School Board Meeting - 7/9/2025

001I know. I didn't even realize I sitting at some random. It's been a crazy summer. All right, we are live. So, good evening everyone. Welcome to the July 9th, 2025 Litzfield School Board meeting. The time is now 5:30. We'll 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. We have review and revision of uh tonight's agenda. Any updates, changes to this evening's agenda hearing? Seeing none, we'll move over to consent. We have our committee reports. Any board members like to move anything off consent tonight hearing and seeing none. There are a few items in the budget committee open questions that we

002just need to make sure for the next budget committee that we that we respond to. All right. We have summary of non-public actions from June 18th, 2025. Miss Ames motion to approve the June 4th, 2025 nonpublic meeting minutes. Mr. Shoemaker seconded that motion. The motion passed 401. Mr. Plansky abstained. Uh, Mr. Shoemaker, motion to approve Zachary Stevenson as CHS assistant principal. The same second of that motion. That motion passed 50. Mr. Dit motion to approve Gabriella Salas as a CHS skills teacher. Mr. Shoemaker seconded that motion. That motion passed 5-0. Mr. Shoemaker motion to accept the resignation of Jessica Yankanopoulos as CHS skills teacher. Miss Ames seconded that motion. That motion passed 50. Mr. Shoemaker motion to adjourn the non-public session at 9:30 p.m. Miss Ames seconded that motion. That also passed 50. With that,

003uh, we'll move into presentations and recognitions, and we will invite, uh, Miss Reagan Cutter and Miss Sydney Paresi up to the table to talk about sophomore project. Good evening and welcome. Okay. So, for our sophomore project, we were looking to redo the Griffin front sign. Um, my mom brought it up to me when she was watching like one of the parades that the sign looked like it needed a lot of help. And so I emailed Mr. Mitchell and he just expressed that the sign hadn't gotten a lot of care in a while. And when we went to go take a look at it, it um didn't look like it was either. It's all peeling and white. See, there's pictures of it on the next slide. It's not in great shape. Um, so we to redo

004it, we needed some like to do research and come up with our designs. So we have four designs. Um, two with like the Griffin logo of just like with the stripes and the tiger and Mr. Mitchell's motto like we thrive. And then um the other two quotes are think positively. Um when Mr. Mitchell comes back from his vacation, I think um he wanted to decide on which one to do. But um yeah, we had to do research on like how to paint over the sheet metal, how to get rid of um like the like already like the paint that was already there. Um like just where to get the materials and just everything. Um, I think we're going to use some like stencils so it's not completely like freehanding of um just the paws and

005stuff. Um, yeah. And we have our timeline. Um, so I think next week we're doing more research on just like supplies and everything. And then the week after we can start actually like removing all the flaking and pain and everything and then we can start to do it all. Yeah. So maybe just help the board explain u being a little bit close to this, right? So help the board explain the like the parts of the sign that you're talking about, right? Kind of rehabbing. So when we look at the sign back on Yeah. this slide, what parts of the sign are you talking about? the bottom. All right. So, just the bottom section below where the words go. Yeah. Where it's really sunfaded. Got it. Yeah. Lost. Great. Um Yeah. And then there's just our

006research um facts. So, what did Mr. Mitchell say to you in terms of why you're here in front of the board? Um he just said it would be a good idea since you know the sign is like a part of like the school's property um and who your dad is. Right. Look, so with a little bit of background, right? So I mean Mr. Mitchell went to um went to the town with any kind of uh town approved sign changes publicly. They didn't have an issue with any changes cosmetically to the sign, which is what this is considered. They just said, "Hey, you know, because it is school property, we should be talking about it at the board level. Making sure the board's aware of any kind of cosmetic changes to the sign itself." Uh, and

007that's why you're presenting it here tonight. Do we know when the last time that was painted? Oh god. When it was put in. When was it put in? Oh god. I The only reason I ask is because The only reason I ask is because they're going to be they're going to be sanding it. Is there lead paint on that? Do we know? It's not that old. I don't and I don't know that they're going to be sanding it as opposed to um pressure washing it, but wear masks. Yeah. Eat the paint chips. Just spare us all. But thank you for doing that. So, you do have to technically ask the board for permission. Yeah. Yeah. So, um do I have your purpose? When was the last time she asked that? Look, I'm going to abstain.

008So, if the board wants to mot you going to make it's a motion, but I would make the motion as a board, right? Um, pending Mr. Mitchell's review, right? He hasn't seen this. He's on he's on PTO at the moment. So, all right. So, I'll make a motion to approve the sophomore project to uh I guess refresh the sign at Griffin Memorial School uh subject to Mr. Mitchell's review and approval. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky. Additional discussion, questions. It'll be nice to see it. Looking good, girls. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. Abstained. I. That carries. 401. Great job. Thanks for coming tonight. Good luck. Thanks, girls. I'm excited to see what it looks like. Be cool. [Music] All right. You're going to

009text your mother. All right. Uh, next up, uh, we have student rep reports, but there's is there a student rep? No new reps. Yep. We just keep the links so we don't lose it. Perfect. So, we'll move into community comment on agenda items. This is the first of two community comments for this evening. Mr. Oblenus, welcome. Just as a a reminder, we did receive some emails from you a short time ago. This is the um agenda item that's subject to three minutes for agenda items and then the other one later this evening is open. Okay. I'll try to stay within that time frame. Um, essentially what I want to I originally intended to do was come here and talk to you about what I think was a deceitful, calculated, unjust, and unjustified action against me

010to remove me. At the May 21st board meeting from the FIC, I had put together a whole memo about justification about contacts that I'd had with all board members and such. But as I thought about it, I said, "What is what's the ultimate uh potential outcome of that?" And that's being placed back on the FIC. I've said before in the FIC, I think it it's been a waste of 18 months. and I think it's going to continue to be a waste of time. So with that, I'm not going to challenge what you've done, even though I think it was completely wrong and didn't follow even what your policy is now proposed to be, which I find just incredulous. But what I do want to talk about in the recommendation to remove me, you mentioned that

011I had sent you a text. Is this related to the agenda? Yeah. Where in the agenda is this related to the FIC building? Are you getting to the building subject? Yes. Right now. In fact, the text I sent you was to simply meet and you didn't even disclose that. That was the I've had people say, "How bad was your text?" That's all it was. And so what I wanted to what I want to talk about is what was in that text or my reason for coming to you. And it's simply stated is that I had a meeting with Mr. Mitchell, the principal, in which I went over my thoughts on how the repairs option could solve not only the repair issues but also the educational services issues. It was a very productive meeting. I showed

012him my thoughts on plans and beginning with this particular sheet. Showed him how his desire to relocate the office to a core central area could be accomplished by moving the existing office to classroom 16. Classroom 16 is right in the middle. Also would afford perfect security entrance using the hallway with the adjacent office. You like that? We also talked about how much service space is in the building and how it could be reconfigured. So, one of the things I did in this spreadsheet here is I went and added up all the educational service space from the new proposed school, thinking that our existing is very far underneath that. Strangely enough, the proposed new school had just around 8,000 square feet of educational service space. Our existing Griffin Memorial is 8,300. So we talked about how

013we reconfigure that the space that would uh be available in the office relocation. We talked about how that be configured as it would be in the new school in the smaller configurations. We talked about how the 1930s building could be adapted to any opportunity that he wanted as far as educational services or combination of classrooms. But by using 1930s buildings were free of classrooms. And then finally I talked about and showed him this particular plan right here which was done by Haramman in 2006 which I've sent to the FIC number of times and never got reviewed. This shows how you would solve the traffic problems all within the budget of repairs only amount which is estimated from the um reports that you had done from on-site insight and the turn report from anywhere from three

014and a half to $5 million. He thought that was good idea. I wanted to share that with you. That's the reason for my text. And I also wanted you to stop telling tell other people to stop telling me to say things that you have deemed untrue and I'm just reporting what's in your reports and that's what I wanted to talk to you about and you use that against me. And in fact what's upsetting is that we have known that repair only option has been on the table for 25 years. In fact, it was recommended. This is from the planning document of the town of 2000. It's a current document has not been updated, but it's dated uh 2002. And in that under this school section, there's a paragraph that says, "Future GMS capital needs highlighted

015in February 2000 by assistant superintendent include installation of sprinklers in 2002, installation of rooftop humidification dehumidification system in 2003, as well as replacing the boiler in the same year. This is what we've been talking about to try to solve the water problem in GMS. It's been there in all the reports. I can show you six or seven of them. And we failed to do that. And by removing the repairs only option from the FIC's consideration, you've essentially removed what I think is actually the most viable option that would be supported not only by the taxpayers, but actually deliver what you need as far as educational needs, but also comfort needs of your teachers and your students. and more importantly would probably get voted in. What you're doing now I don't believe is going to get

016voted and I will continue to say by eliminating repairs only option you have eliminated in my mind the most viable option. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any additional community comments? All right. There's a second round of community comments uh later in this evening or 8:00, whichever one comes first. Uh we'll turn it over to Vice Chair Ames for correspondence. All right. On June 18th uh 2025, the superintendent emailed the board circul circulating a link to the end ofear spending spreadsheet. On June 18th, the superintendent emailed the board regarding confidential student issue. On June 19th, the superintendent emailed the board regarding an update to that confidential student uh issue. On June 24th, the superintendent emailed the board circulating a calendar invite for a special board meeting to be scheduled on Friday, June 27th. There was

017a response from Mr. Cutter. On June 24th, Renee Burgess emailed the board circulating the updated calendar invite with a 3:30 p.m. start time. On June 25th, Jan Sullivan emailed the board circulating draft public and non-public minutes uh from the prior meeting. On June 25th, superintendent emailed the board circulating the agenda for the June 27th, 2025 special school board meeting. On June 26th, Ron Oenus emailed uh Julie Darling and copied the board requesting a link for the responses to questions for the RFP that was posted June 25th. On June 26, Ronaldo Bleenus emailed Renee Burgess copying the board requesting that Renee respond to his email as Julie was out of the office and there were responses to that from Renee and for Mr. Oblenus. On June 27th, the superintendent emailed the board circulating an updated end

018ofear spreadsheet. On June 30th, Jan Sullivan emailed the board circulating draft public minutes from the special meeting on June 27th. On July 3rd, Ron Oblenus uh sent an email to Julie Darling copying the board requesting a link to where responses to the RFP will be posted. There was a response from Miss Darling and a response for Mr. Obliness. On July 3rd, Julie Darling uh sent an email to the different um companies that submitted bids uh for the RFP advising them that bids would be unsealed on July 7th at 11:00 a.m. And the board was copied on that email. On July 7th, Antimarati emailed the board circulating FY25 credit card manifest. On July 7th, Antimarati emailed the board circulating the final FY25 manifest checks and direct deposit. On July 7th, the superintendent emailed the board circulating

019the draft agenda for the July 9th, 2025 board meeting. On July 7th, the sup superintendent emailed the board circulating the link to the folder with the scanned RFP bids. On June se I'm sorry, June July 7th. Anne emailed the board circulating the FY26 credit card manifest. On July 8th, an enamora board circulating the payroll 403b manifest. On July 8th, Anna Marada emailed the board circulating the first manifest for 2026, hence the big pile of manifests here. And on July 9th, Roninus emailed the board and Renee Burgess requesting a link to the July 9th, 2025 schoolboard meeting and agenda. And there were responses for Mr. Cutter and Miss Burgess. I'll also note there was an additional email from Mr. Oblenus um this afternoon at I can't see the time at 4:59 p.m. um with attachments that

020I have forwarded to Jan Sullivan to include in the minutes. So I'm it's not written on my sheet. It will be in a minute. And that was the most recent correspondence up to date until 4:59 p.m. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Moving right along with the agenda. We'll turn it over to the superintendent and kicking things off with enrollment. Yeah. Uh just quick enrollment. Um just want to keep you updated on the kindergarten number. Uh we did actually have one student move. So we went down to 60 students in kindergarten. Um so I guess that's where we're going to be around there. So we won't have as many teachers next year. Um as I mentioned last time, um we repurposed the fifth. I won't go into all the d like

