School Board Meeting 7/14/2021

001um good evening and welcome to the july 14th meeting of the litchfield school board on the meeting to order and we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to syria [Applause] thank you um first on our agenda is the review and revision of the agenda do we have any changes this evening there are no changes okay no changes i have a summary of non-public actions from june 14th 2021 mrs harrison made a motion to approve the non-public minutes of june 12th 2021 i'm sorry june 2nd 2021 mrs ames seconded the motion carried five zero zero mrs harrison made a motion to accept the nomination of emily mcdonald as lms guidance counselor at a salary of fifty that seven thousand nine hundred thirty one dollars

002for the 2021-22 school year mrs ames seconded the motion carried five zero zero summary of non-public actions from june 30th 2021 mr burke made a motion to accept the nomination of dana giampalo as spanish teacher at chs for a salary of seventy three thousand seven hundred fifty dollars for the 2021-22 year mrs harrison seconded the motion carried five zero zero mr burke made a motion to accept the nomination of karen desjardins as dw as a district-wide digital learning specialist for a salary of 73 750 for the 2021-22 school year mrs harrison second the motion carried five zero zero mr burke made a motion to accept the nomination of sandra mcmullen as skills enrichment technology teacher at gms for a salary of forty nine thousand sixty seven dollars for the twenty one twenty two year mrs

003harrison second in the motion carried five zero zero we don't have any presentations or recognitions this night so this brings us to community forum um we have a number of people in attendance this evening thank you um mr lasalles into the selectboard for reopening the building and allowing us to expand our our attendance but the records show that when we requested to be on the agenda for july 14th which was turned down we did also request that the meeting be held in the auditorium you did let the records show that thank you and with the idea that we anticipated significant public attention so noted thank you jimin you just add madam chair that that's why we added a meeting at the end of july or exactly this yes in the auditorium yeah and and i

004do want to make that that known to everyone who may not have received the email today or seen the posting on facebook the district is in has heard and understands the concerns relating to crt um and whether or not it is being taught in our schools and we have opened a community forum for which is scheduled for july 28th at 5 00 pm in order to present um what is being taught in our schools and um and have an opportunity to and time and space to fully dissect the the concerns and questions to fully dissect and um discuss and um everybody in the town all litchfield residents are are welcome to attend um so community forum i i'm just going to go down the list since everybody's here to speak on the on the same

005issue i believe if you if someone says something that you were also going to say i would ask that either you defer the floor to someone else with different ideas or um just in the interest of time we do want to make sure that everybody who is signed up has had a chance to to speak we're gonna i'm sorry do they have to speak three minutes thank you all right so with that we'll be at mr i mean dr jetty will you take just keep will you keep track of time all right great i just i'll do it right here okay just want to make sure everybody who speaks has a chance to be heard thank you um so first we have laura gandia would you still like wish to speak [Music] and before i

006begin i just want to ask if any school board member would entertain a motion to extend public comment i think we do have a lot of people here do we have any emotion from the board come on someone how many people do we have the balls to do it we have oh we can watch in your language over there brian we have we have um ten people signed up so if we have three minutes that's 15 minutes at the beginning and 15 minutes at the end i'll make a motion to extend it by 15 minutes so we can get all 10 speakers in thank you thank you all opposed i mean all in favor all right oppose abstain all right you guys have it get all these speakers yeah i think we're combining both of

007the community forums into one section at the beginning yeah all right thank you thank you good evening my name is laura gandia i come to you today to express my concerns of potential and damaging changes to our curriculum and the education that our students receive this concern stems from a message of unity that was put out by the school board last year along with this message of unity was a list of resources put forth by the districts for parents to read to help the district promote its message to unity the list of resources contained many inappropriate messages that do not promote a message of unity but rather just the opposite some of the resources focused on white privilege white supremacy how white americans should and i quote model anti-racism which is something a lot of

008white americans rarely struggle to do also included were references to the 1619 project where it happens to be endorsed by our teachers union here in town this project puts slavery in its consequences at the center of america's historical narrative undermining the lives and sacrifices of our great wartime heroes who died and lost their lives for our country in fact this project is a tool of political indoctrination no school system should endorse it no teachers should use it so the question becomes what type of education do we want for our students this is why we are here we are here to let you and the nea know that we have a voice we are here to let you know and the na know that item 39 is not wanted as you probably are aware the nea

009the teachers union adopted business item 39 that provides that the nea has a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-crt rhetoric will provide an already created in-depth study that critiques white supremacy anti-blackness and other forms of power and oppression and it opposes attempts to ban critical race theory and or the 16 19 19 project and it will be joining with black lives matters for a rally this year i strongly suggest that you take a look at what our teachers union is promoting this is not what we want we want critical thinkers who use facts as a basis for forming opinion we want the history of our great country to be taught with a fair and balanced approach recognizing the context of the times and what events occurred

010recognizing those who fought to secure our freedoms freedoms and liberties making this country the greatest on earth we do not tolerate racism or any message promoting or undermining any race or ethnicity we do not want solidal undertones that promote disrespect for our country and her institutions we want our children to understand that america even with its flaws is the greatest country on earth it is exceptional our current school board chair tina harrison wrote to me in response to my question of including american exceptionalism in our curriculum and i quote my personal knowledge and experience of american exceptionalism is limited really you are living and enjoying the greatest liberties and freedom we're out of time here on earth but your knowledge is limited we should be shouting this from the rooftops we want you to take

011every possible action laura can i take your written comments i'll accept those in yeah but we're out of time okay we want you to make sure that our children the next generation of leaders receive and deserve a solid education not based on racism or some perverse ideology but rather enshrined with the principles representative foam you're next i'm just i have one other thing to present to the board um based on all my concerns and just based on what has happened um i in the message immunity i am submitting a right to no request to the board that focuses on updating our history curriculum ensuring our policies and procedures provide everyone with a safe learning environment adjusting our practices at faculty and staff to better serve the diverse group of students we educate demonstrating equal opportunities

012engaging in dialogue committing to an environment that celebrates diversity promotes inclusivity so basically i have a two page write to no request that pursuant to rsa91a you have five days to which to respond or you can give me a reason why but i am asking as the documents become available that you produce those to me so i don't have to wait months to get them thank you and i also have the m39 what was that one [Music] thank you ralph bones state ralph boehm drive been a state rep for 13 years of living on education committee also passed school board member of 2004-2010 new law this year probe 9193-40 prohibit prohibits prohibition on teaching discrimination starts with no pupil and any public school in this state shall be taught instructed inculcated or compelled to express

013belief in and support for any one of the following item b that an individual by virtue of his or her sex age gender identity sexual orientation race creed color marital status familial status mental or physical disability religion or national oregon origin is inherently racist sexist or oppressive whether consciously or sub unconsciously it had been mentioned that is not being taught in our schools but this reference that the references are for teachers if a student asked a question if only side of this issue was being given that would be still against the law what about putting up the other side that this is just marty's ideology and that is the truth the letter of unity is really a letter of division pushing marxism wonder what would happen to the teacher if a student asked about crt

014and the two teacher answered the truth about it being a marxist ideology of division also current law and a school policy allows a parent to request in writing to their principal stating any material that they believe is objectionable and that child not be taught this and the school will put the will give other uh stuff for this um teaching to be taught that is school policy i j l part 2 a5 also another new law rsa 194 f colon 1 education freedom account this bill allows poor and middle-income parents to attend an approved doe private school or home school the state adequacy aid will follow the student and by the way this now includes sectarian schools and i hear that saint francis is adding on wonder how many parents will do this wonder how many

015parents will pull their children out of public school because of this ideology remember state funding is based on number of students and i would suggest that a board member that wants to follow the law make a motion to instruct the superintendent to comply with the current law remove the divisional material and fix the curriculum before the start of school year or submit his resignation thank you i have a question for you [Music] [Laughter] um what objection could you submit a request for whatever objectional material you have found within our curriculum in our district and we will make sure that the point is it does do all the parents know what the curriculum is and is there any curriculum that says about crt the point is is what's the effective date of that law the effect

016of data now the new law it went into effect yeah it wouldn't affect the media has the doe issued technically advisory on that yet i'm not sure probably not not yet so once we receive that technical advisory we will comply with the law also too another adequacy the adequacy education has also been changed thank you [Music] um i have mr representative lasalle's [Music] well at the record show i'm rich lasallis 236 charles bancroft highway here in litchfield currently serve as a state rep and as a selectman in town i was on the school board for three terms and i've been a substitute teacher since i retired at campbell high school i'm just here i'm not going to repeat what everyone says i'm just incredibly disappointed and alarmed at the hyper partisan atmosphere that i see

017in the schools that's uh the the idea that conservative staff members and teachers are afraid to voice their opinion when when to be shunned by other staff members and i i see that there seems to be um the the attitude of the administration seems to be to encourage um more liberal types of thought i'll give you an example of that this past year i sat in on the staff development that took place at the beginning of the school year a member of the administration stood in front of all the teachers and berated the sitting president of the united states and said how important it was for teachers to vote okay i've i other instances uh i personally set in on a staff development that took place in the fall of 2019 the lady who was

018in front of all the teachers um was giving a staff development thing and i came away with three things first it was an incredible waste of time secondly she spent the entire time knocking males particularly white males and third she had a problem with teddy roosevelt and said that he was a racist because of what he did in the spanish-american war uh i'm i'm just i'm just totally uh disappointed in in what's happening when when this when i was made aware of this message of unity i was immediately thought about this lady and i said oh now it makes sense now it makes sense so uh with respect to your meeting that comes that you're talking about at the end of the month uh whether we participate in that we need to have things on

019record we need to have it as a matter of record too many things that have taken place are not a matter of record and are are discouraged so again uh i'm i'm i i'm out of time i'll take my seat thank you mr cells if you it's concerning to me that you experienced that i had i've not been aware allegedly and i'm just going to say that and i'm just going to say are you doubting what i say i'm just going to say that rich i really wish you're talking about stuff that occurred well over a year ago it would have been helpful to have known about it at the time so that we could have an opportunity to respond to it so i'm just saying it's hard to hear this late thank you so

020why do they feel so free to do something like this under your leadership that you set the tone for this school that's right why does these people feel so free to me who's the next speaker representative mclean you're not yes you've known me a long time you've known me a long time and i'm very open i just need the opportunity to announce come on show some leadership it is it's plenty of leadership things stop the bias quiet please thank you members of the board for giving me the opportunity to speak my name is mark mclean state representative for southern manchester and the town of litchfield and vice chair of the house judiciary committee i'm here today to speak about the anti-discriminatory components of the new hb2 law and how they relate to the anti-racism initiatives

021undertaken by this district in the last year following such acts as the death of george floyd we've all seen a huge amount of discussion about race in america and while this is a good thing uh we've seen some things come out of it such as many advocates pushing critical race theory and other divisive concepts and having that come to the fore now as you guys all know critical race theory has been building for decades emerging from the nation's law schools where theorists such as cheryl harris have put forth the idea that racism is an intrinsic property especially of white people in her paper critical characteristics of whiteness as property published in the harvard law review she calls for the suspension of property rights the seizure of land and wealth and its redistribution along racial lines

022so that mode of thought makes a sharp departure from the concept of equality espoused by frederick douglass and martin luther king jr towards the concept of equity championed by marx and lennon so the idea of a meritocracy and even the declaration of independence are therefore considered racist so if the concepts had just remained an academic curiosity in the nation's law schools they might not have raised as much alarm as you're seeing here but there's been a push to incorporate these concepts into our schools if you had any doubt of that early this month the nea approved resolutions and funding increasing the implementation of crt and curricula promoting crt and local districts and attacking opponents of crt including parents groups so it's for these reasons that the legislature felt compelled to include a ban on this

