School Board Meeting - 8/6/2025

001on public television. >> I can loosen it. >> Is it a clip on? >> I know. We should >> hat tie right now. Just looking lovely here. >> Just wait. >> All right, we are live. So, good evening everyone. Welcome to the August 6, 2025 Lfield School Board meeting. The time is now 5:30. We're going to call the meeting to order and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Uh we have review and revision tonight's agenda. Any board member like to change the order of tonight's agenda or add anything? >> Okay. Uh we do have a remote participant this evening. Uh so

002we have Miss Ames who is joining us via teleconference. Um so as typical with remote participation, all votes will be a roll call vote and we uh have to ask Miss Ames the reason why you're remote and if there's anybody joining you this evening. >> Good evening everyone. I am camping in Mark Conway and there's no one at my site right now. Everybody everybody floating on the river. So, it is quiet around me and hopefully everybody will stay online as long as the internet allows. >> Amazing. Well, we appreciate you taking time and joining us this evening. >> Motion to approve remote participation. >> Thank you very much. We have a motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky. Roll call vote. Mr. Plansky. >> I. >> Mr. Shoemaker. >> I am an I. >>

003I. >> And a We have a vote of 40. All right. Excellent. So, moving right along in tonight's agenda, we have committee reports. Uh, any board member like to move items off uh the consent agenda and committee reports? All right. We have summary of non-public actions from July 9th, 2025. Miss Ames motion to approve the June 4th, 2025 non-public meeting minutes. Mr. Shoemaker seconded that motion. That motion passed 50-0. Uh, the following hirings were presented. We have Stephanie Gilapsy for LMS and CHS part-time reading specialist. We have Susan Raertdy at LMS case manager. And we have Autumn Thompson for district-wide speech language pathologist. In addition, we have Mr. Shoemaker moved to adjourn the non-public session at 8:40 p.m. Mr. Plansky seconded that motion and that that passed 50-0. Uh and tonight we have presentations and

004recognitions. uh and we'll turn it over to the superintendent to get things started. >> Yeah, we got a couple presentations. Uh we're going to start with the annual presentation and approval of the student handbooks for the start of the school year. So, I'm going to have the administrators from the three schools come up. When you guys get up here, I'm going to have Zach just introduce himself first to the board and to everybody since it's his first school board appearance. We'll put him on the spot. That's very important. >> So, hi everybody. My name is Zach Stevenson. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to be at the Liel School District. Um, Jen and I have had a, you know, great start so far. So, I'm just really enthusiastic on what we can do here.

005So, thank you for, you know, allowing me to join you guys. >> Welcome. >> We're glad you're here. Thank you for joining. Thank you for coming to the school board meeting. Uh, we wish you the best in getting things kicked off here in a few weeks. >> Appreciate it. >> So, I think I'll I'll kick off for a quick second. We didn't talk about this beforehand, but we had a fantastic meeting um a couple weeks ago where we sat together as an entire admin team and went through handbooks to make sure that they were aligned from school to school to make sure the pieces were all present. It's not exactly the same order, but you're going to find the pieces are common amongst the three schools, which is something that was the first time that

006we've ever really had an opportunity to sit with the entire admin team together and do that. It was a great collaborative effort. So, I was really appreciative of that opportunity. >> And now that we did that, we realize that it's close enough. Next summer, we're aligning because they have section five just do a little out of order. I'm like, "Oh, no. We're going to make it in order." Um, we start um with the GMS handbook, they're actually very few changes, but if you actually scroll down to the bottom of it, we like to highlight um what the changes are. We get we present that to the parents, too, just in case they want from year to year. So you notice that a majority of those changes are really just um updated policies that that um

007you have approved throughout the year. So we update those links. Um a few of the the highlighted changes that we have um we've changed the language in the communications communication devices and we've just done that to make it more in line. Obviously I think there's going to be a more uh rigorous conversation later when you get to the middle and the high schools the cell phones um and the and the watches. Um, but at the elementary school, it actually doesn't impact us too too much because we're kind of already a prohibitive environment uh for those devices. But what we did want to do is is actually capture the watches more and actually um spell out a little bit more actually as to what happens when a student has one and and how um we'll handle

008that. So, we spelled that out. Um another thing that we did spell out is um with our uh drop off procedures. Um, while they are complicated and we we spell them out every year, we kind of learn something new. And what we didn't have spelled out in the handbook was during the drop off in the morning. Um, we don't want parents if they happen to be quote unquote one of the lucky ones that are in the back of the line and can drop their kid off that they can kind of shoot out of the line and cut across the parking lot to get out and not have to wait for the whole line. We don't want them to do that. So, we put it in the handbook that once you're in the line, stay in

009the line. So, we just kind of spelled that out. Um, that is really it for for substantive changes. Everything else really just kind of updates. So, that's really it for the GMS handbook. >> Is this available like in hard copy as well as online or is it only online? >> It's only online. Yeah, we we've gone away from paper copy. >> I was just curious because like I was looking for page numbers and I was like I don't see page numbers. >> Yep. Yeah. >> But I guess if I look if it's only online you >> Yeah. But when you go Yeah. And then when you go online um what we've we've done is through the Google Docs. >> Yeah. >> It's the um the hyperlink sections that >> Yep. Gotcha. >> So ours is

010very similar. It's a lot of uh housekeeping updates. We updated, you know, things like the title page with the current school year. The principal's letter is tweaked each year. U we added our new personnel, removed and added as needed, including email links. Um the new school calendar is included. Um I would like to draw your attention to section 1.4 in our handbook which discusses our new LMS schedule which will be coming live to parents this Friday in our communication. Um we had a large committee meet together to discuss um what was working really well in our schedule and what wasn't. And if you recall us discussing um the idea of the number of students that we have who are chronically tardy or late to school and the fact that if they're late to school every

011day and they're missing math every first period every they have math every day and they're late every day. That's not helping our test scores. That's not helping us to make sure that those kids are getting consistent instruction. And even as adults or kids, we have times a day where we're better, right? Some people are morning people. Some people don't wake up until after 10:00. It's it's just everybody has an opportunity where they have some time in their day where they're teaching or their learning is more active and present. So you'll see we're shifting this year to a waterfall schedule. Um so students will all start each day with the links home room which is cons consistent with what we used to have for best uh that advisory period where they'll meet instead of in the

012middle of the day or the end of the day it's going to be right at the beginning of the day. They have that best time. >> Did you hear >> Can you hear now? >> Can you hear me now? Yeah, sorry. I was trying to adjust the there was some background noise. We're trying to adjust it and I think we're good. >> Um, so you'll >> Yeah, >> you'll see that um that schedule follows through the week with blue and white days. Looking right now at fifth grade schedule at the top of the 1.4 um where on Mondays you'll always start with A. So you'll always start with the A period. And then we have some fixed periods in the middle of the day that lunchtime, links time, which is what used to be the

013artist formerly known as best and den time are all stable throughout the week. They don't adjust um in the flow so that we could have a a five-day rotation and it would be consistently predictable is the words that we're using to describe that for our students and our staff. Um every single Tuesday, if there's no school on Monday, you're still going to come in on Tuesday. You're going to go to home room and then you're going to go to B period. Um, for many of us that are old like me, this is how our schedules were built long ago in in middle school and high school, it was a common way for that to happen. And um, our committee of students, parents, and staff that talked about this um really feel as though this is

014an opportunity to catch those kids who are coming in late every day and making sure that they're not missing on some core academic areas. Any questions about the schedule? because I know that's a lot to absorb in a really quick look. The same number of periods. The only other thing that changes is that uh getting rid of the word best and going to links that links is going to be that extension opportunity, the things that the kids were always looking forward to of some choice time. There's going to be four to six week um interest inventory uh classes that they're able to sign up for during links. Um and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you'll notice links is struck out of the schedule because they won't have it. um instead the class periods are a little

015bit longer to allow for that differentiation to allow for more academic core instructional time which again we're hoping to um leverage that learning time for our students which is really critical and important. They'll still have that home room time which is that advisory cakori time that they have in the morning um but that links time comes out of the schedule and those couple of minutes are added on to each class to allow for a little more instructional time in their day. Um, moving on, we are added to section 2.4. We have the lovely display display TV in our cafeteria, and we're going to make sure that the announcements are updated there, which also translates to updating our website every day with our morning announcements because oftentimes what we know about middle schoolers is they're not

016great communicators with home. They don't let families know what's going on at home. So that'll be another place for families to see that what are our afterchool offerings, what are the things that they have that they can choose from by updating it on our monitor in the cafeteria. The kids will see it while they're at lunchtime, be able to see what's happening if they missed the morning announcements because they were a little noisy as they were getting settled in for the day. Um, and then parents can also take a look and see what's being announced in the morning. Um, we have updated section 3.2 with the correct dates for each quarter. Um, and we have also updated our honor roll process. Um, the bane of my existence, and I'm going to be honest as I

017say this, at LMS has been calculating honor role in my four years. It has never gone well. Um, I'm going to be quite upfront and honest about that. So, one of the conversations that we had this year is like we would like to focus our attention on honoring those kids who are successful in achieving that those all A's or all A's and B's, but do so at each quarter. So we'll we'll recognize students who earn all A's and all A's and B's the first quarter. Recognize whoever makes it second quarter, recognize whoever makes it third quarter, and then at the end of the year be able to recognize it for all of those things and do that during the school day where the students will get a certificate at an assembly with their with their

018um fellow students and um be able to really focus that energy on the learning demonstrated, not so much the grade achieved. So that's really important to us. Um, we have also uh updated the grading and reporting section to talk with um what Dr. Taylor, I believe, is talking about later in today's presentation. So, I don't want to go into a whole lot of discussion on that, but it fixes some challenges that we've had with calculations and calculation errors in our powers school portal. So, not going to steal that thunder. Um, but that has been updated. um section 53 uh it is about uh how we're going to handle cell phones. So for those of you that have had students at LMS um we have always been an off and away school um I can tell

019you as someone who is there to enforce it, it is uh not enforcable with them having it in their possession because what we find happens is the kids go into the bathrooms and they're texting for someone to come pick them up. they know all the places in the school where the phones work. So even though we've been an off and away school all along since I've been here, um it is not an effective strategy for helping to keep kids in their learning environment with distra without distractions. So, as a team, we discussed how that was going to be handled and with those cell phone cabinets for the watches and the phones when they come in to put their cell phone and their um watch in the um box that we talked about earlier this year

020and they'll take their Chromebooks out and then at the end of the day, they'll do the reverse. If they get dismissed at any time during the day, they'll have it. And then we spent a long time discussing that safety component and what do we do in case of an emergency if there was a an Atlas drill like we had so many years ago. And what we said is actually the kids not having their phones in their possession is actually safer for the kids, believe it or not. Uh we learned that on that December 17th day in 2021 when I and Dan almost got ran over on the lawn as parents were hearing that the buildings were being evacuated and they were coming to get their kids and that really cause for some safety concerns. Um,

021but the goal that we have for that is that we are going to have those cabinets where all the phones are stored and if there's a fire drill or an evacuation, the teachers will grab the fluorescent backpack and they'll grab the cell phone boxes and carry it outside and if there is a need to dismiss from there, kids will have access to that and be able to contact home through their own cell phone outside. Um the same type of uh reaction is that if they're caught with their cell phone on their person. Now the first time is going to be the teacher will take that put it in the cabinet and the student will come back at the end of the day to get it. The second time will be the teacher will take it

022turn it into the office where it will be stored. Parents will have to come and get it. And then the third time will involve some conversation with um parents coming in for a meeting because at that point it kind of becomes more about insubordination than it does about the fact that they're carrying their cell phone with them. It's about not following that expectation or need. At no time will kids be cut off from contacting their families. They're going to be able to We've added additional phones in our main office and our counseling area. So, if kids are having anxiety and they need to hear mom or dad's voice, they can still do that through the old-fashioned pick up the phone and talk to a person way. So, we don't want we want to make sure

023we're clear that kids will still be able to come down and make those phone calls if they need to. >> What if they don't know their parents' phone numbers? >> We have it in the system. Power School. >> Power School gives us everybody's contact. As long as parents update that >> lost art form. Maybe it's gonna come back. >> It's funny to listen to Mrs. Chapel and Mrs. Young in the office have to teach kids how to dial the phone because they don't know how. Like first you push the numbers in, then you pick it up and then you hear it ring. And then you talk when somebody if nobody answers, you have to leave a message. >> Put a phone. >> I'd give them a little rotary phone and see who the smarters are.

024They'll figure it out. >> We're stealing my thunder. We're going to do, you know, how we did our uh environmental day this year, we did our our entrepreneur day this year. We're going to do a little thing this year that is a um historical evidence. They're going to have like cassette players that we're going the kids are going to have to go through and learn how to use or use the rotary phone or those kinds of things just to kind of walk back and see some things. It's a little fun thing we have coming later this year. >> You going to video those for >> Oh, yeah. >> towards enjoyment. >> Oh yeah. Have you seen our videos, Peter? Come on. We do a lot. >> Make an escape room. Um rewind a table pencil.

