School Board Meeting - 03/05/2025

001is are all of them in it is what Cory said I don't know and by them I mean thank you for considering being in the [Music] show I already stupidly said yes so I'm stuck yeah Andrew I think is a a solid I got a cough solid maybe all right we are live so welcome to the March 5th 2025 Lichfield school board meeting I got a cough all of a sudden uh we will call the meeting to order and begin with the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all uh we are joined tonight by a special rabbit in place of Mr Shoemaker I am expecting Mr Shoemaker to join us

002this evening so uh we'll start with the meeting with four individuals uh tonight is a special meeting uh we are uh honoring um Miss Tina Harrison tonight uh with a special ceremony so we'll go through the first few actions of the agenda uh and then go into a recognition for for Miss Harrison thank you um we uh so where are we review and revision of the agenda any changes to tonight's agenda no all right consent agenda any board members like to move anything off consent tonight no thank you all right uh summary of non-public actions from February 19th 2025 Mr plansky moved to adjourn the public session at 8:56 p.m. Mr Shoemaker second in that motion and that motion passed 500 and we'll move right into presentations and recognitions so recognition of Miss Tina Harrison

003so I just wanted to kick off and say you know Miss Harrison's been a strong advocate for students faculty and staff um certainly Miss Harrison helped lead the effort in bringing full day kindergarten to our district was certainly a strong believer uh and advocate for the Arts over many years uh and has been a strong voice uh in the need to improve our facilities conditions you were certainly an advocate for cultivating a love of learning uh improving curriculum and uh left certainly a lasting impact on our district over the last nine years or so I cordially invited several members of uh of the team and I'd like to invite some members up to say some words if you'd like um yeah please hi everybody uh Jim Norton wood hawkway um I just want to thank

004Tina for everything I think it's nine years you've been on the board now and just the way you've taken care of our kids the way you've taken care of our faculty and and our buildings and it's got big shoes to fill um next people coming in but thank you for everything and uh we'll miss you a lot so thank you thank you next don't need to say my name even McKinnon Bunn Tina you're just amazing as a friend School Board member you just you give your all so thank you welcome a tiff [Laughter] hello Nate Lamy Manchester resident um Tina you've been an incredible member of the performing arts department um I am a musician primarily I am not a actor I'm not a director and with your help I have become some of those

005things so it's really incredible the amount of work you put in to benefit students who um you are like are students it's just an incredible amount of work and like partnership whenever I need to worry about something you've already figured it out whenever I need help with something you already a plan and um I couldn't be as effective as a teacher in the performing arts department without you being my secondhand woman so thank you hi um I just want to thank you for keeping students at the center of all your decisions for nine years my children have benefited your children have benefited ited all our children have benefited from you um making decisions with them at the core um and thank you for bringing an educator teacher perspective educating board members who do not have

006an educational background over the years with all our crazy acronyms that nobody else understands and and helping them understand um pedagogy and curriculum decisions um that they um may not have understood without your perspective shared to the board and I am glad to get you back for more free time yay hi Corey Solen I'll be speaking as the Lea president today I didn't plan on speaking but as a president of the Lea thank you so much Tina for all of your advocacy for teachers at our buildings uh like I heard there's big shoes to fill and I agree with that statement so thank you for all of your service and please don't disappear from our schools we want you still and um thank you and enjoy some of your time back you deserve it so

007thank thanks everybody I will absolutely Miss um this role it's been you know I family work and school board it's been a third of my life for the last nine years so it's going to be hard to to kind of take a step back I don't know what I'm going to do with all my free time Janine seems to have plans um but um I feel I I feel good about stepping back at this point in time I think we have a strong board we have strong leadership we are our our staff is incredible um and I think as long as we continue to do what's best for our kids um then we'll be moving in the right direction so thank you all for you know the recognition and um I appreciate all of you

008so thank you thank you again Tina don't forget we have two public input sessions every meeting so you could still come I have a pitchfork and I have a tiki to noted all right moving on with tonight's agenda uh there's also recognition of GMS custodial staff and specifically I wanted to take a moment and recognize um Mr Zachary blanger uh Mr David Ross um Bobby Joe weisenberger and Michael Harding uh for truly above and beyond efforts the night of Winterfest um there was some significant Plumbing issues that popped up uh we'll say that night uh due to uh some backed up plumbing in the main lines and these individuals our custodial staff uh truly went way above and beyond the Call of Duty that evening Duty uh no pun intended uh slightly intended yeah slightly

009intended uh to to to to uh to clean up the mess so to speak and the extra hours put in to ensure that school could open the Friday before vacation uh and working the late hours uh to to make sure that building was operational was truly amazing so I wanted to make sure that those individuals were called out and certainly a thank you to not only Mr Mitchell and the superintendent for their help and support to make make sure that happened as well so thank you very much yeah anything to add no I Echo that that was a very stressful evening you know obviously Winterfest was a great uh evening for the for the kids and the staff and to close out the evening with that is not ideal but yeah the Cal staff work

010their tails off that evening um get everything clean to get the issues solved Dave came in I think he put in probably a 20-hour day that day because he started with plumbing issues in the morning and ended with them in the evening um and uh thank goodness they were able to do that and we were open in school you know with no issues the next day so kudos to all them so certainly a plug for supporting our lssa staff uh certainly for next Tuesday uh definitely want to make sure we recognize all their hard work every day so thank you for that uh next up on our agenda tonight is our student representative report so welcome hi how's everything going how was your vacation it was really good lots of skiing yeah oh cool awesome

011I think we're just loading up the report here all right winter sports so most of this on here is just old news uh boys basketball lost in the quarterfinal playoff game against St thas Saints girls basketball ended their season being 4 and 13 Boys Hockey ended their season being 710 and one and witer track their season end with brido plac in six in shop Hut and Cali Duncan placing sixth in the 3,000 meter uh wrestling this is new Logan air won his fourth consecutive uh deep3 state championship s Sage anle got a second or no sorry Logan ankle won his fourth consecutive D3 St Championship Sage ankle Place third place second and the same Baker Place third for the late classes and the whole team ended up finishing eighth some of the past activities we

012had right before break was the winter carnival that went over very well the whole school got involved it's a really fun day and then over break cble chorus and concert band went and performed at Universal Studios and uh not as exciting as you know GMS or LMS but we have the robotics competition on the 3D and e8th coming up some of the future things we have going on is next Tuesday we don't school because of a teacher workshop and then the next day we'll have a district bang concert and the day after that we'll have a district chorus concert and then a little while after that on the 17th Campbell mathletes are going to compete at the state contest at nhdi and this is just like a little recap of what's going on at the

013high school where Midway through quarter 3 and teachers are Contin working on designing engaging Hands-On learning experiences for students that allows them to learn skills and competencies and then apply these lessons to real word situations and at the same time students are utilizing digital portfolios to self assess themselves as Learners using the work study practices to reflect on who they are as Learners overall on the 21st LMS hosted its first ever Wellness day it was an event designed to promote self-care and healthy choices student attended seven workshops throughout the day creating their own schedule picking from over 40 different Workshop options some of the options were crime scene processing fitness boot camp guided relaxation dodgeball jewelry making learning and meting therapy dogs and so much more students were required to sign up for at least

014one personal Health Workshop to reflect and build upon their current skills such as science of sleep Stress and Anxiety outdoor survival mindfulness nutrition and how to practice dignity at the end of the day the students performed a form and they to get feedback and they rated it a 4.2 stars out of five I praise for middle school I went to that event it was amazing the kids did awesome everybody was having a really good time it was a very well-run event um and they're putting together a video slideshow that we'll share next time was great and then at uh Griffin they had an amazing Winterfest on the 20th over 250 people came out for pizza games cardio drumming Story Time chili cookoff face painting and bonfire uh congratulations to M plants class for winning the

015Snowman contest and uh excuse me I don't know how to say the name uh labry family won the chili cook off so congrats you're watching awesome another very fun event I found my last calling of cardio drumming I heard it yes it was great fun I've never done anything like that but I'd probably do the chili cook off maybe cool all right thank you for the update problem appreciate it all right uh next up on the agenda tonight is moving into Community comment this is our first of two Community comments anyone care to address the board tonight all right I'll close Community comment there's a second round you have still an opportunity it's all good uh we'll shift gears into correspondence yes on February 20th Peter Pinsky emailed the board with a question about the

016freezer replacement and solar switch date and there were responses from Mr cutter Mr plansky and Mr oconnell on February 20th Ann and Amara emailed the board circulating the credit card manifest um there was a question from Mr plansky um regarding a Celtic SCH purchase and then a response from an uh to that question on February 20th the superintendent emailed the GMS Community regarding a significant Plumbing issues at GMS that could impact school the next day on February 20th um Dan dwit emailed the board clarifying that if he is elected to school board he would step down as citizens co-chair of the fic and if appointed to the fic as a school board member he understands that he is representing the board which may differ from his personal opinions on February 20th the superintendent emailed the