021dominoes of it all, but we do that at positions in the district that we used utilize the additional teacher to fill. Um, and uh, so we'll have four kindergartens next year. So, unless something crazy happens, that's where we're at. So, okay. Any questions on enrollment? Thank you. Um, a hiring update. Um, last board meeting granted me the ability to hire um, over the summer. So, we've made three hires since then. Um, we can go over uh, any questions you have in nonpublic about them. They're part of the nonpublic agenda. But, we've hired part-time reading specialists. Um Stephanie uh Gypsy, she was a pleasure to meet with that. It came in to meet with me a couple weeks ago um for the part-time position. It's perfect. She's looking to step back. She was a full-time teacher

022and is looking to step back um a little bit in her hours due to family commitments. So part time is perfect for her. Um case manager at LMS filling our one-year position. Um we have a leave from that position at LMS. So Sue Rafa is rejoining us. She got her SOE in special ed. So, that would be nice to to help us out with a a need that we have in middle school that we thought was going to be really tough to find a one-year person for. And then a speech language pathologist, a Campbell High School graduate, Autumn Thompson. I I don't know her, but she seemed lovely when she came in to meet with me. Um, graduated about five, six years ago from Campbell High and was really excited to come back to the

023district and work with us. So, those are our hires right now. I have their folders for you to review um later if you would like. So, um, still looking for couple case managers at the high school. Um, we've had some, uh, we have some tutor openings that we're looking for, but we have got a couple applicants in for us. So, hopefully those will continue to kind of fill out, but if anyone know anyone interested in high school special education, that's the one spot where we need someone pretty badly. So, otherwise, we're in good shape. All right. Thank you very much. Always good for the plug. Um, last thing, uh, this is, um, last year, it's the best way to say this. So, there's an MLA with the LEA and the LSS about the, uh, mandatory

024trainings that we do, and they have the ability to do those mandatory trainings in advance of the professional development days and receive credit for the professional development day. We did an MOA with these uh, with the two uh, bargaining units last year. we're in the continuing their contract. So, we thought it'd be best to continue with the MOA, even though everyone was on board with it all, but until we get negotiations settled with LEA and make that official official, we thought an MOA would be good. So, I just wanted to make the board aware of that. I'll be signing that. Um, unless you have any questions or hesitations, it's literally the same MOA from last year with updated dates to reflect the upcoming school year with the same parameters and same rules for everything associated

025with that. So, um, unless there's any questions, I just want to make you aware that, um, we're going to send that out to the two, um, union presidents and get that taken care of. So, any issues at the board level? What is the first day of school? The August 25th. Yeah, August 25th. This is the Friday going to Labor Day. Countdown is on. There wasn't any issues last year in terms of the training being completed. Is that No. So, the the their punishment is they have to come sit with me if they don't get it. And uh, no one sat with me. I was all by myself. Oh, bummer. And I had left my trainings purposely to that day because I'm like, someone is going to test the limits. New superintendent, new procedure, right? Like,

026someone's going to test this. Nope. I think they'd rather have the day off. Yep. So, um, it was a quiet day. I got all my trainings done. It was lovely. Um, but yeah, everyone got them done in advance, so it went well last year. Sounds good. Okay. No issues. No, no issues. Yeah, no issues. Good. Excellent. I have a copy if you want to read through it, but the link's right there for We're good. Uh we'll turn it over to Miss Darling for a business and operations update. All right. Um so on um my BA report, I have included um the FY26 um school board financials um which of course is not a whole lot. We have done some quite a bit of ordering, so there has been some spending of course um but we

027have all of those um updated. As far as um transfers, I did include the transfers for FY25 um even though we are in FY26 just because I wanted to make sure that we were um making that public information, the transfers that occurred since the last board meeting. Um, with regard to the RFP, um, proposals, um, we're happy to, um, announce that we've received seven, um, submissions for the pre-construction services to address the needs of Griffin Middle, uh, Griffin Memorial School. Um, so we are excited for the next steps um, to see how this goes, but um, we're really happy to have seven um, you know, options to choose from. So that's very promising. Um, I wanted to give an update. um LMS um on the LMS parking lot. We did have another sinkhole unfortunately that

028happened right um after the school year but still within um FY25. Um we have we were able to get that repaired quickly which is excellent. Um so that was repaired last weekend. Um and we took care of that. So that's excellent news. We are still waiting to um get the quotes still for the complete LMS parking lot renovation. Um, we have not received that yet, but I know that's something that we won't be able to move on at this point anyway, but I'll still continue to work on that as we get wor get u ready to start making plans for the next school year budget and any more articles that might be attached to that. Okay, thank you very much. Sure. Um, we did have an issue um at LMS in the kitchen um the

029freezer. We do have a protocol set up over the summer, of course, because we don't have regular kitchen staff in the kitchens um for our custodial staff to check the temperatures of the freezers twice per shift at the beginning and end of their shift. Um unfortunately, the the external thermometer must not have been working. Um when someone did enter the freezer um on a Tuesday, I believe it was, they realized that the um it wasn't working and everything in the freezer had spoiled, unfortunately. Um, luckily or fortunately for us, you know, it was the end of the school year, so it was, you know, cleaned out pretty well. Uh, most of the items that were still in there were a lot of state bid items, so not as worth as much money as other items

030would be. Um, so the total loss was $937. Um, but I just wanted to make that known. We did um, we certainly had concerns about the freezer considering it was a very new unit. We had just replaced that, you know, a couple years ago. Um we did have um a contractor come out to check things out. Um it was a tripped uh fuse that they think that was perhaps because of the excessive heat. They couldn't find anything wrong with any of the compressors or the unit itself. Um so everything is working properly now. Um and we are of course changing our protocol now that people are going inside the freezer to make sure that that doesn't happen again. We going to fix that broken thermometer. What's that? We gonna break we're going to fix that

031broken thermometer. That that is something we'll take care of as well. Yeah, absolutely. One question on that. Just top of mind, right? Given now that the building is fully operational on solar, right? Have there been any other um surges or or or breaks in in electricity as a result of this? Yeah, not of that I'm aware of, but I will certainly um keep that on my rad. I'll ask Gabe to follow up on that. I'm just curious if there's something as a result of that new energy source being the supply. We haven't heard anything, but that which is good. Absolutely. If there's other breakers being tripped as a result, right? Yeah, that is important. I I'll follow up on that. We started Do we have summer school in middle school, Sarah? Yes. Do we have

032summer school? Yeah, in the middle school that groups in the middle school, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, we do have some more bodies starting this week in the middle school. So, we'll see our groups. I see the bus rolling around. So, yeah. Yeah, I saw it, too. We're going to be there tomorrow. When uh I mean there's always bus issues, not like bad bad bus issues, but like first day of new routes and but it went surprisingly well Monday. Always small things, but nothing major. Um in terms of uh more questions, a couple uh how are we tracking towards the end of year incumbrances, end of year uh return, where where do we land with that? So um right now the um expenses um under budget is 1.4. Um and that is an estimate.

033Um there are still um things that can come in. you know, we we estimate to the best of our ability for any um outstanding payables and things of that nature. Um so that number will continue to um be adjusted, you know, accordingly. Um but that is a number that we feel comfortable with at this point. So that brings um with the approved incumbrances that brings us down to 649,644 at this time. Okay, that's actually less than what I was anticipating. So is there a drop dead date when we say we're done for 2025? I mean essentially once the audit begins which would be July 21st. One of the questions that um Miss Douglas asked at the last budget committee meeting that we should be prepared for responding to is in accounting of how we got

034from um our previous starting point of around 800,000 and how that went to 1.4. Yeah. Right. And how we have confidence in that number. So, uh, we can expect that question to come in. She's already asked it, but I think more formally, you covered that in our last meeting, though. Pretty I I think she's really looking for a detailed accounting behind that. And, uh, in kind of confidence in in the in that number, I think it's pretty easy detailed accounting because it was literally one thing that you just get added back in, right? Yeah. I messed up reading the incumbrances that were remaining. That was what it was. I mean, we can use that report that we showed at the last board meeting that summarizes it. I can show the line that I screwed up.

035Misread. I mean, the lines were correct. All the accounting was correct. I just misread it, you know. So, why did I think that number was closer to 800,000? That's why I was saying something. Well, we started at 790 or something like that. Spent money out of that already, Julie. Well, maybe that is I think you know. I thought it was I was expecting we encumbered an additional she I'm looking at it right now over her shoulder. She's a the 800 number right there. I apologize. That's the reverse of it. Okay. So, the 897, that's the numbering. That makes that makes more sense. Okay. All right. Um and then let's see. And then I wanted to also um the payroll authorization. um is brought to our attention that this is something that we've done in previous

036years. Um with regard to the FY26 budget, um we do um wanted to give us the total um that we would not exceed with regard to salaries for the uh for FY26, which would be 14,563,5362. Um that is what we have budgeted for salaries and that's with um regard to all of our so fund 10 and fund 21. Um and so we just wanted to pass this around for this to be signed by this is salary and benefits. It's just salary is what Doug had done before. So that's what we did. Exactly for salary and benefits. Yeah. The benefits we can find the benefits of what we have budgeted. Certainly, we tried to mimic Doug's report from the one that we found that had this lesson in it. I think the benefits are less of

037the issue. The problem was the payroll was sometimes being paid before we had a chance to see the payroll manifest. And so, this approves it for the full year, but the benefits we typically will see even over a 3-w week break, we'll still have time to do that. as a part of the um spreadsheets in your reporting, right? Is it possible to see a draw against the 14 million563? Right. So, as we as we approve payroll manifests throughout the the fiscal year, right? This is our starting point. Can we then see the draws of approved manifests off this so we can keep track? Yep. Should be able to do that. Thanks. Yep. All right. Any questions on the um this authorization? Any questions? Okay. Anything else from a business operation standpoint this evening? All right.

038We'll turn it over to Dr. Taylor. All right. Just a real quick um CIA update. There's lots going on this summer, but we finished um really nice vertical alignment meetings for science and social studies, ELA and math. Um and then I did a 6-hour UFly training for our foundations program. Um which was well attended. There was like 21 teachers that came which was great during the summer. Um I'm working through a lot of grant things. Um number one is consolidated app which is almost um ready to go and closing out other grant activities that we had going and um also reviewing and revising our grading system. So those are just small snippets of uh what's happening so far. So lots of excitement over the summer. Oh yeah, my board is quite full of things. So,

039but um all good things. So, um just rocking and rolling. CIA. Yeah. In terms of grading, cuz it's near and dear to me, right? Um well, is it like an overhaul of how we grade or is it just kind of like the technology behind it? A little bit. So, it's going to be the whole thing. So, we're um to start. So, I sent out an email to the um staff because there were a lot of things that were uncovered and I started uncovering these things earlier in the year through conversations with teachers and through conversations with parents and you can't change a grading system once we've started, right? Like you just you can't. Um so just taking notes and listening to um stakeholders and feedback and then a big problem surfaced at the very end

040of the year. Um and we were like okay so in order to go forward we had to step back. So we're stripping everything back to a more traditional grading system for this next year. I'm having teachers come in next week and the week after um to give their feedback and their opinions to things. I also have a form out that is collecting their feedback so that I still have their input on what this is going to look like for this year. And then I'm creating a stakeholder group that's going to include um teachers, parents, and students to what does Lichfield I know that thing has been attacking on yours. It's aggressive fly. Um, so yeah, so we're going to have a stakeholder group um to rebuild what a actual grading system looks like and what

041makes sense for our community cuz what we have right now, you ask three different people and you'll get three different explanations of what it is. So we need to reset and then level set and then move forward. So we have to kind of go back to move forward. Yeah. So elementary is going to stay pretty much the same with their grading. They've worked hard on their report card and how they were doing it. Um and that seemed to we seem to hear no issues, no significant issues with the elementary school reporting out to families and stuff like that. Um it's a different style. It's not traditional grading metrics. It's more of a standardsbased how you doing type of system. Uh but middle and high will have that kind of revamp to it. And I think

042it comes down to as simply as this. If families are trying to support their students and can't understand how to support them with how we're reporting out the grading, then that's an issue, right? It shouldn't take, you know, a doctor degree in mathematics to accomplish. I'll put it this way, like I I have a degree in mathematics. If it takes me three hours to parse through a kid's grade, that's an issue, you know. Um and uh so we it needs to be mo more accessible for the stakeholders, the teachers, the students, the families so we can so kids can find success in it in a more more better way that helps them learn. So, so I have a question and it's I I'm I'll preface this by saying I understand that by changing the grading

