School Board Meeting - 03/04/2026

001Uh, the time is now 5:30. We're going to call the meeting to order and begin with the pledge. 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. >> [snorts] >> Uh, we are down a board member tonight. Uh, Mr. Dewitt is on work travel and not able to join us. So, we have a uh, three-member board this evening. Uh, with that, uh, we have review and revision to tonight's agenda. Any changes? No, sir. >> Hearing and seeing none, we have consent agenda. Anything off consent this evening? No. Okay. Hearing and seeing none, uh, we have summary of non-public actions from February 4th, 2026. Mr. Shoemaker moved to approve the non-public minutes from January

00221st, 2026, as well as January 31st, 2026 meetings. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion, which passed 3-0. Uh, the board discussed some staff updates. Mr. Shoemaker moved to adjourn the non-public session at 8:00 p.m. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion. That motion passed 3-0. And we have the summary of non-public actions from February 18th, 2026. The board tabled voting on the meeting minutes. Uh, Mr. Carter moved to approve the nomination of Glenn Costello as CHS special education case manager. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion and that carried 3-0. Mr. Carter moved to adjourn the non-public session at 7:27 p.m. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion and that also carried 3-0. Tonight we have some presentations and recognitions. And with us tonight we have Mr. Ryker Van Mordec, a current CHS student. Welcome. And uh, we're going to have an

003Eagle Scout presentation this evening. How you doing, Ryker? Doing awesome. >> Good to see you. Yeah. I remember the last time that I saw you. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> I know, right? Spider-Man party. >> [laughter] >> So, I'm coming in front to ask for permission to do my Eagle Scout project at Campbell High School, which is building picnic tables at the football field. Awesome. >> Yeah. The tables will tables will look like that. Uh ta- tables will be 6 ft long and the plans are from Home Depot. Project funding. Project will be a funded by a 50/50 raffle. I will sell tickets in my town and to my scout troop. We will keep track of the tickets to determine the winner. I'm looking to raise about $750 to cover the cost of the tables,

004hardware, stain, and glue, tickets, lunch for the lunch for the crew, and a little bit more in case some unknown costs come up. We will accept donations if they are offered. Any leftover money will be donated to my scout troop, Merrimack Troop 15. Project supplies. Each table will cost us about $210 to build. We will plan to build three tables. There is already one table at the concession stand. We build We plan to build three tables. There is already one table at the concession stand. The tables will be built by me, my troop scouts, my family and friends, and adults in the construction trade. We will build them at my house and then move them when complete to the school. The tables will be built from pressure-treated wood and painted or stained so that they

005will last a long time. Project timeline. Uh one, I need a sign-off from a CHS sponsor, vice principal Mr. Stevenson. Sign-off from the local school board. Sign-off from the scout Eagle board. Funds raised, location, and where the tables will be placed at CHS. Build and then build the tables. >> [cough] >> Wait for the weather to warm up so we can build them outside since they are large. This will be done before the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Any questions? Well, I think the weather's about to warm up starting next week, right? Getting some good snow melt. >> mud season. >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> Are there any concerns from the CHS standpoint in the fields and the placement where they're going to go? No, we'll have to work with Mr. Ramos, athletic director,

006to make sure that locations good, you know, and and when we're part of what we hear is we would need approval from the board to to take the tables on post project, right? And take ownership over them. So, making sure we know where to store them if we're cuz I don't think we're going to leave them out there during the winter and stuff like that. So, as long as we work with Mr. Ramos, Mr. Mitchinson at the high school, we'll figure that those pieces out. Should be simple enough. So. Excellent. This is a great project. Excellent. >> a great project. >> Really helpful. >> And sitting on the sidelines over there, it's a welcome seating. >> [laughter] >> Awesome. Uh, any questions from the board? No, I think it's going to be great. All right,

007[clears throat] with that I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Additional discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That carries 3-0. Congratulations. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you very much. >> welcome. >> [snorts] >> Excited to see them there. All right, and shifting gears but staying with CHS, we have Principal Mitchinson with us tonight and I will invite Principal Mitchinson up to the table. Have a good night. Thank you. How's it going at Campbell? It's [clears throat] going great. Um, it really is. We're having a lot of fun this year. [clears throat] Um, lots of uh staff and student activities and vibes and we just ended um right before break we had our winter carnival pep rally. So, that was a lot

008of fun. Lots of fun games. There might be a picture of me somewhere with a pink wig, I think I had on. There any student presentation tonight? I I don't know. >> [laughter] >> Um so, I in thinking about it and I was talking with um you know, Superintendent O'Connell just about maybe giving an update on some other stuff that we've been doing on the staff perspective. As I know um Zoe you know, and before Zoe uh her and Dom um have been great about giving you updates on like what students are doing and activities and events and things like that. Um but I thought it'd be nice for you just to see some other work that we've been doing. Um so, first I just wanted to um let you know too that this whole

009presentation >> [clears throat] >> is available to you. So, if you're logged in with your Litchfield um email you should be able to click on all the links um that are in here. Like I have links to different data and information that I've like created and brought in and posted um to we have a I have a dedicated staff website and I post a lot of data and feedback and all kinds of stuff on there. Um so, I thought I'd talk about the building goals that we developed this year and I linked to your school board and SAU goals because that's where these goals came from. They didn't just magically appear from nowhere. I wanted to connect them to the work that um the district want is working on and it it's some cases is

010already happening not to just have something new. Um so, our first goal what I did is I got together with the CF group which is like my teacher leaders and I said I'd really like us to develop two goals to look at this year and one of them I definitely want around student achievement um [clears throat] because I think that that's really important and always something that needs to be our focus. So, we looked at um, the board goal is an SAU goal is called the cultivate a love of learning. Um, so we came up with a goal that we really wanted to focus on our assessment practices this year, especially with implementing midterms and finals. Um, but also just to talk more about, you know, assessments and, you know, taking exams and study habits

011and and are we going to talk about standardized testing? Of course we are. Um, but really just to like talk more about it with kids and to get them prepared you know, better prepared to take a high stakes assessment of any kind. Um, but also just to get teachers to be more mindful, like what are you giving for a test or a quiz or what does that look like? Um, and so we're going to look at some data at the end of the year. Um, how many students participated in the PSATs and SATs? So, just like, hey, are kids at least like taking these tests, the standardized ones? Um, and then looking at their achievement on the midterm and finals. So, that's part of what the CHS staff will be doing on the PD day

012coming up on Tuesday. Um, across the board departmentally they'll be able to look at, you know, how many students got an F on the exam, an A on the exam, a D and kind of have those conversations, like why do we think that is? What are we doing in the classroom? How are we planning for this? Are the assessments appropriate? Like, um, cuz really I don't want them to change much after the next like year cuz otherwise we're changing too many variables and we're not going to be able to really look at another good indicator of student achievement and how our students are really doing. Um, I want to look at some quali- quantitative and qualitative student feedback and Zoe kind of test. I send out surveys periodically to kids about school, about, you know,

013how do they How what do they think about the new grading? So, I got their feedback on the the new grading system. I got their feedback on midterms and finals. I've gotten feedback on, I think, breakfast break or a couple other things. So, I will ask the students, like, "Hey, what do you think about this? And how's this working from their perspective?" What are you getting for response rates? Um the student body The I think the one I got the most responses were like close to 100 and I push it out a bunch of times, but I'm okay with that. Um I feel like [clears throat] you never want to have a a sample size of every Like, you really just want a sample size. You don't want, right, math guy? Is that Am I

014saying that right? I don't want the entire group to answer my questions. I want just like a nice little >> responses. What? You want genuine responses. >> Yes, I want genuine responses. So, I I'm okay. I'm happy with If I get 100 students to fill out my feedback, I'm happy with that. If it's really important, there have been ones that I've gotten more of cuz they're shorter and they're not, but I'll I'll um like send it to the staff to make sure that they remind the kids to do it. Um but like I said, if I get 100 kids to tell me what they think about things, um I think that that's good. But, yeah. Um my staff, I get a lot. I do a lot with the staff, too. Um I usually get between

01525 to 20 eight, and I feel like that's just about the number I want. So, I they a lot of them are very happy to speak up. They're always um anonymous so that people feel really comfortable in letting me know how they really feel about stuff. And it's been great. But, they're polite, and the kids are really great, too. I I have a little like just, "Hey, please be nice. You know, this isn't the place to get snarky." Um So, then So, wait. What do you think of them? Do you respond to them? Um yes. I responded to like the breakfast break ones, and I remember there was one with the cell phone. Oh, yeah. Um and it's kind of like they like do take our feedback, so it's not just like going nowhere. Yeah.

016Good. That's nice to hear. That's good to hear. Yeah, absolutely. All right. And then um Next slide? Yes, please. So then we've done a bunch of action steps. Um so uh at the beginning of the year, so we wanted to increase student exposure to assessment strategies and examples. And so I've listed what we've done under there. Um we've implemented midterms and finals. We are starting some SAT practice opportunities during CAG starting next week for um juniors. And I'm meeting with the juniors this Friday to talk about the benefits of taking a standardized test and how many different professions that require standardized testing and you know, what the test is going to look like, how many sections it is, the time, so some of those details, but also like why they should try to take it.

