School Board Budget Workshop 12-18-25

001Welcome to the meeting of the Londereerry School Board to be held on Thursday, December 18th, 2025 in the cafe at Londereerry High School, 295 Mammoth Road, Londereerry, New Hampshire at 6:00 p.m. The meeting will also be broadcast on local cable access channel 8 as well as the district YouTube channel. Could we please rise for the pledge of allegiance, please? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We'll jump into the consent agenda. We got some upcoming meetings. January 7th, will be adult ed graduation over in the uh high school gym at 6:00 p.m. On January 8th, uh we'll be back here for a budget workshop as well as

002a regular schoolboard meeting at 7:00 p.m. And on January 15th, 2026, a budget hearing at right here in the cafe at 7 p.m. Uh could I get a motion uh to approve the consent agenda, please? >> So moved. Motion by Sarah, >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50 Z. Thank you. >> All right. As we did before, uh we will open p continue public comment through the presentations of the budget workshop. Um we will uh hear the presentations. The board will be able to ask any questions they have. The budget committee. Thank you for being here. um we'll we'll ask next we will open it to the public and then we will come back around with any follow-up questions before we move on to the next uh uh presentation. Um, so

003to start the budget workshop, I'd like to just take uh before we jump into music, um, I'd like to have, um, AMD Small, our business administrator, just go over a little tutorial of how the budget starts October 1, around that time frame until it's handed out on the on the week of uh, Thanksgiving. >> Yeah. Um so really um throughout the spring and summer all the department heads and principles um are looking around their buildings talking to their custodians looking at their needs um and thinking about what they're going to put forth as far as um needs and asks during the budget season. Um we meet a few times during the summer to talk about what that's going to look like. Um and they start to construct the budget that they're going to present um

004to the superintendent. On our end in the business office, one of our major drivers obviously is our personnel reports because that's where most of the costs come from. So that starts October 1 and we um refer to it as a sacred document in our office where we print out every position um in a report and it tells us what they're making, what group they're a part of. Um, and then we dive into it and look at what the CBA they may be attached to um, requires for their raise, what health plan they're a part of. Um, and we go through it with a fine tooth comb um, to make sure that we are noting um, who we have in that moment, October 1st, if we're doing a default budget, we are assuming that they would

005all have a position in the in the coming year and what that position would cost us. Um, so the finance director goes through all of that. She coordinates with the superintendent. She coordinates with the department heads to make sure that that list is accurate, that they're placed where they should be. Work with HR for the insurance report. We do a headcount October 1st of everybody's insurance plans and we go through and then we look at what their CBA would require for their um cost increase for the following year. We talk about if there's anybody that has notified us that they will be retiring. Um they are not required until fe till February 1st to let us know that they would be retiring. So we're just going with anybody early that would be letting us know.

006Um and we try and account for if that's a position that we would fill or not in the coming year. And then from that moment we calculate what that cost would be. And then from there you figure out New Hampshire retirement. You figure out the health care cost and you figure out FICA and that's a major driver of where our budget is. From there, the superintendent looks at the list, looks at the needs, looks at what we're asking for um and then goes through and proposes any cuts that you would see in the ad swap um that he presented during his personnel um piece of it. So, that's that's a major driver because that's where most of the costs come from. We get notified from both health trust and school care what their rates are

007going to be for the following year. We get notified by all of our insurance um providers for what our workman's comp will be for the firing following year, what our liability will be for the following year. And we take those quotes and we apply them to what we have in that moment on October 1st because if you continue to make it a live document changing with every time um you would never stop. So we have that that moment. Um that's what we also use for the the CBAs um where we calculate that and then from there we go into budget season from each department presenting what their needs would be, what they're asking for. The superintendent asks tough questions and then decides what he's going to put forth in his budget and where he's going

008to ask them to cut, what might go into a capital reserve. We look at long-term planning for any of our building needs. We have old buildings. Um and then what we're going to need for based on enrollment numbers as well and that's what we present to you um then the the night before um our Thanksgiving break um to go into budget season with. >> Okay. Can I just Yeah, I just want to add a few things. Yeah. >> Wonderful description. >> Um and you know we have a very collaborative administrative team kind of behind us. >> Um what I presented last week around personnel actually happens all year round. um you know so you guys see the winter version of it where we're we're trying to project out for 18 months but what happens every

009spring is um no one looks forward to this process I check the master schedule how did it play out in the middle school and high school and then how is registrations playing out for kindergarten and first grade because then that'll lead into keeping an eye on all those things over the summer to then figure out do we need to make changes in the upcoming budget based on enrollment based on kids based on programs heading into the budget season so I think we've gotten a pretty good welloiled machine where there's no surprises coming. Um, and we try and make as many decisions almost in the spring and summer heading into the fall so that no one's caught off guard, everyone knows where we're going. And then the only thing that really changes for us every year

010is people who let us know when they're retiring. Uh, some people let us know right away, but as Amy said, some people kind of let us know they they're allowed to let us know as as late as February. So, we're trying to make projections in the fall to the best we can kind of moving forward. And there's a lot of moving pieces, but it's really a year- round process to kind of get ahead of all the needs we have and areas we were to be more efficient. >> Great. >> Any questions from anyone? Just wanted to kind of do an overview so you guys kind of understood in the community where we start every year. Yep. >> It's not just last year's ad swap. It's rebuilding the whole personnel file and then you start from

011scratch with what programs are offering throughout the school district. >> Good. Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Seeing no questions, um we will jump right into our budget workshop with 5.1 uh the music. Serge Hi everybody. My name is Serge Bolio. I'm the director of music and I'm very happy to present the music budget for fiscal year 2027. Um always just like to start off by saying we're very proud of our music program, music program. Um we're very well known in the area um for having a really great program and um a model program um amongst other schools. Um districtwide every year I always go through the numbers. I check in with my elementary teachers to find out how many students have started in on band or orchestra. And I'm always just super impressed

012with how many students participate um districtwide. Over 2,500 students experience music annually um and 1,200 in the performing ensembles all across the school district. At the elementary school, we start fourth grade in um we start in fourth grade with chorus and strings and fifth grade with band. that provides the foundation and over 300 students district-wide performing on those ensembles. At the middle school, we continue to build the foundation. Um very pleased with how part of the curriculum is music. Um and we continue to uh offer beginning ensembles um at that level for those students that didn't pick up instruments in the fifth grade or fourth grade. And um and these statistics are absolutely amazing. We have 75% of the school are in performing ensembles which is absolutely fantastic. Um and the other 25% take some

013kind of general music course sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Um at the high school we don't have a it's an elective like most high schools where music is just an elective but we still have an impressive every just about every year 25% of the high school participates in some kind of music. Um which is huge. Oh, I forgot to switch my uh thing here. Okay. Um, of course, the high school, we have the Lancer Marching Band, which we're very proud to um always put on display everywhere we go. And um people anticipate our our um presence at various parades and football games. Um, and we're very happy to say that 13% of the high school is in the marching band, which is well over usual average of about 5% um, at most high schools in

014New England, if not the north northeast. Um, last year, very happy that the uh, community helped to support us getting a truck, which has already began to um, gain some benefits um, not just with the band, but also districtwide. drama club used it earlier this fall and um custodians used it for some moves. So, it's already being used and um utilized throughout the uh school district. So, we're very happy. And then we got a um I found a company in Manchester that did this design for us. And um they were super psyched that this was the biggest vehicle they had ever done. They're used to doing a lot of the billboards in Manchester um but this was their biggest vehicle. So, they were they were um they were really excited to do this project. But

015very thankful for the community to help helping us out with getting that and um the budget requests. I'll ask you to turn to page 105 in the budget book. Um and I'll go through each of the u line items just to quickly describe what what they are. Repair and maintenance is what we use to keep our investment in instruments up to par so that they continue to be able to be used for many many years. um that increased this year because we number one are trying to keep up with the increasing costs of repairs. Um you know unfortunately is one of those um those uh careers that not a lot of people go into. So unfortunately that can be quite expensive to send an instrument in for repair. But we um try to minimize that

016as much as possible. Uh make sure the students are taking care of their the schoolowned instruments. Um, and also we're using some of that money to uh, you know, whatever might um, be needed for the truck that if there's any repair on the truck or um, I know we don't have to do state inspections anymore, but we still do have to do a federal inspection with our truck. Um, music conference mile is what we use to um, take care of a teacher that will chaperon our students to All State, Jazzal State, Chamber of Music Festival, any anything that requires an overnight um, where they have to stay in a hotel. Um, learning materials, general supplies uh, for all five schools is primarily used for um, purchase of classroom materials and um, music, sheet music um,

017anything that goes into the learning of music. um dues and fees what is what covers the cost of the students attending our um various festivals. So we had a um string festival earlier this fall and of course jazz all state and all state coming up in the spring in the winter. Um and then uniforms we continue to try to keep up with replacing our uniforms so that it never gets to the point where we would have to replace the whole entire stock. So we try to continue to buy 10 new uniforms per year. um in addition to some other things that go into um you know uniforms. Um but we try to keep up with that because that 10 is what the uh uniform company gives us a cost break at. Um and then finally

018transportation is for uh bringing the band to football games. um and any other um local events that might happening be happening. Um like for example, today we brought uh the jazz ensemble and the chamber choir to the senior living homes and the senior center. Um and then finally, capital reserve items for this year. Um try to keep this to a minimum, but we um are in need of one more coral riser at the middle school to um add to what right now we're continuing. We're using the older riser, so we're trying to replace that. Um, a five string violin for our string, elementary and middle school string program. And then a, um, set of orf instruments at North School. And with that, um, that's all I have for you if you have any questions. Great.

019>> Thank you, Serge. And, uh, just to go back, I know you, um, had some really good luck with that truck. It's worked out well for you and um I want to thank you for the due diligence you guys did as a group to find a truck and it was well below the the budget that you were asking for. So that kind of helped offset some of the um upfit of the truck and that but um I appreciate the due diligence of I think it was somewhere around 10K or so lower than what you had asked for last budget season. So we truly appreciate that. >> But it looks great. Good job. Thank you. >> Any questions from the board? >> Can you kind of speak um to what the program does for kids who

020can't afford instruments and um younger ages and what we might have for them? >> Yep. Um so, anytime we get a request for that, we try to help them out. Um we do have a number of instruments that have been donated over the years. Um a few years ago, we had an instrument donation drive. Um our Triumph Music Honor Society hosted that here. Um and so um even though many of them did get donated to other school districts that needed them, we did keep a handful of them just in case. And they're they're gently used, we do send them out. Um we'll have um some of the money that was raised for that event was used to repair them so that they're ready to go. And um but anytime we do have a request from

021a parent or a student, we're more than willing to help. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. uh showing my extreme ignorance. What exactly is an horp instrument set? Just curious. >> So, yeah. Um >> Okay. Wasn't the only one that >> No, I Yeah. Uh for many years, I didn't know exactly what the allure was to it, but it's a mallet instrument. It's small. Um so, the students sit on it's ele for elementary students. Um they sit on the floor. Um but it's set up so that it's very easy to play. So, as opposed to like a regular mallet instrument that would be like a piano where it has the white and black notes, it just has a set of bars that go across and the music teacher can take out certain bars so

022that um they can play along with the song. Uh I don't want to get into too much music theory, but basically the scale sounds correct for that song that they're playing and they they don't they don't have to think about which notes to skip. It makes it very easy for them to learn how to play, you know, a simple song. Yeah. >> Awesome. >> I had one quick question. U not to nitpick, but as far as the uniform costs, um I know you're looking to um budget for the proposed budget 9,400, but so far this year, we've only spent about 500. Is that just because you're you anticipate that we'll make that per the annual purchase later on this year? >> Yes. Yeah. I'm actually in the works with them right now um to get

023our our purchase order in before the new year because the they there's a price increase >> after >> Yeah. after new year. So, >> perfect. >> Um yeah, I'm rushing to get that done before next week. >> Okay. >> All right. Budget committee. Any questions? >> I got one. >> Sure. You >> um thank you for the presentation. Great job running a wonderful music program. And um so I'm just curious actually your transportation line item. You're going down from current year budget 212 to 182 next year. Um where did you find a $3,000 reduction? >> So in the past we had been renting trucks >> and um that was part of the cost and it's always it's kind of difficult. I could have gone down more but it's hard because every year that it depends

024on it how many away football games we attend >> um if they're you know within our travel distance so to speak. Um and then we never know what's going to happen with playoffs. So, we try to kind of aim for, you know, a budget that's going to work for all that. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, good question. >> All that. Good. >> Anyone from the public have any questions? >> Okay. Seeing none. >> All right. >> Thank you, sir. Yep. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. And >> now we'll jump into 5.2, the uh IT department. >> Welcome, gentlemen. Good evening. With me is Josh Parks, our technology manager. Uh Josh helped me create this presentation this evening. Uh our proposed budget starts on page 265 in the book. I do. >>

025Yeah. Never used this. >> Oh, excellent. Uh, this year our proposed IT operating budget is $1,176,975, which represents around 1% of the total operating proposed budget. For the past many years, the proposed budget has hovered around this percentage mark. The default operating the default IT operating budget if passed is 1,136,500. This year's proposed IT budget is an increase of around 3 and a.5% or 42,775,000 over last year's budget. Uh that increase comes all in our software alliance as we'll see in the next few slides. We always like to talk a little bit about um what makes spending uh that amount of money worth it for our schools and that is making sure that all this technology we invest in is actually helping the students, helping the teachers and that everyone knows how to use those

026technologies. So that's where our digital learning specialists come in. We have three of them. uh one at the high school, one at the middle school, and one uh who spends a lot of time running between three elementary schools and Moose Hill. Um they do a lot of great work pushing into the classroom, helping co-e setting up trainings. Um they led a very big initiative this year with the focus on AI. They helped uh craft the new policy around AI for the district. Um and they're really instrumental in everything that we do regarding technology. And without them um you know we wouldn't we wouldn't get all the value we do out of the technology that we have. Also as part of our team we have uh John Bolio and his team of students that work with

027him to do our video production. Um they do all these meetings. They do many many sporting events that the number of events that they've done has gone up you know year after year. the different teams that are covered has gone up. Um they help students and staff create podcasts. They do all the holiday specials, the assemblies, they make sure that grandmother in Florida can watch the winter concert. Um so we're very appreciative of all the hard work that they put in. And it also is a um a great training tool for students who learn how to do that work. So this is our this is our major software expenses here. Uh some of our largest cost items are listed here. Each year the cost of these items increase at various rates. We continue to evaluate

028these systems for their effectiveness features and the value. Uh we are currently looking at the feasibility of consolidating some of these uh systems in the future for savings. Uh, example, this year we saved about $5,000 by switching our facilities help desk inventory system uh to the same one that the IT department uses. Um the cost of our student management system had the biggest increase this year because uh we moved them to hosting. Uh and we also added the online registration uh online student registration module and we also added our to our securely suite this year the aware in classroom packages. This is the breakdown of what our ideal computer replacement cycle would be um and the annual replacement cost for that. Uh this includes our one to one from middle school, high school, our staff

029laptops, our labs and our elementary Chromebooks. Um we came up with this matrix based on our own experiences and discussions with other school districts. Uh for example, we do not expect a typical elementary Chromebook to get any more than four or five years of daily use. Um, the middle school Chromebooks will probably max out at three years and probably squeezing every last bit of life out of them at that. Uh, five years of daily use for our staff devices and the total cost estimated cost for that is about 500,000 based on current pricing. Um, we know we do not know the actual cost of this till we go out to bid. Um, this year we were fortunate that we received bids that kept us around the anticipated costs listed here. um cost savings. Um this

030year we moved to an IP phone system. Um this is going to mean about a $5,000 savings per month based for the uh phone bills. Um so -ate is a government program that gives us discounts uh to schools and libraries across the country for qualifying purchases related to telecommunications and internet access. So every three years we have to go out to bid for through the -ray program for our internet bandwidth and then the discounts are applied to our monthly bills and we also get discounts on uh networking hardware um and if we have a big project we'll put that through the e-weight program as well. It goes through a bid process and through a portal and then we get the discount through that. Uh the consortium we're a member of the NISTI which is the

031New Hampshire Society for Technology and Education. Through this group, we purchase licensing and endpoint security, which saved us about $25,000 a year by purchasing through this group. Just going to talk about a few of the other items up here. So, grants, this changes kind of yearbyear depending on just what's available. Um, this year we're getting a $15,000 grant that we believe will continue for um this year and the following two years. That is for Discovery Education. It's online uh educational videos and also a collection of um instructional modules that mostly based in science. Um we as Brandon alluded to earlier have consolidated some of our systems. So our facilities management and our um IT ticketing system have been merged together. We have also u moved our health data into Aspen. So, it's in with our

032student information system. That wasn't um an extra cost to us to do that. We had a a long-standing in-house built system that had just aged out and wasn't really sustainable anymore. So, we were looking um for some outside help with that and would be about $10,000 to get a different suite, but Aspen was able to help us um build that into our current system. Um and oh and P the last one. So paper cut um we implemented a new print management system this year. So we were able to usually there's a pretty significant cost to paper cut but because we reduced pretty significantly the number of printers and copiers that we had in the district uh we were able to keep our budget line level for the cost of printers while adding the management system.