025>> Yes. Make sure that pencil is there. Um so that's that's our goal for cell phones. Again, it's not to penalize students. It's not about but it's about them being present in their learning environment. And the the anxious generation is a true thing. Um you know, I think about right now my cell phone is left back there. I know it's there, but I'm not freaking out about it. But I have a 16-year-old. If I she gets in trouble and I take her phone away, I see her literally freak out about it. And I think we need to help build healthy habits with these cell phones and these devices. And this is one way that we can do it to give them a break during the day. I've talked to um teachers and administration in Pelum

026who last year had the yonder pouches and they spent the whole year without phones. Kids and teachers and parents are like they survived. It's it's okay. You know, we made it through a year without cell phones. and actually they felt better about the learning environment um and kids being more present and active. So, we're excited about that. I hate to prolong about cell phones, but um we another change that we made is in our um behavioral expectations in section 64. All we did was highlight the middle column just to focus on that's where our middle school stuff is. Um we updated our Chromebook information uh as we discussed in budgeting process last year. We did add carts to seventh grade. So, fifth, sixth, and seventh will keep their Chromebooks on carts, which helps to reduce

027damage. Helps to make sure that students have access to charged Chromebooks when they're at school ready to work and learn. And that they can still sign those Chromebooks out if there's any academic need for an homework assignment or academic need for a project that they're working on. They can still sign those Chromebooks out and take them home if it's needed. um nutrition services and the payment plan is in the handbook uh with the Titan plan which also is a place where you can pay for your Chromebook insurance or you can pay for um school lunches. We have updated section 9.6 to include the cell phone cabinets if they're approved. Um, we have also updated section 111 to include parent teacher conferences will be held twice a year because I think that was a surprise to

028a lot of teachers and parent not teachers a lot of parents this year that we did have those spring con conferences which was a nice addition um but there is only the one night so it's a little abbreviated we might uh adjust the way we provide those um and then we made sure that all policies have the correct links attached at this time. Any questions? >> Um, a couple questions. >> Okay. >> Back up to where we started on >> the school day schedules. >> Yes. >> I noticed grade six still at least a couple of the days still has a split period. >> They do. There was in order to get lunches and to try to get as many periods to be aligned so that unified arts can teach across the grade levels. It

029was the only way that we could do it to make sure that lunches can fall within the window that we have for lunches and to make sure that um that we could get lunches. It's b it's basically the the end all. And it only happens right now on Tuesdays and Thursdays versus five days a week. >> Better than it was. Yeah, for sure. I just caught my eye. Yeah, that was a very difficult decision to make and we tried really hard to not have that happen, but it would we would have had lunches going until two o'clock, which is really not ideal if we bumped it out. >> Okay. >> In terms of the cell phone policies or section 53 in both GMS and LMS so far, um is there a way to and I

030know the board hasn't approved this yet, but is there a way to directly link to the board policy? Yes, we're wait. That's what we're waiting for. As soon as you tell us that, we're gonna >> There'll be a reference to >> reference to it. We're drop it in there. Okay. Because I don't see reference to any mention of that quite yet. So, I just want to make sure that that's on the horizon. >> If we can reference you guys, we will reference you guys. >> We You'll see in the letter at the top, it references the state law. It also is coming up in the communication. >> GMS didn't >> um because I I'm happy to pass the >> just is it only because we're going we were going it this is actually derives from

031like an electronics policy like this is if you go back in history that started with like >> game boys you know like and it's evolved to this >> um I think definitely helping families understand that it is tied to the state law. The other thing that changes in our day, um, we always used to have end dismissal, um, come with an announcement from me whenever I didn't have students in front of me or Jeff whenever we weren't wrangling what was happening in the office. Uh, since it is a bell to bell, um, LMS has been a no bell zone, we're going to add that endbell. So, that 205 bell will ring. when that 205 bell rings, they're going to go back to their home room to get their return their Chromebooks to get their cell

032phones and their watches out um and then make their way to buses or parent dismissal at that time. So, it also is going to help a little bit of our bus problems that we've had in the past with a long time sitting and waiting on the bus when they get up to Campbell. So that starting that dismissal at 2:05, the buses will end up rolling out around between 2:10 and 2:15, which is a little bit later than what they have been doing right now. And I think that that's going to really help a lot of challenges that our middle schoolers face as they're sitting and waiting for the high schoolers to not it's not their fault, but sitting and waiting at the high school for them to load up. So >> the end bell is

033going to help them. Sorry, I'm not following. So, in the past, we would say 205 would start and I'd say, "Fifth grade, parent pickup and bus students, make your way to dismissal." So, they'd walk down the hall. We'd wait a few minutes. Sixth grade, make your way to dismissal. Seventh grade, eighth grade. And so, it would take about 10 minutes for that to happen, but we always were encouraged to be pulling out of that bus loop. And Heidi, if she's still there, can speak to um being reminded that we had to be pulling out by 210. 210 was our goal to be out of that. The bus should be moving along. Well, what we were finding is when Mr. Peterson and I or Mrs. The even then um were looking at someone calling to report

034a bus challenge, we would go and take a look at where was the bus challenge happened? Well, it was happening while the kids were sitting stationary at Campbell waiting. >> So, they're going to be departing a little bit later so that there's less wait time. Yeah. Okay. And do we like the bus company, do we have to let them know? >> Do you have any way of uh fixing the issue of kids getting on the wrong bus to take a ride to the high school? >> We're going to continue to work on that. >> Um I think cell phone's going to be the lengthier conversation. So, um, after CHS goes does their thing, maybe we can circle back to cell phones because I think it all ties back to cell phones. >> That's good. >>

035That's the issue of the day. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, any other questions for GMS or LMS? >> Really interested in CHS in your first review of it. >> Um, so there weren't any monumental changes other than policy things that will need to change. So again, the cell phones. Um I did include a link to the draft um already so that it'll be in there. Um so that was um in my sort of summary of the changes. I put page numbers so you can kind of read. Um so this is just the brief overview. Um the discipline's consistent. It's part of what the state is also telling us we have to do with discipline, which is interesting. Um, so and again, as uh Jen mentioned, you know, our plan to use the little portable

036um phone briefcases I think will be really helpful. Um, I'm sure we'll have to work out some kinks. Um, our plan is to meet with the students and really kind of go over it with them a few days and say, you know, you're going to practice putting your phone in there. You're going to put your phone in there to kind of give like a little window of everybody's learning, see how it works. um in terms of like the system that we have created because as you know when you try something and then you realize ooh can't do that uh looks a little different at our level you know we're going to have sports dismissals um kids who have early um you know they can come in late they can leave early different privileges uh so

037we're going to have a lot of cases in our main office area that students will have to keep their phones in um because of their privileges um athletes will have like specific specific athletic cases. So, if you know you're getting dismissed for your sport today, um kids will have know where their phone is. Um the case will be numbered in the office and they'll have a slot in it. Um so, again, pending the approval, um that will all go in there. And what I did too in the the handbooks themselves, I highlighted all the new stuff in green. Um and I also crossed out um you know, what I had proposed to just do away with. Um, we added a little update with um the study hall and learning lab dismissals again and Zach and

038I are only just hearing um but from our admin team meetings hearing a lot of underclassmen having parents call in and dismiss them during their study halls and their learning labs so that they can just go whatever and come back. Um I am a firm believer in like senior privilege. That's that's a privilege. Um, so while we can't tell parents they can't dismiss kids, uh, it's just something we're really going to discourage, um, you know, we want students to use that time for academic reasons. Um, students who receive special ed supports often get them during that time. So if they're leaving, too, then they're not, um, going to be getting services. Um, so just a little bit of a language change there. Um, all the staff uh information has been updated with links to emails.

039So, parents, that'll be a really great quick guide if you need to email a staff member. Um, the daily schedule, nothing's changing. We sort of just clarified a few things and we included um the lunch period transitions on the daily bell schedule. They weren't on there before. So, we just kind of included a few additional details. Um, and we also, that's where we chose to include language about not um having outside food deliveries. Uh, and that's consistent with LMS. Um, Door Dash and Uber Eatats. Uh, just, you know, >> going to be tough with no phone. >> Well, yeah, but you'd be surprised. I don't know. Chromebook access, but anyway. Um, >> they'll find a way. >> I It's a new and improved lunch menu. It just shouldn't be an issue. They can just go

040to the cafe. We encourage that, actually. >> Yeah. So, um, and we had a lot of the stuff like I noticed that LMS had to update was already up to date per last year's. I don't know how that happened. Um, but then I found little parts. We found parts like they didn't have um the district goals mentioned anywhere. So, I thought that was important and they were in the other handbook. So, that's an update where those were just included with um information. And then the grading updates. So, obviously that'll be another big one. um and also pending board approval. And I would imagine that if there are any specific changes to what h will be presented to you that um those would be made to what I I I put everything in there for now

041as it was drafted. Um, so you know, if if I have to go back and change certain things, maybe some of it is going to be the same, like I don't know where we're going to land or if we revert right back to, you know, the previous grading. Um, then that would stay. I think the biggest change at CHS will be around midterms and finals. Um, so we are, you know, proposing to bring back midterms and finals. Personally, um my daughter just finished her freshman year in college, had to take finals for both semesters. Um all of her friends who go to from BC to UNH to uh Marramac College, I didn't hear one of them say that they didn't have any final exams. Um, I also think in thinking of students who may not

042be collegebound that any kind of opportunity to sit and take an assessment will prepare them for any assessments they have to take to go into their trade. Whether they want to be a plumber or a lawyer, that's school, plumber, electrician, um, you know, anything HVAC, um, you still have to take a test. Real estate, you still have to take a test. So, um, I really think that it it'll help build some academic endurance for students to bring those back. Um, so the changes six, seven, and eight and nine um, really 6, seven, eight are all um, based on those grading changes. So, those are sort of big pieces in the grading um, that changed. And then the graduation requirements is really just tweaking some of the language. It was a little unclear um, and the

043policy wasn't linked. So again, like Jen, I went through and just sort of made sure that policies that were mentioned were linked um and just to clear it just was a little bit um murky with the explanation. So just sort of some some clean up with words. So otherwise no other than grading and cell phone, no big changes. >> Minor. Okay, good stuff. Any questions for CHS? I like what I hear. >> Like what you hear? >> Miss Ames, just want to give you the opportunity as well to ask questions. >> She got kicked off. >> She's floating now. >> She's floating. >> Okay. She dropped. All right. Well, good for her. >> Um, okay. Excellent. Well, thank you for the presentations. >> I do want to talk cell I'm not going to let you

044get up. >> Are we going to talk cell phones now or when we get to policy? >> I do want to talk about some of the procedures now because it obviously related to the policy. >> Pause and do that real quick. Uh yeah, we should. So it's uh 6 PM for community. >> Just a quick pause to do that and then >> we can do that. Yeah, sure. >> So yeah, so just on the terms of the agenda and then we'll flip back to that for a moment. So there is community comment on agenda items. >> I would if you want to continue I will. >> Okay. Thank you very much. So I do want to talk cell phone policies because you know now that we're approaching school you can see anywhere that people are

045realizing yet we have a lot that we have to we have to enforce. uh in our schools. So, I just want to make note of the law. This language is included in the proposed policy that we'll get to through the policy section later. Um but the policy that we have to have as a school district shall prohibit all personal communication device use by students from the first bell rings to start instructional time until the dismissal bill rings to end the academic day. So, that includes first bell of the day to last bell of the day. Kids cannot have phones. This is the law. like um so we're going to have a lot of conversations I think probably when we start working with students and start working with families of this of like hey can my

046kid have their phone during lunch can my kid have their phone when they go to the bathroom can my kid have their phone when they do this so on and so forth the interpretation of the law that we've been told is no from first bell to last bell kids cannot have and when I say phone I'm including smartwatches and these other personal communication devices um that they need to be away so as a school. Elementary is slightly different because of the age that we're dealing with. It's going to be more of a classroom based situation. They're spending the bulk of their time with their classroom teacher. It'll be handled a little bit different and we're not dealing with the volume that we deal with obviously at the middle school and the high school when it

047comes to personal communication devices. But our procedure that we would like to enact involves, we talked about it I believe at the last meeting or two meetings ago, but some sort of little locker, right? That's going to stay in the classroom, the first classroom of the day for the students. When they come in, they're going to be assigned a slot in the locker. They're going to put their phone in, and that's where it's going to stay until they leave at the end of the day. Each school is going to have slightly different variations of of what that is. For the high school, they don't necessarily have a it's going to be their it's going to be different every day because they're on that red black schedule. Um, you have a little home roomish type of

048schedule built in for middle school. So, it's a consistent adult for them. Likewise, at the middle school, at the end of the day, this is what helps elongate dismissal for them because now they have to go pick up their phones from where they started at today. So, they're not leaving the middle school as early, which is going to cut down them sitting at the at the high school. So, it all works out nicely, but they're going to return to get their cell phones. Um, or high school, they'll have a similar procedure. High school's a little bit more complicated. We're going to utilize the office and some other spaces as well. When we have kids coming going from CTE, right? um they can't necessarily like if they have first block CTE, they're getting right on a

049bus from Campbell going over to Alurn right away. They're not going to have that first from teachers. So when they come back from CTE, they'll go to the office, put their phone in. If a team is getting dismissed early, rather than using their first block schedule, they're going to come down the office, put their phones in. So when they have dismissal, they can just pick up their phones as part of the dismissal early dismissal process for that. And there are other quirks with that that that Jen and Zach will go over with with all the kids for all the different scenarios at the high school of the comingings and goings and stuff. >> But this is what we would like to pursue is this locker idea. We we I showed you one u model, one

050example. Um at a previous meeting, we found a slightly different one that's lighter. Um because as we were talking through the process, when we do have an emergency situation, let's take a classic fire drill for example, our plan is that be able to take the locker and go out with them, right? So we want a lighter case that could be easily transportable um for whoever's doing the transporting whether it's the teacher themselves or asking one of the students and becomes part of the classroom jobs. Um so we can take those devices out with us, right? class example. Last year at CHS, we had to dismiss early one day because of a potential leak issue that we're having at the high school and we weren't really supposed to send kids in or it was much later

051before we could let kids in back into the building to retrieve all their stuff. We know there is a importance to the cell phones so we're going to take them with us so that communication piece if there is an emergency can happen in an organized way and stuff like that. Um we are ready to hit go on ordering these. Um we've talked to the vendor that we're going to go through. We have a quote. We're ready to go. They've told us we can get it by the first day of school as long as we place the order um at least a week out, which we are more than a week out. So, that's kind of our intention. We're not going with some of the pouches you'll hear about. Yonder is obviously the most common pouch

052of it. Uh they're really expensive. Um that's primary reason why we're not going with them. Um and they seem to be creating some some issues when kids breaking them apart and starting to get into them and and causing some issues. They're still a super effective tool. I don't want to like minimize the pouches in any shape or form for schools that are doing it, but we just think with the smaller schools that we have that this locker issue is a little more easier, manageable for us as we kind of pull off. So, I want to kind of go with those broad strokes um of our procedures on how we want to enact the law itself. The policy that we're going to talk about later um is the sample New Hampshire School Board Association policy is

053the exact suggested language for all that. It touches more on saying that you're going to follow the law and we'll talk about the specifics when we get to it, but it does leave some of the procedural steps and how we enforce the law to us the district to kind of do and that's this is how the schools want to tackle it. So, >> questions, thoughts? >> I have a few questions. Um, >> first question is, are the kids assigned a specific slot or is it just >> I would encourage teachers to do so. Yes. So, and I would just do alpha order, right? Like if your last name is A, you're Adams, you're probably going to get assigned slot one, right? And maybe you get depending on the class, depending on the age of groups,

