School Board Meeting - 04/01/2026

001Yep. Just a thousand lines. All right, we are live. So, good evening everyone. Welcome to the April 1st, 2026 Litchfield School Board meeting. Uh the time is now 5:30. We will call the meeting to order and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, well, happy April everyone. Uh are there any changes to tonight's agenda? All right, hearing and seeing none. Anything off consent this evening that the board would like to discuss? Okay, hearing and seeing none. We have summary of non-public actions from March 18th, 2026. Mr. Shoemaker moved to approve the February 4th public meeting minutes. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion. That carried

0023-0-2. Mr. Cutter and Mr. Peoples abstained. Mr. Plansky moved to approve the February 18th public meeting minutes. Mr. Cutter seconded that motion. That carried 3-0-2. Mr. Shoemaker and Mr. Peoples abstained. Mr. Shoemaker moved to approve the March 4th public meeting minutes. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion. That carried 3-0-2. Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Peoples abstained. Mr. Shoemaker moved to approve the resignation of Renee Fucci as an LMS special education teacher. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion. That carried 5-0. Uh and then the board discussed a staff update as well. Uh tonight we have some presentations and recognitions, and we have Campbell High School represented this evening. I'd like to invite uh Principal Mitcheson and Athletic Director Tony Ramos up to the table. Good evening. I'm assuming Tony, you're doing the art update, right? Yes, of course. You

003got it? Yeah, what do you want to say? It doesn't matter. Your name tag was there, so I was going to leave it for you. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Perfect. Um a couple of documents. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I think what Tony handed out is actually the second thing they're going to talk about. Just in case. >> Okay, so I can lead with the What's that? The lights? No, no. Jen's going to do the whole thing first. >> Oh. Got you. Okay, yes. So, we have a few things. Um so, we have been trying to work on making good use of the STEM hallway and all the space that we have at Campbell um in the old shop classroom. It's a massive space. If you've never seen it, please stop by and

004you're go take a look. Um there are some really cool stuff in there. Um and right now it is a maker space of sorts. So, the robotics um co-curricular program, they use the space to build their robotics, to test out some of their equipment. The theater department uses the space when they're building their set. Um the art department wants to use the space more and move their pottery wheels into the space. Um we also have two kilns that are ready for installation. I'm waiting on some quotes for that. Um but that they would actually have a really nice home in that space. Um and because of the ventilation that was already included in the space when it was built, um the kiln specifically wouldn't need any additional um ventilation. We could hook it right into

005the system we already have. It wouldn't need its own room. So, it really is a great space. So, part of that we have discovered, I had each group that uses the space go in and label, organize, and start to like itemize their stuff. Cuz robotics kind of had stuff everywhere, and theater people had stuff everywhere. Um and it was a little messy. So, it's gotten a lot better. And now we're at a point where we have some items that are not claimed, and no one really wants them, and or there really isn't a use or need for them in our building anymore, and they're taking up a lot of space from that whole wing. And per policy, um I have to come to you all to ask how you would like us to proceed getting

006rid of some of the items. And specifically, I can talk about there is an old screen printing t-shirt machine that I think we think it's about 15, 20 years it's been there. I think it's been there a very long time. No one uses it. The teachers who know it's there don't use it. It hasn't been used um my understanding for a long time. Um the second piece of equipment we have is a cardboard box baler compactor recycling thing. For lack of a better term. Um and my I believe the town used to recycle, and so when the school was initially built, they wanted to make sure that they could also recycle. And I don't know if you've been in schools, but no one gets more boxes than we do. So, um and now we recycle

007I think through our own kind of system that Mr. Gingras's club, they we have a recycling club. But correct me if I'm wrong, I don't Is does the town recycle across the board anymore? >> Yes. They do. Okay. >> Cardboard is the only thing they make money on. Oops, sorry. So, they So, they don't do the cardboard. No, they do do the cardboard. It's the It's the money crumb. Okay. So, >> just dropped off a bunch of cardboard there today. >> [laughter] >> Okay. So, um anyway, we have this cardboard compactor, and then we also have a lathe that's older. And so, with those items in particular, um we are looking to We can either um you know, dismantle and get rid of. We can donate, or we can try to sell. So, I think

008those are the options per the policy. I'm happy to explore any and all options. I've been working with Dave Ross. He found um a the cardboard compactor on eBay that someone had listed for $1,950. So, again, we can try selling these items. Um there was nothing he could find for sale for the screening um the t-shirt maker. Again, we can also try to donate them. Um the lathe, a brand new lathe goes for around $3,200. So, I don't know what we could get for the one we have. And again, I think our options are to donate, sell, or dismantle and discard, whether that means by means of dump or trash. Um So, those are the three items specifically because of their the cost or their value associated that I specifically needed to ask what you

009should do. >> uh this equipment, we should run that by the town and see if there's a need within the town for Yeah. that piece of equipment, right? Um which we can do. For the other two pieces of equipment, what does the board think? I don't know. Do you have pictures of the items? I do. >> Um I don't have I have These are what we found online. Um so, I mean, you can kind of get a feel like the lathe, um it's very similar to what this one looks like, but you can certainly come see them. Is it a metal lathe or wood lathe? >> It's It's um What did he look up? A turning lathe, I believe it is It's going to be for whatever it was for. >> I think it's It's

010I think it's metal or combined. I think it can do either. It's old. It's like that 1960s green color. Yeah. >> And I don't know how we ever came about it. If it was like something the shop teacher found. Wonder if something the CTE program over at Alvirne could use. Yep. Yep. Another good idea. Yep. And I'm happy to work with our facilities crew um and Dave Ross to see um if there might be any interest. And I can take pictures of our actual items. Um but they're very similar to if you just Google like the lathe, if you look online, they're essentially like the same. I mean, look, if we don't have a need for them, right? I think we It's prudent of us to try and at least recover some costs if we

011can. I I do think that's in our best interest. And if we can't, we can't, right? But I do like the idea if there is um for the CTE, like that's a great idea. If there's a purpose for the town, for the for the cardboard, that's a fantastic idea, right? So, if there is if there's a need within the town or within the other education programs that our students go to, fantastic. Okay. With respect to the cardboard, how are we getting rid of cardboard now? I know there's a recycling club, but We have a recycling club, and so between the custodians and our recycling club, if we have cardboard and it just gets put into the the recycling >> single stream recycling our bin. Yep. So we can just put everything in there as is.

012>> Yeah, we don't have to we don't have to compact it. So we bail it at the town and sell it. What's that? We sell it at the town. Yeah. So, okay. So I think then our next step is I will figure out I'm not sure I don't know how much luck we'll have on the selling the t-shirt machine. Yeah. But you never know. >> that one. >> [laughter] >> So um but I do think I can work with Julie and Brian and Dave Ross cuz he was he's been a huge help with getting some like you know, ideas and he's he's kind of willing to reach out to his groups, too. >> send pictures of the cardboard machine even to myself, right? We can connect with the town and and um Dave Melman over

013at the at the recycling center and just see if there's a need. Maybe he can swing by and check it out. Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. Um so I'm hoping and I can give you an update maybe closer to June cuz I'm hoping to have at least the plan for what we're going to do with these resolved before summer so then moving the t-shirt machine out of the way for example is going to give the robotics people an entire wall of space in their classroom space where they may be able to then move their shelving which is then in the way for you know, putting the pottery wheels into the space that they want to be in. So it's like a waterfall effect of Okay. Let's figure this out. finding new homes. Okay, awesome. I do

014need a quick vote by policy that you're okay with this moving forward with this. Like the disposal of these >> of the three pieces of equipment? >> Yeah, by following the policy says to go through charitable organizations in schools first, local community and so on and so forth and then sell if we can, but if not Okay. So I'll make a motion to dispose of the three pieces of equipment by the means discussed. If there is recoverable costs, we should look to do so. If there is um um benefit to uh either the town or or our neighboring schools for CTE programs, fantastic. Um and I appreciate you bringing this up. Second. Discussion. Maybe on the t-shirt machine we we might have a student in town that's interested in acquiring it or a past student

015that's doing that. I know there's a couple kids that were manufacturing t-shirts here, so there may be something they'd be interested in. Perhaps. I know that unit that unit is quite old. >> [laughter] >> And huge. And big. But In in in my defense of old things, old things aren't necessarily [laughter] bad. I agree, Ray. I would question the wiring on this first, right? Making sure that it's up to standard, so. >> [laughter] >> All right, motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker, additional discussion. Does that um motion make sense? Does that Yeah, it does. I mean essentially policy is the end there. You can read it. It outlines this that there's a sequencing that we go through when we first is more than $1,000 values which usually these things are. And then, you know,

016you exactly what you said, you go to schools first, you go to local organizations, you go to your local citizens and you try to sell it and then if you can't, it's okay, but you make that your first first attempt. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Same, 5-0. Thank you for that. Okay, up next Perfect. Um do we start with lights or this? Start with this. Start with that. Next up is gym floor. Perfect. Yeah, so um in front of you I have a proposal to renovate the gym floor at Campbell High School. It would be redoing the basketball lines, the logos, um the volleyball court, everything that's currently laid down. That would happen this summer potentially. Um the proposal is to not pay for it with budget funds.

017It would be to get some corporate {slash} local sponsorships to pay for the floor. Um this document, the sponsorship document has the tiers we'd be looking to do. Um so we're hoping to secure one big sponsor that would get a center court logo. Um so there would be logos on the gym floor which is really what the discussion tonight is about. Um and then there were some on the sidelines as well. And that would cover the entire cost of redoing the floor. What is the cost of the floor? Uh 33,000 was what we were quoted at. the entire surface? Yep, so they would take it they would sand it down, um redo all the lines, the logo, the sideline, and then resurface it. So we bring this to you, this proposal in general cuz it's

018a big proposal. Also by policy and it's as listed in our agenda, KHP, bring your attention to bullet 10 which is where this would kind of fall under. Um so normally we don't do advertising or in general we don't do advertising in school, but there are exceptions. They're listed in the policy. And so the board can make the decision to allow advertising on school property as long as directed to the general public. So this being the gym the gym is a general public space. Obviously we use it as an educational space during the day for PE classes and and whatnot, but we also use it outside the day. You notice scoreboards for example, I don't know if this scoreboard here, I can't picture it in my head, but >> Yeah, it does. usually they have

019Coke, Cola, Pepsi or some sort of branding on it as well. So because it's a common area, you can do this in in these spaces. Think about during the football season, we have advertising on the fence around around the the stadium, you know, those type of things, so um just so you know where this is coming from and why it's it's here this evening. One of the reasons it's here this evening. Is this on the already scheduled? What you did for or is this So we do it so we We have budgeted Oh, sorry. No, you're good. They resurface it yearly. It's just the the yearly like redoing of the floor. At some point we're going to need to redo that floor, so Tony came to us probably, you know, a month or two ago

020with an idea of that's a huge heavy ask, right? To to kind of redo the floor. Is there some sort of fundraising or some sort of other way we can get the funds for it? So we pursued this sponsorship. I don't know if it's something you've done previously is where you got the idea. No, I mean it's a I don't know of any schools who've done it, so it's a pretty unique idea. Um but I you know, I'm trying to explore all options without having to just put it on the taxpayers essentially. I love creative ways of paying for things. I guess my only concern would be 20 years is a long time, right? So like just say you got a bank for example, right? Like a lot of banks change names within 20 years,

021so we could end up with like something that's like incredibly outdated that's stuck on the floor for So they can I mean it's just a sticker essentially. Okay. Um so it could be easily when they come in, they would still come in yearly to redo the surface. Um so when they can, it's the same company. So when they came to do that, we could update logos or we had talked about um if there were ever was an issue that arose with a sponsor, we could remove a logo um and replace it with something else. So they they come off pretty easily. Okay. So it's not you don't have to sand down the entire floor to do that. You don't think No. So they just lay a sticker down and then they finish over it. Well,

022that makes me feel a little better. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I don't know. What are what are the other board members' thoughts? I I love the creative thinking. I love the out of the box ideas. I I do. To to your point. It's why we brought it here to discuss. >> [laughter] >> And for you to think about. >> it's very I mean we're talking about a high school gym. We're not talking about a collegiate gym, right? It's very unique to Campbell. It's very unique to Litchfield. Like do you have a target premium sponsor that you're that you're that you're looking to go to? Well, I think the goal would be to think local, right? And I think there are some local companies. I don't want to name any.