033And then we expect to see a large amount of additional savings just on printing. So for example, in the past, people would send things to printers. Sometimes they'd send them to the wrong printer or they'd send them to the right printer and just forget to pick them up. At the end of the day, janitors would go around and it would just be literally reams of paper printed out, wasted that would go in the recycle bin. the paper cut system. The staff need and students now need to either enter a code or use their ID to swipe in and it only releases the print job when they're actually there ready to collect it. So it cuts down on a great deal of waste. Uh we won't know exactly how much that is until we start looking

034at how much money we've spent on paper for the year, but we expect that number to be pretty significant. And we have our uh infrastructure article. Um we established this fund in the year 2019 and we've been doing this every year since. Um to make sure our district uh device usage and curriculum is successful. Uh we need to maintain our network infrastructure. Um the use of this fund is to purchase equipment and services related to the district's networks. Uh we are asking for 125,000 this year. Uh the intent of this fund is to avoid any one-time large ask um and to also to have some money saved for contingency. Uh the plan this year is to replace uh old networking hardware, renew security software and appliances, renew maintenance on our virtual servers, and replace outdated

035fiber and uh cabling throughout the district. And with that, take questions. >> Thank you, Jonah. uh come up here to the board. Any questions for it? >> Good. All right, I'll jump over to the budget committee. >> Okay, you got it. >> I don't I >> Yeah, >> go first. I'll go after you. >> All right. Um I have a question about the um the conferences for the IT department. What exactly that does that entail? Um there would be if we I know the biggest one we send do is the Christa McAuliff conference that is up in Manchester every year and we have somebody who actually the past few years she's presented hasn't she not um that's I think that's the biggest one that we go to and then we have any smaller ones that

036we go to like uh we have uh vendors from the area that host events that we'll go to. >> Okay. I love the idea about paper cut, too. >> Yeah, that's cool. >> Yeah, that's brilliant. Good. >> Not everybody loves that. >> Um, well, speaking as a taxpayer, I do. So, thank you. >> Um, I just have a couple of quick questions for you. And, um, first of all, great job on the consolidations. Always want to start with that. Really appreciate you guys doing that and and paper cut. That's absolutely brilliant. Um, couple of questions. First of all, uh, regarding your software category, um, from the current year to next year, you've got a $67,000 900 increase, which is about 20% over. What's driving that? Um, there was a increase of where is it? Um,

037our student management system price went up about $38,000 because we went to it being hosted by the vendor and we added the online student registration module to it this year. Uh we also added there was a security package that we added that has to be an annual renewal now and then we added um to our securely we added the aware monitoring and alerting. >> Gotcha. Okay. Um one more question on software. I noticed that the district is paying for both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. And as you know you're nodding there's a lot of redundancy there. Why are we licensing both? And is there an opportunity for consolidation and a better unit price there? Yeah, this question comes up every year. Um, it's it's not really an apples to apples comparison here. Um, the Microsoft

038licensing includes our server licensing. It also includes um there's a it's about 10 or $11,000 we pay for a programming software that they use with the curriculum here at the high school. Um, >> so we we take care of we take advantage the Google used to be free but then I think Google realized that throughout the country they sitting on a gold mine because all school districts kind of bought into it and every year their prices are going up as well. >> There we go. So the TLDDR there is there are good reasons to have both of them and you keep getting asked about it. >> We anticipate it every year. >> Okay, great. Um, moving on with just a couple more quick questions. Speaking of the equipment, and thank you for putting that whole

039SK cost schedule up there. I appreciated the remarks about the differing life cycles of equipment based on which uh uh age group I'll say they're assigned to. I assume it has to do with severe wear and tear. Correct. >> But um, help me understand please. Why are we supporting four separate operating systems? I mean, you got Windows, Mac, Chromebook, and iPads in there. Is there any opportunity to do some consolidation there maybe and simplify? Yeah, we we've tried that and we're trying to get rid of the iPads for example. Um we don't >> it is another ecosystem that we have to manage, but we're finding out that that's pretty much just the little guys that are using that, the little kids, the what's it? Moose Hill School. >> Um there is a use case for

040that in the sped department. There are certain like non-verbal students that that's the device that they have to have for their use case. Um the most of the school district the elementaryaries up to the middle school are using the Chromebooks >> as that's seems to be what they need and at the high school level we're using laptops. Um when we first decided to go to oneonone with the the high school we were looking at colleges and universities and the majority of them were requiring incoming students to buy Windows laptops. So, we decided that in order to get them college and career ready, uh, that we would get them into that ecosystem. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I know you're driven to some extent by external influences. It's just, um, that's

041that's a lot of complexity there. So, ju >> just just to add, I think over time, I think, you know, Brandon and Josh for a while, probably five or six years ago, we did have a lot more, you know, uh, Apple computers, we had a lot more iPads. we have really moved away from that and really largely in our 1 through8 system it is it is all Chromebooks that's been like our newer investment and I think you know we started down on the PC route for the high school just knowing some of the software complexities they they want you know so I think it it has shifted over time become a little bit more simpler and I think we we'll kind of always look towards the the ability to consolidate when we can >> gotcha

042thank you and I do appreciate that for some audiences the iPads are definitely going to be by far the best devices so well understood >> um that's all thank you very Thank you, Patrick. Kate, did you have anything? >> Yeah, I was just thinking with the iPads, is there a possibility that it's better for the kindergarteners because a lot of these have keyboards and the kids just don't know how to use a keyboard or like that just doesn't feel age appropriate to me to see a 5-year-old in a laptop. >> So, we we there's some of that, right? There's a lot of kind of simple things that they're doing with the iPads at the kindergarten level. One of the nice things is they don't require a login. >> They can just open up. They're much

043easier to lock down to just one app for the students and they're doing a lot of things like write your name where they're tracing the outline of letters. So, >> um yeah, that we've tried to kind of limit them just to that. Um I do think you know for a while we had the iPads were up first and second grade labs maybe in first through third like we had a lot more iPads and the feedback we got and we try and drive a lot of the stuff this is we get feedback from the teachers it's got to be based around the curriculum is the kids needed to start typing at some point and kind of the sooner the better. Um, so we've kind of I think this year was the first year we replaced all

044the first grade >> iPads with uh Chromebooks and people have been happy with that. So we we're always looking at these things. This is a an everchanging environment. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Actually, if I may, one more quick question. >> Um, regarding the uh warrant article to fund the um the the the infrastructure fund there. So I appreciate what you're saying. you're not going to spend exactly the same amount every year and you know it's going to be lumpy and bumpy. Um but can you give us an example of um you know 125k for this year? What kind of um network infrastructure or hardware as such needs to be replaced on what kind of frequency? I mean where's this money going? >> You mean but this year is what you're asking about? >>

045I I was thinking more um over a multiple of years because I mean you buy a piece of equipment it's presumably going to last several years, right? Correct. >> But I mean where does that money go um when you have say a very expensive year? What what is the stuff that's getting obsoleted and replaced? >> Yeah, that's majority of that. The expensive stuff is for example the firewalls. Um we have more than one. Um those go for about 30 to 60,000 a piece. Um it's the uh the switches that we have, you know, those are expensive to replace. Um, and I I don't want to because we had to do this in the previous previous years, um, where we had to come in because we were just in a we were in a good shape.

046We had to ask for I think it was like 500,000 one year >> and we didn't we didn't want to have to get in a position where we'd had to do that again. So, we we're rolling the replacement of the so your access points, your switches. Um, we don't want to again we don't want to have to do it all at once. So if we slowly do that every year, we're keeping up the maintenance of that. >> What is the I mean I know you have different categories of equipment, but let's take the firewall that you mentioned. I mean what's the lifespan of one of those and why does it get replaced? Does it do they stop working or is it just hey it's 5 years it's depreciation? >> Yeah, the the the vendors uh

047end of life on those. >> Okay. >> And then there's like you know it goes from the Gen 7 to the Gen 8 and so we follow that and those go about five years on those. Go ahead. All right. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Thanks. >> I actually had a couple questions in that same vein. Um for for that particular So that's a reserve fund, >> correct? >> That you have? >> Um do you typically expend the full balance by the end of the year or how much is currently in it for example? >> I don't know. I I'm not done spending what we have this year because we had a lot of projects this summer that took most of my time. Mhm. >> So, right now I'm working with some vendors right now to

048purchase more equipment in there that was planned. >> Mhm. >> So, I don't really know where we're at right now. >> The beginning of the year, >> it's on page 281. >> Yeah. The beginning balance of this year was 85 plus the 125 that went in. So, they're working somewhere around an $85,000 balance the last several years. But you found it you found that you've been able to kind of anticipate these things as of their life cycle that the 125 is ample to cover those replacements. >> Yeah. >> But also to cover in case there's something catastrophic. >> Correct. Yeah. In case of you know say we had you know a building we lost equipment or something or the you know sprinkler system went off and ruined you know something as we as we had

049earlier this year when we had the whatever that was that blew out a classroom. >> Mhm. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any questions from the audience? No. All right. Everybody good on the board with it? >> Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> And we will now call up uh buildings and grounds. Hello. How's it going? My name is Joe Parzik. I'm the director of buildings and grounds here in Londereerry. Um so for the start of this I just want to kind of go over department overview. Um we have 44 employees in our department including myself. We have uh seven buildings with over 680,000 square ft of space, over 200 acres of land. Um we process over 3,000 work orders per year. I think uh the first month of school

050we did a thousand just in that month. Um and then approximately 150 200 to 250 after school weekend events every week. Um kind of a building rundown. Average age of our buildings is 45 years old. Our newest building is the high school gym at 22 years old and our oldest is Matthew Thornon at 76 years old. Um older buildings, but regardless of age, our staff does a really great job of uh keeping up with the buildings, being proactive for repairs, and just making sure, you know, staff and students have everything they need um to be comfortable in that environment. So, before I talk about how we plan on spending money, I figured I'd talk about how we've uh some initiatives we've taken to save some. Um, this past year, we've spent a lot of time

051evaluating our procedures, our equipment, and supplies. Um, the goal is to show financial responsibility and make every dollar count by also maintaining our goals and expectations. So, um, we've recently switched to a new cleaning company, Chemical. Um there's kind of a breakdown of savings cost per gallon on different uh chemicals we use regularly. Um even switching over a hand soap to a better product at half the price. And I know this seems not like a large amount of uh savings, but I mean my uh anticipation is $15,000 per year just in uh custodial supplies. So um these are items we use every day across all of our buildings. Um you know, here at the high school, middle school, three shifts. Um it definitely adds up. So, um, and then for, uh, we kind of keep

052track of all of our assets, all of our inventory for equipment. We've been going through all of our stuff. Um, I found some, uh, cleaning scrubbers that have been in closets unused for a couple years. So, we've repaired the ones that are worth repairing, trying to maximize that investment, not ask for new equipment when we have some that we can repair and reuse. And then for um, we've also been using ARM consultants. Um, so they're strictly a roofing consultant. They don't do any roof replacements themselves. They ensure that we receive a completely unbiased evaluation. Kind of puts us on the right track to for capital improvement plans, repairs. Um, so they looked at three of our elementary schools, North School, South School, Matthew Thoran, and also the middle school. Uh, they gave us a 130

053page interactive report. um kind of just mapping out a 20-year capital improvement plan and also identifying immediate needs. Um so I I think our plan is to do these projects the right way the first time, make sure we maximize the investment, they're under warranty, um just kind of looking at every way we can um you know, just put the right products in place. So um so this is kind of a rundown of our construction budget. Uh there's $140,000 in this line every year and it's really for summer projects mainly. Um so kind the high school painting $4,000. Uh door replacement 15,000. Moose Hill painting 2,000 at cell school. Uh garage and a couple shed roof replacements $5,000. And then districtwide, kind of what I talked about with the ARM report, some roof repairs, just kind

054of uh tightening some things up, whether it's flashing that's missing, roof penetrations we need to patch, uh $13,000 just to kind of start keeping up with that. And then the next uh is seal coating and line striping. Um we did a couple seal coating jobs last year just to extend the life of our pavement. Uh paving projects are very expensive, so if we can add some um life expectancy to those, that that will go a long way. So hopefully do a couple parking lots this year, restripe the lines. That's um that's the 18,000 right there. And then for the middle school, refinish the gym floor. It's something we do yearly. Um we have three or four doors we're looking to replace. $20,000 uh epoxy a couple bathroom floors. Um we use uh we've been using

055a company uh very durable epoxy product, something we don't have to do yearly, repaint epoxy floor like you would your garage. Um these last 20, 30 years. I had uh we did them at Cell School the last couple years and they've been holding up great. Um skylight replacement. We've had one that's been kind of leaking so they're they're older. So we're looking to replace a couple skylights at the middle school painting $4,000 and then a pod flooring replacement. That's kind of what this picture is from the one we did last year. Um it really brought the space together. It's a a quality product and uh really ties just the whole pod together. Um it came out it came out great. So, we're looking to do another pod this upcoming summer uh for our capital reserve

056fund. These are uh big bigger projects we want to fund through the capital reserve. Um the first one is the Matthew Thornton roof replacement. Uh this is one of the roofs identified by ARM consultants as a priority. Um it's been re-roofed and kind of multiple layers. So when we have a leak, it's hard kind of hard to identify where that leak is coming from. Um, so this project would involve ripping down the roof to the decking and uh redoing that with the rubberized roof that's going to be under warranty. Um, the next project would be the Nor school. Uh, that gym floor is a rubber floor. Uh, it just has a lot of wear in it. It's slippery. So that would be overpour of that gym floor. And then while we're in there, also replacing

057the bleachers that are in there. They're original, older, kind of hard to open, just definitely past their um their life cycle. for the high school. Um the gym floor here is a wood floor, a full sand repaint. Um it's 22 years old, so all the colors are kind of all the whites look yellow, all the reds look maroon, so definitely looks old and outdated. So just sanding that down to bare wood, repainting the lines, new logo, um refinishing it. Um next one be the phase one duck work cleaning. So, it's probably the oldest section here at the school and um a lot of the main duck work is in the basement. So, it's overdue. It just needs to be cleaned. I mean, this will help with, you know, reduce allergens, create better air flow, increase

058indoor air quality. Um so, it would just be kind of cleaning out all that duck work. Um the next item is the film room floor. So, over at the high school gym, we um turned one of the locker rooms into kind of a team room, film room. Uh we took out a bunch of broken lockers. Um got a bunch of cement pads out of there. We're just trying to redo the floor. Uh you know, kind of update that that space for uh um students and teams. And then we also have two rooftop units here at the high school that need to replace. They're just require a lot of maintenance. They're, you know, 20 years old. Um it just they're past their life cycle and we just spend a lot of time repairing and fixing them.

059And then the last item here is just uh $100,000 for field improvements and repairs. We've replaced some scoreboards here with that line. We've done uh field improvements. Whatever you know comes up. We have some other stuff that's coming up in the next couple years that we need to address. So this next slide is just kind of a picture. So the top left is what our high school gym looks up look like looks like right now. And then below it actually found a gym that kind of looks similar as far as color-wise go. And then next it's kind of a before and after. So kind of before would be on the left left and then after would be on the right. I mean you can just see the difference. The white looks white. You know just

060over time you do the finishing it just discolors the floor. Um so it really just brightens up the space. Um we do some wood repairs when we sanded it down just to fill in any you know gashes that have happened over the years. And then top right is what the North School gym floor looks like right now. You can kind of see the wear pattern in the middle. Um, you see the bleachers in the black background or wood older and then below that that wouldn't have to be gray. We can talk about colors, but kind of idea of what it would look like after the overpour and it getting redone. It just, you know, that's that uh that gym's very well used by obviously the students there, but LBC uses it as a main gym.

061It's just really uh it's it's a busy gym and uh it would make a huge improvement for the North School gym. Um, so our we have a lot of pages. Sorry. So the next item is our vehicle capital reserve fund. Um, we're looking to replace uh our infield groomer. Down at the bottom, you can see on the left it's smaller, but uh it's kind of an older version, kind of basic. And then the one on the right is kind of what we'd be looking to uh move to. So, this groomer would allow us to accurately drag and level our baseball and softball fields. Infields, we have six infields right now. Um, this would eliminate uneven playing surfaces and um help with any standing water before games. Uh, the fields get used heavily from spring into

062fall. This groomer would allow us to keep up with the maintenance needs of school sports and town groups who utilize our baseball and softball fields. Um, right now we'd get around $5,500 to trade in our current infield groomer. Um, and part of the reason is since two summers ago, we had to pay over $25,000 to have a company bring in the infield mix, level our baseball field, and it's just because we didn't have the proper equipment. So, um, you know, one thing I've learned from being here is our department takes a lot of pride in their work, and if we can continue to keep maintenance and projects in-house, you know, the more co cost efficient we will be. our JV baseball field could probably use the same type of work and uh having the right

063piece of equipment will go a long way. Continue with the VA vehicle capital reserve fund. Uh also looking to replace one of our trucks. It's a 2016 Ford F250. Um this vehicle is used daily for the grounds department and also uh one of our primary plow trucks. And uh I also put like our current fleet of vehicles we have in our department. And then um another uh vehicle capital reserve fund is also a mini bus for athletics um so they can get to their events and whatever else they uh may need it for. So this slide is just uh you know sometimes it's nice to reflect and it's just the progress we made. These are just from projects last year. So top left kind of before and after of that middle school pod. We redid

064the flooring. Next to that um the top is uh we did some seal coating at the front of the middle school. So top is before, bottom after, and then far right is uh the paving project here at the high school. And then the bottom four pictures are the before and after of the epoxy projects we did at Cell School. Kind of what I'm recommending for um the middle school this year. So, and I just want to take a second to thank everybody and especially the whole department. Uh they put a lot of time and effort and work into what they do and uh it really shows we've come a long way. Uh and I'm excited uh to be part of the team and excited for the future. Do you have any questions? >> I have

065a question. Um, >> sure. >> The town has uh signed a contract with open gov to do an asset management program so we can start thinking more critically as a town, at least on the town side, about our different assets. You mentioned keeping tabs on our roof and buildings and things like that. Do we have an asset management program like that or how are how are you keeping track of that? Yeah, I think I I've been here 18 months and as we do these projects, I have a like a running list of capital improvement stuff that I'm looking at and I I go through old files to kind of see when things were done. So, I kind of have a master spreadsheet I've been working on. I have looked into asset management companies in the

066past. District this size, it's expensive. um it's uh you know it it would be a huge help, but I think um I think we're on the right track as far as kind of keeping track of what we're doing, how often we need to do it, and being proactive for some of these projects. So, >> okay, great. Thank you. >> Anyone from the board? >> No, just thank you for all of the pictures and the details and breaking that down for us. >> Can you explain more about the mini bus for athletic events? How many we currently have? Is there a need for more? if we've run out of opportunities and availability for buses for events. >> Yeah, a few. >> Yeah. Um I think uh Jimmy has found that the they're aged the ones that

067we have um they're not just used for athletics um during the day. They're used to transport our kids to some of their the CTE if needed. They're also used for the special ed department. Um, and I think um, it's been increased repair costs and they're nearing their end of life. So, I think Jimmy felt like it was a good time to get into that rotation um, to replace one of them. >> How many do we currently have? >> I think it's three. I would have to go back. I I can get the number exactly back to you. They're not all attached to athletics, so I just need to check that. >> Yeah. if you don't mind just letting me >> I I have a question about the um the little field lining robot that we

068purchased last year. Have we seen any cost savings from paint and things like that yet? I know that was one of the big selling points. >> Yeah, I mean one of the biggest things is be able to kind of adjust our staff to do other things. I mean they've addressed Matthew Thorne courtyard which was very overgrown and they did a great job there. They've been working down at the cell school courtyard kind of re re-envisioning that. So labor-wise it's we we we've been able to take on so many more tasks paint costs. Um the problem with having it is now we are setting up a lot more practice fields which is great you know so it's just um you know we don't have to pull someone off and measure it. So we just kind of

069drag it out there set up the field and it's it's been a huge um help. And uh I've been uh to a couple games this year and just seeing how crisp the lines are. The logo looks amazing. So, um it's really just elevated um the grounds department and our our our fields in general. It's been it's been amazing. So, >> yeah, I saw the work that they did in the Matthew Thornton Court. It looks really good. So, >> yeah. And uh you know, we've had it now for we got it early. They let us have it a little early, but we haven't even had it for a full year yet. So, we'll definitely know more as far as cost and cost savings, especially supplies wise. >> Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank

070you. Yeah, the um the large cost on there obviously was the um the Matthew Thornton first grade wing. >> Um do we shop that figure around? >> Um this is just I haven't, you know, gone to a formal process, but it's uh I'm just kind of using square footage wise what it what it would probably cost, but I I feel like it's pretty going to be very close to that number. Going to be close. >> So maybe 10 $10,000 either way. Either less or more, but it's going to be right on par with that. I just kind of use a kind of a equation of like what a normal roof would cost per square foot and kind of figure it out that way. So, >> okay. Thanks. >> Yeah, I'm curious. There's a default budget

071of 21,000 for cleaning services that's then down to zero uh in the proposed what uh what is the lack of cleaning service need there now? >> Yes. What drove that? Um, I thought that number was high and we were outsourcing to a cleaning company for the district office and we decided to hire somebody uh part-time to clean it. That way we just had kind of a more control of frequency, how things are done, training them our way. Um, so I fully expect to see savings in that area. Um, it's not a set number. We're paying monthly. It's an hourly employee. So, you know, if we have a snow day, they don't come in. If you know we're on vacation, they don't need to come in. So, uh, you know, it it's it's working better right

072now for sure. Joe, can um can I ask you to look at um how you're looking for a a new truck for a 2016 replacement and um look at going possibly to a 10 to 12 year cycle with those trucks depending on you know we don't want to keep something that's you know constantly in the garage. Um, you know, for instance, we we run about 15 of those size trucks and we try to get 10 years out of them and we're we're on the road and hauling a lot of material in that and I know they take some wear and tear cuz most of our equipment sits outside. >> Yep. >> Um, which takes some of the life expectancy, but if you could take a look at and let us know if it's possible to