023teaching and teaching of divisive concepts in hb2 so this district last year compiled a list of resources for white people and parents to deepen anti-racism work among the resources listed because i can't go through all of them was robin d'angelo's white fragility this work argues that whites must face the racist bias that they all carry as people and and and as part of a racist society the work i think is condescending to both whites and people of color and its inclusion in the district's resource list is completely inappropriate and it's also out of step with the new state law because this initiative has been able to permeate throughout the district for a year it's my opinion that the board should move rapidly to implement a plan to come into compliance with the new law encounter

024any damage that was done by the existing anti-racism policy and as we've heard you have to be absolutely transparent with the public with respect to that implementation thank you very much representative barry [Music] good evening i'm ross berry i represent south manchester with mark along with the town of litchfield i'm not going to take up too much of your time tonight because i want you to hear from your constituents because they're here and they're in the hallway and they're not happy my wife and i are trying to move to litchfield right now housing prices are what they are when she saw my wife saw this letter from you guys she was appalled um why would we move to a town that thinks like this i said baby they don't think like that um they're stuffed

025in that letter that's attached to it that is deeply disturbing um everybody's going to come tonight and talk about the crt and the racial stuff and that's fine but there's something in there that's disturbing that hasn't been said yet which is there's calls in there to encourage students to defund the police the same people that show up when you need them there was a there's no other way to describe it a they called it a peaceful protest i called it a riot on south willow street where i also represent and the police were the ones who came there to keep order in my district the same district that represents litchfield please please do not ignore your constituents i listen to them you should listen to them they're here they deserve to be heard i think

026you made a motion to allow for longer public comment my recommendation is you let every single person who wants to talk talk it's going to be brutal you're going to sit there but you should do it your job is to listen my job is to listen and conquer it and your job is to listen here mr nordic [Music] my name is harry nordyke i live at eight rocky hill road in litchfield i'm going to submit a hard copy of my june 15 2021 correspondence into the record of this meeting electronic copies are in the town's email system as it and all related correspondence were addressed to the school board the district superintendent and the executive assistant from this correspondents my primary question remains unanswered where is the matter of the quote message of unity unquote

027dated june 10 2020 documented as having been motioned into discussion reviewed drafted finalized voted and approved for publication the message of unity was signed by the superintendent on behalf of the school board the school administrators and the district directors it was published on the school district's website and may have been sent directly to various constituencies such as faculty staff and administrators subjects in the message of unity include a quote pledge to be better through actions such as updating our history curriculum and the content we teach adjusting our practices as faculty and staff end quote also included were pledged topics regarding hiring policies finally an addendum titled list of resources for staff parents and students was included it contained a document with no less than 96 separate web links many of which themselves exploded into yet

028more linked information labeled anti-racism resources for white people which reference scores of books articles podcasts movies youtube videos television shows a spectrum of social media articles materials for educators academic papers the list goes on much of this was for sale and much also included solicitation for donations this was all offered under the rubric of quote ways to learn on your own this summer matters of curriculum teaching practice policy and publications endorse for students and faculty to read fall squarely within the confines of oversight review and approval of the school board and our public business new hampshire code title vi chapter 91-8 provides no allowance for such matters to be held in unrecorded private meetings executive session or to be informally or otherwise administered if there was an official meeting regarding this matter there should be

029public documentation where is it examining the list of resources document anti-racism resources for white people which came under a directive with the imprimatur of the district superintendent the school board the district administration and principals of the district one finds two undeniable consistencies the fundamental thrust of these resources is a compendium of critical race theory publications by an all-star list of critical race theory authors theorists editorialists proponents and proprietors and secondly it is unilateral in its perspective the list of resources is bereft of any countervailing positions much less any socratic scrutiny perhaps it simply mirrors the mindset of the two political activists from new york city who are its creators from all evidence the message of unity and the list of resources were apparently approved in maybe two weeks it strains credulity to believe that such

030a vast collection of publications could have been vetted for endorsement within that time frame is there a record of such a review were the many many web links memorialized to ensure consistency over time is there a record of any deliberation on this matter if not why not thanks people those are direct violations of civil rights before the new hampshire law was passed you are violating civil rights marsha finnegan there are a lot of alleged allegations [Music] okay thank you i'm not going to respond at this time you haven't given me opportunities to answer your questions i am marcia okay here we go i'll make it short well once again the democrats in this great nation and on the school board and the superintendent think they above the law apparently you mr jetty and tina will

031go to any lengths to ignore the governor in the new law i have sat back on a lot of decisions by the school board and superintendent in our school district the most recent was when i was taken off the sub list due to holding a sign that did not agree with a special vote on the teacher's contract my lawyer was ready to go to federal court due to violations of my civil rights in the high school at least two months are taken for the civil war i'm guessing that all the white soldiers whether from the north or south come under the classification of being racist well this middle-class woman who is a racist according to the materials that were posted on a school reading list mr jetty took off all correspondents relating to the crt

032on the google sites if you truly believe in the crt not only am i a racist but you and all the school board are i say you violated the first amendment when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of the press i'm asking for your resignation effective immediately enter the school board i will make sure that when it comes to re-election that you will have worthy candidates running against you hi i'm jennifer sullivan nine temple drive thank you uh for allowing me to speak and thank you for for what you do on the board um so now for something completely different i support uh the message of unity i can't speak to each individual link it is quite there's quite a bit there i can't say that i saw each one but my um

033i think that we do best when we take a full a fuller uh view of history and that we allow for discussion on both sides that that allows us to to come to a better place as a country i do believe that anti-racism is appropriate uh to be in schools and to be taught and that there is a lot of work to do and i think it's a good place to start and i think that's all i have to say [Music] good evening i am speaking here tonight both as a veteran teacher in the district and as president of the litchfield education association on behalf of my colleagues and by this i mean to include teachers peer educators administrators school board members etc i hereby make the following statement with regard to critical race theory

034as it pertains to education in the litchfield school district critical race theory is not being taught in the litchfield school district nor to the best of my knowledge has it ever been taught in our schools furthermore in my 15 years of teaching in this town i have never heard a single teacher administrator school board member etc ever speak in support of crt being taught in our schools in fact i've never heard anyone in the district including students and parents as well as litchfield staff ever mentioned the term until recently when the issue blew up on the lichfield what's up site additionally the litchfield education associate additionally the litchfield education association has never advocated for crt to be taught in our schools nor has it ever asked for p d on crt despite the hullabaloo surrounding

035crt litchfield teachers and staff are focused on what we've always been focused upon delivering high quality instruction to our students supporting and advocating for our students as they develop from children into young adults and promoting the idea of lifelong learning so that our students will continue to develop as individuals and knowledgeable and conscientious members of our community i am disappointed that i have to stand here tonight to defend my colleagues particularly in the wake of an extremely demanding school year in which litchfield teachers and staff had to face a myriad of unprecedented challenges in light of the unanticipated issues presented to us as a result of covet 19 such as socially distanced classrooms mask mandates additional health and cleaning protocols and the implementation of a blended synchronous model of instruction where teachers were required to

036teach simultaneously to in-class and at home virtual students in conclusion critical race theory isn't an issue in the district it doesn't exist as part of any curriculum from k through 12 at least not to the best of my knowledge nor has it ever been advocated by a teacher administrator our school school board member of the litchfield school district litchfield teachers and support staff will continue to focus our attention on delivering a top-notch brand of instruction while supporting and advocating for our beloved students thank you [Music] you're all set all right thank you thank you that's the end of my list so it's are we at 30 minutes for about all right uh 29 and a half okay if there's anyone else out there yeah would you brian thank you is anyone else interested in speaking

037i can take one more yeah no i'm sorry we've already heard from you we have your written statements thank you that was teaching anybody nordic do you have currently do you have current students in our district i'm asking a question all the way through thank you and you have never submitted a complaint about our education system in the past good evening hi what was your i just need your name and address sue ann johnson i'm sorry be quiet please i need to hear the speaker thank you i asked if you wanted to speak i thought you did oh okay thank you sue ann johnson 35 mill drive i've been a resident oh gosh i think since 1990 i asked my daughter you think they're teaching critical race theory in campbell high school no are you

038talking about white privilege oh yeah they are teaching crt so you can't be with people 24 7. it is somehow getting in there and all i have to say is our country is more divided than it's ever been you are either stirring the pot and creating more problems or you're promoting peace and unity and focusing on what we all have in common not focusing on economics color race any of that stuff that's not going to pull us together and that's not how i teach my kids so obviously i'm against anything that teaches someone that because of their skin they're more of a victim or because of their skin color they're more privileged it's just it's not appropriate in the school thank you we agree [Applause] with you okay yes thank you thank you all for

039coming thank you you're welcome all right moving along and let's and right request of the public okay um if anybody didn't submit their written thing would you mind emailing me with it so that i could get it into the record properly thank you thank you all right that brings us to correspondence right all right so we have several first ones on 616 from harry norendyk and he basically spelt out what his message was and it's already been forwarded um his question was message of unity and when it was discussed with the board questions the attachments uh was it clear to the board what exactly was the motivation of this message um 617 was from barbara beliwhiskey um i actually forwarded jeff pearson's um email thanking us for the appreciation for the ice cream still sure

040618 we received corresponds from michael graham from new hampshire journal inquiring about materials being recommended by the litchfield school board as the anti-racism and michael graham again on 6 20 um thanking us for the response on 6 30. we received the message i'm not sure this goes in the public record but uh jason music library but he had a couple of questions i'm not sure what they were as far as uh association with the web page in regards to music i forwarded that one to her also okay i was a salesman that was a salesman i didn't know if it was something it was hard to tell but it ended up being sales on 7-2 uh jim norton just have a message thanking us for the music dialogue from our meeting two meetings ago um

041concerns about hurting the program and want to know when we discussed uh music and what changes were taking place in music on 7-7 jim norton sent another message so we're missing the mark and he's concerned as far as not having a full-time band and chorus director on 7-7 christine rogers she had questions concerns about crt and was inquiring as to whether or not we were going to discuss crt at our meeting i believe that was responded to her also on 7 13 we received a message from rich losala state rep and selectmen letting us know that the meeting that occurred yesterday was a private meeting on private property school members are not allowed and not welcome to attend on 713 sherry fay concerns about the new band director at campbell want to get more insight

042if we made the right decision on who is at lms and who is a chs and concerned that the band needs more attention 714 amber fint concerns about the updates of our history curriculum want to know what changes were made if any and in all three schools then it changes were made the last one was from trixie gardner she's on the recommission board and also as a parent she would like us to consider opening the schools back up to the wreck commission and also for the community i believe that was all of them thank you brian let's see um that brings us to superintendent comments am i right on that i'm sorry i lost my question superintendent comments thanks tara um first up we have the message of unity so i just wanted to update

043the board on the message of unity um so the board has a timeline as to how things had happened basically the message of unity as we all know was posted back in june of 2020 it was on our website for well over a year and then concerns got raised and brought to my attention the first person to reach out to me was mr nordike i promptly responded to him um although he said he did not want to talk to me he wanted to talk to board members and then i know that you promptly responded to him uh also so he was in fact responded to regarding that um when it was pointed out that some of the links contained items that were offensive uh we took a look at those and we realized that we