023Um but Tony and I have Tony and I have brainstormed you know, a list of companies who we thought would definitely most likely or probably or we hope be interested in helping helping us out. Um you know, understanding like the business world a little bit, I know that companies look to donate to schools and this is an opportunity for a donation, but also while you know, bringing awareness to their company. Um so I think our target would be locally in the area, whether local to Litchfield um or some of the surrounding towns, you know, Londonderry, Derry, um even Bedford. Um that area, Manchester. I mean I think anyone who lives in Litchfield travels to some of those places to go to businesses and such, so. So you'd be contracting with this advertising company who would

024be facilitating this. Yep. Are they able to like give us like a mock-up of like what just with like fake logos or just to kind of see like where Yep. I could get that for sure. Yeah. I'd also like to see if there's other schools around that are public high schools that are doing something like this. And I'd like the community I mean this is obviously now discussion and out there in the public, right? So I'd like the community to [snorts] weigh in between now and our next meeting. If there's any public thoughts, you know, please feel free to let Definitely. I yeah, I mean again, just thinking outside the box and looking through the policies you know, when Tony brought the idea to me, I was like, well, let's try and see what people

025think. It's a creative idea. I mean I certainly appreciate it. I I it's a great idea. I think I mean, I resonate with the concerns, but I think going after the local companies, I think it has to start local and then it radiates out regularly. Um some of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head without naming names are companies that already sponsor some of the booster clubs or within the schools already. Um and go from there. And you said you you don't know of anybody who's doing this in the area now? Not off the top of my head. I mean, I could definitely send an email out to all the ADs and just find out if anyone's done anything like this. Um but no, typically it would be like

026they would use it to buy a new scoreboard. So, they would the company would pay for the scoreboard and then throw their logo on it, but even that's not as common now as it was. Yeah, we used to get a scoreboard for a little league every few years from Coca-Cola distributor or sold their product. Yeah, we wanted to bring this just to you forward so you can think about it, right? And like again, I think we're looking at creative ways across the district to look at things from a fiscal standpoint, you know, and look at different opportunities that kind of arise. I thought this was a really good idea. There's flexibility in policy to consider these type of ideas and and there is not this exact like this is more permanent, right? But we do

027have that idea around around the the football main field there. What do we call that field? Green field football field. Stadium field. Stadium field, whatever its name is. It needs a name. There's Um and we do that that comes down obviously at the end of the fall season, but we do do advertising already around athletic events, so. Okay. Thank you for bringing this to the board. We'll give it some thought and have a decision at our next meeting. And then um one more um kind of update. So, the boosters approached Tony maybe a month or so ago. Yeah, yeah. Um and they really would like to um rent lights for the upcoming football season. And we wanted to um come to this group to kind of just hopefully maybe get a I don't know if

028it's necessarily a voting thing. Um You don't have to vote on it. But we >> I think it's good informational for the board. And here, you know, I I think It's to hear their thoughts on it. Personally, I love a Friday night football game. There's something about like the lights, the community piece. I think a lot of people um I think about like opportunities for community to get together. Um and I think having been to now a few Saturday games and even over the past few years um there's not as many people ever as there are at those Friday night football games. It's like a community thing. Um and I saw that at our homecoming game, which was great. And I think this would be a way for us to and if the boosters again

029are going to be funding this opportunity, so it's they're not Well, what Just a sorry um to jump in. It would be split between So, the booster club is donating some and then some comes out of football fundraising, soccer fundraising, and then athletic fundraising, which is how we've done it in the past. Um So, for this homecoming game this year, that was split between football, soccer, and the athletic fundraising account because all of those three teams utilize the lights for that week. But not tax paying funds. So, we're not using you know, we're we're not we're not asking for to you know, use taxpayer money to fund the lights. It's something that I think the kids want, the teams want, the boosters have recognized. And again, I just think about opportunities that we can get

030people to the school as like the hub of the community, the events. Um and I just I think the Friday night lights is just a it's a thing, right? It's and the Saturday sunny isn't the same as a Friday night light. It just isn't. It's not. Um even as like even from a principal perspective or a teacher perspective and certainly the student perspective, like just a way to end the week, like the community feel. I think people bring I I you know, I would anticipate all age students would come, you know, even the elementary kids would want to start coming and the parents and just another way to kind of bring the community together. So. And it'll be a great place to you know, advertise a big project or something like that. Could be. >>

031Anything like that's on the horizon, you know. Have information tables. So, it would be it would be just for specific weeks or would it be for the whole season? Um so, this year our upcoming football season, luckily we have four home games in five weeks. So, it kind of worked out that we would just rent the lights for six weeks essentially. Um it might get a little more complicated if we have, you know, two home games in September and then we don't have another two until the end of October. Um but we do have flexibility with that as well where I could request like can you kind of lump our home games together for those. So, it'd be mostly for football, but we could also um homecoming week obviously soccer's would get another lights game

032and then it does give us also some schedule flexibility where if we need to play two soccer games in the same night, we would have the lights and we'd be able to do like a 6:00 start instead of moving the game. So, I'm a fan of I'm a fan of the lights idea, um but it but when the field was built, Yeah. they told the the neighbors there would not be lights. And I think for years we they've always took we've always told it. I live on Talent Road. I live on the other end. I can hear the football game from my backyard. Um I would be absolutely supportive of the lights. I just wonder if we shouldn't talk to the the abutters on see how they feel about it. If it's going to be

033more than one game. And I will say the rental lights only go 200 ft. Yeah. Whereas like permanent stadium lights are typically 300 ft, which is where you would get a lot more light in the stadium. That's why nobody I don't think anybody's complained about it. >> Yeah, it tends to stay It's just out there. Yeah, even the the parking lot is super dark if the lights go off when the stadium lights are on. So, I don't think it projects as well as permanent lights do. Let me ask a question, right? So, if I reflect even just over this past um fall season, right? When the Bears were using our field at Campbell High School, they also had lights there. They did. For the Hudson Bears. Right? So, were there any complaints about that setup

034coming into the school? >> No, not not to me at least. Yeah. And truthfully, I think the folks that live around there that were there when Campbell was built are gone. Yeah. That you're probably right. Yeah. I love the idea, right? And I do think it's it's a great opportunity for community to get together. And I'll personally it's a lot easier for me to make to those games on a Friday night than it is a Saturday, but that's just my schedule. Um you know, and and to the to the extent that you're able to kind of bucket the games together, right? And to take advantage of economies of scale, and to and to get rid of the get um you know, to get rid of the lights at the end instead of paying for an

035entire season of them, I think that that works nicely. Zoe, what do you think from a student perspective? Um I think it would get like a lot more people at the games because like you said, like on Saturdays no one's really like going to the football games and I know that like the Friday one for homecoming, like the entire town is there cuz it's like that's like the known game under the lights. So, I feel like it would like get a lot more like students there. So, maybe we can try and reach out to some of the neighbors so I'm sure no issues there. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, we've already been running lights. Yeah. I think if people were going to really complain about it, they would would have complained about it

036already. They would have complained already cuz there's been lights active on the property um for several months. Yeah. So. Yeah, I mean, I'm obviously super pro this like Friday night football season. I'm I'm I'm okay with this Yeah. So. I'm going to make a motion to approve this one. I'm going to second it. All right, motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Additional discussion? I just like to to make sure we make it clear to the people are paying the taxes that it's not coming out of taxpayer money yes to you know, keep the optics looking good for our fiscal conservancy. Yes, thank you. Yeah. All I think I would like to say is if there's a community member that has a concern, please raise it up. Don't don't just complain about it on Facebook.

037Please bring it to the school board. Or us, let us know. We can we're happy to to help. All right, all those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed? Abstained? 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming tonight. Absolutely. And we'll Did we land on you guys can get us >> We'll get you. Yep, and we'll come back at the next meeting. Mark up and if you think of any other questions between now and the next meeting that we can bring to be that can be helpful, um just let us know and we will get that to you. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you guys. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. All right, bye Tony. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Thank you. All right, we'll give it a

038second for the presentation to be loaded and Zoe, you're going to be up. There you go. So, our spring sports like just started up and girls lacrosse were now practicing outside. Our first scrimmage is Monday versus Alvirne. Boys also their preseason just started and their first scrimmage they're actually versing Pembroke right now. And then softball and baseball their preseason started after school on the 23rd and then track has kind of been going all year but their first meet is April 11th. For our past events on March 10th there was voting day so there was no school and then the 11th there was the district band concert which like ran to the 12th which was the district chorus concert. And then March 14th we did something new this year so it was like a senior social

039and that was ran by the student council. It was from like 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. and basically like there was like all senior citizens there and they could come and like there was like a dance they could like do bingo there was like dinner and then there was like all these different games and there's a movie in the auditorium for them to watch. And we got like a grant this year to be able to put that on and like it didn't come out of our funding and like that got really positive feedback. And then we also had the FBLA state leadership conference which is future business leaders of America and it's a club at our school. You basically go and then you it's like an overnight trip and you compete in these events to try

040to make it to nationals. And then there's prom ticket sales going on and then March 18th was the CHS trades and career fair day. For our current events on April 4th which is the Saturday before Easter there's like an Easter egg hunt which is at the CHS and GMS fields. April 6th through the 10th is the CHS musical and then April 8th is the army exhibit. April 17th they have the music all state classical festival and then April 22nd is for all the kids going to Spain there's another Spain info trip meeting. For the future events April 24th they have the blood drive. May 6th there's a driving towards zero presentation which is for like everyone at Campbell in auditorium. May 6th through the 14th is all the AP testings. May 8th is the junior

041and senior prom. The 21st is the senior project evaluation. The 26th is the start of spring fest which is just like a week of like spirit days and then the end of the week the Friday there's like pep rallies inside and outside and then there's like a hypnotist. And then junior June 1st is a senior dinner cruise. And then we didn't get any new information for LMS this week but for GMS they had a successful read across America which was last week and they're looking forward to their junk funk which is like a mini like musical art this that like I guess is popular there and that's coming to GMS from April 13th to 17th. And then their preschool registration begins on April 6th. All right. We're on the way here to April vacation, right?