017Um and just the whole, you know, you should try to answer as many questions as you can and some things like that. Um we are still aligning curriculum. So again, like none of these goal I didn't want these goals to just be out of nowhere. They all are already aligned with the work that we're doing. Um so they've we've had all but two, I think, content area alignment days, science and social studies. Yep. So that's those are the only two. Social studies is this month. Right. So we're getting there with all the um content area alignment days. Um we've implemented the new grading and reporting system. I think it's effective at the high school. And again, you have access to click on that, so you can look. That's what the teachers said. I also asked

018students um what they thought about it. So I think that one is just a staff one, but I did ask kids. And And they were pretty mirrored. So the equal, you know, the similar questions that I asked students reflected what the teachers said, so it was kind of nice to see that. Um then we designed and administered the exams, and we incorporated the depth of knowledge components and I also asked people for their feedback on those exams. Next slide, please. All right. Our second goal was around climate and culture. So we really wanted to focus on building a supportive community. We want to foster a culture of support and accountability. Making collective commitment to teaching respect, responsibility, character and courage and we will I will measure the progress by looking at our office discipline referral

019data. So again, you can click on to see like semester one how that what that looked like. Looking at student attendance and true truancy data and student achievement on work study practices. Those were the three things we're going to look at. So what we've done, next slide, please. Thank you. Our action steps. We've done some positive positive recognition pieces. We recognized students. We had a mid-year staff and student recognition ceremony. We do a lot of like shout-out students. Even just saying like happy birthday shout-out. That's always fun. Just recognizing students when they do things both you know, athletically. I do it in the newsletters or with co-curriculars or at school you know, academics. We have a really great group called our chat group which is basically our MTSS RTI you know, multi-tiered system of support.

020They meet weekly and they've worked with several families and DCYF when necessary to support any truancy issues that we have had and I'm happy to say I don't think we have any at the very moment because we've worked through some students who you know, were struggling to come to school and just the you know, wrap-around support and figure out what's getting in the way and they it's been working. Staff have emailed families. The staff are fantastic about communicating with families about their specific concerns. I can say at least at CHS, you know, and I encourage them reach out to families because you know you know and you have the relationship with the student and the family and if a student is, you know, coming in late every day, um you know, certainly let them know

021that that you have concerns and we also will address it at our level. So, everyone is sort of on top of the kids and they can't escape us, but um we have not yet done much to develop some student reflection tools for our work study practices. Um I want to get there, so that's maybe the one place that we need to do some more work on. Um but we've and then the last action step was to provide team building opportunities for staff. So, I listed a lot of things we've already done this year, which has been a lot of fun or things that are upcoming. We'll have our teacher appreciation week, some fun stuff at the end of the year. They have a summer outing planned, which is awesome to go to the Gatsby show.

022Um the chili cook-off was fun. Our reindeer games was just some holiday trivia for prizes and um it's great. It's been a good year. The Thanksgiving potluck, the secret santa. So, um we've we've really tried to make sure that we're doing some fun stuff with staff. So, that um you can the picture was of we did like a flannel day. The uh all staff wore a flannel. We did a quick picture. Not everybody wanted to take a picture. Most of the staff wore flannels, but [laughter] just a small group of us took the picture. All right, and that's the >> Hampshire, a flannel is like >> Awesome. a tuxedo for graduation. No, that's a really [laughter] great update. Thank you very much. Right, I think the one question I have is, right, we're still in

023year one, as you think about year two, what's on your horizon for things that still need improvement? So, what I really want to do, I think, you know, goal In my mind, goals don't have to end every year, and I think that that can be really a a struggle in education. I think that's like a a roadblock in some ways, um because if you're doing good things with a goal, like do you have to change the goal? Or in my mind, I'm going to have my, you know, CF group let's look at our action steps. So, here's all the things we already did. What else do we have to do here? Like, where are we now? And let's look at our So, my plan is over the summer to look at these goals with my

024CF group, look at the data, and decide, okay, have we What does meeting this goal really mean? Have we met it? Are we happy with where we're at? Do we want to keep ha you know, keep working towards this? Or can we actually say, yeah, we've now achieved this, so what's the next step look like? Um would be really what I want to happen, but I think it's really important to involve the staff in that process because if I don't tap into kind of reminding them what they value, right, then they're not going to have it the buy-in can be really difficult. So, kind of starting with like, what's important to all of us, right? We care about the kids, we want work to be a happy place. So, like great, you know. >> think

025that's really important, and thank you for mentioning that. As we think about goals going into next year, we're up for a refresh of our goals at the board level, right? And typically, it's been a lot of you know, I'll call it tops-down direction from superintendent, and kind of setting that tone. Yeah. I think it's more, let's take a bottoms-up, right? I think as well as a tops-down, but let's let's understand from a bottoms-up perspective and influence it as well as a tops-down. Do you know what I mean? So, But is really important to me, and hearing that kind of voice from Mhm. the staff. Right. And what I did was um the CF group, we would the the with myself, my admin team, and the you know, my top teachers really, my teacher leaders, we

026developed the goal language. But then when we were thinking about action steps, I sent out some feedback to the rest of the staff and said what This is our goal, non-negotiable. This is what the group came up with for a goal, but what do you think should be our action steps? And then I had a bunch of action steps listed and I wasn't going to pick all twen- you know, again, I don't like I don't like setting unrealistic goals. I feel like then it creates a culture of failing cuz you know, well, there's no way we're going to get all of that done. So, why like it I don't know. I just I don't like the what that can create. So, we were I was able to narrow down what we thought of would be

027good action steps to the four that the staff identified. Cool. So, then they bought into them because they were like, oh yes, I picked that action step. Like that's what I want to work on. And then again, like I try I really try to make sure everything we do or anything, any meeting, any even the professional development on Tuesday, it's all focused around those two goals, which again like tie back to what the district and the SAU are looking for us to work on. So, All right. Mr. Shoemaker, Mr. Plante, what do you got? Um I think it's awesome and I wish I could have >> [clears throat] >> gotten into some of this stuff to look at these You said I squint I can't see that line. >> [laughter] >> But I I think

028it's fantastic, really. It's great to hear. >> I had an idea that I wanted to share. I'm sure Where we going? Where's Lars? Where's Lars? Oh no, I didn't >> [laughter] >> We know where this IS GOING ALREADY. OKAY. I'M GOING TO SHARE IT. I'm just going to throw it out. You're going to talk about the coffee shop? >> [laughter] >> It's about No, it's And this DOES NOT INVOLVE COFFEE. STOP IT. OKAY. I was I was thinking. I thought after our last meeting or the last meeting I was at uh where we were talking about standardized testing and I'm starting to understand Yeah. What would you think I was going to say? I thought we were going to say cafe. >> CAFE. OH, WOW. >> [laughter] >> I'M NOT GOING TO HIT YOU WITH

029THAT AGAIN. I ALREADY hit you with that once. And now I'm just waiting to see what happens with that. Uh no. >> We're all going to say the same thing. >> This is This is standardized testing. So, once I started to understand about, you know, percentage of students taking tests and performing above state average, I started thinking about, okay, like what's motivating, right? And I appreciate what you're doing in terms of trying to help people understand the value of test taking um whether or not you're going to college. Of course, if you're going to college, you're going to have a much higher uh bot probably buy in with that because you understand that some schools apparently still require it. It's not >> back. It's coming back. You know, some were just a COVID thing. >>

030Yeah, it's coming back in full force. >> My thought was What What if we were to go out and raise, let's just say I'm just going to use a number like $2,500, right? And we were to say to the student body, "Look, we're going to start We're going to incentivize this." Cuz like look, I go to work cuz I want to earn a paycheck, right? Like I don't go to work because I want to I mean I do want to perform really well and I want everyone to be proud of me, but that's not really why I go to work. What if we What if we did this, right? And if we got uh if if you perform at or above or above state average, right? So, we don't This doesn't happen until after we

031find the averages. If you perform above state average, you get entered into a lottery to win something, right? Like let's just say it's like 500 bucks. So, you're going to have five prizes. But it The The important part about it is you don't have to be the top performer because right? Cuz if you're if you know you're not the top performer, you're not going to try. It's not going to be motivating to you. But if you know that you have you stand a chance, you just have to do better than the state average, you're going to go in and you're going to try your hardest regardless, right? And then on top of that, we could do something like for the whole student body, if we get a certain amount of percentage that take the test,

032right? Like then we do something for the whole student body. I'm just thinking like it might be motivating, right? We talked about this in the past and you had mentioned food as a motivator. >> Food is a motivator. >> so I am actually giving them breakfast. So this year I already um worked with Lauren and so um they'll come in and the first thing that they'll do is have some time to like eat breakfast in the caf and they'll be some like snacks and stuff that they can also have like in like there's little breaks during the SATs. Um My observation, and Zoe can help me out. One thing I've noticed about students at Campbell, and it's not a bad thing, that motivate them more than anything else is winning. Um they I mean [laughter]