043structure, it's going to just help us understand the current infrastructure of how how we're doing within the current infrastructure. But the question that I've been asking for a long time is I can tell just by your face, you know what I'm going to say. What what how what how do we define success? Right? And I'm wondering I I know that that's we're you know something we're kind of working through. Um but I'm wondering if we're changing grading, right? Is there any component of have we re have we have we gotten anywhere with that in terms of what we're defining success as and and is this grading structure going to align with that? So, it's going to be nice to have a year, another year where we're going to be just doing a more traditional type

044grading system because we need time. So, I've been working a lot with teachers on vertical alignment. And with that vertical alignment comes breaking down standards and identifying learning outcomes. So when you identify learning outcomes, then you identify learning targets and how you assess and know whether or not students are reaching those learning targets. Like what's our criteria for success? How do we know that they have reached these proficiencies? Um what rubrics do we have? Right now we don't really have all of those things in place to like what is the criteria there. So, we need to establish all of that while we're talking about, okay, what is the system that makes sense to report out on this that doesn't take a degree in math or a doctorate in curriculum to figure out, right? Like all

045stakeholders should be able to look at the grade and understand what that means, right? So that's all going to be it's we're working towards that and I think that's we're going to take a small steps backwards and take a bigger step forward in the long run, right? To define what success looks like within the the confines of the grading system and assessment reporting that we're doing, right? So it's going to see like it's going to feel very traditional probably next year with grading and we're going to involve teachers and have voice in this and make sure people are good with it. Um, and so like it it actually might not look that different on the surface. Like it'll still be a great ABC's, you know, that type of grading. It'll be a numeric 100point system,

046but the math behind it to get that will hopefully be easier for everyone to understand so they can understand how they can achieve better, right? Like if a kid is working hard and is working towards a a B average, right, and they got a big test coming up and they're studying for it, they want to know what they're shooting for on that test so they can hit their mark, right? like we want to be able to make that clear for a kid who's working hard and doing those type of things and I think that was confusing in the system that that was in place and last year I can't speak for every year ahead of that. So you know and it's not necessarily always about that numeric grade right and that's where the composity model

047and you're going to hear a lot about changing of the ED the 306s and how there's different language and that we'll have to update policies around it and stuff like that. Um, hence why we're going to start meeting with policy committee starting next week, do some adjustments to those type of things. Um, so it's a very natural time to be looking at at the grading systems. But yeah, we need to define and we're going to talk about portrait of learn defining what that looks like for our district. We have some of that stuff already. There has been some good work done in the district around that. But now what is the pieces to show that we've hit the strides that we want in our portrait of a learner, our vision of a graduate type of

048stuff. So it's coming. This is part of that long-term vision of all that. and Sarah's going to be leading the charge here. Um, you know, Jen, our new high school principal, has a ton of experience in this avenue as well. You know, Dan and and Jen, OG Jen, um, we got to come up with a name for the two of them. So, u, also very good about it. So, we're in good hands with it all. So, I guess I'm a bit confused. Um, what was the problem? Yeah. So, they like what confidence can parents have in their grades from last That's my question and if that's too detailed for today then we can talk about it. I don't I think a problem it's not necessarily a problem but it's how do you how so the

049grading system here was based upon competencies right so like you have an assessment and all the compies are averaging in different amounts to fact to grade differently right and I think there was some there wasn't a uniformity on how we would weight those common seies within a particular assessment right so for example a teacher could be giving an assessment out like say a math test let's just use math example that's what I taught right and Say there's three competencies attached to that assessment, right? They're all going to have an equal value to the overall grade for that particular assessment that would then get averaged into the larger grade but a certain weight dependent on sumitative and the formative so on and so forth. Calculation of the calculation of calcul. Yeah, there's a lot of calculations

050on top of each other. So that student may like that on that assessment like a teacher could approach that and put the same grade in for all three common seies cuz the kid got say an 85 out of 100 on the test. So I'm going to put in 85 for all three compencies. Right? Maybe a teacher actually broke that down assessment. And of that 100 points for that assessment, 50 of them were in compy 1, 30 were in common 2, 20 were in compy 3. And I'm going to do a grade separate for that and a grade separate for that and a grade separate for that. And that's one way they could have approached it. Meanwhile, the kids trying to figure out like what do I need on this test so I can get my

051my B average. You know what I mean? So they're trying to do the math on the back end. So when we say like grades and confidence that people can have in their grades, they are accurate in the system that we have, right? Like that it was computing itself correctly. That's a really really really complicated system to spit out a grade, right? And then when we talk about different different weights about um when we like roll grades, like we kind of rolled grades per semester, like we didn't take quarter averages to to do a final year-long grade. we kind of rolled into a semester 1 grade and then we rolled into a semester 2 grade and then averaged that. We just need like consistency. We either roll grades or we don't, right? And when I talk

052about rolling grades, like the previous school I worked at, rolling grades meant that if you had a semester long classes, the grade rolled the entire time, right? Like and it just like added on top of each other. Where a different school that I was at previously, the quarter grades were average. That you had quarter 1 was average, quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four. And that's how you got your final grade. We've kind of split both differences and we're talking like like I could do this whole like how depending on how you approach grading the kids grades can change a lot like the power of a zero is a thing and like all these averages and building on top of each other. So we're talking like sometimes hundreds of a point tenth of a point

053a point or two differences depending on the specific approach but that can make a difference for a kid trying to you know hit a certain mark a certain average of what they're trying to do. So is there have the grades been accurate? Yeah, for the system we have in place just the system's like super complicated. And then there's a philosophy about competencies in general and trying to marry competencies to a traditional grading system, right? like so we're comy based a square peg round hole type of a especially in our student information average times 85% for summitives and then an average of an average and an average times 50% perform formatives and then you then you average marriage the two together to get your final grade you can't average and average it's math so you have

054a kid who does really well on a challenging right like it's challenging does great on a summit and doesn't move the needle on the grades because of all the other averages that make up the final So I know Ir just go back to old grade 85. I can show you spreadsheet. No, no, I think I'm following you. I think such a waste of time. What I'm frustrated or what I'm trying to understand better is we had a discussion last year at the board level about rolling. We had a discussion and it we said we didn't want them to roll the full year. We wanted semester That's what we got. And that's what we got. But what was happening is not falling on a quarter 1 quarter 2 average, right? And the semester would So if

055let's say a teacher did some more summitives in the first semester than the second semester, then the first semester held more weight over the second semester. Then how vice versa start like the kids would get fresh so that they did on the semester. over here for their first semester, but they get it now and they kick some major ass in the sorry, but in the second semester, then those would average on the final grade, but second semester grade would be an A, right? But like they're still rolling within the confines of that semester, which is where some of the issue lies because we're half in half out on some of this stuff like when you actually saw it through the whole year, right? So like that's what we're trying to clean up some of that.

056Okay. Yeah. So, so people were doing it differently. Yes. Well, even within the confines of following the rules, they were approaching the rules differently, right? Like when you have to essentially let's say that test example I gave you, right? And say there's three examples to that common Cy, there was not a uniform way of or three compies within that test. There wasn't a uniform way of how that grade could be inserted for it, right? Like someone could afford the three like the kid could have gotten an 85 out of 100 on the test, right? So a teacher could put in 85 for comp 23. Or a teacher could say like on com C1 the kid got a 90% in it. They put 90% and then for comp 2 they got 75%. These two problems were

057for competency 3 and these two they got wrong so they get a zero or they could just attach three competencies and put an overall grade of 85. Right? So there's all these different approaches that like until you like like we're in the weeds of it like and you know we happen to be going through this issue and two different teachers this is in the high school who teach the same subject and have a common course came in and explained it to two totally different ways to us which is an issue. But if you do it the first way and you give everybody three competencies and one's 90 and one's a 70 average them out then that that the competency that was a a big problem is not equivalent to the other it's you just or

058it is depending on how you put the whole thing right my only question is this how does this does does this move and maybe it doesn't matter but does this move better equate to what colleges are going to be looking for like from grading perspective, right? Cuz that's we'll be able to really No, I'm going to push back a little bit like I we need to make the grading system more straightforward for all stakeholders so the people can support like if it's is it going to make a radical difference for colleges? No, because we're still giving them a transcript with grades on it and then they're going to apply whatever their system is to our grades. But it's going to make our better prepared and understand their GPA. Yeah, I I understand that. But I

059mean I, you know, it used to be the case that you very easily could tell you got an 85, it was a B and colleges, you kind of knew like where their, you know, GPA were and stuff like that. And it was pretty easy to calculate that. And the colleges knew what your grades meant. And I feel like I don't know whether they know what anyone's grades mean anymore. Well, I think that that that's a bigger discussion for the college high school conversation. I do think like it's going to be marginal the differences for when you're applying to college because we're still going to do a transcript that's going to look exactly the same. How we got to the end point of those grades is going to slightly change, right? Cuz we're going to do

060a little bit more traditional averaging while we sort out some of these issues that we've uncovered here, right? So like a kid when they submit their final transcript to college that they're using for the application process is going to have their transcript with their A's and their B's all listed down here. the college is going to apply it to their little system that spits out like how they want it. Each college does that slightly differently, right? To spit out like, hey, this kid um from Campbell High School because they wait grades and they do this and they do that. They have a 3.87, right? In our system, that's really a 3.56. We accept kids who get a 3.0 and greater. Good. We're going to accept this kid, right? Like so that they all have their

061systems that they kind of use for that. And whatever system we have, they take what we have and we apply it because every high school so differently. Like we wait grades here versus on levels of classes. Other schools I've been to two of the three other schools I haven't didn't weight their grades, right? You know, for different levels courses and stuff like that. So every school is different in how they kind of approach that. So college, it's a higher level. It's a higher level. So if I may, let's table the rest of this, right? There's more work to do on grading. And I'm sure as we get into August, um, the administration is going to keep a surprise of what the updates are going into the new school year. Can I just ask one more

062question? What is our role in that? Don't do I don't want to say don't we, but do we have to approve the grading? Because I think I'd like to I'd like to understand what I understood it. I thought I think I thought I understood it. Clearly I don't. But I thought I understood it. And I thought when we talked about making the change to formatives and actually adding 15% back for that, we talked about rolling, we talked about all of these different things to implement that seemed to come from a board level decision. So um before we decide we're going back to traditional grading, I assume you're going to bring a proposal forward for what that will look like. I have to get so like explain it to us like we're in, you know, fifth

063grade so we understand it. Yeah. And like fourth grade. Yeah. Okay. Fourth grade. And it's not going to be like explained to you like in fourth grade because I'm sure what was presented to you before like you understood, right? I think the the hangup on it is there's just like with anything like when you apply it like you take the theory and then you apply it to reality there are problems you don't encounter until you're applying the system for real, right? Like you think you've sorted through every single issue that there is. And I think it's hard for us, we weren't here during the development of this system to be like, okay, this was done to counteract this problem to counteract. So it's like trying to pull back this puzzle piece of just like, well,

064why is this how this thing spits out this grade, right? Well, I guess it's because this happens over here, but if that happens over here, then this why is this happening over there? And at some point, it just is like this is really complicated. And again, it's it's we can do a maybe this would be good at at one of the August board meetings obviously because we're talking about this is like how like there's a presentation I've done a few different times called the power of zero and how like depending on how you're doing grades like how a zero can like be no issue or an issue and you're not necessarily changing it's all like these little tiny different things you can approach grading differently and you just have to kind of accept an approach

065you know I think what we're looking at is we see and what I struggled with as Like if if kids are trying the kids need to understand the system that they're in, right? And I feel like it sounds like that it need there needs to be uniformity. Yes. And how it's being applied in the teach for teachers so that kid A and B who are both in the same class and taking the same exact test don't have different grades because teacher A puts it in the grade book this way and teacher B puts it in the grade book this way. Yes. and also an okay for teachers to approach things slightly like personally, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. Like finding the balance and having some guard rails and I've already um I've already

066met with Andrea um who builds our backend system. We've already had a meeting. I've already met with Karen. Um Karen, Andrea, myself are going to be meeting and going through the entire back end of the system and then building once we have land and have approval on the system. Um we're going to do a training video and then um the three of us are going to be a traveling road show um to go to the um middle school and high school and help during the opening days set up grade books and make sure that everything is understood and everybody's comfortable with where we're at. Um so and then we're going to have a um like a guide handbook. So, there's going to be a video, there's going to be a guide book, and there's going