042Yes. Kind of in wind down mode for the school year. Sure, wind down is one way to say that. >> [laughter] >> But yeah, we're kind of starting to hit you know assessment season which is always a lot. A lot of when spring sports kind of cuts starts up for real and we're very fortunate that like our fields are like there. We're getting outside already. Have you guys practiced outside? >> Yeah, we just started practicing outside. >> Yeah, so we're in good shape on that front. And then once we get back from break it's the big sprint. I'm going to a couple things I'm going to talk about it in my section related to that sprint but yeah, it's we're there. We're in the last push last 10 weeks of school. We're in the middle

043of it right now. Is it really just 10 weeks to go? Yeah, for April vacation six after. June 12th is the last day of school? Hopefully you're officially agreed to that in a few moments. Yeah, okay. >> [laughter] >> June 12th and I think the target is June 5th for the high school graduation. June 5th, yeah. How are the LMS fields looking? I know we had them redone last year. The ones down at GMS? >> [laughter] >> Well, the ones LMS play on down at GMS they're looking very good. So we got [cough and clears throat] up there early Dave got out there and jump in and I'll misexplain all of this but he took the machine and dug up because the snow went away quick enough on those physical fields. He was able to

044claw it up with whatever machine does that which helps it drain faster so they're playable. I mean I think they're going down there and practicing right now which is ahead of where we were last year so we're in really good shape. I think we're talking are we going to talk more about doing something more we could potentially with end of the year funds [clears throat] at looking at the drainage that's even improving it maybe a little bit. That's on the list. But yeah, they're in good shape. Excellent. Okay. Thank you for the report. Appreciate it. All right, we have our first community comment on agenda items. Seeing since there's no community tonight I'll close this community comment. There's a second opportunity a little bit later this evening and I'll turn it over to vice chair

045Plansky for correspondence. Okay, another light week in the correspondence. On the 23rd we got the meeting minutes from the 18th meeting March 18th meeting. And then on the 26th we had two payroll manifests from Anne and in Maroney on the 27th two accounts payable manifests. She never fails to send the bills which is probably a good thing. On the 30th the agenda for this meeting was distributed by Miss Burgess and then today on April Fools' Day Julie sent out some end of year encumbrances. Thank you for that. And we're going to shift gears into general business and I'll turn it over to representative putting on the representative hat tonight. Your peoples. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. I'm working on a report for you guys right now with 83 bills of and their dispositions and how

046they will impact us or not impact us going forward. If anybody's been following the socials and what's going on up in Concord uh SB 101 has been uh the bill and the topic of uh of interest and that's the Senate bill on open enrollment. It had the second part of its public hearing today which is the first time I've seen it bridge two days. Um Um many people for or against? Um A lot of people against it. There's as Brian and I were talking before you guys got in there's there's several major questions that need to be answered to make that work and I don't think they have those answers yet so I'm pretty confident I don't think that one's going to make it through the mill. And so Um other than that as soon

047as I get my reports on we have five more bills in ed funding to dispose of and then I'll get everything to you guys. Okay. Any questions for representative Peoples? Nope. Okay. Thanks for the update. Now I'll turn it over to the superintendent for the report for the week. Yeah, so I'm going to hit on some quick things I think Julie's going to be much longer than me today so we'll get out of the way. So we're going to change our senior project night change I want to inform the board of this. So we had originally scheduled when we did the calendar way back a year ago on May 14th and we're going to have some AP testing still of kids finishing up testing on that day so we're going to push it back another

048week to the 21st. We actually already did this change reflected in next year's calendar to put it outside the AP testing window so this we can get into a rhythm where we're not trying to do AP testing and senior project in the same week. I just want to inform the board of that change that that's going to be shifted to the 21st now. Make sure the board's good. I'm assuming that's a welcome change. It is a welcome change. Yeah, so Okay, great. Thank you. So we'll update on the official school calendar that that change just happens. Um CHS baseball field so if you remember that we had a warrant article about naming the CHS baseball field over coach Gorm. So we've had a couple families um I'm going to use a pun I'm sorry I

049didn't mean to it was the first one that popped up into my head. Step up to the plate and are organizing fund rate fundraiser slash donation situation to to provide a sign for the field to honor coach Gorm. We asked to help with that and they said they want to take it on themselves so we are happy we are still happy to help in any capacity for that but the families really feel they want to give back to to coach and and raise the funds for the sign. So once that happens they'll have to come here and donate the sign to us and then we have to take kind of ownership obviously of it cuz we'll maintain and up the upkeep of the field the installation of the sign and everything kind of moving forward.

050So we're hoping to get that all done this spring but I didn't want to lose sight of that since that was a warrant article very positively received by the community I think a very welcome thing by the community so I just want to provide that update to the board so it's on your radar for future meeting when when we bring that forward and if you had any questions or any comments or anything else related to that that we we can take care of that that piece of it. So I saw it on Facebook before I came over. They put something up there with go fund me thing and then is the dedication going to be the day of the opening day? I think we had talked about that. We had talked about that if we

051can make it work that that way you know weather permitting and and attendance permitting and everything else like that. That was kind of When is the do you know the first game of the season? I don't know. Jen, do you know first home game? I can look it up. Give me a second. Do you want me to look that up? Yeah, you want to look it up? Yeah. Stay tuned. >> [snorts] >> More to come. What's that? More to come. More to come. Um so we're working on that piece and and going to follow through on it. Okay, thanks for that update. All right, want to make some of these things official even though they haven't really changed but now that we're past snow season I think we can make some of these things official.

052Do you are you looking for motions on these? Yeah, so official last day of school is Friday June 12th so people know we had one official snow day. We were originally supposed to end on June 11th so that shifts the calendar one day so we're at June 12th. One of the reasons why I did not call that last snow day when a lot of other districts around us chickened out. It was still the right decision to come to school that day. Um so our last day of school Friday June 12th. What did you say it was for the baseball? >> It sure was. >> [laughter] >> Um Friday June 12th is the last day of school, which sets graduation to the previous Friday for the class of 2026, which would be Friday June 5th. So

053I'm asking for official approval on those two. >> I'll make a motion to approve the last day of school of Friday June 12th, as well as [snorts] the senior graduation of Friday June 5th. Second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Discussion? Is it a half day or is it a full day? It's a half day, early release day for on the last day of school. So. Do we make it a full day? >> [laughter] >> Uh if no. Yeah, cuz after the kids >> will be gone at [laughter] noon, so they don't And the teachers don't leave right away. That's why we can't have it happen after 3:00, cuz we have to close out with all of them that day as well. Okay. Okay. All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

054Aye. It carries 5-0. Um April 13th. First home game April 13th. That's a Friday. It's another Friday the 13th. It's like the third one this year. It's not a Friday. It's not a Friday? It's a Tuesday. I thought it was a Friday. Nope, Monday. It's a Monday. Yeah, Monday. Today's the 1st, so All right. All right, [snorts] the spring student my last thing that I I don't necessarily need an answer for this today, but I want to put it on the board's radar. With graduation on June 5th, that becomes suddenly a very busy week in the districts. Not suddenly, we know it's a busy week when graduation is the same week. We have a board meeting tentatively scheduled for June 3rd, Wednesday June 3rd. Traditionally, senior awards is the Wednesday of graduation week, so those

055two events would collide. So we can do a couple of things. We're still in the We're still planning out senior week and everything kind of related to that. So we could shift that ceremony to say Tuesday or some other date. The other idea we kind of popped around in our heads, if you look at the June calendar, right now our meetings are scheduled for the 3rd and the 17th. Considering end of the year stuff, there was might be benefits. We already added this to next year's schedule where we have another later meeting in June to deal with end of the year stuff. Is there any appetite to to adjusting the meeting schedule in June to better align to what we need to do for for end of the year work and stuff? Let's look at

056conference room availability cuz I know that's generally the challenge. Uh I'm open to it. Um you know, what the other Wednesdays are the 10th and 24th. Uh ideally in years past we've needed a special meeting closer to the end of June. Yeah, that's what we are thinking. So maybe to make final decisions, so I If we did 17 and 24? I'm not available on the 24th. Not even the 20 I would say I mean, if you don't want to meet on the 10th, then we're then then the problem the problem is going to be the manifests. Right. That's true. Right. We're going we're going to need a meeting Yeah. That's right. To sign manifests. Yep. What are you saying? Keep the 10th? I'm saying definitely keep the 10th, but even then even then we're going

057three weeks. Yeah, that's going to be And it's going to be an issue for manifests. Right? So So we're going to need to be flexible to sign manifests for sure. But what I'm also suggesting is we even look at maybe a Tuesday meeting on the 30th. Can we sign manifests just by going in? We don't We don't have to do it in the meeting, right? I think that's I'll I'll double check on that, but I believe that that's correct. I think we've gone in and done it before when it was like up against the due date or something. >> Yeah, we we've gone and done it before. Yeah, so we can just go sign manifests. >> I wanted to put that on your radar now so we can have these discussions and work through any

058issues and stuff. >> So looking at the town calendar on the website, the 24th, this room is booked. >> Yeah. But the fire station is not. And then the 10th and the 30th are currently open with nothing booked on the calendars for the town calendar. Yeah. I I would tentatively, and we can reach out to Mr. Brunelle on this, I would tentatively shift the 10th and the 30th and the 3rd. >> 10th is We have 17th, right? So you're saying move 17th up? No, move the 3rd to the 10th. And then for manifests, we'll have to be flexible and go into the SAU for signature. Yeah. And then for that second meeting, Mr. Peoples, it sounds like you have a conflict. Yeah, I'm out of town from the 23rd to the 30th. Would you be

059able to join virtually? Uh possibly on the 24th. But not the 30th. No. Okay. All right. That's the meeting where we're likely [clears throat] going to go through [snorts] end of year conferences. Well, I say that. I might be able to join remotely on the 30th. Uh that's a flying day, so I don't know where I'll be. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So let's reach out to Mr. Brunelle and see if there's conference room availability for the 10th and 30th. Okay. And then just looking at July, cuz then we would have our first meeting on that Wednesday July 1st, we wouldn't need that meeting. I think we're actually scheduled for the 8th. We moved it? Okay. Because that is Yeah, we just do the one in We just do the one in July, right?

060I think we moved to the 8th. Let me double check. Yeah, because there's five Wednesdays in July. And that's that 4th of July weekend. It's just easy. Yeah, and all right. We're literally flipping everything over that day, so Okay. It's a little I don't think We need to make sure our calendars are up Yeah, send it to us. Yeah. There's no chance literally [laughter] no chance I'll be at these meetings then. I gave us the paper calendars, so I went and I put the year in. Uh-huh. Oh god, no. All right, everyone get that? I think I got it. All right, target 10th, 30th for June. Okay. Um my last little bit, I know it's on here, but I got to do my promotion. We were talking before we went live. So we have a

061special fundraising event this Saturday night at Campbell High School where we have Next Gen um Championship Pro Wrestling coming. Um it's fundraiser for a number of different high school clubs. Student Council sending is uh selling concessions. Um one of the classes is doing 50/50 raffle. Um our own wrestling program is doing a fundraiser there with proceeds going towards new wrestling mats for new uh match mats, which is the nice ones they use during during their competitions and stuff. Um so those are all the fundraisers kind of going on Saturday night. Um I will be partaking in the in the in the fun in some capacity. We'll see what that is. It's just a little bit of a surprise and what my level of involvement is, but I'm sure people have seen the social media videos

062at this point. Um >> [laughter] >> So if you're If you're looking for a funny evening and and you want to laugh at the superintendent a little bit, I would encourage you to to come out and support >> Will you be wearing one of those leaf hard things or Uh >> [laughter] >> look, I put some stipulations in here about what I'm open to allow. How many tickets I want to buy? Yeah, I mean, that might Can I bring my kids or >> [laughter] >> No, it's a PG event, so no spandex for me. >> [laughter] >> Couldn't go with Kermit. Yeah, it should be it should be fun. And then we're going to do >> [cough] >> a second show similar for for fundraising a little bit later in April. Um which might have

063some other surprises in involves, too. So What are you trying to Keep the storyline going? 6:30. You got to keep the storyline going. So 6:30 They selling tickets at the door They are selling tickets at the door. Yep, and they're online right now. There's been a link I've sent out a little bit. We have it on social media and stuff. Um is it's for a really good cause, so I I don't mind having some fun about it. Yeah, so it should be good. Thank you for that. >> to bring cameras? >> [laughter] >> Appreciate you always being a good sport. Yeah, we'll see how I'm feeling Monday morning. >> [laughter] >> And uh that's it for me. >> Yeah, that's it's all going to be I think that's it for me. Is there more for

064me? No, I I think that's it for us. I I know um Ms. Darling has a has a lengthier update tonight, so I would like the opportunity to let uh Zoe enjoy the rest of her evening before we get into a lengthy update, if that's okay. Thank you. Sure. Have a good night. Thank you, you too. Appreciate it. Thank you. Think so. All right, you're up. Um so it is that time of year when we're starting to slow down with the spending of regular funds. So this week in particular, our non-essential spending will end on Friday. Um so beyond that is just whatever we need to operate um you know, kind of things. We're not purchasing textbooks and things like that, you know, moving forward. Um so [clears throat] once we can do that throughout

065the month of April, we will continue to like hone in on our encumbrances to make sure that they are accurate so that we can properly um you know, estimate what we're going to have for a year-end balance moving forward. So I'll continue to update you on that. Um with regard to transfers, um I know transfers in general is $5,000 is the limit, but I just wanted to be transparent about the fact that we're doing I wanted to do a transfer from a couple of different lines to purchase to pay for the dishwasher that we had to replace over at Griffin Memorial earlier this year. Um so we just wanted to take, you know, I have it outlined here which lines that we're going to take them from. They're all from the food service fund, and

066we just wanted to be transparent about that because the overall total is over $5,000. >> What were these funds earmarked for? So, they were food lines for all three schools where the money is coming from. A lot of these lines in particular I will say were something that Lauren had tried to like kind of dwindle down dwindle down when we were doing the budget for last year, but with the default it set back to what we had for the 25 year. So, we did have a little bit of extra room there to be able to transfer into the replacement equipment line. How do we look for a deficit on the food service? I'm I'm definitely taking a look at it. It's a little early to be able to tell, but we are carefully tracking that.