033I'm not wrong, right? I look at she's So I mean and and so many of our students play sports. So like they just have to you know, I'm going to talk a little bit about you know, you go out on the field or on the court and you represent Campbell in that uniform and you want to win. Well, this is no different. We want our school to also win academically and if you don't show what you know and take it seriously and do the best you can, then you're not going to give us a chance to be one of the top schools and you want to be that for you know, for sports and I find that that I I don't hate incentives, but I really don't love them because the extrinsic motivation, they have

034to care. They have to figure out why does this matter Right, but my my point is that like for our work lives, [clears throat] right? Right. We're we're motivated by extrinsic We're motivated by the fact that we go to work to earn a living, right? Like that's the reality for most >> Right. For a lot of people. I mean I can tell you I don't love being a lawyer, but like I go to work because I need to earn a living. >> We've got openings if you know, I'm just kidding. >> [laughter] >> Well, my I guess this is my point is like I I don't think it's necessarily I I don't think that incentivizing with something like that is a bad thing. I think it creates a it creates something where it's like, "Hey,

035look. Like, well, if I could have this little windfall here just by putting in some effort and trying, you know, maybe you're capturing you know, you're going to capture hopefully the the percentage of people who are like, "I don't I don't even care about that." Right. I can bring my own granola bars. Right. No, but I also I mean, in again, when I talked to the kids on Friday, I have listed over a hundred different professions, both some of which require college degrees, some require two-year degrees, some just require apprenticeships, some require, you know, more of like a certification program, but they all require a standardized test. So, I just want them to think like, "When else are you going to have an opportunity to take a standardized test for free? Right? That's going to

036give you some practice to be able to understand what those like what that kind of test is like. And sitting in a room and having to like use your critical thinking skills and, you know, figure out which option in the you know, some of the test-taking strategies. Like, that's what I want kids >> Process of elimination. Exactly. Because even our, you know, students who I mean, literally, I was I started thinking about it and there wasn't there's not a career field that I could think of that doesn't require some type of test or if you're in a career and you want to advance to the next level, that you would need to go like take a certification to get like, I know they used to do like Microsoft certs for business people and all that

037kind of stuff. >> I require all my staff to get certifications. So, right. It's just I mean, you know, and if you want even if you go, you know, again, like you want to work for waste management, they require different certifications, CDL, among other things. Um So, it's just it's there really isn't a limit to why a a kid should want to at least give it a try so that they can understand what what it's all about. >> Great. And then some may do way better than they ever thought they would. Because these are proctored exams at a at a center, right? And there's people watching them and they have to get used to that exposure. Yeah. And we're also really working on building that assessment culture. And like Jen was talking about that intrinsic

038motivation, like setting that competition with yourself, setting goals, bringing it to the forefront of okay, in freshman year, I take the PSAT, sophomore year, I take or the PSAT 8/9, then I take the PSAT, then I take the PSAT again, and then I take the SAT. So, how can I set goals for myself when I'm looking at my scores? Cuz they're very similar. They just this the cut scores are a little bit different depending on which version of that assessment you're taking, like and what is that telling you about your level of understanding in these concepts and how you are not only approaching the assessment [clears throat] for the assessment itself, but also in your knowledge and understanding of how things are the different types of questions that are being asked and understanding the vocabulary

039and all of that kind of stuff. So, just really building that and getting them looking at their data, not just having the teachers look at data, but having the students look at their data. Like, where are you now? Where do you want to be? Yep. And I see that as like that could be an action step under that same first goal. So, again, when I look at where we are with our goals and over the summer, and we've already like, okay, great, what's next? Cuz we've done a lot of things under the current goal with in the current action steps, but what's next? What do we what do we do next to continue to improve it? And maybe an action step would be have students do a data dive with their own data and look

040at you know, their scores and then say, "Gee, PSATs are coming up in a month. So, what do I want for a goal to set for as a goal for myself?" So. But, I mean, I'm sure the kids Food definitely >> [laughter] >> Oh, definitely. I will say this right now. I'm saying it I'm saying it publicly. Kids love Gills pizza. They Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Well, I was going to I was going to say I will say it publicly right now. If this group of juniors, no offense to our certain seniors, but they're gone, right? So, the juniors are the ones taking the test. If this group of juniors scores higher in both the math and the ELA than what they we got last year, I will personally buy all the pizza for their

041pizza party next fall. Okay. So, if they improve in both scores, I will personally buy it for all of them. We'll do it during homecoming week or whatever makes sense on the high school schedule. I'll put that out there as motivation. >> I will let them know. I'm going to tell them all, right? Mark the tape right now. There it is. Yes, they're all coming to my meeting Friday. And there's a whole like beat the seniors. Sorry, seniors. Right. >> [laughter] >> It works. Yeah. Cuz they're competitive and that's okay. They are And guess what? We'll tell the sophomores, beat the juniors, right? >> [laughter] >> Same thing over and over. So, like let's get into that habit of improving every single year and having that It's okay to be competitive. Let's lean into it

042a little bit. I want them to be academically competitive as much as I see them be fierce and competitive in athletics. So, and even when they are playing their instruments and you know, performing and you know, all all of it. So. Love it. And thank you again for all the great work. >> Thank you for having me. >> Yeah. Also, I look forward to the cafe. Okay. [laughter] We have I have been talking with Lauren about it. So, it's not it's not I wasn't going to bring it up. That I wasn't even thinking about it. >> [laughter] >> That's where we're going. >> Glad to hear everything. I haven't been to the SAU lately, so. All right. Uh switching gears into community comment this evening. Close community comment. There's a second round a little bit

043later. Oh, I'm sorry. I did skip student representative report. We We missed over that. So, I'll jump back to student rep. Sorry, Zoe. It's okay. Um So, we just wrapped up our winter sports. Girls basketball, we had a really good season, but we did lose in the first round to Gilford. Boys also they faced some tough competition and they lost to Stevenson prelims as well. And for wrestling, they competed in 11 dual meets so far. Shout out to Sam Baker. He had his 100th win as a sophomore. And Sam and Sage Anto, who both won the division three state title for like each of their weight class. And then pack hockey, they also had some tough competition, but they ended up finishing their season last week 4 and 14. Congratulations to Sam and Sage. Huge.

044Um for some of the current events, we do have the FBLA state leadership conference coming up, which I think it's like the 18th and 19th. It's basically like an overnight trip where you or like you and a group go and you present like a project you've been working on and you can qualify to go to like the national conference in the summer. And it's kind of just like a really good business opportunity for a bunch of high schoolers. And then on the 10th, we have voting day, which is no school. The 11th, we have the district band concert, which is GMS, LMS, and CHS. And then same thing on the 12th with the district chorus concert. And then on the 14th, we have the senior spring social, but like not seniors in high school, it's

045senior citizens. And that's ran by um student council. Um so, for our future events on March 18th, we have the CHS trades fair day, which is just like a um kind of fair day where everyone that's like in the trades get to come and show what they've been working on. And then on the 30th, we have the react movie night, which is in the CHS auditorium. And then on April 9th, we have Campbell's musical performance. Um so the Spanish Honor Society, they kind of have their own thing tonight. So um they do have an international food night. This is their second one they've done and it's put on by all the Spanish Honor Society kids and they really want to aim towards like CHS families and students cuz that's what's going to be coming up

046and that's kind of what it's about. It's March 9th, 6:00 to 7:30. Basically, how it works is you get to like make your own kind of international dish from like wherever you like and it's just like small enough to feed a couple people cuz there's going to be a lot there. And you just get to go around and try like everything and usually people have like a back story. Sometimes people have like things you can make yourself. So it's kind of like hands-on. And just the cost of entry for that is the um dish that you make and they also want you to know that there will be music, bingo, and trivia. Fun. For Litchfield Middle School, they had their second annual wellness day. That was the Friday before vacation. A bunch of the students

047got to participate in many different activities and they kind of had like a day of their choice. So they got to like choose what they were doing. And the um Winnie Dip, which has been going on for like a few weeks now, their goal was $2,500 and they've currently actually raised over $10,000 and they're still raising money. >> [clears throat] >> Um and they're actually second place like in the entire state of New Hampshire for every school. So that's really great for them. And then they also have a play going on. It's called The Real Story of Alice in Wonderland and their rehearsals have started this week. And then their band and chorus students are getting ready for their concerts next week as well as the same time as the Campbell concert. Um they also

048want to give a shout-out to their winter sports. So, their winter sports just finished up this weekend. Their cheerleaders attended their fourth competition, and then both boys and girls basketball, they finished their season in playoffs, and they all had a great season, as well. And then finally, down at GMS, Miss Lindsey and her puppets visited the kindergarten on March 2nd, and they have their spring photos on March 11th, and then they have um science explorations, which is visiting first grade on March 13th, where they present like a presentation based on sound waves, and then they have their Read Across America Week, which is the week of the 23rd through the 27th. We're getting into busy season for all the schools, that's for sure. As well as field trips, right? That's going to start back up

049again. >> back up cuz the weather's turning nice. March is music at schools month, so yeah, we have the two district concerts next week, and then some smaller concerts in the weeks after that. All state for I think both LMS and CHS is this month, too. There might be one in in early April, too. So, but yeah. Did you get your sophomore project done? Yeah, I actually did that like my freshman year, and Oh, nice. And it's all presented and all that, too. All right, good for you. That's coming up in the due dates, as well, here. So. >> [laughter] >> Excellent. All right, thanks, Zoe. I appreciate the updates. Any questions? No. Good job. Good job. All right. Now, we'll jump back into community comment. Still seeing none, we're going to close community comment.