044had made an error the error we made was that we had linked to a document of links and because the document of links then led to a whole series of links the content of which had changed fairly uh drastically in multiple ways since we had made the link so we then immediately took the message of unity off of our website so that it was no longer there and wanted to bring it forward tonight for a discussion about what to do with it [Music] so at this current time the message of unity is not posted on the website and um my advice is that it was a an item that had become stale over time because we had posted it at the point in time where we thought that was the right thing to do um

045but i think to move forward to just i mean there are plenty of articles and items that are on our website that we take down as time marches on and so i'm not inclined to do anything with it um unless the board directs me to do that i think maybe that's a discussion that we can have either at or after our um the community forum on the 28th you know we'll get we'll have i feel like i feel like we'll have a good discussion at that time and decide if we want to reissue a new statement or or just stand by the document our curriculum and our education as it stands and in the meantime you had written that letter of unity for facebook that you posted on facebook right the message i wrote well

046i wrote an update reaffirming that we do believe in unity and equality and promoting mutual respect for all people um that the i did i feel as a as the board of chair i think you know i'm i'm fine if the board is in agreement with me and you can let me know if you're not it's not the letter of unity it was the attack that's what i was about it's always been the attachment from the very beginning they were offensive liz my thought is that we could repost the message minus the resources right because that's one option we repost everything or you can lock off the resources or you can do nothing what i was going to say is is it it was our mistake and out we and since we've learned this lesson

047that whenever we post anything intended for the audience of our staff our students our families that we vet the resources ourselves and create the document in-house so that we take ownership of it rather than relying on an outside resource over which we have no control as is what happens in this situation as soon as we learned about the red flag you know that the the content of that document had grown to something that we do not agree with and doesn't align with our mission or our message of unity we removed it and i think i'm comfortable apologizing for making that that mistake in the first place i wasn't on the board at the time i joined this in march um so i do agree with the forum hearing what people have to say at the

048forum next week before making a decision on this because i would like to gather input from the town i i've obviously heard a lot tonight um and so i'd like to take the time to hear um what our teachers have to say on it i assume that maybe the the presentation will include um our teachers and so um i would say i let's hold off until after we have that form and then we can address it at the meeting following that yeah that's good is that a fine okay all right perfect thank you for that you're welcome thank you for the update student assistance counselor john description yep so i'm bringing forward to you a job description for a student assistance counselor um give me a second i'm going to open it up here i

049just want to walk you through it basically the key thing i'm asking the board to approve are the duties responsibilities and minimum expectations that are listed this is a position that we want to offer so that if there is a student at campbell high school who is found to be in violation of the policy relative to substance use at school that they would as part of the consequence they still would receive the discipline code consequence but they also would have an opportunity to meet with a counselor to attempt to do the necessary work to prevent this from occurring again so in the past we've had a what i consider kind of a punitive response we discipline but then the child comes back and there's not always a an opportunity unless the family pursues it um

050to do the the work that i think is necessary to get back on the right track so the cost of this is relatively minimal and i think it gives us a a much needed tool in our belt to help the students to be on the right path and so we're bringing this forward you'll notice there is also a referral process so it doesn't mean that only students who have gotten in trouble will have access to the counselor um if there are students who self-refer or are otherwise identified by our staff as being able to benefit from this position it's something that we would do make it make available to them so um what i'm looking for is approval of the and it's written on a special assignment form because that's what this will end up

051being so i'm looking for the vote to approve this does our psychologist not handle this our school psychologist is this in their whale house or is it a like a outreach kind of thing this is sort of additional because this is this is something that would be taking place outside of school hours so yes the school psychologist will be we'll be doing this but this is an additional special assignment for after school time is this something that is done at other schools is this a similar position that other districts utilize it is and i'm i'm familiar with a lot of districts that take this approach um it's sort of uh it's the it's sort of like a first-time offender opportunity um if there are multiple offenses you don't get to keep uh having access to

052this but so for example if there was a student who was found in violation of vaping policy um we currently suspend and then they return back this would be a suspension with some time held in obeying spending completion of this program um on a first timer offender only but it's really intended to help the family and the student with resources to reconnect and this would fall under the purview of a counselor we already have in districts so it's it's already it's a staff member of our district already and this is an additional so even though the name is not on here i've had a conversation with mr leclider that there is a new guidance counselor at the middle school who has experience at one time she was a licensed drug and out drug and alcohol

053counselor and so that's the kind of background that we would expect to be brought forward for this okay i'll make a motion to approve the uh job description for the student assistance counselor all second further discussion nope all in favor all right well opposed abstain motion passes 500. thank you for that um so while we're on job descriptions let me jump down to the manager of database and it systems uh so this is another new job description to bring forward there with me here my screen's acting weird okay so if the board recalls i had come forward with the need to sort of realign within the it department um so we currently have a technician who's been hired on the technician will be largely responsible for repair of chromebooks and repair you know pulling tickets

054they get posted and just sort of responding to that piece of it jason is going to maintain as the director sort of all the network security aspects in addition to overseeing the department we now have a digital learning specialist who is starting off assigned at griffin but is a district employee who will be available to help teachers across the district the current thinking is that that person will then go to the middle school later in the year but we haven't worked out all the details on it and then we have in the past had a database person but we're expanding the role um so you can see this is called database and i t systems because as we reshuffle and realign we put a little bit more on the responsibility list for this person so

055it goes beyond just the database you're talking about configuring our system powerschool is a is a wonderful tool um but you're setting things up in powerschool working closely with the director curriculum instruction and assessment to make sure um the powerschool is working correctly and you know creating all sorts of reports and queries that we can get out of the data that we have so this is a realign job description um that was developed in part with jason as the director of technology and the person in the royal league so what really are you doing so that we can make sure we capture it in the job description that's good so you're looking for an approval from looking for approval for that job description to approve the manager database and i t systems job description well

056second [Music] all in favor oppose abstain 500. perfect and then the last item is the gms enrollment and we're actually going into gms programming so principal mitchell wants to join us up here and i'll um let me plug in so i can project this for the room [Music] oh yeah perfect thank you for that [Music] all right so as you know we are very closely watching the enrollment numbers um this is updated as of july 9th last wednesday um here in line 13 are the numbers that result in us if we exceed these numbers then we have to add staffing so the kindergarten number is currently at 84. you'll notice that that's been kind of creeping up as we've been tracking this through may and into june we already exceeded the number so we are

057currently planning on five kindergarten teachers and part of the discussion tonight is how those people will be assigned where the rooms are going to be in the way they're going to interact with each other so that'll be coming for you but five is the number in the first grade you can see that we are at 83 that is one below the cap so we have come very close in first grade to uh the cap of 85. for one day we actually made it over and then we had two charleston screen we're there for a day you can't start adding day by day on the sheet though okay well welcome to my world uh in the second grade we are at 80 students currently so we're still under the cap um the third grade we have

058already exceeded we're now at 89. and if you look at that number it's sort of gone up and down but it has come in at 89 and the cap there was 84. and then finally in the fourth grade 97 is the number because we increased class sizes in the fourth grade and we're currently at 94. so to staff the kindergarten we had and we had a staff member that was no longer needed in the second grade so you know that position goes to the kindergarten and then we are left with the third grade scenario okay under the staffing change call uh row the proposed staffing no the one up at the top it doesn't align with the numbers below so that's why i'm trying to figure out so the the yellow here okay tara if

059you look at the screen this row 12 um that was our projection on what we thought we were going to have to do um and so that was that was the october number based on what we thought we were going to have but that's not the way it has ended up and you can ignore proposed staffing was when i came and talked to you about four weeks ago okay so current staffing is where the staff is where we're looking yeah that's where that's that's how the staff is distributed current staff yes so we're taking somebody from a teacher from second grade and so really the request at this point is to add the third grade because we're over that no we already have that because we had we we maintained that in third grade okay

060got it we're at five we'll stay if i got it sorry my apologies yeah i'm confused by the chart too fourth grade will be at 23.5 students correct class that's a lot first grade has stayed consistent but but right on the edge oh right on the end yeah so three of the classes will be over the recommended 20. it'll be over the recommended but not yet reached the trigger but not yet that's the trigger okay so that's an update for the board then and we're going to keep watching these numbers and um updating them as it comes along so perfect and that is the end of my comments well there you go thank you mike you're welcome um on to general business we have the public minutes from june 14th 2024 oh i'm sorry i

061did i didn't highlight it school board comments i actually have two the first is and hopefully we made ourselves clear um this evening i mean the uproar that we're teaching crt and that's what these folks were here for to like let us know they're not happy that we're teaching crt but we're not teaching crt so again someone mentioned it on the whatsapp page of course i mean that's the bible in this town that someone started it and stirred it and as they've done in a lot of other towns and then it just made a fury of people being upset that we're doing something we're not doing so i just wanted to make that clear the other i had and i might be a little different because of time i just wanted to as a board

062member just because i've had a conversation with others two things one i think we need to start our meetings on time because we seem to have if you look back it's always 5 10 15 minutes and we have the public out there that's looking for us to start on time i think we need to do a better job of that the other i think we need to do a better job of shortening our meetings because i think our meetings have just gone too long and i think we lose focus so i don't know if we're putting too much material in here or if we're just as a board rambling on but i think for the sake of all of us you know to get home to our families that we start making our meetings a

063little shorter i know we have a lot of material to go through but i think there's sometimes maybe we can like move to another meeting or minimize when we do have speakers how much time they get to speak okay thank you for that input anyone else [Music] i guess just i would like to say that it troubles me that when issues when there's a perceived issue that um they're not addressed when they happen um you know i think it somehow escalate and come to the school board and i just would invite people to i mean this is how you try to work out problems with family members with friends like you address the people directly and try to resolve the problems directly and it doesn't doesn't help the situation to bottle it up you know

064come to the appropriate person first and if that doesn't work we have this we have you know steps that you that that issues can be escalated and you know and believe me i mean the few years that i've been on the board a lot of issues have been resolved and i mean that's basically his job to resolve issues that's how i see it he puts out fires constantly mike i'm referring to you um and you know i i know there are a lot of um you know i guess um you know they're past everybody has their passions right but um you know i don't think this board is afraid of um you know hearing concerns at all i think we want to um you know i think we i believe that we have the we

065do things with the best intent and um you don't know us you don't know that but you should know that and um you know i i just think communication is extraordinarily important and not just on facebook come talk to us we're around we're available we're real people we have we have kids in the school system we've lived here for years and years and years you know they're our neighbors and our friends um so it's it's troubling when things are raised online that aren't true and um you know all we ask and maybe i was speaking on behalf of the board i shouldn't be but i think i am i think everybody would agree that we would we want to be approached you know talk to us about your issues and talk to the appropriate people

066and then if you don't get it if the it's not resolved in the way you you feel it should be raise it up but um you know please talk to us i'd like to add that i really hope that parents are taking active roles in their children's education i was shocked by some of the things i heard i'm not happy i think people know where i stand on a lot of things you know what your child needs you know what your hot buttons are and i can't stress enough ask your kids how was your day what happened in school today what did you discuss because i'll tell you my kids got the third degree when i started hearing everything and i heard things i liked and i heard things i didn't like so i was

067very anxious to hear both sides of things today i really stress the parents need to tell mr lonegan cece mr jetty tell mr lick lighter cc mr jetty to make sure cc all of us to make sure it's not just brushed under the rug and festering because there are certain things i don't want my kids being indoctrinated with i want to raise my kids the way i want to raise my kids and i could provide a counter argument so please let us know before it turns into a snowball of craziness if i can just add something to that because tyra touched on a lot of it there's so much misunderstanding or misrepresentation on facebook that just festers and people get all and arm and i'll give a perfect example i saw like two days ago