054how many devices are we dealing with kids? Do you need one slot or do you need two slots? Right? If you have a kid with a phone and a watch, they might be assigned two slots. So slots one and two, right? Um and then you're just going to go down. So it's a consistent slot. It will stay locked the whole time. We have two set of keys uh that comes with the cases. What we're going to do is give one key to the teacher for their their case that's kind of in their their classroom and then we're going to hold on to the other key in the offices of the schools. So, um if something was to happen to that first key, we have a backup key. >> Yeah. So, my concern is just kids

055taking other kids' phones, >> right? Like we have >> it's just going to be have to that part is is good concern. We're just going to have to make sure teachers are managing the putting in and the putting out. When um you know my previous school, I got to stop saying that because now we're in year two. I can't just say my previous school, my previous school is Lichfield. Um but in the old place I used to work when we were starting to go down the road with cell phones and you had the classic like shoe thing behind the door. You know, the teachers would have to be tr you know, each kid got a signed slot. Teacher would watch them put their thing in, right? you know, be put in, they'd close the door,

056hang up or whatever it was, and then kind of go back and people had to be respectful of it. We're not electing to do that type of option here because the law is tighter and prohibiting that complete bell-to bell situation and specifically mentions not having them during lunches and during passing times and all these other things. Um, but it is going to be some teacher enforcement of that to ensure that they're safely put away. You know, kids are smart. What we saw when we were doing that in previous schools is they bring in an old phone or an iPod or something that looks like a phone and put that in the slot and then keep their actual phone on their on the on them still and stuff like that. So, it's going to have to

057just be part of a routine to kick off the day for all of our teachers to ensure that the phones are safely put away. >> But, um the second question that I have is more complicated. Um, and I raised this when we talked about this last time, but >> I'm concerned about liability for us holding hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of devices. >> Yeah. >> Um, has anyone talked to our insurance company about >> meeting with Primeax next week? And I was going to ask that. >> Yeah. >> So, I'll report back. >> Question. >> I think across the board without the legal part of it, but just talking to other educators that doesn't make us all nervous is that we're taking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. that's not ours into

058our possession essential. My thought would be that the our policy should include something that indicates that you should not be bringing a device to school. And if you choose to bring a device to school, if it's stored in one of the pouches, it's at your own risk. Yeah. >> And we have no liability. You hold us harmless. >> In my blur, I put that at the very end like a message really the message to parents. Have your kids leave their phones at home if you can. But I think adding that extra piece of if you do decide to bring it, it's at your own risk and you hold us in the district harmless for any losses or damages. >> That's all I have for questions. >> That's it. >> All right. >> Time for others.

059>> I just went back to encumbrances, right? Looking at the financial aspect and the board approved $7,500. Yeah. >> Quick math, right? Um, $7,500 gets us about 100 about 50 50 of these units at a price of about $150 per unit. If I'm looking at the models that are presented, >> is that enough? >> We're ordering 75. So, we are going to dip and we are sacrificing some other money and some other lines to make sure that we can enforce this. So we had put in a reserve because we thought that would be an appropriate amount when we were looking at this at June and we didn't have the policy that we were going to have to enforce or even the law was in place at that time. But as we did the math and

060for example I'm going to pick on the high school but not to pick on just give you an example. >> As we started walking through the steps of the procedures behind this right on any given period there might be between you know 20 and 30 classes going on right so a first class of the day there might be 20 or 30 classes. So you might think, well, you only need 20 or 30 cases. But then we start talking about all these other scenarios. The CTE kids, right? They're not going to be in their first period class that need a place to put their phones, a common place to put their phones when they return from CTE, the office. We should have some in counseling, at least one of these things in counseling. So for whatever

061reason, they can hold on to phones for kids. Maybe it's an anxiety thing, maybe it's they came in late, whatever the case may be. So we started talking about all these other places where we think we're going to need cases. Not a ton of time, but they start adding up over time. We're going to need multiple cases in the front office for all these different scenarios coming and going. Athletics is going to have a case or two because of the athletic dismissals and that type of stuff. You know, counseling having a case. Um, even teachers that don't necessarily have a first period assigned to them, we're going to give them a case so they can have one for whatever reason that may unfold that they might need a case, they'll have a case and stuff

062like that. So, we ended up getting higher than just the straight flatout classroom number that we're doing. So, our intent is to order about 75. The model we're going with is slightly cheaper than when we presented before. U because it's a little weighs a little bit less and just is a little bit cheaper. >> The model you linked in your handbook. >> Yeah. Um so uh the quote I don't have the quote right in front of me but the quote we have is a little bit more than what we had set aside at the end of the year. So we feel it's important to do this and do it right and to have a consistent way to do it across the schools. So willing to sacrifice a little bit to get it done. The only

063comment that I would have is I would have Dave Ross or somebody look at the key types because two keys just may not be enough. And the other thing is some of these keys are common cylinders. >> Yeah. >> So it could be the same key for like 40 of them. Somebody gets a hold of it and all of a sudden so >> it you may want to look at is there a way to >> you know replicate the keys for where it's more than two. And if you have a whole bunch, you may want to go to a different core cylinder or something. >> Yeah, we actually are anticipating the keys are all going to be the same, >> you know, like there's just a case and this is the key model for it.

064>> Yeah, exactly. >> Um and so, you know, the idea is that it's ne it shouldn't really ever be out of sight of the adult in the room, right? And if an adult has to leave the room and leave behind the case, the door needs to be locked. That's not just good cell phone practice, that's good school safety practice and we should be doing that. >> Um, so, you know, we have to be diligent about that because of the what we're what we're dealing with. >> The vast majority of our teachers and staff are fine with that. That's not going to be an issue. But it is going to be reminders like when you leave your classroom, if you have a prep period and you're going to a special ed meeting, for example, you know,

065you need to make sure your door is locked because there's going to be stuff or you're carrying the thing with you, but you probably don't want to carry that thing all around to all your meetings and stuff like that. >> We talked to our teachers, they carry their keys to their classroom on their lanyard. We figure this is just one more key that they're adding to their lanyard that they will have on their person. >> Yeah. No, and I'm not really worried about the key theft aspect. I'm more worried about a key gets damaged now you go from two keys to one key, right? So, I would expect Dave would have the ability to go figure out how to go get copies of those keys made or be a reasonable expectation is that it's a

066common core cylinders that you can just pop the cylinder out and buy a whole new lock cylinder for it and go from there. just um I would hate to have $10,000 worth of iPhones locked in a case and both keys are now broken and cannot be placed and now you got to break the case to get into it. >> It won't be a common cylinder that's not profitable for DC. >> So I'm going to send something out inspire my message this Sunday. Um >> with whatever decision you make, I'll probably link directly to the policy. uh make mention at least to the general procedure here um that each of the schools is going to be using. I am certain I will get some feedback from people um in regards to the cell phone and and

067um just a couple of notes. One, it's the law and I'm not trying to just use that as an excuse, but it is the law. We have to enforce this as it is written. And you know, Jen mentioned it. Palum went to the Yonder Pouches last year, and there's some other school districts. Claremont's another school district that went to a pretty um significant um cell phone ban policy previous to this law and they saw improvement in academic engagement, you know, legitimate improvement in the engagement of their students academically. Um and so that's where this is coming from. This is why it was a talking point through um you know, through conquered and then the state house and everything because the cell phones are a distraction for our students and frankly for us sometimes. So um

068it is going to be You know, we'll see and hopefully it's going to work out. There's going to be hiccups here and there. We have a set of procedures we feel good about. I am sure as we start enacting it all. There will be things we need to update and we'll keep the board, you know, informed of those various decisions we have to do to make sure we can do this smoothly. I anticipate kids not being happy when they're first couple days of school and we start doing this. I also anticipate once we get a couple weeks in the school, it will just become the norm, you know. And uh I can recur recall back to you know Bo when we had a little bit more stricter policy than we had in part. We had

069a student schoolboard reps here and I remember you know um one of them saying who was a senior he was like you know I hated it at first but you know it actually works. I'm more engaged in my classes and what's going on and stuff like that. So it's not the worst thing in the world. Um so we'll see. We'll see how it goes. That's the cell phones. >> I bet you get more positive parental feedback than you think. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's tricky. We're used to I I say this and I have a high school slant, right? There are a lot of positive uses to the phone, right? Like um I can think if you're the oldest in the family of two or three kids, right? You're responsible for pickups and

070there's some sort of change in in people's lives where you got to, you know, your sibling needs to be picked up now instead of taking the bus or whatever the case may be. there was a convenience of being able to make that text through a cell phone or something like that, right? Um, we're all of a Well, Zach might not be over there, but we're all of an age where um >> there was no phones when I was >> we're all of an age of, you know, where, you know, our parents would call the school if there was an issue and a message would get passed down, right? Like between periods, you'd hear the list of kids who need to stop by the office and it would be like, "Hey, your parent called, you got

071to do this now after school. Hey, this person called this is going on now. This is what Right. And we just have to kind of revert back to those practices. >> Little re-education for the parents too. >> Yeah. And like it will take some some getting used to because of that that luxury of that. But um you know the there's email still too like we they have Chromebooks like in school email accounts at least the older kids you know. So there are ways to do communicating through the school through through appropriate channels to do that. But it is going to be a shift for everybody. It's going to be a shift for our staff. I have both my phones out right now, you know. Um, we have to model that behavior like when we're in

072classrooms and in meetings and everything like that. Um, so, you know, it's going to be an adjustment for our staff as well, you know. Um, I often in a meeting have a phone right to my left just mainly a time because I don't wear a watch, but just like um we have to be conscious of of modeling proper behavior too when we're with the kids and stuff. So, it takes some getting used to, but we're there. >> Okay, good update. Any questions? Remaining questions? >> Nope. >> Hearing none. Thank you very much. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> I'm turn things over to Dr. Taylor. Now, >> before doing that, let's move into community comment, please. >> Uh, so this is the first of two community comments on agenda items. Mr. Mr.

073Oblenus, thank you for your flexibility there. >> Oh, absolutely. That was good conversation. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Um, first of just a point of ordered name and address. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, Ronald Lenus, 15 circle. >> Thank you. >> Uh, just wanted to ask if you got my email on the requested changes to the minutes if those were. >> Uh, yes, I do have that from August 4th. Yes. >> Yes. Was that uh if you you can include that in your review of the minutes? >> We will include them as amended. Yes. >> Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Um first of all, I just want to make a a general statement. Um many times um the things that I I get into appear to be confrontational and I don't want anyone to

074think that I'm not supportive of education. I'm 100% supportive of education. I have three people in my immediate family that are teachers. My wife, my son, and my son-in-law, my daughter-in-law, excuse me. Um, and so my comments are really focused on trying to find a solution to a long-standing problem. and and specifically I'm trying to view this from the point of view of the taxpayers and what they'll support because if they don't support anything then we can spend all kinds of time in looking at options and if it doesn't get supported by the taxpayers we still haven't accomplished anything. So, I just want to, you know, while my comments may be um in opposition to the FIC or some of the others, it it is truly based upon my desire to find a solution to

075many of these issues that have been longstanding. So with that, um I know I only have three minutes. So I would just like to highlight quickly the uh recommendation I sent to you uh regarding the reasons uh to delay award of the GMS design contract, which I assume is going to be um on the agenda this evening. I'll talk more to it uh in the second half, but I just want to highlight a couple of things and and summarize the reasons for that. And particularly um I'll go back to some of the things I said. Remember we are not projected to have any growth in town. So that means that you know our enrollment should be fairly static. Um one of the things is I really do believe that the condition of of GMS needs

076to be looked at all the way from repairs which we now have eliminated. The on-site insight report classifies it in fair condition as it exists today. That was startling to me to have them not call it poor based on what we thought. Um, and some of the things we've worked on, we solved issues very easily. The egress issue which was identified as major issue to support the new build for $64,000. We solved that by doing a little basic engineering effort. And I think that's what we need to apply that same principle. Um, one of the other things is GMS is in the same configuration it's been for 30 years. And the notion that we simply, you know, the the mindset that I think is is progressing is we need to do away the 50s and

07760s buildings. They're not worth saving. That's been there for, you know, 30 years in this condition. and not to really consider what does it take to fix them is upsetting to me. Um, and one of the other things that has come up in my evaluation of the of the the teacher staffing and utilization is a serious question of why aren't we using LMS as an option? Simply just moving fourth grade up there will eliminate our shortage at GMS for classrooms. just moving one grade and why that isn't an option. It got removed, I don't know. There's a couple other things and I'll just finish up quickly and I'll talk about more. Some of the things that we are unable to identify at the moment is uh funding. Ray Peoples identified that there is new school

078funding that is being looked at over the next couple of years at the state level. that may include repairs we're just adopt now. Um code compliance um I have a serious concern and was raised by actually the previous consultant about if we do major renovations we're going to run into seismic and retrofit. I've talked to some engineering friends that may be a fatal flaw. We can't do that. So to spend all this money without actually looking at some of these things with a little more detail before we start into this process of looking at a big addition I think is not appropriate. Um and quite truthfully I do believe now that we've looked at it and start looking at LMS and quite truthfully if we look at needing to readjust the class sizes that I

079brought up before at CHS. I think that brings us back to we still need to look at now a two school solution because our enrollment is so low and that really means starting over again. And so my recommendation at the end is to cancel the current procurement. I think it's was uh put together to focus on a solution of addition or major rehab that really has been fully vetted. The repairs option is I think a legitimate absolute must to look at in detail. And I believe that the other thing that is a major consideration is we've had the on-site insight report that identifies 28 million 28 million that needs to be spent on the all three schools over the next 20 years. That whole process of looking at each school and now solving GMS but

080also putting together a plan. How are you going to fund all of that together? Needs to be looked at. And the way we're going about this now, breaks out GMS and segregates it. And it is not a complete look. That is too much money to be leaving out there and not including in a full evaluation. And I my recommendation is to go back to the recommendation I made to you a year ago March and it's in the documents there is to hire a consultant on a task order basis to work with the FIC to answer questions specifically as we go along. How much really would it cost to the HE system? Is it the 1.1 million that Turner replies uh identifies or not? And so with that, I'll conclude for the moment, but I my

081recommendation is for you to not move forward with the contract you have in place or you potentially are going to be back. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Any additional community comment? All right, there's a second round of community comment uh at 8:00 PM, so we'll open it up again at that time. Uh all right, uh now we'll turn it over to Dr. Taylor. All right. Go. Okay. So, um, as we talked about the last meeting, um, there was a lot of conversation throughout this year about the current grading practices and how things work on the back end of P school that really came to light um, in June and really showed a need for a serious change immediately. um not being able to continue on with our current practice.

