School Board Meeting - 10/1/2025

001She's follow. [Music] >> All right, we are live. So, good evening everyone. Welcome to the October 1st, 2025 Glitchfield School Board meeting. It is now 5:45. We're starting a few minutes late tonight. Uh I'm going to call the meeting to order and begin with the pledge of allegiance. [Music] >> 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. Uh the board is a couple of members down tonight. So we are operating with the three member board as a quorum this evening. Uh moving into our agenda, we have review and revision of tonight's agenda. Any changes? >> Nope. >> Hearing and seeing none. We have consent agenda. Anything off consent tonight? Okay. Hearing and

002seeing none, we have summary of non-public actions from our September 17th, 2025 meeting. Miss Ames motion to approve the September 3rd, 2025 non-public minutes. Mr. Dwit seconded that motion. That motion passed for Miss Ames nominated Margaret Clinton as part-time occupational therapist at GMS. Mr. Carter seconded that motion. That motion passed 40. Miss Ames motion to adjurnn the non-public session at 7:56 p.m. Mr. Cut Mr. Cutter seconded that motion. That motion passed 40. Uh we'll move it right into presentations tonight. And uh we are having tonight with a cell phone. >> Yeah. So I will >> superintendent. >> Yeah. I'll give just a little overview. Um the state of New Hampshire passed a new law around personal communication devices in schools um which uh required us to create a policy. So we have policy JICJ which

003we approved a couple of meetings ago. Uh when we approved that policy, we said we'd give it about a month in the schools and then have a forum open to our community to come in and share their thoughts. Um, on the agenda, I just linked to the three handbooks for the schools, um, and to the page where they start to reference their procedures um, related to um, personal communication devices, but we're really talking cell phones is the vast majority of what we're dealing with right here. Um, so I before any of my commentary, I'll save my own for the end because allow others to to speak. I I just wanted to turn open the mics and allow people to voice their opinions on it. >> We'd love anyone to come up and share your thoughts.

004And as you come up, please just say your name and address. Anyone? >> All right. >> Thank you. Thanks for starting off. >> No problem. >> Robin Corville, Fornet Smith Court. Um, also computer science teacher at Lwood Middle School. And I could not be more thrilled. The cell phone policy that's in place now. I feel like the whole climate of our building is better than it's been in 5 years. Um, the kids seem happy. I don't have any battles to get the phones into the box. They're pretty good about it. Um, and I love that they come back at the end of the day and I get to see them for five minutes and see how their day was going, the eight that put put them in the boxes. So, it's been really, really good.

005And I've noticed as a teacher that when my watch vibrates, how your focus shifts. And so I'm glad they don't have them in their pocket because I think even that vibration shifts their focus from what they're learning in class to who's what was that notification? What is it about? So I can't be happier. I think it's been great. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Elizabeth McDonald, Campbell High School teacher, resident 46 now cookout. I'd like to echo what was just said at the high school. It is so nice to see kids faces instead of the top of their heads like this. >> To see kids talking at lunch, to see kids talking in advisory, playing games together, kids talking to kids they would never talk to. I think she's going to kill me. I'm getting the

006evil eye. And at some level, I think they appreciate it. They I think it led to a lot of anxiety in school when they felt a vibration like she said and they feel the feel of they're missing something out missing out on something. Do you know what I mean? And they do seem happier. They're a little annoyed. They can't get instant gratification. But I can tell you honestly that if any child needs to use a phone, they will always be able to use a phone in the office or my room. They the biggest problem is most of them don't know their phone numbers because they've always just do you know what I mean? And I I the attention alone is there now. You go in the library and the kids are actually playing games with

007each other, doing puzzles, playing chess, talking to each other. It's awesome. I And it's not our new principal. They keep blaming it on the new principal. I'm like, "It's a law. It's a law. No, this new principal blah blah blah blah blah." I go, "It's a law. It's a law." So that's my two cents. Well done. It's great. Seen one phone. I've only taken away one phone which in how many weeks? That's it. Five weeks. >> Yeah. >> It's a good practice on patients too for them to wait until the end of the day or when they can get their hands on their phone. >> Thank you. >> Kill me. >> Hi there. Um non-resident Martha Adney. I teach at the middle school and I live at 171 Whittier Drive in Fremont, New Hampshire. Said,

008"You don't want to spend there." Um, I'm going to reiterate what everyone else before me has said and add that I think it lends itself to some great classroom discussions about responsibility and following the law and civic duty, uh, which is what I teach. So, it's a great opportunity for me to expand a little bit on how a responsibility comes with a right and a right comes with responsibility. And um the focus is is so much more intent, which I love. Uh they do have conversations now. They're a little bit more um they're in tune with what they do wrong because if they forget to put the phone in the box, I've had several incidents where they come running back to me and say, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot to put it in. So,

009they're being they're policing themselves and they're being super responsible, which at 12 is a lot to ask sometimes. So, I think as it is a law and we talk about that that you know what is our responsibility with any law, um this is a good one and I think it's really adding to their engagement in class um and limiting that that that buzzing distraction. So, I just wanted to let you know. >> Thank you. Janine Ndel 43 tan your way speaking as a parent because at GMS we only have stuffed animals locked up in the case. Um we do um um my uh high schooler absolutely loves it. Um he finds his peers are just more accessible because people are looking up and can make eye contact and they are starting to play games in

010their downtime and chatting during lunch. He never considered himself to be I might have a different opinion but he he never considered himself to be one that was really tied to the phone a lot. So he was aware of how many people were inaccessible to social interaction and now they are accessible and he is loving it. Um he you know there was a little bit of a glitch on um the long weekend when um on the Thursday of the long weekend he he leaves his phone in the car. Um I do think at the high school most of the all the money on those lock boxes were probably a waste of money because they don't use it. Um but who had a crystal ball, right? Um and so um he brought his phone in on

011Thursday because he forgot to leave it in his car. as soon as he realized he had it on him, he turned it in like he's supposed to do and locked it up. And then, of course, he was not in the habit of going to get it at the end of the day. And so, he didn't not get his phone at the end of the day. And then for the 4 day long weekend, he was out without a phone. So, he had to learn how to drive without a GPS. He didn't have any paper maps. And it was kind of kind of frustrating. And Dan wants me to add that Dan wants me to add the funny part that his screen is mostly broken because he's responsible for the cost of fixing that. And since now

012he works, he, you know, values his money. It goes into gas money instead. And so when he went to pick up his phone from the office when he returned, they accused him of having turning in a burner phone because they said they tried to find out whose it was. >> And and uh he was like, "No, it's not a burner phone. I'm just broke. Um, so so it was a little funny and and learning to do life without a GPS was maybe a good life skill. Um, and um I have heard of other high schoolers peers um that had a real hard time with lunch because they were always had always just been on their phone. So they didn't know how to do lunchtime without a phone. And it sounds like they're starting to adjust.

013So it was a little anxietyprovoking at first, but it sounds like they're adjusting and it sounds like a good thing. I love hearing from the staff at open house, many staff, that um they're seeing kids' eyes. Kids are saying hi when they walk by. That just sounds good for everybody's mental health. It just sounds like a a little thing that's a big thing. And um at the middle school, um my middle schooler, it didn't really change his life too much. He's just he's kind of he didn't he didn't really he didn't use his phone before. They weren't allowed to use their phone during the day anyway. Um but now he's a little annoyed that he has to return to that class before going to catch the bus. Um, but I I like what Robin said

014that it is like another check-in point at the end of the day for the staff, which sounds like a good idea for a lot of kids. So, um, overall it seems like it's going really well from a parent perspective. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Oh, actually, can I add one thing? I do have concerns, not because I've heard of this concern, but I do do I have concerns about the staff members at LMS and CHS um in an emergency evacuation situation. Are they going to feel bogged down by having to go protect that precious box instead of focusing on the safety protocols that they should be focused on? >> We're all shaking their heads now. So, >> we already done it. We did it. >> We've already done it. It's like >> Okay. >> It's

015just an like it was part of it. And >> we got a backpack anyway. What's we all have? >> I mean, their hands are now all full between a backpack and a case >> or you find a kid to carry it for. >> Yep. Yeah. That takes time. >> Oh, no. >> Anyway. All right. I'm glad to hear that they're not concerned. If they're not concerned, I'm good. Okay, >> my phone. That's cool. You can see >> anyone else. >> Oh, yeah. >> I just want to say um I know I've expressed my opinion pretty openly about how I feel about cell phones in the classroom and cell phones at school. I just want to say how much it's cut down on behaviors in the middle school and how much time kids are spending out

016of class has cut by a third that you could you would not believe how much more empty the hallways are cuz they're not texting each other to come meet in the hallway and meet in the bathroom and go and do things. Additionally, one of the concerns we heard over the summer about how am I going to get a message to my child if there's a problem with the bus or a problem with changing pickup, we implemented some giant pink papers that if a phone call comes into the office to make sure the student gets that message, that's worked seamlessly. um kids are getting the messages they need from their parents during the day so that if they're not getting that instant text that they need, that message is coming to the kid and especially if

017it's something concerning, we have the staff there to support the child during that event or issue that's coming forward. So, I just wanted to express some of those concern we heard over the summer. I've also heard from parents, and I know this is secondhand knowledge, but I want to share a phone call that I've received from a parent who was one of those parents who admitted to posting over the summer about how dare they take my child's phone. I can't believe this. I'm more concerned. I have more anxiety as a parent than my child had. And in the conversation I had with this parent who said she was going to email you, but I'm not sure if she did. So, I'm She said I could out her if that were the case. I'm not saying

018the parents name, but she said, "I can't believe that the anxiety that I was sharing was mine, not my child's. He comes home and he's happier. He's happier that he's talking to his friends. He's happier that he doesn't have to have that electronic leash attached to him and worried about the notifications. We've had less commenting on each other. We've had less pictures in the bathroom. We've had less that we've had to deal with in regards to behaviors overall. So, we really appreciate it as administration as well as the teachers. Um, and I think it's helping a lot. Thank you. >> We Someone coming up. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> I was going to say before she gets here, we did get two email correspondents regarding the topic. So, I'm happy to just summarize those now

019if you want me to. >> Okay. Sure. >> Um, one was from Laura Dion who works at LMS and said it was positive change. um her feedback as well as a parent. And then Kim How also emailed in comparing her experience back to CHS a few years ago and to uh her current experience at LMS and said it is working much much better. So those were the two emails we received on the topic since we were talking about it. >> Awesome. Hi uh Jen Mitchson, principal at Campbell. Um, so I think first of all I the kids have been awesome. So I have to give them kudos. Like they've all been really great about it. Um, whether they love it, kind of like it sometimes, don't like it at all. Um, they are really good

020about it. Um, we don't see their phones. Um, a couple here and there and then we deal with it, call the parents and but we really just don't see them. they're not around anymore. Um, like Liz mentioned earlier, we're not seeing kids like this. We're actually like seeing kids. People are saying hi more and just even smiling at people they maybe have never talked to. Um, and it's been really good. And I also want to thank my teachers because they are also not on their phones. Um, and I'm not on my phone. Um, I can't tell you the last time I had to like come home and like take a ton of work home with me because I have been way more productive during the day walking the hallways on my wheelie desk just like

021doing things, responding to people, talking to kids, like getting way more done. And I'm like, great, I don't have homework. This is great. Um, I talked to some kids. I did some anecdotal feedback um in a newsletter earlier on just to get their kind of initial thoughts about it. Um, I did recently send out uh an anonymous feedback form and it was interesting. It was pretty split. So, um, you know, I think maybe it's a little too early to under like to get the kids to really see some of the benefits that I was or some of the um, pieces I was really asking them about. Um, I didn't bother asking like do you agree or disagree? Because it's a law. Like it doesn't matter. But hey, have you noticed are you, you know, participating

022more in class? How would you rate yourself like in terms of your participation? They're actually really hard. You guys are hard on yourselves. That I was surprised. Um, so but the staff have said the kids are very much like much much more engaged. So hearing the staff perspective, even if the kids are struggling with it, like they're doing such a great job because it's paying off. And I think um I've heard kids say things like, uh, I'm doing so much better in school this year. I don't have any baseline of discipline or what things were like last year to know how much of a difference it's made with like discipline or incidents like that. Um I haven't heard of a single issue of a post or a picture or a group chat or a snap

023or this that the other thing. Uh, I've actually we've had to deal with kids who are learning how to actually be like, "Hey, you upset me." Instead of like through a text or like like now they kind of have to talk to each other if they're upset during the day, which has been I think a good tool for them to learn that I think they are not used to doing because they can usually just snap. Um, I also sent out a parent and family feedback summary. So, I'm sure um you saw that and again I wasn't asking people like, "Hey, do you like this or not?" or "Do you agree with the law or because it doesn't I didn't want to waste anyone's time." So, my feedback was definitely more geared towards changes that you