067So, you know, there there absolutely will be a deficit unfortunately, but um we need when you just need a little more time. You know, Lauren is definitely tracking very regularly the breakfast and lunches to see where we sit with last year. And right now we're tracking about the same. So, let's hold that thought for a minute. On the on the transfer I'll make a motion to approve the transfer of $5,239 from the three food service accounts. Second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Additional discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. That carries. Twice in a row. On food service I would like to start to plan for a meeting with Lauren Yes. to come back into the board. We do. Yeah, we have it mapped out. One sec. May 6th board

068meeting we have tentatively scheduled. Great. Yeah. And from there uh we'll probably have a a clearer picture of what Yeah. that deficit looks like. Yes. Okay. Great. Another dining service update. So, Lauren had went to the legislative action conference put on by the school nutrition association which she is the New Hampshire president of. And she did this conference as well last year. So, when she goes to the conference she meets with all four New Hampshire congressional delegates to discuss school lunches and and the program concerns that they have. Um and so each of the delegates that she meets with she does invite them to visit any of the cafeterias in Litchfield schools. So, Senator Maggie Hassan has taken us up on that offer and we she's going to be coming to Litchfield on Monday the

0696th. We're not quite sure which school she's going to yet, but she will be certainly meeting the staff, you know, observing operations, discussing discussing school lunch, but also maybe serving some food in our cafeteria. Does our superintendent approve? >> [laughter] >> Right. You have her in a wheelchair. Show her around the school. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Just like I just thought of this right now. We've had with Senator Hassan come we've had both a governor the the governor and a senator visit us in the school same year. Like that's kind of nuts for us as Might I suggest sending her to GMS? >> [laughter] >> We had our last governor within the past couple years. Have we too? Yeah, I've never like encountered this in in my career to have Well, Litchfield's a happening place

070Brian. Apparently it is. This is great. Yeah, this is awesome. So, yeah, it's great this is awesome for the district that we just have people coming and visiting seeing what we're doing. So, Absolutely. Uh solar I guess there's a tentative ship date for May 10th. We don't have that confirmed yet. That would put us at about June 19th for the estimated arrival if that shipped on time to the facility in Maine. So, at that point um >> [clears throat] >> K has explained that there'll be there's some assembly going on right now that will be complete when the batteries arrive. So, I'm going to continue to check in to make sure we're on track with that timeline. >> [snorts] >> What assembly happening now? For the yes, there's assembly happening now to in preparation for

071the batteries. So, they have yeah. Assembly at the factory? Yeah. Correct. Can we see pictures? I can ask. Right. They're taping the double trust the validity. I think I just did this for a capital project down there. Can you please send me pictures of this thing actually being built? >> Yeah. All right. [snorts] I can certainly reach out for that. >> Go to Google images. >> [laughter] >> Who knows what you'll You don't even need to do that. Just go to chat GPT. >> [laughter] >> Please show us what it look like. Yeah. And then the also the UL certification is a process that happens along the way so that they will have those visits as well and that's the other factor that will you know basically let [clears throat] us know when that's when

072everything is going to be ready. >> So, does that mean we're looking at July or August before the batteries are there? At a minimum. I would say yeah. It's actually helpful if it's after July 1st. Oh, yeah. Buys us another fiscal year. Yeah, but that's what we're going to push for. Once it's assembled there's some more testing that needs to happen. So, there's a lot of Are there any initial permits necessary as well? I'm not sure about permits. I would assume that there would be another one. I know that she got the process started with the fire marshal, but I don't know if there's another stuff. I will ask. That's something I don't want to be delayed with any With the building inspector and stuff so all electrical have to be all those connections have

073to be inspected. I think the state fire marshal can take a while too. That I don't That's We don't have a building inspector. Well, there's another delay. So, I guess the other question that I have, I know when Dynamic Grid's last response they said that the solar array is now exporting power to the grid. Right. Is there a way to find out whether it's Eversource or Dynamic Grid as to what is that magic number for a week or a month or whatever it is so you know, we have an idea of >> the building load is? Yeah, what the building load is on like a monthly average or something. Okay. Just so that that way we can say we're like we're generating X you know, kilowatt hours above what is required. Okay. Well, that I

074think that's what this chart is telling us. Right? So, this is the net energy. That this is this chart is telling us the amount of energy that the grid is producing. Not the amount of energy that is being exported. So, you're talking about the delta between what we're using using and what the grid is making. That's essentially going to go into the battery. Right. I guess when I look at net is that the production or is that is that what you're asking for less our usage? This is the net on the trend on the grid inverters system itself. So, this is just the net energy production of the solar grid. Okay. This is not taking to account and offsetting what the building is using. I wonder why like if you look at March 25th why

075it produced 982 kilowatt hours, right? And then today where it was very mild it produced 268 kilowatt hours. Yeah, and it was sunny most of the day. Sun and cloudy. Yeah, it's been cloudy the last couple days. Cloud cover. Yeah. Okay. All right. I will certainly um get that information [snorts] for you. Thank you. Sure. Before they dig up anything back there, right? Let's talk about pavement. >> [laughter] >> Do you want me to put the picture up? I have it here. Uh sure. Yeah, so so the public is aware, right? The next item on our agenda is LMS parking lot. The snow's actually melted. You're going to see this. Unfortunately LMS has suffered a catastrophic what I'll call a catastrophic sinkhole and we're identifying what to do with this issue. This is not looking

076good for the catch basin infrastructure up there at all. Correct. So, we We did receive a quote um to basically repair that pipe and everything around the asphalt around it. Um and it's just under $20,000 so it's a significant expense. Um with what I've been told is with the catch basins that are underneath, you know, obviously we're looking at redoing the parking lot you know, in the very near future. So, in the past we have had some issues not this significant as far as having some smaller sinkholes pop up in that lot. Um and we have filled them which was a temporary solution. It's still about $5,000 a pop. Um we were wanting to do something a little more permanent this time particularly with the situation with the light post being there as well and

077just the location of it. We just think that's something that we need to address a little more aggressively, but we do still need to talk about the redoing of the parking lot as far as whether it's end of year um um we do need to hire um someone to do the um engineering to give us a basically survey the parking lot to let us know the extent of what would need to be replaced and also the design for ADA compliance because that piece is huge. Um you know, Continental or any other paving company can do the paving for you, but you need to have that um design done by an engineer. >> also did the design as well. So, they came out yesterday to look at this and they think the design that is needed

078for this is beyond what they're going to do. Like their recommendation um is that we hire an actual civil engineer to look at that parking lot. And they're happy to help facilitate that. They gave they they're um you know, this is part I think what we're going to ask for is like instead of putting this out for bid, like we need to get some quotes and some things and get this moving, right? And not put out a >> [clears throat] >> bid process for it. So, they have an engineer um that they work with that we're going to have. Um there's a contact that we have. I think Kim Kleiner was going to give us a a civil engineer. We could talk to that person. We have a um a civil engineer Who did they

079recommend? I don't have the name in front of me. Yeah. Um but and we're open to other people. Like if you if anyone on the board knows a civil engineer who wants to come look at this. But they say like you got to bring it up to ADA compliance. The work's probably going to go to essentially where not all the way to the school itself, but like up to that sidewalk. Right? That's like on the other side of the bus loop road, you know? Cuz that's where the the slope starts. And that they can do something to essentially the front lot to make that ADA compliance and then a lower level that does not necessarily have to make the same compliance. But to do that amount of design work is going to be significant and

080beyond what what they want to design. They would ask for a civil engineer to get that all legal and correct and everything. So, they almost make like a step for the for the handicap spots, if you will, and then steps down to Correct. To a lower lot that that is not necessarily handicap accessible, but that top one is and because it's a school, we can have that type of layered kind of structure and stuff. Like So, will this Have they done any uh in- investigation looking you know, running a camera down any of those pipes to see what the concrete pipe looks like? Not yet. We we have intentionally Not look >> Put that on put that on hold, right? Because it was our understanding that Continental did that type of work. And it sounds

081like now, based upon their assessment yesterday, that they're advising us to go civil engineer route. Cuz it's going to set the tone for how much it's going to cost if that concrete pipe is rotted. >> So, now with this information, we need to make a decision. Right. So, uh Andrew Ruggles, Allen & Major He's GMS parent Yep. is a uh Yep. Yep. They do great work. What was his first name? Andrew Ruggles, but it's Allen & Major, A L L E N and Major. Mhm. They're out of Manchester. They're right over the airport. >> [snorts] >> And the civil engineer will look at all of the drainage issues and like they'll cuz I don't want this on a new parking lot either. Right. So, like the idea is like we do this now. This But

082that this is like uh this is like uh I mean they're they're going to be probably at least 12 weeks out on something like this. >> Potentially, yeah. So, which is kind of somewhat of our urgency to get >> do we do in the interim? Well, We fill it. >> Well, that's exactly what we need to sort out if we want to do the quick fix of filling it as we've done before um or if we want to do a more permanent solution, actually fix So, is there a pipe under there because I tried to blow that up and see if there was a pipe. Unless the pipe is going straight down into something else. >> There Well, it is a catch basin and and that and from there I think of the pipe's going

083this way, but I can't tell. But you could take and just as a temporary fix uh get a load of 3-in 3-in stone from from the pit pour that in there and you could even just put a piece of fabric down on top of the grate and let the 3-in run right over it. The water will go right through it. Through the 3-in and it'll bolster up that pole. So, I just I mean is this is this It's got to be stabilized though, right? >> Yeah, so this that would stabilize You're saying pour You're saying pour stone into it? Yeah. Pour it right down the hole? So, nothing is sitting on top of it. No, right at the right at the Put it right back in that hole and the it'll it'll shore up the

084light pole. It'll still allow water to get down there and it'll buy us some time to get to But my my view is to temporary fix it, right? Let's get a civil engineer to ASAP to do the studies. And I'd like to see if this is something we can tackle with encumbrance end of year You want to talk on this? Well, I mean this is So, this is the quote to do a little a little more extensive, yeah. Um So, this this quote going around kind of I'm not very good at the explanation, but like the catch basin, right? And the pipe coming there. Yes. That where those things meet, that's what's rotted through. Okay. Right? >> I don't see a pipe. Yeah. So, like this fixes that that connection right there. And there's the