073get another year out of that 16 and start looking at a 10-year cycle if possible. >> Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I think the groomer is definitely a priority just based on our needs right now, but I mean, yeah, I can definitely uh follow up with that and see if we can uh you know, extend that another year. >> Yeah. Is that particular truck causing problems or is it just that you felt that >> we've had an increase in maintenance? Nothing major yet. Um but yeah, just kind of a a cycle that's kind of been in place. So, um I think adding a year or two, I think that's something that we could probably >> get by with still. >> Yeah. And I would I would tend to agree with the groomer. Um, I know

074buildings and grounds had a demo this this past fall and and reached out to me to come down and take a look at what they can do with it. >> And I know the ref what you referenced to the 25 grand on the m on the uh uh varsity field um was because we didn't have the equipment, we had to hire it out. Now they can order a load of material with the equipment we have and be able to do the infield in the fall so it's ready for the spring. So I I think that's a wise investment um you know moving forward. So I appreciate the due diligence of the grounds crew thinking that way. Yeah. >> Of of trying to save thousands of dollars a year and something they can do if they

075have that right piece of equipment. So >> for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think it's something that just we can keep up with every year, adding more infield mix and just making sure that the fields are I mean they're in great shape now, but we just want to be proactive and um they do a great job. And I know those guys, they always want to kind of keep things in house as much as possible and so do I. So, uh, this piece of equipment would allow us to do that. And just hit on one other thing, the 100,000 for maintaining and upgrading our fields. Um we had for the ones on the budget committee that weren't here last year, we had a field analysis done, had a um architect that works on fields, designs turf

076fields and that come in and do an analysis of all our fields where we need to be. Uh some were built 30 years ago, 25 years ago by volunteers in the town, not professionally built. We don't know exactly what's under some of the fields. We have some serious settlement on the middle field right now. I know you're looking at that. Um, we know Panther Park is probably beyond its lifetime and that may be, you know, at a point where we can't use it unless we put some serious money into it. Um, so I just wanted the folks on the budget committee and people at home at 100,000 seems like a lot, but for 30 acres of property and uh upwards of 15 fields between Matthew Thorn in the middle school and the high school to

077try to have for practice baseball, football, lacrosse, soccer. Um there there's a tremendous amount of use. Um, you know, and some of our youth teams use them as well. >> Um, so that's that's kind of where that goes. and uh you know that it it is a cost but there are um I think the maintenance of that analysis was well over 100,000 a year just to maintain them never mind to fix them. >> So we're trying to do the best we can at this point. Um we do have some some other stuff we're working on coming out hopefully early spring on on a turf field and that uh through a capital committee that you'll hear about a little bit later. So but thank you for that. Um, any other questions over here? Go ahead. >>

078Um, do you have questions? >> No, go ahead. I got some foot. >> I have a couple questions. Um, to go along with the the Ford truck on there, um, it says it's a primary plow truck. Are the other trucks on this list also used for plowing? >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We have a couple vans that are used for main HVAC, but all the all the trucks are used either for sanding, plowing. >> They're all they're all on the road during the storms. >> Okay. I was going to ask if you could use one of those trucks in place of the 2016, but if they're all used for plowing, then um for the pod floors, how old are the floors currently there? Um, so if you go into any wing at the school, it's kind

079of a mismatch of different carpets, flooring. So just trying to create some consistency and, you know, not just use whatever is on sale, you know, I I I I kind of have a vision. I mean, even when we did this pod, um, the flooring kind of matches the lockers. It kind of goes with the theme and creates some flow. Um, and just, you know, if you go in that pod in another one, it that it almost doesn't look like the same school in a way, you know. So, um, it's kind of hard to say how old the flooring is cuz it's kind of all over the place. So, >> Okay. >> Do do they currently need to be replaced or >> Yeah. Yeah. There's some classrooms, some, you know, some of the main pot areas

080that are in rough shape. For sure. Yeah. >> All right. Um, and then a question about the doors. I think it's on this the door replacement. Is that just for this year? How often do do the doors get replaced? >> Um, yeah. I mean, we're we're behind. There's a lot of deferred maintenance. Um, so, uh, we try to identify the ones that are immediate needs and start with those. So, I mean, we just did ones back here this last year. Um, we've done a few every single year. So, we kind of go around and, you know, if there's ones that are starting to rot or we're having issues with, like those jump up to the front list. So, it's taken some time to get a full inventory and see where we're at. But, uh, I

081think we have a pretty good plan in place for the next couple years for some of these minor projects, but, um, you know, uh, something comes up that kind of takes priority, we we, uh, move it to the top of the list. So, >> Okay. Thank you. >> Joe, can I add on the on the on the carpets? >> Yeah. >> So, you know, one thing to keep in mind for the middle school, you know, it was built in the late '9s, so when you walk around the pods, we've had hundreds of middle school kids use them. Um, some of them are quite dirty. Um, and that doesn't mean they're not in good shape, but they they just have they don't have that long of a life. Um, and forgive me if I'm wrong, Joe,

082but the the new ones we put in have a much longer life uh than than what we have right now. >> Yeah. So, I didn't make a note about um so it's a product called Power Bond. It's uh has all the benefits of a hard surface. So, that durability factor uh but it's a carpet. So, you walk through it and you can definitely feel it's a little different, but it's, you know, I I I've seen pictures of it in other schools and colleges and it's been in there 20 years. You would never know it's been 20 years. So, it just has that durability factor. So, it costs a little more than your typical carpet replacement, but everything, all the research I've done, it's worth the investment 100 times over. So, >> all good. >> All

083right. Um, as usual, I'd like to start by thanking you for the efforts you've made to sharpen your pencil and the part that you talked about with the cleaning products. That's brilliant. So, thank you. That is a a smart and detail- oriented pencil sharpening. So, thank you. Um, just a couple of quick questions regarding that annual cost to maintain the fields. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that explanation since I am one of those new people. Do you expect that that infield groomer you're talking about might um improve that cost at all or um pretty much keep things the same but just improve staff productivity? >> Yeah, what's the effect? >> The the groomer is more for just the infields. Um the one that we were looking at has attachments for to help increase like aeration

084for the outfield. So there are ways we can use it further, but really it's just um primarily it's just updating that the groomer for the infields for a lot of our fields. So, it probably wouldn't help with the longevity of our fields. I mean, there might be some that we actually have to, you know, tear up, rebuild. So, um just because of settling and sinking issues. So, um that the groomer really wouldn't help with the with those projects. >> Okay. Awesome. Um one or two other quick questions. Actually, I was looking at your multi-year plan and so if I could just ask you two very quick questions. We don't need to spend a lot of time cuz this is looking into your FY28, but you talk about 35,000 for additional cameras and um a security

085exterior rekey for 42,000. Can you just like in one or two sentences explain what each of those is? >> Yeah. So cameras um you know we're always looking for you know if there's blind spots or you know camera upgrades some of the older cameras. So that's that kind of encompasses the camera. >> These are security cameras. >> Security cameras. Okay. And then for the exterior rekey, I think it just makes sense to um uh you know rekey the exterior doors and then really limit the access of who receives those keys. You know, just kind of completely rekey the district to you know and then we we have badges so there's no real need for people to get keys. It might not have been like that 20 30 years ago where people had keys. So just

086trying to make sure that you know a fresh start I I guess. So, is any of that going to replace mechanical locks where once a key is out in the wild, it's out in the wild with card locks so that you can control who gets in there without having to replace the lock? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, right now we don't hand out exterior keys at all because we have the digital. Got >> so this would just be to ensure that there's no keys in the wild or got lost or you know. So, >> okay, perfect. One more quick question. Um, can I ask you about the gym sound system >> that's on your Okay. Um, So, I'm curious roughly how much money are we looking at there and to what extent is that system not

087even repairable anymore? >> So, I don't know a whole lot about the shape it's in right now. I know that might have been in the high school budget to have it repaired, but I know I've had brief conversations about us um our electrician helping out with those with the install on it. But as far as I know it's kind of we have a lot of intermittent issues as far as sound quality and it going in and out. So I don't really >> I was asking you because it was on the on the um capital reserve um slide there. >> Yeah. >> I'm just curious order of magnitude what the cost there would be. >> So I don't have my numbers in front. I think it was around $5,000. >> Oh okay. >> In that range.

088Um, so given the not it's certainly not a a small amount, but given the number of events that we hold in there and the you know there's been multiple times I think I shared this maybe last meeting where if you've been to an event the mic just cuts out um you can't hear um it's just been a problem and it's been increasing in frequency with everything else. So it's just it's just due. >> So you're saying like order of magnitude singledigit thousands to to do the needed upgrades or repairs? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. That's very helpful. That's all my questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> You bet. Anyone else on the budget committee? Anyone else from the audience? Any questions on buildings and grounds? >> Just name and address, please. >>

089Uh Janet Penstein Boyd Road contracting out for field maintenance, building maintenance, grounds maintenance, trimmers, landscaping. Do we have a contract with them and what do they do and is that a large amount of money and why are we not doing that ourselves? >> I believe the contract with trimmers is up this year so we'll be putting out RFP to kind of help with those items. Um, as one of my slides said, >> what was it? >> I mean, we have 200 acres of land. So, we have four groundskeepers and especially in the spring, summer, I mean, the the workload would be too much for us to take it all on in-house. It's just um they do a lot of like, you know, out front here. We do all of our playing fields and all of

090our like main main fields. So, they kind of do those oneoff areas. Um, uh, it's I want to say it's around for a bigger school, we probably during the, um, you know, spring, summer, fall around 250 a month for the high school somewhere around there and then less for some of the other schools. But yeah, just it's too much to take on for for groundskeepers. We'd probably have to hire an additional two groundskeepers just to um, take on all that additional work. And it's just more cost effective to outsource some of that. Well, you were mentioning previously that the groundskeepers are able to take on more tasks than they could before because of all this equipment. >> Mhm. >> Um would that be something that could happen in the future? Yeah, I mean I'm always

091looking for ways to save money and um they're always willing to hear me out, but I mean we we just take all they they they do a lot of you know whether it's tree trimming or you know keeping up with the courtyards um during the spring and fall. I mean just the games themselves are full-time jobs even with the robot. I mean talk about mowing multiple times a week. We have huge fields, practice fields. Um, but yeah, I'm I'm always looking to, you know, streamline processes and see how we can save money in any way possible, even if it was taking on one school instead of, you know, and not not outsourcing as much. So, it's something that we're definitely going to always look at and evaluate and see what we can do do more

092of. >> Do you have any idea what we paid them last year, what the contract was last year >> or the contract moving forward? I could definitely get you a number. Um I don't want to just blurt something out and be inaccurate. So um we can definitely find you the the actual full number of what we paid for for trimmers last year. >> Okay. I'm just curious whether you know whether it's 30,000 200,000 you know. >> Yep. Just and I think it all depends on how much uh rain we gets and how much the grass grows. So it's not like they're just a set price. It's kind of how often they need to, you know, assist us. So, >> okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none, you

093guys all set at the budget committee? >> I think so. >> Anyone from the board? >> All right. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate that. >> Thank you for the welldetailed and um um you looking into those few areas for us and let us know. Um that'll be great. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. All right, moving right along. Jump into district office. >> Yes. So, I'm going to talk to you about the expenses um that come out of the district office portion of the budget um excluding um personnel. Um and beside me is our new finance director uh Colleen Lewis. So, if we have any or if you have any questions, um we this is an interesting budget. We're overall level funded, but we have the biggest hit because of contractual obligations that you'll

094see. Um, but to follow along with us, if you start on page 161, um, we'll walk you through what we have. So, the district office has several functions that fall under our umbrella. Um, we have schoolboard services, our audit that we're required to do, legal fees, office of the superintendent fees, um, any business support services, transportation, and then benefits, food service, and debt service. Um, as far as our schoolboard services, we are level funded with the exception of we are up about $1,500 for budget or for our ballot printing. There was a system that we adopted last year. It is now a system that the town uses um and across the state. So, it's just a different system that had a cost increase that went for there. Then we have our supplies being level funded

095and our dues and fees are level funded. Um, both our audit and our legal fees are also level funded. Audit is pretty p predictable for what we have to do. We want to make sure, especially with the things that have been in the news with surrounding school districts, that we have our yearly audit, that we're in compliance, and that we are meeting our Gatsby reporting requirements. Legal, we level funded $70,000, and we hope that um we don't have any major um legal um funds that come up. And then we have a hodgepodge of a lot of different things that are covered. Uh professional services, reports for educational needs, consulting for things like architecture and engineering. Um that aligns with our 10-year facility study, communication services for things like um recruiting for employment. um our residency

096database that was approved last year. Our copier leases like it um spoke to you. We are level funded this year because we were able to get rid of some outdated printers and work into the contract paper cut. So we um so we stayed level funded but we anticipate um savings through our use of paper, our general supplies and then dues and fees for professional organizations um for the district office employees. and then advertising, postage, printing, um business support for any unplanned things, our safety committee, um all of that sort of stuff. And then we also have this fund for site acquisition that we have $3 allotted to. There's three lines for that. And that's basically so that we have a dollar amount if something were to come up, like if there was a piece of

097real estate that we thought might be a good place to put like the district office or something like that, so we have money in a line item that we could talk about. So that's more of a a safety measure there. And then student transportation. So uh we have a contract. We are in year eight of our contract with STA. Um it it requires a 3% contractual increase. Um and with that it was a budget increase of a little over $100,000. You can see the breakdown of what the different buses, a full day bus, um the midday run buses, our transportation to CTE, um a multi-use bus, and then bus costs for summer school. So, all those reflect the 3% increase employee benefits. So, as has been discussed, um this is where we see a bulk

098of the the major contractual obligations. So, this covers our health and dental insurance. Um, we get notified by our insurance providers every year what the rate increase is going to be. We work that into our personnel report to figure out what plans people have, life, life and disability insurance. Um, the related FICA, Social Security, Medicare, our retirement rates were in year two. Um, and then workers comp and unemployment and then other miscellaneous benefits that come to our employees. So um our our total budget for um health insurance had overall a 13.72 increase. We use school care and health trust and there are two different plans in each of those groups and they had in school care between 11 and 13% increase and a 19.7 to 22.5% increase. And that's actually we look at the headcount

099as of October 1st, we're actually down 20 in each group um from from what we had at this point last year and we still have that increase. It's looked at the individual employees, what plans they have. Um we go through a whole Excel document and and double verify that um to get to that number. We have 486 budgeted participants including teachers, allied health, non-affiliated administrators, support staff, and custodians. Um and then our dental insurance went up about 25,000 about 3.8% and all of the groups are insured with health trust and we had about 570 participants in that New Hampshire retirement. So we have two groups that are part of that. They're either part of the teacher group or they're part of the employee group. You look at what the personnel costs are going to be

100and teacher New Hampshire retirement costs are 19.23% of that. The rates will be set for the for fiscal year 28 next year, but this is what we have. And then the employee group, any non-teer group is at 12.75%. All of the other benefits that that fall into this umbrella are our life and disability insurance, we had a $9,000 increase for that. Workers comp, we had a $900 increase. Um and then social security and Medicare. Um we calculated through the CBAs what that what everybody would be earning and then we go through the 7.65 um required percentage of that and then any miscellaneous um retirement and health benefits. Food service um Crystal Connell presented last week. So it is required that if there is any outstanding lunch debt that it is paid out of the general

101fund. So, we earmark $10,000 for that. Um, right now we are at a little under $50,000 debt. We are always looking for ways to um really mine that gap and get that to be um less and less. We rely on the schools to to look at what's going on there. We do anticipate by the end of the year we will um get more and more of that back. Then we have our debt service. We did lose a north school renovation. So, we were down $265,000 in principal. Um, and then you have your lease costs, again, contractual obligations of things um that that you pay. If you look on page 71, you have a long-standing vision of what um we have for debt that's that we are still paying and when they fall off. And then

102finally, on page 41 to 42, you can see how we calculated the default budget. uh we took off things that were one-time purchases and then we have to account for the contractual obligations again the personnel in um increases for the CBAs the transportation contracts um all of those things health insurance come part of that and and that is us in a nutshell that's where all the big costs come from but I would also like to draw your attention um in my section of this is also starting on page 173 Three, it gets into what we talked about at the beginning of the meeting about how the personnel is broken down. And you can see an a bridged version of that sacred document that we talked about that that goes through um what each position is

103being paid. Um where the hours all fall out, any positions that the superintendent has deemed that he would make a cut, um that is reflected in the ad swap. And that is the district office. >> Great. Thank you, Emity. Appreciate it. Any questions from the board? >> See, budget committee couple if I may. Um, first of all, thank you for all the information. Um, obviously the elephant in the room here is that almost 14% year-over-year increase in health insurance averaged across those two providers. And so I'm curious, we talked about this previously a little bit with that $2 million surprise, but um what are we going to do so that we don't have a 14% or more increase every single year? Is there are the providers saying that this is like a spike or a

104glitch or is this just a new normal? >> Uh so that's a great question. I mean for this year it is a spike for sure that we haven't seen. We showed you the charts earlier that in our our long-standing history with them, we had seen, you know, half of this is an increase and we got premium holidays for several of those years that we put back to offset our costs. Um, I think they're asking themselves, is this a new normal? Because in 39 years, they haven't had to do an assessment like this. Um, and the rates haven't been that high. Um, so I think they're making they're making some sincere efforts as their health groups to to compensate for for that and to avoid big spikes like this in the future. We talked about how

105um we have a board member um that is now going to be part of that. Um we also are are partnering with the town looking into some options for us um moving forward to save um if if possible to find a better way for us to do that. We're not sure what that is. It's a national struggle with with healthcare as well. Um I think what we're doing that that Dan will talk about in a few minutes is we are creating it we want to create um a capital reserve that we're making a warrant article so that we can start an account um that if we have premium holidays in the future that we put the money back into there to account for a year where there might be a spike. So I think it's

106a little bit of an unknown that we're trying to brace for impact to avoid this. We don't want to come back to voters every year. um with with this high of an increase it's very hard >> and if I remember correctly when you spoke about this before here you mentioned that at least from the insurers the rationale given was and please correct me if I'm misremembering here a steep increase in cancer costs and in um what do they call them highcost patients >> yep so it it was that but it was also um increased amount of claims that came in in their last quarter and it was also some of the uh prescription costs um that we used to get rebates for um that the prescription companies were no longer offering. So, they lost a

107lot of money and the increase in demand became much more than they thought they were going to receive. >> Um and then this is a little bit more going out on a limb, but to what extent do you suppose that we as merely one fish in the large pond of insurance company clients might have the ability to go to them and say, um perhaps our health outcomes or our health stats are better than average. what can you do for us? >> Yeah. So, I think we already see that we we have, believe it or not, um less of a a rate than a lot of the neighboring folks around us. Um so, they there were some districts that had like 35% increase. Um so, we promote wellness. Um school care in particular has wellness programs

108that we um encourage um our our staff to be a part of. There's incentives for them to be a part of that. Um, so we want to be a part of of all of that. And you know, we're we're grateful. We're not grateful we have such a large increase, but we're grateful we don't have a 35% increase with this. >> Yeah. >> And we're school care's largest fish. >> Oh, wow. Okay. And if I saw correctly in the numbers, the increase in insurance is almost twice the increase in salaries. >> Yes. >> That seems to be pretty good motivation to rein that in so that maybe we could talk more about salaries, >> right? But anyway, all right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> If I could add to, you know, to Amy's saying things to

109some of your questions, like obviously this is something that we didn't see coming up till a few months ago because if you remember my chart from last week, for many years our average increase was usually below 5%. So this big double digit, you know, increase is very abnormal for us. So obviously it's inspired more conversations. What can we do longer term? I think right now if if everyone's on board, we can start this new reserve fund. So, in the past that, you know, when we got these premium holidays, we we would lower costs. I think what we're proposing is let's store away some of these funds to help the taxpayers in the future, you know. Um, but I think too, we we do our best to to to learn outside of our world. Um, all

