001Not at the end of day >> [clears throat] >> Good evening everyone. Uh my name is Bill Jender. I'm the vice chair. Matthew is traveling so he will not be joining us this evening. So I'm calling this meeting to order at 602. Please stand and we will start the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nationisible and justice for all. Please be seated. Now move the motion to move us into public hearing. So second any discussion uh vote please all those in favor we [clears throat] are moving into public for zero vote and I'm going to turn this over to Steve Nus. He's going to demonstrate presentation for us. Um, also we have council that will be joining
002us via phone. Uh, Robert Laughman from Sul Lesley here Seawwood and Laughman is our new council and we will bring her on phone to ask answer any questions that are beyond our understanding of this current law. >> Okay. Thank you, Bill. I'm calling Barbara as we should be here. >> [laughter] >> Hi, Barbara. >> So, we're we're just ready. I'm going to do the slide presentation. >> Okay. >> So, I'm going to keep you right over here close to the mic where I'm going to be if you have any there's any questions. All right. [clears throat] Okay. Most of you have handouts. Uh this this presentation's also posted on the on the agenda. So, if anybody needs a handout, just let me know. Uh, so you can actually follow along where you're sitting. Uh, but
003it's identical, literally cut and pasted from the hand the handouts you have to the to the slideshow. >> Barbara, I'm getting a little bit of a background noise. Barbara. >> Yeah, we're getting getting a lot of background noise from the house, I guess. >> Oh, from my house. >> Yeah, let me go. Let me shut the door. >> Okay, perfect. >> I think maybe what you're hearing is my husband watching >> possibly. Yeah. >> Is that better? >> Yes. Thank you. Okay. >> Okay. Here we go. >> All right. >> Here is the uh the proposed warrant article. Again, I shouldn't say propose the draft. Part of the part of this process is to get public input for the board to make, you know, ask further questions and uh adjust if needed. I have asked
004the board to take a vote tonight on on if they if they choose to put this on the on the uh ballot. uh to to take a vote on the on the warrant article tonight. So you can you can you can see it see the paper. Basically basically um what we're what we're being asked to do and we're not the only district in the state. This has been the news a lot. Uh but but you try to come into compliance with the open enrollment law the statute as it exists. Uh, and the bottom line is, um, recently [clears throat] a, uh, a Supreme Court decision with a district, couple districts down in the Lakes region determined that the district that was losing students to an open enrollment school would have to pay tuition. 80 80%
005of their cost per pupil to the receiving school district because they not pass a warrant article like the one that we're going to be proposing for the voters. It sounds a little crazy, but that's that's what happened. There's been a lot in the newspapers, a lot written about it. Um, so in order to not participate fully and at least on at least have some control over students leaving and us being build for tuition, we need to have a we need to become an open enrollment district. In so doing, we also need to agree to accept at least some students. Okay? We can't just say zero out, zero in. We have to at least in this case the opposed warrant article one one student from each building in. Okay. Any questions about the warrant article itself
006before we get into some explanations. >> And Barbara, correct me if I go off the off the edge here and say anything incorrect. That's >> you know you know I'm not vegetable. >> No, you're not. And you know we we that's why you're here to you know so my fragile ego notwithstanding. [laughter] So this is a fact sheet any any any district may adopt the warrant open enrollment statute provided designates one or more schools which we have we designate all three schools. Um and for the purpose of uh the district cannot cannot adapt it for the sole purpose of limiting that we're saying to students who may attend open enrollment school. So we have to allow some in if we say no go out but we still have to to be a viable open enrollment
007district have to allow at least some in again with no expectation of those students coming in generating any revenue. Okay. There's no the way this is set up, they wouldn't have to pay tuition unless the school they're coming from hasn't passed a warrant article like this. So without taking some action, the operative language here, without taking some action to adopt an open enrollment school, the number of students in the district who can attend open enrollment schools located outside the district is unlimited. The RSA, you can see it there. I'll I'm not going to to to read it, but I I want I put it up there uh for for us to look at together if we have questions, you want to refer to any of the language. We do have uh we do have some
008[clears throat] work to do in some of our policies, our entrance, our programming policies. Most of this is driven through the the policy process rather than a warrant article itself. One thing, the last statement there, we we do we do note uh that there is a there is currently a high school out there with open enrollment that does uh is accepting uh open enrollment uh with remote instruction. And then [clears throat] yes, go ahead, Marva. I was just going to add that you know what's happened is um most near Hampshire school I'm not aware of any school district that wants to pay [laughter] um another district um you know any district that has its own high school or schools want that wants to pay another district to educate its students because uh having a handful
009of students um uh because having [laughter] a couple of your students uh disappear into an open enrollment school nearby. It doesn't really save you any money. So, it's simply an additional expense. Um, and it used up until recently, uh, the only open enrollment schools were in Franklin, uh, and in, uh, Alton. So, there was nothing really for Littleton to be worried about to worry about. The problem is that now that the court has issued the decision in the Pixfield case, um, districts throughout the state are worried about or school boards throughout the state are worried about having to pay to send their kids elsewhere to open enrollment schools. So, there are a lot of school districts now uh that are considering war articles this year to adopt open enrollment. Pear search has already done it.