017GMS Community quite late I think it was like 11:59 that the plumbing issue was resolved yeah um and that school would happen as scheduled the next day on February 21st Mr cutter emailed the custodians and Facilities thanking them for going above and beyond to clean up the mess from the plumbing issues and then also on February 21st Mr cutter emailed the GMS staff on behalf of the board thanking them for their contributions to the Winterfest and helping to make it a huge success on February 21st the superintendent emailed the board again updating us on what the issues were with the plumbing and how those were being addressed on February 22nd Jan Sullivan emailed the board circulating draft public and non-public minutes from the February 19th meeting on February 25th an inamara emailed the board circulating

018the payroll manifest specifically regarding dues and 403b contributions on February 28th an Ina Mora emailed the board circulating the accounts payable manifest on February 28th Renee Burgess emailed the board circulating the draft March 5th 2025 agenda and on March 4th I emailed the board circulating a summary of superintendent evaluation and that brings us up to date thank you as always next up on the agenda is superintendent's report and we'll kick off with enrollment yeah so uh same report as last time just because of where we are in our meeting schedule uh we'll have new numbers next week uh for March and stuff but again pretty steady throughout the entire school year a little bit up a little bit down depending on particular month nothing too significant change was so okay and has enrollment started for

019later this month we'll start doing kindergarten yeah yep it's on our admin agenda to discuss uh tomorrow morning so got it Liberty gas so over um the school vacation everyone else still has to still works and does stuff so uh the town invited me over to the to a meeting that the uh Town officials were having with Liberty Gas um about a kind of a gas main that's going to be coming through the town of Lichfield uh from um Manchester Londoner through Lichfield to marac the station over there so um I have like a copy of the plans if anyone wants to review it why I wanted to bring it to the board's uh attention tonight um is because this Mainline is going to be coming like right through not well somewhat through but it's

020going to be coming right along the elementary school um because main this this piping is going to come mainly through uh run along Charles Bank Highway all through all through town um so that's something that that we'll just need to be conscious of um you know talking to the representatives from Liberty Gas last week we talked about how you know ideally our work during would occur during the summer near our our facilities so it doesn't interrupt you know our traffic and our flow of our school days and stuff they're understanding about that um and said they're familiar with doing that and scheduling around it um to kind of work with schools as they kind of kind of go with this um and the other thing I kind of want to bring up is uh this

021might be an opportunity for us to tap into that to that line uh for um to utilize at the elementary school specifically and maybe even at the middle school because it's relatively close you know speaking and stuff I know Elementary's got other stuff that sorry Middle School's got other power and stuff but specifically the elementary school that's kind of where the Avenue is that we might have an opportunity here um so I want to kind of just throw that out to the board I think we're going to work on that with Liberty Gas and and figure out some pricing and some numbers as that kind of unfolds and I could see us uh coming to the board with a proposal uh when that's appropriate whether it's through the budget season next year or even earlier

022uh this year as the project kind of unfolds for the town to see if we can get involved in in some of the benefits of this project so so what's the timeline for that project for the it's they're still planning it out it sounds like and they have to go through the process here in town and get it approved through the board of selectman and everybody else so it doesn't sound like they're going to start any of the work for it until you know 25 20 like later this year or even into 2026 so you know I don't think it would that work would happen at the elementary school this summer but it could be happening around the elementary school in 2026 potentially um that summer there so did they say or I know this

023is more of a town question not a school question yeah but because you're bringing it up I'm going to ask if you don't know that's okay yep is there a main driver why they're running the line through town I don't it's going to go across the river yeah going to take a right and go under the river toac yeah I think it's the to the powers ultimately go on the Budweiser like that's what they're trying to get into we um the same proposal was it natural gas but we a natural gas pipeline a couple years ago it was a um it was a thing in town that was going to run right along the river across everybody's property this was probably maybe four or five years ago um and it was and I think it

024was I think it was a worn article and I think it lost that's right going to go Larry's property and all those okay now they spoke I I don't know I'm not as familiar with this but maybe you guys do that there's another gas line like near paage Road or something like that I was remember further down yeah yeah okay I don't know if it's connected to this but I remember they were talking about company that ran a gas line yes that's what they were they kept talking about yeah yeah so they were talking about that and whether this can connect to that somehow but that I was focused on the school aspect so I don't know all that answers to that interesting well yeah keep this posted yeah but I have excuse me plans

025if anyone wants to look at it uh it makes no sense to me but someone else it does so there you go looks like we're having notice of intent here as well yes so this is the notice of intent to stay on the building Aid um list with the state this is not and I want to make this clear for people at home or for whatever this is not that we're going to necessarily run the same and back project back forward right but there's no harm in staying on on the building Aid list so we have to do this by May 1st is the deadline the state sent this out uh this week to school districts who wanted to stay on the list so we started to work draft um of the letter here that

026you'll see attached right there um why I wanted excuse me to put it on the agenda tonight is specifically on page five section g there's a whole section of officially having this discussion at a board meeting to continue um with this letter and to make sure that's it's included in the minutes so I just want to do that formal step of including it on our board agenda and making sure it's in our minutes tonight um that we had a discussion about um continuing to be on the list for for for building Aid um these are all just a first draft of everything you see here some of the answers and some responses um our intent is again this isn't due till May 1st and since it's me and Julie's first time doing doing this letter

027um to send it in well in advance to get feedback from the state in case we we uh did anything incorrectly or inaccurately we'll have plenty of time to fix it by um May 1st but um this is essentially what it will look like with uh some other details to come for the cost you see a Associated for the project because we haven't proposed any changes to the project at this point we just and again this is not saying we're going to use the same project that was proposed last year but for purposes of staying on this list we have to use the current project that's um kind of in place with the state we just took all the numbers and put a uh a 3% increase on everything across the board uh for Simplicity

028St sake uh we can reach out um specifically to Kyle you know and to get more accurate numbers here which we may do um just so we're accur more accurate really reflecting this but as a starting point for our working draft to make sure we were doing it correctly we just wanted to put some at a minimum placeholders in so we knew what we were doing and stuff like that so then can we amend this once we have a direction and projected cost depends on what the it depends on what the direction is right um so this is dependent on a new building as the project right and not only a new building but a project that's more most similar to what the project was that was proposed so just like hypothetically if you were

029to build a new project on the high school site you're probably changing the prog project significantly enough um again that's not going to happen so I don't want to think that is just trying to use a a simple example that you would have to come off the list and kind of reapply that doesn't mean we wouldn't get building Aid um so for example last year um they went I think all the way down to the 12th or 13th um project on the list that was actually approved by voters and went forward and there's about 17 on the list last year and I don't know if all of those will continue to to remain on the list so we could do a different style project whether it's a renovation which has been discussed at facilities committee

030a lot um and we would have to come off our spot where I think we're fifth right now fourth or fifth right now I think we're we might be third we're third oh third right now and fall down to the bottom of that list but it may not take forever to get there there's also it's just um the reality is we don't know where building eight is going at from the state level I mean it it could not be their period for anybody kind of moving forward as as they kind of determine how they're going to use their funds at the state level um so we have all these conversations about this that just just may not be available yeah just to chime in real quick because uh Kyle Barker has been checking in with

031me periodically about just this specifically um so he is available to I mean we'd have to retain him for that limited purpose he think he said it would be pretty inexpensive it's like one day is worth of work to update the just the numbers um and uh my understanding is that there is not currently funding allocated for building Aid projects um however our position for this uh particular application is pretty strong because uh at least he's been following the schools ahead of us and he's feeling strongly that those schools are not going to be in a position to move forward so um but again you there's caveats to this um this is just for a new build so you know again it's we're already in we're in a position it makes sense to stay on

032the list but it this is no indication that we're moving in that direction yeah I think just there's two huge things with building a in general just this is more my opinion than anything else but just to keep the board informed is what the state decides to do with it in general right they're going to continue the fund building projects period um or not that's obviously a big a big thing that has to be decided um and then the conquered project the conquered project is going to be you know nine nine figures you know over $100 million whatever they end up um you know they've made some changes to their project um and where they're going to put it and some other things which actually might change their their where they are on the list

033because they're changing the site completely where it is but that's kind of the huge Domino for literally everyone is like when does the conquered project move forward and then what happens from there because that's such a massive massive project so I will make a motion to remain on the list for building Aid Second Motion in a second additional discussion all those in favor please say I I I opposed abstained that carries 5 thank you thank you next up is out of District tuition projections and withdrawal from special ed yeah so the attachment is the same from from February but I have um some updates from our attorney which I'm very happy that we reached out to uh because she gave us some great information um about it also um so the first thing that's really

034interesting about this and I asked her multiple times to ensure that I wasn't misunderstanding what she said is because this is a reserve fund we actually don't have to have a public hearing to to take the money out we can just take the money out now we have to be very specific on the purpose for the money so in this example it would be x amount of money towards out ofd District tuition right like whatever that number is let's just use 50,000 for for Simplicity sake and we can solely use it for that purpose and if we don't end up using it for that purpose it goes back into the fun right so you can't use it for anything else you have to be very specific on what the poll is for and then if