024might have noticed that I think if I had implemented this law, I would want to be like, gee, how am I going to know if this is worth it? Like, what kinds of questions would I want to ask if I were the governor being like, how is the how's this going? Is this working? So, it was more around student engagement. Um, and it was a pretty even split the data I've looked at so far. Like literally 50/50 down the middle with people who are saying, "Yes, this is helpful or it's been the same." Um, lot um, and the support though was pretty overwhelming. And I had 85 people respond, which I thought was a pretty good sample size. Um, so but overall, um, that was the one that I thought was most, um, that people

025either strongly agreed or agreed. Um, and it was, uh, well over 50% of my responses that um, it's working and they support it. It was actually probably closer to 70. My math isn't great right now. Sorry. But that's it. >> Awesome. Thanks. just while you're sitting at the table and I guess question from my side to to everyone in the room, right? One of the conversations that the board was having at at one point was is the procedures that we put in place too restrictive in comparison to what our surrounding towns are doing in comparison to what Litfield has implemented. >> So, what I like and I know at the middle school, Jen definitely uses those lockers. It's like a hey, here's your my cell phone for my Chromebook kind of thing. We I don't

026want I told my staff I don't want there to be any arguments with kids like I don't this isn't and even in the technical advisory you know it really clearly states that the teacher shouldn't be the police that there really shouldn't be like combative moments like that also is not good for learning so when a kid says oh it's in my car even the kids that don't have cars I told the staff don't argue with them because then if they do take it out right and they are caught with their phone, then it's kind of a bigger conversation and also like a hey, maybe you need to put it in the case. And I think there are kids who put their phones in the cases. Maybe not as many as we initially had or we

027would like, but I think the kids I've had kids be like, I have to put my phone in there or I will use it and I will get in trouble and I don't want to do that. I just want to focus while I'm there. So, some of them are almost like using it as a I need to police myself and put my phone in there. I also think it's a constant like reminder to the kids like hey if you can't you know maybe show us that you are being good. I certainly can't do a you know Logan airport security check every morning and look through everybody's stuff and be like oh you have your phones going here. I mean we wouldn't I would we can't do that. Um, but they know that if they are

028going to sneak or use their phone or get caught on it that they we've had kids that, okay, now you're bringing your phone to the office every day and it has to go in the office case with your name right there. So, I think even just the visuals of them were almost worth having because it they know like, okay, like my phone could go in there. And who knows if it does get more strict. If the governor does a litmus test or whoever's monitoring how this is going and sees too many schools being too open about it, it very well may come to like a no schools, you have to now figure out how to search kids every day. Like, figure it out. Like, they could do that. I've seen it, you know, we've seen

029it with other stuff, right? And I just wanted to chime in because that was kind of one of the perceptions is that we were going to, you know, pat kids down, turn your pockets out, turn your phones in. We aren't doing that. That's not something that we have to do in the morning. Teachers are not >> they don't they just give them >> they really they they're happy to put them in. >> Most of them don't bring them anymore, >> right? >> And if they are bringing them, they're not in their pockets. They're not on their person. and they have them in their backpack if that's a but it's the effect of the cabinets is helping to make sure that they're not on them in the class. So I can say honestly I have not

030had to go I see a phone in your pocket. Take it out. Let's go. It hasn't happened this year. We've had a couple of instances where a student had it and was caught with it comes down. We deal with it very quickly. But it's there's no checking backpacks and checking pockets and checking things. It's just a natural compliance of doing what they need to do to follow the law. >> Great. That's helpful. Thank you. >> Any questions? >> No. >> Any other comments? >> I do have a question. I warned them ahead of time. Um, I would like to hear some student feedback and perspective on it. Not to completely put you on the spot, but to and it doesn't have to be your personal. It can be what you're hearing, whatever you're comfortable sharing.

031But how do you think it's going? Um, let us know what you think. >> Before you guys answer, can we introduce them real quick? >> Huh? >> Since it's Can we introduce them, please? This perfect segue into it. It's awesome. So, we have two new uh student school board representatives here joining us tonight. It's their first night. >> Um, if I mispronounce either your names, just correct me. But Dominic Bolino and Zoe Bourke are our new student school board reps, and they will be here moving forward. Rep. >> Nice to have you guys, sir. Now tell us. >> Um, yeah, I definitely noticed students are more engaged in the classroom, walking around the hallways, everybody's up, everybody's talking, you know, they're in their they're in their groups. Um, yeah, all together the the phones are

032staying away from what I see. And, um, yeah, everyone's just more engaged. Definitely, you know, the classroom environment is better. >> Um, I agree. I think everyone is talking more and like in the hallways like you can hear like voices. Um and kind of everywhere you looks like people are talking. I think the one like difference I have noticed is like not many people in the lunches or in study halls because I do think a lot of people are just like going home at that point or like getting notes to go home um just because like students don't have their phones. So I would just say that's like the biggest like difference I've noticed without the phones. Thank you. >> Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. >> All right. Any other comments, questions, concerns on personal

033communication devices? >> Technical name. >> All right. Hearing none, we'll close that section. Um >> I will just jump in real quick. >> Oh, yeah. You had some comments. >> Yeah. I just wanted to uh couple quick things with this is something we'll continue to monitor um you know, over the course of the year. Again, we're a month in. Usually people are still on their best behavior a month into the school year. So I think that is helpful to to and everyone's been great implementing it from the students to the staff to the families. We've had uh great support with that and and everyone doing their part to make it successful. You definitely notice it. My office is against the library up at Campbell. There's a lot more activity in the library um these days

034than there was before. Um hopefully Miss Green's okay with all that. But um there's a lot more good energy I would say when you're in the cafeteria during lunch. It's definitely louder, but not bad loud. It's kids actually, you know, engaging with each other and stuff. Um, you know, I want to be transparent like with the high school, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but like the idea is that the phones are away. Like we're not naive enough to believe that all these kids are leaving their phones in their cars and and uh or at home, but the idea is that they've learned not to take it out in class. And I think that's what's a critical piece of this, and that's what we ultimately wanted from all this. Um, but we'll

035continue to monitor and if there's a need to revisit the policy and or our procedures, we will do that um, as we see fit. Um, we have worked it through with some of the safety stuff. We've had drills where the teachers have had to take the cases outside. There doesn't seem to be any issues related to that. Um, everything seems to be okay. I'm not aware of any phones being damaged at any point through any of this. Um, so those are those are positive things so far. My last thing is um we were selected as one of three schools to get a visit from the governor and the commissioner of education to see how we are implementing um the cell phone law. So uh they're coming on Wednesday, November 5th. They'll be visiting Campbell High

036School as one of the three schools they visit to see how the implementation is going. I think it's a good sign we were selected. We'll find out, I guess, that day. So, um, and I think I I don't know why we were other than, um, >> then we're the only district that didn't go back on it. >> Well, I don't know how much they know that level of detail, but I do think it would be an interesting contrast because the other high school they're they're visiting is Bedford, and obviously they know a little bit more about what goes on in that school since my wife works there. They're they don't have as restrictive as a set of procedures as we do. So, I think it from the governor and commissioner's viewpoint, it'll be an interesting

037comparison point. Obviously, the schools are different, vastly different in size um and other factors, but it'll be an interesting contrast to see um how they're doing. I will leave this name on this district unnamed. It is not Bedford, but I was at a district for a meeting um and I could see out the window into the passing time area. And if the intent is for the kids not to have their phones during passing time, that was not happening at that school. And I don't mean to be critical of that school, but I think it comes down to what is the intent. Like when we are in our passing time and we're in our lunch areas, the kids are not their phone and that's what we've been told the purpose of the law is. And that

038was clearly not occurring at district. I'm not judging them. It's hard to man. That's the that was the issue. How do you manage this in that downtime, not in the classroom? Um so we are more restrictive, but um I'll be interesting to the feedback we get from um from conquer when they come visit us, the governor and the commissioner. Uh, I have one question about the emergency aspect of this cuz I hadn't contemplated this before. So, I hear that they're bringing them outside. >> Yep. >> Um, but those are drills. So, in the event of an actual emergency, are they going to then be dispersing kids phones at that point? Like that seems like that could be chaotic. >> I think it depends on the situation that we're dealing with at that time, right? Like

039we last year, just last year had to evacuate the high school, dismiss everyone, you know, after an evacuation. And that involved, I won't say on the fly because we have emergency stuff in place, but we had to organize quickly, make sure we're checking kids out if we had to bring kids over to their cars or onto a bus or whatever the case may be. Thankfully, the procedures they have at both school, all three schools, but middle school and high school, we're talking primarily for cell phones. They know where they're supposed to do when there's an emergency situation. They know where to line up. They know where to report to. So, you can funnel kids through. You bring out the the big um uh >> horn thing, right? Bullhorn thing. you're talking through it and you're

040kind of directing kids. So, if if we had in a situation where let's just take that one where we're evacuating the building and therefore need to return cell phones, we're going to have to get on the horn and say, "All right, if you're in so and so, Miss McDonald's, please go see her right now. Pick up your phone and then check out here so and so." >> My only concern with that is if it's like a higher priority situation and then you have kids like, "Well, wait, I want to get my phone." I think there to me I think there probably should be just a cleancut like this is in the event of an actual emergency this is the way that it would be handled. >> Yeah. >> Because I could see there being confusion.

041Um >> sounds like >> if there ever is a situation I can speak as a teacher >> where I'm choosing between a case and a kid I'm dropping the case. >> That's not at all what I'm talking about. >> No. What I'm saying like if there was an emergency, >> right? >> My first focus is going to be getting those kids out to where they >> Yeah. My concern is the kids being outside being, you know, needing to be ushered away from the location and being concerned being drawn back getting their phones. That's my concern. Not about >> Yeah, >> I I would be hardressed to think any of you would be like, "Oh, wait, the phones. I'm going to go into the burning building." >> I think you raised a good point. I mean,

042um, >> we have not put that into our emergency planning yet. Maybe that's the next step to do is to put something like that in. So, we do have a set of procedures that make sense um for most situations. Obviously, there will be exceptions for everything, but um I think it's a good suggestion. So, but otherwise, that's all I got. >> All good. All right. Perfect. All right. Last call. Any other comments, questions? Cell phone policy? >> I think it went well, right? I think the teachers, I work at Campbell, Karen Hod, and I think it's great. There's no question about it. The kids really respect it. there's no problems and I think it makes a 100% difference. >> That's great. Thank you very much. >> And now I can rest easy knowing that we've

043collaborated with parents and teachers. >> All right. So, we're going to move on with their agenda tonight. Next up, uh student rep report or >> we don't have the actual report yet. They're revamping it. Uh I think you have the link to their revamp report. It's just not they're in the process of doing it. So, they're here tonight. Um and then next meeting they'll have the report ready to go as part of their pres. >> Excellent. Look forward to that. All right. Uh, next up is community comment on agenda items. This is the first of two community comments tonight. Hearing none, uh, we'll close that. We'll move over to correspondence. >> Yes. On September 18th, the superintendent emailed the board circulating the policy work folder so that the board could see, um, the work that's

044being done in policy committee. On September 21st, Jan Sullivan emailed the board circulating draft public and non-public minutes from the September 17th meeting. On September 22nd, the superintendent emailed the board circulating an invitation to CHS to participate in the quote cell phone tour from the governor's office along with Bedford High School and McCarthy Middle School in NSHA. On September 24th, Ann and Emirati circulated the payroll EFT manifest which included the 403b and retirement accounts. Uh on September 24th, the superintendent emailed the board circulating correspondence from school care regarding a pattern of increased claims and a lack of reserve funds requiring um its members to pay an additional fee. And I know there'll be more discussion on that, but just that's the quick summary. On September 26th, anamorate emailed the board circulating two account payable manifests,

045which were live checks and EFT. On September 27th, Renee Burgess emailed the board circulating the draft October 1st schoolboard agenda. On September 29th, the superintendent emailed the board advising us that a grad student would be attending the board meeting. Hi. And for a school assignment, on September 30th, Antamarati emailed the board circulating an additional manifest for more pressing invoices that included Eversource, the municipal lease, and copier. On September 30th, as I mentioned before, Laura Diane emailed the board providing positive feedback regarding the cell phone policy. And on October 1st, Kim Hy emailed the board also providing positive impact uh feedback regarding the cell phone policy. And that brings us up to date as of 6:00. >> Perfect. Thank you very much. Next up, superintendent report. And we have our official enrollment as of today. >>

046Yes. So, this is the official state enrollment that we submit to the state um for our enrollment. We use it for um any reasons the state needs our enrollment to do it when they do agade uh just the numbers we use for NHIA for sports for anything else. So these are official October 1st dates. It's nice we have a meeting on October 1st so it aligns to reporting it out to you guys. >> So just for public yeah >> awareness >> uh GMS is at 405 students is their official count. LMS is at 349 students and CHS is at 341 students. It gives us a district total of 1,095 students. >> Fantastic. >> Questions from any board member? >> No. >> Pretty consistent with where we started. All right, school care. >> All right, let's

047go. Um, hopefully by now you have seen I'm also saying this for whoever may be watching on YouTube or stuff like that, but there's been articles uh WR ran something this weekend. Uh, Union Leader ran their article today. the monitor ran theirs uh earlier this week. Um I'm sure other papers have too. Um so we're in a little bit of a little bit of an issue with school care. So school care is the group that helps us provide our health insurance. So to summarize real quick, they're not necessarily our health insurance provider. They are the group we group together a lot of districts in school care school care specifically. There's about 90 school districts that are part of this. Some municipals across the state and stuff like that. We come together as a group to

048get a better price on health insurance and school care is the organizing group for that. They're a nonprofit who organizes that. Um if we were to be our own entity and go get insurance, we would be at the mercy of our smaller pool. It could be extremely high, it could be extremely low. This is a more stable way in theory to get health insurance. So, um there's about four in the state that do this. There's two big ones. It's health trust and school care. And uh if you follow along over the summer, Health Trust was in a lot of in a tough spot. I don't know Health Trust is stuff inside and out cuz we're not part of them, but there's legislation around them, so on and so forth, but we're talking about school care.