082So, not a complete overhaul, but just some changes to make sure that grading reporting is accurate for students, families. Um so, I did a quick um overview. The handbook is list is um linked, but I just did this overview to quick show and capture the big changes to the system and then things that remain the same. Um really wanted to highlight elementary. There's been no changes in elementary school. um they've been working with a grading and reporting committee with Dan and Mora and um doing a nice job really focusing their efforts on what's best for elementary students um prek to 4 and I'm going to start joining those meetings because we're going to start shifting some things over but didn't think it really was necessary um to make any changes to their system at this

083time. So that is remaining status quo. Um the second um box highlights the a new grading structure. We're not going to have any more rolling grades. Um grades are going to end at each quarter and semester. What was happening is in let's say a teacher had more summitive assignments in quarter two than they did in quarter 1, it would outweigh quarter 1 and kind of mess up averages. So you can't live in two worlds where you have some grades rolling and some grades not rolling. Um so um grades are going to end the quarter. So, quarter 1 grades are going to close. Quarter two grades are going to close. Um, and then there's going to be one average. I know Andrew, you're going to like that. There's not going to be averages of averages. Um,

084and there's going to be an average. So, the semester grade will be the average of quarter 1 and the average of quarter 2. We'll talk about high school in a second. Um, but then you have the average of quarter three and four for semester two and then semester 1 and two will get you your final Y1 grade. The high school, as Jen mentioned, we really need to add back midterms and finals. We have talked about that over and over last year. I heard that from um many teachers and their student panels that come back to their alumni panels to talk about experiences after high school say it every year. We wish we had more high stakes testing. We wish we had midterms. We wish we had finals to really prepare us for that experience in

085our college career. So um really heard that from the various stakeholders. So in talking with the new administration, we decided we want to add those back in. Um and then we were looking at the new system and what does that mean? So, we're going to count midterms and finals as a separate term in Power School so that it doesn't unfairly skew a student's quarter grades and it counts. It still counts. It's still 5% of their grades. So, quarter 1, the quarter grades will be 47 and a half% and the midterm or final will be 5% of their grades. So, it's still got some meat to it, but not so much that it's going to tank them for the rest for the semester. And Jen and I talked about cuz it's kind of like, do we

086do 5%, do we do 10%, trying to find a fair number and where we're just now reintroducing midterms and finals, we didn't want to let's go for 10 and really take a big chunk. Um, let's ease in and see how it goes. and then um continue to talk about the waiting of that. Um then the total point system again not averaging averages we had the categorical weight system of 85 summitives 15 formatives split um we that causes a lot of trouble in trying to figure out where if I'm a student or a parent I can't quite figure out where I'm at in my grade because I need to make I don't know how many sumatives are there, how many formatives are there going to be and then I need to take that average and then

087the average of the formative and then average everything out again. Um so it just becomes very cumbersome to try to figure out. Um it also is very challenging as a teacher when you're locked into kind of two boxes. Sometimes you have an assignment that could fit either one. Which one do I go with? So, as a former English teacher, I think of a rough draft of an essay. I that's a little more robust than a 15% grade because they're really working on it and I want them to turn that in, but it's not quite an 85% sumitive because that's going to be their final paper. What do I where do I put that? So the total point system we put in like assignment types. So you can kind of see it still kind of weights

088out that way if you were to look at weights because of the point the total point values of the different assignment types without making two strict boxes. That make sense? Um but then also the point values. We did suggested points because sometimes you have an assignment that if I suggested 100 points for a summitive for example, but um when I was talking with Jeff for example, he sent me he had a um assessment that was worth 150 points I think it was. So, it kind of allows that flexibility while also giving some guidelines and um helping teachers with I don't know what I should assign this because the total point system is a little bit newer and different than what they're used to. So, it gives them some um parameters with some autonomy at the

089same time. Um really wanted to highlight in the other notes GPA and letter grade scale was unchanged. um competencies will still be attached to the assignment so that you can still see what competencies are being covered within the assignment, but it's not calculating into the grade. Um work study practices are going to be reported exactly the same as they were. So there's no change there. And then um wanted to highlight for anybody listening that might be interested um I will be sending out communications to be a part of this group. But I want to get a stakeholder group together that consists of families, students, teachers, and administrators to go over grading practices and come up with an actual system that is robust, effective, and transparent for all involved because this is something that I had

090to put together over the summer. I did um hold two teacher in-person um feedback sessions as well as sent out a form, but it's summertime. It's really hard to get a lot of people together. So, I want to make sure that the system that we finally land on is one that everybody is really happy with and I have a lot more input than I was able to get this summer. So, this is something that we felt is doable. It's transparent. It is effective and rigorous enough. So, um we're hoping to move forward and we just wanted to get acknowledgement for the board. We weren't sure if you needed to approve or um not, but that's up to you guys. So, open it up for questions. >> Questions. Dr. Taylor, could you just articulate what the

091work study practices were? I know you say the same for last year, but for people watching. >> So, those are like your perseverance, integrity, communication. Those are the practices that are transferable skills that are not just content academic related. And there's rubrics and those are linked in the handbook and um they were reported on last year >> separate from a transcript grade, right? >> Yes. Correct. >> So does that include um classroom participation? >> Yep. That would be all in their like integrity grade and Yep. >> Yeah. It's not in their like ABCD grade. It's reported separately. >> Right. The purpose of that is to kind of parse out behaviors versus academic proficiencies. Right? Because we don't want behaviors to impact seeing where a student really is at and what they can know, what they

092know and can do. We want to focus academic grades on the knowledge. And we want to focus work study practices on the behaviors. >> Okay? >> That way when the kid that gets a 4.0 from work study practices gets to Harvard, they're not like, "Sh, look, I mean, all these changes are welcome, right? Thank you for all your hard work and putting all this together." Um question being right how does this compare to like other districts and like is it is it in line with other practices and more more more like standard within the educational system. >> So a lot of districts of the educational system are going to competency based grading but I use quotes for that because true competency based grading doesn't use a 100point scale. A lot of districts use 100point scale

093in some capacity or another and they used averages. Um, in a true competency based system, you're using rubrics with one through four usually and not a 100 point scale average. You're not averaging anything. You're truly looking at competencies and skills. Um, and that's not a lot of systems that we have around the district or around the state. Um there are some that are more in that realm than others, but um there are a lot that are in this average this 100point scale system. True traditional grading has been revised over time and this is still a revision of that. It's more back in time than we were with the 8515 summitives. But again, as I pointed out, there's a lot of problems with that, especially when you don't understand it and you can't get there. So

094my hope over the course of this next year is to really educate and figure out where our system should be and could be and also make it so that it makes sense because right now it doesn't as you know. >> Yeah. >> I think I drove Dr. Taylor nuts because I'd be like, "Well, when I taught at Roy River, >> blah blah blah blah blah." >> So, I I think you see some similarities um between various stops at least that I've been with this to what was going on in those schools, >> right? And I know my own daughter goes to Bedford High and they grade competencies, but on a 100 point scale, everything's averaged >> on 100 point scale. And I'm like, it's not really competency grading. Okay. >> I think you struck a

095great balance with this. Personally, I think this is going to be awesome. Also, great uh deliverable here. This was so easy to read. >> Thank you. >> Keep it simple for us. >> Yeah. I mean, look, again, I I think it uh it simplifies the whole structure and I'm really looking forward to seeing it in practice and and getting reactions from from parents and from kiddos and seeing how it goes. >> Yeah, me too. >> I just want to give Sarah credit. She worked ridiculously hard on this. like >> um and I sometimes truly annoyed her with um something done and then I go uh no um can you try this or can you do this or whatever. So um and she handled it with grace each time she did that and hasn't murdered me

096yet. So um she did an incredible job working with us this summer and the feedback we got from people was excellent. You know the other administrators obviously had input but just uh Sarah took on the bulk of the work and it was great. >> Yeah. And so now the hard the hard part is going to be or the next challenge will be rolling it out, right? And making sure >> Yeah. the staff is all on board with this new model. >> So the plan is um once we finish the meeting I um will we have a admin meeting tomorrow and we'll talk more about it. But um then I I have a meeting with Andrea and Karen on Monday. I've already met with Andrea, so she's already started to set up the back end in

097anticipation of the change and so because we can't wait. We had to keep things rolling so it's ready to rock and roll in a couple weeks. >> Um and then Karen, Andrea and I are meeting on Monday to go over the whole back end of the system and do test cases. >> Say, can we test it? >> Uhhuh. Um so we're going to do test cases and we're going to see what happens. So, if I enter this and that just to see if there's any bugs that kind of pop up, um, and if there are, Andrea will go in and fix that. Um, and then Karen is going to do an instructional video of how to do assignments and what that looks like in the Power School um, in the teacher facing view. And then

098the three of us are going to go to LMS and CHS during opening days and do a training with the teachers live so that we're in person. And they'll have the handbook which I'm going to do a section two that has screenshots. So they'll have the handbook with screenshots. They'll have a video and then they'll have live human interaction. Let's set this up together while we're here with you. Um and then continuous conversations with me monthly during PLC and CTP meetings. Um so that there's complete communication constantly around this so that everybody is in understanding of what what this is. >> Great. Yeah, that's fantastic. Right. Consistent application is going to be the key. >> Yep. Absolutely. >> Yeah. I was going to say I'll make a motion to approve the grading handbook. Thank you

099again for all your host. >> Second. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> By myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker. Uh roll. Do we have to do a roll call vote? I said roll call. >> I mean she's off so you don't have to be a roll call evening. Um Mr. Plansky. >> I shoemaker. I Mr. Dit. >> Hi. >> That carries 40. >> Um are we looking to do approvals on the handbooks this evening as well? >> Oh yes. Yes. Sorry. I wanted to address that. Um, were there any changes or any uh other items on the handbooks to address at the board level tonight? >> I mean, other than if there's updated references to policies, then I mean, they can make those. I think the content >> Well, once we approve the policy, they can updates.

100>> So, other than that, >> okay, I'll make them all at once. >> Yeah. I'll make a motion to approve the GMS, LMS, and CHS uh handbooks uh with the updates pending board action this evening. Second motion by myself, second by Mr. Shoemaker, Mr. Plansky. >> Hi, >> Mr. Schumaker. I >> I Mr. Dit. >> Hi. >> That carries 4 Z. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, no student representatives reports this evening. Uh, we are going to skip over correspondents this evening because Miss Ames is no longer with us. And we'll turn it over to the superintendent for an update. >> Yeah. So, so mine's short because everyone else is taking all the thunder tonight, which is great. I'm sitting back. My blood's a little sore. Anyways, um we just have updated

101enrollment for August 1st. We still have a few weeks before school starts. Um a couple of trends. Uh we're down in elementary school and a lot of that is the kindergarten. Um we're at 32 for prek, but we usually see those pre-k enrollments come until the very first day of school and even after the first day of school a little bit. So, >> six kindergarters in last week though. >> Seen six what? >> Kindergarters in last week. >> I don't think they're in here though. >> They're not. I was going to add that we are seeing some enrollment coming in like in the last week or two, kids arriving into the schools. I'm aware of a family of six that is not included in this enrollment yet that just moved into town cuz they reached

102>> six kids in kindergarten. >> No, no, they [Laughter] >> No. >> Sounds like Matt's mam. >> They have I believe it's one elementary, three middle, and two high. um but they have six kids and they're not we don't add them to this count until they're officially officially all the way through. Um but we are seeing enrollments um coming in here as we approach the start of the school year. So I would anticipate at our next meeting two weeks from now um these numbers to increase. What I do want to draw your attention to because I don't think these number is going to decrease significantly is the high school is higher than we thought. Um, and the one particular number I want to draw your attention to is the ninth grade number because we retain

103pretty much all of our eighth graders, you know, or if a kid left for prep school, we had a kid come in and it was kind of a wash. So, that's different than last year um where we lost probably nine or 10 kids in the total uh numbers. So, I think that's a credit to to our staffs and to our administration, to our teams that we saw a lot of our eighth graders feel good about being in the district and want to continue their education up at Campbell High School. So, that's a trend that I do hope we can kind of carry and continue in the years ahead and stuff like that. Um, but so, uh, the the 344 and 345 for Middleland High School is exactly where we were in June. So, it's a

104nice nice place to be there. Um, and we'll check in again in two weeks as we we get closer to the start of school. So, >> we have nine new enrollments that are not listed there. >> Yeah, I know. Because they're not all the way through. So, there it's going to be up. >> Yeah. when we get there. >> We really make people just well we know these because we really make people jump through hoops to prove that they live here. Um because it's a real hassle to on the other side if you have to try and um show that someone is not living in town. So there is a lot of hoops. Sometimes people get grumpy with us because we make people jump through all the hoops um before we we register them fully.