010Um they have their uh they have their deliberative meeting in January because they have a home rule they have a home ruled charter and non-money articles get voted up or down at the meeting in January. So peer search has already adopted open enrollment. Uh and obviously uh there are a bunch of other districts that are putting it on their warrants as well. Thank you, Barb. Okay, we talked about the number. This kind of a key point of district students will be allowed to attend open enrollment schools outside the district. However, the number of students must be expressed as a percentage of your district's current enrollment. Um, so we have that that uh in in our in the warrant article. The o the open enrollment decisions the district makes adversely impact tuition agreements uh or or
011area agreements the district has entered. So we are kind we are kind of paying attention to this with our our career tech a little different animal. We do have a re agreement that that governs that, but we do have some others that we'll have to uh pay attention to come into play here. Enrollments 80% of the sending district's cost per pupil less the tuition. So, so if we had if we had uh leave things as they are, uh students in this district could freely attend any any any other school that has open enrollment. And we we would be paying tuition to the receiving district equal to 80% of our cost per pupil. That would be roughly $24,000 a year tuition per pupil. And this talks a little bit about the the Pittsfield case, how we
012got here. Anything you want to say about that or you can say about that? I guess Barbara 6. Yeah, I think um the Pittsfield case um uh we we believe from and I represented Pittsfield in the case uh we believe that based on the language of the open enrollment statute um both the sending and receiving district had to have adopted open enrollment and since Pittsfield had not done that uh we did not think Pittsfield would have to pay and frankly um we we were not outliers that was what basically I think most school attorneys understood the statute to be. Uh the Supreme Court has interpreted it to apply um whether to apply in districts that have not adopted open enrollment and has also uh apparently accepted the idea that an unlimited number of students from
013those schools that have not adopted the statute could leave and go to an open enrollment school located elsewhere. I can tell you that this year there are 11 Pittsfield students uh that are attending Prospect Mountain High School as open enrollment students. Um which means that Pittsfield has to pay 80% of its per pupil cost for each of those students uh to Prospect Mountain. Um Pittsfield is a small high school. It's 161 students. So this is a significant financial hit for them um and is a large number of students who have left. Uh one of the criticisms of the results of this decision is that the districts that are already struggling financially are the ones that are most likely to see a large number of students leaving. And that particularly for a small high school um
014the departure of even four students is a significant hit. Uh and certainly the departure of 11 students from a school as small as Pittsfield uh is a very serious matter. Um I guess I have I'd be happy to answer questions if anybody has any but that's about the way the situation has worked in Pittsfield. Pitfield has put an article in their warrant for this year's annual meeting uh to uh eliminate uh the risk that Pittsfield students may attend open enrollment schools located outside the district. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? Just a little bit more note of a district with a contractual obligation to send it students a particular school pursuant to tuition agreement or area agreement. That would be area agreement with kind of where CTC program take an affirmative action to allow students
015to attend open enrollment schools by voting uh to authorize attendance of adult district open enrollment schools as possible that the vote could be interpreted as a violation of its contracted commitment to send all the students to a contracting district. So there's a little wrinkle. anything you want to say about that little >> You know, I can tell you that the um state board of education already ruled in a case involving the Eliminate Penroke school districts that open enrollment um basically trumps their area agreement and the area statute. the area statute uh requires that um all that the sending district um assign and send all of its students to the receiving school. uh the state board concluded that since it's not the school board that's assigning the students but the parents that are making the decision
016um that open enrollment helps the um uh area agreement is a funding district in an area agreement with Penroke uh and under the terms of the agreement and the statute uh is required to assign and send all of its students to Penroke. Uh but the state board has ruled that EPS has to pay open enrollment tuition uh for the five kids that are currently attending um Prospect Mountain. Um that decision um I filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court on that decision. Um who knows what the court will do. Um but at any rate, if you have a tuition agreement and you are a uh receiving district, um you cannot at this point assume that the sending districts or that students from the sending districts cannot go elsewhere under the open enrollment statute.