049So last Tuesday afternoon evening late in the day um we and any other school district or m municipal that works with school care um got a correspondence from them stating and I'm paraphrasing um please read the articles for more detailed than this but just for here for paraphrasing um they're essentially short funds based upon projections um based upon last year's actual of claims and then the money associated with those claims and then this year's projections when it comes the claims and the actual cost of those claims to to cover them. Um they have emptied their reserves and expect to be in a deficit which means they wouldn't be able to cover cover anyone's insurance essentially. Um it's more bigger than that but just for simplicity sake they need money. Um so their solution was that

050they are asking participating entities such as us the school district to essentially pay an additional month and a half of their premium coverage um for asking they're welland you're correct they are telling us that we have to pay an additional month and a half and we got to do it by December 31st. So we officially got the bill today um this morning. That's what I walked into is the bill. Um and our total is $432,37410. So we need to pay that bill by December 31st the 31st or come up with a payment plan for this interest starting then we lose insurance uh beginning July 1st. >> Yeah. Or possibly even May if everyone flakes out but you know that's worst case scenario. Um obviously the problem here is this is unexpected. No one had this

051coming. We for the record had interest rate our insurance rates went up double digits last year. So it's not like we were light. We had um I think the s second highest interest rate or insurance rate total of the last 5 years for this particular district. Double digit percentage anywhere between 12.4.2% depending on your specific plan. And um we thought this was a stable organization. So the problem is we got to come up with it now and we don't have a budget. >> So um that presents a problem. So obviously we reached out to our legal right away like everyone else. >> Um we met the school care people hosted a a town hall I think is what they called it. Informational meeting was >> ridiculous. >> Um on Thursday afternoon class >> I I

052joined in >> it was uh they did what they got to do. They're informing people of the issue. They took some questions, did their best to answer some of it, but um yeah, it didn't necessarily help any any anything. Um DOE is aware of it now. They weren't that was a question we asked there, have you told the DOE? And the answer at the time was no. Um so um so the DOE is aware. We met with them yesterday. They had a call yesterday that we uh talked to them about um trying to like, yep, you you have to do this. There's or risk losing your insurance. You really don't have any other options. And our attorneys are like, you got to do this. There's really nothing you can do about it. Like um you

053can try to not do it and go through that whole thing, but you risk losing your insurance coverage for your people. So um so we got to figure this out. So, I'll stop there because we'll talk about how to pay the bill in a second. >> Oh, well, I have a multitude of questions. >> Go for it. >> Um, can I mean I I had asked Heidi this question, but can you know can we get quotes from actual insurance? So, I was not aware that school care is essentially just like a pool of people that are self-insuring. >> Yeah. >> Which is concerning obviously. Um, can we go get quotes? >> We can and that and we are now >> we also are reaching out to the other pools. So, health trust, but we don't

054think that's going to be a viable option, >> right? >> Um, this is I mean, good or bad, we're negotiating currently. So, if we were going to go in a different direction from an insurance standpoint, that's something we need to talk go through collective bargaining to do, right? So, it has to be something that our unions are receptive to both of them. We're negotiating with the LEA right now, but the LSSA is still has a contract existing with this as their health insurance, right? So, that would be part of the calculus there and we could go, but we're going directly to the provider and I have no I just don't know I don't know how that would go, right? It could be great, could not be great. We'll work we're working on getting quotes and

055um I don't anticipate it being cheaper because if it was, people would be doing it right in our in our world in the education world. But maybe no one's ever really tried it, you know, so maybe this is the time to try it. I mean, I have bigger concerns about this whole model in general, if we're here right now. Like one of the questions we did ask Thursday that they get answered was, "Well, what do you expect the rates to be, you know, next year?" 18% was the floor, it sounded like, you know, so it's not going to be the floor, so let's go in the 20s is going to be our rate next year. Um, which is not not good from a financial standpoint. Um, so we're trying and looking at all those options

056for the future. >> So I guess what did our legal counsel say in terms of like do these folks have like what are they like what is their purpose like what what do they do if they're if their whole role is to manage this and make this work and they're inept at that then like what >> yeah I mean it's not my area of expertise. Um, so I'll parrot some of the things they told me and I don't have I didn't hear it and I don't have uh the expertise to to to know otherwise even though I seem to be learning a lot about health insurance in the last week. So um the idea is that if you have more people who are part of the pool, there's less variables, right? So if you have

057a small pool, we have a staff of about that probably take insurance of about a 100 people in our district who take insurance from us in the district. that hundred people could have a wide range of health insurance needs and coverages as part of that, right? Like them and their collective families who who we're covering from. And if that small population is costing a lot of money, we're going to have a higher insurance rate, right? The idea of pooling all together is you just have more people in the pool, so you'll have more possibilities of people who won't require as much health insurance. And it kind of levels levels I guess the rate for everybody who wants to join in on that pool. So instead of us having a 100 people we're trying to insure

058by this private entity health insurance company the pool with about 90 let's say 100 people per 90 school districts is now like 9,000 people right that that's a bigger like pool of people that just look at the different swings of health insurance. So it's supposed to in theory make it a more stable environment for everybody because you're coming together. It's different but similar when we do bonds, right? We'll talk about bonds a lot in the months ahead, but you go to bond and you try to jump in with other people who are doing or you could jump in with other people who are doing big projects so you get a better rate on your bond because more people are committed to taking money out and paying back at the same time. That's a different argument,

059but same type of idea. I guess what what I was not understanding about school care was that I was under the impression that it was a group buying discount, but we were buying from like an actual insurer. Like I'm part of a fuel buying club for uh propane, right? Or you know, I'm not I'm not like out back with all of them pumping petroleum out of the ground like self-insuring. Like they just go to >> So they school care goes to Ollie, I'm going to have you come up. they go to Sigma the health the actual health insurance provider and negotiate our fee for them right like and bring our pole pool to them and get this price for our pool which includes all these districts and municipalities and everything else that are a part

060of it so I mean they're kind of like a middleman like I you know as someone who is taking care of this for you you're outsourcing it to them to do this negotiation getting the best rate for everyone in their pool that they can >> but there's a component of that though clearly that >> am I doing good so far? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> We're we're not, you know, there's a component of that though where we're we're self-insuring obviously. So, as as a group, right? Is that what I'm understanding? >> We're not self-insured. If you're self-insured, like the city of Nasha is self-insured. Self-insuring means like we are taking on the cost of those claims. Say someone has a million dollar hospital bill. We, the Lichfield School District, are paying that bill, >> right?

061you're not someone's administering it for you because you're basically setting just like an insurance company would set, you know, hey, your deductible is this or you're, you know, whatever, right? >> Right. When you're self-funded, you're paying, you're collecting the premiums, you're paying the bills. School care essentially is they're controlling that risk pool. So, they have all the people from 20 districts. So your group is thousands and thousands of people to hope to get you better rates. They're collecting the insurance premiums for us, but they're also paying those bills. >> But that's what I'm not understanding. Like the bill should be the bill then, right? Like if you're dealing with the insurance company, should the bill be the bill? Unless you're unless we are basically coming together instead of just being Nasha who's self-in funding where

062Lichfield and whoever the heck else is part of school care are all coming together putting their money in selfunding. Like that's what it's seeming like to me. If I'm mistaken, then I guess I need to like understand. But I I'm I'm not and I have a feeling that when taxpayers catch wind of this, they're going to also have the same question, which is who's resp like who's responsible for like knowing cuz cuz here's the thing. We're not budgeting reserves for this. >> Well, I have a question about that, but we can talk about that in a minute for reserves. So, no, we're not budgeting reserves, but we do have an employee benefits reserve. >> We can talk. I know >> you're if you're talking about like how we're going to pay it, that's what But

063I mean, >> but but from a budgeting perspective, right? Like I was never in any of our purview. >> My issue with this whole thing has been the notice. There's been a lack of notice. >> Trying to answer, right? Yeah. Trying to answer your question. If we were to Sigma is our actual insurance company that school care goes to, right? Yes. If we were to just as our single entity go to Sigma like we can't selfinsure, right? Like there's too much risk for >> right >> but if we were to work directly with Sigma the understanding is our rates would be significant or would be at the mercy of our people only right so it could be higher it could be lower and it could be much more drastic swings yeartoyear depending on the claims

064and those costs of our claims that our people are doing. So I think >> but you're under a contract with them. So they're not the one thing they're not going to do is in the middle of the year say ah we don't have enough money. Can you write us a check for $430,000? >> But they could in theor you're 100% correct on that. And but I think if you're working with and I'm not advocating one way or the other, but if you're just working directly with the Sigma, they can jack your rates into like the 30s 40s without >> So I guess I guess what I'm trying to understand though is you know so Sigma has said we are going to provide you insurance and this is what it looks like right and so it's

065not Sigma that's saying oh we're underfunded you need to write us more money. It's school care. So I'm I'm just trying to understand what what are we paying them like what's underfunded and why are we paying that >> reserves >> their reserves to pay out money they don't have >> so there's a self there so there is a so there is a self-funded component of this then >> they're self they're selfunded right >> but we as members are are paying >> part of the selfund so we pay them the money right and as they said every time they've done this since 95 a 95 85 and they've never had this issue before. They said it multiple times, >> but sometimes we get money back, right? So there are rules to what they can be holding

066on to. So if there's a great year where everyone in their giant pool, right, does not spend as much money as it then they'll return the money to us. And we have seen this in previous years. And depending on where it is, you can apply it right to your rates for the future year. We have sent checks back to um employee. These are not huge checks, right? They're they're minuscule in the big scheme of things, but we've sent some of that money back to employees. And this is the give or take. They kind of have a cap of what they can have at any moment. If they go over the cap, they return the money. And if they go way under what they're they need to have, you got to come up with the money

067as the group. But this is supposed to be kind of like a lowrisk um who was I talking to? It's like I have a 403b, right? like that's money I've put at risk into the stock market, into the investments and stuff like that. And mine's super conservative in the idea that it would just slowly kind of go, but there is a risk. I could lose that money at any time, right? Like that's not how it's set up to be handled. It's supposed to be a small incremental thing. These insurance in theory, these pools have have a history of being secure and just smaller incremental rate increases yeartoear, but this is a reality that it could bottom out at any time. and we're experiencing the bottom out right now. So, I think the there's been more

068volatility in the rates probably in the past few years. Um, I was in Health Trust in my previous district, so we were following them more closely and there was a ton of volatility to their rates. Um, but you can see some of it in the historical data here with school care. It's not as volatile, but not exactly a smooth um smooth line of increases year-toear. So that's kind of all of that. >> The frustration I have, and again, I know there's nothing that we can do about it here. We need to talk about how do we fix this problem that we're facing, but the notice that I read indicated that they used up their reserve funds last year. And so why wasn't the notice given to us that their reserves are low that they or

069why weren't our rates much higher last year when we were doing budgeting in November, December? Because this is real. I don't know how districts suddenly come up with this large amount of money when you have a set budget and there are districts bigger than ours that are having even more money to come up with. And so >> it gets right to my questions I was asking last week >> and and we don't have answers to them. We asked the same questions. Why are you telling us now was the first thing when we first saw we got it last Tuesday. >> My initial reaction was like >> oh man, what did I miss? I'm going to get fired. Um so like that was my initial reaction and I picked up the phone and I called school