105So um that's why sometimes the registration process can take a little bit of time. It's not as simple as showing up at school and throwing you into the the system. We make you really jump through the hoops. So, >> yeah. >> And thank you for highlighting the grade eight to grade nine transition, right? That that's an important metric that uh is important to call out. >> It'd be nice, you know, if >> you know that we gain kids. Some high schools that happens that they actually gain kids as you go into that ethan. >> Well, it sounds like you might. >> Maybe we are. But that would be a nice trend if we get on that side of it is is gaining kids as they come into high school. So, long time we did get

106a couple sophomores back. >> We did got some kids back. >> That's right. From prep school. That's right. So, or private school or independent school or whatever they're calling it nowadays. >> Um, I only have one hiring update uh to update and it just came in yesterday. Uh, we final it yesterday. Um, so we have a new music teacher at Campbell High School. Uh, Emily Dawson's going to be joining us. So, I'll pass folder out there and not public for for you to review. Um, she has uh going to be in her third year teaching. She sat two previous years um at Londereary. Um this will be a bigger role for her obviously which is her incentive for for joining us and stuff. Um she had um previously also been doing some work with Manchester

107um community college their music program as well part-time. She's going to continue to do that kind of work for them in the evenings and stuff. Um and as part of um the Army Reserve so does some work with them as well um with their music program. So we're really excited. She seems great. Um she came in for interview with Jen and the team last week. She came in to interview with me yesterday. Um, she's a random fact. Sorry if Emily if you're watching and and you didn't want me to show this, but she's getting married in September at one place one of my best friends got married in North Andover. So, if anyone's looking for a wedding venue, it's a great place. Quick plug. Um, and uh, yeah, we're happy to have her have her

108join us. So, >> awesome. >> Okay, >> that's it for me. All right, thank you for the updates. Uh, and we'll turn it over to Miss Darling for business administration update. All right. Um, so, uh, we did have our audit, uh, last week. We had Plaza and Sanders come over. Um, we, they were here the 21st through the 23rd. We're still in communication with them about the final numbers. Um, obviously, it's still a working process. Um, but so far, um, we did not have any major findings. There was, um, one payment that, um, a double payment that that was found and has now been corrected. And then we also had um some student activity um issues which is typical most years but we did hear that it was an improvement from last year. So we're

109going in the right direction and we're going to continue to um work particularly with the student activities and um making sure that we're tightening that up a bit for this year. Um with contracted services for the year. I did want to um just mention that last year we um contracted with citywide janitorial services um for some of the vacant positions that we weren't able to fill. We'd like to continue doing that this year. Um I met with them yesterday along with um Joe Underwood, our custodial supervisor. Um and we would like to continue on with having um their um contractors in all three of our buildings. We did talk about the fact that last year um and you know we were able to negotiate uh when we were able to hire some more um custodians

110that we were able to have one less building that they were taking care of. So, we're going to have that clause in this contract, which I haven't received yet. Um, that will say if we do hire some um custodians that we have, we can just give 30 days notice on one of the schools so that we can continue on with the other two um that be able to hire those folks. Um once we have um that situated, I'll come back to the board um hopefully by the next meeting asking for a transfer from the contract and from the custodial services um to contracted services. Um we also have um at GMS we are looking to um hire a substitute nurse two days a week um this fall to help um cover a long-term leave. Um,

111we did talk about this a couple meetings ago. Um, we were able to get some help with three days per week, but we're still going to need those two days to be covered. Um, so at this point, we are looking to contract with an agency. Uh, we have two um candidates that are coming in tomorrow um to interview over at um at GMS um and and hopefully we'll be able to we'll feel comfortable with one of those to be able to move on and contract with them. I just wanted to update on that. Um we have been working, Brian and I have been um attending some meetings with regard to um the town EOP. Um we had that needed to be updated. Um the grant uh the town received a grant to um have some

112assistance with um finalizing that. Um so that's been wrapped up. One of the things that has come out of that um is that the generator that we have at the high school is actually belongs to the town because it's used for is for an emergency shelter when when we use the school for that. Um so I guess the generator that's at the high school is is very old was donated to us many years ago. Not doing great. Um so obviously that's an important piece of equipment that we need to make sure is functioning properly. Um so we are looking at a grant. Um, Chief Nickel and I are going to be um meeting um we actually had a meeting tomorrow. It's been postponed a bit. Um, but we are going to be meeting to um

113look at the emergency management performance grant um that the town would be applying for and we'll be assisting with that. So, we'll I'll certainly share more information when that becomes available. >> Okay. And just in general, I just want to um give a shout out to all of our um custodial and maintenance staff. Um they have done a tremendous job this summer and working very hard to make our buildings um nice and fresh for us, you know, when everyone's coming back to school. Um Conquered High School, I mean Conquered High School, >> Campbell High School. Um the walls are all one color. It looks lovely. >> Improved everybody's OCD over there. >> It's the first floor. are just warning everybody. We didn't have time for both. We didn't we just budgeted and had time both

114cost and budget for just the first. So the yellow the second will come next year hopefully. >> Absolutely. Yes. And that's all I had. >> Excellent. Well, yes, I'll echo that shout out to the staff that, you know, thank you for all that they do. I know they've been working hard over the summer to get the buildings ready for the students to return and staff to return. So, and I've been in Campbell with the paint and it looks great. >> It does look awesome. >> Looks great. I'm not going to lie. >> Pick a paint color. >> You picked a white. So, I mean, how hard is >> Yeah, but white is not white. It's like a >> There was yellow white. There was gray white. There was like a green white, a purple white.

115>> Well, the white you picked is very clean. >> Snow White. >> It's very enchanting. >> Yeah, I was that was a lot of help. >> Um, a couple questions uh just in terms of the janitorial services. So, we were able to uh have citywide support two out of the three buildings towards the second half of last year. Why all three buildings again this year? Did we lose a staff member? >> We did lose a staff member. Yes. So, and we were able to make it work throughout the end of the year. Um kind of just scraping by, but we don't want to start off in that position. Right now, we have five and a half positions that are vacant throughout the district and with custo. What were we up to for We were doing

116pretty well for a little bit there, weren't we? We were >> We were We were >> How what was our lowest number of vacancies, do you know? >> I don't I want to say four, but I'm not I'm not 100% sure. I will check on that. >> And do we know uh for the people we're losing? Do we know what we lost them to? >> Uh I believe the person that we had um wasn't with us very long. Um I I think unfortunately that's been the trend is some of the people that we've hired just haven't lasted very long and for one reason or another. Um it's it's just been difficult to to maintain staff. >> Okay. Um also in terms of the um the generator is the you know I know it's in in

117cooperation here with the town but is the generator no longer operational? Is that the issue? is operational, but um I guess the the last couple of inspections, including the most recent one, um the chief was told that it was not probably going to be running for much longer, that it, you know, we should probably make sure it's not leaking or anything like that. >> So, just want to make sure that's running properly. >> And another question. >> Sure. >> How's the solar doing at LMS? >> Waiting for it. >> You're never going to get away from that. >> I know. Um, so so far so good. Um, I have not received an update. I reached out um somewhat recently to Kay to get um more of a timeline on when they'll be doing the work

118this summer. Um, and I she's still waiting on some information um from some of um she's been still waiting on some information um to be able to move forward with making a firm plan with us. So, I will be following back up with her once again um to get a more >> Did we do the pad for the battery? >> That is something that they're they're going to be doing this summer and that's one of the things that we need to know when they're going to be scheduling. >> I don't think it's going to happen this summer. >> Well, and the idea was that was going to happen >> before students >> correct? >> Yeah. >> Were getting back last summer >> and fire drop off and all those other fun things. fire would like

119a word as well. Like when it comes to the Oh, really? Yeah. They just want to be included and they feel like they get cut. Julie does a good job of including them and then they kind of >> get cut out of the conversation and you know >> they should be involved. >> Okay. But in ter in terms of the actual return from the array, do we have any like sense of how that is going for for >> how it's producing? >> Yeah. How it's producing? I mean, we're we're in the energy producing months now certainly for for the array. >> Correct. Um, that's data that I'm I need to find out how we kind of get more of that information because we still are receiving the Eversource bills. Um, and there's a natural decrease

120of course during the time of year of of energy consumption. Um, but we are >> I think we're not paying anything right now. >> Correct. Correct. >> On it to ever source, >> right? I mean, we're still receiving the bills, but right, the district is not paying. >> So, Right. We should be not >> I I'm curious as to what the middle school bills are for Eversource because right the the Ray's really producing the electricity there really shouldn't be a whole lot that's being charged from Eversource >> unless we're relying on the battery backup system for the low production times which we don't have. >> Which we don't have. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. But we're in prime >> right >> energy like we should be seeing zero. I'm understanding how this works, right? Yeah. >>

121Yeah. >> No, we we should be So, >> you have it there. >> We should be getting absolutely zero bills from Eversource. I understand getting a bill and saying you owe us nothing >> and everything, but we should not be paying Eversource anything if that grid is full up and I mean, it's 487 kilowatts kilowatt hours that that thing should be able to produce. So, I mean, like there's enough power there, especially in the low electrical usage time of the school, that we we should not be seeing we should not be paying out anything to Eversource. >> So, I' I'd like to see the for the next several months, right? I' Yes. >> We'll just say for the rest of the year, I'd like to see I'd like to see the LMS electricity bills, >>

122okay, >> consistently. >> I I think for the first bit of it though, we might want to see historic bills just to see like a year, >> year over year. So, >> it's on the website account. >> So, back on June 10th, Ann did send out a spreadsheet of electrical bills. >> Um I And it's just a spreadsheet. I would like to see more like how many kilowatt hours was used, not just the charges for it >> because we had asked for this as a summary, >> right? Yes. >> Yep. So, >> we can just hyperlink the bills into the >> Yeah. No, that that's perfectly fine. Or even just update the spreadsheet and then I mean I I'll be glad to help fill it out, too. just because I'm very interested um in going

123from that. But >> okay, absolutely. >> All right. Thank you for the update. >> Almost forgot about that. >> We hadn't talked about it in a while. >> All right. Is it humming or anything? Any noises >> from the roof from the solar? >> Any smoke or anything like that? Has the heating system registered that it's 4,000 degrees in the school again? >> No. >> Sounds like there's something else there. >> Nothing you want. Nothing you want to share. >> All right. >> No, there's some fire alarm wires that we're trying to figure out. >> Different. >> All right. It's annoying. >> That's another headache. >> Nothing else is buzzing. >> All right, let's uh turn it over to curriculum and instruction update. All right, speaking of buzzing, the CIA department of been very busy

124um this summer. Um grading was the most prevalent, but um just a quick update just a couple of days ago, we did finally get um title two um and four allocations. We were kind of worried we weren't going to get those. Um and we did end up getting them. And because um I like to spend our grant money, our allocations increased a little bit, which is great to see cuz your allocations will tend to go up if they see that you're spending down your funds. Um and I'm a f firm believer of spending grant funds when you get them. So um that was really exciting to see the other day. Our consolidated app for the ESSA um portion was approved. So, I'm ready to rock and roll to start grants and um been working on

125a whole bunch of things this summer. So, that's I've already talked a lot earlier. So, >> what were the grant amounts? >> Um I off the top of my head I can look for them, but in my next update I'll give the exact allocations because these were very preliminary. I literally got them like two days ago. Um, so I still have to I looked at them and I did a happy dance like yay. And I saw that they were a little bit more than what we had. So I'm like, "Yay!" But I'll give you the exact grant amounts um, next meeting. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you for that update. >> I'll make a motion to approve the July 9th public >> as amended. >> All right. We have a motion

126by Mr. Shoemaker. >> He seconded already. Right. >> Second by Mr. Plansky. Just a point of discussion. We have received confirmation that those uh have been amended. >> Appreciate it. Thank you sir. >> Thank you. Um Mr. Clancy >> I >> Mr. Schumaker I >> I am an I. Mr. Wood >> I >> those carry 40. >> All right. Turning it over to new business and I'll put it back to the superintendent. >> Yes. So we talked to some um some teams of people over the past last Friday and Monday uh in regards to the RFP we had out for GMS. So we talked to I'm going to say firms and the groups you know there's combination of people but we we talked to to Turner group um Barker and SMP they kind of came

127together the two different architecture firms kind of came together um Haramman and then the valley and Brenninger um as the forms that we interviewed they're great experience uh we had a good group of people I think nine people in the room with us people from the board obviously people from FIC um plus me and Julie for and Dan for the districts um very informative. Each presentation was unique. You know, they came in and they presented some overviews and we could have some dialogue and some questions with them. Um you know, I'll just give my quick opinion of it and anyone can jump in. Um while I think they all gave great presentations, um I I think um the Barker presentation, Barker S&P, is not necessarily where we are right now and uh not the not

128the firm that we'd go for. They do great work. Um they're doing work over in the Nadok school district right now. Um that I'm partial to um because it's my dad's old school um or old school plural. They're working on two different ones and uh people over there are really happy with the work they're doing but I don't think they're the right fit for us right now. And but the other three firms uh Turner Herman and the Valley um they're great. They all have differences, pros and cons. Um but I think any of the three for me personally I think would would be uh would be beneficial for us um you know to kind of move forward with and continue with. So, um, we gather some feedback from from the people who who took the

129panel. Um, again, anyone else wants to jump in and share share their thoughts on any of it. So, >> I have not done the done the survey yet. Um, I was I think I saw three of the four. I did not see the valley one, which is one I definitely wanted to see. >> Um, I was impressed with Turners um, more so I thought they had a better feel for the community. Um, Haramman I thought was I left feeling as though they were going to be the absolute most expensive, significantly more than some of the others. >> So, I have a difference of opinion on that. >> So, unusual for you and I to >> the lawyer. >> Uh, I I first off all they were they were all great. I appreciate the work they

130all did to come in. They they obviously do a lot of prep to come into these meetings and um they were all very informative. Um, you know, starting starting with Turner, like they highlighted some projects that are very similar to what we are thinking that we need, which I I really appreciated. Um, the biggest concern for me with them was around community engagement. I think that one problem that we really struggle with here is is how to effectively get information to the community, share information with the community, make the community uh feel like they know what's going on. Um and uh they were the only firm that didn't have any sort of plan for that. Um their answer was well you could hire a separate PR firm. Um but there wasn't like a plan which

131made led me to believe that it wouldn't be a very integrated approach which for me is a deal breakaker. Um Lavali was great. Um my concern with them was that they are bringing in a they're not a fully integrated team. So they are bringing in outside partners. >> It was four separate subcontractors that they would partner with. >> And my concern with that is having been involved with the last project, communication was really challenging at times because of the amount of people that were jumping on calls and different voices and different opinions and um it just to me it's it's ineffective. So um Herman, I wish I brought my notes. I didn't bring my husband in the car. But Haramman, the entire time I was watching their presentation, I was just thinking to myself, "Wow,

132this is unbelievable. This is this is everything that we need." Now, I do agree that they have worked on some high-end projects. However, they did highlight a project where there was a budget that they came in higher than this uh school wanted, but the school said, you know, we think we need to be at this price point. And they did a lot of creative work to reconfigure what they were proposing. and they got them down by a considerable amount. Um, and I thought that that was impressive. I think that in that regard, I think that if we are clear with them on where we think we need to be, that they can hit what we need. Um, but they are fully integrated. So, they have a person that's on their team who is solely dedicated

133to helping us make sure we're st keeping information in front of the community. Um, and you know, they package it, they they put it out there. we don't have to like have someone that's responsible for that. And as one of the people who was primarily responsible for that the last goound, that was miserable as a working person. And uh a lot of it ended up falling on Dan's uh shoulders, which is just it's just not effective. Um so for me, I feel as though they would be the strongest candidate for what would help us get to where we need to go. >> Yeah. So I will say that there was a couple of trends that I saw right is I I absolutely agree that Barker S&P are not like they to me they completely missed