110the news that I'm reading around economics and healthcare is all employee and sponsored, you know, insurance are going up, whether you're from a private company or or even us. What's behind that? I don't know if everyone else is seeing highc cost claimments too, but the whole country seems to have this huge double- digit problem right now that that is definitely sinking lots of things. So, I think we're we're part of that. Uh, and we'll do our best. And then, you know, the other moving piece here is all these things are part of collective bargaining contracts. So, that's going to drive our conversations over the next couple years. What can we do better and and partner with our employees so we're not seeing these same increases in the future? Pat Patrick just to that the average

111increase over 90 members of school trust average was 17.7 >> and we were at 117. >> There's only so long that divergence between CPI and those costable. >> So I'll get my full update next week. I have my second board meeting from them. >> Awesome. >> Um and I will report back to the board and the community on any findings. But we're trying to put some triggers in place so if we see something going off the guardrails, which school care has never experienced this in 30 years, that all of a sudden the fall of last year they started to see these claims and prescription prices for everybody no matter what plan you have went through the roof and the co-pays and what they weren't covering certain prescriptions have gone through the roof was a bulk

112of the cost to what AMD said. Um, but what we want to do as a, you know, business mechanisms is to put that in place with school care where they never had them because over 30 years until now, they've given holiday pay to all their members because they're nonprofit. >> And that money goes back to the members and they keep their reserves what they need to be uh um, you know, covered at the state level. >> Yeah. >> Um, and that. So, just a little history there. I will keep everybody updated. That's one of the reasons I wanted to jump on the board for a year while we work through some some logistics with the town and other companies and what we can do with our employees moving forward. So, we've got many things in

113the works trying to head this off before it gets any worse. Got >> and get it better. So, just a little history. >> Thank you. If I may ask one other quickformational question, and I apologize if I missed this. I did see the employee um contribution percent to retirement, but do employees of the school district um bear any of the cost for the insurance premiums? >> They do. >> Yep. 10%. >> Yep. Yep. >> How much? >> 10%. Okay. Thank you. >> 9010. >> Um I have I can't remember this. I mean I can't remember if I've asked this before or if it's been answered already. Um, does the district offer a buyout for maybe teachers and other staff members who don't use the insurance to maybe try to keep those costs lower? I know

114the town does it on their side. Is that something the school does? >> Yes, we we do. Um, yes, it's minimal compared to what some of the other um groups do. >> Okay. Do we think if we raise that amount of that bio it would help or >> we're exploring it. >> Yeah. Okay. Great. We're exploring. It's kind of >> do a nice little survey. >> Yeah. I mean we have a really good in insurance plan so I think you know families would prefer >> to to have ours. Um so you know we we are guaranteed we're not necessarily guaranteed to see a savings by offering that. So yeah >> the lion share of it um I mean the collective bargaining agreement was just agreed upon last year. So it's for the majority of the

115employees it's not going to come up for two more years. >> Okay. >> And I think what we see every year or every time we do a collective bargaining agreement, we can put money towards there, but you would just be rewarding the people that are already not taking it. It's what's the level of investment is it going to take for us to get more people to jump off, >> right? >> And we have not figured that out. >> We'll be digging into promise. >> Because we've got about we've got about 530 users right now of health insurance. So trying to find where we are from >> what level for that. So it's going to take some time but it is it is being looked at. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anyone else on the budget?

116>> Um I have a couple questions about the student transportation. Um if we could go back to that slide. Is that contracted for the year as a whole or is it per bus that is being used? >> So it's it's for it's the rate is per bus. Um, and then we look at how many we have in the fleet. Right now, it kind of looks like um, and Dan will talk more about the midday bus runs in the kindergarten piece of it, but it looks like we would be pretty level with the number of buses we have in the regular fleet. >> Okay. Um, does this include special education? >> It does not. Okay. >> Yep. No. Um, Kim Carpinoni presented her cost in that in her presentation. Yep. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else

117on the budget? Good. Uh, anyone from the public have any questions on district office? >> Janet Bornstein, Boyd Road. Um, the health insurance on your slide, it's 486 budgeted participants. How many total employees do we have in the district? >> I I would have >> I'm just curious. >> It's about 700. >> 700 and change. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So more than half take the insurance. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Hi Katrina White Page Road. Um you had mentioned how obviously Kim Carpon had the separate budget that she already presented for special ed. Um in reference to the student transportation, you have the summer school on there. So that is not the budget included for the ESY portion. >> It's for like the Lyft program and anything

118that might be run through the middle school or high school. >> Okay. Y >> um and then the only other thing is um so you were referring to page 4142 for example for your budget. Y >> um page 42 you have electricity for 19,800. Um, is that taking into account the fact that the rates are expiring essentially in 2026? So, do we have like a proposed possible rate increase where we're going to? >> Yes. So, we took the rate increase that they told us they were doing this year and then we took into consideration, we partnered to get some incentives um and a better rate and looked at our usage um and that's how we calculated that. >> Okay. So, we already kind of know what our new rates are going to be after the

1192026. >> We do as of right now. I mean, I think we've all seen with our electric bill, you can get a hey, surprise, it's going up. Your pro your um supplier fee is going up, but based on the information we have right now, um that's what our usage would be. >> Okay. Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. And then going back to your prior question, the student services busing line is $2.1 million. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I actually >> I have one more question about student transportation. um the four vocational center uh buses going to Alurn. Um do you know roughly how many students that >> is going to those places? >> We have about 62 kids that participate. I don't know which from I would have to talk with the high school

120about who's going to Alver, who's going to MST um and where they're where they're going. And and the complicating factor too is both those buildings have different schedules than us, >> right? >> So kids will take classes here then go there at different times. So that's what kind of drives more buses for that. >> So I guess a follow-up question to go with that is has it or would it ever be considered to do a stipend or reimbursement and for the parents or students for for gas um to travel there instead of doing the buses? It probably would be higher, but I know we got reimbursement uh grant last year, right? >> Yep. We got a reimburse and we do get reimbursed. We do get transportation money back >> every year through revenue, but it's

121like 18 months before like it takes a while to process. So, it's often you receive it after the budget year. Um with that, um but we do look at like we look at creative ways if it's better to use a mini bus if we have one available that we already own. um and and pay for gas that way. Okay. So, we try and be as efficient as we can be. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Take homes from the town council. Wanted to go back to Patrick's comment about the health insurance increases. Um Patrick, I know this is your first year on the budget committee, but on the town council side, we've had increase on insuranceances in the high double digits in the high teens for about four or

122five, six years straight. And this year we are had a shocking number of only a 3% 3.7% increase. So it's very different for us on our side to see the big drop where on the school side they've had the big increase. So we were quite shocked on our side. We're expecting at least a 15% increase and to see only a little over 3%. Uh was a nice surprise. >> So just for a frame of reference for you. >> Thank you. Any further questions from the budget, from the board? Everybody's good there. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. And we'll move into revenues. Um, so hi everyone. Um, as AMD said, I'm Colleen Lewis. I'm the new finance director. Um, this is about just under three months under my belt. Um, and I'm a little sick,

123so just bear with me. Um, but I finally get to tell you, everyone else has been telling you about um, all the money we spend. I can tell you about the money we actually bring in. Um, so we essentially have three primary sources of revenue. Um, we have state and federal funds, local funds, and fund balance. Um, over the next few slides, I'll explain a little bit more about each of these sources. Um, what you kind of need to remember about revenue is it's all an estimate at this point. Um, as Dan's talked about the last few meetings, um, there was grants lost this summer and then brought back. So, um, even if we anticipate sorting sources certain sources of revenue, um, they can kind of always go away. So, it really is just a

124moving target um, until until we actually receive the money in the bank. Um, so the state sources of revenue that we receive, there's a few different types. Um, we get special education aid, which was formerly catastrophic aid. Um, we get the advocacy grant, um, and statewide property taxes. Um, we have building aid, Medicaid aid, vocational transportation and tuition aid. Um, and miscellaneous, which includes, um, the EFA. Our largest source of funding is the advoc advocacy grant and swept. Um the advocacy grant is funding provided at a per pupil cost based on ADM which is average daily membership. For fiscal 27, they have released their most up-to-date estimate of 12.1ish million, uh, which is calculated at a base rate of, uh, $4,300 per pupil with additional amounts, um, per pupil based on free and reduced meals

125as well as special education and ELLL. Um and then the state property tax which is swept for short um is our large is our second largest source of funding which is um a tax set by the state that local taxpayers pay and then it's given back to us. Um special education and Medicaid are our next largest buckets. Uh these are funds that are used to offset additional costs incurred to provide sources uh services for students with IEPs and 504 plans. Um these funds are not guaranteed, but we do our best to budget anticipated amounts based on um historical data and revenue we've actually received. Um for fiscal 26 um we budgeted 250,000 for Medicaid uh same as we budgeted for this year. Um but we've already actually received 91,000. So perhaps maybe we'll receive more.

126Um it really is kind of just a guess with them. Um and then special aid is paid a year in a rears. So, we're currently expending money we will anticipate to receive in 2027. Um, and then for local revenues, um, in 2024, we set up accounts with New Hampshire PEIP, which is, um, a public investment pool that provides higher interest rates than just a regular bank. Uh, we budget those revenues conservatively at 50,000. Uh, since we never kind of know how interest rates will change. Um, but so far for 2026, we've earned 145,000 in that in those accounts. So that's really good. Um, pupil activities captures items like um the computer insurance and computer repairs that the kids pay for when they bring their computers home. Um, lost book charges and small items like that.

127Um, community activities are just a fee that we pay we charge um for people to use the school buildings um outside of school time. So, anytime someone is, you know, in the calf or in the gym, things like that, they'll pay a utility. They'll pay they'll pay us a fee um for for the staff that we have to have uh to open and close the buildings. Um next, we have our tuition revenues, which are allocated by type. Um we have the leapers at Moose Hill, which um are the typical peers that uh pay to attend preschool at Moose Hill. Um and those rates are set by the uh pupil services director. Um and they pay based on the number of days that they go per week. Um and then um we have the tuition for

128adult ed students which is again uh based on the number of classes that they take and that's paid for by the family. Um and then we have summer tuition which includes the lift program um the high school summer courses and any elementary enrichment. Um our biggest source of local revenue is um our hooksit students. So they account for approximately 1.3 million of revenue in our total budget. Um this year the rate for uh fiscal 27 has gone up to $17,910 per student. Um we set that rate to be consistent with Pinkerton so that we are um in line with local districts so we're not losing kids if our rate is too high. Um and that also we're not undercutting ourselves. That rate has gone up significantly over the past few years. um just to ensure

129that we are in line with the uh the districts around us. Um and so that revenue actually um that $1.3 million of revenue is about 20 cents that um is saved on the tax rate, which is about $100 annually for um a $500,000 home in this town. Um so that's like a direct um monetary value that lendary taxpayers see for those hooks kids to come into our town. Um and then finally our last source of funding is um our fund balance which is just um accumulated over the years. Um and that directly offsets the tax rate. Um and so for instance, over the past 5 years, the district has given back 3.7 million to taxpayers, which offsets the tax rate um by reducing the tax rate in the future. Um so what that means is

130it's it's money given back to the town. So it's less money that we need to raise in the current year. So that's how it reduces the tax rate. Um, and then wi with our fund balance, we also use it to offset um, some of our capital reserve accounts. I know a few people have mentioned capital reserves tonight. So, we try to um, put in the warrant articles what amounts we will offset um, with fund balance versus having to raise and appropriate that amount from from taxpayers. So this year we're um hoping to rate uh use 150,000 for the large equipment capital reserves, 100,000 for the small equipment capital reserves, 10,000 to set up that health insurance capital reserve. Um and then 50 50,000 to offset the vehicle capital reserve. Um so again, that's just offsetting

131additional funds that would need to be raised by the taxpayers. Um, and then on page 33 of your budget book, you'll fi you'll see um the tax rate calculation. Um, and I just wanted to highlight how revenue factors into this calculation. Um, so it it it um it helps to reduce obviously the tax rate. Um uh so yeah, I just want sorry um I just wanted to highlight how we uh first factor in all the revenue sources in order to determine what amount of funds need to be raised by the taxpayers um to meet the needs of our budget. So I just wanted to continue to remind everyone to keep in mind that these are estimates and we just use the most up-to-date data that we have at the time. Um, and these these estimates

132can continue to change um until the tax rate is finally set. Um, and then this last slide just illustrates the difference in funds needed to be raised by taxpayers depending on which budget passes in the spring. Um, as you can see, since the superintendent's budget is lower than default, uh, should that budget pass, we would need less funding from the taxpayers. So, I would say that's probably a pretty good thing. Any questions? Thank you for that presentation. Any questions from the board? >> Budget committee. >> Sure, Patrick. First of all, thank you. Very informative presentation. Um I I'm sure you can dispose of this question very very quickly, but why are we charging Hooks at 17,000 and change per student when the um budget book says our cost per student in high school is 21,000?

133Um, so again, that rate's set by Pinkerton. So we we set that rate to be consistent. Um, I would think that if kids had the choice to come here, um, because some hooks of kids do go to Pinkerton and some do go here. I would think that if Pinkerton had a $17,000 rate and we had a $21,000 rate, we would probably end up losing most of those kids. >> Gotcha. So it's for marketability, not because our cost to educate an out of town student is lower. >> Correct. And it's part of theou that we have with Hookset, too. Thank you. Any questions? >> Yeah, >> sure. >> Um, this might be a really simple question, but um, over the past five years with the amount that is being returned, does that mean that the budget

134was technically over that amount so we could give it back to the taxpayers? Is that >> is that correct? >> You can share it if you want. It it means we had surplus at the end of the year. So when we finish our end of year reporting, if we have surplus, the board gets to decide um what we might retain in our unassigned fund balance for future use or what we return to the taxpayers. So any amount that we save um should go back to offset either a future project or the the tax bill itself. >> Okay. Um that's kind of an instance where like the bank interest I would say in essence we kind of underbudget that where we only budget 50,000 but again we have no clue what the rates will be over

135time. So we could you know what we could have 300,000 that we get um of bank interest in a year and so if we have that that's extra funds we weren't anticipating that we can then give back to the taxpayers. >> Okay. And for for the past several so last year in particular, we had a lot more revenue than we anticipated. We got a grant we didn't think we were going to get. Um and the reason we were able to get so much more interest over the past two years was because of the $5 million bond money that we had. The project ended up being split over two seasons. So we had more money that was sitting making money um that wasn't necessarily part of the operating budget, but it was money we had um

136through the bond. >> Okay. Thank you. Good. >> All good. >> Okay. Anyone from the audience? >> Janstein, Void Road. Um, you had mentioned interest and having extra money. My I guess concern was this report, the quarter one report, the unassigned fund balance had $4.7 million and I guess 2 million is being retained for the district office and all this other stuff. Um the savings that we have from when a tenure teacher who's been here 20 years >> yep >> leaves retires and we hire someone else. We've had many many teachers in the past few years retire. >> Yep. >> So to me there's a huge chunk of change there that should be bringing down the budget. >> Yep. So when I look at this, I say, "Okay, we had $5 million at the end

137of the year, but this budget is up 4 million, I believe." >> Yep. >> 4 million. So how does that I mean, I I know if I have extra money in my checking account, I don't need to get more. So I I'm failing to understand, I guess, the >> small picture. >> Yep. Amy, can I jump in first and you take over? >> I think last year was a real anomaly. Um, so we started the year with a large number of open positions. >> Some of them were filled over the year and a lot of the reason why we had open positions is we didn't have very good salary rates. When the new contract kicked in and we started doing our hiring last spring, we filled nearly all of those positions. So, a lot of

138the surplus at least on the spending side was driven by starting the year with a large amount of open positions. Um, also as Emmy said, like part of the reason why last year was so different was the revenue we didn't see coming and that kind of drove a much larger surplus than we saw. To go back to your other question, yeah, we would have savings if we didn't cut positions over the years. If we went back to the personnel um presentation for the last couple weeks, we've basically shaved off about $2 million in personnel costs over the last three years. So yes, we we we we we can save when we hire new, but we're also reducing at the same time. That kind of cuts into some of those savings. And I don't know what

139else you wanted to add on top. >> No, I was just going to say that we don't carry over like extra money doesn't carry over. We start every year with whatever budget was voted on by the voters, right? >> So we start with that. So it's not like we carry over this pool. um last year's number of personnel had ad swaps that July 1st this year those were cut out of the budget when we planned for this coming year that's the list that we look at so it's not the same list from year to year it's where we are every moment with the ad swaps and and who we have filled in those positions >> okay thank you >> anyone else anything else on the budget committee side We're good. Thank you very much for

140that um review of revenue. Appreciate it. And jumping into warrant articles, this would apply. >> So, what I'm going to do is give an overview of the rest of the warrant articles. Um I'll spend some time on article 3 and then see what questions uh everyone has on the typical warrant articles we have and some we're thinking about. Some of the language we won't be ready for until next week. Um, but as we look at our warrant, um, you know, the first article is going to be who's ever running for school board. Uh, the second article is going to be wherever we land on the the the operating budget. Um, and the third article will be a special article on full day kindergarten, which I'm going to go over um right now. So, this is

141probably the last time London Air will vote on full day kindergarten. We'll have to kind of make a decision. Um, and you know, I'm going to do my best to uh go through all the details. I'm going to invite the elementary advent team to join me. Um, because they they they they have all the details, too. Um, I'll spend some time talking about the Warner language, enrollment, uh, staffing. Uh, they're the right people to ask questions out when it comes to space, curriculum, supplies, and furniture, and all the other things in here. Um, so there's a lot in here. I'm sure it'll inspire lots of questions. Um, we'll do our best to to kind of be efficient with time, but but also be detailed. So, I'm going to go over enrollment and kind of how

142this drove this year's plan, which is a little bit different the last couple years. Um, we'll talk about space um and some building updates uh we have to make at Matthew Thornton to to make this all work. Uh, we'll talk about staffing changes um to to kind of make this all work. Uh, curriculum and furniture investments to make this all work. um obviously um what we believe is a huge educational benefit in full day kindergarten. Uh and the financials uh which are I think even more uh favorable than even last year. Um but the the Warren article language is pretty simple. Um it's the one of the least legally eased article war articles we've had in years. It's it's actually kind of nice. Shall the Londary School District vote to implement full day kindergarten each

143of the three elementary school buildings beginning with the 2627 school year? If this article passes, the general operating budget will decrease. So, we we do believe the general operating budget will go down by $28,000 and then going back to what Colleen just talked about, the revenue will increase by about $550,000. So, that's that's a that's a actually a a 12 cent savings on the tax impact. Um, so that's very different than most warrant articles. You don't normally bring a warn article that says, "Do you want to save money?" Uh, but this one's a little bit different. Um and the and why we're proposing uh you know uh full day kindergarten is what we have is three historically small classes all in a row. Um uh second grade's about 23% smaller than where we used to

144be. First grade's about 21% smaller and kindergarten right now is about 30 30% smaller. I think what we've seen is why enrollment is declining is there's a couple things going on. Economic factors. We have high housing costs, high interest rates, um and not a lot of houses available. it's hard to buy a house and to move in, especially if you're a young family. Um, I think you throw in we definitely have an older state and it's aging. Uh, we have lower birth rates happening and, you know, you mix it in with um, younger families trying to move in. Um, I think too from from talking to other superintendents, we're the only ones that kind of have this pattern right now with big drops kind of right around us. Um, they're seeing more stable enrollment. Some

145are seeing slight increases. So, I think that's a good indication that since we don't have full day kindergarten, um we're not becoming a very attractive place for young families to move to. Um I think we've done an excellent job over the last two years to really move our numbers. I think uh all the stats that are going to be on real estate uh websites will be a lot stronger than they were in the last couple years, but I'm sure that that drives some choice. Um and obviously school choice. I mean, you know, there's a lot more choice out there in what parents can can do for schools, but that's kind of I think led to um this declining enrollment. So, what we're projecting for next year um is still a smaller class. This is a