017We will not know until the Supreme Court decides that case. And that that obviously has implication for those schools because the 80% of the of the cost per pupil is less than what they would have gotten through the uh or received out of the uh the uh tuition agreement. >> Yeah. And I also think, you know, if you are a receiving district with tuition agreements, uh that it might be very tempting uh for uh the sending districts um if the parents decide to send their kids elsewhere under open enrollment because typical [clears throat] tuition agreement uh is calculated. the tuition charge is based on 100% of the receiving school's cost per pupil. Um the which in most cases is going to be higher than 80% of the sending district's cost per pupil. So for sending
018districts, if the parents choose to go open enrollment and send the kids elsewhere and if the Supreme Court agrees with the state board, then the sending district uh will save some money probably. >> Correct. >> Okay. Any questions about the information on this slide? Okay. Any any questions from anybody here um relative to the topic while especially while we have Barbara on the line actually that those questions I'm asking should we go back to the chair to ask those questions. Pardon pardon me Bill. I don't want to be out of order here. I'll let Bill take over here from the receiving questions and that that piece running the meeting. Any anyone have clarifying questions they would like to ask regarding this we've gone over so far whether it's regarding the U draft warrant that we
019have suggestions or concerns with Any comments? Question. See none. I have a question. >> Yes. >> On the warrant article where it says that we will accept admit one student um say loud so can hear me. If on the warrant article where it says that um we'll admit one student from each um category in the grades. What if there's more than one? Like is there going to be an application process here? How are we going to determine who takes those spots? Just a question. >> Do you hear that, Barbara? >> I think you have a public. >> Well, you can just say right there. Yeah, you can't discriminate on the basis of uh disability, uh race, you know, any of those other reasons. So, uh there are a number of ways it could be done.
020It could be first come first served. Uh it could be based on a lottery. Um you know, there are any number of ways you can do it as long as the application process is fair. There is language in the statute that talks about too many applicants and having a lottery. Um I I don't believe that's compulsory. I think that's you know one possible way of doing it. >> We we are going to be reviewing and revising our class size limits also programmatic limits. I mean we have three three programs that provide specialized services to students. Uh two at the elementary school, one at the middle school, high school and so you will I will have language and a policy that refers to limits there per NHDE rules in terms of the programmatic uh max. >>
021Yes. So just to clarify, >> could you come to the microphone, please? >> Yeah, let's uh if you don't mind, Maddie, >> sorry. Yeah, [laughter] >> we have a question from a member. >> Please state your name. >> I am. >> Okay. Can I ask that question? >> Yes, you can. >> Okay. So, to clarify, it says on here it says admit one student from outside for each school. That means only one student shall be attending. Or is it a theoretical number like up to 10 kids can apply and then they are able to enroll or is it limited to only one? >> Currently the way it's written it would be limited to only one student. >> So let's Okay. So if we had four students apply >> correct >> is there going to be
022a criteria to then say like first come first serve. Is it based on merit? Is it based on who you know? Like I'm just wondering on what that would be like. All right, let me just let me just correct the information I gave you. RS provides if the number of otherwise eligible applicants to open enrollment exceeds the um >> uh the number the uh uh the district is supposed to use a lottery selection, but you still would have to um determine, you know, at at some point you would have to have a closing date, a date as of which people would have to apply. You could establish um you know certain criteria but then within that you would have a lottery >> we that'll that'll primarily come through the form of policies >> which we'll
023we'll start working on. >> So and then also to clarify I'm sorry. >> Oh no sorry. >> If you then have the three like choices the academy etc. Would that be a separate number or is that included in the one? >> That will that will be potentially that could happen if there's room available, but we have a policy that the board will be considering uh that that'll refer to the the limits the caps that we have on those programs because the DOE when they approve the program, they can say here's how many students can be in this program. Yeah, it's a specialized program. So, it'll be it'll be run by those rules. So if that program is already full >> Uhhuh. >> then there would no be no open enrollment for that program. Correct. >>
024And just as it is just as is now frankly we do have districts that want to send students to those programs with their full >> okay >> already. So >> and then one more. The other thing to keep in mind about the limit, if you establish a limit of one student per school, which is what this article proposes, then uh and you have kids that apply um even if you want to take additional students as open enrollment students, you can't because you can't compel the sending district to pay for more than what you have established as the number that you will take as open enrollment students. In other words, those are your open enrollment places. It doesn't mean you can't take other students with someone agreeing to pay the tuition. But if you're going to
025compel a sending district to pay tuition, that's going to be limited to whatever number of open enrollment places the district has established by adopting the wire article. So, in other words, let's say you've got you you you've said you'll take one elementary school student um when you adopt the uh bar article. Uh and it turns out that five want to attend. Um the other you there's only one open enrollment slot. So, neighboring there's only uh one uh one one slot that must be paid for by a neighboring district through open enrollment. the other four kids are just like anytime you have four kids uh that might be interested in attending your school. Whether they'll be allowed to do it will depend on whether the other school will agree to pay their tuition or whether the
026parents will agree to pay. >> Okay. And my last question has to do with the CTC program. Do we add is there another place where we could add CTC into this as a separate school or is that just considered part of the high school middle school? Want >> me to answer it? >> Sorry, that's more complicated question. >> Michelle Fox, CT principal. So the CTE is under a region 3 agreement and there is an RSA I believe it's 188 um ruling for open enrollment for CTE which is what we're working on in the region 3 agreement um and it will become a part of our program of studies for the 26 27 uh school year for open enrollment pending um following the region 3 requirements for tuition um scheduling and enrollment numbers for each course.