067to be human resources to make sure that everybody is on the same playing field. And we are very clear on how it's working this year. And then having that stakeholder group meeting throughout the year to come up with, okay, what's going to work long term? What's our long-term plan here? And before that happens, we're going to see we're going to see all of that. Yeah. So for an initial step, you guys are looking to, you know, put it short, sweet, simplify, standardize, and clarify and bring that proposal in front of Voss as your initial step and then develop everything that goes with that to fully develop it at a later. Correct. So I'm So it would be our August 6th meeting that I would have because I have the teachers coming in. I have a

068um a Q&A on um next Wednesday and then the following Wednesday and then Andrea and I are meeting on the 30th um to look at where things landed and cuz she's going to have to start working on the back end of things and the rollover happens August 1st. So she'll be able to start working after that. So, the 6th is actually a good timing um to have our proposal ready to go and um present it to you guys cuz then we're meeting again on the 11th to finalize and start working on the video and the all the other stuff because obviously we've got to be ready to rock and roll by the time school start. It's actually It's not as It's not as crazy like sounds a lot more dramatic. I've been saying that a

069lot. It's my favorite saying at work. Yep. I've been saying it a lot lately. I'm going to make a motion to approve the June 18th and June 27th public. All right, moving along. A motion. Second and a second for the June 18th and June 27th minutes. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker, second by Mr. Plansky. Additional discussion. All those in favor, please say I. I opposed abstained. That carries 5-0. I would, in the interest of time, would like the board a consideration to make an agenda change. Um, Miss Crowley's been sitting here patiently under old business. Can we flip old business and new business and get food service out of the way? Get this out of the way. That's what I mean. Get out. Hi. Good evening. How we doing? Let's talk food service. Um, so before

070I get into the whole I don't know, I just want to bring up a couple of things that I watched the last schoolboard meeting and I had a couple of um based on the conversation that had happened. I just have a couple points to make regarding that. So um, regarding the deficit, I understand it is larger this year than last year. I really need to make and I've been very hesitant to make this point in the past because I felt like if I said it in public forum, it's going to look like I don't support my staff. And that is the absolute not that's not true at all. Um I run the numbers, you know, pretty much all the time and I've mentioned this to a few people. If labor didn't come out of the

071food services budget, we would be in the black $250,000 and we would have a new problem of how do I spend this $250,000 down? Um, the reason we're in a deficit every year is due to labor having to come out of the this the food services budget and that includes my salary all the way down to a kitchen worker. It's infuriating, but I believe my staff deserve their wages. I actually believe they deserve more wages. They are, you know, they are the lowest paid in the district. And I believe and I know that's going to increase next year. So, I'm very comfort comfortable and confident to say the deficit being $90,000 over last year's 70 something is due to salaries and benefits. Um because I can't think of the word right now, revenues and expenditures

072were roughly the same for yeartoear. So, um, unless something changes on the federal level, because right now for reimbursement for lunch, for a paid kid, we get 50 cents back from the government per paid kid for lunch, which is supposed to offset labor and food and utilities and um, repairs and a bunch of other things, it's just not enough. So unless something changes federally or we suddenly get like 600 kids in enrolled tomorrow, this is just going to be a reality unfortunately for the foreseeable future. What my focus has shifted to is ensuring as close of a gap closing as possible given these circumstances. Um, so I've explored, like I said, you know, in the past with my we, you know, the the meal charging, the raising prices. We don't I'm not saying we have

073to. It's just an option that I found that could add money to the bottom line. I No, we have. And I've expressed my uh displeas displeasment is not a word. My friend's daughter says that all the time. So, I'm my displeasure, excuse me, um for raising prices. I'm not advocating that we like let's do it. It's just a this is what would add if this was the case. Um so that being said, I am going into some revisiting and needing approval. Um I did last time the last presentation I brought up the meal charging policy to update it so that the high school students um would not be allowed to charge anything if they had a negative balance. Um and the credit card machines. The reason why those two are on here is because if

074the board decides to go in that direction, I have to start working on that and I'm I don't work July typically. So once I get back in August, I'll be hitting that up and getting that going. And the credit card machine would be built into next year's budget, which is if I don't have to and we're not going to move in that direction, I don't want to do all the work for no reason. Um there's plenty of other things I can do. Um, and then the lunch prices, again, I really need a solid answer on that because it affects our state application, which if we don't get that in and approved, we don't get our reimbursement and it's not retroactively applied. And I also can't send out free and reduced lunch applications until we have

075a solid what we're doing with that. So, um, that's what I'm revisiting, needing approval for. I don't know if you want to pause here and talk about that or if you want me to just keep going and then we can just talk about I think before we talk about pricing increases I think I want to understand the following slides. Fantastic. And the changes potentially to programming. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, I know there's some clarification needed regarding this cafe beastro thing that I'm bringing into um this has been something I've wanted to do for for many many years and until recently never really figured out how I can possibly do it. So the ultimate end goal is we would have a space whether it is an unused room or somewhere that eventually this the that's where

076this would be housed that students can and staff can come in at any point in the day and get something. It would be open during all lunches, during breakfasts, you know, passing times um for the CAGs and stuff. This is really just taking what we're already doing for um our allocart prices and just ex um and items, excuse me, our alle cart items and expanding them into more options. I've noticed the high school is more on with the graband go type situations and these are ways that we can capitalize on this. So what I've done is came up with a list of I don't know whatever that is say 15ish items that we would be selling. I have the selling price of what I would because it is still a nutrition program. It is still

077kids buying this. I'm trying to be, you know, not ridiculous with our prices and what the plate cost of that would be and how much that would profit. So, for example, like chips and salsa, we can get the bags of the Tostito scoops in and the salsa is the state salsa, so it's cheap and that's what we can sell it for. It cost.70 cents to do it. We can sell it for$ 2.75. Kids will buy that like crazy. Um these are things as well that you know you can get a breakfast sandwich all day long. You can get um you know avocado toast and again we're redoing our whole breakfast menu. So this will kind of tie in with that because we have new regulations. So all of these things are just things that we

078know and I am aware that kids have either asked for bring in or are looking to do. This is not a tested like I tried and like this is, you know, it's a very fluid menu, but this is just some examples of what we're what I'm looking to do. Um, on top of that, actually on the next slide, cuz there's actually another slide of prices. Yay. Um, again, baked cookies. Um, we'd sell them two for a buck 25. An assorted fruit cup. The fruit cups would be much larger than what we would typically sell as like a lunch option with the fruit. So, we're talking a larger portion. Same with the veggies and dips. Um, we have some sandwiches, some paninis on there. And we're not talking like a full-blown menu at every single turn.

079We're talking like, you know, maybe there's a rotation. So like Monday would be mac and cheese, Tuesday would be a panini, Wednesday would be something else that, you know, you can offer a larger ticket item to sell. It just wouldn't be, you know, we're not going to offer mac and cheese every single day. We're going to, you know, kind of rotate through and see what presumably you would track what's doing best. That's what our system is for and that's what we all do. Um, every kitchen has production records that they have to track what we sell and you know what we cook. A ton of mac and cheese then by all means, right? We'll do mac and cheese every day. Um, and it's just these are, you know, it's just adding a little bit more.

080Everything we can do for this particular project, we can already do within our own budget. We can already do it within our own budget. Um, we have some equipment that I have had that we I have not really known what to do with it. we can utilize that equipment. So, we're not looking to buy a lot of extra stuff. We're not looking for, you know, I'm not looking to spend a ton of money on this. It's literally taking what we already have and creatively use utilizing it to get to a little bit more um alle cart sales. Allocart sales last year was about 10% of our total revenue. I'm looking to boost that. I don't want to give like a we're going to get this much. I'd rather not get into something to set me

081up for failure. So, I'm just looking to increase that over upward of over 10%. Um, coffee is again super cheap. People are going to buy iced coffee like crazy. Uh, Jen Mitchson, uh, I said, "Oh yeah, we're going to have ice iced coffee all the time." She's like, "Set me up a mail card." I was like, "Cool, do it." And I did it. I've been there. And, you know, they're they're going to go and they're going to sell. Um, we're specifically talking about high school. We are specifically talking about high school. This is I'm and I am focusing we a bit more on the high school because that is where we kind of do need that they even though they have the same amount enrollment as middle school the middle school they eat those those

082that current last year's fifth graders they eat a lot and that's not been a problem which is fantastic. high school. We've kind of dropped a bit and you know that's due to the declining enrollment, but we're looking to kind of make up that little gap there and trying to do some different things. It's going to take some trial and error because sometimes it might be a flop. Sometimes it might be a huge hit and it's going to take a little bit of time for, you know, people to get on board. But the good news is is my staff at the high school are like so excited about this. They're ready to do something different and shake up the norm. there. We have um a woman on our staff. I actually worked with her in Windham.

083She's very food forward. She's very much like we have this leftovers and she'll just take it and make something just to put out as like a side. So the the waste is not happening. She's very not that there was a lot of waste, but she's very creative about using leftovers and things like that. And her and my new lead up there really get along. So I think they're going to make a great team on this and push these kinds of things out. Um, and just it's going to be a matter of just training up the staff because we're already doing a snack bar like thing. It's just going to look a little bit different. Um, and with the way the high school is currently in with enrollment, we can we can maneuver and make and

084take somebody off of those serving lines to do this successfully without stressing the rest of the other four. You can answer my question, but if I ask the question anyway, you can ask the question. Right. So, I'm concerned about the staff. Yes. and executing this type of change in program. Yep. So, you said they were excited about it. What's the practicality of implementing this type of change? It's really not that much more than what we're already doing. Um, one of the things that I've, you know, if I'm coming here, it's the last stop of kind of like what I've done, I've already talked with my staff and you know, over the course of from like April on, you know, what this is what I'm thinking about doing. And then they we bounce all the ideas

085off each other and they have well I have concerns about and blah blah blah and we hash all of this stuff out. Um I did bring my I just don't want it to be hey the board thinks this is great. No no way to execute it. No no no this is me this is the last stop be like I'm doing this just so we're all on the same page. the staff have already they are my first line that I go to um in all of these even the last time I presented literally before I called Darlene I'm like by the way I think we're going to I'm going to you know throw out that we're going to do second through 6 through 8 and she's like we'll figure it out it's cool great it's no

086big deal so my staff are phenomenal I know we all know this but they are wonderful and I found the opportunity where in this this is absolutely we have a fresh person in charge who has different ideas who has, you know, wants to see and she has two high school kids. She wants to see, you know, different things be done and we have people who are constantly pushing the envelope to do more and do better and that's awesome. So, it's going to take a little again, it's like I said, trial and error. It's like, okay, but we're not also talking like 250 portions of mac and cheese. We're talking maybe 30 and that's like on a busy day. So, it it works that we're a small district and the high school is really small. like

087if we tried to do this in a larger district, we would probably be drowning a little bit. But I think and I'm also there to assist and help them as well and you knowve run kitchens for many many years. It's kind of what I do and it's just a matter of it'll just be an adjustment but they're excited about it. So before talking about meal price increases and going down that any questions on the allocart menu? What are the board thoughts? Wait, I made a mockup menu. Could you go to the next slide, please? Oh, it's so small on this TV, but it's very bougie. We came up with a I I can't take all the credit. We'll credit Chad GPT for a lot of it, but cuz that's true. But but you know, we

088we're calling it like Campus and Co. So, it's a little trendy, a little h like I want you to step into a place and be like, we're not at Campbell anymore. we're in a sophisticated upscale type situation that you're willing to spend more money. Oops, as I hit the mic is we're willing to spend a little bit more money to, you know, get. And then all of our regular stuff's on there, too, like our um our Pop-Tarts, our beef jerkys, Rice Krispie treats. All things we sell normally are still going to be there and available. All our regular drinks that they know and love and but now you can get coffee any time of day. And you know, I'm hoping to boost the staff participation as well. So, that's my bougie. Love it. It's my

089bougie uh thing. Um, and then like I said at the middle school, it just doing those extras, switching out some of their snacks. You know, she Darlene does a great job where they offer everything. And sometimes it's about refining that a little bit. So, we're going to work with them a little bit. And, you know, maybe we don't need to always have four flavors of Doritos. we feature one and then kind of, you know, create that kind of need or want for it. Um, but we can also definitely do some more hot foods there, like selling like orders of fries throughout the back. And the best part about them is there's very there's next to no theft cuz literally everything is behind the counter. So, high school, too. But we're I'm doing as much creatively