070care to be like what did I miss? Like how are you dropping this to us now? And they're like, "Well, we we just found out about it in the last 30 days." Was essentially >> We have that in writing if you want to. >> Yeah, we have it in writing. That was our job. >> No, but and and I think if you see everything since then is like everyone is asking that question. How are you just telling us now? I mean, it's a frustration. Their primary people they work with are school districts. They understand our budgeting cycle, right? like well >> maybe they don't cuz we're here right now but like they should have an understanding of our budget cycle that even if you had told us this in like June right we could have

071done something right so like telling us in September when us and other districts are in default budgets like it's not like we're sitting on this pile of money that like we can just disperse out is a significant challenge now I guess fortunately I guess it's relative to your district. Ours is less than a half million and there are definitely districts in the millions too, you know. Um and uh that's unfortunate for for those districts. So maybe we can figure this out. I mean we have to figure it out. We don't really have a choice. But >> yeah, that's the number one question is how did you not tell us this was coming? Like it doesn't make sense. >> Or even that you were using reserves like shouldn't there be some trigger that if you know

072when we want to access reserve funds we have to let members know i.e. the town. Why wouldn't they have to let their members know that they were accessing such such significant reserve funds that they could not cover a situation that continued to happen into the next year? >> This is this can't happen again, right? Like this is the frustration is like they have to we got to deal with this situation but and like >> let's hope it never happens again. >> But the reality is is that like they have to learn from this themselves that they cannot put us in this hole again, right? Like if The only way to learn that is to have everyone leave. >> But where are we gonna go? >> Honestly, I ask my questions last, >> right? So, I

073want to know who's accountable, right? This is all about forecasting. >> Poor forecasting. >> Who's accountable for it? Right. >> What changes are they making internally? I'm not agreeing to anybody being paid until I know what they're doing internally to figure this out. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I I really think that we need to be going hard right now on other insurance options because to me, number one, we must have an agreement with them, right? Like I would imagine it's fairly lengthy if they're able to pull this garbage. Um I'd love to know I I still want to understand exactly what are what are their agreement with Sig Sigma, not Sigma Sigma. >> No, it's Sigma. >> Sigma. Sorry, I was all sigma. Sorry. So, I want to know what they're I want to

074know because there's there is very clearly a component of their agreement with Sigma that they're getting a lower rate because they are hedging risk by having their own pool of money that they're using to do that. So, there's got to be some like massive deductible aspect of it or something that they pay that they clearly didn't forecast. >> Million. They said 4 million in the hole. >> Yeah, >> their deficit's 4 million. Their reserves are empty, which they have had between 12 and 15 million. Yeah. So I I would like to understand I think we need to understand what it is what what that is because clearly we have not been budgeting appropriately if there is a risk level that we were not aware of. Um and I mean we've had school care for a

075long time right >> since I started here. Yeah. They just moved from health trust >> and I think every other district is like still equally as shocked by this. But um I I mean I agree and I think that right now >> we have till December what 31st is that we said >> so >> before interest starts. >> So we need to get on with as many health insurers as possible. >> You know I'd be interested to know if if there's any health insurer that would be willing to take all of us and say hey we'll cut you guys a good deal because there's all these districts coming. Guess what? We don't need you to administer it anymore because we're not gonna have this stupid risk tolerance that you guys apparently agreed to. >> Care

076trying to save their butt. And quite frankly, I don't care if school care goes by. They go >> They should. >> Right. I mean, >> they're doing their part though. They did a moratorium on non-essential travel. So, >> right. >> I mean, at the end of the day, this is what we're facing and legal is telling us we have to pay. >> Is that if we want if we want to keep our insurance through that? >> Want to keep our insurance. I mean they are exploring the legality of this but by the time that's all sorted out that could take litigation related that could take years right like >> right >> um and the simple argument of that you know school care has made and the lawyers progressionally are like they have a point is

077they've shared the excess with us in the past and this is just the reverse right like where this is the riskreward of it when there's been too much in their their money their reserves, they've returned it. And when they're short, it's on us to come up with the with the total. I mean, the timing is where I continue to get. Like, how do you do this to us when we can't fiscally plan for it? Like, this isn't $40,000. This is $400,000. It's radically different, right? 40,000 is not easy to come up with, but you can come up with that, right? 432,000 is is not something you can easily come up with, right? So, we have to there just has to be an awareness. They really are screwing school districts. There's no other way to put

078it, you know? Um, >> and I think it's fair to ask, how do we ensure this doesn't happen again? >> There are contracts. >> Yeah, there there has to be >> where we can see this type of language where we're obligated to pay this in these types of scenarios. >> They cited a statute, didn't they? >> Right. I mean there was legislation >> the end of the year the beginning signed it in 20 >> I feel like if they return the end of the year >> they didn't return us anything last year in years past >> they return it in the end of the year >> when they return yeah when they return money it's a credit on the July bill for the previous year >> so hearing this now but there was no >>

079I was going to answer something what was just asked >> I was asking the contract with school We'll find it. It's probably from 2014 >> when I started. >> Yeah. I mean, I agree with Andrew. I don't think we we're not in any rush to part with $430,000. >> Yeah. So, I Oh, yeah. So, legal is exploring it all, right? I mean, our our attorneys work for multiple school districts and multiple school districts who are affected by this, right? So, >> you know, we've been in a lot of contact. Gordon, who is our attorney primarily involved in this, was on the call for the DOE yesterday asking questions on the behalf of all school districts, right? But, you know, um because we are in the same place, right? And um trying to figure out figure

080out what all this means and everything. So, um so that's the issue. Do we want I know you want to wait. >> Well, we might as well we might as well start talking preliminarily about I mean December is not, you know, it's right around the corner. So, we might as well get hear your ideas. >> Sure. >> We're not having toilet paper in the schools anymore. That's there. >> So, this uh All right. >> I want to be careful. >> Um there's if we go forward with paying, right? Like we're in a situation where we have no choice. We got to pay. I would advise to avoid interest obviously like that's not helpful. Um, it really comes down to three options and within there there's three different directions to go. The first is a payment

081plan. I don't see any advantage to that, right? We're this is money that we have to come up in massive amounts is there. We got to figure out how we're going to pay it if we're going to pay it, right? It can't be like let's figure out how to pay $50,000 of it now because that's the first month of the payment plan and then go somewhere else. We got to figure it out. But we could develop a payment plan. No one's really sure how that's going to play out with school care. Like again, one of my questions to them is like why can't our bill be due on July 15th? So we could budget for it this year and then cut the check on July 1st, right? Like but we can't like if coverage isn't

082expiring until July in legitimacy, I don't understand why that's not possible. Apparently it's not. So one option is a payment plan and we can explore that. Um the other two options really are this. There is a possibility we could use underspend from the previous year if you have it. So it's not as simple as just taking the money and doing it. One, we have to clear it with our auditors. We have reached out to our auditors. They're open to discussing it. They haven't given us a hard yes. They haven't given us a hard no. But our auditors, again, there's only so many auditing firms in the state. So everyone's asking their auditors the same question for the same situation. and our auditors are open to that being a solution not just for us but for

083any district in that situation. The other option is now there's issues with that. We've said this is what we're returning to the state. We have submitted all of our DOE 10 sorry DOE 25 all of our reporting information already. Our audit is wrapping up as we speak. So that's going to slow that whole process down and it's going to make us reopen our books last year and go through different things. It's not the end it's not the end of the world, but just like instead of us being done with the last fiscal year, we're going back to it. The state has said that if the auditors are comfortable with whatever you do related to that, they will be comfortable with whatever is related to that. And then the third option is we figure out in

084our current budget how to do this. And if we were to legitimately do it in our current budget, the first thing that has to happen is we have to freeze all hiring. It's the number one thing. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, the way you accomplish that is in salary and benefits. We have open positions and use for example, there's a case manager position open at the high school right now, right? We haven't been able to fill it up to this point of the school year. We would be committing to not filling that position for this year. we'd stop advertising for it, stop everything related to it. And there's roughly $100,000 right there. There's other positions, pair of professional positions, other warriors we could look at where we're kind of in a bind because

085from an IEP standpoint, we should be providing this service, but we can't hire anyone for it because no one's applying for it. Where if we just freeze it all, we can generate some money to offset this cost. We cannot cover the entire 432,000, but we could, depending on how you piece that together and which specific positions you freeze, >> um, get a good chunk of it 300 and >> excuse me, >> my my problem with that is that's a lawsuit waiting to happen because we're essentially saying, well, we can only hire for these positions. >> Well, here's the next, right? Heidi mentioned reserve fund, right? Our reserve fund connected to benefits is specifically tied to retirement benefits, right? So like the money we have taken out, we have about 188 $190,000 $190,000 in that reserve

086fund. The language for that reserve fund is that it's specifically tied to the benefits of those who are going to retire. We have the benefit the money sitting in there is tied to individuals and if they were to retire at the end of the year and we use well first we can't anyways but even if for some miracle we could access that fund to take care of this issue we'd just be screwing ourselves when these people retire. So that's not really >> it's definitely robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of thing. But I I guess the language that we have in the Excel spreadsheet to me doesn't make it clear that it's for retirees for the purpose of funding the payment of negotiated employee benefits including but not limited to health insurance reimbursements, changes in

087coverage and policies chosen by employees, severance benefits, and such other benefits as are from time to time negotiated and become contractual obligations of the district. That general language makes me think that it's possible. I don't know that I agree that it's a good idea to do, but I would I mean >> I think it's a better idea than uh cutting, you know, positions. >> Well, it allows us to budget somewhat because if we took if we we have to go through the whole public hearing, we take the money out of it, we can then budget to or have a warrant article in March to replace that money, right? in March, we would have to, but then that way it's money that's coming out that's not necessarily being taken from this year's budget. Again, not advocating.

088>> Well, I'm going to go around similar using a different trust fund here, but a similar idea. >> So, >> different trust fund. >> Yeah. Which one? >> Hear me out. >> Let's hear this one. >> Look, we're not covering every rock here. So >> if we elect to freeze positions and if we focus on special education positions because we have a teacher open there and pair of professionals is the spot where we have the most open positions and we freeze those and we take that money to pay for this. We are sitting on a reserve fund for special education and there's a chance that when if and when we could fill those jobs, we could access that money out of that reserve fund to pay for those jobs. >> Yeah. But I mean that

089that reserve fund is there for if one student comes into the district. >> It is none of these are good options. I'm just telling you. >> I mean here here's my concern with here's my concern, right? We have a legal obligation to deliver services. I think if we are I I don't know that it's been tested, but I would imagine that if you are sued for not delivering services, if you literally cannot find a single person to provide those, that I don't even know if that's a viable defense that, but what I would think would not be a viable defense was we couldn't find someone and we reallocated the funds. Like that seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I I don't see that being a good, >> but you know, it could it could

090be worse. I just Googled uh you know, poor Claremont who's $5 million in the hall. Theirs is $870,000. >> I don't know how they do it. >> I will tell you. >> I mean, the And then >> I I do think you got to go by about not hiring people, right? Like you talk you start picking off the jobs that you can do that too, right? One of the things we could look at is reorganizing facilities, right? Like we have contracted services that we're utilizing right now for some custodial services. Um it, you know, trying to, you know, make lemonade out of lemons here, right? Like do we really we've we sat down today and we really started looking at that we have open positions in custodial. We have money aside for contracted services is

091there's some combination of stuff there. We were working on something that produces some money there. I don't think we're ready to reveal it to the world because we want to, you know, double check everything before we're saying we commit >> that contracted services that that's intentional, right? To >> I know, but like if you just lock into that and we eliminate custodial positions, there might be a savings there. It's not going to cover all this, but like it starts covering some of it. What have we? >> But we lose the advantages of our people and we're going to lose services >> related to custodial services that our contracted people do a nice job with what they're supposed to do which is >> well we also just dug ourselves out of the hole of having a

092real hard time hiring people because they were like ready to >> right >> jump off a cliff trying to keep >> that's what I mean like if you go down that road we're we're totally changing the way >> what have we pulled where where does the money from the trust fund for employee benefits what is typically pulled for and how much are we typically pulling annually? >> So, that's a relatively new fund. It was just created in 2023, so it's only two years old. It has the balance is 187,000. I'm sorry, 190,000 as of August. >> Have we pulled anything from it in the past? >> You do when people retire. >> So, it's specifically associated with retirement. And so when we have people that have planned retirements, we put in the money at the

093end of the year where you typically incumber it, right? Yeah. >> And then put it into this account. So when they do retire, we already have that money set aside without having to budget it year over year over year in case they do not retire. >> But it's paying out like what? Unpaid, unused sick time. >> Severance. Yes. >> Anything connected to it, right? Could be severance. It could be >> uh some sort of unused sick time. could be whatever is in their retirement package that we can budget for in advance. That's what's in there. For some people, it's like $2,000. For some people, it's significantly more. You know, I think it's all depend on >> So, we created I we we created that to stop the the es and flows. Right. >> Right. And