027And the two regions are White Mountain Regional School District and Littleton are the two CTE and the all of the schools at our counseling meeting today were notified of that information. So CTE is different than this open enrollment. >> Thank you. >> Anything you want to add to that or comment? Yeah, >> CTE is financed differently. The CTE statute says the state will pay 75% I guess of the tuition. I don't know if I guess they haven't really funded it this year. Um, and the district of residents pays the other 25%. questions. >> So, Bill, if we if this if we vote on this Warren article this evening, the answer to the questions that people have been asking about how to, you know, >> the criteria, >> sorry. So if we vote on this this
028evening, this does not mean we're also voting on how we're establishing criteria for accepting that can be a later discussion when we develop a policy at that point. >> Okay. >> Any any comments you have on that question you heard from Greg Cook, the board board member? Yeah. Well, I think I think I mean obviously um the the word article is not other than just saying one student at each level. It doesn't establish additional criteria. Uh I think in terms of criteria the school board could establish would be around class size um not in other words if you adopt this as is uh I don't think the school board would have the authority to say well uh the only programs will allow open enrollment students into our for example our math program. Um I that's
029not what it says. Um so but in terms of what you would do as a board in establishing criteria I think it would be things like uh class size having a capacity um obviously uh students would have to be in good standing as in their sending district that kind of thing. So, if we had hypothetically five student positions open, but we approved this warrant article where it says only one student is accepted. The other four students we could accept, but we would have to do them without um >> without payment. >> Yeah. Well, we don't have to take them. I mean the other five students uh or the other four you've got five applicants you accept one the other four are not accepted under open enrollment if they want to come to your school they'll
030have to come under some other arrangement like parents agree to pay the tuition which sometimes happens or the sending district agrees to pay their tuition but no [clears throat] you don't have to take anybody under open enrollment without being paid tuition. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Except except those districts who said that they wouldn't allow any, right? >> I mean, if Never mind, I'm muddying the water there. Go ahead. >> Yeah. I mean, if you don't estab if you don't vote to be an open enrollment school, to have an open enrollment school, you cannot limit the number of your kids that can go elsewhere. >> Yeah. [clears throat] Uh but in addition, you're not an open enrollment school. So kids from other districts do not have the right to enroll in your school as open
031enrollment students. Um you know, they could enroll in your school uh as tuition students with somebody else paying the tuition or with the parents paying the tuition, but they wouldn't be coming in as open enrollments >> beyond beyond the three specified in the warrant articles. >> Exactly. Exactly. Yes, please. >> Okay. Majest, I don't know what I um my last one is, is there verbage that we could put? So, like let's say that there's three high school kids that would like to come here and there's no one who wants to go to elementary school, are we able to still fulfill those spots? Like is there verbiage we could put in that so that if they do want to join our school but we don't have anyone elementary school [clears throat] or middle school for that
032say but they have three that want to come to the high school could we still honor that? >> Uh not the way the article is written. The way the article is written as one student per school. So if you have um you know let's say nobody applies to the elementary school that doesn't mean that you would take an additional open enrollment student at the middle or high school. >> Okay. >> It is what it is. >> Unless we drafted it and said you know what said four or three total district students or something right. >> Yeah. The question is unless we said it unless we rewarded it and said three for K12. >> Yeah, I mean you can you can change the um the percentage uh going out and you can change the number coming
033in. Uh for example, Prospect Mountain when they adopted the open enrollment statute did not set any limits on the number of kids that could come in because they had a lot of empty seats. Uhhuh. >> I think the the way to do it is to uh take a look and see, you know, where you do have room. If you're worried that, you know, 50 kids might apply and you don't have room, uh then obviously you don't want to have that many slots available. Um, I think the, um, but you certainly could establish a district-wide number rather than, um, a number per school. Or you could have them all at high school, all at middle school, all at elementary school. But it it it depends on what the law article says. >> And I think the
034numbers and percentages um, you know, you could certainly change those before it's voted on. question. >> So, let's just do this. Let's hypothetically say that you All right, Todd, why don't you guys make a motion to strike the one per campus and do an unlimited amount or not to exceed a certain amount if you're concerned about cost either not to exceed or unlimited. The this was one person that just started asking the questions and you guys started asking your own questions about policy. This is this is crazy. Like you guys, this is unlimited. This could be going on for days and hours like how much how how do we pick? Who do we pick? Do we pick her kids? Do we pick her kids? This is crazy. So don't put yourself in that box. Just
035say either unlimited or not to exceed a certain percentage of total enrollment. Do some combination that gives you the ability to do whatever you want. Now what's the exposed liability of funding if we just left this open? This has a cost factor. So my words just cost us money. How much would this cost me for those words? >> I think I think in in in determining the number of students you will take you it should be a number and the reason I say that is because if you try to do it as a percentage it's not clear um does that mean a percentage if you're talking about students coming in does that mean that the percentage is 10% of your current enrollment would be an addition? So if you had 100 students can I answer
036that schools >> and you said 10% that would be 110 you know it' be 10 kids coming in from outside but if you do it as a percentage and people think the percentage means that the open enrollment kids coming from outside will be a certain percentage of your student body then you get a different number. So I think I would pick a number for incoming outgoing must be addressed as a percentage. >> Can I can I address that? So I agree. I was using the percentage for you guys to come up with a mathematical number. So if you have 500 kids, it's 50 kids not to exceed. I wasn't looking for a percentage to be in there. But again, the and we can't answer that tonight. that isn't like a gotcha question like just go