035you don't use it for that you have to kind of give it back to the fund and stuff like that so that gives us a little flexibility may be the best word but a little bit of of of of time to play with here and to kind of protect ourselves in way as well because we don't want to to empty out that account uh obviously we have a warrant arle next week connected to this hopefully you know that that goes our Direction and we can add some funds to that but if we again because this is based on projections we're projecting to be over in that line but if things change and we're not as over as we thought or you know the reverse happens and a student moves out for example and we don't

036end up being over at all we don't want to put ourselves in a challenging position where we don't have as much money in that account um so we have that kind of flexibility we just have to be specific um on on how we do it and then the timing can be at any point we could do it you know next meeting if you so decided or you could do it at the end of the school year when we have official numbers on everything like that and at any point um there's some other details in just some processes that she gave us to make sure that we're following everything from a legality standpoint but those are kind of the big um big points that she gave us related to this so really the only timing issue

037is just having us vote on it because when you're talking about like taking it out and then if you don't use it put it back in why would you take it out unless we were going to use it right there's no I I understand if we had to do a public hearing cuz then that's a longer correct but it seems like we would just vote on it and you take it out and pay right whatever you need to pay that's what she said most people do is they wait till the end of the year so okay where they have a specific amount that they're polling and then they can kind of do it I mean the the thing that you run into is you know we're talking it's a bottom line budget right School budgets

038are so the discussion would be we're probably not going to be over in other lines for example so do you want to pull the money to cover it at that point right cuz we can probably make up the difference and say the money we didn't spend on you know just use pair of professional salaries for for an an easy example we have plenty of those open positions still right like we're going to have UND spend in that particular line so that they could be offset there so so point being we don't have to do anything this meeting we have some time to right my my concern I had two concerns why I brought it up last meeting y cuz I thought we had to do a public hearing yeah and the timing of that where

039you have to do it 10 days out of a posting um follow all that that can take honestly three or four weeks when you're following all the proper steps to kind of do it um so I wanted to make sure we didn't fall behind on that the the and so that was like the big purpose of doing it more timely and also I am just very conscious I've seen it happen in other districts where they fall way behind on their payments specifically because of special ed and specifically because of out District unfortunately I'm going to use Mar Valley as the example right there in a huge hole not specifically just special ed but special ed coupled with a roof issue at one of their schools and I don't want us we're very conscious of making

040sure our finances are correct right so we don't want to be in a position where you know we've overspent what our budget is and stuff like that so I guess the question is I mean I I took a look at the report and where we were with our finances um you know Julie's report it doesn't seem like our accounts are such that we're going to overdraw or we're going to have an issue that we need to immediately do something this meeting but I would assume you guys would tell us yeah so we when the time comes yeah we started to try to project out end of the year funds and obviously um you know it's it's February March like that's still kind of a a tall task to kind of figure it out absolutely um

041but concentrating on personnel which is the thing we can honestly kind of control the most right like the people we have working for us are the people working for us you know um you know we might fill a position here are there you know as things kind of um go for the rest of the year because we still have open positions um but where are we from a number standpoint there um and we're in good shape in the sense of we're not going to overspend in Personnel we'll be underspent in Personnel not in like the million dollar range like you you were as a district last year but in enough where if some or all the warant articles are passed and and some of these other things come up we should be financially okay to

042to take care of all that type of stuff so um so that's kind of where we're at okay I still think we're going to be over in that line like um I'm still pretty confident on that projection the the way that the the our bills have been coming in and stuff like that I still think it's anywhere from 25 to 60 which sounds like a big range but it's not with the numbers that we're talking of um a lot of is dependent on specific attendance of students and and days left to school and how much actual attendance is there um so it is something that and like I think we've said in the past through the budgeting process and through meetings here is we want to spend the money on the lines that we say

043we're spending right we want to be accurate on that right like we don't want to have to do all this transferring and shifting there are things related to Personnel when you know someone uh may leave us and we have to pull in a contracted service to take care of something just because of the services provided but the things we can control as much as possible we want to be accurate in the budgeting that we do and then spend the money we say we're spending right you know that's a big part of making sure we're doing the right thing so that's why I think it's it's this is could be you know something we want to look at now later whenever the case may be sounds good all right so we'll hold off for now are

044you okay with that I know you wanted this back on the agenda I did um I more for the attorney update than anything else so I'm okay with waiting until they say so y all right sounds good any other questions on this one no no all right uh credit card discussion and policy dkc I know this is something uh I know something that that the board has been focused on as lately and frankly us as well um this is uh I want to kind of straddle the the tight RPP here for a second um I I think you know me and Julie come from a a district that and I think even Sarah who came from a district from us different district from us um handles some Financial things very very differently right like I

045I've worked administratively in two districts previous to here uh and this specific with credit cards and and the use of credit cards and how they're used and stuff like that um and uh it's made us a little bit we've been trying to have an open mind about it you know everyone's got their different different procedures on how to handle different things and and uh good and bad and every between just because someone does something different doesn't mean it's wrong or anything like that um but there's a lot of credit card use uh in this District by by uh you know a lot of different people and just to give you a perspective in our previous District the business administrator had the credit card and that was it no one else no one else used the

046the credit card so um and I think in Dairy where where Dr Taylor was previously it was similar to that in Timberlane where I was I say you had credit cards but you know other districts are differently my wife works in Bedford um as a role as an IB coordinator she has a she has a district credit card right that she uses to pay for a bunch of things related to their IB programming and stuff like that so every District's different depending on job capabilities capacities and all that stuff um you know and I think one of the reasons why inbo it was handled that way is uh the checks for out of Student Activity accounts I won't say was looser but I don't know a better description other than that it was much looser

047to get a check um to to do something out of Student Activities we went over that policy a couple meetings ago I don't know if people remember um because of our finance system that we use uh it's a much lengthier process to uh you have to have two signatures on it um intern ly before you do it has to be run through the finance office at the SAU has to be printed from the finance system before the check can go out so that can be a multi-day process where where we were previously um literally the checkbook would come to me as the building principal I'd sign it and it' go off into the world right so it's just there's different different checks and balances pros and cons to whatever system you kind of want to

048use um and I think some of what we're seeing is the credit card use for stuff that is going to be reimbursed out the student activ account is where we're seeing some um some struggles right cuz we're seeing some larger um expenses that are covering different activities different events that are happening that are ultimately going to be reimbursed by Student Activity account um but there's a immediacy to pay for it by using the school school credit card and stuff the reality is there is some things that you just have to pay for with a school credit card um we've certainly run into that in different places we've been where a group you're working with a company this is rare but they they just won't take anything but a credit card you know um but a

049lot of places are very good about accepting purchase orders uh especially if they're working if they're regularly work with schools they are used to the purchase water process um and accepting checks and those type of things so I know you wanted to have this discussion um so turn it over I had asked I had asked this to be added to the agenda uh it seemingly is noticeable to me and I know Mr plans you've identified several over the past few months of expenses put to credit cards that really shouldn't be applied to credit C cards and it's created a lot of questions in the need for my seat on greater controls in place and procedures around our credit card policy which is why we've linked it here tonight and I just want to make sure

050from this seat that we are watching right we do review every credit card transaction that comes through we do look at it and believe me we are asking questions about it so I just want to set that tone from the top that we do look at this yeah and I I think that's of the things we want to kind of I'm going use a very uh simple example we talked about it today um you know the the fax program at the high school right they got to buy food and that's like a you need it like you can't buy it too far in advance right you need fresh produce and it needs to be relatively close to when you're purchasing it and everything like that so right now we utilize a district credit card system

051for that at our previous District what we did is we set up essentially a debit card through the grocery store right like there was x amount of money uh it was Market basket that we used up there right it was Market Basket we used up there say you put $6,000 on the year there you split it up into two semesters you know 3,000 here 3,000 there and you spend off of that so it's it's kind of set pricing and you're you're not using a school credit card you've got something already in place or a purchas order process for it and stuff um so we have some ideas of maybe changing some practices a little bit um we discuss separate than this this was actually a little while ago cuz we had the policy and we

052want to honor that policy but we may revisit that policy to loosen up checks a little bit because I think that will help with some of these issues a little bit um in that process but we got to work through our e finance company the program to kind of figure that out uh but it's definitely something we're conscious of and I'm probably going to update some procedures around is there a reason and there may be a very obvious reason I just don't understand it because I'm not in finance that the Student Activity fee doesn't have its own credit card that can be used or its own debit card linked directly to its own account than going through the district I mean I mean I my I I don't know but my like gut re like

053answer to that I would need to do some more research is you have so many sub accounts off of it like you don't want to run into too many too many like Cooks in the kitchen on right like you could have 100 sub accounts within that one Student Activity account so who gets a credit card and who doesn't for that right right I would think it would be just one Central person yeah the principal of the school or that does the credit card purchases only and that's it and and the Student Activity account is more like a like savings account than it is like the the what the District budget is right like it's it's kind of just a souped up like personal bank account it's it's it's not a personal bank account but like