094to stop having to budget for it every year in the event that somebody is plann retiring and that does not retire. >> Right. Can you remind me how much we are with year-end funds from last year? We were going to return we have that is going to be returned to taxpayers >> unless something happens. >> It's over a million dollars. So, >> but we had already but we've already talked about >> encumbering some >> we did all that like even after all that >> there was still >> but after the reserve accounts the real number was approximately 800,000 >> but so there's money there >> you cover it with that. Yes. Yeah. So if you go through an audit says okay and everyone you again you you laid the if foundation there's a lot of

095things that would need to line up and happen >> but if it is determined that using year-end funds is a way that could pay this yes it would be a lot of work on having all of our documents done already with the audit and whatnot. I guess I'm not. What's the downside? Because taxpayers are going to pay for this either way. >> In theory, they're well, unless we can scrge it together. And the only way they're not really paying for it, they're going to pay for it long term is if we scrge around for it right now, right? So, if we like use this trust, a default budget, like how do we scrge on a default budget? >> If we use our reserve fund for this, right, like 190 for that, and say you scrge

096for the remaining 240 of that, right? You have to I mean this money is like designated for something right not this but this money I understand we're going to have to replace >> so we need to at a minimum put that in I mean to budget I don't think we can chance that as a warn article like you got to put that in the budget next year so you are going to pay for it right like >> now taking it out of the reserves the thing is is you're going to lower what we're returning which will increase the hypothetical tax rate right like what it is we have not there's not a public tax rate One of the reasons is cuz this is here right now and everyone's kind of sitting >> figure out figure

097this out, right? Like this is going to delay tax rates across the state, right? Because >> sure >> people need an answer to this. This is not small pennies, right? >> So if we were to go down the road of using our underspend last year to do this, like we need to redo everything which is going to delay the tax rate. >> Understood. >> Um but like everyone is aware of that. So that everyone's holding holding off for this exact moment, right? Like >> um now the the this is one expense. So the redoing of all the paperwork, not to put too much pressure on Julie right here, >> um it's one expense that you're changing everything for. Like there is multiple formulas connected to it and transferring in and out, but it's not like

098it's a hundred expenses that you now have to re redo. >> It's a lot. But either way, it's a lot of work. But again, to me, I guess if it turns out that it is an option after all of those hoops have gone through, to me that seems to me early on that seems like the best option. >> What at what point do we have to definitively decide that to get the t to have the tax rate set in time? >> The sooner you can decide that, >> the sooner that decision is made, then everything else falls. >> It's it's out of our hands at this point whether this is even allowed. >> No, I get that. But I mean my my my I guess the basis of my question is you know how how

099long do we that that's a process. How long >> do we really have no other option than to just we have to go down that process because of time. So well you have op you always have options right like if this didn't hadn't occurred right we've submitted our DOE25 our tax rate would be computing right now as we speak right like that's what would be happening at the state level come out the tax bills come out December 1st right >> and like picking on ourselves we were new last year right so we were slow with the DOE 25 remember it was like mid November when we got that out >> so our tax rate in Lichfield came out later Yeah, >> right. We were on time this year. We're good, right? Like got everything in

100ready. So our tax rate would be ready at at, you know, before December 1st. So all that stuff would be going out at that point. But now we might be delaying when that goes in because of everything that has to tackle. Now, if we were to do that, the board needs to vote and approve that, right? I don't think you're going to vote and approve to do that tonight. I would advise you to think about this and allow us to do some other things as well, but I think we would need to be prepared at the next board meet if to have that vote whether that was the final decision or not. But if we were going to take it out of underspend, we would probably want to do that vote at the next board

101meeting. So then we can do it, take it out of under spend, submit all the records with it, >> do it through the auditors, do it through the state. >> Yep. >> And the tax rate can still come up in a reasonable time for everyone to collect taxes. >> How can we do that vote if we don't have an answer from the >> Well, we're hoping we get the answer, right? I mean, that's >> you're hoping over the next couple of weeks we'll have kind of a definitive yes or no. >> That's my hope. Yeah, I was hoping to have it tonight. I don't. Okay. But like that's what you know my last correspondence with Gordon is that it's fast flowing and like they're moving this as quickly as they can but they're >> they

102don't it helps that we're not the only district dealing with >> Yeah. Just look there's like 65 districts. So I mean the state's going to have to >> what they decide is going to have to be able to work for other districts as well. >> Right. I mean in the union lead I think it was union leader today. I don't think it was the monitor. You know, they quoted Scanland, the secretary of state, who's said that school care is handling us this correctly. So, that doesn't bode well that there's some illegality to what they're doing, right? Because he was very critical of how was handling all of their stuff, right? So, the fact that he has I don't know him. I don't know any, you know, any of this, but like just reading that article,

103>> he said that school care was doing the best they could with the situation, which doesn't make me optimistic that our lawyers are going to find some magic answer to this that gets us out. >> I don't know that we're going to find a magic answer, but I think the bigger problem that we have right now is that we owe it to the taxpayers to figure out a better solution than this. Um >> now what we could do informing you of all this told you some obviously behind the scenes we've worked on various scenarios we have not presented those specific scenarios to you tonight because they're not ready right we need to have this general discussion first and get kind of your feel on everything like that I would advise that at our next meeting

104two weeks from now we present you options right like this if we were to go through a freeze of hiring etc like we can freeze other things as well. But again, we're talking large quantities of money. It's it's salary and benefits. That's how you accomplish that. This is what that would look like, right? If we did it out of our budget, this is that scenario or different options if you did it out of our budget. This is what the answer is, definite answer. Could we use that reserve fund tied to benefits? Right. Um, I thought that we wouldn't be able to, but when you read it aloud like that and I was processing it in real time, I was like, maybe there is an avenue there. like if you know this is kind of an

105unprecedented situation, maybe that can be a viable option for us, right? That changes the calculus on the money. Can we do a little bit of all of it, right? Like if we could take some of that reserve fund, take some of the underspend last year, maybe take a little bit out of our budget this year. So it feels like we're trying our best to not hit everything, you know, or hit one particular thing. Maybe it's a combination of all those factors that together to kind of cover the cost of it. But I think telling you about the situation now, um I hadn't mentioned this yet, but Andrew, you asked me to reach out to see if they'd be willing to talk to the board there, as you can imagine, talking to everybody. So, they could

106do like a 30 minute Zoom if you wanted, you know. um you just let them know date and time and that stuff like that if you're interested in talking to them directly and asking some of these pointed questions to them specifically. Um so we can set that up in the next two weeks too to help you kind of process it all and stuff like that. But I think our next step is continue to seek the legal answers that we're going for and come up with the options of how we could legitimately pay for this if that's where we end up with all this and legal says we have to. So, >> and explore every other potential insurance option. >> Yeah. I mean, that's obviously ongoing right now. So, I mean, I think the timing I

107mean timing of this is horrible. The timing to totally revamp our insurance. I mean, we're going to finish a budget in less than a month now. You know, like it's going to be hard to get a conf then >> so >> health insurance. I mean, >> you know, we obviously have the stress of if we if we're going to do underspend, we have tight timelines on that. If that wasn't the case in terms of this December 31st deadline. I'm I'm guessing that they because they don't have reserves, there's going to be claims that need to be paid out, which is why they probably have to why they're setting this deadline. But I would venture to guess that they've oh I should this would be a stupid thing to venture to guess since they clearly don't

108buffer for things but they may have buffered some time on that and I would I wonder if the you know districts the 65 districts that are being asked for money band together and say you need to do better on this deadline there's we're not or we're all just going to figure something else out and maybe we can at least buy a little more time. >> Yeah. I mean the like the good and bad of well there's no good um it's no good September is the worst time to hear this because we have no idea of the rest of the year yet right like as you approach the end of the year you get an idea of your under spin right like and you can be a little bit more flexible in knowing where where money

109is we're going to finish off with mud money we're just starting the school year there's so much unknown of like what there's not because we budget and we project and we do all these things but like you know if we go the whole year without the special educator at the high school it's easy then they use that money in gym right but like we need that person you know like so >> well let's figure out options right >> I think the plan is good yeah >> so I I just my final thought on this and then we'll move on for tonight right is it really is unfortunate for Lichfield in particular this year yes for all the reasons mentioned but also because it was an assessment year this year, >> right? And that money, that

110$800 or so thousand dollars that we returned was going to at least help offset some of that tax rate, right? And if the idea here is potentially that we can pull back some of that money to offset this bill, then it's just less that's going against the tax rate. So either way, >> it's just it's hurting taxpayers, right? Either way. So, we'll figure we'll figure this out in the next couple weeks, it sounds like, or certainly in the next several weeks. >> Yeah, >> more to come, as some said. >> I'm not saying. >> All right. Well, thank you for the update and uh >> yeah, I'd be very interested in meeting with them. >> Yeah, I can set up. We can arrange times through uh for >> Yeah, I'll join you. >> Yeah. Um

111I'm going to shift to happier stuff now. I need to just do happy after this. So well happy and then maybe some not as happy. All right, robotics grants. You see two robotics grants. We got secured one for GMS, one for CHS so far. Keep working on some others and LMS here. Hopefully that will come too. Um but we asked the board to accept these grants so we can take the funds and then ex spend them on robotics. We need every dollar we can get for everything right now. So >> I'll make a motion to accept the grants. >> Okay. So, we have a grant for Griffin Memorial in the amount of $6,710 and a grant for Campbell High School in the amount of $7,500. We have a motion by Mr. Shoemaker. >> We have

112a second by Miss >> Um, additional discussion. >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed? That carries 30. These are fantastic. Thank you. >> Excellent. Uh, thank you for those who worked on it too at GMS and Ces. Great. Um, next thing, CIP. We talked about this last meeting. Uh we have our CIP meeting in two Mondays from now uh where we're coming back with updating CIP plan from the school district standpoint. So this is uh we have forms too, but this is the summary on a spreadsheet here again using on-site insight as kind of the guidance. They were asking us to condense that down um to uh through 2031. So we did that for them. Um the estimated costs here are based upon the on-site insight values. One of

113the things they asked us to do is to identify some of those things that could impact fees could be associated with. So when we ask to request those impact fees, we're tying it to something on their CIP plan. So we identified um some of the exterior work at CHS, we can be a little flexible in the years. We put fiscal year 27 for now to give us a little time to figure that out till next year. Um that that would be something that would be good for the impact fees at the high school is to take care of some of that exterior work. um and wear and tear of the building. And then we've left um the LMS in 28, but again, we can move that a little bit. We just need to get it

114on this list. We just left it for for purposes here in 28 uh while we work on that. And that could be something we could use impact fees to kind of cover as well. The other big thing that we have talked about last year, this year, and everything is the roof, etc. project at at Campbell 5 years from now when the roof's hitting 30 years old down in 2031. Um that package stuff is about $2 million. Um we're projecting out to be about $2 million. So we're getting that on the CIP as well. We're going to remove the um field and the lights, the turf field and the lights off of the CIP. I hope people are okay with that. I think these are bigger priorities for the district. um obviously keeping uh GMS related

115project on the CIP and then um we'll talk about solar in a few moments but general improvements roughly we budget about 125 when you go through it all together and that aligns with the on-site insight report um and then solar solar and we'll talk more in detail about that in a few moments >> since it just came up on here um in terms of information regarding the LMS parking lot where are we at with that process in terms like I know we were >> requested quote from Continental and we we we just backed off because we weren't going to do it with end of the year funds last year. So, we haven't sat back down with them to get the official quote and stuff like that. >> But, do we know are we going to

116need like engineering and stuff like that ahead? >> That's what we're we're waiting to hear back from them. They've come and they've done an assessment of it and stuff like that. They'll give us their recommendation for it and stuff like that. Actually, know if we got >> We are going to circle back to it. Um we have not forgotten about it, >> but we just have not yet. Okay. Any questions on >> I'm assuming we're now moving into the thing they said maybe not so fun. >> Yes, solar. >> Great. Uh uh for transparency sake, I'll give you an update right now and then I'm going to talk about legal stuff and not public with you around solar because uh we met yesterday uh with K from Dynamic Grid. We had our legal counsel with

117us to talk about the lack of progress on um the solar project. Uh I'll be frank uh I did not appreciate the answers I was getting in return um with delays connected to all of this and stuff like that. Um so we talked with our legal council about some action steps we can take in regards to that program. So we've outlined some some musthaves we need out of dynamic grid. The first is to meet with our fire department next week to go over the plans, the updated plans for the storage system to make sure that they're comfortable with it because there has been changes from what the original plan was for that. The contract does allow that, but at the same time, we're not going to do something that's unsafe into our middle school. So,