068or yesterday that and it was through one of the threads i think from crt it started there and next thing you know they talk about face mask and the jetty's making him wear a face mask and that's how it starts and it just keeps going from there that i will never comment on facebook for that reason because my words can be twisted it's not the best company that says they have to wear a mask it's jetty who's making them and then someone commented well if they have to wear a mask now then they can have to wear in october and then my kids aren't going to go to school well that was rex that's all good it doesn't that's what i'm saying it just festers into all sorts of things if someone's concerned over something

069like a face mask just reach out to them reach out to the principal of the school and inquire reach out to the siu and talk to dr jetty rather than this person being upset that someone has to wear a face mask when the child didn't have to wear face masks and just you know you know to piggyback off what everybody is saying you know what's happening at a national level does not necessarily mean that that is happening at the litchfield level our i mean and and you know just discourse and sharing of concerns and answering questions is how we do things in litchfield that's always been the case um you know the nea has pushed this agenda and but our lea has not you know we we don't control what happens at a national level

070we have no you know we don't have that kind of power if you consider this job a powerful job which i certainly don't it's a service job i find it concerning that they sent money to that i find it very concerning which the lea is part of do i expect our teachers to do that no but the fact they're funding and having play on it is disturbing but i i we can be disturbed about that on a national level but there's no founding on it at a local level and that's where our control is we control you know that's where that's what the best thing about our schools is is we have local control over our curriculum over um the teaching practices over the resources that we that we teach in our schools and parents

071have a part to play in that in in being like you said an act active member of their child's education um so just because you're hearing in the in the news at night and you know it's happening on a national level doesn't mean it's happening within our walls maybe it is and that needs to be addressed certainly but the best way to do that is to is to let us know and let's work together on it anybody else i'm sorry that was a one long comment from just about everybody on the board okay um minutes minutes thank you brian june 14th 2021 make a motion to accept the minutes as written second any discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed abstain five zero zero i'll make a motion to approve the june 30th minutes

072second all in favor opposed abstain passes by approved five zero zero and now we're into gms programming so i've invited uh principal mitchell and our special services director miss bandurski to come tonight and just talk about how we're really looking at the continuity of services between the preschool and the kindergarten in grade one um you can talk about the way we've aligned things teachers locations etc best utilization of the building and the best way to service students so um oh sorry um i'll actually start with um just the literal kind of building geography um aspect of this and going back to the enrollment numbers obviously we're adding a fifth kindergarten and right now our kindergarten is in what i kind of refer to as the four-pack modular so we need to find a way to

073get a fifth one and so we have the four pack and then we have the two pack which is the preschool and so um what we're doing is actually moving to kindergarten into the two pack and remaining three in into in the four back that way the fifth teacher is not out there on an island um there's still a partnership and they're in close proximity and so what that does is that divides up the preschool so um one preschool room will fill that fourth and the fourth back and the other one will move um into the building into what referred to as room 25 which is this really kind of strange building that you can only get through through like other rooms but it exists there and it's actually the perfect place for a preschool

074program and they have previously actually inhabited it so um what that did is divide and so now um then i just want to talk a little bit about how we looked at our student population because as much as we can advertise we have a strict three-year-old program and a strict four-year-old program and it moves into a kindergarten program and goes into a 1-4 program oftentimes our student needs in the current population don't allow it to be that fluid and so we met um with mr bluey and one of the mrs beaches um to discuss back in march or april to look at the student population and how that would make sense for next year and that's not atypical we do it every year so every year we're assessing the needs we have varying program approvals

075so that we can shift and morph to meet the needs of the students so we have um you know program approval for a special education preschool we have early childhood programming we have a developmental delay program but we also have certification requirements and we also have restrictions with the grade span and the developmental levels that can be within a program so every year we have to look at our student population and the needs and then make adjustments so i know there was a question that was raised about preschool programming and the shift so there's more information that i can provide in non-public because i don't think it's appropriate now but just to say the the movement that we're making um is to meet the needs of the students um and so it'll perfectly align for

076this year will it continue into the following year that'll be a discussion that we'll have this upcoming year but that's how it's always been at the preschool because we're a small district um so we have to look at our resources and number of students coming in how many students do we have in the three-year-old and four-year-old programs i was just i didn't i never knew is that in the enrollment or are they lumped together um so the the so for total capacity for our three-year-old program um we will have two three-year-old sessions and we can have we can have 15 students um in each of those sessions so we have to make sure for our early childhood programming that it's it's a 50 50 split at best meaning students with educational disabilities and non-identified students

077um and then this year for four-year-old programming we will have one four-year-old program and so there'll be a total of no more than 15 students so now how that is going to look out and a look in the schedule is so um santa claus mrs deployee is going to basically run what we're considering the threes and the fours so the threes will be in the morning a monday wednesday group and a tuesday thursday group and the fours will be in the afternoon and so what's what this beach is going to do is actually going to cover a student population that spans threes fours and current kindergartners so that she can have a bit more of a targeted approach again i can discuss this more in non-public um and so what make going back to where

078i started this it would be mrs beach's room that would be in the four pod uh integrated physically within within the convenience structure it was a way that we could meet the needs of our student population while still opening up the same amount of slots as we have um in the past so it's still available to the same amount of students four days for fours uh two days alternating days for threes so it's a four-day program what did they do on the fifth day well um so are we gonna talk about that non-public no actually you know what i i can actually say this i can say this um in public so um the fifth day so first up for there will still be kindergarteners so that kindergarten population still gets serviced on the fifth

079day for the threes and fours the way that that's programmed out um it is so timed crunch that there are um there is resource work so for instance new referrals um that work we've done a friday as well as there are actually requirements of the cba that can't be met in the time crunch of the four days so those cba requirements only the teacher works five days the power doesn't work five days no oh okay nowhere yes so sorry the powers are associated with students so the students are there the parents are there but if the students aren't there like on tuesdays and thursdays or whenever they're not there the powers aren't there just the teachers which paris the third or fourth year old paris work four days no come on friday they're working five

080days but there are no students on wednesday there are that was last last that was last year so so the three-year-old is going to be monday tuesday thursday friday yes monday monday wednesday tuesday thursday and friday is a resource because there are students that come in they're a number of students friday mornings and they're full time what do they do in the afternoon then is it a full day program they're they're morning students or afternoon students yeah and the other half of the day will meet the um the obligations and the contract every other day off for whatever there's no day off i think we need can we can you make us a nice color-coded yes with some friends just color it in yeah [Laughter] so before you go any further what is mrs beach

081doing now mrs beach was strictly basically the force so this past year the fluid was three threes speeches was not invisible yeah how many students have we serviced pre-covered because i think our number went down did our number go down enrollment during covid for preschool for tuition paying students and women went down yes because we limited the amount and then we slowly rolled in but a number of those actually had to find other the number the number of spots for three-year-olds will go back to pre-coveted times the number for four-year-olds um will be will not be what it was beforehand because we only have one four-year-old class here is that based on student need so there isn't enough need for a second four-year it's it's based on the student need as we know it right

082now sure okay um and going in so we have we have other needs that popped up so we need to use the teaching staff um in different ways so that limited um how many preschool um could do that before [Music] but deploy is doing a four-year-old program in the afternoon in the afternoons oh that's okay for four days a week and then just so flash forward to when you get to towards the end of the year and you start resourcing like what we call the baby threes um mrs beach will take those on you can go into the preschool and leave with a huge time i think if we could see it that would be helpful so eventually when you know yeah i can i can clean up the paperwork i have so you can

083actually i'm a visual learner and much like the numbers this will be you know at this time yes all right okay have all the students been notified that we'll be enrolled in that program yes okay yep letters went out mid-may okay i think i appreciate you know the the kind of look at the program and is it meeting the needs of our kids and making adjustments where you need to i think that's i think that's great to support that do you need anything from us at this time or was this just this is this uh dr jetty reached out to me with some questions and we thought the best way to answer is just kind of in this general forum so okay does anybody else have any other questions thank you thank you you're all

084sterile all summer too oh nice so next up bye i'll be staying for the special special education procedures plan oh okay all right got it all right you get to hear from you again so next up we've invited uh principal likelier to come in and talk about the middle school schedule so um before we get into it i just want the board to understand that it really was a partnership uh ms whitman had done a lot of work to sort of figure out how to make things operate i played gentle nudger on the side of here's what the contract says can we verify that we're meeting this aspect of the cba in that aspect of the cba et cetera ms thayer and principal glider who best understand the way middle schoolers move through the schedule

085they then had to take sort of that uh broad sketch that we had provided and put the details in to make sure that everything evened out correctly and that everybody was getting uh getting the programming so there's a lot of really really good things about this and i just want to be clear that um you know the board has been asking us for asking us to examine this and we're delivering it to you tonight and so um it's a longer day it's more time on instruction there are tweaks being made to the best program our teachers are going to be fully engaged with students throughout the day there are some things about it that you know oh i don't like this part i don't like that part but you have to look at the overall

086picture of what the board has been asking us to deliver and we're going to walk through how we're doing it with this so there's your setup tom you got to dig in i thought everybody was here tonight um okay so i did for my my own sake and organization just to flow uh through this i did have a link on there is there any way michelle that i can um help present that just here just connect okay if you have something different they've already seen the board has already seen this and we can take questions at the end that's all you get okay all righty okay there's our links right there um it's a beauty yeah all right so um as dr jetty said uh a lot of different moving parts in um in arriving

087at the schedule and uh i'm really excited about the benefit uh ultimately to our students and uh to their learning and and uh the outcomes that that we see is really positive uh for them uh through a lot of different tweaks in different areas so main goals balance simplicity personalization professional collaboration those each of those four things um are sort of going to thread through the the presentation as you see the details of the schedule tonight um but i just want to touch on each one so in terms of balance um you might know and especially if you have kids at the middle school that the schedule was not balanced in terms of grades five through eight and we play this wiggle game between the two because there are different standards for five six and

088seven eight in terms of time so there's some challenges there this provides much more of a balance five through eight it also gives us much more simplicity so there are less switches there's less um going from one thing to another um it's it's uh with that balance and with the simplicity i think for students for staff um and you know last year through covid we certainly lived through the remote and the and the in person and i think it highlighted some things in the schedule that we needed to take a look at um personalization it's a it's a word you hear hear a lot right now in education um sorry i hope that's not gonna do my schedule okay uh personalization so really looking at each student um and it is gonna be you'll see

089uh later this summer one of our goals to really focus on how are we gonna personalize but not just saying it but how we're going to track the personalization of our students and then professional collaboration is as you know we have common team planning time as a major part of that teachers are working together collaborating on student learning and last year being what it was it was a challenge to keep sometimes that focus on what does the data tell us what are we doing well and if it's not working what do we need to tweak and change so that so that we're back on course so those dialogues and those conversations in plcs is really important and this schedule will give more support to some of that all right so again when when i get

090the last few slides you'll see this tara for those visual people you'll see this um in a in a sheet kind of a format but um students are now going to enter at 7 15 and they'll have that same leeway in the morning to get to their first period first period will begin at 7 22 and then um the dismissal will be at 205. so um if you go down a few bullets what that means in the end is that the instructional minutes per day increase from 6.25 to 6.75 at first that may not seem like much but when you multiply that out over the course of a year it's actually pretty significant in terms of not only the number of minutes but actual days that we that we gain just with that that change