050>> [laughter] >> Second round a little bit later this evening. I'll turn it over to Mr. Plantsky for correspondence tonight. Okay, correspondence is very light over vacation, so on the 23rd, we had the agenda for this Oh, excuse me, the meeting minutes from the 18th. Uh on the 24th, Julie pushed out the annual financial report. On the 27th, we had payroll manifests and AP manifests from Anne. Um Then the 20th Also, on the 27th, we had the agenda for tonight's meeting, and then this morning uh this morning or yesterday morning, sorry, um another AP manifest from Ian in Merrimack. And that was it. Okay, excellent. And are those the manifests over there? >> Yep. All right, we should Yeah, start circulating those. Excellent. Uh let's turn over to general business. We have uh Representative Ray

051Peoples with us. Mr. Peoples, welcome. Thank you. What's going on at the state? Well, we we too were on vacation last week, so it's a little light, but we're ramping up real fast. Um uh this is tomorrow's business for the house. Thought I'd bring you copy. This is the the Senate business. Okay. So, as you can see, as we we kill lots of trees. >> [laughter] >> Um far as education goes, education funding, we have some controversial bills coming up, and then I think some of them hit the floor tomorrow. Uh one is to consolidate the SAUs across the state down to every county plus Right. Yeah, it's every county plus Portsmouth, Manchester, and Nashua. So, that would consolidate consolidate SAUs down to the county level. Um What do you think the chances of that

052passing is, Ray? I really don't know. To be honest with you, the this one here is depending on which what what side of the coin you take. If you take the the side of the coin we're trying to figure out a way not to have an income and property tax or an income uh sales tax and reduce property taxes, it's should it should pass. If you're on the local control side of the coin, it shouldn't pass. It And then I have to tell you I have no guess on this one. I really don't. What's your view? Uh I'm torn, [clears throat] to be honest with you. I haven't watched the public hearing yet, which I posted that today. Somebody asked me. Um we we need to do something to just start trimming costs. I mean

053it doesn't matter how much money we have, it's never enough. So, without without a cost containment strategy I bought two bundles. which we would have in corporate if we were we're doing a corporate makeover, we'd have a cost containment strategy and we'd have uh a funding component that we would we would work on to increase funding. And we have tried to do that. It it it falls apart because there is no more money. Literally at the state level, there's no more money to take. It's just it we have what's coming in. That's what we have to work with. And since we are a uh a state that can't deficit spend and we have have to balance our budget every year, it puts some real shackles on the the legislature. I keep trying to to come

054up with some magic solution, but I'm not that smart. But there are many of us that are working on different elements and uh unfortunately, I wasn't part of this SAU consolidation. I was surprised actually when it first came up. Um again, I I don't know where it's going to fall. I I suspect it's going to fail. That would be my gut feeling, I guess. Because it's too big a change too fast. Have they worked through the >> logistics of of how that would operate? >> No. Well, so that's how not how legislation works. So, basically, you come up with a concept, you draft a bill that meets the legal intent and then you know, the legislative um folks that that all the attorneys, they sit down there and work out the words and make it

055make sense. People review it, goes to public hearing. If it goes to the legislature, gets passed, goes to the Senate, gets passed, it becomes a rolled bill and the governor's got to sign it. At that point, they have what they call GELCAR, which is rule making, folks. So, they take that piece of legislation and then turn it into a workable product. Um And who do Who does that? Um it's the it joint committee between the House and the the Senate. And all the stakeholders. You know, you have um the other people like DOE would be involved because of the education. Mhm. So, yeah. It even if it passed tomorrow, it still has a long ways to go and has to get a signature somewhere. And then, it'd be years years down the road before it

056was ever implemented. So, I don't know. I My inclination is not to vote for it. As I said on Facebook, I like our superintendent. I think I think [laughter] it's just it's discouraging to like say, "Oh, yeah, here's a great idea that we have no concept about how we would implement, right?" >> Well, I mean Well, actually they do. We have a model for it and it's not an uncommon model across the United States, by the way. We actually had a law here in New Hampshire at one point that limited the state's 60 SAUs. We have 117 now. Where it really becomes hard is the very the smaller towns. The real small towns. It's And And they're in all kinds of joint district agreements and you know, it the the complexity is absurd. So, if

057you roll that up to the county level, where we have a very efficient government, believe it or not, the county government, if you look at your taxes, is very efficient. It's a small It's a small fee. Well, I think it did just go up to like 20%. >> It did. And that was not That was not by any doings of ours. Mhm. It wasn't by doings of theirs. >> [laughter] >> On the We don't have a majority in that that arena. So, they raised them quite a bit in actually in number of places. Well, that's But, it's still a very >> to the It's still very efficient. >> that they bear though, right? I mean, the county's not bearing the expenses. It's mostly born at the The county bear the expenses that make sense for

058the county at this point, right? If they were charged with the SAU, that would be their their job, too. Right. You have like the register of deeds and the probate and all those kind of things take place at the county level. And they're they do that very efficiently. All As a matter of fact, I don't think any of the county offices have large staff. They're all very small. Um UNH Cooperative Extension is managed by the county. Uh you you you have that kind of uh um it's it's it's more akin to what we do here at town. It's still at a fairly local level, unlike the state, which is definitely disconnected from what happens here every week. So, yeah, I don't I don't know that that's going to go anywhere. I'm not worried about it.

059Um I'm worried about more of the smaller bills that will have big impacts and uh Well, we all agree on costs, right? And the cost controls to some extent. But, I think we're all also the opinion, kind of like what you said, of like, how do you execute it in a way that's not so disruptive to the district? Yeah. Right. And that is my concern. I also like the superintendent, right? I mean, how do you How do you figure that out? See, I Yeah, I don't know. That's That's way above my That's my pay grade and skill level. I can just tell you, before I joined the school board, like I I really don't I mean, once I started working with the superintendent, how much work they do. So, I don't see any world in

060which you can take one person and say, "Hey, you're responsible for all these towns now." >> You have to remember those roles change from from district to district and what the SAU does and what the roles the the work he takes on. >> And I think it I think >> He's He's kind of in control of that. He's like the top top cop, you know? The top cop, but I also think redefines the role of the school board. Right. If that's if that That it does. Because if if you go by that model, um what moves to the county level would be HR, um school calendar, um paying the bills, contract negotiation, purchasing, because purchasing would be done for the county at the county level then for all the schools. Um which could save a

061bunch of money. It It flies in the face of local control, though. And it's much very much ready, shoot, aim. Local control still there because the education is controlled by the school board, then the principals, and the curriculum director. That all stays at the local level. Yeah, I mean, I think putting more on school boards is laughable. I mean, look at our town, right? Like, we had Thank god you're running, right? Because we would have had an empty seat cuz no one was >> running. I signed a piece of paper. Technically, I I'm a little disappointed that there's no one running against me. >> my point though, right? Like, you know, we already as school board members are putting in a lot of time. Like, the last thing that I think anyone's going to volunteer

062to do is is now be responsible for really running a school district even more so than we already are. Yeah, so I mean, that that's how the split works though. Those kind of larger functions, the business functions, will move up to the county and the educational functions still stay at the it with the administrators, the educators. Mhm. So, I'm not a proponent. No, yeah. Yeah, of it. I'm just saying that's We're just sharing our thoughts with you. >> cuz since you're since you'll be voting on it. Well, [laughter] I mean, what what else is top of mind going into your sessions? Um we well, we got presented yesterday with uh uh new tax plans. I don't know if you guys seen those. >> things. So, I've been getting lobbied for a 222 plan, which is,

063you know, two on income, two on sales, and two on um What was the other one they wanted taxes? It was something obscure. And And legalize marijuana. Uh because we could get a whole $253 million out of marijuana. Which is would not even dent the $4 billion school budget. So, uh the Democrats announced yesterday that they're they're going to be pushing for uh 3% sales and 3% income tax. I thought the governor already committed to vetoing all that. Probably. Yeah. But it doesn't mean that won't detract from all the other good work we're trying to get done because people be focused on that. Um like I said, uh everything in blue in here is on consent, which means basically, unless somebody goes in there and pulls it off tomorrow and says they want to debate