118we told them it had to be done by the end of next week. And at least that meeting is being set up. The response was sent to our fire department. We have emergency management. We'll go over that stuff with them tomorrow morning and that's the first step to that. Uh we have asked once that meeting has concluded so let's just say for argument sake next Friday um within two weeks we have a drop dead deadline on when the storage is coming. Um and then if that drop deadline is not met we've outlined the legal actions we will be pursuing um as part of that to remedy the situation >> that was outlined 2K with our legal counsel there. >> Yes. So uh we and like delivered, installed >> and installed. Yeah, we want we want

119the exact date and no no more of it. So, uh I will talk to the board and and non-public everyone because there's some things they need to be aware of and be comfortable with the steps that we're going to take on that. But, um right now we believe that the contract is being defaulted on and that we have some leverage in how to address that. So, >> okay, any other questions? I I'm shocked they're still in business. Like, how are people still using them? >> It's beyond frustrating. Thank you for having that day. >> Um, I was mean, too. Right. >> Thank you. I don't put on my mean high school principal face. Um, uh, another happy thing that came in like literally like an hour before the board meeting. I need to exit out

120of solar was a happy thing. Hey, look, you're taking us on a wild ride. Look, it's an adventure. Ryan's here. I got to put on a show for him. So, um, >> doing great. >> Thanks. Uh, so right before we got here, uh, Lauren told me we got, uh, nice donation to the food service, $200 from, um, someone in our community. Hold on one sec. I want to get the name right. Um, from Karen Burr in our community who donated to help offset um, you know, costs of food services, specifically you know, meals for um, students who may be struggling to cover their their deficit and stuff when it comes to school lunches. So, we want to thank Karen uh for that lovely donation. We weren't expecting it or anything like that. Just showed up

121today with the check and uh gave it to Lauren. And so, uh we have to inform you of donations. So, I wanted to inform the inform the board and thank >> public. Thank you. That's great. >> That is it for me. >> Leaving it on a high note right there. >> I'm glad that one came in at the last second. I'm like, good. I can get out of here. >> So, just watching time, right, and recognizing our student representatives. Is everyone okay if they welcome to stick around? But you're also welcome to call it if you'd like. So >> they don't know what to do yet. >> Wait, is this actually Is this Are you baiting us? >> You're welcome to leave and enjoy the rest of your evening or you're welcome to stay and

122hang out for the rest of our meeting tonight. It's up to you. >> There is going to be a conversation about AP courses later on. So is there any do can we move that up maybe so that they >> they already made their choice. They're >> all go enjoy your nights. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Have a good evening. Thank you. >> You too. All right, we'll turn it over to uh business administer Darling for an update. >> All right. All right. So, obviously it's been a very busy couple weeks um with lots of things going on and um right now um as far as the budget goes, of course, we are being very cautious with our spending even though we're not implementing a hard freeze. We are um

123being very mindful of our spending um for anything that's non- essential um until we make a final decision of course on school care payment. Um, with regard to the DOE25, as Brian mentioned a couple times, it has been submitted. Um, so, um, what the during the call yesterday that we had with the Department of Education, they were basically saying that, um, there's usually a cover sheet that goes with the, um, DOE25 that the school board needs to sign off on when you submit it. And they're waiting on receiving those until all districts make their decision on what they're doing um, so before everything is finalized. So once that um once we've made that decision, I'll I'll bring that to you for for approval. Um and that will be the same thing with the DRRA as

124well, actually in the in the reports that go to them. Um with regard to the Prime program through Primex, I just want to let you know that we're continuing working on that certification. Um two policies that we have up for review tonight for first and second read are connected to um that certification that um that we need to have those policies in place. So, um that will continue and I'll let you know uh once we have approval hopefully on that certification to get uh further discounts. >> Okay. How are we doing with the upcoming budget? >> It is in process. We It's due um all the department heads and administrators will have their budgets to me by u Friday this week. Um Brian and I will and the superintendent and I will meet with um

125administrators um the following week. Um and we're on target. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Feeling good about it. >> Yeah. >> I I want to commend Julie. She's in her second year and we don't have to go over her whole history, but we threw her in the deep end last year. >> Um and uh like using the DOE as like a catalyst here. Just like it went so much smoother this year. Like we're so we're on time with it. Everything's going great. Um you're doing a great job in your second year like just managing everything. And uh uh I'm really proud of how the financials are going right now. We're doing We're in good shape for it all. So, it's good. >> We'll look forward to that budget season starting and >> and that's always fun,

126too. >> I'm sure Julie's looking forward to that. >> All right. Anything else? Any questions? >> All right. Turn it over to Dr. Dr. Taylor for curriculum. >> All right. I think this is like the least I'm ever going to talk, so which is really hard for me. Um but um there's just been a lot going on and but um something that I wanted to update everybody about is the um the state notified us um at the um a couple weeks ago that we are getting monitored for all our ESSA grants. So that's title one, title two, and title four. Um, so I've already started working through some of the things um and reaching out to other districts who have been monitored. I'm already part of a Southeast group that has been talking about their

127monitoring process and I went to a grants um conference last week and I actually talked to the head of the grants department up there and they said, "Hey, so fun us good job." Um so there will they're coming um March 5th um to kind of look at our policies, procedures and everything relative to um ESSA grants. So fun times. We're also getting monitored for SAS too. So like woo. It's exciting times for CIA. I'm very happy about it. >> I can tell. >> She says sarcastically. Not at all. No. No. it'll be fine. But um yeah, but they flagged it cuz we're all new SAU administrators, so they're like >> we're going to go check you out. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, but >> yeah. So, >> all right. Well, thank you. >> Yeah, >>

128appreciate it. Any questions? >> Oh, math vertical alignments next week. So, anybody that wants to sub, we need subs. Middle school needs subs. Um, so just putting out the all call next Thursday, October 9th. >> Okay. October 9th. Subs. Got it. >> Y. >> All right. Uh, public from September 17th, 2025. >> I wasn't here. >> You weren't here and we can't vote. So, those are going to get tabled to the next meeting. Uh, for new business, we have a request to actually move >> AP course waiting and exams up to business. You okay with that, Matt? >> Yeah, that's fine. >> All right. So can we just make that update? Yeah. Talk about that now. >> Um so we uh had had someone reach out last year uh with a question uh in regards

129so if you click on that first link the program of studies and you go to page 11 um and this is related to our AP courses and uh for those who don't know we our courses at the high school honors have a 0.5 um um bump and then AP courses and and college dual enrollment courses have a onepoint bump associated with them. Um so in the program of studies and what has been procedure at the high school um is to receive the GPA bump up to that AP ex the amount that a student has to take the AP exam to take it. And the logic with that being is that the the class is preparing you for the exam and you need to finish it off by taking the exam to get the throw the

130full AP experience. Right? So that has been in there. Uh we had a parent, it it was a fine situation, talked to the parent, we were all okay, everything worked out, but a parent reached out last year just with questions regarding that procedure. Um and uh whether we were comfortable with that. Um so I think we talked about it ever so briefly last year at a board meeting with the idea we would bring it back this year to have a longer conversation about our feelings about that procedure. Um if we were to change it, we can change it. It's not in a policy anywhere. So, this is something we can update uh through conversation. We have not signed kids up for AP exams yet. So, um that will be happening um over the next monthish

131of time, give or take. Um so, this is an appropriate time to have that conversation. Um we don't have to change it. We can change it. We can just talk about it. We can ask for additional information, whatever the case may be, but to just put it back on our radars and have a talk about it. So, >> so it may come as a shock to you. I was not in AP courses. So um you have to take the test in order for it to count for college, right? For colleges to recognize it. >> For it to possibly count, right? So like possibly count. >> Yeah. So like the the rule of thumb is you need at least a qualifying school score which is a three, four or five before a college would consider taking

132the credit, right? >> And even then it's ultimately up to the college whether or not they're going to take the credit. Um from my experiences it it ranges like what colleges will accept an AP credit, what they will accept it for, so on and so forth. Um, some colleges, for example, may take and reward you a gened credit for the AP, but not necessarily to replace a um, like degree program or something like that. I did not take AP calculus in high school. Um, but I will use that as an example. So, for example, um if I took AP calculus and took the exam and got a five on it, um some schools uh like UNH, for example, would give credit for that and you would skip calc 1 and be able to take calc

1332 and that would that would be fine. Um a different school such as, and I've seen this in my experience, such as MIT will not take that and say you have to go through our program. That's nice. will give you a gened math credit, but we're not going to allow you to skip ahead to calculus 2 because we want you to take take our calculus class. You're really at the mercy of the college and what they want to do for that. >> Um, but the general rule of thumb is you need that qualifying score 345 to do it. Um, and there's debate on an AP class. What is the point of an AP class? I don't mean to make it that simple, but is the AP class the enriching subject area or is it preparing

134you to take an exam? Like, and that's kind of a back and forth. In a perfect world, it's both, right? You're having a wonderful experience and you're ready to take that exam in May, but the AP class is geared around that exam. Like the curriculum is aligned and building you to that exam. So, in a lot of people's opinion, it's a it's an important part of that experience taking this high stakes assessment on the curriculum that you have learned there. >> So, I have another question. So putting the exam aside >> an AP course you know in terms of compar as compared to like a non-AP course. >> Yep. >> Is there this is going to sound stupid but what is the difference in in workload? Is there what are there are they taking other

135exams like? >> Yep. Great question. I think every course is different. I think the short answer is an AP class is a higher level of rigor and curriculum than an average class, right? Because you're taking it a lot of AP classes now, especially our dual enrollment classes, which have to follow along with college curriculum, right? Many AP courses do both at the same time. So, you can get a dual enrollment credit for the course and you can also do it through the AP exam. We were just having this conversation because Julie's uh kiddo is in an AP class on on how to approach that. Um, so again, depending on where you're looking to apply that credit in the future, you people need to reach out to colleges that they're interested in to get direct answers.

136U, but there's advantages to the dual enrollment and the AP, but the short answer is an AP or a dual enrollment course is doing curriculum that's at the college level versus the high school level. So I guess if the you know if the workload is equivalent to a college level and there's you know it's not I guess my concern would be if they're not if there's not some like you know big the exam is like a big culminating piece of that right um in college that was I don't think I ever had a class that I didn't have a final in. So as long as I think as long as there was that level of workload then that's what you're getting the bump for. Right. Uh, so I would just want to be sure that

137that was actually the case. >> Yeah, I think that, you know, in different schools handled this differently, right? And I' I've worked at different schools in different school districts. Uh, Timberlain, for example, or they did when I was there. I don't know if they still do this, but when I was there, the school district paid for the AP exams. So, it was a requirement for every kid to take the exam because they budgeted for that. Right. At BO, it was a not a requirement, but the vast majority kids did it. But a lot of them but there were others who didn't as well right you know it was a personal choice whether or not they >> did they get the GPA bump at >> there's no way to grades at both so that is a

138different conversation right >> um so like that would take it or leave it. I mean, you want kids to take the AP exam one because you want to see how they did, right? Like if you're teaching the class effectively and it's a good indicator and uh you know, if you're the teacher and you take pride, you want your kids to do well, you want to see that. You want to highlight their success and stuff like that. And there is value in taking that level of an exam. It does mimic the rigor of a of a college exam, a college final, particularly if you're going to take a course down the road that might be midterm final. It like that's your grade in college, right? like this is an experience for that. There's a cost associated

139with AP exams. Um I forget what they are. >> What is the check? >> $110. >> 110. Julie just wrote the check. $110. >> Um and so it like any school district if a kid does not have the ability to cover that fund. If a family is in a situation where they're they're struggling with that, we will take care. There's avenues to take care of that. Whether it's through College Board AP to take care of that, whether it's from other resources that we have a school from a school district, we take care of kids who are in a situation that they cannot afford an exam. So that hopefully is never a reason why a kid's opting not to take take an exam. Um because we can we can work around that. That's not shouldn't be

140a hurdle. So I think it comes down to if we feel it is a required um experience for that course then it's something that should be tied to the GPA weight. If it's something you that we don't think is a required experience for the AP course then then there shouldn't be a different whether you take the exam or not your weight is dependent on it if that makes sense. So >> sorry to dominate the questions but I have no >> they're good questions. Um, so this is gonna sound really silly, but uh you know how with lunch if the kids don't take the fruit and vegetable like we get penalized? >> Yep. >> Is there anything like that with all of us? >> Is there anything like that with like like is there any like

141is there any well like you know grants or stuff like that? Is there any thing that ties to like if a certain number of kids take that there's a benefit to the district as a whole? >> Nope. Nope. Okay. Like and you know I we'll say this at Timberland it is rare because usually kids who are taking AP courses are vested in their academics like rarely is there that that different right but like at a Timberlane when all when it was a required element you would see kids once in a while blow off the test so they're not going to score. So, when you look at an average for a class, like it might be one or two kids who did not invest their time and energy into it, which means they're getting a one