091average class size and i say average because if you crunch the numbers you're going to find there are little inconsistencies in terms of the actual minutes but in general average class size 53 minutes lunches lunch for grades five grade five is 30 minutes and for uh six seven and eight is 25 minutes um and that in part is due to the cba so um we're able to work that into the schedule and you'll see that again on those last few slides um on the visual uh dismissal will begin at 205 with afternoon announcements followed by buses departing from lms for chs by 2 15. and that's a reasonable amount of time uh to get our students out and on their buses um also in the morning this schedule will still and and does probably better

092provide for the the students to eat breakfast and uh we're looking at more of sort of a grab-and-go model for that so that they hopefully this year hopefully the guidelines are really sort of loosened a little so that they can actually be eating uh more regularly in their classroom areas hey tom this might be a question for michelle but do we have any idea when they're gonna start picking up i will have an idea in about a week or so yeah the sooner we can notify parents this is going to be a shock for some parents yeah we're going to see a lot of pajamas we're going as fast completely understand but if assuming right now buses start picking up approximately a half hour but i would say about between 6 40 6 45 it

093depends on how much just ballpark i will hold you to it but i just i think that's helpful information okay and i think that's going to be communicated anyway very soon so thank you so are we changing the high school also we are combining okay lms middle school and the high school and i've already asked um the administrative assistant at the high school to collaborate with me on kids that she believes will be driving so that we can get a close as an accurate account i don't want to put more than 10 high school students on a bus if we could help it so that we can keep the balance of those seats for middle school because i don't know how many kids are going to be driven or i'm sure there were more last

094year that were driven than not so i'm not really sure about that so we're just going to plan like everybody's going yeah ridership in the morning is definitely typically it's larger numbers in the afternoon due to co-curricular sports okay moving on to some programming notes um so as i mentioned the balance the simplicity the consistency grade five to eight content will be science social studies language arts math there will be a best block but it will be very much modified and look quite a bit different this year um because it is actually going to be considered a class where there's going to be intentional deliberate services support instruction during that time um for both support and also enrichment along with a planned movement break which we've talked about a little bit um the importance of

095that and that's also actually part of our wellness uh initiative is that students are given that that opportunity during the day for for movement um unified arts continue to be an exploratory experience and the goal is to over the course of their four years at the middle school give them that exploratory experience in in our ua program [Music] they'll have the choice to join band and or chorus each grade five through eight and again you'll see this as i get into each grade level uas will all run again the balance and simplicity where they're all running for semesters so that's consistent across the board and um and there'll be a rotation like i said for each grade all right so this is grade five and you can see the four content areas that i mentioned

096the two unified arts ua1 ua2 chorus is going to be combined grades five and six and there will be a grade five band so specific to grade five band we talked to miss late about um beginners in band really important that they have their own separate class so they can learn the instrument and and orient to the band program will she also be doing like in the past she's taken students like section at a time or instrument at at one time to do like individual like individualized that's what best should be for individuals right there'll be some opportunity for that i mean the band is going to be the band so it will be all the students are combined together for the band program some of them i think still do lessons um right individually

097right but she'll be able to take students to do that but as long as mrs late is okay with that i've got another screen that i that i can look more specifically at her schedule but um yeah she there will be some level of availability for that but she doesn't have a best with every grade level okay so right but i think especially in fifth grade is you know because typica in traditionally sixth grade they have a band seventh grade they have a band but in fifth grade it's really that teaching the basics of the instrument as long as she's happy and can do it then i'm i'm okay with it too but that's one concern it's very important the fifth grade has a separate band so that it's not combined we we we can

098combine chorus but bam yeah oh absolutely yeah yeah um grade six similarly four contents uh the two uas and uh the lunch best blocks one thing to note is we're sort of splitting off the best blockers the lunch is in the middle of that that's a little bit different than the way it's been done in the past but it could be like they get their movement break before lunch or or right after lunch provides that sort of organic flow i think that's important for fifth grade yeah yeah good what is ctp common team plan so that's the plc time the the oh yes okay yeah yeah grade seven uh the four content chorus now is combined seven and eight for uh grade seven and the second ua block at the end of the day and

099then grade eight there is an exception for grade eight because of spanish has so they have five contents the ua block combined seventh and eighth grade chorus and the best lunch so is band for eighth graders considered a ua band for eighth grade band is combined seventh and eighth grade so right so is it a content area or is it the ua okay yeah okay so i remember my boys had to choose between phys ed and an instrument i think are the students going to have to make that choice again well or does this schedule not create that an they will have to age a choice in eighth grade but is that true no it's not the case in in the other grades because there's two ua blocks that's better good yeah cause i think

100that's where you lost a lot of people yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna unplug this just so i can go to the other grade i can get more specific on a couple of things right right you know you're not if you're in the underground yeah that's good yeah i think so plus you've already had all the of the other uas you've already been exposed to all of the other right right right yeah they don't get every ua every year though so there's still a rotation when i say exploratory five through eight it's exploratory over the course of the program the middle school over those four years so it's not especially with semesters there's just not as much rotation so there's just not as many uh if i'm reading this correct under ua teachers is there no

101health taught to eighth graders [Music] because they already had it fifth and seven right so in the past turret yeah so you had a quarter each of the four years okay and now we've had to semesterize it in order to meet sure demands of the contract so uh students will have health in fifth grade not in sixth grade they'll get it again in seventh grade but they're going to get it for a semester so they're still going to get the four quarters yeah yeah okay okay so over the course of their four years they will have a category they're still getting yeah [Music] are they ready in seventh grade to get all the health stuff that they have in eighth grade that's just there's big top big topics in eighth grade well you know what

102i mean first of all what i think seven we're gonna get another crowd here at our next meeting just based on the development of middle school students i think seventh grade is a really important year for health it's one of the reasons why we've run project safeguard over the years because it really a lot of the preventative education stuff needs to be proactive and i think by eighth grade especially the second half of eighth grade unfortunately in some cases it becomes more reactive than proactive so i think it is a critical a critical year i do think it is a change and i apologize for jumping in but i don't know the teacher has reached out with that same concern so so supports that to me and just make sure that oh girl okay got

103it okay yeah because that was a question not so much that she was concerned it was more powerful but there was another benefit mary can you just talk about the facts connections yeah so um part of the way we set it up um [Music] came from live to learn when i i happened to be sitting lisa lisaki was there for a few days and chris rooney was there and they were sitting together and they were trying to distinguish their part of the nutrition units and things of that nature that overlap and um you know being a little bit of an eavesdropper i was i was sitting near them and i heard them talking oh how wouldn't it be cool if we were teaching the same grade level at the same time and we could actually

104do some co-teaching and some some like sharing of resources and and i thought i had been helping work on the schedule at that time and thought fantastic like that's a great opportunity for us yeah um so we did build that in so that health and sciences were um in the same rotation so that kids they had that opportunity they had that flexibility to be able to um collaborate and do some of those units together great so they'll have different classes the first half of the year and the second half of the year that's where you're saying by semester by semester yeah oh thank you [Laughter] i just like well you know i expressed at the last meeting it was i mean if you have a kid who's really struggling with a class it's like a

105whole year of really struggling isn't it cumulative you know what i mean it's still cumulative the content area semester eyes is by uh oh okay i got it the question for content that's a whole different schedule [Laughter] [Music] all right great is that everything from you tom do you have anything else can i ask one more question i'm sorry i'm looking at the grade seven so will there no longer be the second math block correct so there will now be there the two teachers now will split the kids okay yeah okay okay oh i had a question to you looking over the um one of the tabs in that document um there were i think for the grade eight there were there was a one algebra class and then there were i think three eight

106math eight classes yeah that varies from year to year based on the recommendation from grade seven that's fine and i i appreciate that my question though is about spanish it looks like we have three sections of spanish one and one section of intro to spanish which seems high just knowing that class well it would be based on rising grades accommodations from grade six and i mean seven i mean grade seven yeah um i know they're two separate completely different areas i just wanted to yeah i was surprised to see that just having followed this class from kindergarten all the way up through grady you didn't speak to they have a high percentage of yeah okay yeah i i think it's important that we just acknowledge the school is doing the best programming yeah yep um

107is that based on uh english recommend like what is okay thank you are there any other significant changes from the current year to this schedule that perhaps we're not calling out so i highlighted the this is the main yeah these are the main main revisions so i'm looking at grade eight and correct me if i'm wrong but there's is tech ed considered a ua or is that considered content because i see five content blocks but if spanish is in there and then there's the four main subjects where's that fifth where's lit tech where's that fifth content or sixth content right right am i language arts math science social studies lit tech spanish yeah english so eighth graders are gonna get happier lit tech and a half year of their semesters i what was the other

108one lit tech and language arts so historically it was a double now it's going to be a split it's spread out okay yeah and that's just the way that our curriculum they've divided the curriculum over the years has been more literary sure uh and more informational texts in this way would be great if we could change the name of lit tech to something that is that will come before the board we um i i haven't even talked to tom about this to learn um that it was it was informational informational learning it's fine i forget what yeah what he mentioned to me and martha and i have been talking so i need to bring that through perk and go through the formal process with it yes i think that will be a lot of results

109yeah change it because of the fact that lit tech is not reflective of what it is right and this is prior to one to one that that it was the attack yeah it's a whole different yeah yeah yeah well i appreciate that thank you any other questions no all right looks great thank you yeah thank you for tackling this nailing everybody who had a hand in it i think it's great i'm excited for best the kids can make up tests kids can work together kids i think it's such a useful time so teachers aren't chasing kids after school and it's awesome one thing i didn't mention is that you might have heard mrs woodman talk about um we have some additional technology this year that's going to enable us to schedule it more personalized scheduling

110around student needs so awesome we're looking forward scheduling yeah do you need approval from us or is this kind of an update it was more of an update but you know and and we um we sort of were waiting for tonight to get messaging out to families i mean it's been in public session a couple of times but now the actual times are nailed down um and so the next step is to let families know because you're dropping your middle schooler off at 7 15. so that's right that's a change in household routine and um individual sketches will come out late august before i would say early to mid august okay if martha's watching she's probably having a heart attack you just signed her up for that didn't true you actually what we're trying to

111coordinate is that we remember everybody this year is going to get the email to confirm all the data that we have on you your your email address your home etc schedules will be released at the end of that i believe so we sort of are holding that back because we will then get 100 of people completing that request um with a schedule waiting behind it so it's sort of a carrot stick to be honest to make sure that we get the other pieces that you're not getting 55 forms home at the start of school because you'll have re-verified some of that so yeah we're doing everything we can to make that nice and tight and packaged great and i did just want to i guess i already brought it up but i'm going to reiterate

112it again because i didn't talk during school board comments so now i'll get my comments in um i will the sooner we can get the bus schedule out for parents i think the better is particularly with this new start time like you said it's going to be new routines in the morning i think people need to plan whether or not they're going to need before school care for their kids what that's going to look like and people are starting to think about that now so again i know you're working on it michelle's working on it i appreciate it i think the sooner we get that info out the better so if anything this will probably benefit those parents that need morning help because we get them earlier exactly so tom i just did roughly like