134the mark. They came in and they they absolutely completely missed the whole premise of why we're back at the table. Um and there's also just other comments that you know Mr. Mitchell provided during the meeting or after the meeting with that it's trying to get him to understand with the hey we don't like this change this and it took three four times for him to make that actual adjustment versus okay I hear you but let me go do this over here instead so that on our timeline I it just isn't going to work it like just from a personality perspective I I think it's the wrong uh moveer um the Turner group Lavali and Haramman all recommended that we get a construction manager hired separately and it's not a lot of cost. They would all

135they all had different adjs to adjust for it of they can provide an estimator but that's contracted through them doing the construction manager is contracted directly for us. It is their best purview of protects us >> and that's the only way we get a GMP. It's yes, it's a only way that we get a GMP that a construction team would sit there and stand by, >> right? >> And because that that's what we're hiring them to do. >> Um, I will say that Turner Group had a great presentation because I felt like they saw kind of loosely what could be involved with the project. They presented several of them that kind of hit the mark, but I felt like they missed the mark on we're looking at two options. They they did next to no

136talking about the second option and that is like that that's where like put them as out of the four number three to me. Lavali was very very good. I think they grasp the PR concept. I am concerned about the for some contractors. Um but they're the only ones that presented a timeline. Everybody says that it can be done. Well, of course they're all going to say that. But they're the only one that actually presented a schedule. Haramman um I I think had the best presentation. I think they understand the need out of it. Um and just for rough figures, if we go with Haramman, we're talking, you know, like we're at a 30k split between everybody. Turner group came in significantly less, but we still needed to go higher. And that that's where my concern

137came in. So, um I mean honestly I liked all the different presentations. I thought it was really funny that it just we spent a year working with a team and then it just completely missed the mark in my mind. But that's my opinion. So, >> not having been part of the process and the interviews, right, and and solely listening to you folks and going through the data that I see and it looks like there was feedback from the interviewers and questions that were sent out and um what I'm reading there's there appears one clear choice. >> Yeah, when we gathered the feedback so just we sent a Google form that people participated and then just asked um you know each of the people individually on a scale one through five like how did you think

138they they fit and then rank do a rank order of your people and then just share thoughts related to it and Heramman is the overwhelming favorite of the group um of this subgroup of six people responded um that they were the top choice of the nine people who who responded and I don't and I think one person u refrained from ranking any of them for foreign racing so six out of the eight felt that way um you know and you Turner got a vote as the best one. Lavali got a vote as as the best one. Um, everyone had Barker in in that number four spot. So, I think for sake of conversation right now, I don't think they're the best fit to move forward. Um, and Turner and Lali, it was four and three,

139right? You know, they're kind of split as the second second kind of favorite of the group themselves, but again, only speaking for myself, they're all really close and offer those different pros and cons. I think in cost, >> you know, Turner threw out a number that um was low. Um not that I think they're that that they're being untruthful or anything, but um the fact that Haramman and Lavalis were pretty much the same makes me think like what else do we need to hire here with Turner, which they were open about. You know, that that's not >> the sole thing. So I I do think probably the cost when you for this part of it when it's all said and done which is a contract with at least the firm and additional people including at

140least a construction manager is all going to be roughly the same um doing doing some preliminary research of it um or based upon the numbers they gave us that's the research of it you know um so I I I think costs were about equal across the board and I think it is who's the best fit for us as a district and I think what does it's your decision ultimately the boards obviously people provide you insight and feedback but as you as a board look to to do this this project what and learning from the past experience what is it that that you think is the best fit for this I think all three of these I'm again I'll just put I'm only going to speak for myself no one else in the room or any

141of these other groups I'm more familiar in my history with both Lval and Turner because I've worked in districts that have done work with Lval and Turner and that work's been really strong and good and people have been really happy. I'm least familiar with the work of Heramman. That's not to say that they don't do good work. Um just like I'm least familiar with them personally, >> but they're just completing or they're in the middle of a huge project over in Nshawa. They have a long history when you look through their their references and just like history of just success. Uh more of it's in Maine. I think that's probably where they they started their business. feels to me maybe they're trying to expand into New Hampshire which is part of this and so they

142would be invested to do a really solid job. Um but I I um I also think turn valley this is what they do in the state of New Hampshire they do school projects you know and like they're great at it. So yeah but I don't think you go wrong with any of the three >> with respect to the timeline um >> that's my next question. >> Yeah. So, I think all of them sort of indicated we can if if you're looking for a march vote, we can absolutely get there. We have to hit the ground running and it's going to be a lot of work, but we can absolutely do that. Um, I think if we, you know, I think we've talked about how we feel it's important to try to move forward as best

143we can, but obviously preserving the the, you know, quality of what we do. Um, so I think either way if we if we get started, if we get to the point where we decide collectively with our team, you know, it's just not ready at that point, then we can make the right decisions. But I think if we do get started as soon as possible by engaging any of these um companies, we stand a chance at potentially having something done, especially because we have done a considerable amount of work. one of them pointed out you know you have a lot of background information that we can rely on which is very very helpful um but like for example with Heramman I did ask them so it was interesting question wise like you kind of like knew

144okay well this wasn't answered for me but with Heramman they answered everything that I could think of so I started thinking of other questions and one thing that came to mind was you know given the fact that it is a wetter site um you know do how how will that play into what we have to do for background work and they said that they would want to get, you know, geotechnical um studies done right away so that they that way they know because they can design. We're essentially getting to if we want to get to a Marcher boat, we want to get to a schematic design um with a guaranteed maximum price and they said, you know, in order to feel confident in having a schematic design, we definitely want to know what we're building

145on so that we can get you to a price that's u >> reasonable. So my opinion is uh we should be definitely taking swift action with respect to choosing one, but we should also be taking swift action with respect to have it starting to get an RFP ready for a construction manager >> um because that is a critical component of getting off the ground because a lot of them have built-in estimator um costs but ultimately um in some cases the it's it's more useful to have our construction manager on as well. One of them said that they would keep their estimator regardless, right? >> Yeah. And they wouldn't charge us for it because they just want their own estimator to kind of come to it and stuff. >> Yeah. So, in all three groups said

146that they would help facilitate that. >> Yeah. >> To get a construction manager on board. That would be separate contract to us. I don't know I don't know specifically what our policy states about that, but um it is something that I I highly recommend that we add that we do. with this um because I honestly just think it will protect us because that construction estimate that construction manager would work with this group with whatever firm we choose and basically validate whatever is they come up with a pre a concept design and a schematic design can be done for the price that they tell us and that person is hired by us to validate that assumption >> and they're also uh you know responsible to us to actually doing it. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> So

147another question I mean one thing I just heard listening again is construction construction new new build build. What about the renovation aspects of this project? >> No would still be part that would still be part of the conversation. >> Yeah it so what but what did they have to present about the renovation piece of this in their plan? So they all presented to us um different projects that they've worked on. All all of them were renovation or renovation plus edition projects that they worked on. I don't think any of them gave us a brand new school. They know that that wasn't they listened to what we were asking for. So they didn't do that. Um, you know, ultimately, uh, there were, uh, one of them, was it Lavali, that came in and said like, here's

148like a really rough idea of like what you could look at. But it wasn't, none of them have been engaged to do that yet. So, they didn't deliver like, hey, this is what we would suggest. It, you know, out of the four of them, I would have expected Barker to have come in with something maybe a little bit more >> detail, >> honed in just because he's he has a lot more um, >> you know, background with this. But >> I thought the Haramman example when it came to the renovation stuff was nice. So they did an example where that there was an initial thought of what the renovation will look like for the school, the renovation slash edition they were doing, right? And it had a price point I think it was 20 million

149or $22 million, right? Um and you know the the school district was like that's that price is not going to work. That plan's not going to work for us. So they uprooted the gym is what they moved, right? this gym they were adding to it and they did something pretty clever with like a curve through the the middle of the building and put the gym over here and end up saving the project probably not solely because of that but about $8 million I think it had got it down to to about 12 million total >> and it was actually designed and a plan from a different firm that they took over for >> yeah that was the situation >> so it was them showing that they can be flexible with that dialogue of going back

150and forth of like hey your initial idea here while great may not be what's working for us fiscally. So what can you do to adjust that? So it was nice that they heard that because you know again I'll just speak for myself. I think what we're looking for is a firm that we can have that dialogue for. You know we have an idea. We got a couple of different options. We're looking at reconfiguration stuff up with the high school the um solely doing work at GMS. looking at our list of items we want to check off here, realizing that, you know, we're a $30 million renovation project is not going to be appropriate. So, like make getting that back and forth of what the price point that we feel comfortable with. Um, knowing that we

151got enough done on our list is what we're looking for. And I thought the Haramman part of that presentation was really nice because they articulated a nice case study where they did exactly that. So, >> they're also very cautious to um futureproof their designs, too. So like they they understand that if we can't achieve everything that we're trying to achieve that down the road at some point if we ever wanted to achieve something different they will design for that and I think I I would assume that all >> all the others would as well. So I think what you know again most of the firm all four of them showed us renovation projects that they had done you know and a general idea I mean I think one of them showed us like a super

152rough idea of like you could use this space here you know and adjust you know essentially where the portables are now right you know and and do some maneuvering here and remove this and ship that over there like some general big ideas but I think they would have to get in and really start >> he gave that caveat he's like this is like real just rough idea of something you could maybe look at >> just an idea based upon the walkthrough that they did and the information that they had. So, um I I do agree. I think if we could leave leave this meeting at a minimum starting contract negotiations with at least one firm and the flexibility to begin the process of of of a construction manager, that will be a success for for

153right now. you know, obviously you shouldn't agree to a firm right now without a contract in place, but that's going to be done with our attorneys and the firms and stuff like that. But, um, to maybe start that process with at least one of the firms. So, at the next board meeting, we have a hopefully a contract you can review and, you know, see if you're comfortable with it. You know, that puts all of these numbers that are floated out there, puts them on paper that you can see concretely that this is what you're getting for this cost, right? and those type of details and stuff. >> So, open question to the board. Are is the board comfortable with pushing forward towards a March timeline? >> I you know I was always skeptical of like

154is that does that make sense? After seeing these presentations, I I think I don't think we lose anything by by working towards that. I think that we have to be smart and continue to monitor the progress and recognize if we're seeming like we're tight on time. We can always make those, you know, adjustments and ultimately I don't know that it would have a super crazy impact on when we would actually start the you know, >> right? I I think and correct me if I'm wrong, again, I didn't see Levalum said if even if we vote March 2026, it would be 2027 before they would put a shovel in the ground. But obviously, you know, we are looking to have some sort of, you know, some finality. >> I I think I mean, my caution is

155going to be on Brian and Julie and and the staff's team. It it's it's a heavy lift. It's a lot of work. And I And you've answered the question several times, so you don't have to rehash it. I believe you guys can do it. I believe you guys will make it the priority and it can be done. I I that would be my one concern. But again, you guys, it's why we that's why you guys are here. It's why you do what you do. You guys say you guys can do it. So I I >> as opposed to the construction manager. Is that what you're referring to? >> No. No. just just the the amount of interaction, the amount of meetings, the amount of work that it's going to take >> to go from here

156to get a GMP with a solid confidence that a construction manager will sign off on by, let's say, end of November, mid December. There is a lot of work and a lot of meetings and a lot of disruption probably in the first month, month and a half of school that they're going to be on site during the day. >> Oh, by the way, >> it's budget time. >> Budget season, >> right? >> Yeah. So, and it's the work that needs to be done. I will say my piece. It's the work that needs to be done. You know, you let the work dictate the work that you're going to do. And if that's the work that needs to be done right now, then that's the work that needs to be done. >> We may have some

157of that from the last effort. >> I mean, it's going to need to be tweaked obviously, but >> I mean, just looking I have the Herman um presentation open, but like they included your portrait of a learner in there. Like they have done some of the leg work already because we've been doing we've been at this for >> I mean, one of them laid out all of the stuff like there, right? like they had their little picture with the screenshot of each of the various reports that have been done >> forever, you know. I think one of it may have been Turner because it may have been one of their reports was included there, you know. >> So, there's a lot of info that people can use here already. So, >> yep. >> Do you

158want to hear from the citizen co-chair since he's here and he's part of the FIC? >> Um, yeah, I would love that. >> Sure. Come up. How's it going? >> Evening. >> I'm Julart, 14 Dearwood Drive. Um, so yeah, I'm facilities co-chair. I was at these meetings and interviews and I am very much in the same camp as Matt. I felt Haramman's presentation was above and beyond everybody else's. They really took the time and effort to dig into the information that we had already present already had and then were able to take that and tell us how they would use it and present on it as opposed to just saying, "Oh yeah, we know you guys did stuff. We'll look at it." They already looked at it. They already started going through it and making

159it part of what they're thinking about and how we're going to get there. Um when it comes to the timeline, they were very clear that yeah, depending on when you vote, whether it's the March of this coming March or the following, the difference in construction is a couple months, right? You're not going to change the timeline drastically by delaying a year on the vote. Um so they think we can get there no matter what. But yeah, like everybody said, this is going to be a lot of work between either Brian and his team, members of the school board, the FIC committee, but to Brian's point, I think that's what we need to do to get to the place we need for the the school, right? Like I think there's while there's things to do at

160GMS and to Mr.'s point, like there's there's ways to do things, right? We could fix things that it's we want to fix things, I think, in this solution, too. It's not just it's not a build a new school solution, right? It's not just an addition like it is looking to improve the entirety of that building and change that learning environment to be more with the current way people learn and the the schools are built and schools are things they need to do right things that were part of school 20 years ago are not part of what schools today like you have to deal with dealing with kids cell phones even when I was in school right and that wasn't that long ago so like the learning environments have drastic drastically changed and our building has

161not kept up with that and I think these options that we're talking about are help us going to get there without breaking the bank. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any additional discussion? >> Nope. Does the board have a motion? I'll I'll make a motion to choose Herman >> as our >> to enter into negotiations. >> Yeah. Negotiations to with Herman. >> I'll second. Okay. We have a motion by Mr. Clansky, a second by Mr. Shoemaker. Um discussion. My discussion point is I know that sounds like Lali and Turner big in the state, right? Are there any reservations by um by going into contract negotiations with Herman? >> I I don't have reservations. Like I said, I think all three of those firms are excellent. You know, I thought, you know, one of the the

162things and if I had to I I think I've gone back and forth personally between Turner and Herman, you know. Um sorry, Lal, but you're right there, too. Just like with the two of them. Um and I I think why I shade a little tiny bit towards Heramman is the line of communication for us seem most clear, right? Like these are the three people we're going to talk to all the time and they're going to handle everything for us and as more novice when it comes to facilities projects, you know, as a as an SAU team, I liked that it was very very clear to me who we're talking to all the time, right? And that they have history doing projects for a long time. It was very clear that Miss Swain there, I think

163that's how you pronounce her last name, is the person, right? And then the Emily person is going to be our like help us sell it type person, right? And um the third gentleman, I can't remember him right now, was >> you know the the nuts and bolts guy, right? Yeah. The project manager. And that just seems so simple and so clear. So I was feel very comfortable with them. Likewise, I feel comfortable with the other two firms, too. You know, >> they are doing work in NSHA, too. It's not like they don't do work in do a ton of work. >> They have they have a location in Portsmouth and Boston. So they are >> feel they're creeping this way. That's the vibe I got. Like they're coming this way into the state, right? And

164they see this as an opportunity for themselves to show that they can work with district of our size and of our need and do a good job with it. >> Okay. Uh roll call vote. Mr. Clansky. >> Hi. >> Mr. Shoemaker. Hi. >> I'm an I. Mr. Wit. >> Hi. >> All right. Carries 4. >> May I have a couple follow-up questions that might require other things? >> Yes. Um, could we have some sort of motion to start working towards a construction manager as well? >> I will make that motion right now. >> Okay. >> Uh, yes, absolutely. Uh, so >> I'll make a uh, yeah, I'll make a motion to start uh, I guess start the work on an RFP for construction manager. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky.