054like again like it's an account that has this money in it and you can write a check out of it and then pay for it and it's just like your own bank account in a way right I'm just thinking you know the students pay in for and I know I can say cuz Grace is going to the basketball game they're going to the Celtics game on Monday and that was the purchase that was highlighted I think those were the tickets that some of the seniors are going to for a senior activity parents cut a check we pay in for the field trip I assume that gets deposited into Student Activity I don't understand why then once all that's grouped that a card couldn't pay for that from that account yeah and maybe that's something we

055can look into because I I don't know right like it is a separate thing from the school like money pile of money that we have for the take care of budgetary items so maybe there is something we can set up there where it is kind of a a car connected to it we'd have check with our bank to see what that practice is I'm not familiar with something like that but that doesn't mean it's not something we no and again like I said I may not know too much about it because I'm not in finance but it just seems like a lot of the stuff we're seeing is coming from that stud fee and so or that account in one way or another and so if that account had a central person who was in

056charge of making sure the expenses came out of there with a single card y you know yeah and Student Activities in general something we really need to I I don't know how else to say this I'm sorry we need to clean it up like it's it's it's not great I feel something that's been on our audit before and that's what I was going to about to say right like we just I think that's true of every District yeah I think it's true everywhere but like unique to we got the draft audit and we'll when we have the final one we'll put it on the board agenda and discuss it and stuff we'll wait till we have that one but the draft like that our issue is Student Activities everything else is in good shape you

057know like the Student Activities they pull things randomly our percentage of things being done correctly was not good like it would have been an f grade if this was a school you know like percentage that was done correctly and they're all fixable things they're all innocent mistakes right like but we that should not happen like they're just mistakes that like are so easily to be fixed if we're just following proper procedures that we shouldn't be running into this like maybe there's one random one they pull that's tough but when about half they're pulling are not kosher that's not not great so we got to be better at that you know across the board and Student Activity accounts um and It's Tricky and I I think it's hard like I've been on both sides of it

058right where it's easy for me now to be like get your stuff done a week in advance so this isn't an issue where like I've also been on the side of like oh this thing is happening this great opportunity is happening if we can jump on it like now like something showed up that like we weren't expecting let's immediately get something done like I've been on both sides of it so the side I'm on now is like please do your stuff early in advance you know but I've certainly been on that other side where it's like hey this a great opportunity like let's not pass this up and try and capitalize on something that's that's unfolding so so is there a separate account for each grade in Student Activity it's by club and group and

059organizations so yeah so like for example each class will have one right like class of 25 class of 26 and each National Honor societ is going to have one I'm sure soon Council has one you know that and then there's all sub accounts off of that you might set up the same pile of money it's all the same of bank account yeah yeah so so going back to like what you were talking about with the prior districts and the ba being the one that has the credit card that makes sense to me because the be you know when you have a credit card you have a credit limit and that credit limit may not in the expenditures up on that credit limit may not correlate to what we've budgeted and so I'm assuming that the

060other districts do it that way because the ba then has to go look and see whether those expenditures match what's budgeted yeah so that seems problematic to me it I don't know who's I don't I have to go through right now as to who has credit cards but at least the way we've been doing it hopefully those people are also cross referencing our budget yeah I think more often than not the purchases are not large right they're the most frequent thing and I have a whole feelings about that I guess I'll share um might as well is so much of it is Amazon orders and just like again and I it's from a good place like people are trying to save money right so they're do going to Amazon they're getting a great deal on

061something and Amazon really only accepts credit cards right so they're trying to use the credit card to do that where you know I'm of the philosophy of it's okay to go through like a vendor who you have purchase orders with maybe in the moment it's a little bit more expensive but in the long run it's actually going to save you money because you develop relationships with your vendors you don't run into like bad products like I've seen Amazon stuff come in over the years that's just like that's not what that's not what I was sold right like I can remember a very specific example in our previous school this science teacher worked her tail off to get 20 books from all these different vendors and about half of them were trash when they came in

062and so we had to throw them away and spend more money in the end anyways right so in that like oh I'll just go to Amazon and I'm doing the right thing cuz I'm saving money right cuz I'm going to get a better deal well you may not be in the long run right like we and Bo had a great relationship with quill who does a lot of student uh school supplies and stuff like that they give us free stuff all the time like they would because we would constantly use them as our vendor to buy everything pens papers paper clips whatever and every so often you would hit thresholds and they're like here have this for free have this for free have this for free right and those are kind of like benefits that

063you just need to establish with relationships and you get you know it's a little different in in this community but maybe not like we did a lot of our books in Bow through through Gibson which is a local bookstore um up in conquered and while it was expensive for like the lay person to go in and buy books from them so people were like nervous to do it because of the volume we were ordering stuff for we got great deals and we're getting as good of deals as as you're going through Amazon to get them with right and getting actual quality because you're getting it through a reparable bookstore who was getting your stuff for you may not be able to do it with a math textbook but like a humanities book that you're going

064to read if everyone's going to read G catsby right like you can go go through that type of bookstore and get it done so are are do we have a school Amazon account or are people having to order through their you have a school Amazon yeah yeah and we are working on they do purchase orders we're going to try to yeah see so how many credit cards are out there that that'll link to that account 18 yeah wow yeah it's a lot and you know the you know staff's going to be piss at us tomorrow cuz we're talking about this right now that's fine um but there was like a again I don't know how else say this kind of a fear element when you had to go to the VA and use the credit

065card like you better have been certain about the purchase you were making if you were going to trudge down to the SAU and asked for something to be bought through the credit card Dwayne up and B was really nice um the guy who was in charge in Timberlane while an excellent ba was not friendly so you better have like needed what you needed when like you had to go ask him for something with the credit card right and you better have a a heck of an explanation on why you couldn't have bought it any other way cuz he had no problems tell you like sorry I'm not buying that you know um and I'm not looking to have a fear culture around around purchases and stuff like that but it does like make you think

066twice is is there a different way I can get this done because if I have to go explain to the ba why I need like I don't know something that on the surface might be silly like you you might think of a different avenue than trying to sell that to to the VA so I think 18's a lot maybe we can 18's a lot so yeah get back to the whole comment about we need tighter controls better process around this whole thing it sounds like the superintendent's already thinking about that and more come I don't think we're gonna have 18 next year I'll say that I know that I even think anything else on this one tonight appreciate that update thank you y I also I guess yeah sorry I was just going to say

067I want to plug in in Mora because I know you can see on the Manifest she triple checks every single credit card that comes in with the statement from Amazon and matches up the printing and then initials here and then somebody else initials there I mean she goes through a very very thorough process to make sure that these are legitimate expenses that are being reimbursed and and so this is nothing to do with the type of job that she's doing and our scrutiny is absolutely nothing to do with her and I just want to make that clear yeah that's a great plug right and you know the added effort that the board has put on her me right we'll call it as me right right and now the transparency of the board though so we

068actually have an idea of what it is we're signing right and we can go through digitally and say all right well this doesn't make sense this this makes sense this doesn't right so we again we do look at this now electronically before we sign this manifest so again yes thank you Dan all right next up is legislative action in December this is just a quick plug um so our own la DC yeah excuse me um sorry no problem in Washington DC March 8th through the 11th yeah there we go uh so our own Lauren Crowley uh our director of food service here is one of two uh New Hampshire Representatives uh from Food Service going down to Washington DC um to kind of advocate for the the school nutrition Association and programming here uh not

069just in New Hampshire but across the country um in terms of um reimbursing um meals and and what's the proper way to handle school lunches and breakfasts and all sorts of that uh nutritional goals uh that school should have everything along those lines so I just wanted to give a quick shout out to her um she's meeting with you know the representatives from New Hampshire um while she's down there the four reps from New Hampshire um and we'll be meeting with a larger group there's about 850 School nutrition professionals who'll be down here at this meeting from across the country um and addressing just a Vari issues so we're pretty lucky to have someone who's on kind of the front lines kind of engaging in this type of advocacy work for um for our students

070and and for the state and everything so just a quick shout out to Lauren um I do continue to think this is an issue that a lot of people can get behind on looking at how we handle school school me meals and and all these type of things that a lot of people can support in the end so Kudos sir yeah I saw that post on Facebook as well so than yeah and uh that's all I got this evening all right appreciate that update we'll turn it over to miss St all right um as Brian mentioned um we did receive the um draft of our audit um so I've started going through and um preparing the documents that need to be sent back to the Auditors um I have most of that complete we're just

071waiting on a couple things from attorneys um and then once we have that we'll be able to um go forth with the final draft and I'll be able to um share that with all of you um I did want to touch on the GMS plumbing issue as was alluded to earlier we've continued to have additional issues with overflowing toilets and cloths and whatnot um so this morning actually or was it yesterday I the days are blurring together at this point um we did have another blockage uh they had to come out and they discovered that one of two of our large pumps um the U sewage pumps um is going to be needing to be replaced is that your pum or grinder right right who who manif who manifested that last said pump I I

072don't know I don't know it's only a matter of time I mean we've been in that room if since I'm on YouTube for all 15 people watching in the crowd right here um if we can limit wipes down the toilets that would be huge um you know just can we be careful if you're going to have a quick conversation with your kid don't throw a wipe down the toilet that would excellent they do not grind well no no so no wipes please yes yes um so we are waiting on an estimate for that and I will certainly update you when we have that questions today you still make those well honestly just I'm sure they do we're g to find out you just open it up and just drop it in there okay well thank