113because not knowing how many half days there are but it's about 85 hours you pick up that sound right yeah it was in the 80s i don't know wow like what 10 days of school at least yeah more than that yeah i mean 30 minutes over 80s yeah pretty significant yeah excellent thank you that's great thank you all right any other questions or comments thank you all right thanks tom okay um that brings us to budget transfers fy21 this is from i so uh mrs vicki is under the weather tonight so he is not with us there is a long list of budget transfers and um these go back to march is it michelle so um if there are questions that we can't answer we'll just postpone voting on these i don't yeah i need

114them approved by the board for the auditors otherwise we will be okay so if there are questions we will try to get you answers asap okay i'll make a motion to approve the budget transfers i'll second it i don't feel comfortable approving the budget transfers okay since he's not here to explain anything you have questions i guess what i'll do is take a list of questions so that we can have him were there any items like it just says like 125 000 11 000 reclass of transfer cpf so those are just things he's capital project fund the capital projects so that's all the money that we appreciate at our meetings he just took them out of those line items and put them into the capital project fund that's the 810 000 yes so that that

115basically shows you how he scooped up the 810 000 out of which accounts had although that's on that's listed separately mm-hmm where's that oh no no no that's the total all the negatives that are above it every time up into that positive 810 000 and these are the accounts or the line numbers they're coming from that's correct i wish there was a column for just a description of the line i know i know right yeah you you have to you have to know the code you have to sit in the budget and say yeah well actually i gave on those in the school board an um yep listening so that they could compare to do you know what the text programs are they're probably where's that on which page um what number uh hold on

116page three i was just curious what the text programs are it's ten thousand dollars so mary you may know that it's ten thousand three twenty five math books it was for our the renewal of our cane sorry renewal of our 6 12 big ideas yes i'm on perk i know that yeah she was just testing you man yes good all right that's fine i'm fine to vote now okay any other questions all right um car made a motion it was seconded so all in favor all right opposed abstain five zero zero um next we have the audit questionnaire this is a questionnaire heidi that we fill out every year um so i i read the questions and i check the boxes and then do we all sign it you sign it on be happy i

117sign it on behalf of everybody lucky me all right so to the members of the school board this document is an integral part of our auditing process in order to assist us with gathering information necessary to understand the entity and its environment in connection with this year's audit please answer the following questions concerning your knowledge of the districts or sau's financial procedures and return to plaza can sanderson our auditors as soon as possible number one is do you have any knowledge or suspicions of fraud affecting your entity no no have you received any communications from employees former employees regulators or other others alleging fraud no no have you identified any specific risks of fraud within your entity no no has the board adopted a universal code of ethics for members and employees to follow yes

118um does this document prohibit elected officials and employees from doing business with the entity no yes uh it doesn't prohibit you have to disclose yeah right yeah i think we question everyone every year yeah we do yeah have you or any related party of yours had any interest direct or indirect in any of the following transactions or pending or incomplete transactions since july 1. so the first one okay to which this sau school district or or any retirement savings pension or other similar plan was or is to be a party before we a party of any of these things and notice july 1 of so it's a full year well you're back sale purchase exchange or leasing a property no i don't know right receiving or furnishing of good services or facilities no no transfer

119or receipt of income or assets [Music] no no okay maintenance of blank of bank balances sorry as compensating balances for the benefit of another no other transactions if yes please describe below okay never mind it's not yes does the board formally authorize all disbursements both vendor and payroll prior to the release of funds yes we do um describe how the board stays informed of the latest changes in the laws and regulations pertaining to the entity monthly by legislative updates my pen's running out i'll fill it in later dates from our reps yeah on occasion once they come along yeah thank you um look at that that's a great one does the board review comparative reports of estimated and actual revenues and appropriations and expenditures yes yes we do what procedures does the board follow in

120reviewing or using these reports we meet with departments heads as part of the process right does the board review both the revenue and expenditure reports yes the prior number seven said if yes how often are reports and so i don't know at every meeting i mean they're reviewing every meeting okay i'm sorry um monthly meetings [Music] just writing for number eight that we re meet monthly with the businesses trader and have reports has the board approved a disaster recovery plan yes yes yes but i recognize is there a written investment policy adopted yes we just saw that one recently didn't we um may of 21. okay have you adopted either the use of debit or credit cards by employees yes yes and then we'll provide a copy of that policy which we also just reviewed

121does the board have knowledge of any funds or bank accounts that are not in the custody of the treasurer no no no yes student activity oh good yes that's not in the that's not in the custody of the treasure where are those are uh although although the money in those goes to the general fund doesn't it you're right it's not in the cut it's in the custody of the school administration and this council and the council and the student council so those are not it's it's really the school administrator right okay right okay so um so yes and they know that and it's the student it's the chs or all students and they're in the custody of school administrators okay [Music] has the board approved a fund balance policy in compliance with gsa j e

122j gatsby number 454 yes and we'll provide a copy does the school district essay you have any knowledge of crowdfunding activities what does that mean online fundraising yeah can i right now i i'm gonna learn [Music] i'm just wondering about athletics or any of those they don't do their last year we did identify one for baseball i think it was but i don't think they did it last year i don't think they did it yeah yeah okay so no not within the district right since the world wh of the world health organization's declaration of the worldwide pandemic due to coronavirus how is the board adapted to approving vendor and payroll manifests [Music] reviewing the budget with act versus actual reports continue the same process and making financial decisions same process right is this getting at

123i mean we i assume there was i recall there were virtual meetings at some points during copen19 is that i mean i can think of that's the only exception or change that was made was some things were done virtually i'm um i'm going to say business conducted virtually during meetings but you all still went in to sign the manifest right you all still as i recall it still required a paper right you still had original signatures so yep and that's it for me we need to approve this we just did it i need a minute signed [Music] okay thank you for that signing on behalf of all of us too and it is 14th of july [Music] all right next up on the agenda is our committee reports um budget committee i don't think we

124have met since our last meeting i think we had a meeting after the last meeting of the budget committee we discussed oh that's right because we had a meeting on the third on the 30th right we had discussed um sending um a request to reevaluate the handshake agreements that the prior boards and budget committees have agreed to so i submitted an email i believe i cc'd all of you on it asking whether we can engage in that process i have not received a response and we have not yet met that's a budget committee i don't think we meet again until the end of august yeah so i will keep you posted uh facilities improvement yep we met on july 7th we were updated as far as the beginning of the replacement windows at lms uh

125they were in the process of removing windows to prep the for the new windows once they arrive um decided prep work for the office in conference room at lms also um we are told we have a proposal for kitchen design i believe in 9 500. we had discussion about two oil tanks that were in the ground one at i believe gms and one lms that actually well two tanks but there's a possibility of a concern from the es with the one at gms as far as how it's piping going into the building so it's something that we'll be working with des and try to find happy ground where our hope is that tank will be not needed in another couple years and it's been the way it's been for quite some time so whether or

126not they'll allow us to continue going knowing that we have a resolution hopefully down the road brian if i can just give a quick update on that so we have the meeting with des on monday and they are insisting that we rectify the problem they've offered us a couple of solutions to it but it's going to involve either re-piping on the exterior of the building which will cost several thousand dollars dave is in the process of pricing that out so we'll have an answer by the end of next week another solution they proposed was providing an above ground storage tank um and if you keep it under 1300 gallons it's unregulated so you can just have a 1300 gallon oil tank so we're trying to it's pretty explore the best options well no it'll be

127in that corner it could be in the courtyard so you wouldn't really notice it so there's sort of that bunker that sits in the courtyard and it could be right next to you would utilize a 1300 gallon tank you would disconnect at the big tank whatever wherever that's going and just connect the smaller one that would still service the big tank would still still serve the big room and then the external tank would serve the smaller boiler room so i'm just gonna get quotes and do whatever is least expensive exactly we're gonna do the least expensive but we do have to fix it it will cost money and the last thing we talked about for some time was um we had received from four different architects rfqs for lms and i know keynote and mike

128were going to have discussion with that with with them as far as make a selection and i think that's what we'll be talking about that's saving them that mistake are there communion community members on the facility improvement committee or is there a plan as we proceed farther into this you know the gms project to involve parents and kids this is all yes while working on lms right now yeah well yeah the committee does involve um like steve weber's on representing sons budget committee yeah other community members right but i can tell you uh so just a quick update on where we are with the architects um we reached out to six firms we had five our four firms that submitted i mean awesome proposals we interviewed them yesterday um the committee has a bearing on

129a couple that were seem to be more attractive um and so we're beginning the process of doing safe visits you know we asked them to tell us if we could visit one of your projects what would it be why um and then we're gonna go visit what they said go look at this this is our model so really exciting stuff that's gonna take place in the in the short term future so did you reach out to brian about joining us on the site i did not okay but uh i'm going to be away brian and not able to do the visit so we're going to extend an invite to you as the other member of the committee so um you'll be hearing something sure if you're able to make it it's it's let me know

130when two visits not too far away yeah um but seriously the the firms that came forward in the proposals they had just incredible and they all every one of them were about community involvement building consensus they have proven track records of 80 passing rates on on projects in communities that are similar to ours so um we really felt very energized that they're going to partner with us to make this vision become real yeah and involve the community in the process absolutely did we share those with the rest of the board the proposals yeah i don't know if they'd be interested in seeing them or not did you you got them right because you're on the committee we can certainly share those out there they can at least see like what you're looking what we're looking

131at right yeah and then we can talk further as to why we're you know the goal is to come back and recommend one firm obviously um for the board to vote on but um yeah we can get that folder shared yeah i think we should thank you brian okay so we have the architect proposal for lms you need board action on that says approval it's approval we do um so basically this is this is the second phase of the lms project so this involves all the work that's going to be done to um to prepare for next summer right so we've already got phase one figured out the roof is scheduled um the windows are getting done et cetera but this is the rest of the work that needs to be done and so this

132is daviely's uh proposal all the people that work with dave to make that happen so the mechanical engineer etc is all encapsulated into there so um and we are looking for the board to approve that so we can keep the project going i will tell you that um what we're experiencing with the lag times because equipment's just not available the sooner we can get this specked out and ordered the the better we're going to be able to pull this project off next summer and have lms ready to go for the start of school a year from now all right so i'll make a motion to approve the architect proposal for lms phase 2 from windy hill associates [Music] second any discussion i just one question page 10. exclude under excluded work cost estimates or budget

133estimates do we pay money for those or are they i'm not sure why we why that's excluded like if we want a cost estimate on something is that extra [Music] do you know what i mean page 10 yeah that's from one of the subcontractors yeah yeah i mean it gives you an hourly or hold it yeah they give you hourly rates they're estimating the total c but then i don't know why it says this did make sense to me but maybe they're saying additional cost estimates or budget estimates i i don't know it's a good question we can ask dave that um so basically this gentleman yes he he's worked very closely with in the past um and we've met with him a couple of times on aspects of the first phase of the project

134and they've been i i think it's all included i think it's that if you go back i mean it just they're giving us a cost but we didn't pay for them to develop the cost estimate or budget estimates correct you know because we paid wendy hill associates right for those things yep so you'll notice they've got the additional service rates up above so if you did go back to them um [Music] and and look at the excluded lists i mean it's 15 items long and i think they're just being really clear that we don't do these things um unless you ask extra for that so in the scope of the work [Music] of what they are going to do um and so the quote really is coming from wendy hill maybe that's what they're saying

135right right i mean even though they're the subcontractor okay and honestly dave this this person sort of works for wendy hill so um no okay you know if dave is bringing this forward this this is not going to be a oh and by the way now you don't have any lights you have to pay extra for that i mean this is going to incorporate all of that work into it so okay so um do we want to wait on that or else are you all set tara i'm okay it's just but i mean it's it sounds like we already have the cost for it so yeah or the quote okay [Music] so i forget now did we have a motion yeah yes okay and a second all right i'll any further discussion all in favor