090as I possibly can to close that gap as best I can and still provide really great items. And even on meals, too. I know that we're not talking about meals, but like I've discovered these new lunches and stuff that I'm like, "This is going to be great for everybody." Like egg roll bowls. Like every kid is going to love an egg roll bowl. That's amazing. So like we have some new fun items coming in, too, that I'm really psyched about. All right. Any questions on all cart? There won't be shelf stable yogurt, will there? There won't be shelf stable yogurt. It was a I tried something. Listen, I appreciate your creativity. I tried. I'm just haunted by it. But all right. Only for you. I have been I actually had a case shipped to your

091house. Is that all right? Uh I have been very vocal that I think that this is a great idea. I think that we should absolutely be pursuing this. Um and and sorry squirrel. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but when we eventually do get to a point where we do have a space, I'm going to cuz this is what I do. I'm going to we're going to have a big ribbon cutting ceremony. I'd like you all to come and see and see what we're doing and get a coffee. You know, I'll buy you a coffee. It's great. Like I will personally, me, Lauren Crowley, will buy you coffee. Not the dining services department, but you know, I you know, invite you, anyone at any point in time, come check us out. come have lunch with

092us because it's it's so hard to just have a snapshot of what I do in front of, you know, once every couple of months or so. It's Oh, you got it. Oh, nice. Mr. Miyagi level. Uh, so you so they would be able to purchase this stuff using I mean the idea if we get a credit card machine is that they'd be able to use credit card machine or meal account. They can use your mail account. Yep. Okay. Yep. And then with respect to the credit card machine, would you also if someone uh were to come up to the counter for lunch and not have money on their account, would they be able to use the credit card machine? Yep. So the whole point with the credit card machine would be that there's a minimum

093cuz we have to the district has to eat the fee. Yeah. And it's a 4% fee. So that's why we would have the minimum of like a $10 purchase. So if you come up and you buy a lunch for $425, the rest of that money up up to the 10 bucks will just go right on the kids account. Yeah. So, so to me these things all tie in. Also, parents can call and I can enter them in on the credit card system. So, you don't have to pay the online fee and it's a little but I think that fee might that minimum might be a little bit it might be a little higher than 10. Maybe it's a minimum of 20 but you can avoid paying the online fee that way as well. Just just

094saying. So, I I think these three things tie together like very nicely. I think the the meal charging policy thing I think we have to address. I think it wasn't a huge what was it 5 5,000? No, it was never actually it was it was only over I it was like $2500 all year. It's now 1980. So, but I mean that's still you know in our budget that's still listen conquered was $100,000 in meal debt. Uh all right. Well, I am going to make a motion to approve. Just do all the the three things together. We'll do Don't do lunch prices yet. No, no, no, no. Just the alikart. So, then we're going to Okay, I'll make a motion to approve the alle cart. You guys don't have to approve the alikart. That's just something.

095Nope. That's just something we're doing and I'm just bringing it to the board. Say this is what we're doing. Okay. With the credit card. So, with respect to the um Have at it. Great. With respect to the credit card machine, uh I know that there are credit card machines that do 3%. So I don't know the processor. You have to find the right process. Right. Right. I just want to make sure that we're I want to make sure that we're the information I gathered was based on what our current software company already offers. So that was my starting point. And then again, like I said, if this wasn't going to pass, I wasn't going to really dig deep into it. All right. I just want to make sure if we're going to I I do

096think we should I can do I just would like to get the most economical meal prices. Do you Sorry, before we get there, do you need a motion for the meal charging policy or the credit card? I would imagine because I'll have to rewrite the policy then it's going to have to go through the whole thing. So, and the meal the credit card if you want me to do it, great. I don't think you need an official vote on it. Yeah, I think what we're looking for so if we do anything with meal with the charging that would come through policy committee. So this is more of like maybe just an indication like hey look at that keep going because it has to go through that approval process with a credit card there's a budgetary

097concern with that. So if if that's more of a gentle too like keep going on that kind of approval. We would have to present that in the budget process in the fall and everything like that like let's not snap our fingers and do that. Keep going. And then the last thing is the meal prices if that's something you want to change for next year. I do not this and I'm not advocating for or against when I say this just like what we need from you tonight is either yay change or yay don't change like whatever direction you want on that and either is fine just like if we're going to do anything we got to do it. So it's part of the state application process and when we get our um administrative review whenever that

098ends up coming I've been saying it's coming next year for the last like four years and it hasn't shown up yet so that's good. Um, we have to do this thing called the pay lunch equity tool and basically that determines if you have to raise your prices or not. I did complete it for this going into the year and we do not have to raise our prices. So like sometimes it'll be like yep raise your prices by whatever whatever we do not have to do it again just to reframe that conversation a little bit. It was more of like a here's an idea that we can do. If we don't want to explore it, that's okay with me and I know the families will also be okay with that, too. Yeah. So, we wanted to

099know that you have that. If you're looking for advice, I'm just going to speak for myself and myself solely. I'm not representing Julie or Lauren or anyone else. I would advise not to raise the prices, right? Um that's and allow this alakart kind of idea to play out. Allow some of the other things that Lauren is working in to play out. Um and to see if we can kind of make some small indents to it using these type of things. But it's obviously your decision. But if you're looking for as a superintendent, what I would recommend it would be to keep your prices consistent where they are for the next year. Our reimbursement participation is really, really good. Um, we're running district-wide for lunch about a 50 to 52% participation. And I know like in

100grading world that means you fail, but in food world that's really really it's a hard thing to do. Will all cart play into that or is that only Allocart will play into it, but it's not subject to reimbursement, which is why you guys don't need to vote on it. Um because it's sub the value meals are what we have to Sure. And that may offset I think this would offset some It'll help. Oh, absolutely. 50 cent reimbursement. Yeah, it's pathetic. I I hear you and I and I want to and I don't disagree with you and I think that's probably your opinion, too, right? Um, I I just want to throw out one other idea, right? And going on the conversation of, well, geez, all of our meals are about the same size and we

101should probably be charging the same price for the same size across our district, right? on that on that part of the discussion and knowing that elementary school is 375, middle school is 4 and high school is$425 at current rates. Is there an opportunity in this in this kind of adjustment to say, "Hey, let's level set at $4, right? So high school goes down 25 cents, elementary goes up 25 cents, $4 across the board. And you're making that money up at the high school by introducing Alakart and adjusting the alocart as well at the middle school. I mean, I understand the logic of that. I just said also with the alocart at the middle school as well that like I think we have which is not this. It's a little different, right? It's about the it's

102not this. No, it's like we're offering seconds to three out of the four grades because are the port I know you you've said this. Are the portions across the board the same on like all except for pasta? Okay. And these have been set since 2010. So if I said anything that led you to believe that it was not the same, I'm going to apologize, but I I don't remember. Anyway, so um pasta graduates in prices uh in portions. So the elementary gets a 4 oz portion. Middle is six, high school is eight. Um, fruit and vegetable, high school can take up to a cup. The other two schools take a half a cup. Yes. I don't think we should level set it. I think we should just leave it where it is for now. That's

103my just throwing out I get where you're coming from with that, but No, I appreciate where you're coming from with that, too. I just think in terms of the elementary school looking at both going back to your presentation from June 4th um we are already the highest in our pure cohort what we label as our pure cohort for elementary school by far the there's only one other school be two other schools behind us at 350 so at 375 and the rest are below 350 so we are already on the elementary school side pretty high and then I think you included additional these are like smaller districts Portsmith was on there just because they were kind of in our price where we were at. But even their elementary school again, we are the highest one on

104that list even out of those. And so I think keeping the elementary school are the same thing as us though that the portion sizes are the same. Yes. If they're on the national school lunch program, the portion sizes are the same. So it sounds like the will of the board is to let it ride. Is that fair? Yo, I'm down with that. Thank you. Awesome work. Cool. Well, I don't have anything else. So, I am heading out. Uh I'm heading out on Friday. I'm going to a conference in San Antonio. Um won't be hot there. No, it'll be gorgeous and it's going to be so hot. But, um hopefully we'll get some This is where the Beastro idea came from and I had a friend who presented it. So, hopefully more awesome things to come.

105But, thank you all so much for everything. All you do. Thank you. I try. I also will be recognized in front of 7,000 people up on stage because I got the Northeast Regional thing, which is very embarrassing, but bring your tiara. Well deserved. Bring the tiara. Don't trip. You know, all that. So, thank you so much. I'm going to pack. All right. Safe travels. Good job. Thanks, sir. All right. Now, moving into new business and shifting gears into RFP bits. Yeah. Um, we have some RFP RFP bits. I have hard copies here if anyone needs them, but linked right there's the folder with all of the bids in it. Y um we've just cleaned up the doc just for transparency. First posted them. We jammed them up there as quickly as we could. We did

106take out some of the white space and and cleaned up a couple pages that weren't as visible. So it might be slightly different than what you saw the other day when you put it up there, but it's all the same information. Um I don't know how you want to best to approach this. So we talked about this last night at facilities um committee. Um, you know, Dan and Peter were there and and Andrew came. Um, so we can kind of go through each of the bids one by one that seemed to work well last night. Um, and kind of highlight some of the I wouldn't even say pros and cons, but just differences and the different approaches that the kind of the the companies took to to kind of put their bid together. Um, and

107then the second thing under here is just like a a generic scoring rubric if we wanted to use a rubric of some sort to help us kind of we don't have to. Nothing says we have to use a scoring rubric, but um you know talking to other school districts that have done this type of stuff. Some some do use it, some don't. Something like that. So, you know, it's an option for us. Uh FIC last night had a good discussion about like which ones they liked and didn't like. So obviously we can talk about that as well and then um figure out what next steps you want to take um with these bids and everything like that. So if that works that works. All right. Has everyone had a chance to take a look at

108the proposals? Yes. Yes. Great. Yep. Who was at FIC? What who will this be duplicative for going through? You were there. You were there. I was there. So, this is really for Matt and I. Yes. And Julie, this will be the third time I go through them. I went through them on Monday. Um, and if anyone wants hard copies, I have some hard copy. I'm going to refer to a hard copy. Um, I mean, I I I don't want to jump over anything, but I again, we have an FIC for a reason. They my understanding is that they have given a recommendation in terms of four potential options. Is that correct? There was there was a vote last night to recommend four out of the seven firms. Correct. Why did you choose four? Was it

109just that there were four that were all pretty close that you liked? There were four that answered or at least with what I felt and with what the rest of the FIC felt all kind of answered not only the FI the RFP but they listened during the pre RFP meeting pretty well. um cost comparatively they were they're very I I can't say they're all the same. They were all in the same kind of group region side and they all had um some sort of experience with something of trying to help us find an option is kind of where it came from. The actual number of four it just seemed like a good number and going forward. they're also delivering the same sort of level of services. That that is going to be one of those

110things of where I think having an interview with them and asking clarifying questions is going to help because it could be they just they worded it differently, but they mean the same thing. Some some groups actually worded it and stated and priced it two different ways for exactly what we asked for and what they normally do. Um, so I I think that is a part of the reason why we wanted to talk with and ask clarifying questions to these groups and companies. I mean Joe, did I miss anything? Okay. So having sat on I guess having sat on last two years ago when we had facilities at that point we did have I believe it was three um companies come in for interviews that sat down to answer questions and then we picked from there.