037figure it out to like if this is a massive exposed liability by making it 50 kids then then that be the case but then it starts to extract extrapaculate that if you leave these kids in a in a high school setting and that's an question is is that if we have a freshman that applies this year and then all of a sudden is not allowed to come into their sophomore year into this open enrollment because there's only one per and the next person will win their lottery. this starts to get my hands around a mess I can't comprehend. So I I I'm just asking for it to be open larger so you had more flexibility to let more people in. Maybe nobody applies. I don't know. Maybe tonight's discussion is fruitless. I don't I don't
038know. But make the number bigger than this one. That's well and kind of to Art's point too is um what if the law changes next year? So, we have somebody from ascending school that's here at open enrollment next year and then their sophomore year the law changes and we don't have open enrollment. Do they have to go back and then change the following year? Like, how does it Barbara? What if the law changes when the kid's a freshman and then they have to go back to their Sunday school because it's no longer open enrollment their sophomore year? Can they still stay or do you have do we have to write that in somewhere? So the way it works um the statute is poorly written um you should be aware that there are uh at least
039three open enrollment bills pending in the legislature this year. One of them is a bill that says we really need to study this whole thing and puts everything on hold until the study is completed. um the other two bills would make open enrollment mandatory statewide and you wouldn't have a choice. I think you should assume let's let's say for example that you decide all right district one we're going to admit 10 students uh and you hope to do that this year. Um the statute does allow the school district meeting to change its mind and in a later year increase the number, decrease the number, stop being open enrollment entirely. But it does allow uh if you if the district uh votes to resend open enrollment, it does allow the students that are already there to
040stay until they graduate. um and obviously the sending districts would continue to pay their tuition. So I think you should assume let's say for example you decided to admit three three open enrollment students. Um that's the total number of open enrollment students you're going to take from outside next year. If all three of those students want to remain then you wouldn't have any open enrollment places open for other kids to apply. If one of the kids moves out of state, uh, then next, but two of them want to stay, then next year you would have one open enrollment spot available for new applicants and the other two open enrollment students would remain. As to what the legislature is going to do, who knows? Um, I I mean, I think what you you can deal with
041what we know now. Um, we don't know what they're going to do. Obviously, if they make open enrollment mandatory statewide, this whole wine article I'm concerned will be academic uh because you have been overruled by the legislature. Uh if they make some sort of weird change that uh means that it's urgent or important that Littleton change what it's done. uh you are allowed to uh vote on open enrollment at a special meeting as well as at an annual meeting. Uh so if there is a change uh and somehow it makes this not an attractive proposition uh you can vote to discontin it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah one we're going to keep those numbers >> I think that's my Well, it's weird. It gets weird. The statute does not say that they can stay until
042they graduate except in the case where the school district folks to open enrollment. That's as I said, it's a fully written statute. Obviously, I think you would assume that once you take allow to remain No, I'm I'm think I'm trying to think of what he was saying. >> Well, I I think that one is too limited um with how this is written because certainly I know for me personally, I'm always about what's best for the kids. What's best for the kids is not getting them their freshman year and then kicking them out for sophomore year because of our one one and one. I mean, doing something like a blanket 30 per district gives us a lot more wiggle there. Plus, it it has an ability to increase our enrollment, which is declining, which we talk
043about constantly. And if they're open enrollment, that means they're financially paying us to be here as well, which is fiscally sad. So, I'm I'm certainly for it, but I would be definitely for raising the numbers. My 25% tonight. I guess my two cent is I'd like to put on like a teacher hat for a second on a community hat but like teacher um I guess my question is like as a teacher coming in like if you could say like you will accept so many kids within a bracket of numbers so like right now our fresh our seventh grade class is 41 students right if we add five more students I mean we're looking at class sizes I already have 21 and 20 so like the classes is there a way that we could cap that
044of those grades that are higher versus I know that our sophomore class only has like 31 30 maybe we could add more to them. So is there a way that we could find verbiage where within the criteria we could say we will allow this many students as a district however there are so many slots open per grade or per program right depending on what you guys prefer. We do have separate policy on class size which is also um recommended by the state which we would obviously have to adjust based on whatever. So that's okay. Thank you. the state the 316 number by the way class size 22 >> if we allow open enrollment to fill our class and then mid the stream in the school year a family will sit now we have a problem
045over staffed so we've got there's got to be a a number in there that says okay we can allow maybe a class to be 90% home. Um I agree the verbiage that we have here doesn't work well. Um I think we need to work on it. Definitely uh because if we have students that want to come here, it is beneficial um hopefully beneficial for the student as well as is for us uh through the open enrollment program. It's not beneficial obviously for students to leave but at that same thing is are we and most towns are looking at this way is so send me your kids because money comes with it but I'm not sending out my kids because I'm not going to pay. It's that's something I've been kicking around in my head for
046a week now and I don't have I don't have an answer that's the hardest part. >> Yeah, it really is. >> And it's 80 we would we would receive 80% of our cost per pupil. >> Oh, sending cost. >> Right. Right. Right. And then we then we I think another question that we have to ask ourselves because sometimes we're putting the cart before decisions like this is can we make up that difference of whatever we're not receiving in the budget that we've approved for that school year. So currently if we have a class that's half full we're still paying teacher same wages that we brought in it's from outside that money coming to our school and they are paid that's actually extra money coming because we're already paying that that's happen because the teachers don't