136say aye opposed abstain it passes five zero zero [Music] um and the consultant do you wanna speak to that yep they're with me i gotta get back to my agenda i just shared the folder with the brace so you now have the everything uh so basically we're looking to bring a consultant on board to help us with messaging and to make sure that what we produce relative to why um why the gms project will be important going forward or phase two of the lms project will be important going forward uh so somebody who can help us capture all that so we put a cap on this of four thousand dollars and and also including a certificate of insurance um charlie niebling has a long history of doing this work he's a great communicator and um

137he understands the type of energy work that we're doing and how to explain it to somebody in a way that has them say well that makes sense because it will sort of pay for itself in the long run um so he and dick henry have worked hand in hand dick is more the one who pulls the numbers and then charlie's the one who helps to present the graph in the chart and the visual that will help people to understand it so i have great confidence that um bringing charlie on board will help us significantly with this work all right i'll make a motion to approve the contract for the consultant charlie niebling capped at four thousand dollars with a certificate of insurance second any further discussion all in favor say aye opposed abstain five zero

138zero all right that brings us to new business the special education on committee reports um oh yeah so i have not school time committee is that gonna be getting started or is that still stalled it's stalled okay um we need to get that up and going right at this point our eye is really on next year but with summer vacations being what they are it's just been a difficult thing to get off the ground so but we are going to we are going to get riding with it i was asked by the lea um like the the middle school work that needed to be done um and my my answer the way i'm viewing this is that we're we're sort of positioning ourselves in terms of the combined bus routes etc um but now we

139have to really examine so what exactly is the right start time we make a push back this 7 15 is too early maybe too late um you know et cetera so we'll we'll start to look at it all as we unfold with it and then you know really the question is the um the middle school high school is starting before the elementaries is that the right formula is there a way to do shifts and adjustments but that's a much deeper dive into it sure what time does the high school start now or is going to start this fall so uh the high school starts at 7 37 i believe is the time just like an airplane and they um students will be the buses will be dropping off around 7 25 so the students will

140have an opportunity to grab breakfast and get to class um when they arrive so it's a heck of a lot better than it is now what was it now oh well they get dropped there were kids out that got there at like 10 minutes of seven and waited in the cabin so the staff members yeah this is much improved yeah definitely okay devon so uh devin's gonna walk you through the special ed procedural plan that we have been asked to develop um and then we have a couple of really good news letters that we want to share with the board so that you know where we sit relative to the ratings that we have from the state so that's good okay so the special education um procedures plan was shared with you and so what

141i'm looking for with that is approval of the updated plan um the last time that the board approved one in its entirety was about 2011. um so in creating this one south central directors um we have meetings we utilized a similar template so that there's consistency um amongst the districts and followed not only the federal regulations but the new hampshire regulations so there's a lot of of reference to laws and information um about the law so everything in here is compliant with what our legal responsibilities are at this moment um so there were changes in 2017 2018 so right now it includes everything up until that point um so i have a memo that i can share i had printed it out and i forgot it on my desk but it's a memo from the

142doe that just summarizes the the changes from 2017 a lot of it is around timelines um and different compliance things that had shifted so that's what's updated in here i didn't do a like side-by-side compar comparison on what changed from the 2011 document to this one because i didn't use that as a reference it sounds like it's entirely different so that's okay this is the new thing what [Music] so as as updates were made and laws were changed we have followed it just what was written on paper said something different so it's just bringing it oh okay so you say you collaborate with other districts so was this put together from those other districts that they used utilizing the same one so we we talked about utilizing a similar template because it's all referencing federal

143and the state regulations and then we um we individualized it for the districts for for certain policies that we have um costs for for making copies different things okay so different different districts have additional resources so they would add that information here so but the main frame is the same mainframe is the same so that there's consistency um so i don't want to bore you it really is the special education process um and what we have to follow with respect to the current laws i don't know if there's any questions i don't have any i think this is pretty comprehensive and it's nice to have it updated and all in place and compliant with state and federal guidelines and we followed it just you've got this paper thing sitting in a binder that right right

144you need to be dusted off and overhauled exactly motion to approve the special education procedure plans a second one any other further questions or comments [Music] nope all right hearing none all in favor oh we're voting hold on hi opposed abstain five zero zero you have approval now you may speak uh the other two documents that were attached or more for your reference um so there was district determinations and just a disproportionality um which we did well in so great yeah great job so zero's are good right i was gonna happen i looked at it i was like what excellent when i looked at it at first yeah it's like golf right zero was a good thing you don't want to see a one yeah yeah no great job really work we've only had one

145year um where we didn't have since i've been here that we didn't meet requirements there was a number of years um prior to but it was timeliness of evaluations um and there was just a couple of um of other things so it wasn't it wasn't major yeah um but most of the errors were out of our control there weren't things that we could fix so we just addressed it and do better next year is that done every year yes yeah okay just point out how old how far behind they are in looking at these it's like you're done with your year last year and they take a whole other year to look at the state takes a whole other year to grade it and they reference data points from different fiscal years too so there's

146there's data that's called from 1819 there's other points that are pulled 1920. oh you mean school year 2018 to 2019. i'm like way back to 1819 i don't even think we had a school's district back though i gotcha it's been a long night um and so they reference different data points to pull their their information but that's how it always been so important to point out i mean that doesn't just happen i know the board knows this but you have to have somebody who's leading the charge in special services coordinating with staff every single staff member along the line has to be doing their part to comply and make sure they're on top of it all you know it's a huge undertaking and it's really an accomplishment for us to celebrate because when you get

147that report you know if it's the other way around what happened and but here we're not we're saying keep it up yeah it's good stuff so thank you for your leadership with it good job all right we have policy for review only um did everyone have a chance to read through policy j i c j i c d j i c d d and j i c k no i did not read them because it says policies pending admin feedback so i didn't think that they were i read finalized so we're letting you know that basically there have been a lot of changes relative to the law with student discipline these policies are going to they have been updated based on the um the school board's recommended policy so they're different than what we have

148now um i want our admin team to really kind of take ownership over this and make sure we got them right so i've scheduled a meeting for um not next week but the week after and we're going to sit and go through that and devin i'm looking at you i think you ought to be with us except i goofed didn't i okay we'll talk um but we want to make sure that we've got good input on that um before we bring it forward to the board so our goal is to bring it back on august 4th um but we will make sure that all the stakeholders have a voice in it and that is worded the way it needs to be so if you've read it it's not a waste of your reading at all

149because we would redline anything that our team is recommending so you would kind of get it in that format okay so that brings us to policy's second reading i'll make a motion to approve policy gb ebc gb ebd gbi gbj and gbgd for second reading [Music] any discussion or questions hearing none all in favor all opposed abstain five zero zero um and we have one policy to rescind policy gcaa highly qualified teachers make a motion to resend gcaa well second all in uh any discussion questions all in favor post abstain five zero zero if i could just clarify for the public um because the no child left behind act is no longer in effect you no longer have to follow a highly qualified teacher policy of course we have highly qualified teachers you know right

150we're not rescinding the need to have highly qualified teachers it's just the legal aspect under the former law that's being centered that's a highly qualified teachers with capital letters instead of highly qualified teachers right with lowercase right thank you for clarifying that um old business coronavirus review and update yeah so the current situation update so i was asked to get a summary of what we saw this year as you know posted on our website we've got the monthly play-by-play of exactly how the cases went day by day um and so we did a capture summary because you it's hard to figure out well how many students is that when you've got the ones and the twos and the ones and so forth so this is a summary report based on the number of student positives

151that we encountered in each of the schools and district-wide obviously students don't apply um and then the number of staff positives that we encountered and district-wide so um overall we had a successful year i don't know how to compare that i don't think you know unless somebody else had data to this effect um actually my husband's a data geek and he's been tracking um well he's been tracking the data on the um that was on the new hampshire's uh dhhs school school dashboard um so he'll be interested in seeing this so thank you you're welcome so when you say teacher cases are those positive cases or those that have to quarantine those are staff positives so the number of people who quarantine must be tested yeah if we did quantum teams it would be way

152higher than this so this information is available for the public to see through the attachments to the school board any materials materials we just haven't said the numbers out loud so i'm just i would say the numbers out loud anyway and i can put this on the coronavirus page so it's easier for them to find i i think if we add it there as a summary so let me read it so griffin reported that there were 27 student positives throughout the course of the year and there were 17 staff positives lms reported 18 student positives and 11 staff campbell reported 23 student positives and eight staff and district wide we identified three staff who were positive those are staff members who either go to all three buildings or work in the sau uh they either

153work in the district or they could have nope because some of them could be district staff who are assigned to a specific building so okay pull them out of the staff number for the building because they really were district personnel i see okay all right thank you for that update how many total staff do we have and how many kids again in our designers like close 111 it depends i'm i'm at 200 um and then it really depends so are you trying to do a percentage or yeah because i looked at the state stats and it looks like it looked like about seven percent of the state was has tested pot and i was curious just did did we get it did that work did we get it last you know and what does that

154mean yeah but how do you keep the kids that weren't in school out of the equation they shouldn't count in the equation in the past in the average yeah these are cases that were reported right right now it's a lot of so we're roughly 5.6 if you do the number of student positives divided by 12 11 which is what somebody right so actually also keep in mind since we're in session and a lot of schools weren't right that's true but we were lower is that interesting we were lower i think for staff was higher though yeah but the state also didn't break it down by age groups that's true right this is broken down by eight i know i just was looking at it it's just interesting i was like yeah yeah because i have

155200 staff if you do the staff positives divided by 200 stuff that's 19.5 percent so that's high yeah so i don't know that'd be interesting to see how that we did with by age group interesting yeah just something about yeah how did you get to staff i added up 17 11 8 and 3. oh you know what i'm sorry i just did the formula but i i divided by 200 by 200 yeah yeah so it is closer to 20 of the staff i know so we were pretty high on our staff but low on student but again some of the student population was 100 percent remote what that number would be i i don't know but how many of these staff people got it outside of the building because i can't think of six of

156them we'll never know it doesn't matter just teachers this this includes all staff it would be interesting to compare with surrounding districts and see how they did yeah comparable you know hopefully we never have another pandemic right i know right speaking of just which to point out i mean staff positives means they confirmed it with a doctor's note these weren't self-reports these were confirmed so i am i'm a little surprised at the number being um where it is but we also know that there were uh a higher number of asymptomatic children just because of the nature of the way covet went so you know that could also mask some of the numbers if you're comparing the seven percent which includes adults yeah if you compare just kids to kids yeah that's what happens yeah well

157and i think it makes a lot of sense gms is the school where we have younger kids they're more touchy they're more you know there was you do your best with distance and masks but you do your best and so you know that part of it makes sense to me that there'd be that'd be the school that i would have the highest number of positives and the highest number of staff positives i think it's good data to have going into next year um to see what kind of measures we should shouldn't keep and what we should can relax on a bit so speaking of which that moves us into kovacs 21 the reopening reopening plan so let me walk you through this a little bit so if you remember we sent out the first draft

158of the plan it was clearly labeled version 1.0 um and we asked for feedback on it and the feedback really centered around a couple of things masks was a huge thing that the community said they really want us to examine where we are with masking and the other is just the idea of physical distancing like they just want things to get back to as much normal as possible so our admin team sat down we took version one and the stuff that's highlighted in red sort of represents the changes that we have made to version two this is not the final version there's still a lot of time before school opens but we want to update you on it so you can see that when it comes to remote instruction we revise it to say that