064this, it'll get approved. We have only four or five bills, I think. It's education policy and administration has a bunch. Education funding, 1 2 3 4. Yeah, five. Um most of them are related to um reporting. Uh one allowing school districts to annually retain year-end unassigned general funds. That was a majority odds to pass. So, it in the end of the end of the year, rather than spend all your money, that you could keep a certain amount of that to hold over for the next year to help you with uh shortfalls on special education or on on anticipated problems. What's that bill number? Yeah, what's that? Yeah. Yeah, what is I pay attention. It was right. He's the one that proposed it. >> [laughter] >> HB 1610. Thank you so much. HB 1610. Um HB

0651495, allowing reimbursement of anticipation notes to be used as collateral in certain [clears throat] certain certain circumstances. Not something we'd probably ever do, but as you know, there are several school districts around the state that are not doing well. Um there were some reporting requirements for EFAs that failed. There was I it may may may >> more education financing ones and um most of the rest of the proposals were inexpedient to legislate. Okay. Cuz it a lot of overlap and and at this time of year all of a sudden we start having all the you know, there are seven bills for this one thing. One bill may may survive, you know, for that particular thing. So all of a sudden we're seeing a lot of ITLs popping up here. Uh education policy um They have

066had all kinds of weird things going on over there. But nothing that I've seen that was really of huge impact for Litchfield. Um HB 1403 relative to credentials for a position of school business administrators. I think that's they want to um Due to some of the financial problems we've had across the state, they want to make sure the people are getting those jobs are qualified. So they're working with that and that's >> is that bill going to reestablish a certification act? Right, cuz it used to be the same. Yeah, okay. That that's good. >> [laughter] >> Well, although I I would like to be on that subcommittee and make those rules because I looked into that one and the original certification for business administrators for the state of New Hampshire was basically I could go

067in there and if I could do add, subtract, multiply and divide and you know, the difference between a debit and a credit, I could get a I could pass their their credential test. Yeah, so I I it's not good. That's excellent because it is challenging across a lot of educational disciplines that some of the certificate and I actually think it came from a decent place that people were struggling to hire positions. So they lessened the certification requirements. But the hard thing is is you want people to be prepared to do their jobs. I mean, we hired Julie and she's working out great and it would have been wonderful if we had a specific program for her to like chase down and like And we do that but we do through the yeah, but um you

068know, like I got my superintendent certification, my principal certification all through the university education program, right? Like so there was a very very rigorous specific program to get that certification. >> Caitlin Caitlin Davis, the commissioner of education is really dedicated to getting some of these things straightened out and and in in condensing the areas and getting the people that are in those areas super qualified. We have a big problem with when you look at the Department of Education in New Hampshire, almost all the employees are federal. It's it's not like the New Hampshire Department of Education, it's more like the United States of New Hampshire Department of Education. We had something come up and I realized it would be a reduction in staff so I asked a question and the people that work for the

069state really work for the state is like less than 30. The rest of them, the 195 are work for the federal government in some fashion or are on a grant. It's it's it's crazy. It's crazy. But I'm still learning about that area of my life. Um Let's see. Trying to think anything here. What else that was stood out? The um Did you have a question superintendent? I I had two quick ones, right? Is there an update on open enrollment? >> That was my next question, too. >> there was a hearing but maybe the Thursday before vacation and then Open enrollment maybe on the um I think it's over at the Senate already. So, it's passed the house? Yeah. Okay. I hadn't heard, so I couldn't find it anywhere. I I I tell you, you know,

070a lot of talk on open enrollment, it's probably one of the least worrisome things I see coming. That's concerning. Huh? That's concerning to you? It It It really is. I mean, the everywhere that it's enacted, two to three percent of the people participate in open enrollment. And it It's more challenging for the small We talked about that for the smaller districts here, where you've got districts that are are like Newport, they can't keep a teacher, right? Cuz they can't pay them anything. So, the the quality education is uh is low, so people will opt to take their kids to someplace to get them something better. >> think our risk is high with that. What's that? >> I think our risk as a town is high with that. Why? Because we're surrounded by cities and I

071think our education is far superior to what cities are offering. I I I can't agree with you. >> [laughter] >> I I I think it creates an unknown that's going to be really challenging. I think people bring their children from Nashville here is unrealistic. Um we're already sending children to Hudson. Uh we've had students that go to Londonderry. I don't know the other way around. Um I hope you're right if it passes and it's not a big deal. >> Yeah, but it still has I don't think it's made it by the Senate and and of course then it's got to go through rules making and all those things. It's not in the immediate horizon. Yeah. Um there's a bill coming to coming up to allow any public school convert to a charter school. That worries

072me as well. That one That one I don't understand. I I don't I haven't even had it It was in policy, so I haven't had a chance to >> how you would even do that. Right? Like we have Charter schools are great. This isn't a knock against charter schools, but we have a different just a different model for everything. Right? And I don't understand how and I don't understand >> I don't understand it either. >> how we just become a charter school and then work in that environment. Like just the funding alone for that is completely different. Right? Um collective bargaining, like all these operational things that just come along with it, graduation requirements, following state laws and rules and stuff. And charter schools have to do that stuff, don't get me wrong. But it's

073just different. Right? Like um So, I'm curious why why What is the What is the reason behind that? Right? If you want to open a charter school, people can I think again it comes down to down to the cost. Right? Charter schools are delivering a great product for for less money. And almost every you look at the scores, test scores, you guys I know you don't like the standardized testing, but it is the only metric we have to go by for the most part. But I think they're playing a different game. So, like that's the challenge of it. If you look at you know, the math of the STEM school in Nashua that scoring's through the roof on stuff. Yeah, cuz they're a STEM school. They're They're spending a a considerable more time on STEM

074than than we do. Right? >> And if the students stay trapped. Yeah. So, like it's Of course they're going to perform better than we do cuz they don't They can do that. And I applaud them for doing that. That's wonderful. Right? Um But it's it's different than than the set of rules we're operating under. Um my other question was about which is related to us, but not it This is more of a personal um like kind of thing. I saw they're really lessening the rules around home education. And this has been something that has scared me for years is that the accountability when kids leave our district and enter the home schooling world. We often never hear about them again. And it just really scares me that we're going to even lessen the requirements. It

075sounds like there's a bill that was going to lessen home school requirements. >> It It doesn't lessen them. Okay. It eliminates them. Well, eliminates them is even more concerning. I went to the public hearing. I It was an off day for me and I went to Concord for that hearing because I wanted to I I expected that it was going to be a melee of people to turn out for it and it wasn't but the people that did turn out about for it extremely passionate. Yeah. The home schoolers don't don't want the public education system involved in their lives at all. I understand. They just don't want it. They don't need it. They don't want And one girl got up and testified she was a state rep that she was home schooled and she actually

076wanted to sue her parents for um the damage it did to her because she was home schooled. Mind you, she went to college and had very high like 4.0 grades and you know it's she she has a great job and um she's done very well but she thinks her parents did her damage by home schooling her. And on the other hand, there were a bunch of people that said here's my children, here's what they're doing. We don't need the schools involved. I'm not looking for the schools to get involved. I've just seen It's It's not the schools. It's government. Yeah. >> It's The schools are are are are part of government. They don't want government involved. Yeah. My worry is that in my career what I have seen is situations and this is not every

077home school situation. I want to be clear about that. There are plenty of successful home school situations that I've seen as well, right? Because it was the right choice for that student and for that family. But I've also seen plenty of situations where the school is trying to hold a kid accountable. Maybe it's for attendance, maybe it's for discipline, maybe it's for something. Maybe there's issues in the home, right? Some sort of issue that has resulted in us calling DCYF or something like that. And then all of a sudden we get the home the home school letter. And all of a sudden we can't touch it anymore, right? And I worry about that kid. Where is that kid 10 15 years down the road? It cuz I am worried they're not getting any education. I

078think homeschooling can work for plenty of kids, but I also am really worried there's a whole group of kids that are getting nothing. And I you those are all valid concerns and they were brought up at that hearing. And I agree with you, you know. Um Uh there there's where again I think the role of public schools is going to be morphing as time goes by to become more of a place where people that are homeschooling can do that and market you know, take a class or send them to a class or um have some involvement in the schools cuz most parents aren't isolating their children like that. I I don't think that is going to pass. Yeah, it's just a a personal concern of mine >> It was too far the other way. working

079with kids who have just been in um tough situations and then that's how things play out and I just feel for feel the kid involved that like And that public hearing was a week ago. I'm pretty sure a couple years ago there was a kid that was murdered by their parents and no one found out for like 3 years because of that. Yeah, and it's just like and I'm not saying it's far from every situation, but if there's just some measures, I mean use state testing for example. Like kids got to take the SAT using another state as an example. Like they got to take that test at some point. So at least we have that that marking that checking in point. And then to see if the home school model works, right? Like are