085risk and it was more expensive than just filling, right? Like this is 185. We're filling we're anticipating being like five or six thousand dollars. That this could carry over to the work that we have done in the parking lot, but it might not. >> I don't think I wouldn't even It's not going to if we have it re-engineered. >> Right. If we if we do a a big stair up to for the handicap pop piece. >> Right. It might [clears throat] But they they Yeah, so yeah, I don't 100% know how they would design it and do that, but we were just told like, you know, you might be able to salvage this, you might not if you do this work. Or there's The might not part of it for twice, you know, two or

086three times the cost is >> Well, they might be able to reuse the concrete sleeves. >> Yeah. Because >> That's fine, but Those usually don't go bad. They just stack more on top of them. But they'll they'll probably be able to reuse the stone that we dumped in the hole. You know what I mean? Like it's I just dump stone in the That company, TDD Earthtech, is great though. I've used them before. >> Yes. Yeah. Well, that's you know, just it buys you some temporary time. I mean that's definitely not a We used to have a really old house and I tried to replace the the sink, little one little pipe in the sink and every time I touched the pipe, it broke the pipe below it. It took me like what, >> [cough] >>

087a Patriots [clears throat] game and a Celtics game to get it fixed and nine trips to the Home Depot. >> [laughter] >> So, I would say that's how that works. We do the I My thought would be the rock raise idea with the rock and get us through until we have a a design. Yep. But you're good with us like getting to that and getting an engineer here, getting the design, trying to get this done. I mean we we're going to have to do it at some point. >> The question is is without any understanding of cost, right? How how do we fund something like this? Well, I mean This this This may be the This may be us having to touch the roof money, right? Not necessarily. I mean let's I'm I have no

088idea what this is going to cost, but I'm going to throw out a very round number for argument's sake. Half a million dollars, right? So, let's say it's $500,000. That's wrong. I know. But like just for like a like it's a large amount of money that like this that this thing could cost, right? Potentially. We're going to have to look at our funding right now. Like now. So, the timing is not the worst in the sense of like where we've stopped the ex- not excess spending, but we've kind of done that light freeze of the budget for only thing that we have to spend money on kind of moving forward, right? So, we can get a handle on our end of year funds. We are not committed to any of those warrant articles yet. They've

089passed, but they're all based upon whether or not you have the money available to pay them, right? You know what I mean? Like those those warrant articles we do. So, we should if we're very careful be able to find like that level of money within our budget right now, but it just may not result in the same amount of money to our warrants that we thought we were going to have. If that makes sense. Um that would allow us to not What's that? Well, they were voted if they were yes votes. You're supposed to fund them, but you got to get to them first, right? So, like So, this expense I would say reaches like emergency level. We have a hole in the parking lot, right? We got to It all depends on sequencing, right?

090Like this is something in my estimation that's borderline emergency and we have to fix this now, right? So, now it jumps in front of the warrant articles, right? Like we need to take care of that expense first. And then we would get to see. So, let's say this was a Again, I'm using round numbers. We have no idea what our end of the year is. Don't quote me on any of these numbers, but just for explanation's sake. Let's say at we have this cost $500,000 and what was unspent was $700,000, right? $500,000 is going to go from that $700,000 to take care of this. We're left then with $200,000. We would need to do warrants then at that point. And obviously our warrants cost more than that. We have more warrants than $200,000, so we

091won't be able to fully do the warrants. >> So, they wouldn't they would only do the first one, right? At that point, yeah. Using those hypothetical numbers, right. But that's why we need to get a handle [clears throat] on this. Now, there's other ways you can like look at it. We're bridging fiscal years, like we're asking for advice on like how we can approach this, right? >> talking about the cost of the parking lot. I was talking about the cost of the civil engineer. >> [laughter] >> Well, that Yeah, I I think we can what we you We're taking baby steps. >> [laughter] >> But yeah, maybe I should have paused. I'm just already thinking to like a lot of zeros behind this project. Um And he's local resident, so maybe he will be kind

092to us. Yeah. Well, I you know, we were again, back of the napkin trying to guess what the civil engineer is. Like we have the the um GMS project, right? Where we have a certain cost associated to the what we're paying Harriman, right? And then thinking about what this could potentially cost, we were thinking like a civil engineer, again, back of the napkin, I have no idea, like $10,000 to come and look at this, you know? >> Andrew will get you that number tomorrow if you call him. Yeah. Um I just over promised for himself. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> He can give you he can give you an estimate on what on what it would cost it for the engineering. If you stopped at his house, he could probably give you a ballpark number

093right now. >> [laughter] >> So, I think if we're talking like that level money If we're talking like $10,000, $15,000, we we can we can find that, right? Like we can take care of that. >> All right. I think it's those larger numbers of doing this project and how we bridge it with the two fiscal years we're >> moving forward. I'll make a motion to put a temporary fix uh to the current catastrophic failure at LMS and also um proceed with civil engineering design of uh of the LMS parking lot. Second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Additional discussion? No, it's going to be done. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? 5-0. Thank you. It says asphalt right now is between 70 and $100 a ton which

094is somewhere between 7 and $15 per square foot. That'd be a little bit more because it's commercial part commercial lot. All right. And then um end of year um I did attach the link again to um the end of year sheet. And then um I did create a separate tab down below um with the CIP items, just giving a little more information on those cuz um those were items that were taken right from the on-site insight. Um so, if you want more detail on that, um you can go to that second sheet. Um still need to get a um quotes on a bunch of these, so um that's on my radar and we are working to get those. Yep. And who knows with the parking lot, so we'll find we'll see. >> Right there. So

095Change everything. That could change everything. Sure. It could I'm going to make my pitch for vans, though. You I got to ask a question about vans, so is any I have a question actually. Is anyone familiar with this company called Model 1 that's in Hudson? No. No. So, they're like right by Alvirne. I get >> do? They sell commercial passenger vans which is like what we're like looking at. By Alvirne? Yeah. Like in Hudson? Yeah. Um I'm not familiar with the company either, but just like doing the research of this, like they're if we're like getting quote for for those type of vans, you would get it from like Merchant, from like Enterprise, like those. But then this company called Model 1 that's super local in Hudson came up as selling them. I just went

096through their website and they have like the type of vans we would be looking at. I just didn't know if anyone was familiar with them or anything, so. Are they new or used? Used. They're they're both. They're new and used they sell, you know. We I think if we pursue this, we'd pursue used vans cuz it's better bang for our buck for what we're trying to do, but Mike I I guess my only biggest question around that is what what do we have for liability? I know anytime you start being Yeah. Yeah, I'm reaching out to Mike. >> Yeah. A carrier, you You sometimes you need to have them inspected twice, three times a year. >> RSAs around it. We've been working with legal, too, about like making sure we have everything straight for it.

097I mean, many districts do this, so thankfully it's Yeah, Alvirne has like three vans. I see them in the parking lot every morning, but More and more districts >> be able to help you with what that Yeah. what that entails. Yeah, so we can have a 12-person van, right? 15 is where it becomes a school bus and you can't do it anymore. But 12-person, you can just have a normal license to do it. Um there is additional cost for like um obviously the gas that goes into it and making sure it's inspected regularly and following all that type of stuff. But there's savings. Tony was running numbers for me. Um just from athletic savings in year one, you can almost cancel out the cost of the actual van. Like it's a a van's run used

098ones between 30 and 40,000, looks like from our pricing. Our athletic savings, because you would take your smaller teams in the van. Um he estimated about what we spent on that last year was $35,000. So, they're almost a wash in just for that. But you got to deal with the gas and some other things as well, but um it could be a significant savings if we built up like a fleet, like two or three of them. We could do our CTE transportation through it, do most of our athletic teams through it, field trips, other things as well. Why couldn't you do the same van for for both purposes? You can't, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, CTEs are in the day. Yeah. So, like right now, we could do it with one van cuz we have

099about 12 kids who take the bus in each session right now um because we have a number of kids who drive to CTE right now because of the programs that they're in. Um if you say had 15 kids, you would have to either do two runs, which is simple enough, Alvirne's not that far, or if you were to get a second I think, you know, we're not proposing a second, but like if you thought about getting a second van you could then bring your soccer teams and lacrosse teams and some small and some bigger teams and do them for via vans, not just the the golf teams and cross country and stuff like that. Just something to think about as well. >> My my question is is why are we even talking about this as

100an encumbrance if it's in the budget? Right? And it's absorbed by the budget for the same cost. We can do it that way. We have no issue with that. >> [laughter] >> We can also look at impact fees for this possibly as well. To cover it. For programs? Yeah, cuz expansion of programs. It is, we can make the argument. Cuz we can offer more athletic stuff at throughout the schools. Like for example, at the middle school this past year, we had enough kids to run B teams in basketball, but transportation was the hangup. So, we couldn't do a full schedule for the kids cuz we didn't have the same we had to rely on parent transportation and and other transportation cuz we couldn't get the buses. If we had a van, though, now we can

101expand that schedule for kids and have more opportunities for them. Are we still paying the money to transport the kids from the high school down to the soccer field? That's in the budget. >> That's in the budget. That's like 14 grand right there. Crazy. Cuz I remember that number from someone for some reason. Yeah. Because they're not going to be able to use Dera now. Right. Which makes me nervous. But you could just take them in a van. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is is there $14,000 worth of van right there? >> like and when you can build up a couple of them, you can have multiple things going on at the same time, right? Golf can go to this competition, cross country can go to that one on the same day and you're not

102you're not utilizing it. So, there's good stuff with this. You're talking about LMS soccer transportation or CTE? Yes. LMS. >> LMS. I'm going to go back to let's make the soccer field the soccer field at LMS again. I mean >> I don't know, 15 grand. Oh, I I think it might be a little more than that. We kicked the tires on it. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately. Anyways, just that stuff to Well, we'll continue to track encumbrances over the next several board meetings. All right. We're here. For curriculum and instruction We got Sarah's out today. She's at a NEASC visit. She thought she might be able to get back here in time this this evening, but obviously didn't. Um Uh so, I will skip her CIA update, but I do want to talk about professional learning tracking,

103so. Um we have a uh program through Frontline that tracks professional development hours for staff um that we've been using. It's kind of clunky and not very um helpful and stuff like that. So, Sarah was looking at um utilizing Vector, which we already use for um our trainings and stuff like that, using Vector's version of that professional development tracking. Um it's no uh it's the same cost as the Frontline one. We'd just be changing the program. So, we just wanted to bring that to the board's attention. She's going to talk It's not something we have to solve we have to decide today. I wanted to talk a little bit more about it, but that's what that professional learning tracking is is we want to switch the program that tracks our professional development hours. It's not

104any additional money, it's the same cost, but we did want to tell the board that, so. Um I think what she wants to bring it up because next year in the budget process um she could be looking at additional tools through Vector when it comes to our evaluation um model. Um again, we use a One Tech system for that, but Vector has a version of that that we could just streamline everything through Vector and I think she wanted to discuss that a little bit with the board, so. Just put that It's her area. And that's for teacher evaluations? Yeah. Yep. Okay. >> [snorts] >> That's it. All right. Any questions for the superintendent? No. On that, would there be as we obtain more and more modules with Vector, is there going to be I'll say

105an overall advantage and cost savings? Well, yes and no, right? Like I think it's it's like anything. With some things, you'll save some money over here and I think that's what she wants to go over, right? Like with the professional tracking the the tracking professional hours, it's kind of a net neutral. There's no change in the cost between of them. If you shift to the evaluation pro- process, depending on how far deep we go into it, it could be cheaper, it could be more expensive. And she wants She has a a presentation that she wants to go over and kind of go over those options so people are familiar with it. You can go to And obviously this comes through the budget process, but since we're She wants to kind of prep that in advance.