073you for that sure um so we did receive um a letter from the Hudson fire department um indicating that um all three schools um are connected to their fire panel um to their to their fire alarm system um so this is there was never any fees attached to that but there was a Warren article that passed in Hudson last year um that is going to into effect as of January 1st of this year so moving forward we are going to be um given a fee of it's thous it's $1,000 $1,150 um per year per school I believe um for the um fire Alarm Monitoring fee I did reach out to Chief nickel and I haven't heard back yet so I will certainly update you and I do um but just to see if there's I

074I don't know I don't think that there's any way around this I think that it's probably likely that because it's the the the amount of monitoring the um Round the Clock monitoring that we have to plug into the Hudson system but I will certainly find more information for you and get back to you on that thank you sure um and then with pachuk um we were also um advised that um any um hydrants fire hydrants that are um are owned um not by the town but by the school district would have to be um inspected um by us and not by them any longer so what we're the issue that we're having is we only received one letter indicating that there was just one hydrant um that was privately owned by us um on the

075Campbell property um but we actually have four hydrants so we're trying to get some clarification with pachuk as to who owns those hydrants and who's responsible for those hydrants so we're going to um get more information on that we've we need somebody basically just to come out from pachuk um to just take a look and do um and get that information yeah and the question I had asked was are these hydrant also included on the town billing right right because we pay a lot of money for hydrant exactly yes so I am also reaching up to Kim as well um LMS um the roof leak has been um taken care of thank goodness um they found that the roof itself was perfectly fine it was the metal flashing over a certain portion of the roof

076over the library um that was an issue so that did need to be replaced um and that was not covered under the warranty so we will be receiving an invoice for that luckily though it's thank goodness it's not not a issue with the roof itself um the ceiling tiles in that area had to be special ordered so we are waiting on on those to be replaced but the the flashing is taken care of at this point do you know was the flashing replaced when they did the roof by chance I don't know the answer to that I'm curious if it was replaced when they did the roof and was the flashing the problem because it was damaged or was it just not installed correctly right and I can get more it was replaced with the

077roof and it's not installed correctly I have questions as to why it's not covered by the warranty but if you know if a branch fell and hit it that's on us right so right I certainly get more information on that and then lastly I do have a um solar update um Dynamic grid and KW management both came out last week to LMS and did um work on getting the final steps taken care of to get our solar up and running um there was one um some of the testing they needed to get on the roof in order to do that um because of the snow they weren't able to do that so I did speak with K today and she said that um she was hoping that that person from KW would be able to

078come out later this week hopefully some more with the warmer temperatures the they should be able to complete their testing once that's completed um I guess they are the commissioning agent is already preparing the report that needs to go to eversource um they just need the last bit of information that comes from this piece of testing once that happens it will go to eversource um and then we'll be waiting on their approval in the new meter so that we can go ahead and start collecting off of that do we have any idea what the ETA is for getting the new meter or is that she's that's where she said I think that was like the seven to S to 10 days they allegedly again it's new to us once they start that they have 10

079days since install the meter so like that is like once they complete get this testing report in it's a 10-day window but okay we'll see again this was all supposed to be complete last week last exactly so it was all supposed to be complete two years ago anyway thank you anything else for the business minist any final questions sure uh all right great we'll turn it over to Dr Taylor for curriculum update tonight right so um just going off of the conversation that we had um last meeting and Matt your question about some cohort tracking and some more deep diving into some data um I did that for everyone to give you kind of a visual so um this first slide shows you um the left is the MTH for fall um K to8 and

080then the right is um winter K8 um if you look at the table you can track the cooh quarts if you look in the diagonal right so like in 22 kindergarten fall was um 10% um scoring at um that proficiency level it's either so I ready um reports on like we talked about last we um last meeting they report on um early on grade level to um ex meeting grade level proficiency so this is a combination of both of those things it's early on and meeting grade level proficiencies so you can follow um and the things to highlight here are that but it's clear that each cohort shows growth in every year from fall to winter um and then grade six has a nice consistent progression um of increase in proficiency from sixth grade seventh

081grade and eth grade which is really nice to see um again our Focus areas remain the same in um what I talked about last time in really concentrating on that tiered intervention support and really looking into our datadriven instruction and how we are vertically aligning and tightening up that curriculum piece because those are vital in helping increase these scores and get these cohorts to continue to grow every single year in proficiency um and you'll see that if you go to the next slide um again you see that kind of same trend from the reading side of things um each cohort shows that growth from fall to winter and that grade six cohort again we have that growth um each year um again focusing on those areas of improvement um that I just talked about same

082with math um any questions before we move to PSAT on I ready oh all right trying to give appropriate wait time all right so um I really did a deep dive into PSAT cuz I gave you some kind of simplistic data um last time and we did more of a deeper dive into I ready we had just finished that window um so I went on to college board and pulled some historical data we can only go back as far as 2022 so that's all I couldn't go any further um to do any real cohort tracking so this first graph is grade n total Benchmark performance so it includes the math and the evidence-based reading and writing and it shows how many students met both benchmarks on both of those um subtests and how many met

083one and then um what percentage meant none so really great to see that our ninth graders consistently in all three years outperform the state in meeting both benchmarks um and then the percentage of students meeting no benchmarks decreases year over year which is really nice to see for nth grade um the second graph shows you um math specifically so again for n grade were consistently outperforming the state each year and that um percentage of students not per not meeting Benchmark decreases do you have a question I was just going to say I mean we're clearly not the state to be in if you want to go into anything that involves math because at least according to this chart because the state I mean we're outperforming them but 65% of the ninth graders were not yet

084approaching I am we're still the state just still better than a lot of the country well like that's concerning I know sorry continue no it's fine I know it's I see it too you're not wrong but okay so um now the next set of um this slide is for the evidence-based reading and writing um we are vastly outperforming the state in 23 and 24 in Reading we were a little bit below them in 22 but then like skyrocketed over them in Reading which was I was like wow that's awesome to see um so then we mov to 10th grade and 10 I'm just going to kind of Cump 10th and 11th grade together because as I was digging through this data and thinking of some things that you guys mentioned too about the PSAT so

085PSAT 9th grade I'm just in 9th grade just started it's October it's the PSAT oh my God I got to take this seriously I'm in 10th Grade maybe I don't know nothing really happened in ninth grade tell me if I'm wrong right nothing really I'm coming into the mind of high schoolers right now nothing really happened in nth grade with my Phat scores didn't really talk about it with my teachers my parent like no one really mention much so huh maybe I'll try a little bit then 11th grade comes around and we're like it's not the SAT the SAT is where really all of my everything all my eggs are going into that basket you can kind of see that kind of trending in the data that we're looking at right so um we do

086have some highlights but we do have some very obvious declines right so we really not only do we need to continue on to the focus areas that I've set for the whole year but we really need to look at datadriven instruction and using these assessments and making them purposeful for students so that they understand why they're taking them they're not just taking it because it's something that we said that you have to take so take it like but if we don't explain it to students and we don't use it and put it in front of them and say this is why it's meaningful it's not going to be meaningful am I right y a little bit putting you I don't want to myself but that kind of it sounds exactly like me and I was

087going to say like I was going to say like if if you're looking at the data like like the people that just don't try on it are like that's going to bring the score down like a bunch so you just going to have to account for that too right exactly and I don't cuz I really do not think that students are not that proficient like if you look at the SAT data that we had for 2024 like we that we presented in um when was that August or November or October no September I don't know my month right now pick a month whatever fall month that was um the SAT scores show differently right and they don't grow from being you know we have all these kids that are showing not yet proficient or not

088yet approaching to then having outscored the state in the sat right so we just need to change some of those practices and how we View and use these assess ments because I feel like this was a good exercise in seeing where students are falling but I feel like a lot of it is about the assessment culture for 10th and 11th grade yeah that makes sense the thing I'm wondering too and I'm sorry you go ahead it feels like over the years at least compared to when I was in high school there has been a minimizing of the SAT meaning that colleges don't require it anymore it's not mandatory and so while it carried a lot of weight I feel like and it was made clear that it was super important I'm not sure that my

08912th grader and my 10th grader are that concerned about it because it wasn't even required from the school she applied to right yeah and I think it also has to do with like how we use them in class right in our instruction like same thing goes with the Sass like we need to use it as a data point and we need to put it in front of kids and we need to make it important and meaningful in how they can compare themselves to themselves so the PSAT is a really good example of how can you compare your growth like it personally to yourself from 9th grade to 11th grade in these same skills like do you think that they care about that cuz I mean you can make it meaningful for them in a way

090that they would care about it I've done it in students that really gave no care at all to these assessments and I brought it in and used it and kept it in front of them we made gold charts and all those kinds of things and they started to care about it cuz they wanted to improve from the last time like this is the way like the only way that you can really see how you're learning like what can you do for yourself to see to improve like what do you need to how like and make them take some ownership and get some autonomy back on their own learning so you can make it meaningful will you make it meaningful to 100% of all kids no but you could get more than what we have and