080home school students performing better? What can we learn from that setup that's working in that that compared to what we're doing like Well, I I tend to like Mr. Shoemaker's um thing about competition. So, one of the things I I've been talking to a handful of people about is we on base adequacy we should reward schools that have higher scores. I don't >> See but I like I like the idea that says hey, if my school's doing really good I can get extra perk for money. I I think that's tough because you know, you're going to have some use the Windham example. There are towns that will never achieve at the rate of those those those those districts Well, if you look at the data that's very different. Huh? You have to find a way

081to level the play You have to find a way to level the play. That's my It is it's not fair. You can't compare Manchester and Windham. It's just fair, right? You can't punish Manchester for being a city with a demographics that they have and trying to compare it to a community even Bedford which is right So, if their test scores go up, we shouldn't reward them? You should reward them if their test scores are going up but I don't think you can have the same expectations for the city of Manchester that you do for the town of Bedford when it comes to state testing. Like I just They're never going to be successful. >> I I think it would be more of here's here's your base score that you already had and you increased it

082by 3%. Right? You're talking only upside. You're not talking taking away. I'm not telling I'm not saying done anybody. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Reward them for excellence. But it's still the same but it's still the same pot of money though, right? Right. Right, there's no more money. It it'll be fine once the tax goes through you'll It was three That was that 333 was three Oh, it was $3 on uh state $3 increase on the statewide property tax. >> [laughter] >> Perfect. Well, we'll have to do with So, anyway, that's >> Anything Anything else for Mr. Peoples? No, I appreciate it though, Rick. Yeah. I really do appreciate it. It's It's >> It's all I really have. I was going to say last week we were quiet, so um there'll be more information

083next week. I mean, a lot of bills are hitting the finally hitting the skids here, and another month we'll be pretty much done with everything. I do. I think this This was your guys' suggestion, this meeting with >> Yeah, this is the only one we have every week. I've brought this up to a couple of other superintendents who can't believe we do it and can't believe that it's civil. So, like to like everybody, like that I think this is really positive. Like I know we don't agree on everything, but just like we have normal conversations. >> all agreed on it, nothing would be getting done because So, thank you to to everybody. This is a great idea. >> Oh, um one thing that we did fix and um is we cleaned up we had a

084amendment to the bill that added the ELA scores and stuff to the to warrant. Cleaned up how that is, and next year you'll be able to instead of printing those charts on 18 by 24, you'll be able to print them on 8 1/2 by 11. Excellent. Has to be a 4 by 8 lit board. >> to be one chart with with three lines on it. >> know the Staples legitimately ran out of all of them around here? They Like now maybe it's just coincidence, but like >> after that. >> [laughter] >> But anyway, based on the feedback from from you guys, we we That's two bills that I know that we fixed uh the issues with. All right. And Mr. Peoples, we'll look forward to having you here at the hot seat at our next

085meeting. >> [laughter] >> Oh, wow, it's already March. That's right. How happy are you to put your name on that? >> [laughter] >> All right. Uh we're turning it over to the superintendent now for updates. >> Yeah, actually I have another light We're in the season a little bit for light stuff cuz we're waiting for the vote next week and then that will cause a lot of action and then hiring season in the spring and all that stuff like that. So mine's light. We do a voting day prefer segue into that. We have voting day next Tuesday here in the district. Again, the link's just there to the voting guide. We talked about a little bit in our weekend message we sent out to the community. We talked about the warrants a little bit. We'll

086do that some more this week and as well. Promoting people to come out and vote. Obviously, I'm biased I would like everything to pass but more importantly I want people to come out and vote and have their voices heard. I'm really proud of the work that we all did this fall to get everything kind of prepped and so to kind of see that pay off regardless of the results again biased I would like everything to pass but it does help us frame what's successful and what's not successful and kind of how we're going about operations right now. So please come out and vote. People have questions please reach out. I do get questions from time to time people have about different warrant articles about what what they mean and stuff like that. I think this

087is Oh, I don't know if we include this later but we've been doing the kind of tours to some of the 55 plus communities. That has gone really well to just educate people about the different warrant articles and stuff like that. So >> Another one tomorrow. Another one tomorrow and we'll be here next week to get that all taken care of. So Just on the voting for next Tuesday I know we're getting another snowstorm of some sort tomorrow right and then the temperature's going to warm up so it looks like. Um so there are there's room for pollsters. Can we just make sure that the the sidewalk and the space >> about that a little bit. Dave's already on it. We were talking about it the other day he came in and went over his

088plans. >> they have to be a few feet back from that sidewalk. >> Yeah, so he's got his whatever his little plow thing that he's got. I don't know who's going to be out there this year or not but I don't think there's any races that are >> think so either but There's no way to put your signs right now. >> going to hold I want to make sure you have space. >> [laughter] >> Uh I I'm going to be there and I know our Senator Victor Solman's going to come down, so. Yeah, we'll have it cleaned off and >> [laughter] >> Well, you should have warm temperatures as well. Fingers crossed. Right. Right. All right, uh we'll turn it over to Business Administrator Darling for an update. All right. Um one thing I wanted

089to um mention that just came in late this afternoon um was I was made aware that um when we requested the um transfer of funds to the building um and repairs um maintenance um capital reserve fund, there was an error and it was um accidentally deposited to the wrong subaccount um for January, so I just wanted to let you know that um it was deposited into the account on in February even though we had um initiated the process a little sooner, so currently the um trust balances for the month of February are accurate um for all of our accounts. Um Awesome. Thank you for that. Sure, no problem. Um we did have um we received our final um audit um for FY 25. Um there were some minor findings. Um there were there were things

090that we've had before. Um basically there were some things regarding um purchase orders um being created after an invoice was received and things like that, so um obviously it's time for us to you know again address that and tighten up on um making sure that that's happening properly. So, I did adjust that um previously um between that and student activity funds, there was a few um at each school that had to be addressed. Um it was basically missing certain information um dates um signatures. So, we've gone over that um when we received those findings back in I think December with administrators, um, but we'll certainly address that again with, um, everyone that handles that kind of stuff in the front office. It seems to be an ongoing >> That's a persistent issue. Yes, it's it's

091very frustrating. If I can just say this, I know a lot of people are not business people, right? Like they're not trained to to do the business side of things, but we need people to not like make We need people to do the the the the process correctly and not do it off of a quote or an email they get from a vendor or something. >> We've been talking about this one for years. >> It It happens everywhere, but it's just mad. It's not just our district, but It's not just us, yeah. So, what can we do to change it and tighten the process? And I And I know it's not just us, but what can we do to be more proactive about the controls in place? >> Right. Well, one of the things I

092I thought about even from last year, um, with regard to student activities, cuz I think that's a big piece, um, is maybe had just having some time with administrative assistants over the summer to do some training. Um, just because they're you know, they're the front line. Um, so just to have that information and have people be able to ask questions. Um, I think that that's going to be really helpful. So, I would like to do that. >> Are the student activities things that we are that we as a board are approving or is it No, those are completely It's separate. >> It's in the building. So, um, the principal of each >> That doesn't go through you either, right? >> Correct. Right. I mean, I receive the reconciliations, but, um, all of the actual like

093business of that goes through each, um, school. >> So, I guess we should just tell them this. We'll make a board rule that it has to come to the board if it happens again next year. >> not do that, Julie. >> want to do that. You don't want to do that. Well, but But I mean, they're not They're not going to want to do that. It's going to create a huge bottleneck. >> [laughter] >> We do need to continue. It'll annoy someone enough. I mean, I like Look, it's not going to annoy me. Like it's going to create a bottleneck in the process for the district. >> Correct. What we need to do Julie Miller is continue to educate. Educate, educate, educate. Right? Like and I think catch and you know, teachers may not think

094like regular staff, your people may not think this is like part of their purview, but they need to be. And I didn't think that as a teacher either. It's not till I got to the other side and was really like looking at all the stuff realizing like how I didn't know any of this, right? And I think educating teachers on the cuz a lot of them are the advisors for the student activity accounts and all these other things of the importance of doing this in a certain sequence so we're following all of our we're keeping properly and stuff like that. >> created a bunch of check Personally, I Yeah, which I appreciate very much. That has been a huge help. created like foolproof if you want to run a fundraiser. Yes. These are all the

095things you need to do and it includes financial questions like how do you plan on it prompts them to think about what they're going to need if they need a 1099 from the vendor, if they need a quote, if they need to do a like all those things. So we're trying to Yes. be proactive so that you know, and I'm saying no if I have to because you didn't follow the process and here it is. And it's on your website and >> That that works for me. Right. Something has but we have to be okay saying no. Right. Yes. And understanding like you know, what what looks better to the auditors in terms of like if we have to use our if if I need us to get something for something that's important or that's

096going to you know, a last-minute grab, you know, knowing and again like Julie's taught me, if I have to use the credit card, it needs to come out of one of our budget accounts, not a revolving fund. And like the different And people just don't understand like understanding the differences between the different accounts and like what you can and can't do. Yeah, I guess for me it's just for me it's it's one thing if someone doesn't understand and we can educate them. It's another thing if someone says, "Yeah, that's not really my problem." Like I'll find a way to make it your problem if you that's the mindset. >> Right. I need it now so I'm going to do it this way. >> Right. Right. That's my point. Like I don't want to have to