106And depending on like how much depth we want to go into with some of the tools that they have would be how much money we're spending on it, so. Yeah. No, okay. So I I'd like to understand what Vector Yes. and maybe the different options >> Yes, exactly. And then how it helps the program. Right. And that's what we want And that's what she wants to show everybody is those different aspects of it. And kind of where I was going with I use a lot of software tools of where I get just this module. And as I start adding modules, and then I go to re-up that license, if I got each module individually, would cost more, but if you start bundling to say I have three modules or seven modules, >> Yeah. then doesn't

107matter how deep you get, but I got you know, I have one software company with seven modules versus seven software companies. Yeah. So that that's that can actually produce a decent amount if the Vector or the software system does that. >> Yeah. Yep. And And then when you have issues, you only have one no one uh neck to choke, and you have some leverage. Yeah. Yeah, right. All right, we'll look forward to that update. Uh next step on the agenda is our public minutes from March 18th, 2026. >> I'll make a motion to approve them. Thank you. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Shoemaker, seconded by Mr. Plansky. Additional discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed? Abstained? That was carried 5-0. Uh we have some policies this evening for first read.

108Yep, the first batch of five there are just updates to the formatting. Um so there's no approval necessary for them, but just so you know, the formatting was updated on them. Um you might ask why a couple of them have stars next to it. It's only a reference because there was significant work done by uh district committees on those, so they don't match the the school board association exactly. Each of those goes actually in the greater detail than what the school board association has as a model policy. So I just wanted everyone to be aware of that cuz we have been making a considerable effort to match the the um New Hampshire School Board Association with our policies, but those differ, but feels like the right thing to do reviewing notes and previous committee work

109that attached to those previous policies. >> of committee discussions on these. I'm just curious on your take of these policies. >> [laughter] >> Well, dress code uh as a former high school administrator is always especially a male high school administrator is always an enjoyable thing. I actually think your dress code is pretty straightforward and fair, you know. Um I wouldn't make any big suggestions and changes to it. Um I like that in the policy it it discusses like the core values because I think sometimes with dress code policies, which can be tricky, and I would imagine this was part of the conversations, is like how do you do equitable for different body sizes, different demographics in the sense of um sometimes kids are are are wearing clothes that that um cuz they're in a different

110financial situation that may not be as well-fitting as someone who's in a better financial situation and can put more polish in their clothes and stuff like that. Trying to be gentle with with how I say that. So I think the the dress code policy is is pretty fair and and straightforward. >> enforced? Is it enforced? Oh. I don't even know what it is, but I bet it's not enforced. >> [laughter] >> I have one quick question. I'm willing to bet it's not. I mean, I I think I will only speak from my experience of trying And since I'm not currently in a position where I need to enforce the dress code, I feel like I can speak a little more freely on this. >> [laughter] >> I think you step in and enforce dress code

111when there's a legitimate safety risk or a social risk and stuff like that, right? Like um a lot you know, when back in the day when I used to have to do it, you would try to pull kids aside. First of all, you can't have like the illegal stuff, right? Like you can't be promoting marijuana. I'm not sure. We got to address that That gets addressed, right? But like when it comes to like trying to to find the balance between fashion and what is in for kids versus coverage and everything else, you try to understand like is a kid safe in what they're wearing, right? Like or is a kid recognizing how they're presenting to like others from the outside. Like I I can recall sometimes like there's no way around this. You talk talk

112about young ladies that sometimes they don't understand how the backpack may change how their clothing is laying on their body, right? So in those case, you might grab a female administrator and ask them to speak to a young lady. Be like, "Do you know when you put your backpack on, it's actually pulling up this part of your your dress, and like you may not even be aware, right?" Cuz that's a safety social risk. You try to have that conversation about it. Um with some of the males, like you you try to like I mean, male conversations are different coming from a male. Like, "You know you want to date those girls, right? So you want to look presentable and like sharp for them and like these type of things, right?" Um so you try to

113have those type of conversations that are respectful to what is current in culture and current in what they're wearing, and making sure it's not distracting for the purpose of school, which is like education. So that's a really roundabout way to say it's really tough to enforce dress code, and we try to step in if there's reasons. I'll let Jen clean up my mess there as I should explain that. I do have one question. >> hear me any better now? Um Yeah, I mean, I think it's changed over time, too. I mean, I've been working now in a high school for a long time, and fashion changes just like the times. And I think just having conversations with female students, if I have to pull them in because for one reason or another, um it's been

114brought to our attention that some someone is concerned about what they're wearing. And to Brian's point, it it's because it's for their own well-being. Maybe they're they're not realizing, you know, that how it comes off to others. Um and the kids are really great about it. I mean, I think it's hard when dress codes are written too specific. I would rather that be gray, and let us in the moment say, "You know what? Platform shoes, if you want to wear those around, as long as you know, maybe you don't." I've had kids have to change shoes. I mean, that could be something cuz they're unsafe to go up and downstairs. Like um but I I feel like when you leave it a little bit broad so that there's some gray area to be flexible with

115students, and then to not have to revisit your dress code every two or three years because you're like, "Oh, we didn't know whatever would be a fashion trend, and that's a problem now." I think leaves more ability for us to kind of make decisions that that fall in line. Um we definitely are all over any drug or alcohol references or references to anything that is worrisome and like uh oh, um and that could disrupt the learning environment, right? That's We always have that to fall back on. So um that's kind of my spiel. Okay. The kids have been really receptive. I mean, enforcing, am I like getting a ruler out because stuff is defined, and it says it should be X amount thick and this wide and this long and can't be this tall and

116you know, no. You have questions? I do have one, but and TSA doesn't have any problem getting a ruler out, just so you know that. Um I reading through this, I don't Is there any moratorium on things like tails and ears and uh Well, As you know, I did question you about dress code over at LMS one day. I think you got to base it on the circumstances that you see things, right? Like I I know this is not what you're asking, but I'm going to use this as It was not Halloween. Um but like my daughter's in third grade. She has a headband that has ears on it, right? Like a lot of girls that age have cat headbands that have ears on them. Like that's just in for young kids right now, right?

117So like you're not going to lose your mind when you see that because I don't know, someone she saw on TikTok wears a headband like that. You know, like it's just is what it is. I think you have to recognize like the the the student the social dynamics of the situation. Um what's in from just like you know, I I look at when I was in high school, which was the late '90s, right? I graduated in 2000. And like that like goth look was really in, right? You know, like where kids would wear a lot of black and with chokers and with other things. >> see you in that. >> [laughter] >> Um and >> at the wrestling event. And you would see that, and that was a kid expression like expressing themselves that they

118wanted to to break from norms, right? Like it didn't it was just what that expression was. I don't think anyone Hopefully no one overreacted when they see kids dressed like that. That was that generation's kind of like we're not going to conform to the normality of your jeans and T-shirts, right? You know, that type of thing. So I think some kids like to use their dress as a way to express some personal personal um just personal whatever it is, right? That they you know, aren't going to wear their T-shirt and jeans, so they're going to wear something different. I don't see any of our kids using dress to be inappropriate or to make any um anything any statements that are you know disruptive to learning or anything like that. I think as you see kids

119from elementary school to high school and where they are maturity-wise, you know, we see some young fifth graders, right? And then we see some very adult old high schoolers who have, you know, tattoos all up in their arm already and then everything in between. So, I think you just got to look at the kid, look at the situation, look at where they're in their life. I mean, it's crazy when you see kid This is high school. I have this in mind and sometimes you can see their evolution of style over the course of their four years. You see it in in young men a lot because they start off very rough from a clothing standpoint and sloppy and then they clean up quite a bit by the time they get to be seniors in high

120school, you know? >> [laughter] >> But, it's true, right? Like, they start caring about their appearance differently. >> the ice keeps getting thinner and thinner and your skates are getting sharper, I I my question came back down. Are tails allowed in this dress code? Well, I think it all depends on the situation. I don't think we have a rule against tails in the dress code, but I think if there was a situation where we thought the tail was a distraction to learning, then that we could have a conversation with the I would say the tail is a distraction with learning. I feel You shouldn't be having furries in the school. Other Other than the dog, there should be nobody with tails and ears. Yeah. But, I mean, I The The The first grade girl with

121the ears Yeah. as a headband, that's that's kind of a normal thing, but I think if you have a 14-year-old dressed as a dog in the school with the tail >> where I come from from a safety thing, right? Like, if a kid is walking around dressed as a dog acting like a dog, we need to have a conversation, right? And then he uses the bathroom outside like a dog and eat out of a dog >> If a kid like in sixth grade, seventh grade, on a one-off, you know what I mean, wore like a winter hat that had the cat ears kind of out of it and it was a one-off and we don't see the hat the next day because whatever reason they picked that hat off, we're not going to overreact to

122that type of situation, you know? Just It was just uh I just wanted to see if I can get that clarified. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. I'm not trying to be controversial in this Do you want to follow up though and answer and ask whether there's litter boxes cuz there's not? I don't. That's usually the follow-up. I don't. I I don't, but I I was at LMS and witnessed a uh matter of fact, I ran into Brian right after that in the office when I asked about the dress code. That ran by me wearing a tail and ears. So, I I do have a question cuz this kind of hits me personally when I was growing up. Um under additional requirements one, it says clothing may not depict weapons. I actively participated in

123a Olympic sporting event as a junior for competitive marksmanship. I was on the state and national and regional teams. And I had windbreakers. So, like in this, I had this conversation at the high school. We were at a US Olympics sponsor team. How does that play into this? See, we wouldn't address that from a dress code standpoint, right? Like, that's not something I mean, you see it with kids. I mean, I think what when you see the word weapon there, like how is the shirt being like what is the the context of it, right? Like, we see the Like, what you're saying from that, like we know that's a recognized organization, right? We have kids that are in ROTC at Auburn, right? They wear ROTC stuff. Like, what we know the context of that situation.

124We know like some of the clothing brand, what is it? I I'm not a fashion person, so I might say any of this, but Nine Line, right, has a lot of like gun imagery. There's nothing like violent there in that in that type of brand and stuff like that. We know that's the branding of the shirt and and and that's what they're oriented to. We're not concerned about that as a signal to us that that kid's going to utilize weapons. And that's what I mean using that common sense and viewing it in the lens of safety, right? No, I completely agree with your perspective. I just just that No, it's good and I and I think we've come a long way. I mean, me and Jen have both been in the high school world for

125probably 20-plus years now and um we were at a school at the same time that had a uber strict dress code that was letter of the law that we ran into a lot of problems, whether it was measuring straps or it was like dealing with the imagery on it and all this other stuff and it just created this very like tense culture around it all and combative culture around it all when it was just like, if we step back and use common sense, we don't we don't need to do all this. I mean, even with some of the even some of the alcohol stuff, right? Like, the way that breweries have merged into restaurants and have really kind of cool graphics, like just use your head, right? Like, the kid visited with their family like

126Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in in Florida, you're not going to overreact if there's nothing like there that's like specifically like offensive or anything like that. That's the best example, but you know what I'm saying. I do. Just in my case, it took lawyers with national backing to go against my high school for me to wear my windbreaker to say I'm being sponsored at an Olympic level. You would like my high school. We had a gun range in the basement, rifle range for practice. Final question one of the big things about our dress code and this policy was baseball caps, right? At the middle school and high school and do we allow it? Don't we allow it? Right? What what's the status? So, I'm just curious now that this policy's been in place for I believe a

127couple years. How many kids are wearing baseball caps at the middle school or high school? I mean, at the middle school at the high school, it's it's some, but not as many as you would think. I think the flowy hairstyle is so in like that's one of the things the past few years. Um uh but it's nice if a kid chooses to wear one. You know, we don't know why kids wear hats like more often than others, right? Is it uh is it something that makes them feel more confident? Is it just cuz it's cool? Like, we don't know, right? And as long as my biggest thing is like facial covering, right? I would rather see kids wear a hat if they wanted to have something over themselves than like a hood. And thankfully, at