047get paid by the student >> but enrollment schools then you're not really paying anything >> correct you're not going to get anything >> you want to be making money we we cutting all these kids But we wouldn't be bringing in any money if they're coming from an open enrollment school. >> Correct. You got it. >> Right. >> Yeah. If they do the same thing we're doing to limit exposure to tuition cost, then it's exactly right. And that's and this is why it's important. This is why this is why it has to be on a warrant article because we're asking taxpayers. This is potential cost although it may be minimal, right, of students depending on the situation. uh with no expectation of funding necessarily. That's why that number you're going to got to think about that
048number a little bit from that perspective too. >> Dale, please. >> Uh Dale Brier, just a question for Barbara if she can hear. If we put in the warrant article up to 30 pupils, students K to 12, do we have to fill all those or do we have the choice of only selecting say five? Oh, that's a good question. Well, I think I think if you designated um in the first place, do I think you're really going to get 30 applications? Probably not. but because everybody else is doing the same thing. But I I think if you designate 30 uh then you're going to have people that are let's assume that you do have 30 or 40 or 50 people who apply um and you decide not to fill all the slots. I I think
049that the people that are applying uh could say, "Well, wait a minute. You know, you you said you would take 30 and now you're saying you're only going to take 25. Um, so I think you do run the risk of being required to take all 30. Whether the a parent would have an enforcable right to force you to take um, you know, the 30th child, it's not entirely clear to me. The statute doesn't really address that question. Would we be covered if we when we put in our criteria or our policy specifying how we accept who applies? Could we be covered with this question then? >> Well, you're supposed to I mean basically what the statute allows you to do is identify age levels, grade levels, programs or schools. It doesn't say anything about I
050mean the criteria I'm trying to think which slide it's in the criteria I listed hang on three open enrollment schools may limit enrollment specific grade or age levels pupil needs for areas of academic their focus including but not limited to [laughter] at risk pupils, vocational education pupils, math, science, the arts, history or language. So yeah, you could decide that you're only going to take ads um or you're only going to take fifth graders. But you really need to give some careful thought to uh you know how how you're going to do that and you have to do it in order not against educationally handicapped students. Would we be able let's say you had a science program that you were really trying to get more students enrolled in your science program then I think you you
051could decide that you're going to take open enrollment students that will enroll in your program. Obviously they would be taking the full curriculum but they would be uh would have to be students who want to take your science program. I mean I think that's how that would work that areas of academic focus. >> Would we would we be able to have policies on classroom size? >> I think yeah I think you can have your classroom size policies uh and I think you you could enforce those. So, for example, if you said, "We'll take 20 kids districtwide," uh, I think you could decide that your sophomore class is too large. You can't take any more students into the sophomore class. The problem you have, though, is the next year, you know, obviously we have I mean,
052sometimes you get involved. There's a particular age group that's particularly large. Uh so yeah, you might want to when you have your class size limits, if you've already got 25 kids in the class, uh that this year are sophomores, then you're not going to take any out of district sophomores and next year when those 25 kids per class become juniors, uh you probably would not want to take any new juniors. So you can certainly do that, but you do have to have a policy that limits the class size. Uh Barbara, as a followup to that, if the Warren article stays the way it is written and we take next year, we take one uh second grader, one seventh grader, and one ninth grader, and they stay in our district, we're technically not an open enrollment
053school after that because we've maximized for the next four, sixth, and 10 years. Correct. >> Right. Correct. >> So [snorts] that's the limitation that we put by putting a number. >> Yeah. if you if you had any vacancies, you know, if one of those kids you already you have a limit, a numerical limit, and if one of those kids when they've all moved up and they're still in your school, uh if one of those kids is gone, any new student coming in would have to go to the grades that you would eventually accept kids into. I think that's maybe why mountain uh just designated the high school that was kind of a special case. They didn't put any numbers uh for criteria in their one article which does allow them you know a certain amount
054of flexibility based on class size kids that could leave the district. >> Yeah. I think I think accepted 30 students to their high school not in their district and zero can leave. >> So I have >> the number of kids leaving the district is districtwide even though let's say you designate your high school as the open enrollment school and you'll take x number of students in your high school. The percentage of students that can leave is a districtwide percentage, not just high school. >> Barbara, I have a question. How does I guess, and I don't know that this would necessarily be an issue in the north country, but I'm thinking south, you know, the southern part of the state. >> This seems like this is a slippery slope to recruitment for athletics where you could
055be open enrollment and basically recruiting the athletes for your program. >> I mean, people people are complaining that Prospect Mountain has done that. It's very difficult to prove. >> Okay. >> But yeah, there are a lot of athletes a lot or I shouldn't say a lot. some of the prospect about the kids. Um, not I don't know that much about the kids from Kidsfield, even though they're my client, but um, rumor has it that some of the other kids have been recruited uh, for athletics and the NHAA hasn't really gotten into that question yet, but I can see that they might uh, if it turns out I mean thus far the only open enrollment schools are prospect and now here's how much to recruiting athletes as a major problem, but they certainly could change. They