111Is that what we're looking to do or so I think the next round is certainly uh questions with whoever the board would like. If it's all four, great. If it's a subsection of the four for whatever the reasons, great. Uh we can certainly leverage um the the the scoring rubric as as a baseline if there's a standard set of questions that the board would like to ask as well as then kind of um firm specific questions given just the responses or the how they've responded to the RP. Fine. you know, however the board decides. The four firms that were selected uh for moving forward to the school board were Barker and Associates, Lavali, Heramman, and Turner Group. And the discussion um largely was centered around, and please correct me if I'm misspeaking. No, go for

112the the the the um the the the conversation last night was largely centered around these specific four firms, their long-standing history with sizable projects in the state, uh their staffing um and their their team approach without the need for the district to have to go out and also look for additional subcontractors to fill gaps in staffing. Mhm. Um there was also conversation about how far the board should consider taking this. You'll note that in some of the proposals um there is up to a conceptual design up to a schematic design and then design development. Yeah. And how far we need to take it in terms of getting to a um a pre-bond. Mhm. Um the general consensus was for Lichfield, you really need to consider uh going to schematics. Mhm. Right. At at least a

11350% schematic state, right? So we get beyond the conceptual design. We get into they went to that next layer just so that helps firm up that number with a little bit better confidence. What point do we have to get to for a guaranteed maximum price? It it's going to depend on firmto firm as to what they feel comfortable with. Typically what I see is firms will give you a swag at just about any level, but then they change their confidence factor as to, you know, what that can hit. Um, there was discussion last night about what we would like the ferns to be at for that confidence level or that ROM factor to to with their guaranteed maximum price and what they need to get there. that I think that's going to be a part

114of like what's that standard, you know, one of the standard questions of the firms that we talk with. Um, as Andrew mentioned, there was there was a lot of talking about how do we go from four down to one. Um, or if the board would like to see to talk with more than four, then that that's absolutely okay as well. It's just how do we get to one? So Marilyn uh did suggest a standard set of questions that we ask everybody and then firm specific which I absolutely 100% agree with and go down that path as well. Um, yeah. I mean that I Joe it, correct me if I'm wrong, but the prices to what we thought was from what they printed closest apples to apples ranged from about 140 up to about 250 around

115there. Something in that between those four. Yeah. Right. Between those four. But so what do you mean by that? Cuz I I mean looking at those some of them were in the 400s, weren't they? That's right. But if you look at the line items, so like that depends on how far you want to take it, right? So like you want to go all the way, then you get up to four or 500. But if you're only going to get to what you need for pre-awn stuff, yeah, you take out a bunch of those does a good I think it's Turner or Barker, right? Barker does a really nice job kind of explaining it as well. Um, you know, so on like slide on page I'm on page seven of Barker as Barker. Okay. He has

116uh broken out design concept for two options at 70,000 schematic to get to schematics another 139,500. Great. So you're you're all in to get through schematics. Um call it what? 240 229. Yeah. You know, but plus the 50,000 or 15,000 for meetings, whatever. Right. So call it 240ish,000. Right. to get to your pre-bond vote, right? Which is pretty pretty darn equivalent with the other three firms, right? That's within very close reason to the other three firms. Yep. The couple other ones that we have questions on what they mean by conceptual design is it's the language that we need to get clarified. Sure. Yep. It's the design development where things start to change a little bit and the prices start to fluctuate and especially when they start going into 100% schematic drawings and everything like that,

117right? Is like the they're planning on where they're going to run wires and pipes and everything else, right? So that drives a lot of and that's why and I think it's in Barker and Turner you'll see like it's 200,000 just to do that step because that's just a lot of detailed engineering work because Turner does did 100% of the schematic, right? Yep. But when I did my little math, I just cut that number in half. Yeah. Roughly. Yeah. I mean, and and again, it's going to be, you know, some of this is, you know, what do they feel comfortable with of their pricing fees of to get us what we're honestly what we're trying to look for, right? I picked what, you know, we stated in the RFP, what I thought is what I normally

118run off of and everyone agreed to it. So, um, if we can get all of them to, uh, you know, call it a guaranteed maximum price with an 80 or 90% confidence number with it for a pre-bond, and if they call it conceptual versus 50% schematic or 100% schematic, do we ultimately care at that point? I expect they will have questions for us too. What is the wish list? You know, what are the musthaves? Yep. And what are the nice to haves would be part of that conversation as well. Y Yeah. And I think that's what we got to clarify with them though and some of the interview process is how that is going to work like and how that affects these conversations and like and everything that goes. So in terms of next steps

119right just to move the conversation along is is the board comfortable with interviewing or asking to interview all four firms or do you want to narrow it down? I mean I don't really have a basis to narrow it down at this point. Um, I did go through, but like I I I'll be honest with you, it's a lot of pages. So, yeah. I was going to just ask did you happen to notice like um do any of them have like overlap in their teams? Cuz like I noticed like for example that Turner uses Bonnie Page and Stone. That's who that's who Barker was. I don't know if Barker still you would still Barker is partnering with a different firm this time. So, they're using uh SMP architects and goes from there. Um, and and I

120didn't see any overlap in the teams. Like Haramman, everybody's on staff, right? They're not sub to anybody. Turner has a long-standing relationship and Lavali has long-standing relationships and they're they're all different. Um, I it kind of I I'll say the rubric that we kind of all talked about was, you know, in their proposal, can you pick out quickly? Did they listen? Did they read the RFP and answer what we're looking for in the RFP, right? Is um one of the things that stood out is we we explicitly stated our timeline. Only one firm actually put in a schedule and a timeline of what it would be to get there. And which firm was that? Lavali. Okay. But it's and it it's it's just for me in this case, right, is I go, how well did

121they listen? How well did they read? Did they answer what we're looking for? and can you find it upfront and easy? Um, and and kind of base it off of that. And then you start looking at references and their history and stuff like that. And it seemed that seemed to be kind of what we went through last night and it worked seemed pretty decent. Everybody kind of got to the same similar to Yep. Yeah. So, and going from there. So, my inclination is to interview all four. Okay. So what is the mechanics of that? Right. If we have all four come in, we don't we certainly don't want them all sitting together. We line them up back to back. So typically on the hour and 1. And when would the board like to do that?

122I would not propose doing that in August at our August meeting. I would propose doing that earlier. Right. Prior prior. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It would mean another meeting. Doesn't have to be a public hearing or anything like that, right? It would need to be a publicann announced session because the board is meeting. Yeah, I think we should do that. But that would be this would be our specific agenda item. The question is how quickly could they be ready? I I would assume probably quickly because they've all put in I mean the the only the only logistical concern I have is I am on work travel the last week of July. That's uh it's tough luck. If I can attend remotely, I will try to attend and go from there. But yeah, I mean

123it's, you know, the last week of July or is my only hiccup that I've got. What were you thinking, Andrew? I mean, I think we need to as a next step coordinate with the superintendent and and the business minister and just figure out when they're available to meet, right? They may not all be available on the same day. They may not all be available on the same day. Ideally, we can get them back to back on the same day, right? Um, and just line them up. It' probably be like a 4h hour meeting, right? Just like the old days. Is that what you did for GMS? No. So this is I mean GMS. Yeah. So the last one we brought the way that it was done was the interviews were conducted by the facilities committee.

124They were private. Um they were not open to the public because you get into people's reputations. You get into questions about their building, their past buildings, what you've seen and heard. And so they were private. I don't know how the companies feel about those necessarily being public. I don't not saying that's the right way to do it. I'm just saying how it was done. They all seem to include a a page about, you know, litigation. Yeah. Cuz I think they know a thing or two about it. Well, but they're saying like they're they're being transparent with it. I I I don't necessarily have a problem with it being public. I think that Well, I think that needs to I my my thought was it would go to them to decide that. Um I don't know.

125It's their reputations that we're talking about. Yeah. that they're they're bidding a public project though. Yeah. And I'm just thinking in the interest of time, right, in in terms of selection and moving forward, is that just creating another step in the process? I don't know. Regardless, facilities interviewed and forth one name to the school board. They school board did not interview everyone. It was facilities. So, we didn't have to deal with noticing public meetings. There were two members from the school board that were present for those interviews along with the rest of school district staff and the members of FIC at the time. Yeah. See that I thought that's what Dan was kind of explaining last time. Dam Mitchell, you know, cuz obviously we weren't here for that. Um that it was like those private

126settings. You had a couple representatives from different groups, you know, couple board two board members, you know, they came in, they had and you had that kind of and so you could kind of ask more pointed questions, right? and like getting some of the nitty-gritty of it all without, you know, them feeling pressured to like, oh, I'm on TV or I'm in public or how is someone going to respond to this, you know? Well, the FIC meetings are public. This was private. This was a not an FIC meeting. This was something. Call it a school business meeting. Yeah. Cuz when we did, you know, even the pre-bid meeting, I mean, that was private, right? And like so they asked us like nothing inappropriate, but they asked pointed questions, right? You know, like where maybe they

127wouldn't have asked those questions if they were on for all display, you know? I don't know. I can't speak for them. Nor can they necessarily be done as a as a business meeting. That's the entire board. No, no, it would be a representative of the board. Sorry. So it would be one two members max of the board participating in that session. I think if you did it that way, I'm not advocating for it against, but I think one of the pros is if you had to not line them up back to back, you might have a better chance of doing that if it's not the full board and it's not in that public forum, right? Like so if you know you picked a week to do it, no offense, but say the last week of

128July just for argument sake. Um, sure. Then it's you know firm could come, two firms come on Tuesday, a firm could come on Wednesday and a firm come on Thursday. you can kind of like have that schedule in place there. You can get it out, you know, you might be able to attend for an hour. Yeah. Right. Okay. I mean, it's the will of the board. What do you think? I think that's fine. I just think that we do need to make a decision as to whether or not it should be televised. I I again I'm all for being as clear and transparent to the public as possible, but when it comes to this type of situation, I think for the protection of the companies as well as the district some to be able to

129fully vet and scope out ask the questions we need to ask the the meeting should should be non-public. But that's my my inclination is that I think that Julie should reach out to the four and ask them what their what their feelings are on that. I mean, if they if they're all if all four of them were like, "We don't care." I would rather it be public because I think that one thing that's happened with the FIC is it's been a very public discussion of how we've gotten to the point that we're at. And I think that there for this part of it to to it would be beneficial for people to be able to go back and see how this part of it played out. I agree. I think I think they should be

130public too. If you know if if all four of them are like, "No, we're not doing that." Then I think we have to, you know, then then we're really departing from like standard protocol. But, you know, Yeah. So, let's do this. Let's ask the question. Let's reach out to the four that that have been selected. Um, let's see what their availability is to meet over the next few weeks if they can give us a few options, okay, of times. Um, I would suggest after the 18th because that's when Dan's back, Dan Mitchell. I think it's important. I would advocate for Dan to be part of this. He has the most knowledge of the building and everything along those lines. Um, so I know he's returning from from Ireland there after the 18th. Um, I do

131think we're going to have transparency aside, I think it's going to be very difficult to find time slots that all five of us can and Dan and the district people can meet. I'm sure you're right. Oh, it's not going to be all five of us. I thought we were talking about two. If it's a public session, it's five. It would be a public board meeting. Oh, okay. I I think logistically it might be a challenge. Sure. Yeah, that that four out of five or three out of five or Right. Well, you got to have your quorum if you're going to do with that, right? So, you need three at least three of you. So, we can Yeah, Julie can ask. I'm going to just be honest with you. The 23rd is out for me personally.