128my level, I don't have kids trying to hide in hoods and I will ask them, "Hey, can you just like take your hood down for the day?" And again, kind of dealing with kids on like an individual basis depending on their needs and kind of try to get to the root of the problem. Personally, having worked in a school where there was a rule with no hats, um and I understand where that came from. I think that's a little antiquated for the times and it's really not something like truly that I would want to have to chase or battle or fight. I would rather focus on like what learning is going on and how on earth is a baseball hat going to determine the capacity to which a kid can or can't learn something. That's

129just my two cents. Yeah, I guess I haven't thought about hats in a long time, um which is a good thing. Um and now I'm trying to think walking through the schools how often I see them on kids' heads. I definitely see them, but like it it it's not like all the It was a big debate. Yeah. And I think it was a big debate because the kids had their phones and they had earbuds in and you couldn't tell who was listening to music and paying attention and I I go back to something much simpler in the whole regard, I think. If you're wearing a hat indoors, why? It's always been customary not to and if it's a rule and part of school is learning how to follow rules and to operate in our society

130because we are founded in rules and laws, then I I I don't know why you wouldn't in you wouldn't try to enforce it or just say, "Look, it it's just can't do it." And that's it. I mean, working as an assistant principal at a school that had a no hat rule, I mean, I wasted hours of my life and professional career talking to kids about wearing hats. Like, it just is like Mhm. I mean, you know, it's just like I I understand where you're coming from and it's that would be the basis of my conversation like constantly. But, it's it was just like we got to pick our battles sometimes and is this a battle that we want to pick? And you have to decide that as a community, as a school, as as whatever

131it's going to be. I think right now, look, it's I'm thinking of the high school, like you're right, a lot of kids just don't wear hats. I think it is the flowy hairstyle they want to to let their hair out and stuff like that, but it's a good thing if Zoe was still here to ask her opinion on it, but um I Yeah. And I know about I understand about picking your battles. I just see that as a small battle in the scope of things and if you straighten it out it's as when it's small, you're not going to have to deal with it when it's larger, but that's just me and I'll yield my time and let that go. I I mean, I'm someone who wears their hat. When I'm not I mean, this

132kind of makes your argument, but so I understand what I'm going to say. If I'm not in my professional setting, I have a hat on, right? Like, all the time. And even if you see me at events, I come here that's like not like I've gone home and come back, I'll have a hat on. Right. Um and it's just like I've grown up with a hat on my head all the time. I'm also very conscious of where my hair is headed, so like I feel like >> [laughter] >> maybe that's part of the reason. >> [laughter] >> So, I and I'm not saying in those contexts it's not good, but I'm saying if it's in the if it's a policy and it's in the policies and it's in the school, it should be enforced. That

133But it's not, right? >> But we don't have I don't care about the policy. >> [laughter] >> We have a no hat We don't have a no hat rule. We We added it specifically to our policy. No, I can't agree with that. >> Headwear does not does not cover the face or ears. >> not pass. Wait, hold on. >> [cough] >> Number four in a minimum requirements at CHS helmets headwear that does not cover the face or ears is permitted. Headwear that does not cover the face or ears. So, you can't wear masks. You can't wear anything like that. So, you can wear a ball cap. Yeah, you can wear a ball cap. Yeah, we're talking the same thing. >> got to take the hood down. Yeah. Or like a face mask kind of thing.

134Of course, you could always go back to the old policy. >> That was a good discussion. Thank you. Yeah. Um Anything else on first read? I know there's other policies here, but those that have the asterisk specifically. I mean, I'll just say I really like the student acti- I mean, it's more of the procedure, too, but um I like the idea the process of the rehabilitation plans when kids have co-curricular violations. I mean, a lot of kids rely on their co-curriculars. That's some of their driving force to participate in school. So, the fact that there's consequences, but a kid can earn back, you know, the ability to get back on a team and some of those other things and there's a tiered approach to that I think is a nice thing and I'm glad that

135this district has that. And then, wellness is very involved. It's very involved. Well-done policy. Yeah, these policies have gone through a long time. Yeah. Okay, let's move on to the updated policies. Uh yep. Um So, on the first one, it's pretty straightforward. We had to add something around um a complaint specifically about discrimination because of updates to that law. Um and then uh Yeah, so those are added from new additions to laws recently. Have a good night. Um for procedural safeguards, the nursing mothers one, let's see what's the update for that. Oh, it's going to change some of the language to match the the policy. And our um Title IX coordinator, who is our human resources person, is the one who actually deals with it. So, we updated that to to that properly. Um And

136some other additions from suggested policy. I don't think any of these are very big updates. They're just cleaning up from changes in law recently. Well, this is first read, right? So, we'll see these again at our next board meeting for second. So, I'll make a motion to approve policy ACE, policy ACN, policy BEC, policy EB, as well as policy EBB for first read. Second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Additional discussion on those? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Say it to those carry 5-0. Thank you for that. All right, we have old business. I know the board has already approved the code of conduct and code of ethics. They just need to be circulated for signature. Uh committee assignments back on the agenda tonight? >> Well, we just

137need to finalize FIC. >> Oh, that's right, for FIC. So, where did we land with facilities? I landed at the last meeting. I know. I was >> [laughter] >> I was not I was not around. The um Okay, glad you guys worked that out. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> So, you um Matt and I talked about splitting the Harriman deal. I think I told you that yesterday. >> Yes, yes, that's Um Ray, it's up to you if you want to do facilities, you're certainly welcome to or I'll do it or we can rotate. It'll be me or we can keep it flexible in case somebody can't make it. That way we have full board representation. I've I've no opposition to that. All right, so do you want to be the primary person and I'll be

138the backup or do you want me to be the primary person? >> I can be the primary. I think he's Dan secondary to primary. Yeah. Right. Well, there's This is There's two of us. for the second >> second position. Primary to Dan. Right. Secondary to Dan. So, Dan and someone else. So, it'll be Ray and I will be his backup. So, that works for you, sir? It works for me. You're good. All right, let's get that Sounds good. on the table. Thank you for working that out. Appreciate it. And then, the Harriman meetings, you're going to cover? Matt and I are going to alternate. It'll probably depend on schedules. Okay. Okay. So, like I did the one yesterday. Next one's coming up in a couple weeks. And I guess we're going to hear about that

139here in moments early. Okay, great. Uh enrollment. We How's kindergarten looking? Not great. I mean, I would like it to be higher. Um We've like kind of plateaued here at 55 um for a couple weeks now. Um Which is concerning because I think our projections, you know, anywhere between uh 74 and 82, depending on the models that we were using, you know, trying to factor in birth rates and stuff is what we were hoping kindergarten was going to be at. Um You know, when you look at birth rates for the town, I pulled this up earlier. I don't know if I still have it here. Yeah, we in the school year that would be next year, we have 63 births in the town of Litchfield. And traditionally, Litchfield has some sort of birth rates to

140kindergarten ratio of above one, you know, somewhere even between 1.2 or as high as doubling the number of births that you have here. So, the fact that we haven't even reached that 63 number is concerning. Like, where are the kids? They were born in town or at least the mother lived in Litchfield at the time of the birth. That's how it's tracked. But where are the kids cuz they haven't all come and enrolled in kindergarten yet. >> [clears throat] >> These are births that happened a few years ago that would be at kindergarten. >> back into um It is the September 2020 to August 2021 is the window that would be registering for >> Didn't we have a mad dash in August last year? People sign up applications. I feel like we did. There's always

141a few that happen kind of last minute, right? And there's Let's not forget about spring real estate, people moving in town. Yeah, and that that always happens, right? But where [snorts] it stands right now, 55 and per our policies, that would be the equivalent of three classes. Yep. Three teachers. It's tracking the state's current trend. I mean, enrollment's still going down. My concern is this if this number was to stick, at least from dating back to 18-19, which is the first year you have full year kindergarten in the district, you've never had less kindergarten students than the than births. So, that would be a new trend for Litchfield, right, to have more births and kids who arrive for kindergarten. Did we end up getting our enrollment study back? We did. Yep. Yeah. I mean, we

142can reshare it. We talked about it months ago at this point, but um The one that we paid for with >> Yeah. They projected 74. The one that I did in the fall, I had 82 as the number, you know, so um they I'm not sure what else they factor in for that number, right? Um Those could have been COVID births really for the most part, right? Right. So, you know, you look at it by months, you can start to see like there's more trailing birthdays coming in, December birthdays? Yeah, so like maybe families are like holding a kid behind a little bit. I don't know. Like, maybe that's an explanation. It I don't think it's this high, but like Well, it's something that we need to keep a close pulse on. Yeah. I mean,

143I think we ended up here this year. We're at 63, I think right now. I mean, that's the next thing we're going to click on, but um So, I would think we'll get to the fourth classroom eventually and get that to like the 18-19, hopefully if we get the run of of, you know, over the summer and stuff like that. But it is concerning that like the numbers aren't there from the births. Where are the kids? I mean, we've blasted this anywhere we can think of in terms of putting it on social media, on our website, in our newsletters, everywhere we can put it out. Again, I think I've said it at multiple board meetings. If you know of a family that has a kid that's entering kindergarten next year, even if they like You

144can do it through online, but if you're struggling with doing it online cuz it's your first kid and it's a new process using the system, just call the elementary school. They'll do it for you. They'll walk you through it step by step and everything like that. >> What about the the any of the daycares? We can visit the daycares and see if, you know, we can pass out flyers or something that has the the registration information and see if that helps, but um Yeah, and then like births for next year, so the school year 2027-2028, we're looking at 78 78 births that happened in Litchfield for that equivalent school year. So, it's an even bigger that we are then projecting, you know, possibly like 90 kids, but this is going to change our projection model

145if we're not seeing the kids actually arrive. So. It's a challenge. All right, so let's uh talk about GMS. Um So, we met with Harriman and Harvey yesterday, our advisory committee. Um Peter joins us called Dan on the call. So, jump in at any point. Um where we kind of mapping out our steps for the spring here. We're going to have um community forum on the 16th, right? Am I saying the right date? 14th. >> 14th. 14th. Um Tuesday, the 14th is our community forum. I think I talked about that at the last board meeting. Maybe at board meeting or maybe I just Maybe I didn't actually say it at the board meeting. >> I think we talked about having one in April. I don't think we wrote a date at that time. >> Um

146but that was the the date we chose, April the 14th. Uh we started advertising that, putting that out in our messaging online and everything. That first community forum in April there is not necessarily going to be new information. We want to remind everyone of the work we've done this far, review the option that we're kind of looking at that two-floor option 1B is what it was through the process what we're looking at. Um bunch of questions came up as we approached March voting. We went to the 55-plus communities with people asking staff on on the project, so we thought this was a good uh reset to get everyone thinking about it again. We'll follow up with another community forum with uh additional information about the project in May. May 18th is just a Monday is

147the date we have tentatively scheduled for that. Um Harriman and Harvey are working on taking that option 1D 1B and drilling down on it, getting the pricing and refining everything connected to it um so we can start talking about it. Our goal is to present the project when we present hand over the or hand over the final proposal for the project. We hand over the proposal proposed budget next October. Um when we were just looking at a calendar we estimated that date is October 28th. Once I heard a rumor that we won't have to do it the budget committee doesn't need it till November, but until I see that in writing I will wait. So we'll assume October 28th. Um it will hand both the budget and the project over at the same time for

148everyone to review. Backtracking from there our goal is to bring the project to the FIC at the beginning of September to allow them an opportunity to review the project and provide any feedback associated with it so we can spend that time between early September and October um addressing any of the concerns, questions, suggestions from that committee as we kind of do it. And then bring it to the board, bring it to the budget committee, and go from there. The summer will be spent We're still going to meet monthly at least monthly with this advisory committee to talk about the everything as it's as the design is happening and and the pricing is unfolding and stuff like that. So um we'll have, you know, some good questions last night from people who are part of the