165>> Um, how will that be funded? >> That was going to be my next thing when you were done with this. Um, so my next thing I'm going to ask you is if we I would imagine we would want to fund this out of the reserve fund that's connected to the to this type of work. And if that is so, we're going to need to do a public hearing related to it. So my next ask was going to be, could you grant us the ability to post for a public meeting but prior to our next schoolboard meeting um or even post our next schoolboard meeting depending on how where we have with the contract and stuff like that. We'll make sure we time this correctly, we're providing accurate information. Um, but once we have that

166squared away that we can post a public meeting to potentially withdraw, you know, doing rough estimate like Haramman looked like 180,000 would be the cap on what we would pay for them. Plus, it sounds like 20,000 is the construction manager type of cost. So maybe a public hearing of roads drawing up to $210,000. That gives us a little wiggle room if that construction manager is a little bit over 20,000. >> I mean, we'll you're looking for the number now. >> Okay. Yeah. To so we can be upfront with what we potentially could be pulling out. If we're not pulling out that amount, then that's fine as well. But I think we got to be transparent on what we could up to be pulling out of that. >> Okay. So f first the motion the construction

167manager. So you have a first we have a motion in a second. We'll call vote. >> Oh, sorry. Additional discussion on that. >> No, I'm good. >> You good? Mr. Fancy. >> Hi. >> Mr. Shoemaker. Hi. >> I'm Mr. Det. >> I. >> Okay. So that construction manager carries 40. And then the hearing >> a motion to we got to follow broad proper timing guidelines, but a motion to post um a meeting connected to withdrawing up to $210,000 related to the pre-construction services bid and a potential construction manager >> before that motion's made. Does that are we confident in the amount? Uh I wouldn't put my confidence >> 20 is hard like the all of all of these um architect firms were basically saying that was like the number that they were >> anticipating candidly

168some they and they all were very careful to not step onto because they work with all the same people all the time but they did say some of these uh construction managers will do the work and they won't bill for it in you know because they're going to recoup it in the project but they said you can't rely on that. So 20 was the number we if we're >> well 20 was the number that they all kind of assumed to do. >> Yeah, the 210 number I suggested feel free to change it would allow us to go up to 30 with a construction manager if if need be if that's where the the that that bid was or you know we can separate it out and just to you know a certain number for the

169pre-construction bid for the public hearing. This would require a separate public hearing down the road for the construction managers. So it might be nice. >> Why don't we do this? So, I'll make a motion to have a public hearing for an amount of up to $225,000. Right. Um for Heramman and for the the construction management. >> I will second. >> Motion by myself, second by Mr. Dit. Additional discussion. >> Mr. Clancy. >> I Mr. Shoemaker. >> I Mr. D. >> Hi. >> That carries 4. >> I think that's a little bit of a buffer. >> Yeah. in the event it's necessary. >> And I don't think it's going to be, but thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, >> excuse me. >> I don't want to be handcuffed and then have to do another hearing.

170>> Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. Anything else on interview process? >> Um, no, it was just wonderful. Thank you for everyone who took the time out of their their schedules. I know for people um who are not me, Julian, Dan, you probably take personal time to to join us. So, we appreciate people doing that both on the board and on the FIC. We we really appreciated uh people joining us and everyone was wonderful, contributed great questions, great feedback and everything. So, thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll shift gears and go into policies. >> Here we go. >> I see Heidi's not here. What happened? Um, actually, I don't think this is too bad. So, we're going to go to this in in different phases. I we tried to break it out,

171me and Heidi, for you. So, um, maybe we can do this, um, you know, motions and in groups here. That makes sense. So, the first thing is just more of an FYI. We're changing the We have mentioned this before, but here's the actual example. The policy header um, the template we use for policies. We are trying to get rid of the logos because there's like three different logos on all the policies, so it's all uniform. >> A lot of them are old. Yeah, a lot of them are old. Um, so we're going logo less. Um, so in the event the district decides to change their logo, they don't have to go through and update all the policies again. >> Just bold type, >> just bold, bold type. Uh, so that's going to be the template

172moving forward. As we update these, uh, we will update them with that template kind of moving forward. Um, as we go through. So that's that first little bit. You don't need to approve anything. That's just informative. This next section, you also don't need to approve anything, but it's informative. Um we rely on the New Hampshire School Board Association sample policy um for for a lot of the work that we do related to policy. From time to time they'll update the coding or they might dual code dual or tri code different policies that are the same but they may show up in a board governance category in a instructional category and a student category so on and so forth. Um, so this section right here is just updating these policies so they're properly uh dualcoded throughout

173our various um subfolders and stuff like that. There's been no changes to these policies. Um, they actually all fairly closely align anyways to the suggested schoolboard policy. Anyways, uh, sample policy anyways. Um, so you don't have to approve these, but we did want to inform you that we are just making sure the coding is correct on this set of four right here. Any questions on those? No questions. Right. I am sure Renee is not a fan of all these updates. >> Uh, no. >> Um, all right. Edits and coding. These two right here uh I'm going to group together um because they're um they're semi-related because they both need a coding update and they've been edited while we're going through the coding update. So, the first one poly policy IHC-LEB. We'll get the coding update

174out of the way first. It should technically be policy IHC D. This is a very minor thing, but that code just instead of it being CB needs to be CD. A more pressing concern is because these policies are dualcoded, they should be the same policy. And in our policy book, they are not the same policy. So they should be the same policy. The current IHC is different um from the suggested sample policy for for for that coding and our current LEB policy. Our current LEB policy is the one that matches the sample New Hampshire School Board Association policy for both of those codings. So my suggestion and that's what the proposal is right there is to make sure that our dualcoded policy here is the same as the one in New Hampshire School Board Association.

175The general idea behind these post policies are the same. We're not radically different. We're not doing anything different with it. It's just cleaning up language primarily. So I would ask that we accept the proposed there which just cleans up the language which is actually one of the policies we already have on the books. Just making them the same the two policies. Does that make sense? >> It does. >> Okay. >> So we have to do that as a first read and a second read or do we >> you do technically because we are changing one of the >> this is a first read. >> Yeah. And then the second one in this subcategory, emergency care and first aid. Um, so we have a current, we need to change the coding of them slightly. So that's

176why it's in this subcategory. Um, EBBC um needs to also be in J be labeled as JLCE in our student section. So we need to carry that over, update that policy. While we're at it though, there's um differences between our current policy and the sample policy. Um, so you have two proposals. one. The first proposal right there is our current school district policy with additional language around Narcan um and how schools could utilize Narcan in case of an emergency. And it's not just Narcan, it's any sort of opioid. So, for example, if a kid is is this does not happen frequently, but if a kid is um has medication that has some sort of opioid in it, we need something in our policy that allows us to administer that that medication in that event. It

177is extremely rare, but it does happen, but an EpiPen related device could have some sort of opioid in it that needs to be administrated in case of emergency. Um, the second proposed policy, which is the one I would prefer that we use, is the sample New Hampshire schoolboard association with one carryover from our current policy, which is the last paragraph. When you sec click on that second proposal, I believe you can see it should be highlighted for you, which just speaks a little bit more fully on how we handle illnesses um within um dismissing kids from the school nurses office, asking parents to go through the office and stuff like that, not allowing high school students to drive home unless they have parent permission, those type of things. We feel that's critical to maintain those

178that in our policy because those are what we're doing from there. Um so I'm asking on the first one in the subset to take the recommended proposal and then the second one um to take proposal two on it if that makes sense. >> So we would motion for the specific proposal for a second read a first read rather. >> So you accept the the second proposal as the first read and then next meeting you would just see those those two is the first read. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> All right. And then the first one was just the updated. >> Yeah. Which is our current LE policy. >> All right. I will make a motion to approve policy IHCB LEB uh >> proposal uh for first read. Do you want to do them as separate

179ones? >> No. Okay. And I will and uh policy EBBC JLCE proposal two for a first read. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I will second additional discussion. >> Okay. Mr. Blansky >> I. >> Mr. Shmaker. >> Hi. >> I'm an I. Mr. Dit. >> I. >> Okay. Both of those policies are carry 40 for first read. All right. Next one. Um, you're going to see a lot of this in the upcoming months, particularly at our next board meeting. The ED 306s were updated. if you can remember from last school year that triggers a whole ton of policies needing updates. Some of them are very minor languages like this one. This is why you're seeing it right now because the the update here is very very small. The proposed update includes an additional piece of language that

180says there's a direct link from the school district's websites to the policy handbook, the digital policy handbook wherein previously it just had to be on the district website. It didn't have to be on each of the individual schools websites. So that got updated with the 306 changes. We have to update our policy um related. So that is the update in that one particular policy. >> Update the websites >> and update the websites, right? Um but I I broke it out because next meeting, poor Heidi, uh we have our policy committee meeting next week, I got 16 17 policies that all are 306 related that we need >> to start chewing up and making the changes for. Some again are minor, some are more significant. Um, but this was an easy one to slide in kind

181of right away. So, >> accept that proposal with that additional line in there. >> I'll make a motion to approve policy BGAA as proposed for a first read. >> Motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I will second. Additional discussion. >> Mr. Plansky. >> I >> Mr. Shoemaker. >> I am an I. Mr. Det. >> I. >> That carries 4 Z. Let's just go through the rest of them. >> Yep. These are new required policies throughout past couple months came through um law because of a law or something else like that. Parental bill of rights, chemical safety, the actual plan and then career exploration policy. All brand new to us, all required policies we have to have. We have taken the sample policy from the New Hampshire School Board Association. In each of these cases, the one note

182I'm going to say is in the third one on this list, the chemical hygiene plant. If you actually go in, you'll see a couple spots where it's highlighted yellow because we're going to put a name of a person in there in the operations, but we won't have the name of the person because we're literally naming the person. For example, Dave Ross in there. So, um, because we need to put a name of a person in there. So, when you see those two highlights, it's because there's a not position going in, but a name going in. So, >> does it h I guess does it have to be a name? Because I know we've had issues in the past where it was the superintendent will and added like the design. So there's lots of places where

183um like it's been changed to the position right like the facilities director will the senior superintendent this is will that particular line like the first one is here your school safety officer is >> and then you have that on record somewhere in your building we have a huge folder in our front office for example at Campbell that has all the chemical plans you know for each of the chemical we store in the building we need a sheet that says this is the person by name who's responsible for it so that's >> can you update that if they leave or you have to come back to us >> no you And if we leave it blank there like how it is in the policy, then we just have to update it as we come. >> Just

184change the name. >> I will make a motion to approve policy. We're just going to do them all at once. >> That's what I was doing. >> You're going to do them all. Okay. >> And career exploration. We haven't done that yet. We haven't reviewed yet. Right. >> Right. It's just taking the sample policy. >> Didn't you just take I thought you just went to that. >> I did. Those are the four I'm doing. >> Oh, the career exploration. Okay. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve policy AB, policy EVCH, procedure EBC1, uh, policy IKFG as proposed for a first read. >> Okay. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I will second additional discussion. I got stuck reading the chemical hygiene, so >> it's thrilling. >> I was lost in my thrilling. >> All right, Mr. Plansky.