132It's my 15th year wedding anniversary. I think my wife would kill me if uh she'll understand. So, she's watching right now. What she's saying now, it's fine. No, if she's watching right now, next Tuesday. Oh, look, an email from her right now. Right. Yeah. So, next step, reach out to the vendors, right? Let's um let's get their availability, see what their willingness is to meet in public versus not. Um and just let us know. And with those dates, I ask that let me know and I can send it out to the rest of the FIC. Okay. Just to make sure that we'll see if we can get a quorum of them there as well. All right. The the absolute intention is to have all four of these complete prior to our August meeting. And our

133August meeting is August 6. Correct. And I'd like to propose that going into the August 6th meeting, we have the information to have an informed discussion about next steps. It works. So think of all your questions. Yep. That work? Yeah. So just point of clarity. So for these interviews, which we would do before August 6, we would need questions for them. Are you comfortable with us preparing the questions and reaching out to you, the FIC for suggested questions? Yes. Okay. Y if there's a working um Google sheet that we can create, right? Just collaborate through a Google sheet with the FIC and members of the board. Let's use that mechanism. Yeah. just so we can everyone sees the questions, we know what we're going to ask and if people have specific things they're looking for

134then they can put it on as a suggestion. So yeah and and publicly state this is both standardized and firm specific questions. Yeah, that as we understand it for each of the each of the firms. All right, sounds good. Anything else on RFPs at the moment? No. Um, I I will just say like I'll give a huge shout out to the FIC. We got through a lot. I mean, call it 700 pages worth of proposals and stuff last night in about two little over two hours. Uh, we made a lot of progress, a lot of headway. Everyone came together. There was great information, discussions, and how people looked at this back and forth. So, just give a shout out to the FIC on that one. Was it a pretty full committee like that? Yeah, it

135was. Yeah, just what everybody was there. Only Jason uh Lam Mountain couldn't make it, but he informed me ahead of time. So, we were all but one member. Awesome. All right. Uh cell phone law. So, this I just want to update this pass. I'm sure you know the bell the bell ban uh ban and what that actually means. So, what it mean the actual law is attached there. Feel free to read it. But uh to summarize, so essentially from the first bell of the school day to the last bell of the school day, students are not prohibited from having their cell phones. Um and this is through every grade level. There's an exception for um uh yeah, for special education and a super a superintendent can put an approved exception in for a situation if

136need be. So um or designate. So, I might designate that to a couple people, but um and some medical exemptions and stuff like that. So, uh we're we need to write a policy. Every school district now needs to write a policy connected to that. So, we'll do that through policy committee. Um no one has a policy yet. Like there's procedural language and a lot of student handbooks. There already a school in New Hampshire who has one. Not a policy. So, like for example, there's rules. So, like plenty of of school districts have some version of a rule in their student handbooks. The two that you see referred to in like news articles a lot is out of Claremont Stevens High School and then Salem School District. So, neither has developed an actual policy yet, which

137is fine. They didn't have to. Um, it's just contained within their student handbooks and it just details the procedural way of how they operate it. Um, for example, at Claremont, they've used the yonder pouches to to kind of enact, which has done that as well. um where there's a whole process where the kid there's these pouches the kids put it in. It's magnetic lock. They have to get it locked in the morning and then they get it unlocked in the afternoon through whatever system they used to do at the front office or whatever the case may be. Um where others have varying degrees of restrictions, right? Like Salem, which I was reading up today, is more about putting it in their backpacks and and different things and to to make sure you're doing it. So,

138you got to kind of one, we have to write a policy connected to this. the New Hampshire School Board Association has not put out a sample policy yet, but it's coming, right? Um so, you know, we'll look at what that sample language is because I think some one of the things that school districts are struggling with is um policy versus procedure on like how to how to like approach this, right? like everyone's going to have their set of procedures on how you enact this. Um, and that's where you're going to put consequences and the discipline code and all that type of stuff, but then what is actually the policy might actually be super short, right? It might just be the law, you know, and changed into some policy language. So, you said the language about

139the bell to bell that's not written in here. It's not in the law, but in the interpretation of it that we that we get like from an administrative point of view, the interpretation of it is that kids aren't going to have it from the first bell to the last bell. Really? Cuz I don't read I guess I I didn't read I don't read it that way cuz it says class instruction. So lunch to me would not be class instruction. And I think this is one of the things where we're looking for guidance on how to enact this, right? Like using Claremont as an example, using Palant example, it is a literal bell to belly. They put them in those pouches and the kids don't get it. Which makes sense cuz that's probably the easiest procedurally

140to do rather than here you go, give it back. Here you go, give it back all day long. Um, so I can understand that, but I don't think the law when you go to uh when the policy committee goes to discuss this. Um, I would just encourage you to talk to our insurer because if we're going to take possession of everyone's phones, what one kid's battery overheats and lights them all on fire? Is the district replacing, you know, 300 iPhones? Yeah. And I and I think we just got to also see what people are like comfortable with. You know, back when I was a high school principal, we had not a strict cell phone policy, but like teachers were we eventually got to a point where we tried to be somewhat uniform in the school

141and we did the classic you put the shoe holder on the back of the door and kids would put their their phone in and there's varying degrees of success with that type of model with high school age kids, right? Um, and varying degrees of enforcement from teachers and stuff like this. I think when we have to enforce this really uniformally is in my opinion, right? Like cuz it is an actual law. This isn't just like we know cell phone use hurts education, hurts instruction, everything along that lines, but there's an actual law saying you can't use your phones. So, we got to really kind of come down on it and figure out what is going to work for us. Now, we had talked about the locker type of idea or the cabinet type of idea

142for cell phones, right? We're using the middle school as an example. Middle school kids are different than high school kids, right? If kids just have to put them away in their backpack or leave them in their actual school locker, that actually might create more distraction than not, right? Cuz they're going to look to go to the bathroom if they need to go check their phone. They're going to take their backpack with them. They're going to try and go to their locker to check their phone. So, is it e and I'm not saying it is or isn't, but is it easier just to leave it in a cabinet all day and call it a day? I think you're better off in long run to have the first time you go through this the most strict policy.

143I agree. Because if you start easier, it's in my backpack. Then it's going to be very difficult to say, you know what, it's going in your locker or it's going in in the cabinet. Now, the schools that have done like a yonder pouch and is the most like common one that people have used at this point. This and this I don't have data to back this up. This is just conversational with other school leaders. They say it makes a huge difference to ban it throughout the day. Like if they cannot really get access to it, there's whining for the first couple weeks, but then if they figure out it's actually helpful to not have their phone and from both like just an instructional learning standpoint and like a social cuz they actually have to talk

144to people, talk to each other cuz kids can't do that anymore. Yeah. And so like they actually have seen like a better culture in their their building improvement in some of again I don't have data to back this up but just like from conversational pieces that the hard cell phone bands are having some success in schools. Um and I'll be honest like when we had a softer one you know at the school where I was an administrator everyone starts out you know on it and then it just kind of trickles off. Some people stay super on top of it some people not as much. I don't blame anyone. you know, it gets old policing that which is again why you would start with the most strict policy. Yeah. More to come. No, I'm listening. I'm

145I'm just, you know, I know we encumbered money for lockers at the middle school. Um, have those been purchased? They have not because we're waiting for this all to be done. Yeah, we're going to try and see if there's anything else that happens, too. So, I think we're waiting on a sample policy, right? Well, we're waiting for the the definite law to come out. Yeah. The law passing. But now though, I'm saying it sounds like doesn't But I'm assuming the policy is going to be I'm assuming the suggested policy is going to be pretty non there's not going to be a ton to it, right? It's going to be like school has to have, you know, so basically our policy committee just needs to start working on this. What's up? So our policy committee needs

146to start working on this, right? Yeah. And there's also not a defined date when we have to have this in place. I mean, I would have it for the first day of school because you want to start school year off fresh with whatever your new new rules are and stuff like that. It says July 1, 2025. So, but you just got to start working on the policy. So, the laws in place, but when the policy is in place, it's not defined yet. But again, I would suggest to have that for the first day of school. Yes. Fun time. I would suggest having it in place earlier so it can be communicated prior to Oh, I'm not I'm not advocating to wait. That's not what I'm saying, but just like like surprise, hand me your phone.

147Um, and I think you're going to, you know, I think people are going to be on board with a harsher procedure where you get it out of the kids' hands, particularly at that middle school. I think the policy needs to be specific between, look at this thing. Another flag. They keep coming. I got one right here. Really, Chris? Between elementary, middle, and high school. I do think elementary needs to be called out. There are elementary kids with cell phones. How are you going to manage that? Say, Mike, you have to do it the same way. Give me your phone. So, is that that's the danger of taking a kid's phone, right? Is that going to be on because I have seen teachers take a kid's phone and then go, "Oops." And then destroy a phone

148and then the school's buying a new phone. It's got a nice case on. It's okay. I'm looking to bring You got a pillow over here. Get a new phone. Is that a school district? It's not a school district phone. If we're not school one is safe here. If we're putting something only in place at the middle school and high school, we could con, you know, conceivably just say at the elementary school just no, don't bring you can't bring a phone to school. That's not going to happen. How do you enforce that? This has always been the thing I've been concerned about with whatever the law was. What how are you going to enforce this stuff, right? Like that's always been the struggle with cell phones like the entire existence with with kids is how do

149you enforce how do you enforce anything? It's just consequences. I think elementary probably needs to be teacher monitored, right? I think elementary kids are probably leaving it in their backpack for the most part or probably having it through a watch of some sort, right? And I think that just needs to be monitored through teachers and usage, right? And I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but what I'm the school boards and board of trustees shall develop and adopt a policy. Doesn't say anything about enforcement, right? We should enforce our own policies. arguing that we should not [Music] a slag spending all the time to draft that law then realize you forgot to require that it's enforced. I'm just saying violation of law. So it's sort of Well, no. Well, no, it's not the law requires

150us to adopt a policy. I mean, that's all it does. If you're outside the policy, then you're in violation. Well, policy isn't a violation of the law. That's those are two different things. I mean that's So it's going to policy committee, right? Yes. We're meeting next Tuesday is I think what we landed on. So So therefore, if you have thoughts, let us know. We'll wait for a first read of the policy. Yeah. More more to come. More more to come. That's all I got for cell phones. That's all we need for tonight. How long? So knowing that our next meeting is August 6th, right? And knowing that the first day of school is right around the corner from that point, how long will it take to acquire said storage units because policy goes first read

151and then second read, right? We need to approve the policy before anything's like you're not going to have these things for the first day of school. Yeah. I mean the I mean this is where you can kind of get I don't want to say get cute with the policy versus procedures, but you can get a little cute with policy for procedures there. Nothing stops us right now from putting any set of procedures in related to cell phones period. Right? Like we could say this is our procedure around cell phones and as long as it's not violating the policy that currently is not written then we can have that procedure. Right? Like like we have a procedure for you know kids leaving to go to the bathroom, right? Like that's not written in policy anywhere. We

152just have a set procedures that schools use to to go use the bathroom, right? So we can make decisions on how we're going to do procedural work when it comes to policing cell phones. that's separate than necessarily approving the policies. As long as when we have that final policy, we're not doing anything procedurally that that violated the one that we ended up reading or writing. What I would request is before the next meeting, maybe when by August, you come in with a proposal for how you want to what devices, whatever it's going to be, the pouches, the lockers, the whatever, having researched and seen what's out there, um what makes the most sense so that we can go ahead and authorize and I'd like to understand the plan from the principles, right, on how they're

153effectively thinking about managing this in the buildings. Yeah, I mean that usually that first August board meeting is also student handbook like approval. So obviously this will be pretty prominent in the student handbook. So it's a natural time to kind of have that discussion with the building level administrators for sure. Okay, more to come. More to come. Speaking of policies, speaking of policies, uh well, we just had some other alleged there's not a ton to go into great detail here, but we just want to make you aware of some other legislative things that are out there. We're not going to go through every single law connected to education. Um, but just to touch on that, the expanded EFA accounts without the cap to it was passed. Um, there's been like huge adoption, right? I think

154there's like 9,000 applications or something. Yeah. So, eventually we'll see who from We don't have this data yet, but we do get it at some point on who um who lives in Lichfield and who has access those accounts. So that would be a curious thing for us to check out when that time comes. Whether we've seen them accessing doesn't necessarily mean that they'll leave the district though, right? If they Well, what do you mean? Access the money. If they're accessing the money, they could be using it for home school. So then they they're not necessarily leaving our district per se, but we're not necessarily. So it's actually if they actually access the money. It's not if they're awarded like because you could be awarded and not take it. Right. Correct. Yeah. And then you're just

155coming to our school. Got u our schools and stuff. So you'll get data on who actually we'll get a data who actually took the money on us and is not attending our schools whether it's a home school or a private institute at that. So um now we can't obviously make the specific people public but we get the raw numbers of it and stuff like that. So um so we'll be curious and see if that affects us. Um we didn't have um anything out of the ordinary last year when it came to we had a couple handful that accessed it, but they were kids that had previously been attending private schools before um before the EFA stuff got in into place. So um but we'll see if that those numbers change. Um open enrollment has been

156kind of tossed around a lot from a legislation standpoint. the adjustments to open enrollment bills hasn't really affected us. Julie, hop in here. But it's just a budgetary thing at this point. At this point, right, we have to have a line item in our budget for um tuition for um any kind of transfers. Um and but that's something that it's coming like we have to kind of prepare for it. Um, one thing that all even though the open enrollment doesn't really uh uh hasn't really changed a lot, there is another bill for um relative to interd district public school transfers. That one um says that we do need to have the school board basically give a design a policy um defining capacity, what capacity is in our district. Um because one thing that the intrad

157district um transfer won't affect us too much but say in a um multi-school um district where there's you know five elementary schools there is a difference for them and that a parent can say I want my child to go to this other elementary school um and as long as they have capacity they have to allow that student to transfer um right now as far as interd district when it goes when it comes to outof district transfers um there's still other hoops that people have to jump through that's very similar to now like hardship hardships and whatnot. Yeah. But it'd be wise to start defining that capacity for us if it does open up more. We have the answers to that already. Now with one again like with one of each level we're not going to