149committee. Gave Harriman a little bit of work to do. Um for example, the plan for just one example, but the plan for the portables. Like how we're going to do that and the moving around kids and and continuing education as we kind of go through everything. Um and then we're off and running doing the work with it. So Two questions. Um First is has anyone connected with that company that did the um PR stuff Yes. Me and Dan are meeting with them on the 9th sometime next week. I think it's the 9th. Perfect. Yep. Uh the second question is is there anything that we should be, you know, any any time we have an opportunity with community engagement um I view it as an opportunity to collect information as well as provide information. Is there

150any information that we are looking to collect or that we should be looking to collect um at at this? I don't think anything right at this moment. What do you think? >> think so. I mean I think right this moment we need to remind everyone of where we're leaving. >> It's really just sort of level setting and getting everybody back on the thing. No, I understand. It's just an opportunity We don't have, you know, it's not terribly easy to collect information. So And you think we kind of pushed Harriman to try to give us numbers as we went along so we're just not getting a number in September and have them say well, that that number's too high. We need to do we need to make changes. Yeah. So I mean I remember some of

151the stuff one we discussed, right? We just don't have enough information out to go ask people like what do you think right now? Um some of the stuff like >> [snorts] >> I guess with the community outreach and everything, um you know, I would if we can get those flyers that were created for the next community forum out to the 55-plus communities that that we've already spoken with. Um and I know when I was at the budget committee last week, right? Mr. Chairman Sun brought up is there a way to make sure that we record at a minimum the community forums if not live stream, which is a much heavier lift. But um just from the aspect of he got a lot of feedback of people liked it when it was at least recorded and

152put out there. Can does it well can we and does it make sense to um start tracking and presenting some of the good money that's been thrown after bad. Like, you know, we we did for example the we had to do redo the ramps for the portables, right? We've had to do a lot of stuff like if it might make sense to start quantifying like cuz I I don't know that people really understand how much money gets burned in this little return on value. It's a great point. Yep. The I mean just the portables alone we redid the ramps. We redid the H vac for the >> that in the a couple of years ago. >> Yep. Last year, wasn't it? It was two Well, we did that for the when we put the warmth

153in the new school. We quantified the expenses. >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Just keep it just keeping it as a running tally is probably Yep. But even just the roof repair on the portables when we had to replace the heating. Yeah. But the ramps were like $60,000, aren't they? I don't remember. But we were something did them last year or something. I think they were it was 30 grand or 32 grand. Something like that. Yeah. Wasn't cheap. Okay. And uh for board awareness I did circulate the um the link that you shared for the community forum to the communities that we met with. >> Oh, perfect. Awesome. Right. So all those individuals that we met with and their main [clears throat] people I did circulate and so they have that information. Yeah, really. >>

154the the one I went to with Brian the people were very appreciative and very open to and had good had good questions. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Good point. Might circle this About a month ago we sent out um trying to get people on our mailing list cuz we were able to figure that out and we had good good response to that. We uh added a number of people who don't have a direct connection to the schools Yeah. um to that mailing list and we'll revisit that cuz I think that helps, you know, >> it's very helpful. And I think we talked about a few years ago trying to get the town's mailing list. Yeah. And we weren't allowed to get that. Do you remember? I don't know. Right. This allows people to opt in. They

155just send us their email and we add it to the list and then they get They don't get for people who are watching who might be interested you don't get every single school communication. That would be too much. Right now you're getting my newsletter which has links to each of the schools' newsletters and other information and it's um I mean Ray you're getting it now because you're on the board and stuff. Like So hopefully people find that helpful and um you know, can access the information as as they as they want stuff. So One other um aspect of this that might make sense to try to um incorporate into the project processes um talking more about community use of the facilities. Like that last that senior event that was like really It sounded like it

156was That feedback was amazing. There's something with Not to interrupt, but there's something with that population of the community and this project that we got to bring together, right? >> that might be the Yeah. Whether that's like the repurposing of the portables, right? Like we have invested work in those portables, right? Like do we repurpose the I I don't know the location. You know, it's something you work with the town about and those type of things. But like is there something there? We have if you look at the So that's, you know, something to discuss like from that avenue. If you look at the plans for the building these like collaborative spaces which are like the extra class for the year that you need five third grades, right? You know, in in that type of

157space or whatever. Um do you make those accessible for the community after hours, right? When you're not in the middle of the school day. Like obviously you're not going to run a a senior center event at 11:00 on a Tuesday. But once the building's empty the building's kind of empty, right? Like so do you incorporate the use uh for for that that senior community after school hours and stuff? W- What if we tried to have like a specific I don't know if it needs to be a forum, but something where we can maybe have like an an open dialogue with those communities to say, "Hey, look, this We had this one event. It went really well. We want to figure out how to utilize our facilities for the benefit of our senior community." And like

158what if we make that part of our process? >> I think it'd be smart. I really do. Like I you know, I've had a couple conversations with people like just spitballing ideas about like we kind of stumbled into something. The student council did such an excellent job with that event that we really stumbled into something there that I think is a need for the town and the community and something that can link you know, the school community with a community that doesn't necessarily have their own kids anymore in the in the in the schools and see what the value is of the place. There is something there. We got to talk about that. >> we need a definitive like goal for this and I think that it might make sense to have something that's focused

159on a dialogue with them about that specifically. Yeah. So is there a way that we could take some of call it the common spaces, cafeteria, the gym and make that available to be scheduled with and through the town as well? Well, I think organizing I mean the a lot it can be done right now, but what is the mechanism to make sure that it is done well and properly and serve a particular type of uh community. Security's piece of it, too. Like you got to access you got to There's definitely ways to do it. You just got to make sure as you're designing you put the right security things in place. Like I my previous school we would do this. The academic wings would get locked down at the end of the academic day where

160you can no longer access it. And then the main swing with the gym and the auditorium was open to the community, right? Like after school hours. So like you secured those locations and then open those others for the public. And there was a plan for that. I think there's something here that we we can figure that pieces out and that's got to be part of the conversation that we we kind of go move forward. The high school I went to had gates that they were on wheels, but they have there was anchors in the floor and when they they when there's something like that going on, they'd [clears throat] wheel those down there and they'd open them up and lock them down before and and that wing that wing is closed. The sooner we can

161start the dialogue though, I mean it's you know, it takes a while to get the engagement going. Um and you know, if we could start that dialogue soon, it would be great because then by the time that we're actually promoting the project, people will be way more familiar and engaged. >> So a question cuz I'm not as familiar. Is there like a uh senior I mean we have the the um 55 plus communities themselves and we had some success reaching out to them, but is there like a network of just seniors in general in the community that like you know, I don't even know what I'm asking, but like a group like that we could go and talk to. They And the vets. I mean they probably cross over the vets, right? And then they

162cross over at pickleball. Like at the White Church, they have mug and muffin once a month on Wednesdays. It's an outreach from um um from CMC for nurse association. They get from 14 to 22 women down there for coffee and snack and you know, go over a health thing or you know, they've done um like cybersecurity and you know, and fraud you know, fraud things, you know, all all to help the the older people navigate the new world. Um the only other thought, right, is we need to plan for those portables. They need to go somewhere. They're they're an asset of the districts and we that is where 1B is going, right? So they need to be moved regardless and we have invested significant money into them and upkeep to them. So as a part

163of the plan we need to be communicating to the town what the plan is with those portables. So it has to be part of the strategy. I think Dave kind of asked that question yesterday. He did. Dave asked us what's going to happen because those are and I didn't know this that the there's electrical and sewage in those today, right? So they were going to try to work around the portables until they didn't have an option. As far as we can tell. Cuz that's what I would have thought they would do until is leave everything in situ until you absolutely have to touch it. And then can can you thinking about this last night. Picking those up and moving them given what we've seen. I think they're on wheels. Yeah, but we've the roof has

164come you know, we've had issues structurally with them. If you go to I would be afraid to not afraid to move them, but concerned about moving them. >> [laughter] >> I think the person I spoke to yesterday too that they've done that a lot, right? Whether or not they have to you know, refurbish anything and then moving them that that's part of the lots of projects that they've done. So I mean if they're on wheels, that's better, but where do you put them? Yeah. And where do you get the power to them and what do you do with them? That's the thing. Yeah. I think that's what do we do is why don't we have a conversation with the town and the town administrator planner as well as um Chair Brunelle. And let's open that

165conversation and see if there's interest. I wonder if there's like a need over by the dump or There? I mean the police station? They they need nothing else storage. Yeah, right? I mean there's but if they are in not in great condition, we don't know what the real condition is cuz those kind of buildings are not designed for extended long-term use. They they are not. Because of moisture moisture from the kids breathing and stuff like that, you know, that they they tend to die structurally from not being a a real building. I agree on all that, but again they're still an asset that we own. I understand that, but we don't want to we don't want to to move an asset to some other part of the town's budget that costs the taxpayers a lot

166of money. And if the if the decision is it's just time to dispose, fantastic. Then it's time to dispose. I think we'll need them through the through the construction process. Easily. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, anything else on GMS? Nope, just doing the work. Manifest. Uh we have a few items on the manifest this evening. Accounts payable of $334,285.84. We have another accounts payable of $264,263.92. We have a payroll manifest of $429,835.61. We have the 403B of $243,481.13. And a vendors manifest of $2,256.26. Uh we have our second community input this evening. Seeing since there's no community here, I will close the second community input and I'll turn it over to the school board for comments. Um so I thought it was going to be covered under old business, but I guess I didn't read the agenda

167quick enough. The discussion we had at the last FIC meeting about the scheduling and the nomination Yes, sorry. I totally forgot to add it. >> members. Yeah. So we discussed at the last FIC meeting that we would like to alter the governance documents to push back the um uh the requirement that community members have to apply by a certain date. It's currently by uh the school board is to nominate on the first meeting in April. April, so they have to apply by the week before that and we would like to push that back just so it offsets the committee assignments and everything that we go through every year. And we would like to push that back to um they have to what did we say? We said they had to uh apply by the Monday

168before the second board meeting in April. And then the nominations [snorts] would take place at the school board meetings in May. Yeah. So we'd ask for nomina- interest of parties by April 13th. This year, right? Yeah. And then we'd have people for the 15th. Didn't we create kind of a schedule for people who are on the committee? Yes. >> is 2 years, this person is 1 year. They shouldn't have those people wouldn't have to reapply. We'd said they they have to reapply if they want to have interest, right? You could just re-nominate them and keep the people the same. But we went You have to reapply. Yeah, cuz when we went through the three, I think there's three seats up. positions. We speculated that at least two of them didn't want to continue. Yes. So

169one is currently left vacant because Mr. Peoples is now on the school board. There is two others. One has reached back out and said that they are not interested. The other one I haven't heard from, so I'm going to assume non-interested. So um that would be the consideration to alter the governance documents to do that. We can present a draft at the next board meeting. And then in this case, I would also like to start getting messaging out that we are seeking three community members to the FIC to make those nominations and go forward. Okay. I have no objection to that. No objection to that. Is it a will of the board thing or do we have to vote? Uh I think we did vote on the governance You'll have to update you'll have to

170vote on the updated governance. But if the will of the board is to allow us to proceed right now. >> think the will of the board is fine. Okay. Sounds great. Appreciate you bringing that back up. Not a problem. Thank you. That was my mistake. Not at all. I I read this very quickly when I saw it, so I missed it too. I missed it as well, so I didn't get the agenda too, so I couldn't see the agenda cuz my computer won't work. Anything else on school board comments tonight? All right. The board does have some business tonight in non-public under RSA 91A3, uh specifically A and C. Uh so with that, I will entertain a motion to move into non-public. So moved. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky. Roll call vote.

171Mr. Peoples. Yes. Mr. Shoemaker. >> Aye. I am an aye. Mr. Plansky. >> Aye. Mr. DeWitt. Aye. That carries.