091what the data is showing us currently so I have two more like questions or SL points I guess one of them is since some of them may not be motivated by just improving can we bribe them with something can like I mean that is a legitimate legitimately legitimately asking cuz like cuz like if we're going to say for us like if we decide for us to that this is an important Benchmark for us to determine how well we're doing in teaching them MH we need them to actually want to perform mhm and so I I very much look forward to seeing how you're able to do that organically through bringing this in but I'm not it's not beneath me to bribe them to bribe kids yeah and you know as the high school former High

092School administrator bribery works well like you know on anything you want high school kids to do something and the number one bribery tool is food yep so you know if you like tell the kids hey form above State average it's not really yeah maybe s it's a better word but like that's a better word let's be honest and it's amazing like the simplest thing like hey if you guys score above State average when we get the scores we'll give you like an ice cream social or something like that and like you actually catch kids who are like you know what I'll look twice at that question cuz I wouldn't mind some food down the road if we like do well right like I feel like that's that's true that was Point number one I think

093that we should really think about that and then I guess Point number two is related to what Heidi was saying which is you know again I think this comes back to the bigger picture that you're working on that's going to take a while to work on which is what what measures are we actually looking at in the sense of do they matter right like what how do we measure success right and so historically SATs for those of us who are like inclined to like I want to go to this college SATs were critically important because we knew we had to hit a certain score so and then that just also then tied back into how we were evaluated as a district because if you're do if your kids are doing this well you must be

094a smart District so you know so if that's something that's shifting I think it's something we have to just keep an eye out for and figure out what's replacing that as a measure for success it's like you mentioned when we had the data meeting in the fall about looking at holistic data and the student as a whole not just these One Stop like one SNAP test scores but really looking at the data as a whole and the whole student and their whole experience because that is also very important to look at right and I'm all about the plugs tonight cuz I'm going to say that's one of one of the things I think our counseling office does so well is that they talk to students and they see them as a whole and remind them

095that they're more than just a test SC that they're more than just if you didn't do as well on this exam or you didn't do as well on this PSAT you still the that you still potential that you can still do great things in the world that it's just one piece of it I think trying to figure out how that piece fits into the overall picture is kind of where the struggle is and that's why I think it's an established assessment culture M like cultivating a positive mindset around all of this and not making it a high stress high like uber like anxiety provoking type of a situation but just really having positive mindsets around assessments and um not treating them as like onetime events like everything shuts down and all this huge thing comes

096at you you know like just really shifting that mindset for everyone for staff included cuz a lot of times it's like well my gosh they're taking this sat or this PSAT or the SAS or whatever and they have to do well and then that translate onto the student so it becomes this whole thing so um we're really going to be honing in and focusing in on those types of things to make those shifts and as we do more more curriculum work and all of that kind of stuff this stuff is going to start to shift but it takes a while I just want to make one note on the SAT and this is more opinion based than fact based at this point I get the sense that the the importance of the SAT is there

097in the creep back like we did swing all the way over here where schools were not utilizing it um not looking at it and some of that aligned with the pandemic where everything got out of kind of sorts when people were looking at this testing stuff was inaccurate but you talked to College admission it's not the soul thing but they don't ignore it right like if you have a kid who has an excellent profile and they score not as great on the SAT that's not going to be a deal breaker like it may have been in years past but it can be something that pushes a kid over right you know like hey you you got a 3.0 overall but your sat came in at 1,200 like okay you can handle some high sck stuff

098right and like that might be something that pushes a kid onto kind of that acceptance It's not the deal breaker but schools are not ignoring as much they they feel like they they burned them they saw kids kind of when they totally like ignored it that they had kids who were not prepared for high stake learning environments um and they were struggling with that and I I think you know I'm not a test score Chaser I I this should not be the sole thing my two favorite stats from as a high school principal were our New Hampshire scholar numbers and that's a plug I'm also on the New Hampshire scholar board so complete transparency there but the New Hampshire scholar numbers and then your dual enrollment numbers kids who can get dual enrollment credit showing

099that they can work at the college level right those are my favorite two numbers to to speak on of of of the students that we were working with those aren't test score numbers but I feel if you're working on towards those the test score kind of numbers kind of follow along right and you're going to have success in in Avenues such as the SAT so I just had a question about this the format of the slide so if I'm I'm right now looking at fall grade 11 PSAT um the total benchmark sorry so it says the green is met both benchmarks yellow is met one Benchmark and the red is me no benchmarks are those so is are the benchmarks an an English and writing Benchmark and a math benchmark and that's kind of the

100combined total okay yes so from there when I scroll down to the next one um the next Slide the next slide Y which one are you on Tina I'm on so I was on the grade 11 PSAT total Benchmark perform performance and then if you jump real quick to the next one the fall grade 11 PSAT in math those scores are abysmal um and so I don't know that but the writing is good so I don't know if combining the two is really painting a picture of you know we have this big yellow group in the middle when we combine those scores cuz they at least met the English Benchmark right but Ring's not that great though Tina cuz we're way below the the state we're way below the state but it's way better than

101the math I mean the math is a I I'm I'm kind of shocked like and we've talked about math instruction and you know where our math scores need to be and what we need to do to fix them but I I'm very surprised that they're this low well I think we can assume from grade nine uh that our kids are smart enough so to me this really is indicating what you're saying which is it's a motivation issue and for some reason our kids less motivated than the rest of the state right I do not feel honestly that 76% of our 11th graders are not approaching yeah that's Benchmark for math I really have a hard time MH believing that this past year this past year I really really do um again because if you track

102it from 9th 10th and 11th grade yeah it consistently goes goes down and I feel it's more that motivation piece there's still but that's not a cohort right you're not comparing the same Cort moving up no I'm not comparing the cohort but if you just look across the years like 11th grade consistently performs lower which to me like there are still and I will never say like I said before I have my focus areas because the data spoke to to me as soon as I got here and sat in the seat and looked at I was like here are the three things that jumped right off the page to me without even talking to anybody but this level of disparity says I'm not quite sure we are as 11th graders taking it as okay seriously

103the as yeah and I think I mentioned this last time like other schools schools that I been at before they only have 11th graders take PSAT right so it is a true practice for your sat later in the year right so there's a different level of seriousness to taking that PSAT and there's pros and cons to both of these methods I'm not saying one's better the worse here it's the third goar around the kids have had at the PSAT they're probably thinking like yeah I got it this is what this is going to look like when I take my sat right um so that's why again they might do better when they're in ninth grade relatively speaking who knows but I think an interesting sub dive down in this not to make you know Dr

104Taylor do more work but it's comparing schools to do more work yeah is compar I can help her out with this because I love this stuff too but just like comparing schools that do just the 11th grade only is going to take PSAT how are they performing what's the jump between that compared to schools because there a lot of schools that do it like how Campbell does it where they have 9th 10th and 11th do it every single year um and what is their kind of kind of like indicators when do just 9th and 11th Med I'm sure people do people do everything but it's a little bit different because the ninth graders take the PSAT 89 which is a little bit less complex and the PSAT is more complex and more aligned with the

105question types that are on the SAT um but I and I would I will absolutely do that cuz I am a data junkie like I go down these rabbit holes like you had already asked I'm like yeah I already have some of that done cuz I went down that rabbit hole so um I can absolutely do that but I'm not right now advoca I like to see the three-year tracking because for our 9th 10th and 11th graders we don't have anything like we do like for we have sass it is what it is but at least we have it right like we don't and we have I ready we don't have anything for high school to kind that's kind of a common yeah normed like assessment to look at um year over year so I

106like it for that fact but um obviously I'm amenable too like if we see completely different but I think we need to start with that purpose yeah if I'm an 11th grader I'm seeing this for the third time it has no purpose to me why am I going to try yeah right like I'm like oh my god I've done this a c d EFG whatever you know Christmas tree when we used to have the SC scantrons right like that's what happens like it's boring and it's not purposeful everybody needs a purpose for doing something to be motivated to even try even if it's an incentive to have an ice cream social or a pizza party that's motivation that's a purpose for why I'm taking this you know it might not be why you're taking it

107but you know there's different Avenues and I think we need to to really start to shift that mindset yeah it is a steady decline you know from from grade n to grade 11 mhm well let's continue to dive into it and see how we can change the trajectory on this going into next year y yeah sat will be fascinating see how we do on that yeah like I mean like I I I don't quote me on any of this but I'm remembering from other presentation I've seen just States back to even last year when when I was coming on board that the SAT scores here are usually pretty good pretty solid you know um so something's clicking they take it last year our SAT scores were higher than they've been in a while and I

108can guarantee well I don't want to guarantee but because there are no guarantees but we are not going to see SAT scores with 76% of our students not meeting Benchmark on the SAT that's we're not going to see that well then I think it proves the burnout point and maybe we need to change the process and maybe just do it in 11th grade yeah we need to we definitely like as I was putting all this together I'm like okay we need to do something we have to do something Dan what do you think on like the SAT or the PSATs all I mean as an incoming Junior I'm very stressed about the SATs and I feel like no teacher has even talked about it at all and I feel like now like like you were