142on the exam, which means it's lowering your school average for that exam. >> I don't think that I I think that's irrelevant. You know, it's it is what it is, right? You know, um that's not a reason not to require something because you're worried about a kid. Like, that's rare. There aren't many kids. >> Who chooses that workload? And I was like, ah, >> right. My kids >> kids do crazy things like you know, >> there's a fair amount of student I don't want to say fair amount. I think the number of students was on the rise who wanted the GPA bump but didn't want to take the exam. So they wanted to have the higher weighted extra point on their GPA super smart really intelligent kids that do fine in the class and do

143great in the class but then don't take the high stakes test. And so this policy, my understanding, was put into place to sort of deter the sole motivation being to take an AP class for an AP bump. Uh I'm sorry, a GPA bump, but rather to have to go through all of the rigor that AP um classes culminate to, which is the test. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me it just boils down to is it is it actually college equivalent if you're not having that sort of benchmark at the end? >> Yeah. >> I mean, they don't get any credit. I mean, they're learn it's an AP class, right? So, I mean, I think the teachers could weigh in to say, you know, is a kid who's not taking the AP exam trying harder

144than a kid who is taking the AP exam. >> I mean, the grade still going on their transcript, right? So, like you would to think the effort is there on the dayto-day for the grade, right? And most AP courses there are high assessments built into the the actual course because you're preparing them for that ultimate high assessment at the end of it. Right? >> So I do I the argument for like the weight shouldn't be tied to it is you are putting all this work to maintain your actual grade in the class the entire way through. Right. >> But if you get a B in that class, you're still getting an A because you have the extra point there. >> Well, well, but my my concern with that though was like you know you go

145through a college course, right? And that's all well and good. You put the work in the whole time. But I think every one of my college courses at the end there was something that was worth like 50% of my grade, right? So, so if I didn't if I was just like, "Yeah, but I'm not going to do that though." Like I'm just going to I I worked hard the rest of the time, >> that doesn't really meet the spirit of a college course to me. And I think people just have different opinions on whether that exam is an essential part of the course, right? And >> and that's okay. >> Yeah. I actually don't have like a passionate one way or the other, right? Um I would encourage every kid to take the exam. You

146did all the work. You might as well see how you did on the exam. It's two hours of your life. Like it's not the end of the world. Um but also I understand like the course is what's like really important. The learning is go is what you're doing is the important part. Um but like I understand that it the exam is an experience that kids need to have to prepare for college. And if we want to say that's an intricral part of this course, then I'm comfortable with that as well. You know, >> how many kids are in AP? Sorry, did you have a question? >> No. >> Oh, how many kids are in that? >> Awesome that I um >> Yeah, >> I caught you my snuck in. >> Yeah, I've been here. >>

147Yeah. No. >> Um >> ballpark, right? Is it? >> Yep. Ballpark. Yep. Um hold. I can get that information exactly for you. Just can you just give me a second? No worries. >> Sick kid at home from >> 20. >> We're talking about 100 exams, I would guess, right? Like you might have kids taking multiple exams, right? But like let's say a school of your size, you're probably taking about quarter of the kids. So let's say about 100 exams, right? That was the math at the other schools. >> And some are taking multiple. >> Some are taking multiple, right? You know, um a high-end kid might be taking like four or five in a given year. Maybe a kid's testing it out and taking one, you know, depending on where they are, what their desire

148is, >> and they can take it junior year. >> I mean, here's here's the thing. They can take it, right? With the policy the way it is, they can take it. They just don't get the bump if they won't get the bump. >> So, >> there you go. That's easy enough. >> If you're doing it for the educational experience, >> then you're doing it for the educational experience. >> Question for you. >> Sure. >> If that's okay. If while Val's looking. So would in your mind then like or just thinking about it, would it be okay then for a kid to do all the AP work which can be super strenuous which can be demanding which has them doing summer work sometimes right and then taking the test just to get the bump but then

149cuz we aren't going to be able to like analyze whether or not the score was because they truly did try and still only got like a two or if they just went to the test and decided they were gonna not really care because they they can still get the bump. And then the kid who maybe could have got a five or a six, but for whatever reason, whether it's financial or just not thinking ahead at the time, like I've had a lot of kids in the past be like, "Oh man, I really wish I was taking the AP test." And it's too late cuz you have to register. They have deadlines and like >> I'm accepted payments are due by November 1st. >> Right. So now, so like right now when I've barely even started

150the class and gotten to the stuff that I might be really great at, I have to decide if I want to take that test. And like I just I don't know. I I think it the way our policy reads or the procedure, whatever, it it's I I don't love it. It doesn't personally sit good for me from like an equity standpoint for a number of ways. That said, if we're going to try to budget, if we're going to make the everybody take the test cuz it's part of the whole experience, it's really hard to budget for that because you have to guess. Like I would have to be guessing now how many kids I think might be taking an AP test next spring. >> That's why that's why I'm asking the question. >> 55. 55.

151We have 55 kids taking tests this year, >> right? >> But don't we >> 55 kids, but how many tests does that equate to? >> We could do we could get them. >> Those are 55. Those are tests. >> Okay. >> So, right. >> Last year was so we have an honors line. Last year was last year, >> right? But we might have like there but how would I wouldn't know right now? >> I we would right this minute. It would be really hard to know how many kids would want to take it like would want to do it next year. It's a hard thing to budget for. >> I would not I I will say I would advocate to not budget for that because like >> are we talking about budgeting from the perspective

152of us paying for it? >> I think I for my kids. >> No, no, I understand that but >> I don't think that's something we >> we're talking about budgeting right now. Well, I think that the argument is if if we like Timberland's philosophy, they budgeted for it, so you're taking it like we have taken care like the district's philosophy on that was like this is required for anyone who takes an AP kid and we feel so strongly about it. We will pay for your >> Well, but we're saying this is required if you want the GPA box, correct? >> And I don't love that because I just gave you a situation where I could work my B. I could do all the work in the class >> and for whatever reason I don't have

153the money. I'm embarrassed. I don't want to. I don't think I'm a good test taker. I had a bad day. I forgot the deadline. Whatever. So, I don't sign up to take the test. >> The only the only part of that that's compelling to me is the I don't have the money piece, which we've already talked about that, right? Right. Like >> my my opinion is if we we have an honors level, you can do that, right? or we have an AP level which like I my my problem is that I did not go to a single college course or college where they said to me yeah and if you just don't think you're going to do well on the final you don't have to take it right and that's that's my problem is like

154if you want to go if you want you could go to honors or if you're feeling really you know energetic you could go to AP but if you want that if you want the reward for really achieving the full experience of what an AP course is designed for then you should be going through the whole component of it for that bump. We're talking about a bump, right? >> Correct. >> But you >> for the bump. If you want the bump. >> So you take the test, but you you're taking the test and then mandating that families pay for it. >> If they want a GPA bump, >> then don't take the class. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> If they want a GPA bump, >> but my point is they can sign up to take the

155test. They don't care about the money or their parents are paying for it. So it's like, ah, whatever. And they still get the GPA bump. I guess my point is is a kid could theoretically get the GPA bump and blow the test off either way, right? Sure. Or and there's but the the classwork doesn't change. So the kid who takes the test >> I think the discussion is is that the exam itself a a core component of the course. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> I think if the answer is yes, then you have to then if that's going to be our our answer, then you got to take the exam to get the I'm going to come at this from a different perspective, which is to say we have a handbook. We approved this handbook

156in August and kids signed up for classes with their handbook knowing this policy. So for me, in terms of changing a policy mid year that we have had, I don't think now, not that I don't I think we should have the discussion. I'm not at all saying not to have the discussion. I don't think we should be changing things midy year and that if the conversation amongst CHS administrators is we want to take it a different approach to this then to me the time to approach that would be over the summer and with the handbook next August >> program of studies I think yeah no but no but you're right yeah program of studies whatever it is but that's where it should that's when the timeliness of it to me because if kids are picking

157their classes and already know this I mean again the other issue with that particular parent situation was there was concern about not knowing that that that this was and I don't necessarily agree with that. >> I I I trying to protect parent a little bit. >> No, I understand. But I think that there's been a great job done particularly this year with getting out efforts to parents and to families to make sure they know. Um so that concern I think has been addressed. And then in terms of changing a policy or a I'm sorry, not a policy because I should use the right word, a practice mid year, I would prefer to wait until next year till it's time to review. So that's my thought. >> And just money has never been an issue for

158a kid. Like we have done reduction in fees, we've done free fe. So I have been in my 5 years I've never had a kid come to me and be like I can't afford to take you figure it out. So that's never been a concern. Um well so I I guess since we just went through this whole exercise now given that it I agree that it shouldn't be changed for this year but you know it's going to go forward and there's going to be a discussion be had. There's three of us here now that like I I'm definitively in the mindset of if you want that extra bump, you should be taking the test. You're more than welcome to take the class and get the experience and all that other stuff. You just don't get

159the extra benefit of of it reflecting as if you did the full college experience. >> I understand your point. I'm disappointed though because this was a discussion point and my understanding was we were trying to make a change for this year, right? So, I think that's a miss. If we were trying to get this done for this year and if that's the board decision and we're going to wait a whole another year, I think that's that's change. >> Well, so let me ask you, is your is your opinion that it should be changed? >> Yeah, I think we should man I I I think that we should enforce the tests. >> Isn't that what we do already? >> What we do already is what we >> What are we changing in this? >> We're not

160I think we're saying we're not going to >> we're going to keep it the same. >> That like I think we're having the discussion of whether or not we agree with what is currently in place, right? which is >> So what is your point about what needs to change? >> I just wonder if if for next year, not for this year. This year, I agree. It's too late. Like we already started, we're five weeks into school. Um and the ad drop is all done. I was looking for Val. Um, but I think we should consider if we just say if you're going to take an AP class, you're going to take the test because I think both side like both groups of people could take advantage of the situation. So, why not make them all

161take it anyway? So, like like I gave you my scenario like I'm a kid. I'm take sure I'm taking the test. I'm getting that GPA bump. >> Well, so >> I'm still going to blow off the test cuz I don't like taking tests. The only the only reason why I wouldn't take it that far is because if there is that one kid who is too embarrassed to talk about the money side of it, I don't want to put the parent in that position. So like I think that's I agree with you like I would like to do that. If it was free I would say by all means. Uh that's where I think you know I know that there's assistance for it but if there's someone who's just too embarrassed to have that conversation I

162don't want to put them in that position. >> Okay. So right now current policy is if you want the GPA bump you need to take the test. The window for signing up for the class for the test is currently up now up until November 1st. So any student who is registered for or taking an AP class right now can if they want the GPA bump go ahead and sign up for the test. >> All currently registered for the test except for the classes that are dual enrollment classes >> which is separate. There's that's a separate thing. So those classes, it's our computer courses. They can take like AP programming two or three. That's a dual enrollment class. So they opt for the dual enrollment. They still have a project they have to do, but that's

163like the the college equivalent. So those kids typically have not taken the AP exam because it's the college level dual enrollment course. Every single other student that is registered for an AP class is signed up to take the test right now. They haven't paid yet. Those letters are going out Monday, but they're signed up. They're saying yes. >> So, we're not So, they're not like surprised by this. It's being communicated at the beginning. >> So, literally, we just had a conversation. >> We committed to having the discussion, which is what we're doing right now. >> Okay. >> So, you don't have to do anything. We just have to do what we're doing. >> I'm comfortable with the policy as is. >> And if there are any changes that need to be made, they can be

164made. >> Nothing. >> Sorry. That's That's Andrew's worst nightmare is that we just wasted time on something that we >> No, it's good to educate people on some of that stuff. So, >> we want Where are we in the agenda? Okay. >> Back up. >> Now, we're back to a >> parking at Lichfield. Okay. So, yes, parking at Lichfield schools during after school hours. So, I had a real beef with this one. >> Oh, boy. What's the matter? >> This is Bears football at Campbell. >> Yeah. >> So, I I talked to the president >> there. So the exert the the Bears football league uses Campbell facilities and the parking. I couldn't even turn my car down the way they were parking their vehicles for this football program, right? And you there's no way you'd

165be able to park or get a fire apparatus behind Campbell High School or down the side uh side. >> They're not parking in parking spaces. >> They're parking in fire lanes. They're parking wherever the hell they want. >> Right. >> Do we have signs that say you get towed at your own risk? >> Yeah, we do. But uh it's allegedly the bears. It seems to correspond with whenever the bears are here. So we won't maybe it's some of our people as well. But yes, it seems the nice the bears are here. So I personally spoke to the the president of the bear association and said we got to clean this up if you want to keep being here and we'll do our part too. We'll talk to our people if there's anyone who uh is