159while we recognize that these situations are rare the district will allow remote instruction when school-based teams have determined that it's in a student's best interest due to medical necessity so again we're not saying it's an option available to all families but we are we are recognizing that it does have a role in rare cases where teams can say this is what's in the best interest um that doesn't that means us delivering it i just want to say that you know it's different than if a family were to say well we're going to do some vlax courses or whatever of course we'll work that's a separate policy and a separate way of helping a family out this is really about a student who's just completely on such a plan which a school-based team needs to be

160involved in or if we're feeling that we're going to have our staff somehow interacting then we have to work out how to do that best on the second page of the document we have written that mass will be optional at school when there are low levels of community transmission if local conditions indicate higher levels of community transmission we may require masking i just want to point out that the cdc is recommending the latest guidance that just came out is recommending must be worn by non-vaccinated people yeah by children are vaccinated they will not wear a mask so that's not it will not be silenced this time so further vaccinated students should not wear a mask is that what you do yes i just wanted to make it right so if you look back up i

161didn't highlight this in red because i added the link in blue under best practices we will continue to follow guidelines and recommendations from the center for disease control and the new hampshire department of public health that link goes to the just released uh cdc guidelines and it does say masking by unvaccinated um people it's a personal choice though right no the vaccinating recommendation is if you are going to have students inside how do we know if they've been vaccinated or not well we know that anybody under the age of 12 doesn't have access to a vaccine and then we have to trust the personal responsibility for those who are above the age of 12 that if they have not received the vaccine they should be wearing the mask what does it give me family choice

162or is it gonna be mandate it will be the recommendation will be that if you don't have the vaccine you should be wearing your mask so it's not a family choice it's a are you vaccinated or not we're not going to ask for id cards we're not going to ask for in the elementary school no age 12 up so we're talking i'm sorry do the middle school elementary school do the middle school split for a second that um ages 12 and up have had access to it if you've had the vaccine and you have you have the personal responsibility then to um well if you've had the vaccine you don't have to wear the mask if you haven't had the vaccine you have the personal responsibility to wear the mask because that's what the guideline

163says we're not going to police it we're not going to be checking it we're not going to be having people prove it but under the age of 12 which is currently not access to the vaccine masking is what they're recommending so um that's where we stand right now so we're gonna ask the kids we're gonna monitor the situation and see if it changes because this could change significantly between now and august 30th you know if you look at governor sununu's comments on this he has said there will be a false spike with the delta variant he's come right out and said they're very concerned about this um happening so we're not saying goodbye to more students we're not out of the pandemic and um we're gonna have to continue to monitor this and use best

164practices and follow the guidelines that we're given the kids the teachers are vaccinated i would like to add under the mask section if local conditions indicate higher levels of community transmission we may require masking for for those who are unvaccinated i just would like to have that out there require massive i think for those who are unvaccinated um that's going to freak people out who said that yeah no you just said that if you're a vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask but she's saying it's not written here it's linked to cdc but people are gonna it needs to be explosive however however devil's advocate yeah um you know we're seeing the delta strain and there's a new lambda strain that just has just come out and a gamma strain um that there that

165are all strains of of interest that scientists are following um if if there's a strain that comes up that isn't that the vaccine isn't ineffective we we may receive guidance that we have to mask even if you've had the prior vaccine so i mean it's it's very complicated i think by by saying we will follow the recommendations of the cdc and new hampshire department of health and human services i mean that's all we can do really but we do say here and i might just read it masks will be optional at school when there are low levels of community transmission right regardless of vaccination status so as of right now in summer school is it fair to say students are not wearing masks in school we are it is obviously at this point so that

166is currently the policy because community transmission is low i think what this says is when there is higher community transmission that is when masks will need to be considered based on what's recommended by cdc you are opening up a pivot to remote i'm telling you that right now we don't offer remote but you can't how are we open because if i don't if my kid isn't vaccinated and i don't want him because he has asthma to wear a mask all day breathing in carbon dioxide i'm going to want someone to teach my child i will get a letter that my child has asthma and can't wear them i was like also playing the devil advocate devil's advocate but but we said that if your kid is vaccinated and local i'm talking about elementary school my

167kid is vaccinated he will not wear a mask but he can't be vaccinated if he's under 12. correct there are no elementary kids who are vaccinated right correct but they parents aren't making them wear masks now why should we tell parents whether their kids have to wear masks because right now local spread is low so that right you don't have to wear one right now unless you're in grades one two three four five six no right now masks are optional that's why i just asked before and we said no if you're because under 12 you're not vaccinated so cdc says you gotta wear a mask so suggest you wear them let me explain what i think has happened here the guidance just came out we had made a decision about summer school to not require

168mass based on the community transmission aspect only now all of a sudden the cdc comes out and they say if you're under 12 you should have a mask on inside if you're an unvaccinated i should say um which it means i'd be under 12. we have not gone back to say whoops we got to stop what we're doing with summer school we're already into it the procedures are working and i'm going to say one other thing summer school is very different yeah i'm talking about and i get it about summer school i'm asking come september yep what at this moment and i know it can change next week or two weeks according to cdc would we make them wear maps according to cdc guidelines anybody unvaccinated should wear a mask that is sure just release

169information should that's the guideline that's correct we also haven't heard from dhhs on this we have not heard from dhhs i think i'm just i've said it before but i'll say it again i think at this point and i ain't seeing what cdc saying i mean we've already gone from six feet to three feet um i personally think at this point should be family choice i agree i'm just putting it out there and i realized we still have a long ways off and who knows four weeks it could be something different so i'm just voicing this my opinion so while we're on the mass thing because can you just again that's why i brought it up during public input or after it just once again for the public to know what is the policy right

170now with a child riding on a bus wearing a mask or not wearing a mask so summer school right now not september just to be really clear that uh children riding the bus it's the same thing it's a family choice as to whether they have a mask on because some you know the bus is an extension of the classroom so what we're doing in the classroom is what we expect on the bus the bus drivers we had a meeting with transportation two weeks ago and they are following the federal law for transportation providers which is the drivers are which is the driver be mass when uh students are getting on the bus and getting off the bus so when you walk by the driver they're supposed to have the mask on and until the federal

171law changes and it may have actually i didn't dig into this um cdc guideline there may be something different but i think it falls under um it's sort of like federal carrier laws that apply to all bus drivers train operators whatever that they want the mass when planning well that makes sense even at the doctors and dentists you still have to mask up when you go in there i get that so that's why the drivers you will see with the mask on that's and that's not me it's remember the drivers don't work for us they we contract with first student they work for first student and first student is following that right now any students are on that bus you're not forcing them to wear a mask they don't have to wear a mask no

172okay everyone's saying this jetty yeah judy's fault students are saying that someone posted that on facebook about the driver or about the students they're not wearing if they're wearing a bus it's a it's a personal choice of the family yeah if the email is not updated i would encourage families to update their email in our school thank you so tara i made note of your comment when we come back with version three you know see where we stand and we'll certainly examine whether that's better language to add in and then the last thing is under effective communication we added a sentence in this time that said um we're going to meet weekly so we we did the daily meetings for 180 days we were religious about it to be very honest um i don't think

173we need to do that going forward um and so we're just going to make sure that we have a weekly meeting where you know so we can examine what's the community transmission how are things standing what are you seeing in the schools etc um and we can just handle it from there so there will be that ongoing meeting and that is all i have on this for version three point or 2.0 so if i can ask one more question sure that i mentioned during the correspondence because it kind of ties in the one from trixie gardner inquiring when the schools will be opened back up for the use from the community the wreck and wherever i believe the board has already voted to reopen it yes ma'am as long as i have a plan remember

174as long as i have some kind of plan i just want to yeah the same as i was actually going to respond to her um i didn't do it today i wanted to wait till the board meeting but i was actually going to let her know and send her a copy of it okay the girls on the run plans i know they're making this really you know they're trying to make plans as far as you know where they're gonna play in basketball where they're gonna be practicing in the fall yeah yeah and then we'll have to go through the protocol for access again and all that stuff okay so thanks branch for pointing that out and you have that email i do have that came in right before this all right i have one more

175question on the plan i know i'm a pain sorry um quarantining what happens so if we're not going to be having the synchronous remote instruction except in those rare circumstances that you outlined but there's a student who let's say is exposed somewhere and has to be home for the 10 days are they without instruction that's an awful lot of school for a student to be missing that's i i believe i don't correct me if i'm wrong but that's when we go into asynchronous learning so they receive assignments that are completed at home teacher can check them in on them you know kind of keep them on track like you would do for any prolonged do the teachers know this that's that's my question well it's what we've always done if a student becomes ill you

176send a packet home and so that's asynchronous right you're sending the packet of work home for the student to complete it's been done for oh yeah you going on vacation here's your parents right yeah now here's what i think is different so what we're not going to do is have the truman show where the computer is set up in the classroom and everything is being broadcast live that's that's not going to be done on you know this quarantine that quarantine and another one sure um but we still have the tool and the ability for a teacher to check in with a kid electronically you know on planning time schedule five minutes hey let me check in would you would you need help with this i know a child is going to be out for that

177length of time exactly assignments are still going to be posted electronically and when i say packet it's now a google classroom do they all have a google classroom single one are they being used yes they were this past year i was saying but yes all teachers had to have the google profession that they used and posted on regularly are they going to continue to do so that is what we have our expectation going forward is that is our learning management system and people will continue to utilize it i will tell you that together yeah just because it's over it doesn't mean you stopped using here we had pushback from a teacher who said well wait i thought that was just because of the pandemic no this is how we're going to operate going forward so

178we have training to do we also have a digital learning specialist who will be based at the school to help and assist but i think most of the students right now being accustomed to it that that's their preference yeah yeah i mean that's how they keep track of everything so it is going to be um it's not all yeah when i say packet i just mean that it's the that it might be a packet for elementary electronic packet or it could be a physical packet but um i think we're in a much better spot to accommodate students and with the tools that's gonna be just i just worry because it's just such a long period of time and if it's something that you happen to be in a group that you get quarantined twice i

179mean that that can add up over time being a long time pretty significant period of time it goes back to wearing a mask stay safe well in the my favorite choice um it's not a full two weeks anymore it's not fourteen days is it i mean it's ten days it includes a weekend yeah you know so okay i did reach out to excuse me the state because it was a little confusing when we read it it made it sound like you only had a quarantine if it was with a household exposure yeah but they're using the word household in a broader manner so you know your kid comes over to my visit my kid in my house and our household has it then that's a household exposure so i said well you better fix that

180because people are going to say that wasn't my household it was somebody else's so it doesn't apply um and so we just want to be clear about that all right thank you mike we are right on time i think we should note that by the way all right um that brings us to the manifest any questions comments concerns is everybody signed it who needs to great um we're back to public input community forum we already did it oh you're right you're right all right that brings us to non-public session um rsa91-a colon 311 sections a through c the dismissal promotion or compensation of any public employee or the disciplining of such employee or the investigation of any charges against him unless the employee affected one has a right to a meeting and two requests that

181the meeting be open in which case the request shall be granted b the hiring of any person as a public employee see matters of which if discussed in public would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person other than a member of the body or agency itself unless such person requests an open meeting um i need a roll call vote so tara yes brian yes liz yes heidi yes and i am a yes that concludes this evening you