also have higher percentages um we have higher than average percentages of our special education population as well both higher than the SAU average and higher than that averages and higher than um National averages as well so what percentage of that 19% receives OT Services specifically um that's
066a great question I don't know if I can do that math in my head that's okay um so I'm not sure I can answer that as a percentage what I when I looked at at her direct um direct service time um versus what's available in an 80% time keeping in mind that students aren't available for Direct Services six and a half hours a day because they have things like special and lunch and recess and that sort of thing um currently there's two and a half hours each week um that she has in IEPs that she's unable to cover in an 80% time so there's 2 and a half hours of D of direct service that she doesn't have in her 4 days a week I have another question I can't remember what it is um
067if we didn't use this money this grant money for her what are some of the I think my my hesitation is we've had a couple of really special special education heavy needs students come into the district unexpectedly and so if something like that we are I'm assuming tapping this grant completely by up and her a fulltime or is there still money left there's still other money available in the Grant and this does not touch our um Reserve fund right but I don't want to touch that either um so this that's the only so that and this is for a single year and then after this year is the expectation that this would go into a a budget or that she would drop back down to 80% it all depends on student need so for example
068there's some years where um as if you remember a few years we had very high preschool numbers and we had um I think 7 or eight identified preschoolers which was an unusually high number for us um some years we have two preschoolers so um it really depends on our students and their and their needs so I think paying for it with grant money is one thing I think asking for a full-time OT for a school of this size in a in a budget that already struggles to get under 10% is going to be a a struggle so my concern is I I mean I guess it is what it is um it would just be concerned that we wouldn't be able to sustain this and are we saying here if we're talking about 8 to1
069like what What's the timing workout for that are we talking like four to five days a week to five days a week four to right so four days a week to 5 days a week okay and understanding that some of that responsibility is are other things such as the preschool coordination um assuming some other responsibilities that our school psychologist would have done in previous years cuz right now we are just Contracting for evaluation so and the years past we've had um a school psychologist here a day and a half a week and we don't have that this year so um there are some additional responsibilities that I've asked to shift to her in Le of not having other staff so was that happening or will that be happening now like is so or is that
070my intention is with with shifting her to full-time I those additional responsibilities could be assumed she could not assume any of those things at 80% okay which then means we have unmet responsibilities in the building how many how many students is this I guess I should be able to do the math in my head but like 20% of like 125 is like 20 25ish students with IEPs yeah I guess I'm really struggling to see how that doesn't fit into a 4 day work week if not all of them are even receiving OT so it is um way to anticipate with the referrals it'll be over 30 students um some students receive occupational supports once a week some receive it twice a week um it's individualized on their IEPs and I and I to when you
071think of direct service that it's not just the time with the student but then there's consult to the teacher there's the IEP development there's the EV valuation there so a student on the kot is just not to 30 minute blocks a week there's more to supporting the student than just the direct service and every student is that's receiving Services is oneon-one or are there no some of them are groups okay some are oneon-one some are groups and so this is essentially just a notification of hey here's here's what we're doing here's what we're thinking here's how it won't impact the budget but it impacts a grant mhm yeah so with the grant we wouldn't need board approval to use that money because it's being allocated correctly ASP to bring it to you so we can
072be transparent about the needs and how OT would be covering some Services outside of typically OT because of the needs of the building and how do we you know to Allison's point you you there was a significant you know um increase last year and again some of was predicated on on on student need but over and over again how do we not get to a budget you know um increase because I'm not sure what's the capacity that this town can can take with continued budget increases so that's the the cautious part that we're looking at in in this model using Ida funds for a year I I could support that because it's going to meet needs for kids I think we need to reevaluate because you either need to say and the board's got to
073be behind does this become an a full-time position like but a school decides typically does not have a 5-day a week o it's it's very atypical so how do we how do we become more efficient with different things or do kids um test out and go to the middle school so it might shift case loads it might shift numbers so that I think needs to be processed through um Becky and Dr Bennett when we look at special ed and auditing when we're budgeting we're really truly giving you the full picture of it so again it was really to for you to understand it um to hear it ask questions see if you need more data cuz you're obviously on the on the Block when it goes for for the budget it becomes your budget it's
074our proposal to you of what we need and then you have to answer to the to the town's people so that is why we wanted to have that discussion with you so this idea of U Federal grant is it just a one year we get it every year but it's dependent so some years it goes down significantly so next year there's no guarantee that we're going to have the same thing we be able to use and unfortunately special ed year after year takes significant cuts and again two years ago we were able to combin our SAU money so it was on a needs basis now it's by student basis so no longer like when Kensington had some significant movements and maybe newfields had none we could shift money in our SAU but the federal government
075no longer allows us to do that so these this is how we're all of our districts in the sa are playing catchup because of that law change sure I also don't like to see a position paid for year after year with grant money it should be in your budget yeah at that point it's no longer you know Grant funded thing it's a this should be a staffing right so if we did this line item that should be the conversation we'd have with the employees that this would be for this year and it would be investigated because again if we can't in good faith put it into a budget because of other needs we wouldn't do that unless we had but Allison is right you you typically don't want to see you don't you can't keep
076a position year after year because then you're uh surlan your budget rather than supplementing it this is what the ID Ida money is about and I think that's part of what happened the last few few years our um PT and OT and school like had all been paid for through grant money and then when we shifted them back into our regular budget we saw that big bump up because they had previously been been Grant funded is was losing the school psychologist piece was that um like a a staffing thing or was that an intentional like a budget was an unanticipated staffing change so when we built the budget last year we had anticipated ated still having that position uh a day and a half um but with the change in Staffing this spring um it's
077now become a contracted service for many of the schools in the in the SAU okay that was just for for just evaluation purposes not for the other um it's pretty common actually yeah not for the other services that school sites provide but just for evaluations right so if I'm understanding this correctly the risk would be that we lose a little bit of money out of the Ida Federal grant that might be available for something else that's TBD at this point right otherwise this happens now but we need to make sure that we consider it for budgeting purposes when the time comes okay that makes sense and I think when we look at the um our themes uh I think special education is actually our theme to look at for next year and our data or
078next month um yeah which I think is good timing because it's right before we head into that budget cycle development and um you know we need to just take a look at what's happened in special education at Kensington over the last few years because it's been a pretty significant change um to our population and the demands of our team yeah over the last few years okay I think in preparation for that meet for next month is that when it is it's next month the special education special I think we're going to need some really good numbers about numbers of kids ours needs I think I probably have a bit of a better understanding but I think for all of us to understand what that looks like as far as what case managers are how many
079kids on their case load what does it mean to be a special Cas manager who's doing all that work you know so I think yeah and I I I have most of that actually I just didn't bring it for this meeting that's okay but yeah I think for the next meeting um and just kind of um look at not only um direct service consultation um for um identified students but many of our special team are also um uh service providers and and do consultation for our students on 504 plans as well um we also have an increased number of students on 504 plans over the last few years um and then we always looking at what we're calling response to intervention not just for academics but for um social emotional things as well and most
080most of that falls on our guidance counselor's shoulders but there is certainly support from our special ed team um in supporting students who aren't identified as well yeah but yeah I'm I can definitely bring um case loads and numbers direct service hours consult hours um all of that kind of stuff for next for the next meeting any other questions or anything okay I think that's it for itinerary thank thank you for those questions and that conversation that's just helpful I think for everyone to know why appreciate it yeah um okay I make a motion for to adjourn at 7:5 there's no nonpublic okay um making a motion to adjourn at 7:15 p.m. a second all in favor I