056certainly could see it as a major problem if there are a lot of open enrollment schools and there's a whole lot of recruiting going on. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, one final question, Barbara, and then I promise I'll sit down. So if we don't adopt this, we potentially risk financial loss. If we do adopt this, then we protect ourselves. Is that as clear as it can be? >> Yes, that's accurate. That's accurate. And I believe, you know, based on my conversations with other with, you know, many superintendent about this, that's the reason school districts are doing this because they don't want to pay to send their kids You know, if you're operating a school already or if you're in a tuition agreement obligating you to pay, they don't want to pay again for the
057same kids to go elsewhere, >> right? Yeah. So, if every school district in the entire state sends zero and accepts 30 or one or or unlimited, this is a non non-issue because It's a nonissue. That's right. That's right. Some of some of the districts that have um some of the districts that have fairly large high schools uh are uh and and also that have tuition agreements uh with other districts. In other words, you know, other districts have tuition agreements to send their kids to them. Some of those are are saying, you know what, we're going to pass on this because we think it could harm our tuition agreements because the tuition are based on 100% of the receiving district's cost in most cases. Uh whereas open enrollment is 80% of the sending district's cost. So
058not all districts are doing this, but a lot of them are. >> I have one more question. They definitely feel threatened by the existence of open enrollment schools nearby and the charter school opened. They're a little concerned about that. >> I have a question I think for Barbara Moore. I understand the discrimination question. if we have a number that we accept per graduation year. So that would be like you can be kindergarten all the way up. Each year you'll accept two students for each graduation year. But let's say that we have a whole bunch of kids who come in or move out. Are we able to every year change that number? So if we were to have let's say four students leave because they moved away, could we add more students like could we re-evaluate
059every year at the end and say we have this many more spots or we had a lot of people come in and we can take away slots. >> No, you can you can change the numbers anytime you want, but it does require a vote of the school district meeting, >> but it wouldn't take the town to decide, right? We are just deciding as a town open enrollment or not, right? The school board is the one who will be deciding that number every year potentially. >> School board, I'm sorry. >> The number of open enrollment kids you take is whatever the warrant. >> So it still be a town vote. >> This would be a town vote. This that's why we're having the hearing. And so whatever this warrant says the town votes yes or no
060on then the school board can decide on the policy which is internal that would just be voted by the board as to the um number of students per either grade or classroom size. >> So we as a town would decide >> they can adopt a size policy. and they could not decide let's say that the district meeting voted to allow one kid at each school to come in. The school board would not be able to change that um other than through adopting a class size policy. Uh and then if it turned out that you know taking that one kid in the middle school for example would mean that the middle school class size is exceeded um then sure they then they wouldn't take that child but but that's really about the only way that the
061school board can control this is through policy >> and then we could Barbara we could add a warrant article every year that makes this and adjust this up or down if we wanted to and then it's up to the town to vote, you know, in favor. And if it's turned down by the town, it defaults back to the last time it was approved >> or a special meeting, right? Or a special meeting outside of the the normal uh annual meeting. >> And then if we were to have a student who entered, let's say, who had some major behavior concerns, would there then be able to be criteria to say that you are not eligible to continue or not? is that >> I I'm having trouble hearing my question. So, somebody closes the microphone. >> If
062if a student were to have some disciplinary concerns, is the school board able to say that you are not eligible based on criteria to continue on or would we say no, once you are enrolled, you will maintain enrolled? Well, I think once you accept or expulsion as you would with any of your own students, >> I think the policy I mean we certainly um I think require that the student not be under suspension or current school at the time the child as an open student. I would be careful in terms of establishing like behavior type criteria because the statute talks about so that I suppose could be behavior but I think what I would be concerned about is you be accused of discriminating against a special kid or a section 50 which is illegal >>
063unless unless that student would be would be placed in one of our special programs which is governed by the state as it has programmatic limits to kick in. >> Yeah. And and you know they Yes, you could do that. You certainly could do that. And and furthermore, I think for a special ed placement for students to be placed in a special ed program would require um district as well as your school agreeing that that has an appropriate program for the child. Um, so but again, you need to be careful because you have special ed programs. Uh, and I mean what I'm thinking is let's say a applies under open enrollment for her child to attend your school and the child um is blind and you do not have a program for a blind for blind
064children, you might be able to uh reject that request on the basis. So you don't have a suitable program for the child. Is there similar criteria, Barbara, that prevents a district for basically unloading students that are challenging or are drain on resources through this program? >> Yeah. No, there is nothing that says a different district cannot encourage, you know, parents of kids that are difficult to go to your school as open enrollment students. I don't think they would necessarily well they might they might want to I guess but again we're talking about spending 80% of their peral cost to send a kid to your school. Um the decision is made by the parents not the uh school board but the other school >> in in a non-open enrollment scenario. I'm sorry. >> In a nonopen
065enrollment scenario >> where it's above the limit. >> Yeah. Well, even if it's open enrollment, it's the parents. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. >> Child and you can't discriminate on the basis of handicap, >> right? >> So, you got to be careful about that. So, I think you know you could end up with a behavior problem, but you would treat him the way you would treat your own kids problem. But once we have them, they're just like the rest of our students with all their rights. We couldn't say, "Oh, we cut you in via open enrollment. We cannot welcome anymore." >> Absolutely. >> So Barb, I have a question about logistics and voting and I I'd ask the board to be prepared to vote on the warn article tonight. We are missing our board chair.