158have that swapping around, right? But in say like uh Keen where I grew up there was five elementary schools, right? So you would have to define the capacity for each of those elementary schools. And so someone made a request to attend a different one. They could do that as long as supplant capacity. Um and then just with open enrollment in general, yeah, with that budgetary thing, we'll have to in the budget stuff next fall have a new line that is for open enrollment and put a dollar in it because we'll be now bound, right, to have that as a budgetary line for the future if we p if open enrollment opens up and it starts being being more widespread. So, what happens if the budget committee uh cuts it? It's a law. So, I don't

159I think we got law on this one. I think we got a bill on this one. Drinking a hive. Um but open enrollment will be interesting to kind of um kind of follow, you know, um and uh it doesn't pre preclude us from from entertaining conversations with other districts um if there are students um that a district is willing to tuition to us, you know. Um I have an example in my head. I'm not going to talk about it publicly just because confidentiality around it with it. Um but there's I'll use a broad one that happened um in other places like for example a district like Hookset can send their kids to different public schools because they don't have a a public high school, right? Um so they have a set of schools that they

160will send their kids to, but sometimes it'll depart from their list of schools and that can be a negotiation between district and district to accept that kid. So even though we're not an open enrollment school by definition, if a district approaches us for one reason or another, then we can engage in that conversation and allow students to to attend here, but then there's a tuition cost for the the district sending the kid and stuff. One thing they did define in the open enrollment policy, I mean um RSA is that um it's an 8020 split. So the sending district has to pay 80% of the tuition um Yeah. to to the receiving Yeah. eat and then we eat the 20%. The 20% is kept by the the receiving district. Yeah. And I think the idea behind

161that is because like you have some of the resources in place already, right? Like say you have a kid coming here from a different district if we were a true enroll if we were full-on open enrollment district. We wouldn't necessarily be hiring a new teacher if we got one kid in, right? Like that kid's just going to be put in a class, right? We're we're not increasing necessarily our expenses to take on that kid per se. there should be tuition paid to us, but like we're not hiring another teacher because we just have a random kid coming in, right? Um so then it's also keeping some sort of baseline for the district that's losing the kid, too. Yes. Yeah. Gotcha. Um this dates back a little bit. Sarah has talked a lot about this throughout

162the year, but now you're going to start seeing it in policy is with the ED306 changes that happens. Um now we have a whole mess of policies we have to adjust our language in. Some are very minor adjustments. Some are going to be more significant. Um, and you'll start seeing those at future board meetings. We'll start doing the first set of policy committee um, next week and stuff like that. So, just more to come. Who's on the policy commission? I will say if anyone is interested in looking at the bills, the NHSBA sent us a recent email. It was on June 27th with their legislative update. Um, if you click on the link, it is a list of every bill that impacts the districts, where it stands, which ones were signed, which ones were vetoed,

163which ones never made it out of committee, etc. So, you can see when things go into effect, and what impact they're going to have, you know, in all your free time. If you'd like support on the policy, just let me know. Yeah. No, we're fine. We're going to we're going to meet on Tuesday. We'll see how it goes. Cut through as much as we can. Okay. Anything else? DFA policy. Yeah, we have one policy. This is your annual review of the investment policy. By definition of the policy, you need to review it annually. So, we are bypassing policy committee for it because nothing has changed. It's just your annual review uh the investment policy. I'll make a motion to approve policy DFA for a first read. A motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I will second. Additional

164discussion on policy DFA. Do we I guess my only question would be do we need to do a first read second read if nothing's changed. I think we can bypass policy and make it sure can a final tonight. So we just don't have so I will amend my motion to uh so what would I amend it to? To just make a final read. Make it a final read for policy DFA. Second. All right. A motion and a second for policy DFA as a final read. Additional discussion. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Opposed? Abstained. DFA is approved. One last thing for the August 6th meeting. There you go. There are a lot of easy ones. Just giving you a heads up that All right, moving right along. We have schoolboard comments. Um,

165schoolboard comments. God, I don't none none. Okay. I appreciate, Andrew, you attending the FIC last night and kind of listening in and helping out with that. Oh, my pleasure. It was nice to sit in and uh yeah, no, thanks uh thanks for all the hard work on the FIC. For sure. Um manifest. We have several manifest items to read from July 9th, 2025. We have manifest 403b uh for $499,284.91. We have LSSA dues for $256. We have payroll manifest $104,7412. We have another manifest 403b $11,754. We have uh several accounts payables, four of them. Uh $85,93652. Uh another one for $34,741.87. Third for $527,855. uh and the fourth for $12,33.31. And then we have two credit card manifests for $12,21721 and then the second for $600. Welcome to the start of the school year. All

166right. Uh that closes manifest and we'll move into our second community input this evening. You could just state your name and address again, please. All right. Uh, Ronald Wes, 15 Riverview Circle. Um, what I want to talk about, uh, in this session is something that, uh, was generated out of, um, information that was provided over time by the FIC that I was on for a while. uh in specifically there was discussions about the utilization of Campbell High School and uh the previous principal made many assertions that there was no available classrooms uh very limited within Camel High School. uh was all full up. And so I began to kind of question, well, that doesn't make any sense given the fact that we only have 350 students and the building can hold 550. Something doesn't add

167up. Uh so long story short uh it led to asking for more information regarding the the utilization and specifically began to raise in my mind questions on class sizes and how are we doing uh on class sizes compared to the stated u targeted averages that the school department has. And uh so one of the things that I had been waiting for and I do appreciate from Mr. Okonnell and then Andrew formed me uh a a listing which I sent out as well in the information that identified the number of students uh in both LMS and Camel High School on a u day basis for the number of students in a class, the class that was taught and then there was a listing of the in a matrix of the number of available um classrooms within

168each structure. So what I did before I received that is I actually said okay let me see if I can figure out uh how we're doing as far as uh number of teachers and give some idea as to where we are potentially with um average class sizes. That actually is the first spreadsheet that I did uh that I presented to the budget committee that Andrew you were at on the 22nd of May. And in that um long long story short without getting into all the details and you can ask any questions but essentially I looked at from the available budget how many teachers we have in each one of the three schools and then the number of students and then made calculations as to what that gives us for uh potential uh number of teachers

169that are appropriate or maybe over. Um on the LMS side, uh this original calculation came up and said that we're approximately seven teachers over. And on the high school side, it says we're approximately just shy of or 8.55 teachers over at the high school. And that's simply based on uh a calculation of okay, what's our average class size should be and how many teachers we need to teach that. uh there is an adjustment in this for the fact that teachers only supposed to teach uh five classrooms a day and have a supervisory period. So that's in this calculation and that's what I presented to you before. Then uh using the information that was provided on the utilization I would produce the uh next uh couple of spreadsheets that uh shows uh a breakdown of the

170daily classes taught at LMS. And what's uh available from this is we can actually calculate uh the average class sizes for LMS and it comes in at 20.5. And as you know uh at LMS the targeted class sizes are 21 and 22 depending on the splits of the grades. So the class sizes are just slightly lower than the target. But what was troubling me is that um initially I couldn't figure out okay well the calculation shows then that um the amount of teachers that were in there is about right. And I looked at that and compared it to that my other spreadsheet. Well, what's wrong? Well, what I discovered is that the number of teachers would be about right if they only taught four periods a day. If they taught five periods a day, then

171that would have reduced the number of teachers needed by 6 point down to uh 5.6, which compares to about the 6.7 that I had previously. So it appears that the teachers are not teaching their full required contract load at LMS. If you look at Camel High School, it's actually very different actually analysis um where LMS was somewhat near on the average class sizes. The average class size at Campbell High School is 16.3 PE uh students and your target is 23. What's actually very disturbing if you look through there's 124 periods in a day there's only nine classes that have reached the 23. Nine. Interesting enough there's 13 that are 10 and under. This is private school type of [Music] variation. If you go down through the calculations, if you add if you adjusted the U

172class sizes 23, you could reduce uh teachers 8.4 teachers and that compares the 8.5 that I calculated with my other method. So long story short, a couple of things here that in my mind is particularly Campbell High School, the curriculum is got to be looked at and completely readjusted. We cannot have 16.3 average class size. We can't have the number of classes under 10 at 13. If you look through the the the day and the number of classes, it's really quite disturbing to see how it's all scheduled out. There needs to be something done to bring this in line with the 23. And it brings me to the point of going back to what we're doing with FIC and I'll go back to the LMS sheet and not the calculations, but your your particular sheet

173that you furnished. What's interesting in that is the superintendent has made a statement that we're not going to do anything with LMS. You can't touch LMS. We potentially can move seven and eight up to the high school, but you can't do with anything with LMS. If you look at the class schedule for LMS at least every period of every day, there was at least seven open classrooms. Excuse me. There's eight open classrooms every every period every day with the exception of one period that has seven classrooms. So, what that says to me is we're short three classrooms and now only two because we're going to have reduced kindergarten at Griffin Memorial according to Mr. uh Mitchell, the principal. So to find our classrooms, the simple answer is to move one grade out to LMS. Plenty

174of space, simple move, nothing has to be done. But superintendent eliminated that from the options. What frustrates me and frustrated me before is no one has looked at some of these details and I that's why people got frustrated with me on the FIC because I did and I brought them up and people didn't want to hear them. And so that's the situation we find ourselves in. And just to prove the capacity of LMS, this is from that same document that I read from earlier. This is the master plan out of the 2002 uh town master plan. And under the facilities, it simply notes as a a comparison of enrollment and building capacity for the schools. And the thing to note is that the optimal enrollment for Lichfield Middle School is 500. We are 344. Clearly,

175we can move at least one grade up there without any problem whatsoever. And why that's not an option, I have no idea. It would eliminate the difficulty of trying to move seven and eight up to Campbell High School. I really think that it's a planned fix to eliminate LMS because to me it's an obvious answer but be that as may so with that I would like to conclude a couple of just general observations you Mr. cut last night said you wanted to guarantee maximum price coming out of the upcoming engineering study. None of what's going to be done by any of these firms will give you a guaranteed maximum price. The guarantee maximum price is actually developed. I didn't say that. You did ask for that. I did not. So, if you're going to quote

176me, quote me correctly. I apologize if I misqued you. Word during that meeting if you watched What's that? I really didn't say a word during that meeting at the end. No, you did at the end. And that's not You said a lot at the end, didn't you? I was quite quiet during that whole meeting until the end when I said thank you to the FIC. You want to go back and look at that? There was plenty that you said something to say or are you done? No, no, I'm not done board. So anyway, I will just say that there was a discussion by somebody that we look we wanted to have a guarantee maximum price and that's one of the things we didn't have at the last new school proposal. We didn't have the guarantee

177maximum price and what's being proposed now will not get you the guarantee maximum price. And with that, you won't have for your bond vote next year a guaranteed maximum price the way you're going now. You need to go much farther in design than we're planning to go. To get a guaranteed maximum price, you need to bring on a construction manager or a design bill firm and they need to have sufficient design done in which they can price that out, get sub and they will get create a guaranteed maximum price and that won't happen the way things are structured now. I think that's one of the questions we'll ask Ron when they're here is what do they need to get to a guaranteed maximum price. So, I don't know know enough about construction to say one

178way or another, but that's a question we will ask. That's good. And if they provide us different information, then we'll I can just tell you, you're going to have to go a lot farther in design than what was proposed. And I said the I I made a statement previously when I was on the FIC that I thought the scope of the of what was put together was flawed. Um, I think the wide responses in the in the wide range of um, understanding what was presented within the proposals indicates that people didn't understand what you were asking for. It was not specific enough. It was very vague and you got what you asked for. And if you continue that way, you're going to have problems and this won't provide what you want it to provide. So,

179I thank you for that and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Any other community input this evening? All right. Hearing and seeing none. Uh, with that, that concludes our public session this evening. The board does have non-public business under RSA 91A3 uh AB and C. Uh with that, I will entertain a motion. Roll call vote to go into nonpublic. Motion by Mr. Shoemaker. I'll second. Second by Mr. Dit. Uh roll call vote. Mr. Plinsky. I Mr. Shoemaker. I Miss SS. I Mr. Dit I. Uh that carries 5-0. Thank you very much all. Uh, next meeting is August 6th and we are now in Dump.