185>> Hi, >> Mr. Shoemaker. >> Hi, Uh I'm in I Mr. Dit. >> I >> that carries 40. >> Just because it's the cell phone we broke it out separately. This is the cell phone policy we talked about before. It's the sample New Hampshire schoolware association policy. We use the same language especially as this is brand new with the law. We don't want to screw around too much uh with the particular policy. Now, we did talk about possibly updating um it a little bit and because you suggested Matt um I wrote it down >> I suggested that we include a a suggestion that the people leave devices at home and if they bring them that we uh >> the school has no liability. >> Okay. They they hold us harmless. >> Yeah. So, there is

186a section in here if you open up the policy and you go to restrictions and the last paragraph is part of that. Um, so it's the end of the first page bleeding into the second page where it says, "While it's best practice that these devices are not brought to school, if these devices are brought to school, they shall be kept powered off, turned off soon as a sign back book, so on so forth. The district not responsible for lost damage or theft of any other >> communication. Are you happy with that? Does that work?" >> I'm happy with that. That's exactly how I what I would have said. >> Um, so that's it. That's the suggested policy. I would at this point particularly recommend taking this sample policy for this because it is a new

187law and um if there's problems they will update the sample policy and we'll be back with those updates. >> I will make a motion to approve policy JJ as proposed for a first reading. >> Motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I will second. Additional discussion. >> Good. All right. Roll call vote. Mr. Plansky. >> Hi. >> Mr. Shoemaker. Hi. >> I have an I. Mr. to it. >> All right, >> that carries four zero. >> See, that wasn't bad. Look at that. We just cranked through like 12. >> I think at the second read, right, it's probably prudent of us to read this policy. So, the language is clear in public. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh, that wraps up the cell phone policies, right? And all policies, we have old business next up on the agenda. any

188old business from board members? >> I guess one one question for the CIP. Do we have any anything that we are looking to put forward on the CI or on the ballot at this point other than >> I went to the meeting Monday? >> Okay. >> And I mentioned the projects that we're we were going to discuss tonight, but like the idea is that um a March vote still strongly on the table for for something related to GMS. Um, I had mentioned our capital improvement plan, that big Excel document that we had that outlined everything from the on-site insight that had various numbers because they were talking about anything over 50,000 and there's lots of stuff with everything over 50,000. Um, so they seemed like people were pleased with that, you know, >> and then

189I specifically mentioned the parking lot at Els just because that's still kind of out there as, you know, we filled the pothole or the the sinkhole that we have this summer. Um but you know that's a hundreds of thousand dollars project if we eventually someday move forward with redoing all that. So um we didn't have that outlined specific. It's in the big big capital improvement plan but it's years down the road where it might be a more immediate need. >> Right. It I think it was part of the CIP as a bundled project at one point right with the field and everything else. >> Yeah. Um, and then I think we're up in September to do a more formal presentation to the CIP group, like the school. Um, because fire, police, and highway went Monday

190and did they all talk about vehicles. Oh, so I threw in like we'd love a van for the school district. Um, it might be something you see budget-wise. Um, and uh, so everyone was talking vehicles. It didn't work out. Um, but they talked about uh, >> there's a big grant for new fire truck. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yep. and then uh yeah talk about their different sections. >> So with the with the LMS parking lot, did we get like a quote and a design for how that is to be fully addressed? >> We have not gotten it yet. >> Yeah, I'm going to follow up. >> They know we're looking for it. >> Yeah, they're busy. Yeah. So, and we're not doing it. >> Completely understood. >> Yep. >> Okay. Uh the board is uh in

191process of signing manifests. So we'll uh I will read the manifests that are in process here. So just a moment. So manifest summary, we have payroll of $127,610.35. We have 403b and NHRs for $92,41628. We have the payroll manifest also for $103,127.74. We have another 403b for $2,97420. Uh and then we have two accounts payable manifests, one for $451,328.90 and the second accounts payable for $19,57368. And we'll just do a quick check here on three signatures. We only have two right now, but we can hand them down to Okay, >> Dan, so you can keep >> We'll hand them down to Mr. Dit here. Uh, and with that, we'll turn it over to community input. So, this is our second of two community inputs this evening. Open up the floor. [Music] And if you could

192just state your name and address one. Thank you. >> Hi, uh, Ronald Lenus, 15 Riverview Circle, and I want to follow up to the comments I began the uh, meeting with, and um, first of all, um, I appreciate that if I can just offer discussions on the grading, I I appreciate what you're doing there. That makes a lot of sense. >> Oh, thank you so much. >> So, think that's great. And also one of the things I want to highlight, you mentioned uh people are working hard to get the schools ready for this year, the janitors. I want to also note that my experience has been the janitorial service is topnotch. Um and specifically, you know, I spent probably more time in GMS and I I will acknowledge that the the building is well taken

193care of by the staff there and I appreciate it. In fact, I remember if I got it right, James is the fellow that maintains the the older section and he took me around and gave me a whole tour. So, I want to add to some of the comments. Um, but what I do want to speak to specifically is again my recommendation that I sent to you was not to move forward with the contract that you just talked about and I need to talk about a little more detail and I'm going to need to go back to kind of the beginning of things. Um when I started getting involved and coming to these meetings, it was in November of 2023 when the new school was uh moving forward um its um presentation for the Warren articles.

194I came and presented a couple of uh memos why uh or questions about had things been looked at thoroughly. And at that time I was told by the chairman of the FIC at the time that we've looked at everything. We have all the reports we need. We've studied everything we need and what you're asking for is irrelevant and we disregard your comments. Specifically, the comment was we take your comments with a grain of salt. Um, and I do admit, not admit, I do want to acknowledge that once I was added shortly after that to the FIC, I did support the new school and it was based upon information that I was able to glean between the time that I was added in January and March. And based upon that, I did support the new school.

195In fact, there's a video of me saying that. The difficulty came is after the vote and I actually had time, I began to look at what was stated as we have all the information we need. Strangely enough, that is true. This particular report right here done in 2017 is the HL Turner report. Look how big it is. It looks at all three schools and it gave a detailed assessment of improvements needed. Similarly, we did just this past year on Insight did a similar in fact almost kind of the same scope type of input for all three schools. And as I mentioned before, the on-site insight report identifies GMS's in fair condition. And what frustrated me is after I started to go through um all these reports, I said, well, how was it that simply repairs

196that are mentioned particularly in this report and even her we have had her as contract to us. They they actually designed the new school uh the I know was the one that was going up on the hill for 112,000 square ft. I actually designed that in 2007. So my question became why did we discount all these reports if we had them? I was told we did. And I'm frustrated and you when I people said they were frustrated with me on the FIC. Well, I'm frustrated with the FIC as well because what happened is the major points that were talked about to justify a new school were proximity to 3A. um the traffic issues on 3A and the quote the superintendent there's a river that flows underneath and there's water coming up through the floor. Well,

197that was the major issues as well as operational, you know, some educational side, but that was the major three. As I said earlier, we've solved the 3A by spending $64,000. And that's simply just going looking at plans and talking about it. And it was actually generated from the memo I sent back in last July recommending doing something to control the doors. And that came out of that. I made my recommendation of how to take care of the traffic by eliminating the lefthand turn and that never got brought up to the I couldn't get it on the FIC for discussion. They come up it said no we can't put a sign up there even though that we can't the reason was given we can't put a sign up on our property. Well, if you go down

198100 yards there's two nice big red and white signs that say do not enter. So that's not true. The point of that is as I began to look in and particularly the water issue, I went in and looked at the building, talked to people in the building and said, "Wait a minute, there's no water coming through here." Because the the issue of water occurs in the springtime, the late spring and summertime. Well, the water table is the lowest at that point of time. So why would water be coming up through that? Why did it what my interpretation was the HBAC system has failed? Humidity builds up in the summer, can't get it evacuated and condenses in the evening. That's why we run all the humidifiers in there at night. And that's what these reports say.

199That's what this report says. So it it's a frustration to me that we have not then gone back and really looked at what is repairs really cost. So what I did and to try to get the discussion to focus on that is I did this little summary sheet and I this has been around to the FIC. I cannot get anybody to spend any time talking about this in detail. Never could. This is where I come up with the numbers that uh Turner says GMS could be repaired when I escalate their numbers to current value. Can be repaired for $2.8 million. We can add sprinklers to that repair for 3.5 million. That's what this report says we could do right now. onsite insight says $5.3 million including the rehab of the 1930s building. So, this is

200the figures I've been throwing around that I was told, "No, that's untrue. You can't do that." And this is the problem by having eliminated the repairs only option. And we're going to now propose at least 20 to $30 million in what you're just talking about. Now my question becomes how are people going to feel justified in spending that when we really have never looked at this in detail and if we we haven't I've tried for 15 months to actually have people spend time going through these reports with me or anybody else and spend time we never did I couldn't get it I couldn't get discussion so that's the major point that I feel is that we need to go back to the recommendation I sent to you in March 25 which is this year that

201says we need to hire an engineering firm to work on an on call contract basis to support us in a full evaluation of all options so that we have somebody right there how much is the HV system turner says it's about 1 to5 can you actually go run some numbers and call some subcontractor and see if that's right or not we never had that. That's what my recommendation of a March year ago march would have done. And until that's done, I will continue to say these numbers are in the low millions is what should be done at GMS. And the difficulty that I find and and I don't mind be proven wrong if an engineer that we hired came in and spent some time and looked at these and said no they're they're way low.

202Okay, I would accept that. But until I have anything different, that's the number I believe that needs to be understood. So with all those things in place, I don't believe you're going to be able to get this through. I'm going to continue to say this right up through town meeting. Be prepared for it. So, couple other things that related to this. I mentioned before GMS is in the same configuration been for 30 years. The rehab offering is 20 to $30 million. And one of the things that's going to happen is if you do an addition, remember, you're going to have to spend $2 million on the 1930s building because you'll make it an orphan. You cut off the heating. you cut off all this power supply. So, you're going to have to rehab that because

203you can't leave it sitting there. So, that's going to be instead of a million if it's integrated into the 50s and 60s building, which repairs would do at a million, it'll be $2 million. So, that's got to get added to that figure. And that's I bet you that's not in their figure now. >> Mr. Glance, I just would like to interject and remind you that public comments limited to three minutes. You've been at six. 10 actually. >> When when did three minutes to the to the second part get added? I thought that was without >> no policy beh. >> All right. I will conclude quickly then. LMS needs to be looked at as an option. I presented to you that we have overstaffed condition. GMS, excuse me, Campbell High School has an average class size

204of 16.3. that has to be first rescheduled so that we're at our target 23 and then know what our availability is before any assessment of moving seven and eighth grade can be done up there with any assurity. So the work that you'll be doing here will be completely ineffective and the wrong answer until rescheduling of Campbell High School is done. that can't be done in the next coming. That's why moving forward now is not a recommended option. I recommend as I said before, hire a consultant to work on a task order basis, start all over again and look at it from completely the repairs option. And I'll finish with this one question. How much money do we have to spend on GMS to open school this year? Zero. That's been the case for as long

205as I can remember. And that's what people want to know is why do I have to spend 20 million when these reports say I can spend very low millions to bring it from fair to good. So, thank you. >> All right. Okay. Any additional uh public comments this evening? >> All right. Hearing none. Uh we have schoolboard comments. >> I think I'm going to just chime in really quickly because I think sometimes uh people that are watching when they hear people give public comment and we're sitting here quietly. Uh you know, it's it's not because we have nothing to say. It's just because this is public comment time. We've answered and we've responded to all of the things that Mr. Blennice has raised on multiple occasions. Um those were all points of discussion at FIC

206meetings. Um I think it's interesting to me that Mr. 's perception is that the biggest issues with the school or the he highlights the issues of proximity to 3A uh water under the building forgetting what the third one was but the educational impact he glosses over and says the school's been fine for the entire time it's been in existence right one of the biggest problems with that school is it does not meet modern-day educational needs we are struggling with that our educators have talked at nause about the challenges that they face on a daily basis. And those are challenges that our kids face learning in the environments. They're challenges that our educators face that they wouldn't have to face if they just took a job which is probably open in a neighboring district. Um that

207is a very important piece and I think to say well it's it's been fine. There's there's no issue. It's they've been surviving forever. That doesn't make that the right solution. Um, it did not cost us zero dollars to open school this year. We allocated a bunch of money with our end of the year funds to be able to open school this year to continue to address issues with the building. So, that's also not true. Um, the numbers that Mr. Oblennis consistently points out, uh, on-site Insight openly said while they were here, that is not an all-in number. Um, we've addressed that directly with Mr. Blennice multiple times. he continues to make that point regardless of that. Um so unfortunately anyone can say anything they want about you know what they think the state of facts

208is but the reality is we have all the reports that he was highlighting publicly available anyone can read them. Uh more importantly, you can walk through the school, you can see that that is not a even close to a modern-day school that should be that kids should be learning in. Um we have done extensive amount of work on this and the FIC was assembled with a bunch of citizens and I'd like to just remind everyone that those that was a very diverse group. Uh it's been very interesting to see how that group has come together to to work together and it it took a lot of uh differing viewpoints that kind of molded into what was put before the board today. Um and so I think that we've done everything we can in terms of

209gauging the community. Um I don't think that uh the latest conversations that we had in interviewing these firms um there was no indication that we're looking at a 20 to30 million project because that's not what we're asking for. that's not what we're uh you know anticipating having to present. So I just want to be clear on uh all of those points. >> Just just a couple other things too is the the facilities committee and the group that was at the meetings is very concerned with what the costs will be. Um I wouldn't it's not going to be a $30 million build. That school has not been the same configurations for 30 years. Um I've been here 27 years. It was half day kindergarten through fourth grade. There were no portables. It's much larger. We now

210have, you know, full day kindergarten and prek over there. Th those kids were not there 30 years ago. Um there has been we have not determined whether we're going to move kids from the from GMS to LMS. That's going to be all part of this process. Um so there there are a lot of things that um things are in a state of flux, right? We're going to start from here are our two options, get ideas for both um and and move forward. We we cannot do nothing. I mean, we can do nothing, but some point we have to bite the bullet here. So, um there's one other thing that I can't remember I was going to say, but that's it. >> Okay. Any other comments? Um, I will say that the there is always I

211will say if we do nothing, we're going to be forced to do something. And that forcing to do something is going to be a bigger disruption and a bigger upset to this town in a longer term than if we did something today and we planned it out. There we have discussed repairs only and the concern that was brought up by every report including HL Turner and in on-site insight was that they both stated they were estimates. They are not they can't give that because that's not what they do. But at the same time on-site insight specifically stated replacement in kind. Because the problem with replacement in kind is that there are legitimately 30 years of innovation to make it better, easier, lower cost, better efficiency for the school system. So yes, replacing something with an

212inind might be cheaper upfront, but you're going to more than pay for it in maintaining it and the utility cost that it comes with it. And I I just it we have gone through this process. There has been upwards of several committee members across the town different town committees. There have been upwards of seven voting citizens and other representatives on these meetings and we have all came down to a consensus of where we are today. So this wasn't made by a blind association of people and several people that do this as a citizen. Do it professionally in some fashion. So I I just we are where we are because a group of people came together to bring us here and I I say we got to keep going. >> Okay. Excellent. Um that concludes tonight's

213public session. The board does have non-public this evening under RSA 91A3. Uh to move into non-public, we will have to enter a roll call vote. >> I'll make a motion to move into nonpublic. >> Motion by Mr. Shoemaker, Mr. Plinsky. >> I second. >> I wait. >> I will second. >> All right. Start over. >> The motion. >> Mr. Shoemaker motioned. Mr. Dit second. Mr. Plansky. >> I. >> Mr. Shoemaker. >> Hi. >> I am at I Mr. Dwitt. I >> Okay, that carries four zero.