109saying like colleges like it's not required but it makes you look a whole lot better if you do put it and and I just feel like none of my teachers have even like stepped on it there's no awareness or education yeah exactly and I feel like especially like I'm not I'm a person that's more like I'm really good at English I'm decent at math but like I definitely struggle more at math and I feel like people are always like oh yeah like sat like math questions like that's where they get you and I feel like my math class like it's never even been like brought up yeah interesting that you would say that so you know I've been on the board long enough which is why she's leaving cuz that line tonight I know but

110I think I think you hit it on the head with Co because the the testing platform split everybody was remote and you know it was such a jumble that I think everybody said okay we're going to take a couple years and not even look at what the SATs look like and I think that kind of killed it because before that we had we offered SAT prep courses our it started out as a class that you could elect yeah you could take it as a class or you could join it you could pay a fee and have the teachers offer it after school for you but that's I mean I think Co blew all of that out of the water I think you're 100% correct I think it's one of those things that got lost in

111the shuffle there but that the fact that your teachers aren't aren't saying oh this is the kind you know and you've said it too bring the kinds of questions that you're going to see on it into the classroom so you can it's not completely foreign to and I think that's the work you know Dr Taylor's doing with the teachers right is like what are some of these easy noty easy but these kind of just simple things we can do like hey can we work in some some um sat like questions and like a warm-up in beginning of class something along those lines right like um whatever the tricks are that that's something I would do as a math teacher like hey today's warmup you know is going to be sat Thursday right like you're going

112to have a couple an SAT question you're going to practice on and some of your teachers might do that without saying it but like informing you like hey this is the warm-up for the sat right they might be doing something in the style of it but you're not aware of it and if we can make those two connections like that would be helpful cuz it would it would take down some of your stresses you prepare for it yeah so I guess my last question for you uh since you clearly have nothing to do every day I'm really the fact that you brought this the next meeting is very impressive to me by the way um my question to you is that was incredibly valuable information that we just gained can you is it worth forming

113a student committee that can help with data and assessment just feedback like even if it's not you know even if it's periodically that you just consult with them because I think that that maybe that's something we're missing is that we're not we're trying to solve a problem that they could probably help us figure out since they're the ones that either are not motivated or not understanding yep and I love those kinds of things I love working with kids cuz that's part that I miss you know the most being in this position so is working with students and their perspective is so important they should be voices that cuz as soon as you talk I was like that's the only thing I wrote down so far um because that is the most valuable to us cuz

114we can some like try to guess and think and whatever and then whatever we throw out it's like no no so um that is a good suggestion I'm sure Danny and Nick are looking for more extracurriculars I know right yeah I mean the first to sign up I know I guess the last kind of related point that I wanted to bring up maybe this isn't popular I don't know maybe it has nothing to do with it maybe it shouldn't but this brings me back to the question about midterms and finals because you talk about high State Testing I'm so I have two high schoolers and I can tell you they don't know what that is I I think it's a balance I will say the AP exam was a good reality check for what a

115high stake test is because that's not not something and again I fully support Project based learning I fully support all of that but even if it was just midterms and the final was a project based you know something that is I I don't see the note cards anymore I don't see and maybe that's just again my old age why but like flashcards and like color coordinated documents yeah but it's not I don't see it it's just not part of yeah I'll let these guys jump in but just yeah personally I really wish that that we did have finals and midterms because like I I've gone to the when we have like the seniors from last year like come back and they give like their advice M I'll say probably 90% of them were like I

116was not prepared for midterms and finals and like that now just like makes me like obviously like there's some people that are be like oh I hate them but like as someone who wants to be ready for college like I wish we did have those like I not just college for the rest of your life if you have no high pressure situations you will never be prepared for them y so again I think there's like a balance to that right like we I think one of the things that that I'm glad went away at a lot of high schools is to have the unique schedule for that week right like that's something that we did away with at but we no longer had a midterm week and we no longer had a final week it

117was built and cooked into the regular school day right and we did structure it where we made sure not everyone was giving like a midterm on the same exact day right there's a window of time like if you're giving a midterm this is the twoe period you're going to give it and let us know when you're giving it so we can we can keep an eye on we're not overloading the kids on any given minute and we allowed some flexibility in terms of and I'm not saying the way we did it was perfect there was flaws in in every system um plenty of teachers gave traditional midterms finals like a high pressure test and plenty of teachers did other stuff and some changed it up right they may have done a midterm that was more

118of a a traditional test and then the final at the end of the year was more of a project oriented thing or they did their High stick test like 3/4 of the way through the school year right like where they really kind of put it on kids to like study for this thing so I think finding the balance on that I it you know I I can say this now that I'm not in the high school realm like the midterm week I used to love it as a teacher cuz it was it was an easy week like we're going to just give midterms they're going to be half days right like and it was like I just get my grading done in the afternoon and it' be a nice nice light week for me right

119um I don't know if that's the best resource of time that's our most valuable asset is time with the students right so I don't know if that like half day schedule is the answer but we again pendulum we kind of swung way over to like Hey we're going to devalue the high stti like assessment kind of uh environment or maybe we went too far can we come back in the Middle where we realize that not every subject needs to hit you over the head with a final right um a traditional like multi- final but like is there some like in math like I think it's good to give a tests like I will still advocate for a math test right like as a way to to measure a kids like knowledge on math stuff right

120you know so finding the right balance between all that I think is important again not dual enrollment is something you're going to hear me talk about a lot in future years like you have to match up your assessment with the College Assessment so it's a great way to kind of organically build in those high pressure like exams because that's literally what they're giving in college is that assessment so like kids get used to that so reading right the transferring the comprehension into those what did it mean right right because you're going to see those on the SAT and also to like writing to like the application of writing and there are so the learning outcomes task force is tackling assessment this year and we're looking at depth of knowledge types of um things and um

121how you there is misperception in what if you're doing it do like a depth of knowledge three so those are like high level questions you get into application of knowledge when you get up to do depth knowledge three and four sorry I was Ed you speak for a minute like wait let me back that up um so that's when you really get high so in a lot of people's minds they're thinking that they have to have a project in order to get through you can have an actual paper pencil classic test and hit a depth of knowledge level four application dependent upon how that question is structured and what students have to use for skills in order to answer that question so it's not oh okay I'm doing I want to give depth of knowledge

122for it has to be this big project that's multi-day multi-dimensional all those things it's not that way so just more training in what this looks like and I've had conversations with people about wanting to have the midterm and the final back but looking at what that looks like and not again going back to it's an event stop everything do this because that's not organic it's not how things rule not every subject needs that you know so um just looking at that striking that balance and what it looks like in each subject and those conversations are coming through um the meetings that I'm having in content are keep this going right yeah can I ask just one more thing and not to add more work it would be interesting to see how the SAT scores for

123the 12th grader compared to this yeah I I started doing that too but I didn't I you're you're feeding it to us at a an appropriate Pace we doses it's a scaffold well it's a natural thing you feed us it right and now we we're asking for more right right just natural my board is getting very big it's why she moved offices that's right maybe she should take your new office she can it's great well I love my office now it's amazing everybody should come look at it it's a place to be right it's so happy Brian come visit it it is positive maybe the fic will figure out a way to give you your own portable oh there we go at [Laughter] AC all right anything else for curriculum tonight that was very good

124update thank you very much yep no problem all right shifting gears into the public minutes from February 19th everyone have a chance to review those minutes yep I'll entertain a motion so moved motion by Mr Shoemaker I will second additional discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed abstained those minutes carry 500 all right now we're into new business and we'll turn it over to Mr Shoemaker for a facilities update all right so uh last time to all of your displeasure we were talking about the the two options that we were looking at um so the big conversation around the redistribution is in my opinion you tell me if you either of you feel differently is largely around the committee feeling as though we aren't able to sufficiently answer what

125what that looks like right and the the fear that if we are not not able to sufficiently answer what that looks like that people will think that we haven't evaluated all the options cuz there is a perception that that could be a very inexpensive option aside from educational concerns and aside from uh impact on all three schools right so so that piece of it so it seems like that's the big drive on wanting more information on that um so that desire for more information has continued um you don't know this yet but Kyle Barker is going to come tomorrow tomorrow so what where we left off last time was the superintendent said you know I am willing to go out and get more information about what this looks like because you know we just don't

126it's it's a shift in how we do everything um so the superintendent was willing to do that which I appreciated my feeling was as we've historically done right we we have these wonderful superintendent that are willing to go do all this work but at the end of the day you know I don't expect you to be able to answer architectural questions and so because Kyle Barker has looked at that option um I have asked him to come back and talk specifically about that not anything else we're not talking about other options we're not pitching other options and it's literally just here are some of the considerations that you should be looking at when you think about implementing something like this to help frame uh Mr connell's you know Viewpoint when he's going to ask questions