097approve anything else in the >> a certain individual or group of individuals that is the common denominator? Great question. Great question. >> Super question. >> Ms. Vision said, how do you want to answer? >> [laughter] >> Keeping names out of it. Let's just say I had a meeting with my all my advisors with the idea and I said, if you want to do XYZ, you need to come and see me. If you are going to spend a dollar out of any of your accounts, you need to make sure, you know, you follow the process for it. You don't don't just show up with a non-itemized receipt and expect to get reimbursed. And if I'm in a good mood, I'll call the restaurant myself and get and I'm Julie's laughing and get an itemized receipt emailed

098to me so that you can be reimbursed from the revolving fund, which is appropriate in certain circumstances. Um you know, not the tax-paying accounts, but the money that the kids raise and the clubs raise and the activities raise. Um so, I've been pretty like, you guys have to do this. Like and I always say, there's a couple things that can get you in trouble really quick in education and money is one of them. Mhm. So, there's others, but money is definitely I mean, if someone's if someone's not coming with an itemized receipt, they should just not be reimbursed. Like it shouldn't be we shouldn't be utilizing your time to to go track that down. Again, I mean, I appreciate the effort, but like that's not I was like, sure, I have a little couple minutes

099to do that. Um but I think moving forward, yes, it's like you need to have an itemized receipt. Not just this. Um and I think too, we're we're just good about double tracking things. So, for example, like my admin assistant who I you know, helps support the bookkeeping piece has an additional spreadsheet. So, she we keep track of our we it's in the system, but we also have everything itemized outside the system so that we can also make sure like we're keeping track. So, I think it's some of those little things, but Julie's been really good about Yeah, I just whatever alleviates some of the work like we can't have more workload on you guys that's unnecessary for those people. >> right? If there's a theme, you know, I would hope that's part of an

100annual review process. All right. Um in regard to solar, um we did receive some information from Dynamic Grid. Um it was regarding um the information that Mr. DeWitt was requesting. Um I haven't had an opportunity to connect with them yet to see if that answered the questions that you had. So, certainly, um you know, if we need to go back >> of snow back there now, so Sure. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Um and then um the other thing >> I don't know, but they I clicked the link and it's not generating any power, so it appears. So, a lot of snow. >> [laughter] >> It's either not working Or it's just bad news. TBD. >> [laughter] >> Help me. The snow will do that. And then um I also wanted to just mention um first a

101big thank you to our um grounds and um custodial maintenance crew. >> good night. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Jim. Um for all of their work shoveling this amounts of snow and doing all of the snow removal. Um if you know, they've been working lots and lots of hours to cover that for us. So, I really appreciate that. Um and I also wanted to mention that it is National School Breakfast Week. Um so, we definitely encourage um all families to take part in that for their kiddos. Um I know that they're giving away some prizes at some of uh and um GMS and LMS for participation this week. So, just wanted to put that plug out there. Cuz All right, breakfast week. Here we go. Yeah. And that's all we have. Any questions? No. All

102right, appreciate the update. Thank you very much. All right, next on the agenda we have curriculum. Want to tell us? All right, so I have a very short update because I can't think anymore cuz I've been in grant monitoring all last week and it's tomorrow. So, um, everything has been uploaded to the state and um, met with Ryan this morning, went over everything and What grants were we tracking? Um, it's all of our SA grants. So, everything except for title two because their title two their main title two person had to unfortunately, um, which I know her from many years of working with her, she had to leave cuz of medical reasons. Um, so they stopped monitoring title two. So, we are doing um, title one, title four and they also have title nine, which

103is your generic mostly. Um, we can even tell. Um, and then they have transferability and then they have um, just your regular SA like requirements. There's a lot of indicators. Um, in the checklist. So, um, we did a lot of things going forward. Um, there's a lot of written procedures that we were um, needing to have and this was monitoring for last year. Um, that these written procedures hadn't been put into place. So, it's really and I've been saying it's kind of monitoring processes that were put in place prior to us because last year we were trying to figure out and make heads or tails of what was and was not in place. >> Mhm. Um, so and I actually the state had a procedure writing workshop last year in um, I went to it

104and there's a lot of requirements for the written procedures that they're looking for. Um, so every written procedure that they're looking for has now been created. Um, which was a lot of doing. So, um, but they are in draft form because some of them are attached to policies >> and um, Brian and I were talking we'd like those to go through policy committee to kind of look at it and before it acted. So, um, there's a lot but it was a it was a exhausting exercise but it's good um, to go through to make sure that um, we are staying up to date on all the federal requirements. Thank you for all your work on that. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's not a little work. So, >> no, Sarah. No. for uh, making sure I didn't

105have to do it. So, I appreciate it. >> [laughter] >> Yes, everybody was doing wellness checks on me last week. I was not well. >> [laughter] >> I'm still not well. Tomorrow will be um, I'll be stuck in my office for 4 hours cuz I have to be available via phone or email for whatever they need. So, I'm like I'm ready to go. We're having some >> Extra coffee. Extra coffee. But no, because then that'll make me have to go to the bathroom and I can't leave my office. >> [laughter] >> All right. Well, thank you again. Any questions on curriculum? Nope. All right. Uh, we have >> think we can do any minutes >> Public minutes which we cannot approve. Yes, I let the superintendent know that we'll be >> a lot of minutes.

106No, we can't approve the minutes from February 4th and February 18th tonight because we don't have a quorum for approval of either of those sessions this evening. So, we'll shift gears into new business and policy updates. We have a first read, but these are just informative and template updates. Yeah, so this first batch they're just informative. Nothing's changed in the policy itself. But we do just want to notify you that we we updated the formatting on them and stuff like that. So, Um so that batch is that. Um the next batch uh is some updated policies. You're going to see a a lot more in the next few meetings. We try to do them in smaller chunks here. Um but if you remember the the New Hampshire Bill of Rights that was passed in the

107fall, um we did a new policy for that way back then. Now we're going through all the policies that were cross-referenced in that particular policy and doing updates. So, for some such as the first couple here like IGE for example, um the main update is changing the RSAs that were updated as relevant to um the the particulars in in the policy. Um so there there's lot of changes in RSA languages, so we have to update that in the policy accordingly. So, that's some of those updates in in the first one for example. And to make sure our cross-referencing within the policies themselves are correct. For example, in that first one um our policy that talks about instructional materials is titled IGL um not KEC which some districts have as that that title and stuff like

108that. So, making sure everything's like lined up. But they are slight changes, so we do need to approve those updates and stuff. >> [clears throat] >> Um If you don't mind, I'll just rattle through each of them real quick, give you an overview. I know you you've seen them. Um they've been on the agenda and stuff like that. The next one JICD um the student discipline similar. Um there was updated um language um in the top section with the with the policy is the statement from New Hampshire School Board Association. Um so we just took that language and made it our first section of A. We had a previous section A, but this now just matches meaning of the school board association completely. Um, and the update there is due to the changes to the

109bill of rights one. So, that's the JSED policy update. Uh, access to home school proposal here. Woah, woah, woah, woah, proposal access. I think this is the one where we just split out the procedures. I just have to double check. Yep, we didn't make any actual changes to the policy, but the procedures were embedded in the policy. We should split [clears throat] them out, so if we need to just change procedures, we can and we don't have to update the whole entire policy. So, this is the policy code JJJ with the others removed and now as a separate entity JJR set of procedures. Nothing has changed within the language of those. >> [snorts] >> Um, immunizations, this has changed this particular one. The next two have changed quite a bit. Um, we took the language

110and matched it to the school board association and it added a lot more detail um, for this particular policy. There was about a paragraph of our current policy for this. I do think this is important for us to do to update this cuz and and then Mr. Peoples, maybe you can can second me here. I believe there's bills, I don't know where they are in it, around immunizations in schools specifically. So, I think it's important ours matches the school board association in case there's changes there, we can then change ours over here. One of them just failed. Okay. So, I think you're going to see any changes that will ship. Great, but still I want to be active and pivot if that does, so we can be reflective of that. >> if there's an equivalent

111one in the Senate, but the house bill failed. Okay. Um, so I do think it's wise that we get into matching language with the school board association around this since it is something that's coming up a legislatively, um, on here. This just talks about the conditions about um, about immunizations, the exemptions for medical and religious stuff, how you handle a homeless and an unaccompanied youth. it just adds this greater detail to the policy. And then the final one, uh student student record request, this is FERPA. Most people know it as FERPA, the FERPA policy connected to it. Again, it's updating the overall policy so it matches um the New Hanover School Board one and it provides additional greater detail on what FERPA consists of. So, when people ask us for information, [clears throat] they know

112what they can ask us for and what we can share with them because of of the laws protected about it. Um so those are the the five updated ones. We can do them in however the board sees fit. If you have any questions about them, happy to to answer them for you. Any questions from the board? Mhm. Okay. I will make a motion to approve, I'm not sure I have all these right, policy IGE, policy JICD, policy JJJ, policy JLCB, and policy JRA for first read. Second. Motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker, additional session. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. That carries 3-0. Thank you for your work on that. Thank you, it's what I do over vacation. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I mean, it's alphabet [clears throat] soup as we