146different projection um than than we started with the budget, and I'll explain that in a little bit. Um but, you know, we think if we have half day kindergarten, we'll probably have about 210 kids. If full day kindergarten is approved, if a simple majority approves it, we think that number will be higher. Um probably closer to our first grade numbers. Um, so what we're proposing is 14 full day kindergarten classrooms AC across three schools. Uh, it could change how that 14 is dispersed, but we're we're we're we're planning for 14 with a with a class size cap at 18 because these are not the same classroom size as we have in Musil right now. They're a little bit smaller. So, we want to keep we want to keep an eye on class size. When we

147presented our budget in in November, uh, we only had 12 classes in there. Um, but I think based on the registrations that have come in, um, knowing we're probably going to have more kids if if if full day kindergarten is is approved and also talking to the Bedford superintendent, they saw a jump, um, because this is their first year. They started full day kindergarten themselves. They saw a much higher jump than they than they planned for. So, we thought it was more prudent uh, to lease it at add two more classrooms. So, you know, if you look at the top line, that's our projection uh, for kindergarten. It may not play out exactly that way. Um, you know, maybe the additional sections at South School and not North School. Um, but at least we're kind

148of planning to have 14 sections, which should be enough uh room um for or enough teachers for kindergarten. Um, the number may not be that high, but I think again looking at Bedford, one of our neighbors kind of go through this this year, um, we we do assume if if it is supported, we would see more kids than we're planning for half day kindergarten. And right now we have 92 kids that are four-year-olds um in LEAP. Right now we have 28 uh kids who have gone through the entire enrollment process already for kindergarten and 39 that have kind of started the process. So that's about um 150 160. It seems like that's that's that's a pretty good um projection from where we're at right now uh to kind of get somewhere in that room. And

149you know, again, over the over, you know, the last couple of years, we've seen, you know, rapidly declining enrollment. And and it's been a big change. You know, only a couple summers ago, we had uh kids in our elementary schools. Uh what we're projecting next year is about 1552. So that's a 200 kids swing in a short period of time, which is why we have the room to start full day kindergarten. And these numbers are definitely a little bit higher uh than I saw or than at least we projected in the summer. And that was based on the fact that we did get more kids uh enroll in August than than we guessed. We had about 50 more kids kind of move in in August. So, um it's about 75 kids higher total um than

150than we thought this summer, but we still have the space and the staff and all the things we need to start a full day kindergarten at North School, South School and Matthew Thornton. Each school looks a little bit different. Um, you know, basically at North School and South School, we're replacing uh the the kids who are not there, especially at North School. And uh South School is down a little bit, but you know, what we're basically saying is Nor School can fit 25 general education uh classrooms, um all the specials, all the intervention spaces, and all the specialized instruction uh for next year. um if if this is approved and what you're going to see in all the buildings is we have bigger classes in fourth and fifth grade that'll graduate out. So I think

151the overall enrollment will come down over the next year or two too um within that you can see that clearly in North school where they have 90 and 98 kids in fourth and fifth grade but if you look at one two and three they have 76 76 and 63 that's that smaller enrollment we're seeing kind of playing out. South school is the same. Uh we think they're going to have 23 general education sections. Uh which is they have room for that. All the specials, all the intervention spaces, all the specialized instruction spaces. Um and again for them too, if you look at their fifth grade class heading into next year, there'll be 103 kids. It's a lot bigger than grades 1 through 4. So again, I think their overall enrollment will still fall in time.

152Um and next year will be kind of the high point before it goes down. Matthew Thornton's a little bit different. um they're the one part of town that has not dropped as much. Um so, you know, we're projecting to to put six kindergarten classrooms in there. Um but again, if you look at where they're at in fourth and fifth grade, I think that'll be the high mark. And once those groups graduate out, the enrollment will start to come down. Um, but with some building updates I'm about to go over, we'll be able to uh fit 32 general education classrooms uh in Matthew Thoron along with all the specials, the intervention spaces, and all the specialized instruction. Um, and I think, you know, I just want to compliment Abby and the whole admin team. They have

153done an excellent job really thinking about how to use space and kind of to make this all work. Um, so I'll probably turn it over to her in a little bit to kind of talk about that a little bit. Um, but what we're basically proposing from Matthew Thornton is um we're more efficiently using space um than than we probably have in the last couple years. We're we're asking to kind of use the savings in all this to pay for updates to the 1940s wing. We have these 700 foot classrooms which there was a time when there was a thousand kids in Matthew Thor and clearly full classrooms used to be in there. I think some people at this table actually had their uh elementary, you know, classrooms themselves there. Um, I'm not comfortable putting a

154full class into a 700 square foot uh uh classroom. I know it happened in the past, but we're going to make some 900 foot classrooms um within the old wing to kind of make this all work. And we're also going to talk about moving the portables from Moose Hill for a couple years temporarily until we graduated the fourth and fifth grade uh next year. Um you know, and again about 20 years ago, there were about a thousand kids in Matthew Thornton. We're not getting anywhere near that high water mark. I mean, obviously they're going up. Um I don't think it'll be that big, but we're planning for contingency because we did see um you know more kids move in this August. Um so this is the map of Matthew Thordon, uh which is different than

155how we how we work right now. And what it's showing is we're creating in orange all the intervention spaces for reading or math or or specialized instruction with special ed. Um, and then we're uh splitting up the rest of the school into kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade. And we recaptured a whole another classroom, which is room 2011 in the second floor to kind of make it a full classroom again. And then if you look right in the middle of the diagram, that is where we would put um the current um Moose Hill portables to make sure we have space for the next two years as we graduate out um those classes. And um I'll turn it over to Abby in a little bit, but I think you know

156when I when here's a here's a good shot of one of the spaces at Matthew Thor, we're going to get more efficient. Um we're going to use the space a little bit differently so that we we make sure um we have all the the room for interventions all over the building. And the the next picture is actually 20 years ago, we used to have nine case managers uh in that room when we're at the High Water Mark. We're not proposing that now. We have the space. We're going to use um our intervention space as well. and just use space more efficiently. So, Abby, I don't know if you wanted to say a few things around that. >> Yes, of course. Thank you so much. Um, so within the past three years, we had the luxury

157of a case manager or two case managers per se with their own classroom. So, you're talking large quantity of space, two adults, and then they could work with students maybe one, two, three at a time. So as we look at recovering larger spaces, we were able to map out, as you can see, trying to keep like grades together. So for example, um we have a lovely first grade wing, but we are anticipating to keep it at five sections. Therefore, it makes sense to house our youngest learners, kindergarten, all together in that wing. You can see first grade centrally located in the heart of the building. Um years and years ago, this is where they were. So they already began to call dibs on what rooms they want. So that's very exciting when you look at

158seniority. Um and as Dan said, the portables right there allow us to keep that team together. It also affords additional intervention space which is not allocated on this map. So that's exciting to earn back two larger spaces that are attached to those portables. So, when we're looking at nine overall spaces for intervention, um that's that's very very helpful to us. You can see second grade has that smattering of they're in the 1940s in the middle of the building and then one up top. And in reviewing this with grade two, we said one team unfortunately had to be split up a little bit, but the kids are a little bit bigger. Um they know their school at that point and they can handle that. and looking at the second grade team, they said, "We did it

159before, we can do it again, and we did a really good job." So, there wasn't any concerns that they weren't in a line. And then, as you can see, three, four, and five, the green, blue, and gray respectively. We the blue in particular, you'll see six of them because that is our bubble class. So, you will see the six um when you look at room rooms, excuse me, 205 and 207, those can flip-flop in two and three years to accommodate the larger classes upstairs. And then again, you'll be earning back a classroom space and intervention space up there. So, there is room to grow as well with the STEM room down at the bottom of the map on the first floor. So, we're feeling good. Um, and as Dan said, we recently ran the exercise

160of the maximum amount of spaces that we would need at any given time. So, of course, we have a master schedule and our intervention time is in 30 minute blocks. So, when you look at all of the adults, all of the students with our current numbers, we are able to accommodate that in more. So, just looking at space and saying, "Yeah, we can make it work. We can make anything work." But by the numbers when you're looking at a max of 30 students who would need intervention at any given time and then we rounded up um looking at anticipated schedules with a potential of 13 adults the size of this space um and just looking at intervention alone we can accommodate that is not even considering the classrooms that would be empty with students who

161are traveling to specials at that time. So they move in cohorts. So then you're looking at five or six classrooms as well that can be used for intervention. Um but again when you're looking at transitions and being able to keep your supplies in your desk where the learning occurs, it just makes it a little bit easier. Um and as Dan highlighted, we have many many carts and spaces and things on wheels to help accommodate with that as well. You know, if you look at the bottom of the map, too, that's where we're taking what used to be, if it's all approved, three 700 foot classrooms, turning them into two 900, and then that room to the left of it is where we would still have kind of adult space for a lot of our interventionists.

162>> Correct. Y >> um so, you know, what this whole map does is get us five more general ed classrooms for next year. And again, I think we would need those portals for two years and then we would move on from them uh when enrollment comes back down. Um, you know, so you know, Matthew Thordon has the most cost here uh to make this work and we we work with uh the Marinace Architects where we re redesigned the 1940s wing. Right now we've, you know, we haven't got unofficially bidded or anything. Um, but we got a couple quotes and one quote came in around $200,000 just to move those walls. Um, how much building costs are now are always shocking. Um but um this is a project that could happen uh if it's approved between

163March and August so that we're ready to start school. Um the building to grounds team would take on some of the smaller projects which would do in their own budget uh for about less than $10,000. And then um moving the move portables uh the prices always come in higher. Uh, so between moving them, doing the site work, and kind of reconnecting them, that's about $120,000 in onetime costs and about $46,000 in yearly lease costs, which we would have for two more years. Uh, we did research uh buying those sale portables. AMD, how much did they offer us for? >> 1.2 million. >> That's right. They they wanted us to buy 9-year-old portables or 8-y old portables for $1.2 million. And again, I think where the market's at, uh, these companies know where building costs are

164at. They know they have us and they can just throw out wild numbers. That was pretty depressing to to get that quote from them. Uh, we did look into buying, uh, new 900 square ft portables. That came in at around $700,000. Uh, much more expensive uh, than this. And then we did look at leasing new portables. Uh, but the problem is with the timing is if we don't know what we're doing until March 10th, we would never be able to have them ready by August. So that's why we went with the plan we have right now. Then we get the North School and South School a little bit simpler. Um so here is uh North School uh with full day kindergarten. Um I'll turn it over to Paul if he wants to say a few

165things about how North School will accommodate full day kindergarten. >> Good evening. Um so looking at that map up there, we historically have been about 25 classrooms um for most of my tenure with just a dip the last few years. Currently at 22. So the map with bringing full day K would bring us back to 2425 classrooms um and back to that 470 to 500 um total students um that we've been uh over the last 10 years as well. Looking at this when you walk in the building you have the first and second sorry the K and first grade hallway. Um straight ahead to the right would be your second and third graders continue to cluster group them by their grade level. And then the back wing you would continue to have where currently our

166fourth and fifth grade um is housed. >> So you know north school there would be some movement but getting all the kids in there would not be the kind of the same level of effort we have to make with Matthew Thornton. Uh then we go to South School. Kind of similar story there. Deb has kind of mapped out just the total number of classrooms she needs. Again we we think we only need 23 general ed classrooms and we would increase the the friends classrooms to three because there there is a kind of a bubble moving up. I don't know if Deb wanted to share anything from South School. >> Oh, sorry. >> Um, yeah, as you can see, we did add a third friend's classroom. Um, we did put a contingency plan if we needed

167to up to 24 regular education classrooms. We were able to do that. Um, we would pretty much use the center hallway um as our primary wing, I guess you could call it, for K1 and two. And then um the new wing, that little half diamond out to the side. And also the 1 2 3 4 that goes into the friends would be those would be the third, fourth, and fifth grade um along the edges of the building with again K1 and two down the middle. So we do think that we would have enough space to um have up to 24 regular ed classrooms and our three friends rooms. >> So that's the space. Uh then we get the staffing. You know, might I might have Sandre jump in in a little bit. Um, but there's

168a lot of moving parts here. Uh, we tried to make this as simple as possible. It may not come off as simple. Um, but but generally if the staff in Moose Hill are are working with kindergarten right now, they they would be moving most likely uh to to one of these three buildings to continue that role if they don't want to uh, you know, do something different. Um, so, so basically what Sandra's done is she's kind of met with staff and and kind of tried to understand what their preferences are. I don't know if you wanted to share generally what that process looked like. >> Thank you. So, um, I want to say it might have been in November um, meeting with the um, kindergarten staff. So that would include our classroom teachers, um anyone

169in special ed programs that supports kindergarten, our reading specialists along with um our special education teachers and service providers for OT in speech and language, meeting with them, talking about um what their preferences are. Um do they want to still support um kindergarten? Are they interested? there's some overlap with uh some of our teachers who both support kindergarten and LEAP. So, having that discussion with them about where do they see themselves for next year. Um and then going back and meeting with Dan and uh the superintendent and uh Kim Carponi looking at the special ed um needs throughout the district and looking at how we move those uh staff around as well as kindergarten. And so as of I want to say the first week in December um have met with everyone who is supporting

170kindergarten uh on our um teacher side, the teaching side and have reviewed where they will be going for the placement. Um so that includes kindergarten teachers know where they're going to be for next year. Classroom teachers, our special education teachers know um their placement for next year. um our special ed program teachers know that as well along with our reading specialists. What is still up in the air because of the complexity of the needs are speech and language and um OT. So that's still being looked at and we're hoping um in January February time to be able to identify where that staffing uh staff will go. I did omit our um school counselor who also knows where she'll be going for next year. Um the next step is to follow up with our um support

171staff. That includes our kindergarten instructional assistants and our kindergarten special education assistants to find out what their preferences are, where do they want, where do they see themselves, what's a priority, is it the grade, is it the school? Um and then sit down and start looking at what those needs are and having follow-up discussions with them in January about that potential um placement. So if you look at all those moving parts, um, so, so obviously if you're a current kindergarten teacher right now, we would be shifting them out to one of the three schools. Some of our one through five teachers would then become kindergarten teachers. U, we do have one open position in the budget um that we would keep open, you know, even in the half-day kindergarten because of just watching that surge

172uh from from last August, just in case we needed a person, we would use that for kindergarten. And then I'll talk on the next page. There are there are technically staff reductions happening. No one is losing their job. I I'll explain that in a little bit. And but we're turning those positions in the kindergarten teachers uh kind of for this process. And then about 87 and a half daily hours of of support staff would be moving out of Moose Hill into instructional assistant positions uh in these 14 classes. That's that's basically 14 uh 6.25h hour uh positions. The specials were very complicated. Uh we don't we had to basically kind of look district-wide about how to make this all work. I mean generally we're not adding a lot of specials time at North and South

173School. We can kind of make it work with what we have right now. Um but uh what Serge did is Serge still here? No, Serge left. Serge did a wonderful job kind of looking at all the music positions districtwide and we're basically sharing some of our music staff at Matthew Thornton next year to kind of make this all work with with a part-time staff, too. So, I really want to thank him for that. So, we've kind of come up with a master schedule where we have enough music teachers to kind of make music work within all of our schools. Uh, we're going to do a similar thing with with PE. We assume we're going to we're going to take one period of of PE teachers at the high school and kind of shift them over

174to Matthew Thornon to make it work. And then we have this point4 position uh for art that we'll use at MT to kind of make all the specials work. That was a pretty complicated process, but we feel good about where we're at right now. Um and then you know the guidance position um at at Lucille right now will kind of shift between share between Matthew Thornton and South School for different reasons. We do have one reading specialist that would join Matthew Thornon um because we're going to have more kids there and obviously bigger schools than North School and South School that's the right thing to do. Same thing with a case manager. Um, we do have one special ed teacher moving to South School to make sure we have that third friend's classroom. And then

175we counted every single uh one-on-one or a shared parro we would need throughout the district. And there's about 25 daily hours that would also shift out uh of Musil to kind of make this all work. Um, and then, you know, basically what we're doing is we're we're we're shifting from four to three schools. We're not putting a lot of new staff or new positions into North and South School um because we're we already have positions there. Um we are putting some staff into Matthew Thoron, but within all these changes, we can be more efficient. Um you know, so when the when the budget committee actually got this conversation started last spring and we had some openings, we made a lot of one-year positions. So um there's a one-year reading specialist position that would actually go

176away. And because of that, we're able to turn that position into a kindergarten teacher. Same thing with a one-year case manager position. We have two uh and and a reading teacher position that we know we have natural attrition coming up. Then from kind of looking at all of our needs, um, you know, we're still thinking through occupational therapy districtwide and and looking at all the needs, but we know we can we can sur survive a a 0.5 cut through natural attrition um and retirements. Um, same thing with one special ed teacher and same thing with basically 50 daily hours of support staff uh within this four four school to three school move. Um, so because of that, we actually are saving staffing cost. And then there are two support staff positions that we will not

177need at Moose Hill because there'll only be a preschool there. Again, no one's losing their jobs. Um, there might be some people that take on different positions or in different schools, but we will have a position for everyone or have a job for everyone, but some of these positions will change within this process. So, you know, there a lot of moving parts there. Um, and then, you know, we worked collectively. We figured out we needed about $50,000 in curriculum supplies to kind of make this all work. The nice thing is when uh Jason and Nicole and the principles were buying all these programs the last couple years, they came with kindergarten, you know, so there was a minimal investment we need to make. So that was good. Furniture be becomes a pretty complicated process. So

178there are seven usable classrooms worth of furniture in Moose Hill we would move out. Not all of it is usable because some of it's 30 years old, you know. So, um, but we about about a $100,000 budget, uh, would be able to to kind of pay for all of our needs. It'll look a little bit different in any school. I don't know if anyone wanted to comment on that or is that that's enough there? >> I think that's enough. >> Okay, it's enough there. Okay. Um, and then, you know, spent a lot of time on enrollment and all these things, but, you know, the most important thing is I think what we're trying to do here, what we've been trying to do for three years, and again, I think this is our last shot. Um,

179London area will decide what happens in March. If if this makes it to the voters and if it goes through, maybe it happens. If it doesn't work this time, I don't think this is ever happening again. I think uh, you know, the conversation might end. Um, but what we're seeing every year is our first graders are behind uh, their peers in the state and nationally because we're one of the few school districts in the state that don't have it both in the state and nationally. Uh we know that Bedford started full day kindergarten this year uh from talking to the Gosstown superintendent. New Boston is also putting it on their warrant this year. So we're racing to not be the last. Um and you know what we're seeing is that additional time is just going

180to build stronger academic success. That's 103 more days we have to build stronger literacy skills in a play-based environment that Sandra can talk about. >> 103 more days uh to build better math skills in in a play-based environment. And as a school system, what we're trying to do is not spend so much time catching kids up in grades one and two, but accelerating their learning and kind of pushing them in a very healthy way. Uh so we get them to a better place. And I think that's that's the big move we're trying to do. Um so within all that, here's the moving parts of the finances. So again, in this world or in this model, I think we'll we'll save about $395,000 uh on staffing. Uh we'll save about $283,000 on not needing midday bus

181runs. Um we'll we'll need a one-time cost for the furniture of $100,000, a onetime cost of $50,000 for curriculum, a onetime cost to move those walls for $200,000. Uh a one-time cost for for portables to kind of move the portable, set it up again, uh and then pay for that lease for two more years. Um, so what you'll see in that first year is a net savings of about $200,000. So literally the operating budget will go down and then the revenues will go up about $548,000. It's based on that figure that Colleen just gave you. We would probably get more revenue because we get more revenue with kids who have IEPs, but we always go conservative with revenue. And over time, I hope what everyone would see too is those midday bus runs would stay