127of other superintendant who have done similar things did you have something to add you looked like you did no just I you know a lot of it right there just you know I the committee itself wants to give uh you know that reconfiguration a general look right and I think that's fair to do and I don't mind doing work assoc I've already started some work associate with it because I'm curious about it you know um so we took some time over vacation this sounds like a lot more work than it really was so but it's going to sound kind of impressive so uh so we we looked at every single school in the state and broke down grade spans and saw the different grade spans that different schools are at um created a list of

128every sort of configuration you know school that's 1 through 4 2 through 5 9 through 12 d d and so how many schools kind of fell in that um you know we got a list of of um the number of schools that are either 7 through 12 6 through 12 and like what does that look like and starting to call some of those people and I'm going to kind of visit some of those schools to do that and also cuz we get super focused on the 7 through 12 of it all and I like the one that again that I've said over and over again that I'm just un like uneducated myself about is a 36 46 model like that what does that look like right so there are some schools that have that model

129like I didn't know if there was any and there are so there's um you know one that's 3 through six that is not going to be 3 through six in two years cuz they're doing some construction to stop that model uh I felt like a bad son cuz it was actually a school my dad Tau it so I and I didn't know that so oh well um it never put two and two together um and then uh there's four four through six schools uh in in the state so um one of them for example is at Hopkinson I'm good friends with the Hopkinson superintendent their High School is also seven High School Middle School is also 7 through eight hey so I'm going to go visit up there in a couple weeks and just kind

130of see what that looks like and everything so I say that because I don't mind I think it's worthwhile educating us all on the pros and cons of these models I'll tell you with some of the conversations cuz I started calling some superintendent particularly the ones I know and uh most of them tend to be high school oriented people so we were looking at the either 712 612 every single one of them said like you have to separate the kids you got to figure out a way to separate them now there might be common spaces you utilize like everyone's going to use the same cafeteria but your core academics need to be separated and um almost everyone I spoke to said they have two different Bell schedules they have a bell schedule and a schedule

131and a model for their 6 eight 7 eight kids and they have a completely separate model for their 92 kids and you have to figure out those Dynamics if you're going to make it successful um and so you know I know a few of these people I'm going to visit some of these I'm hoping to get down to manad um which is has the three through six school and then a um 7 through 12 School uh sborn I know the principal there uh pretty well from from I worked with her in the past they just made the transition the 6 through 12 over the the last three or four years so I'm seeing and she gave we talked for a while today on the phone and she just told me some uh challenges that they

132had and some some successes that they've had and different things related to that um so I don't mind doing that work because what I want everyone to feel confident in the final decision and direction we go so educate people about everything I think is important right this is education we got to educate people so um letting people be aware of everything with all these different options and decisions we have I think is important so uh two quick things so uh manad is a school to my understanding that does not separate the kids and so one thing so I I did speak to them today they they do separate for their core classes I spoke to the superintendent but there's not a not a pure segregation not because we talk about one of the considerations with

133this model is whether or not you do a true segregation and so like Peter I don't let me put words in your mouth but Peter is a believer that we can still use the space without having to modify greatly but that would require us right it would require us to not segregate them we are you talking about high school or the Middle School the well when we bring seventh and eth to the if we bring it to the high school based off of the what your what Your sort of mindset is around like what type of work we would do we wouldn't be doing the extensive work that it would require to separate like segregate them not fully no I think we I like kind of like the idea of the separate bell schedule then

134you could keep 78 on a different not necessarily on the Block yeah I was surprised how common that is in these schools but you know another superintendent I talked to was the the new market one today and they're actually doing away with that and they're going to go to a consistent bell schedule next year they're all going to be on a block but you know I spoke to a different superintendent who said the worst thing for their middle school was to be on a block so it's all over the place it's like the the simplest answer so my point in that is hearing just that feedback is the first that I've heard of the responses that he's gotten um and so that that may really that that type of feedback is super useful to this

135committee because it helps us toine if we are truly work if we are looking at that option it sounds like we may not be looking at us we we may be requiring a segregated model if that were the case which is a whole different path than the path of not segregating right and so having Kyle tomorrow is helpful because he can help us understand if you were to segregate versus not segregate what are the different types of physical considerations you have to make not educational considerations so that's that that up anything else to highlight from fic we started talking about the um uh updating the bylaws uh but we're more focused on this right now okay s actually there was some discussion that maybe the bylaw should come down from the school board right right

136is action uh not not at this current time we can we'll bring you the bylaws as we have them and then we can as a Comm okay we'll be on the lookout and your next meeting is tomorrow yes we are now on a schedule we have it the same week as school board so I'm never home fantastic all right well thank you for the update next up is uh policy we have nothing for first read and we have a few policies for second read any questions on the policies that were presented at our last meeting for second read tonight are there any other updates no other updates no no all right I'll make a motion to approve policy AC ACR uh policy ACAC policy ACN is in policy J I always get this one jjic

137second motion by myself second by Miss Ames additional discussion on those four policies all right all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed abstained those Carri 500 all right next up on the agenda is old business there's none listed at this time and then shifting into school board comments I just want to say I came in late so I didn't get to I don't know if you all told Tina how much you like her but I just want to say you know I I've really appreciated working alongside you I came into this uh as a member not even a member of the fic just as a random Community member who spoke up once at a at an you know information session and here I am now um but but you've given

138me a lot of knowledge about what I'm looking at because I'm not an educator so I uh I really appreciated it and I appreciate all you've done my pleasure if you haven't read the annual report do that okay I shall you should all right all right thank you you got a shout out it oh thank you you're welcome all right anything else for Schoolboard comments all right uh moving into manifest we have the Manifest from February 19th 2025 uh we have a payroll manifest with winter coaches for $395,900 let me just clarify that payroll of winter coaches included their pay for that amount we have voluntary 403b deductions for 8,252 as well as there accounts payable manifest that was signed on February 19th for 300 3,7 $318 and uh with that that concludes our public

139session tonight uh the board is moving into non-public this evening Community input oh sorry second round of community input almost thank you I'll be sure uh so Cory Sals in this time I'm going to wear my fifth grade math cap um so as we look at data um diving which I'm a math person it's my jam um I I want you to remember that we have a a PA shortage this is the third year of a severe PA shortage but it's been building so I want to say that like one of my classes 15 kids out of 23 need extra love every single day so that means that there are about eight kids that don't need that so my kids that need that like regular targeted instruction versus that that and then tier two and

140then even tier three they're not getting what they need every day so as we look at all this data and see why are kids struggling as they get to high school and not being able to do math it's because they're not getting what they want or they need since first grade since the middle school and I mean every time we have a shortage in one paa that impacts like mean 10 20 kids that's a huge impact and then you think about how many pairs each year and then the amount of years that compounds greatly so as you look at data I would like you to really take into consideration the cohorts how many 504s and IPS are in each cohort have they had the right support every single year if the answer is no then

141you can't really judge and use that data it's junk when you look at the teachers we have some amazing teachers but they're in a pro appropriately staffed to be able to give the level of need to every student every day it's not because they don't want to it's because they literally don't have enough time in any day to meet what they need and then hit their professional responsibilities meet with emails and then prep amazing lessons and right thinking about cross-curricular has been huge right how do you add that in when you're really struggling with the base content so it's important I know that you do a lot of work to kind of look at all the sides but that part wasn't said and I want to make sure that as we continue to look at

142data we have to remember that that has an impact every single day and a lot of classes don't get what they need every single day but we do the best that we can every single day just like you do as well so thank you for your time and Tina again thank you for your service it's a great point Thank you hi hi um Janine hankel 43 tag way par hat mostly um and I uh did know great points but also I wanted to talk about the um the PSAT sat conversation that had happened um and you're talking about how to get kids invested and make this meaningful so we can get some good meaningful data and how can they get them engaged and I'm over there going ask the students ask the students ask the

143students and uh and and you did and we got some great feedback from one student you have um your most valuable resource is your students for figuring that out and um and Matt you mentioned that as well I just wanted to reiterate that as an example um I don't want to embarrass her but my when my daughter took the sads and I asked her about that experience um she's a fantastic math student and she did very well in the SATs but um her math was not quite as high as she had hoped before going into that test and so we talked about that and we dug into that a little bit she had some very specific feedback that was really helpful to me even I was a first grade teacher you know looking forward to

144the kids who were headed that way um she had some very um specific feedback about the way questions are formed and set up on the SAT versus what she's doing in class and the way it's worked through and discussed and words used in class versus how it was on the SAT I asked her for specifics on that and she was very knowledgeable and I was like this is gold this is a wealth of information and that's what you need to tap into if you want to figure out how to get that good data so absolutely thank you j y excellent any other public input this evening we're good all right so with that we'll close Community input uh and now move into nonpublic session uh so again the board does have non-public business this evening

145under RSA 91a uh and c and with that I'll entertain a motion to move into nonpublic so moved motion by Mr Shoemaker second second second by Miss SS as well as Mr plansky uh and I'll entertain a motion I'll call a vote all those in favor please say hi I'm off my game today all Sun you're good we got it I I I all those in favor please take Goodbye by saying I I opposed abstained all right we're now and non