166here for one of our events and not following it. But can you speak to all your people? We'll see how it goes. It was better today. I think today was a better day. So we we have signs that say you can be towed at your own expense. >> Yeah. And you can't park in fire alarm. >> Well, no, I understand that, but if we do that, like my opinion is just tell them. You'll find out who it is real quick when they have to complain about their car being. >> Um, we have reached out. So, hopefully it is better. We'll monitor it and if it is not, we will take more drastic steps. >> Do we get paid for that program? >> No. >> So, we're just we donate the field. >> Yeah. We have

167Lichfield kids who are >> Yeah, we have it's Lfield Hudson Lfield. >> It falls into that um our kids participate in it. So we wouldn't charge a fee for it, you know. >> Um there's a policy that outlines who falls into what group and that's their group. So >> why is it our fields and not wreck? Then >> they do use some Hudson facilities as well. I don't know why they're here on those days. Like I don't know >> school in Hudson Middle School. >> Yeah. I don't know what is the crux of why those days they're here. If the field's not available in Hudson on that day, but like >> I'm going to guess. Yeah. >> Um maybe soccer. >> We also get more of the the spirit kids than we do the football

168kids. like they're >> Yes, we do. >> Yeah, they're at the LMS a lot. >> Um I don't know why they use our facility more frequently for that. Maybe we have better mats because we got them donated last year. >> So yeah, but we will monitor it. >> Okay, >> be better >> policy. >> Great. Um first one, we didn't do any changes to it. So this is just informative uh restraints and seclusion. There's nothing yet. The next two I think I updated too. So you can actually see my comments that show you the changes on these even though this is relevant for these two policies. Um so this is part of the primex um primex plus what's it called? Primex >> prime 3 program. So we get a discount on our primex insurance. Uh

169we have to have a certain collection of policies. We didn't have these two policies or didn't have the right stuff in these two policies. So we are I'm updating them. They gave us prime why you see dairies um policies in there because primex gave those as the two model policies that they wanted. SBA doesn't have these policies. >> They don't have the seat belt one, the New Hampshire School Board Association. >> Um, so we just copied Derry's word for word. Um, I know the superintendent over there, so we're good like copying it word for word. Um, >> what's that? >> They should be flattered now. He is. I'm sure he is. Um, and uh, so ours is the Lichfield one for the seat belt is theirs adjusted. We ran this through Primax. They're good with

170that. To summarize that policy, if you are in a district vehicle, you have to wear your seatelt. Like if you're the driver, for example, if one of our facility guys is using the facilities truck to move something from the high school to the middle school, they have to wear their seat belt. That's what that says. Um, so that's that first policy. The second one I want to talk a little bit about using passenger vehicles to transport students for school activities. You'll see our current policy. You'll see the schoolboard association suggested one, the dairy one, and then the proposed one that we have here, which is kind of a Frankenstein of all three of those, right? Um there's some additional stuff we wanted in that our lawyers recommended that we maintain from our current policy um

171and continue to have in our policy. There was stuff that Primax needed in that policy that we've now added to that policy and obviously use the the sample schoolboard association policy as kind of the launching off point. The other thing we did is we took out the the procedural forms associated that and make them standalone documents. So if there's ever a need to update those, we can just do that separately without having to revisit the policy. You want to make one just note because this we spoke this through with legal and it's important note for people to understand this because we get this question quite frequently. If the school district is electing not to provide transportation to us an event, then we are not going to ask how people are getting to that event because

172if we ask then we're responsible in some some level. So for example, give you a practical example. Our hockey team practices offsite at an arena, right? We're a co-op group that practices at an arena. Um I think the hooks at arena is the one that they use. >> They're doing conquer. >> Conquer. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> Okay. Um, we obviously don't transport them to practice. We don't drive them a bus there. So, we don't ask them how they get to that practice and we can do that because we don't provide transportation to that. What that allows is for the kids to carpool with each other, for parents to take the kid another kid who's not their kid with them, so on and so forth. If we're asking to like why you're transporting, then we're responsible

173and our legality goes up. So, that's just an important note. Um, so if we elect to not provide transportation to an event, it may be to allow in theory to allow families to transport kids that are not their own. So for example, if there's a robotics competition in say Burlington, Vermont >> and we say we're not providing transportation to that event, that allows one of the robotics parents to not only transport their own kid, but you know, another kid on the team's home and so forth. So does that make sense? because it's an important designation and we're trying to represent that in this policy. So, it's an important thing. Operationally, we take care of it on the school's side, but that's why there's not language in here allowing those type of things because we have

174to protect ourselves from a legality standpoint. >> Makes sense. >> So, I ask if you could prove those two first and if you could do a first and second read if you are comfortable so we can get those. >> We need like a disclaimer in our handbook about that. >> No, because if you don't say anything, you're not liable. Because we're not asking how you do it. We don't ask people how they get to school every day, right? Like you can take our school bus, but if your parent drops you off, like we're not checking that that's your parent, >> right? Yeah. >> So, and these are all co-curriculars. We're not required by state to provide transportation to them. >> Yeah. But you're legally required to go. That's fine. That's all right. >> All right.

175I'll make a motion to approve policy EBBA and policy E A for first and second read. Second motion by myself seconded by Miss Ames. Discussion. >> No. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. >> Opposed. 3. >> Did you say the hockey team drives to conquered for practice? >> Candy games. >> Yep. >> That's their homework. >> There's only like three in the States. >> Penrook. >> Yeah. >> Their other team. >> Yeah. And someone else, right? >> No, it's Pemrook and Campbell. It's actually >> there's a third team, but >> fun time. Is there to speed this along? Uh I've reviewed the policies over the weekend um for first read policies. Any questions with what is proposed? No. >> Okay. Uh I'll make a motion to first read policy BDF policy

176uh BGD and policy EG. >> Second. >> Motion by myself, second by Miss Ames. Discussion. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Opposed. Abstained. >> 3. uh for second read. >> This one we did as a first and second read. This top one I'm noticing that as we're sitting here. >> Which one? >> The meeting minutes. >> BE DG. Yeah, we >> Oh, we did. I'm sorry. I apologize. I didn't take that off. >> We did do that as first. >> Yeah, but the other ones are for a second read. >> Okay. I will make a motion to approve as second read policy EBB, policy JIC, policy JLCD, policy JLCJ. >> Second in a second. Additional discussion. >> All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Opposed? All right. business GMS. >>

177We'll go through this fast cuz we're getting late. I know. Uh we had a meeting that was supposed to happen last week, but Haramman got sick. Lisa, their main uh project person, got really sick, so she uh postponed the meeting. We got a meeting tomorrow. Uh tomorrow's a big day for us for the project. Um they're finishing their last meeting. They're meeting with u via Zoom with Jen Grantham to go over the programming at the middle school. They did the programming with Jen Mitchinson for the high school this week. last week, end of last week, they're all blurs together. >> They've done the thing at at the high school >> and obviously met with the elementary and all of their staff um previously as well. So, they're getting they're talking to Jen tomorrow and they'll

178talk to the high school staff next week. So, we'll have their our our bi-weekly meetings uh tomorrow with Heramman. They're finishing up all their program. >> Am I coming though? Like I am. I'm losing track of which ones I >> Yep. Just making sure. >> Um also tomorrow we have put our construction manager RFP out. um and are in the process we're doing our uh pre-bib meeting with interested uh candidates tomorrow prior to the Haramman meeting. If you want to come to that, you can. We're not going to open that up to everyone on the FIC for that. But you can um to go over with the interested people and when that wraps up in a couple weeks, we'll have a construction manager for the board to uh to say yeah, your name too for

179for that. So, uh we're making progress on that. um bond council. We met with uh Rene or I spoke with Renell um who was uh the attorney who handled the bond for the last project. Uh the town also re she is the person to do this with with the state. So you'll see two things on the agenda. The first is the engagement letter with her if the board is comfortable. Um I will sign and return that and uh secure her services for as we go through the bond proposal. Um, and then we have our bond checklist and we'll start going through that and taking up all the steps we need to do to uh secure our bond with Renel. She'll help us through the process and stuff like that. She has a lot of the

180records from uh the previous work that she's done for the district. So, um, some of those things on the checklist are already done because she already has them. So, we're in good shape for that. Is the board comfortable with me signing that on behalf of the districts? >> I am. Full disclosure, I used to work at Divine Mment. Um, it's been 12 years, so it's been significant enough time that I don't I but I did know Renell there. Um, and she's fantastic. >> She seemed lovely. >> She She's great and she's super knowledgeable on this topic, but I just Full disclosure, >> she's got a typo. >> Does she >> on the letter? >> In her fees. >> In her what? >> In her fees. >> Oh, does she? Is it too too much? >>

181Well, she's missing a zero in 8,000. So, it's 800 to two 12,000. >> Oh, I'll ask her to switch that. I guess technically it's 800 to 12,000. just a huge range, >> right? >> So, on the lower end, it's great. >> Yeah. See if we can get it for $800. Uh, so I'll ask her to adjust that, but um otherwise, are we comfortable with with or no? >> Yeah. And that and that money is coming out of >> it will come out at the end. So, she doesn't get paid until the project has hypothetically passed. So, um that's what she's working towards. So, and if it doesn't pass, my understanding is she doesn't get paid. So, How does that work? >> I don't know. I thought she explained it to me. >> That doesn't sound

182right to me. >> I can ask her to clarify a little bit, but she stressed to me that she doesn't accept the money until the project's pass. So, >> is that detailed in this? >> It should be. >> This is This is their standard client engagement letter. I'll make sure I got that squared away with her. We do not submit any statement until the closing. >> Yeah, >> right here. >> Yeah, right here. Our fee is typically paid at the closing of the bonds and customarily do not submit any statement until the closing. If however the bonds are not authorized, this financing is not completed as scheduled or if another bond financing is contemplated in the future, we reserve the right to capture our time spent on this financing and submit an invoice to you

183for our fees for such services. >> There we go. >> So we will get it. >> We will get a bill. >> It's a bill. >> No free work for us. >> Nope. >> All right. So where does that >> I would think at that point depending on the specific bill we have the reserve fund where we could take it from to cover that that's connected to these projects and everything like that. We have our own legal legal account that we have using her estimate here of 8 let's assume 8,000 to 12,000. Um our obviously we're spending money on our own lawyers currently but we have much more than $12,000 in that legal line that we have for the district. So that would be the first p first place we would look to cover it

184is our lawyer line and then if for some reason we weren't able to cover it through that we could always look at the reserve fund but we have multiple legal lines you know special ed has a legal line we have a legal line for the SAU um so we should >> I'll make a motion to approve the engagement letter for falling council >> second motion by myself second by miss additional discussion >> all those in favor please say I >> post abain And last thing, we have our community forum next Tuesday. We've been advertising for that at GMS um at 6:00. Everyone in the community is welcome to join us to talk with the design team and uh the our our pre-construction services firm, Heramman, um about the project as we develop the ste the

185design statement and uh as they look for community um impact uh input on the project. >> Okay. October 7th. Sounds good. >> All right. >> We did the AP, so we're good there. >> Perfect. Yep. Uh on the manifest this evening, uh the board has a payroll of $49,94342, a 403b and NHR of $241,729.13, a manual check of $4,321.94, accounts payable of $427,39.71, another accounts payable of $33,589.98, another accounts payable payable of $194,52464 and a another accounts payable of $3,229.50. And that covers our manifest for this evening. Uh with that, we'll move into our second round of community inputs. >> I'll make it fast. I promise. I promise. Um Elizabeth McDonald, 46 Nook App. as a parent of a child who took AP classes here. He took three AP classes. He got a complete he

186got a five on two and a three on another. St. Anselum took both of his credit. So for $99 or $110, he did not have to take English. He did not have to take uh he used the other two as electives. He was a big history buff. For me, that was an investment in my and I have noticed the kids who ha do take AP and his friend group, not making any general general, you know what I mean? No sweeping generalizations, that kids that are taking AP classes, they're in it for the credit. They're in it to learn. They're in it to get that experience of a high stakes testing. And to me, it was money well spent. And I do agree that I do think Campbell being part of Campbell for so many years,

187we have a good idea who might need some help and it's never they have a good handle on kids and I think every student has a relationship with one person. They could share their need if they needed financial assistance. >> That's it. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Any other comments tonight? say. >> All right, we'll close school board comments. Uh, the board does have non-public uh um business this evening under RSA 91 A3 A through C. Uh, with that, I'll entertain a motion to go into nonpublic. >> So moved by Mr. Shoemaker. >> Second by Miss Ames. Roll call vote. Mr. Shoemaker. >> I miss Ames. >> I. >> That carries 30. All right. And that keeps our public