182there and that increased revenue would stay there. So, we're seeing about a $750,000 benefit to the taxpayers kind of in this process. Um, and again, the mechanics are, you know, the operating budget is 95,76,000. If if there was a simple majority that approved it, it would go down by $200,000 net because we'd make $678,000 in cuts. $470,000 in onetime expenses, but $548,000 in one-time revenue would be added to the operating budget as well. Um here are the frequently asked questions we've gotten over the years and especially this year. And anyone can jump in if you want to. Um Joe is our resident playground equipment expert. Um and I think what we've learned is playground equipment gets rated based on the gap between where it ends and where the wood chips begin. So what he's going

183to do is we know that North School just got their their their brand new equipment. They'll be in good shape. He's going to really work very actively with Matthew Thornton and South School to make sure we minimize any of those gaps. And if there are some equipment we can't use for kindergarteners, we won't use. um you know that we get lots of questions about busing. The kids in kindergarten will be in the front by themselves, you know, kind of assigned seats on the buses. Uh in this world, if you're if you have a kindergartener in your neighborhood that's really going to drive the bus routes, we're going to we're going to the bus stops will be based on kind of where kindergarteners live. Uh Jason reached out to the Y and they've confirmed that they

184can handle uh kindergarten kids in both the before and after school uh programs. Uh everyone to my right can talk about the curriculum. We actually started some of this work last year, but we're we're getting everyone ready to to teach, you know, full day curriculum and we have the resources for it. Uh the elementary schools have actually already made their master schedules for all this. Um so they know all the moving pieces, but basically the school day would be the same. It starts at 8:42 and goes to 3:13. Okay. Uh and all the kindergarteners kids would be in there. Um we're we're meeting in January to kind of map out potentially all the moving classrooms and what that means for uh the buildings and grounds department and how we're going to do it. And then

185another thing that has really come up is classroom storage. Um, and Sandre is the biggest proponent of shelves on walls and other and other things to make sure we have enough storage space to kind of make this all work. But those are kind of the flavor of some of the the frequently asked questions we've got from some of the roundts. I don't know if there's anything to add. >> Yep. Dan, what I did not add is I know there's been questions about um with the if this potentially passes the transition of kindergarten into the elementary schools and what does that um do with our LEAP program. And I just want to make sure that I assure everyone that um we are making sure that our LEAP programs will remain intact and that there will be

186the support and staffing for those programs at Moose Hill. So, um just want to make sure that the community um knows that that we know how valued valuable our preschool and prek program is and making sure that we have the staffing, the resources, the teachers, the um appropriate curriculum and everything that is needed at Moose Hill to um continue to support that program. >> Y >> that's it for one more article and see see what kind of questions we have. >> Thank you, Dan. >> Questions from the board? No, no, >> not a question. Just that was insanely thorough. So, thank you for going through all the details and putting that all together and laying it out like that. Um, I think that was, you know, concise but really in-depth and really well done. So,

187thank you. >> I have one question. Um given that if article three passes and whatever budget passes passes um because article three will basically give money back we'll have additional revenue added. How is that money when that money technically lower what we need for the budget for that year? So what are what are we doing with that extra revenue? Are we just putting it in undesated fund balance or how is that working? >> Yeah. So, so this will lower the tax rate like 12 cents. So, >> okay, >> you know, so, so again, the overall budget would come down by 200,000 while we raise revenue by 550. >> Then you guys can answer that better what we do, what happens there. >> Yeah. So, the revenue is collected in a different account. You got the

188general fund that's running and you got surplus there and you got the revenue of everything we bring in. So at the end of the year, that's when that comes together and then we meet with the the DRRA, Department of Revenue Administration, and then they confirm and then the town throws in their stuff and that's where you see what the actual tax rate. So it's applied depending on how much they decide to give to give back um as part of that process. >> Okay. Okay. So there's like a reconciliation collection that happens out. Okay. >> So surplus and revenue go into the into the they decide what goes into the undesated fund. Yeah, >> cool. Got it. Thank you. >> Yeah, Pat. >> Yeah, I have one question. Um, as I always do, I ask about

189dollars and cents. Um, I'll agree with Kate, by the way. Very thorough presentation. Thank you. Um, on in this presentation on page 20, there's some numbers given, staff savings, um, and so on. uh help me understand unless I'm missing something. In the superintendent's budget book on page 12, most of the same categories are presented, but the numbers are substantially different. >> Yep. So, so in when I first presented the budget, there were basically two more at least two more staff that I thought would be reduced. Okay. >> That are now kind of going into becoming kindergarten teachers. um just because I think I'm more worried now if this does pass, we would see a much higher number than we probably thought in November. So that that that and then also the the one-time costs for

190the portables came in much higher. >> I think in November we were carrying oh maybe it'll only be $50,000 came back at 120. >> So that was a 70 grand swing and about a 200 grand swing um in the in the staff not not being as low. >> Gotcha. Thank you very much. >> Yep. >> Anyone else? I have a quick question. >> Um, thank you again for the thorough presentation. Um, I know for fiscal year 2027, um, it will, if it's passed, it will lower the tax rate. Do you think you would be able to say that for future years as well? Do you think it would stay pretty level to the expenses >> if all things stay equal? Yes, because we're still going to see those midday bus run savings. Yeah. and we're

191still going to see increased revenue. All the other factors that can go into a budget, I don't know. But if everything stays equal, sure. >> Okay. Thank you. So qu another question. What I'm what if I'm doing my math correctly, in 2027 and 2028, it'll be about 96,000 in both savings and increased revenue that we will see basically added back to the budget, right? >> I would say it's probably closer to 750 total. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. Because one of the things that I'm thinking of is with all this additional revenue and the price of insurance going up as much as it has been. There might I don't want people to think that we're doing this, we're going to save a ton of money and then where did all the money

192go just because I'm thinking about health insurance and basically >> your property taxes could have been higher but they're not because we implemented full day kindergarten. >> Yes. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> So this is a nice balance actually to that. So, >> so I have um >> Sure, Sarah. >> So, how long have you guys been working on this current plan? >> I'm just curious. >> Since last April, May. >> Yeah, it's I think it was in May when the budget committee came here and said, why why don't you guys bring back um last year's plan, >> right? >> This is pretty close to last year's plan. >> Yeah. >> Um and then basically what happened is right after that moment in May and June, all the people to my right kept getting flooded

193by parents. So, what are we doing? Why are we going to do anything? Um, and then that kind of led to some of the roundt discussions this summer that that that led to kind of all this work. And I think by August, we we felt pretty confident we could fit them in. >> Yep. >> Now we're farther down with the planning. >> Okay. >> Well done. Yeah. This is great. >> Thank you. >> Any questions from the public? >> Yes. Take home six minus one circle. Why are you anticipating a drop of 50 hours for support services? >> Again, it it goes back to um where is this that four that four to three school move where we we've counted every kid, every need kind of looked at that and within this change we don't

194need to add as many staff as we have right now back into those three schools. But again, no one's going to lose their job in this process. I think there's there's enough natural turnover every year that anyone who wants to be a special ed assistant in our elementary schools, we will have a role for that. >> And that potential 12 cent savings, would that be for next December's tax rate bill or would that be in the potential following year after that? >> Following year, >> I think I'll look to AMD for that answer. >> Uh, so depending on when we get the Yeah, it would be the following year, but you you could depending on when we get >> Yeah. the the the checks um for revenue. >> So the following year is when you

195would see the the most of the savings, >> but you could see some other savings from some of the the cuts that come forth for the end of >> because this is being implemented in 2627. So you would see it at the end of 27 once we close out that June and get our financial report later in the year, Ted. >> Okay. Then the it comes to the board as AMD stated and and all that revenue and all the extra income would be funneled and come to us for what to do, what to return, what to put in on designated funds. So it's a a year off. And then my last question is, you know, for people like myself and others who are at home, is there any services at uh the elementary schools for

196the kindergarteners to stay at the school compared to being busted up to the YMCA for after school? >> Yep. >> Jay Jay confirmed that yes, the if the YMCA is currently there, they'll be able to have kindergarters in their program. >> Correct. >> They can house it now K to 5 >> coming to our schools. What time does that go to? >> And how do you sign up for that specific? >> They sign up through the Y. Uh they allows for drop off starting at 7 a.m. at the elementary schools. Um and then we receive them at 8:30 when our schools open and then after school they go to the Y which is on site. Um and till 6:00 at any point up until 6:00 they can be picked up. >> Okay. So obviously if

197you needed to drop them off earlier you can bring them to the Y and then the Y with the >> they'll accept them to the schools. They supervise till 8:30. >> Okay. But if you wanted to keep them at the elementary school's past when school closes, it's 6 p.m. is the latest. >> If we release them to the Y, they stay I'll say for North school in the cafeteria gym, you know, they they supervise till whenever the parent picks up till 6:00. >> Okay. So, probably reach out to YMCA for more details on that program. Correct. >> Correct. >> Awesome. Thank you guys. >> Anyone else? Um, I don't sorry Kaylee Dingman, 16 King Charles Drive. Uh, I don't really have a question and this isn't really budget related, but I have been going to

198a lot of these meetings and I just um had some thoughts about full day kindergarten um from a parents perspective that I'm hoping I can share. Um, so I moved to London in 2013. We chose this town for many reasons, but one was being the great schools. I knew we didn't have full day kindergarten, but I figured by the time I had kids, they were um that were going to be going to school, we would. Unfortunately, that was not the case when my first child started school 9 years later. My now my second will be in the 26 27 kindergarten class. And I'm shocked we are still without this in our school systems. At least now I do have hope. That hope started when I saw the sign for the full day kindergarten wrap table

199last summer. I went and to see what the status of full day kindergarten was after two failed votes and was thrilled to see the administration was not giving up on this issue. And I've attended every meeting I possibly could regarding this topic since. What I've seen is a team of dedicated administrators and principles fighting for what they as educational professionals know is the right thing to do for our Londereerry students. I also feel they listened to the greater lendary community when they said no to two proposals involving investments, but saw through those votes getting simple majorities that there was interest in this and took the opportunity they found to implement it without it being a burden to the taxpayers and in fact could potentially give us more money. Um, since that first meeting, I have

200spoken to a lot of other parents. So many with similar stories to mine. thought it would be here by now, frustrated with the lack of progress, completely unaware of if and how this is being worked on. I've been doing my best to pass along what I've learned and encourage people to follow along to better understand the opportunity we have to get this in our district and more importantly to get out and vote in March. I'll continue to do so even if this warrant article does fail because our learning students deserve full day kindergarten and they deserve to have the same standards that the vast majority of their peers in this area are fortunate enough to have. In my attempt to spread the word, I have also posted on social media and um about these meetings

201and the survey that they posted to make sure parents who don't have kids in the system are aware of what's going on. While most responses were very positive, I did get some comments and questions that I felt were misguided on why this is so important. And while I think that they took the time to look at the proposal that the administration has so thoroughly laid out, many of those concerns and questions would be answered. But I wanted to address some of them from the perspective of a parent. And I only speak from my own experience and opinion. Um, but I do think that I'm not the only one who has these perspectives. One thing I see a lot is the suggestion that person that the reason parents want full day kindergarten is to get taxpayer

202funded daycare. While it would be certainly beneficial, especially in these times, to be relieved from that everinccreasing expense, wanting full day kindergarten for our kids is not about looking for a handout. It's simply wanting a better educational start for our children. I often hear people argue that if it wasn't needed in the past, it's not needed now. But educational standards and norms are not the same as they were 20 years or even five years ago. If we want to continue to be a great school district and have our kids be in line with their peers, we have to keep up with the educational standards of today. Another point I often that is often brought up is wanting to remain in the Moose Hill building. I agree that that's a great space. However, I know we

203still will still have the same dedicated teachers and staff who will not allow kindergartens to be deprived of anything they need to learn just because they're in a different space. This is also there is also a benefit for being moved to our elementary schools. And that is one less transition year our kids have to go through. Now, when they enter first grade, they will hit the ground running because they're already used to the building phases and routines. Change and transitions are hard, especially for young children. Eliminating a major transition at the start of their educational journey would be a good thing. The logistics for navigating a half-day program as a parent are extremely difficult. The majority of families now have two working parents. People argue that kids this age shouldn't be in a classroom all

204day. But in reality, even with half-day program, um because they are even if they have half day program, because when you have two working parents, child care still needs to be in place for the other other half of the day. And often that childcare looks very similar to a kindergarten classroom and structure. Which leads me to what has always been my biggest problem with a half-day program, and that is these small children are bouncing around all day, sometimes restarting their day up to three times. If you have an afternoon session and need a wraparound program, constantly changing their environment and people around them. By the time they are settled into one place, they are act and actually in the state of mind to learn, they are packing up to leave. This is a major stress

205we put on our children, and we still expect them to retain what they're being taught. I know that is not an environment most grown adults would thrive in. How are we continuing to ask our small learners to? And it's not just about straight academics like reading and writing, but the emotional and social learning that is so imperative at this age. And because the teachers have to cram so much of the academics into such a short time span, it leaves little room for the rest of the vital learning that happens in that kindergarten year. Our children lose out on that time, 103 days worth. um that allows them to develop a connection and bond with the teacher and peers they spend all day with. Connections that foster the right environment to build their academic futures on.

206Our children deserve their first official school experience to have consistency and proper time dedicated to all their learning needs and to eliminate the stress of a midday commute. Our kids deserve better and more than a half day. Luckily, I know we have the teachers and staff qualified to provide that. I just hope the town now shows that they support providing that for the our future, too. And I just did also want to say thank you um for taking the time to listen to me and also thank you to the administration for continuing to find a way to get this into our schools and the school board for giving it another go too. Thank you. >> Thank you. Great. >> Come on out. So, I know we had a discussion, it was one or two weeks

207ago, about in reference to some of the new apartment buildings and everything else that have come into place, how those haven't affected our school participant um student count so far. Um, but we do have the Pillsbury Road complexes that are supposed to be being built, which is several hundred that are supposed to be designed for firsttime families, first-time home buyers, and whatnot. um where we are doing, for example, Matthew Thornton is going to have the two portables that are there at least temporarily until you have the blip for the fourth and fifth grade that move out. Um, do you think with those kind of developments that are approved to be coming in, do you think that we're going to kind of see those higher numbers that where we either need those portables longer and we

208do kind of have that overall lease or rent on those kind of kept into the budget or do you think we're going to have to expand kind of the schools further? >> I used to have a full head of hair. Um, >> I've made you lose it all. >> No, no, no. It's it's the enrollment. you know, like watching the enrollment swing so wildly in the last couple years is just really hard. It's really hard for us to to predict it. I I think the best way to answer that question is we will always react to enrollment. If it goes down, we'll react to it. If it goes up, we'll react to it, you know. So, I think if if if the portables need to be there longer, we could. Um, you know, but I

209think the the the saving grace we have is in in all three schools is you're going to have four years worth of smaller classes. >> That's going to give us some breathing room. So if if for some reason there is a spike at younger grades and comes up, we have some time to kind of react to it with these four small classes in all. That's probably the only way I can sleep at night. Um you know, kind of know knowing some of these moving parts. And anything else you guys would say or >> I can jump into >> some of these projects like that project you're talking about the 250 there, it it's probably two years before anybody even moves in to three. >> Correct. So that's why if it's going to start being that

210that's just after you see that fourth and fifth grade class move out. So you might see that surplus bubble then and I know that it was previously stated that the leases on those portables have kind of gone up year over year which is why we want to get rid of them. Um but it seems really the only new kind of construction in that front seems to always be in your district. So and your school is the one that already kind of needs that expansion space. >> But they'll be there. doesn't mean we have to if we have to maintain them. We still have a significant cost savings every year with the additional revenue that that's already ahead continuing year after year. So if if the if the lease continues like it did at Moose Hill

211>> for the space the time that we needed them then we may have that down the road at North School. We've got 440 apartments being built up by district office. So correct >> we may find ourselves in three four years at every school. We as as the superintendent said, we don't have a crystal ball. Two years ago, we were sitting here that we had kids in hallways and needed space needs. >> Yeah. >> At Moose Hill and we were proposing an expansion for space needs. And then the needle flipped after he even had paying, you know, a professional to do an analysis of what's going on in birth rates and and and what's going on in the state and and all the information just flipped 180 overnight. Um, so none of us have a crystal

212ball. I think what's trying to be done now is utilize the space we have to provide more education for our younger learners and our students that have disabilities to get more time with with the staff they need at a younger age to develop quicker and help them. So this is a perfect time to do it with the space needs adding some space at Matthew Thornton um to to make that happen. But two years from now, we could be looking at a portable at South School or a portable at North School. We don't know. But we're utilizing the space we have. We're trying to do it at a cost positive to the taxpayers. >> Yep. >> And take care of it. But budgets change every year. It, you know, enrollment, you know, I've been on the

213board for six years. Uh, two years prior to that, I was involved and I've seen it go up and down. You know, I was part of that big expansion to keep Moose Hill together. Yep. >> You know, it was part of the whole design process and then the rug was pulled out by just the enrollment drop. >> Yeah. >> And nobody could see that. We spent hundreds and thousands of hours trying to come up with a plan to service our kids so they weren't in hallways and that and we had classroom space and it turned and here we are three years later trying to come up and we've got a plan. We've got the space. Yeah. We need to move two portables that we don't need any longer at Moose Hill, but now we can

214utilize it and be cash positive to our taxpayers. Very similar to last year, except there was a bond, but on year three it was going to be cash positive, but you know, nobody liked the idea of part of Moose Hill that's going to have some space to be a district office, I think, was part of it. and they just didn't understand that a $9 million bond >> could not possibly be cash positive in year three. >> You tell that to somebody and they would probably shake their head. That's it's impossible. How can a school ask for 9 million this year and two years later have enough revenue to offset it plus be cash positive every year after that to pay it and go towards the budget. And we were. It's unfortunate that we're not starting

215it sooner, but hopefully this is a good um way to get our full day kindergarten and utilize the space we have, but it can change next year to your point. >> Yeah. Only because I know we had said last week too that it was, you know, we had the surplus last minute in the summer where it was the 50 additional registered students and there was kind of like the scramble of what was going where. So if those did finally come into play, if we kind of had >> contingency plans on contingency plans as to like what we are possibly planning for in the event anything like that does happen just so that the schools aren't kind of like, hey, we have to turn your students away. >> No, we we would never do that. I

216mean, you know, I think these guys can answer that better. Like every year is basically contingency plan with Kane and one because we really don't know who's coming in. I don't know any any experience or comments there. >> Paul, >> I remember a few years where it was August, we had 20 first graders all move in in August and we added a new class thanks to the board. So, I think we're always responding to what we see. Um, this year I get we've had very few I'll say moveins during the course of the school year, at least at North the last two years. This year we've seen 16 since September. Fortunately, they've been all over the five grades. If 16 all moved in and they happen to be fifth graders, we then have to respond

217to that. >> Okay. >> I think to your point, Bob, too, when you have like a a huge building addition project that you're planning from scratch, you almost have a responsibility to make sure that there's room to grow. Um, but what we heard from the votes is that that's not was not affordable for people. People are getting priced out of their homes. So it's trying to take in all of that feedback and make a decision that um kind of you know to the best of our ability is going to satisfy everybody. Um and in in that case people said no to that um and and it was a big ask in terms of cost. So I think looking at um this is the way you do it without doing that building addition um that people

218said no to. So we're not going to have it all. I mean, ideally we would have this plan and it's tax positive and we have room to grow. Yeah. >> Um, you know, but we can't really navigate that. Um, but and and we kind of tried that route and and people said no and this is a plan that >> is more kind of financially sound. So, >> and we kind of got, you know, social media to to the point that young lady, you know, that they they're coming back again. Well, our our first priority as school board members is the education of our kids and fi financial responsibility. Correct. >> Which I think we do a really good job of. I I I think you look at the past three years of where the budget's