066>> We have a board meeting on the 20th. So >> I think I think as long as you have finalized the article by the time you have to post your warrant >> you're okay. You know I had recommended that you hold the public hearing. >> Yes. um because I think it's a good idea to do it even though the statute um public hearing requirement appears to apply only to cities uh not to or to school districts that have charters where there's no annual meeting >> because it talks about the legislative body holding the public hearing. So [snorts] your board could your board can take all of this under adisement and at another board meeting as long as it's before you have to post your warrant uh make some changes to the article. >> Yeah. Our
067del our delivery is is February 2nd. >> Yeah. All right. So but your warrant has to be posted >> by Monday in January. >> Last Oh. Yeah, that's right. >> Last Monday in January. So we would be So you so you have to have made up your mind about what it's gonna say >> by the 26 >> before you post. Yeah. Yeah. >> So you still got time to >> to take the actual vote. >> Yeah. >> There's a lot to think about. I knew this was going to be the Harriet part of the whole deal actually that this question this piece of it. [laughter] The rest of it's kind of a no-brainer. >> Yeah. Well, it was interesting because at Pierarch um you know there was I'm trying I'm remembering the discussion that didn't
068take as long as I thought it would maybe because it was getting toward lunchtime on >> um the um you know they they did sort of toy around with the idea of changing the numbers uh but decided to go with schoolboard number so they didn't amend the article at all [clears throat] and you Um it's uh so you may I mean I think the school board has some latitude here in terms of determining how many spaces you have, what schools you want the the open enrollment slots to be in and so forth. >> I would recommend that um we think about it and vote on Tuesday at the meeting. I would like some more information from the SAU office just for numbers of capacity and affordability before I vote. Um, but I do agree with
069Art's recommendation of not limiting it to uh grade level or one person. the hearing. I mean, we had the I did have it on the agenda as an action item, but >> right, we don't we don't have to vote until the action to your next meeting. >> Yeah. So, run just I want ask one more time. Make sure everyone heard it right. So if we wait and vote on the Tuesday, we're well we're still well within the posting current. Correct. >> Right. Yes. >> Okay. That's the one that terrified. That's why with getting all this stuff That's why getting department notice I'm talking getting all this stuff the meeting the dates and the notice and seven days before and there's lots of moving parts you have to pay attention to. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's
070not necessarily required, you know, based on a very poorly worded statute, but [clears throat] you know, it's the statute's been around for a long time, but until Mountain did this, >> uh, nobody, you know, nobody did anything about it. So, we don't have any case law other than the Pittsfield case um telling us what to do and there are a lot of lot of things that it's just not entirely clear. >> Yes, sir. George Morgan. Um just a question that seems obvious but I haven't heard it. Um, sending schools are responsible for the transportation of the students that will be coming to another school. >> No, that's a parents. That's a parents responsibility, believe it or not. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Correct, Barbara. >> I'm sorry. >> Transportation is the responsibility of the parents.
071>> Transportation is the responsibility of parents and special ed is the responsibility of the district where they live. >> Well, there would be there would be the case of SPE there would be transportation provided, but otherwise no. Once they're there, you know, for example, if you transport kids to athletic events off campus, that kind of thing, you know, you treat them like your own kids. But as far as getting them to and [snorts] from school, that's the parents problem. Other questions or comments from public? Um, as we have stated, we are going to not vote on any more article tonight until we gather more information. >> We should probably come out of the hearing and then do that. >> I believe >> so at this time I uh like a motion to move out of
072the public hearing. >> Second first and second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I >> I opposed. We are now out of public session. Thank you, folks. Thank you, Barbara. >> Okay. You're welcome. Always a pleasure. >> Open session. Open session. Agreed. The board agrees to put up a vote. Second 7:12 p.m. [laughter]