113refer to it, right? So, once you update one policy, it's the downstream impacts of Yeah. Yeah, kind of goes through that. So, we're getting there someday. We'll do it all just to then redo it all again. >> [laughter] >> All right, uh we have old business, nothing really changing on enrollment too much. Nope, consistent enrollment. I didn't get a chance to update kindergarten enrollments today, I apologize. Just just got away from me today. Still growing? Hopefully. I didn't check today. I'm hoping it's up from last time. It's been a couple weeks, so, But, I didn't check yet, so. GMS status quo? Uh yeah, we're just trying to schedule a meeting with all the parties for this week by the end of the week. It's now Wednesday. I don't know if we're going to get that

114squared away this week, so it might get bumped earlier. >> still meeting? Yeah, we have a meeting this I don't remember off the top of my head, but we have one this month. >> There's there's one in March. I don't remember the date. I don't It's dated. I just don't have it today. >> So, what's the objective of that meeting in March? I was hope I think the hope is that we're going to have an update from Herriman that one I can provide to you guys, like this is what we're going to do over the next couple months, and then also update the FIC on that work as well. Um we had also talked at the last FIC meeting about the other things, you know, like one of the tasks that we talked about there

115is looking into um the field by LMS and like what it would take to make that playable. So, I've asked Tony to do some some work on that, so I want to update the FIC on those type of things. Um so, obviously not lose sight of GMS, but also have the facilities committee start looking at those other other things, too, that are facilities things related and stuff, so. Yeah, so I I would just caution like this is where things tend to fall by the wayside just cuz like we went like really hard hard hard and then it stops and like the community outreach piece is by and large the hardest thing, and it's the biggest thing that I think needs to be achieved. So, we got to have a plan. Yeah, and that's that's why

116we want to talk with Herriman and Harvey, so we at least do at least one I My thing I think I said it at a a previous board meeting, I don't know if it was the last one, is do at least one more community forum in the spring once we get past voting. Even if that community forum is just like a recap of everything so far, right? Because I do like today was a good example of it, Dan. Mitchell got an email today from someone who was like, "I was reviewing the voters guide, and I didn't see the the building project. I attended one of the community forums. What's the status of it, right?" And I think that's excellent that they reached out, right? They had a they had attended one of the forums, and

117they were following up. So, we might have people who have been following whatever. We've been doing the outreach at the 55 plus communities. We've been promoting it online. A community forum just to re-energize people and update, I think will be important in like the April month. Whatever we figure out the right date for it is April or May. >> I mean, I think it'd be really it'd be really nice to have a community forum that sort of lays out in a little bit more detail now like, "Okay, so again we looked at the new school that was $45 million failed. We looked at this. This is why we didn't present it. This is, you know, this being what likely is the best option at this point. This is what this would look like in terms

118of timeline. This is what this would look like in terms of, you know, when you're going to be going to the >> on 1B. Yeah. >> Right. That is what we are focused on. Now we need to get tactical about 1B. What does that mean, right? Cost, what does it look like, what is what what are the materials going into it? Like, what are the details behind 1B? So we can lock it in. Yeah. What will the impact be on like how are we going to manage students throughout the like all that stuff? >> Right. All that stuff. There's a lot that we could present. So we can start to then say, "All right, now what are my bond options, right?" And if we can get all that locked in by the October time frame,

119then we can start to socialize it with the budget committee, get well ahead of it with the community, get ready for March. Yeah. I think we're all on the same page with that, you know, because that also feeds into the budgeting stuff. Like we have that piece in play while we're developing our own budget and we know this is now the cost associated with this. >> Mr. People's point, this will be the most well-educated, community-involved plan. >> [laughter] >> No joke. And just kind of inform inform inform. So like we're we're we getting the the group together again to get this all squared away with Airman and Harvey and just trying to get everyone squared away. >> we finally are starting to make some inroads with like the 55 plus communities. I think it definitely

120would be great to get back to. them. >> community contacts at all of them. Right, the delay here is on me and I will own that to contact the rest of them. So, it's just a matter of timing and getting them in. >> mean, I I've only You've attended most of them, but I just attended the that one at Stage Crossing and like they were great and they were they were like, "We wish we reached out sooner to talk to you guys." So, we just definitely need to like make sure we're there cuz I think there was a lot of great questions and I mean, we put out I talked about this at our previous meeting that community newsletter. I've gotten people We put it on our social medias and websites um to start getting

121interest and people are responding. You know, people don't have kids in the schools that want to be a part of that and I know it's just one one avenue, but if we catch 100 people that way who can get informed of stuff in that way and then pass that along or maybe families that had kids in the schools and you know, they had lost that connection or trying to or [clears throat] have younger kids not quite in the schools. >> said, you know, we we would only have one, two, maybe five people show up and then it being about 12. And I said, "Look, if there's one person has questions, I want to be there to answer it." Yeah. Yeah. Cuz then they could talk to their neighbors, too, if their neighbors have any questions.

122Um one more facilities question. What's the status with the middle school parking lot and studying that? >> We're still waiting to get the revised quotes that would include the study and the underlying issues there, so we will We have that wrapped up for this year. This school year? That would be my hope. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, if we can impress that, right? Right. >> You know, I don't I don't know obviously that none of us know what this year looks like, but that is something certainly that I think we're all thinking of as a big project that might be more than any of us can plan for, but it's something that's definitely on everyone's radar. I think that goes with what might happen on the soccer field, too. Yeah. Yeah. That's what makes it complicated.

123>> Well, I think it to expand that like we've we're ahead of where we were last year in terms of looking at our end of the years and then have a Julie schedule a nice list of like, "Okay, this is the stuff that like needs to be addressed that we need to get quotes for way in advance so we can like we may not have the money to pay for the parking lot, right? Because we don't have as much money left over from the end of the year. So, it might we might not do that item on the list, but what's the next thing on the list which is not as expensive, right? That is whether that's an update to that field. We've talked about vans a lot like a a district van and the

124savings that could come from from that in terms of transportation over the road. So, is this a to add that to that list? Do we pursue that an end of the year thing? And and Julie has a whole list that obviously she's been more focused on it than I have been that has um the ideas that we're generating, the quotes that we're getting for that stuff. >> [snorts] >> The other thing just while we're on facilities, right? I know we put some money into the LMS softball field and baseball field in the fall, right? We'll just need to make sure that as we approach the end of March going into April that those fields are turned over again, right? Because they're going to be hard with the snowpack, right? Absolutely. Cool. All right. Any other

125questions? >> Nope. All right. Um moving into the manifest, we have accounts payable for $438,015.45. We have lots of accounts payable tonight. Another accounts payable $56,127.05. Another accounts payable of $40,199.32. Uh another accounts payable of $24,403.92. Payroll manifest of $403,746.24. 403B um manifest of $243,059.50 and the LEA LSSAE dues of $10,802.16. And that all represents this pack here that the board has signed. All right, that wraps up uh tonight's meeting. We have a second round of community input. If there are any other comments? Nothing to add. I'll Tuesday vote. That's right. Why don't we vote? Uh school board comments? All right, we uh to Julie's point earlier, we appreciate all the ground crew and all their hard work. Sounds like we don't have one more storm tomorrow, so we're not out of it yet, but

126warmer temperatures on the way. I'll send the I mean I'm public right now, I might as well say it. I'll send something tomorrow, but like remote day is not off the table families for Friday, so plan accordingly. For Friday? Friday going into it. I I well, [laughter] I say that I say that like because I mean I mean this New Hampshire, right? So, the weather changes all the time. Like yesterday when I looked, I was like, "Oh, we'll be fine Friday." Today when I looked cuz Dan called me cuz he was at a staff meeting this afternoon. Like [snorts] if you look at the weather, I was like, "Not today." Looked at it, I was like, "Oh, not good for Friday." And then we looked right before this meeting started and it's all now pushed

127earlier into the morning. So, if it was right this second, we'd be looking at a delay. So, like but I just want I like to keep families involved. I know as as >> a good job though because we're not extending the school year until like >> Have not yet. We pushed it one day cuz we did have one snow day, but brought us to Friday. So, we're like >> Right. we're good. Like I like to keep it that Friday. For the amount of snow we've had? Yeah. You guys have done a great job. We've gotten lucky. I yesterday was >> of them have been has been >> Yesterday was But the one before break, we got everyone out. That was good, but I was waiting for the the message from for the bus company that

128everyone got home and that was a late late message yesterday that all the buses were back in the the depot. So, thankfully everyone got home safely. All right, the board does have some business in non-public tonight under RSA 91A3, uh matters A through C. With that, we'll entertain a motion to go into non-public. >> Absolutely. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky. Roll call vote. Mr. Plansky, Mr. Shoemaker, I am an I. We are now in non-public. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great evening and get