219been. Yeah. We've got an increase this year. We know the two major factors. >> We know it's it's uh CBA raises for our teachers, which you heard the superintendent earlier that we have been able to fill all our positions over last summer due to the new contracts. Yep. we've become more competitive with our surrounding towns and then the health care that we really have no care and we're on the lower percentage of the increase. So you look at those and right now we're at 120,100 below default >> with with that happening. Um and we're still looking we're still in the budget process. Maybe we can find more as we go through this in certain areas. And we're bringing this forward to be cash positive to lower that $4 million increase of approximately $6700,000 depending on

220enrollment in kindergarten in the revenue part and our overhead cost. So that's the reason if we had no plan better than last year, we probably would not be talking about kindergarten. We would be waiting to see another cycle of lower enrollment. What can we do different? even though last year's was was a good plan. >> Um so that's our responsibility is the education of our students. Um getting the best staff we can do >> and making sure we're fiscally responsible at that point. And this this board uh has been very thorough on the budget process and not trying to waste. Last year we were the only school district in the state level funded from the year before. It's unfortunately we got hit with this heavy insurance and we've been able to handle a $2 million

221assessment without putting any money into next year's budget and working with fund balance and and doing uh the potential district office and moving us back to the center of town with the town in a joint venture. Uh it's this board and the administration have done a phenomenal job for everybody at home. We are watching every tax dollar, looking at every avenue we can save without hurting our staff, trying to hire the best staff to work with our students and give every one of our students the best opportunity and the highest education we can put out. Are we perfect? No. But we work darn hard to be that efficient >> and work with our administration, our teachers, and our community members. And we're open for questions 247. >> Perfect. >> We answer. we get back to

222people. So, it's it it is I just want people to understand what we take this personal. We're not just sitting here doing nothing. There's been a lot of work done over the last three years budget-wise, purchasing policies, everything so our staff can do more with the buildings and our taxpayers can can take as less out of their pocket as possible. So, this is exciting for our kids to be able to have the full day program. I'm looking for these children to excel first grade, second grade, not be catching up first, second. I, you know, I've heard the phrase that, you know, most children are caught up by third grade. I want them to be at grade level as they move on. >> Yeah. >> And I want them to be able to take a higher

223class if they're excelling and our teachers can give it to them so they get even a better education. So, I just don't want people to think that we're just going to keep coming back. This is a good plan. this utilizes space we have and they did they did a good job of that. Are there concerns? I have all kinds of um I'll be nervous as heck until they get in the school and everything's operating after the first year. There's a lot of moving parts for the superintendent and his staff to put together. Yep. And it's going to be a joint effort with community me members, board members, all our staff putting this project together that we've got a 60-day window when school gets out to put portables in place, get classrooms remodeled and and that

224that's going to be weekend work. That's going to be night shifts just to get it ready for for the end of August. So, there's a lot of moving parts and people are putting in a lot of time and we're cash positive. >> Yeah. So, and this is the best benefit for our students moving forward. >> So, I hope that helps. >> And then, um, Sandra, you had stated that, um, there's to be no changes for the LEAP programs in reference to staff support and everything. Um, I know in here it had said a 0.5 reduction in OT. Is that based on um, yeah, the 0.5 occupational therapist reduction? Um, is that just because of like the movement in reference to like from school to school or is that >> not as needed for the leap?

225>> So, the cut isn't actually at Moose Hill. We we have a known attrition coming up districtwide. >> Okay. >> And what the student services team right now is kind of doing is mapping out where the OT needs need to be K through 12. Um, so we see no service reduction and we know we can kind of handle that reduction with overall lower student enrollment. >> Okay. So that's going to already be handled by the occupational therapist staff that we already have based on the current case load. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Questions take home six minutes one circle again. A question if you know how many children come from the uh Stonehenge Apartments, the McGregor Court Apartments, and from Woodmont Collins right now. >> We could figure that out. I think the

226town has that. Yeah. >> Yeah. I not I don't have it on me right now. Yeah. >> Okay. When I go drop my son off at his early childhood in the morning, I see one child waiting for the bus line Michael's way. Um, and as far as I know, we were expecting many more kids to come from the apartment complexes when they were being built all those years ago. Yeah. >> And we did not see the large spike in children from the apartment complexes that were built. >> So, I do not expect that we're going to be seeing a large spike again >> in children to the education system. >> Yeah, we do a report with Woodmont, the the owners of Woodmont. part of the agreement to show and I think we have 20 some

227odd kids that have come out of that >> K through 12. Um, I don't know what the exact number is for for McGregor Court and Stonehenge, but they're they were not what they were predicting, >> right? I think at one point they were predicting two to three kids per apartment, and it's been drastically less than that. So, >> thank you. It'll be interesting to see now that if we're able to offer this how that variable will change because I think if you're looking for a short-term rental or you know a rental in general and not planning on staying forever, you might look into >> what the town offers for school supports. And I think um if if we're a reputable school district and we have the full day, that's going to be interesting. That's going

228to be the variable that changes with the apartment stuff. Dan, just a couple questions I had on >> your your financial review uh view. I think it's page 20. >> Um >> the 120 for portable one time. Is the lease included in that number? >> No. So the lease the lease is included in our in our cost but ongoing costs. >> Okay. But not in the the first year savings uh onetime cost. So >> because basically it's still sitting in the budget. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So it's a little less. I'm just trying to clarify. Um and you have two you've based it at 252 enrollment a higher so we have it covered in the budget y and if we have less >> um there may be some changes personnel-wise and budgetwise going into next

229year. >> Yeah. So so let's say for example um you know basically the last two teachers I put into this don't exist. >> Correct. >> So let's say full day kindergarten. >> We don't fill those positions. >> We may not fill some of those positions. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. And because we'd have less revenue too of about 79 grand >> with 52 less kids with adequacy >> um and that and if it didn't come and we were around the two 209 >> um less the adequacy we would still be another savings on top of that into the bucket of money with revenue and that at the end of that following year um being cash positive to full day. So it could fluctuate a little bit but uh not to the negative because of the revenue

230and the staff already built into the budget. So that answered that question. >> Perfect. Okay. Any other questions? >> I have one more. >> Absolutely. >> Simple quick question. Um will half day kindergarten still be available or will it just be full-time? >> So um we studied this for for years. um and the other districts that kind of went through this process 7 8 years ago. What usually happen is once you started full day kindergarten, that's what everyone wanted. Um you know, so it it really depends on the ask we get from the community. If it's one family, I'm sure we can accommodate that. I don't know what it looks like just yet, but if you had, you know, 15 families at the same school asking for it, that's something that's probably easier for us

231to accommodate because that'd be a whole class, you know. So, it really depends on the ask from the community around that. >> Okay. The the other issue that similar districts have run into that tried that hybrid model was they found though again it's haphazard those first graders that had a half day program were way behind the ones that had the full day and now you have that >> that mixed group. >> Followup question with that. If you did still offer a half day, would there still be midday pickups or would it be up to the parents to come get their in >> that bottle? Probably be up to the parents. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Good. Good. Good. Okay. >> I think we're good. >> I knew that would be a time killer.

232>> Um, all right. Before we jump into deliberations and wrap up with the budget committee. Um, as always, I've been working on these budgets for eight years now. Um, six as a member. Um, with these, uh, I've talked with with AMD and Dan, uh, a couple of times since the last meeting and with the signi significant increase in health insurance um, and um, the CBAs with the benefits and um, salary increases to to get uh, our positions filled and offering and Why I wanted AMD to explain how the budget is built uh starting in October and how they arrive at it working from October with all their departments and handing it out to us um just before Thanksgiving. That's that's five six weeks worth of work um as they're trying to manage children, run their

233schools, do their co-curricular, you name it, and run their own and their have time with their own families. Um, so what I would like to ask is could we get a one more time through between now and the 8th? Take a look at how the budget was built, look at staff, look at cost, look at benefits, other areas, and do a one-time over. Just like when you're going to do a major purchase, right? You're going to lay everything out on the table and you're going to look at it, maybe talk with your significant other, go back and forth for a couple of days and and then either make the purchase or say we're going to wait. So, what I would like to ask um is a one more time through um I don't number one

234want you to come back and say we're going to cut somebody that we need. That's priority one. And I don't want to eliminate something we need to do in the buildings or around the buildings that is needed because that just kicks the can down the road and we've got a process in a system um by B&G to do all that work. Um so I don't want to take anything away. All I'm asking is a reconcile of where you started October 1, handed it to us. We've heard all the budget process. The budget committee has heard and report back to us with any possible further reductions. If you could do that, I know it's a fair amount of work, but we're looking at a $4 million increase. And if we see some savings that you folks

235are comfortable, Dan, and I know it goes on your shoulders and nobody else's because you've got to work through them. Um, and that, but I think the community um would appreciate it and um and that just to say we gave it a one more go through and see what we can do and and and that, but I definitely don't want somebody to be cut and eliminate something that we need for our students. and I don't want to kick back on any major work that needs to be done uh throughout the district. So, it's just a it's a it's a way business operates, right? And this is a big business. It's a $95 million business. And there's more than one way to reconcile, you know, the end of the month, your your quarterly or your final

236year. So, here we are. Got some time. Um I still want you to enjoy your break. Don't don't cut into that time, but we've got some time to do it. And if you can possibly find any areas that we can get it back a little bit more, um would be much appreciated in that. So, I don't know if anyone else wants to add anything to that, but I I think our whole community would appreciate that. And uh we're doing a tremendous job on the education front with in you know with with the performance across the way that we've worked really hard at that now being able to fill our positions because of our our staff getting better pay and bringing um teachers in at a good rate where we weren't competitive before. We we've checked

237off a lot of boxes. Now, if we can just do one reconcile and see if we can get that 120 a little bit lower. >> So, if you can't, I understand, but I think whatever we can do would be much appreciated. >> Sure. >> Um, did you want to cover anything else on the warrant? >> Super quick. I know. I know. We're I know we're running out of energy. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah. >> Yeah. Let's let's go through it. >> Very very quick overview. Um, next time we'll probably talk about article 4. We have a tenative agreement. Uh, Tim and Bob did a great job kind of leading us with the custodians. They're going to take their vote this weekend. So hopefully by January 8th, the school board can take their vote and we

238have a new agreement with custodians. Um, article five is if if a collective bargain agreement fails, we we always have the ability to have a special meeting. So that's what Article 5 is. >> Article six has been there for years. It basically allows us to accept federal funds if they do keep on coming. Um, article seven is the build of grounds capital reserve that Joe uh went over earlier tonight. Uh, article eight is the uh district technology infrastructure that Brandon went over earlier tonight. Um, article 9 is the equipment capital reserve. Um, that's the small one uh for, you know, desks and things that we do every year. Um, article 10 was the the the machinery and uh stuff that Joe went over earlier tonight. Um, article 11 is that new fund we would do

239to kind of start to set aside funds to limit healthcare spikes in the future. >> Article 12 Jason can kind of talk about next time where we're trying to establish a a trust so we can fund raise for a turf field and not put the on taxpayers. Uh, article 13 we're going to talk about during the the board meeting if we want to go there on open enrollment. Very complicated thing. and article 14 didn't actually make it there, but we're going to have a um I probably had the the not the most recent version of it. It's um our ability to be part of the lease for the new district office project. >> Yeah. >> So that's all the details will go on on January 8th. >> And I was just being wishful thinking. The

240numbers on the budget committee votes and your votes are not they were wishful thinking >> uh and a draft. You guys will take your formal votes. We hadn't adjusted those yet. >> I presumed it was carryover from last year. >> Yes, it was. It was a wonderful year last year. So, I was wishful thinking. Didn't want to touch it. >> So, there's any general questions on those? Let us know like now or or the next two weeks. >> I'd like to do an overview on the eight. Sure. >> Of just go through any questions you have from tonight again >> and and all the warrant. We'll go through it 1 2 3 4 five in order just in case. If you need a copy of this, can we get it to the budget committee? >>

241Yes. >> Great. >> Yep. So, we'll update it with a few things that that we have. >> Yep. So you guys will get a copy of this because we haven't seen it yet either. So um and we can review that on the 8th during our budget. >> I can send it to you in draft format. We're still having it reviewed by our legal council for any changes that could potentially come, but I can show you what we have. So >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Good. We're good. >> All right. You folks? >> Good. >> Thank you. Yes. >> Well, thank you. And as always, reach out to the superintendent or the ordinity in the business office with any questions. Um, and we will see you folks back here on January 8th. >> Great.

242>> I hope you guys have a great holiday and merry Christmas and and that and appreciate all you do for the town. >> Thank you so much. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. >> Yeah. Patrick for a second. >> We don't have to discuss for today. Yeah, >> you need this to go on here. >> True. >> Yeah, put it back on. >> I just want to get it out there that we're talking ready. >> All right, jump right into deliberations. 6.1 overnight field trip. Mr. Barnes. >> Yes, thank you. Good evening. Um, I know we're pressed for time, so I'm here requesting approval for the London High School's Future Business Leaders of America, FBALA, overnight trip to their state leadership conference scheduled for March 18th through 19th um in 2026 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Um, this

243group has attended this conference in the past. It was a bit of a late ad because we haven't had interest in the group and we haven't had a lot of activity, but we're excited to have 10 students. uh they recently become active in a financial literacy competition. So this we're really encouraged with those numbers and approval of the trip will help us kick off and get the program hopefully back to where it was questions. Everybody good with it? >> Awesome. Thank you. >> You are good to go. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you. So, now we're going to transition to our brief presentation on student search procedures here at Linder High School with an emphasis on their application to vaping and banned substances. I'm pleased to introduce three of our assistant principles here up up

244here with me this evening. Uh Ryan O' Conor, Crystal Rich, and Bob Callahan. Katie Sullivan could not be here this evening. She says she's not feeling well. I'm very proud to work with these fine folks. We're here tonight to inform and educate the public on how we deal with standard student searches. We're also here so our assistant principles can share their perspective and how we can improve the health and safety of our students particularly as it pertains to the vaping epidemic which seems to be on the rise in high schools everywhere. Um and I'm going to turn this over starting with Mr. Okconor. >> Sure. >> So Mr. Black reached out and asked for us to uh educate the public on what goes on at Lendere High School concerning student searches and banned substances. So,

245we provided uh a brief overview for everyone um that we'll move through. Obviously, the goal is to ensure a safe and orderly environment and Lendere High School by addressing student possession and use of banned substances and paraphernalia. It's a it's a piece of high school that unfortunately does occur and we have to respond as best as we can to it. Um, concerning policies, procedures, and prevention, Lendary High School follows district supported policies, procedures, and preventive measures to promote student safety, well-being, and responsible conduct. The biggest challenge, which is, I think, why we're here right now, is that reasonable searches are not always effective in detecting banned substances or paraphernalia, specifically concerning vapes, which is, you know, relatively new uh in in in high schools within the past 10 or so years. uh that the policy

246that gives us the power to search students when necessary uh is policy JIH which states students in their personal property and their vehicles may be searched upon reasonable suspicion that they possess any items or substances which are prohibited by law, board policies or school rules which interfere with operations, discipline, or the general welfare of the school. We put together a a brief rundown of typically what happens uh if there is reasonable suspicion uh that would lead us to consider searching a student uh and his or her um belongings. Uh first the suspicion um in the escort. So if there is a reasonable suspicion which includes but is not limited to observations where specific and credible information received from other students, staff or parents suggest a student may possess an item posing a safety or health

247risk. The student will be escorted by an AP to one of the nearby offices. At that point, there'll be an explanation where the assistant principal will explain the reason for the suspicion and question the student if they possess such an item. Um, upon that, depending on how that goes, a search of the student in a student's bag or property will be conducted in the presence of another staff member, preferably another administrator. We always like to work as a team. And then finally, parent caregiver notification. A follow up email or phone call regardless of the results of that search will be made to parents and caregivers explaining the cause of the search and its results. The limitations that we do face and and many school uh assistant principles administrators face this as well specifically pertaining to

248vapes is that current search procedures are not always effective in determining banned substances or paraphernalia. Vape and ecigarette devices which may contain nicotine or TSC uh THC can be easily concealed and may not be recovered through such reasonable searches and failure to confiscate these devices may allow the problem to persist without timely or effective intervention. What is at stake? It's not just about getting kids in trouble. This is about a safety measure and a health measure in helping kids that may have problems. So, addiction. Many ecigarette liquids contain additive substances including nicotine and THC. There have been national reports of vape cartridges even containing fentinyl. Often times we come across kids that that get vapes and and things like that and they don't know where they come from. And that's a very very concerning thing

249as as an administrator. Lung damage. Vape aerosol contains harmful chemicals formaldahhide, heavy metals, flavorings that can cause irreversible lung damage. Fine particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs and expos exposure to secondhand aerosel carries similar risks. So it's not just the the student that may have an addiction problem that we're concerned about. It's the other kids looking to to use in many cases our bathrooms. Brain development. Nicotine exposure can harm the developing brain in children, teens, and young adults into their early 20s. And the school impact is bathrooms often become locations for vaping and related activities including the selling of devices and substances which disrupt safety and order. We have moved into a different era from the the oldtime cigar smoking in the bathrooms with cigarettes. It is a different era now. Preventative measures

250that we take here from a procedural element. We've had enhanced our camera capability. We've implemented an electronic pass system. We've recently put two vape detectors in bathrooms and in that testing out phase is still continuing. And we've modified teacher duty locations as well. All to to curb that. From a curriculum standpoint within our health classes, we address uh not just the dangers of of vaping and substances, but also peer pressure as well. And from a counseling standpoint, our we heavily use our school to community counselor. That position is invaluable to us. We have had in the past things like Lancer Speak Up Day, which promotes healthy decisions. We have recently uh updated our life of a Lancer uh policy, extracurricular policy to to include information like this. And then finally, we have anou with the

251upper room in dairy uh where we refer students who who we see as as needing help and work with the parents to set that up. potential next steps and I think this is why we're here right now uh is p is pursuing the idea of vape detection wands and based on our research we found that they range from $30 to $200 per wand. We also have looked into potential guest speakers for substance abuse. Um, one in particular that many of us here have have seen and is is very very effective is former NBA player and local high school college basketball star Chris Herren, if many of you recall, was uh uh out of Massachusetts, had a great college career, played for the Celtics, but substances uh ultimately derailed that for him as well. Ultimately, what

252we're looking at is this is an additional measure to uphold the spirit of our policy that this is a drug-free property. The real concern is the need to use at school for many for some of these students. Um it this should be a safe place for students. Uh the the coping strategy for some of these kids is not in the best interest of them and our students in our learning environment. And this will we hope will ultimately be a determinant. >> Good. Thank you. >> So, any questions? >> I don't have any questions, but I just like the overall message. Um, and I feel like with the phones, we kind of are sending a message that, you know, when we set a rule or an expectation that we're not doing that. And I love that

253this has that follow through. Um, we want our kids to be healthy. But I think it's important for the culture that when we say that, like I just said, we're not doing something here, we're not doing it here. Um, and that, you know, we'll provide the help and the support. um but also that um we're not going to find ways around it and do it anyway. And I think that that is important for us as a whole school district just in general to to establish that culture. So um I I really like this. >> Any good? >> No, I don't know the one concern we brought up before was making sure parents were aware prior to any um student being searched for the wand and whatnot. So I don't know if you talked or more

254about that. um which is getting permission and >> right >> so we we certainly can do that I mean once we have once they're in our kind of care at at that point they're not really going anywhere there are there could be times probably unlikely where sometimes time is of the essence where we're trying to get to things but I think if we are cautious about bringing students and being thoughtful about when we're um bringing them down to the office I'm sure we could coordinate the other issues we're not always able to get a hold of parents because they're working. Um, and there will be certain times I guess one of the pauses for that. I think I would like to be able to do that as a standard practice. We are oftentimes able to

255get a hold of parents in a reasonable amount of time. So that's but there are times when we're not and I wouldn't want a student in one case having to wait with you know some I would like to have some discretion on that if that makes sense because there were there are caveats to everything. We always make a best could make a best case effort, but you could also have a student who was in the vicinity has nothing on them and they're just sitting and waiting and waiting losing class time. So I think that would be the exception. I don't think that would be the norm, but I think >> not every student's guilty, >> right? Because not it's true. Often there's there's a fair number of students who are not guilty of anything. So

256truly >> you might want to have parents that want you to wait and want to be there, >> right? >> You know, while this is happening. So I think making a concerted effort to contact um all the contacts on their their Aspen list prior to conducting this as a student. >> Yeah. And to to your point or um I know we talked about the SRO being involved too. Um I I fear for our staff to be into a lawsuit because it's a minor being searched without parental guidance, but our SRO's are trained for this type of stuff which will back up you folks. So I really I think you had said you try to keep them isolated and that and I where it could run into you know possible charges on the student and that

257but I just fear that >> we should utilize our SRO in this case as well to to support our staff. >> So so I think two times ago it's like I think that >> I'm trying to if I don't say this correct please. >> Sure. >> But you know >> the children are in our care. We're not here to prosecute them. we're here to take care of them. >> Y >> giving them to the SRO's is a whole different step, you know. So, we actually don't want them involved. So, they don't have any legal ramifications. They only have school ramifications. It's better for us to kind of be in charge of that process >> because if the SRO's are doing it, then you are involved in the LPV LPD. >> So, I know I voiced

258this last time. I just feel like there's I think there's a line that gets crossed not necessarily with the the wands for me, right? >> But I think a breathalyzer test goes over that line for me. Um, and I think that's relevant here specifically because this new procedure we're talking about is making reference to breathalyzer test is kind of a road map. So I think although I I don't think it's overly intrusive to have a wand to be used, I think it is necessitating us possibly revisit revisiting the breathalyzer policy and then changing them both at the same time. That's the way I feel about it because I do feel like it it's overly intrusive to conduct a breathalyzer test on an underage kid without parental involvement at all. And I know they're in your

259care, >> but I think for me it steps over a line. >> Would it be a happy medium to notify a parent and say this is going to happen? >> Yeah, that's what's in the >> and you can be here or not be here. I guess the the word permission is making me feel like people are going to like feel like they can opt out. And I think >> this is going to happen because there was a substantial suspicion of a kid >> or one of our students. >> So as it's written now, if you refuse a search in a handbook class, >> you are allowed you're allowed to go to the full extent of suspension. Like it it's you're not allowed to refuse a search. >> Okay. Um and and usually time usually I

260would say nine times out of ten anytime we search a kid they they are clear which is why we want to do the search so that we can clear their their name and get them back to class. Um and it's usually used as a mechanism so that we're we're allowed to like just clear the scene, get you back to class and let move on. We call the parents and say hey this is what happened today. We just wanted to let you know we checked your backpack. Everything was clear. Great news. Got him back to class. Everything's wonderful. >> Yeah. And that's why I am trying to differentiate. Yeah. >> Yeah. There's there's very much like I just want to clear the air that there's not like we don't go around searching kids just to search

261kids. Like that is that is it's the least favorite thing we have to do in our job. But but to but to know that the fear is that there are things that are going on that we there are safety concerns going on that we are unable to take care of because we don't have the ability to take care of them is scary. Um, and that we do have so many students who avoid areas of our our building because we do know that there are things that are going on is really a difficult pill to swallow. Um, and and so are we able to call parents every time we're going to search a kid? Absolutely not. We just can't do that. And and we don't we in you know per our handbook, we don't have to

262do that. That's not that's not the rules that are there. >> Yeah. And I think you would think in the state statutes I think you're given that leeway. >> We are. We are given. >> We're given a lot. It is a broad brush. We're given as soon as we bring the SRO in, that's a whole different level for us. We don't want the SRO in to come in because that's when we are passing them off to the police formal as a crime. there has been something like there's a drug involved and now the police department is going to get involved >> and the juvenile detective may be involved or whatever it is. If it's simply a a situation where the school is going to inrue or students going to acrue consequences from the school, we

263want to keep them >> only in the school and not police involved. >> Always be our intent. >> Yeah. And also with with the way we work, there's also there's a legal piece where if we involve the SRO too early, we can become their an agent of theirs. And that's that's a huge legal no that they're basically directing us to do their work for them. So that's why we're really conscious to separate it because it's a big legal thing that we learn about in in law school. >> But we want to make sure that we're, you know, obviously doing the right things by our students and our families because we do reach out to them. But they give us that they call it incomprentice. Basically, you have that control, that temporary custody and control. But

264we take that seriously because we're most of us are parents and we want to make sure that we're doing right by these kids, but not overly involving them with law enforcement. And sometimes we can use that just verbally without the SRO saying, "Listen, you can be honest with us and bring this forward and deal with us or you can deal with them." And a lot of times that just the bringing that up is enough to something, >> right? They'll like I would much rather just own it and then we get a lot of information at that point. And so that is how kind of how we work. It's always just this general it's a yin and yang and a balance that we really collaborate. Especially in London area we have the best rel we have

265a phenomenal relationship with our police department. We're constantly how are we going to deal with this? How are we going to deal with that? Cuz every situation's different. >> And we'll brief them. A lot of times we'll be we'll be like, "Hey, we have this coming down the pike." And they'll be like, "All right, you want us to step out. You're going to deal with this. You need us. You call us, but this is how we're going to handle it." >> Okay. And I'd say the other thing too is when these policies were written 10-15 years ago, all reviewed by a legal team. >> When we came up, when we wrote the new vaping thing, we reviewed it with a legal team. All this is normal standard operation legal procedure within schools. >> Yeah. >>

266I I understand the concerns, but we're following the law by following these things. You know, ultimately we're at a bit of a disadvantage with our current practices and everything that we've learned about these and in the implementation of these is they actually their primary their primary purpose is a deterrent because I think as Rick had said, you know, knowing that, you know, if I do bring one of these on campus and I keep it on my person, I'm not going to be able to hide it anymore, right? >> And that >> it'll take a couple of times. It'll take a few times and then the word will get out because right now it's I can stash these because they're tiny and we're we're good. >> So, we have this policy >> in the handbook. Is

267there a procedure based off of this policy that they get and the parents get at the beginning of the school year laying this the ground rules so they're aware of it? >> I think our search they sign the handbook the sign they do sign the handbook that covers of our policy spelled out on that the parents sign off and the students sign off. >> Correct. It's under the discipline section. Yes. >> Okay. >> And and refusal of the search as well. >> Yeah. >> So, so what the high school team could do is send out this new procedure. >> That's what I'm wondering is if we to the parents. >> So, this is moving forward. This is the procedure, especially with the new vaping wand. And >> and we would roll it out like we

268would. It wouldn't just be tomorrow. It would be this is what we're doing. We've been talking about it. They've had plenty of time because it's been out there. Kids know we're talking about this. We've not hidden this. share it with families. This is the procedure. We'll make an effort to definitely contact families if we're going to get to that level where we're using a wand. I just I want to make the effort. I don't want to lose our ability to control a situation because sometimes there could be multiple of these in a building and we have to work really quickly and jump on things to get something that might be dangerous. >> How go say I just think it's in best practice in general >> to to reach out to the family. I know when

269I have a student I might have to search in my office. Um I'm not letting them leave my side. So I bring them to my office and I call home and say this is what's going on. I potentially have to search them. I just I think it's best practice for everyone because I know there's a lot of of cases law cases that have gone on, you know, with unreasonable searches. So just in general, I think we all would agree that it is in best practice to contact families or a parent knowing that a search may need to be made to inform the family. >> Since the beginning of the school year, do you know rough any idea how many may have happened this year so far? >> Searches. >> Too many. >> Probably too many

270to count. I mean, it's it's I don't know if it's daily. It's every other day. Could be daily. Daily >> two men daily >> pretty common daily a week >> a week. >> So that's one AP four or five a week. >> Oh that that's just me >> I would say. >> So >> five or six a day. I think Sarah you brought up the last meeting is if somebody is caught with vaping material or alcohol, do we have some sort of uh mediation remediation program to help the student rather than just go home and sit on the couch and possibly be >> vac. So you want to talk about upper room and then I can talk about >> Yeah. >> re-entry. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, um, like we mentioned, we're associated with the upper

271room in dairy. Um, so let's just say hypothetically we catch a student who, um, is caught with weed or THC. Um, that's an automatic 5-day out of school suspension. We would, uh, refer them to re rejuvenate at the upper room in Derry. Um, as part of their 5-day suspension, um, if it's their first time, we might send them over there for 3 days. um if they serve three days over there, we might bring them back for their last two days of suspension here in school. So, kind of like a give or take. The rejuvenate system reaches out to our teachers over here, connects with our teachers, gets their students work um and has them do the work over there for those three days. They al we would also sign them up for programs over there.

272One of them is like Vape Educate. They would be signed up for that program over there and they would have to attend those sessions over there on vape educate. They might al also have to do community service al based on what they're involved in here. So if they're involved in co-curricular activities and then uh if they're involved in co-curricular activities then then they would have to do whatever is based out of the life of a lancer policy on top of that. So yes, there's an extreme amount of wraparound based on whatever the student is involved in. >> Okay, great. >> There's a whole lot of wraparound. >> And then when that student returns, there's a re-entry meeting, standard re-entry meeting with the house office and we often bring in the school to community counselor from

273the drug and alcohol aspect as well. And part of that re-entry plan, as Crystal said, can have several stipulations and expectations to ultimately help that student um move forward in a healthier direction. Um if a student um as Crystal said in in her example, is found for a second time with specifically THC, that's when the referral to the police department moves through and they start pursuing things like diversion. And if they agree to do counseling in the services, is their suspension lowered? >> So for students that agree to upper room, that is an option as well. >> Not necessarily lowered, but might take a different form. So if they have a 5-day out of school suspension, they might be at rejuvenate for 3 days, but come back for in school for the last two. So

274maybe in the building for the last two, not necessarily 5 days out of school at home doing nothing. I always want to make sure that they have support services. Rejuvenate is a great program and it helps them keep on track >> and and to incentivize them to take advantage of these opportunities as well. >> Rejuvenate really helps us out. >> Okay. >> And we're in their catchment area, so it's great for us as well. >> Any questions? >> We're just trying to help with as many preventative measures as we can put in place. >> No, this is good dialogue. It's it's >> and I I will stress again I think a lot of the educational materials need to start earlier than high school. Um so I will just even at you know fifth grade and

275beginning stages of middle school because I think that is key in all of this is early education. Um so anything we can do at the younger levels to to take a look at this and educate is is key. >> Yeah. I think now I'm personally in favor of this. I think from uh it was brought up a few minutes ago primarily as a deterrent. Um students who are on the edge, don't feel like they're going to get caught, they'll be far more um liable to take chances and oh I can hire on myself might get a lot of kids who won't take that risk now. So even you know current policies um in place bringing in this ability to detect it to me makes sense. Anyone else? >> So, I think you we understand it

276a little better tonight. Um, I like the idea of always trying to get the parent. Um, that's important. We know some situations your hands are tied and it's it's that moment that you may have to do something, but I think getting this policy out and the parent signed for it. So, you have some record of it that they did accept it, they understand it, it takes the liability off of you folks, too. and you've made every attempt, but it may be 30 minutes after this happens because it's it's happening that quick. But um and I like that you have another administrator with that administrator, too. I just concerned about you folks, you know. I'm not I'm not even really worried about the liability part. I am but it's your well-being as well that have to

277go through this process as administrator education administrators if you know what I mean >> definitely appreciate I have to say we're really good in working in tandem we never do anything alone so >> um we really try to >> so you want a motion on >> from what you've described I mean in theory this should cut down on some of the burden that you have. >> Yes. >> With the amount of searches that you're talking about, >> that's the goal. That would be the goal. If they know we have this, then the games, it's a different It's a totally different game. It evens the playing field. >> Yep. >> So, any other questions? Dan, this is two policies. Do we need to approve these or just >> So, those are the policies on the books.

278>> Yeah. >> We're just letting you guys know if >> you're going to spend some money. >> We're We're Say it again. >> You're going to spend some money on on the wand. >> Yeah. and and we and we'll move ahead with sharing the new procedure on vaping with the parents at the high school, you know, and give them the ability to figure this out. >> And we'd be interested any feedback if you get it from them. We could hear that, >> but sorry. >> And are we looking at at the wands at the middle school as well? >> Probably not. >> We don't have anything from the middle school. >> I don't believe it. I don't believe it. >> We don't have that. >> We'll get them next. We'll get them next. So the

279ones that I I put 30 I when I reached out with to Timberly they originally had the kind of the higher end the more expensive wand which I still thought was cheap but then they had some issues with it after a year and they're like we're using these and they were like $30. So and they they said these those seem to work. So it seems like cost you know the $200 wand is not necessarily the option. I would probably be have much of more of a preference to the cheaper one because that's what they're using now. So to to Rick's point, the wands can be calibrated to pick up a a vape and not necessarily any other metal underneath. >> Okay. >> There'll be a learning curve for us, too, before we even roll this

280out to understand how these work. So we're not just running around, you know, we have we'll have to train and do those things. >> All right. So on our end, >> we're not adjusting any policy right now. We're just okaying you purchasing and this procedure will go out to parents for how you're going to handle it. Okay, everybody good? You're good? >> Yep. >> Okay, great. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Really appreciate it. >> Yeah. >> Appreciate it. >> Can Can we do the behavior reports next cuz the wonderful assistant principles from the middle school were eager to be part of this process. They're probably an hour and a half to two hours waiting. You know, >> sounds like sounds like Jim's still got plenty of energy. Tim, >> very excited. Thank

281you. >> Okay. So, uh I will do a very quick overview of the behavior reports and then I want to kind of turn it over to the assistant principles at uh the middle school. Um I think they're indicative of of a lot of the hard work that's gone on districtwide. Jason's done a great job running an MTSS committee. Um and so what we did differently this year based on the school board's uh request is we used to do this every 90 days. Now, we'll do this every 60 days. So, we'll kind of break up the year into trimesters. Um, but basically, all the schools look at their behaviors, they kind of break them down uh for patterns, and then kind of share that with the district office, and then I'll compile it. Um, and then,

282you know, what I'm seeing district-wide is a lot of these MTSS kind of processes we've put in place, especially in the middle school, are having a really good impact on on on the behaviors we're seeing in our kids. Um, and in general, you know, 80% of the kids, what we want to see is their behavior. 80% or more, they can be dealt with with the teachers in the classroom. You know, low-level behaviors. Sometimes kids are going to misbehave. That's okay. They make mistakes. We're there to help them uh get better. Um, but it's okay to refer refer behavior to the administrators. That's literally the ones we're looking at tonight. Um but hopefully we can make those small percentages work with kids and kind of really uh you know move move them down and and shrink

283those numbers uh even more. Um so you know what you have for the behavior reports are kind of right here. I'll make it a little bit bigger is I broke it down into kind of four categories. So through the first 60 days we can see that 94% at Musel 95 at North School 93 at South School 92 at Matthew Thoron 81 and 84% at the high school and middle school respectively do not have a behavior incident that's been referred to the office. That's great. That means the majority of the kids are listening to their teachers. they're having productive moments in the classroom and and there then there are some incidents that get referred to these wonderful gentlemen and others around our district and that's okay. Um and what we've defined as a district is if

284you have one to three incidents over a year, you're still in tier one. It's okay to make a few mistakes but we're here to make sure that you don't continually make more. Um but if there are kids who continue to have uh more incidents four to nine, we would put them in tier two. that's be more of a team- based approach where there's more supports we need in place to kind of constantly remind them how they should behave and and how they kind of live up to our expectations. And then we get to kind of tier three um and you know those are the kids who are going to have more than 10 incences. We do have um less than 10 districtwide right now that kind of fall into that bucket and that's okay um

285because then we have additional layers of support um you know to to kind of make sure we start to turn that behavior around. But I think what I'm seeing district-wide, you know, this is the first time we've done it through 60 days is we still have pretty low percentages in that 1 to three. Uh we do have some percentages in that four to nine. And at the high school and middle school, yeah, we have about 15% of the kids in both buildings that had between 1 to three incidences so far this year. And they're working hard to kind of keep it there. Maybe not let kids slip into tier two and tier three. Uh I broke down uh the the major behavior instances that they reported back to me. Uh some of the typical things

286we see, safety, disrespect, refusal. Uh obviously the high school had their wave of cell phones they had to kind of push back on, which which they they've gone through. Um and then at the bottom of the page, we also kind of detail um the bullying investigations that were substantiated, the ones that were not substantiated. So that's eight and six. Uh districtwide district-wide risk assessment. So that's when you know kids, you know, we'll talk about self harm and we have to work with them through our counseling department and then safe school reports. Those are literally when we uh involve the LPD. So I want to turn it over to John, Dave, and Tim who wanted to give us a few things that are going on in the tiers at MTSSB. >> Sure. So thanks for having

287us. Uh tonight we're sharing uh just an overview of our behavioral data which is aligned to MTSSB uh framework and outcomes to demonstrate how we proactively support student behavior uh well-being and while all while maintaining a safe positive learning environment. Um it's grounded in our our core values of respect, responsibility, and perseverance which guide our prevention e efforts, targeted interventions, and in individualized supports for for all students. So I'm going to start with just our tier one. Um so again if we're looking at at um at day 60 mark uh for one to three admin referrals uh is 15% of our overall students or 136. Um but if we actually look at the MTSSB definition of what a tier one is that's 0 to three um which is not reflected there. Um and that would

288be out of our 800 what is it 91 as of day 60 we had um 861 of our students are would fall into that 0 to3 category which if you look at that that's 97.6% 6% of our student body falls under the tier one of MTSS uh B. Um which is well above what would be a norm of between 80 and 90% um for a definition there. Um and why is that? Well um with the three of us it's there's a high visibility of all three of us um around the school at any given time. Um increased uh presence because we all have a morning and afternoon duty. So, we're all greeting the students as they arrive and we're all saying goodbye as they leave. Um, we're all making connections. It's relationships, relationships, relationships. So,

289by the time they get hopefully by the time they get sent to our offices, that's not the first time we're talking to them. They already know us on a different level. Um, from every single day they walk into the building, um, from us being present. Um, we also are in lunch duties with our with our grade levels, um, for all four lunches. Um, and it it also with the three of us, it's our presence in the hallways. Um, whether that's just the day-to-day being around saying uh monitoring between classes, whether that's informal or formal walkthroughs um for our staff evaluations to the Marshall. Um, we're there. We don't operate in silos. We're not alone. Um, obviously our dedication to MTSSB starting last year and into this year as we continue to refine and make it

290even better. um all of all three of us for tier one um we are holding bi-weekly meetings with our with each one of our teams um in which students are always part of the agenda. We always start with the kid talk where we at where are we going even before we get to the MTSSB process so there no surprises. Um obviously our presence um I'm sure you've seen um if you check out the nations at all um of the of the pictures that we try in paparazzi all the time um we're present at these events we're we're involved we want to be with our students with our families um and we do that um the ability that with the three of us we're able to go with our grade levels when they go on a

291field trip um not only does it build our relationship with our students and our staff but I know that it's very much appreciated. Um as staff members have been very vocal about how much they appreciate when we go to something like for me for grade six um two of my teams went to Bodaborg in Mass um that they had administrative presence there with them in case something happens. They have us there and we're able to do that while the school can still run. Um the other thing obviously we do especially uh for all grade levels is beginning uh of the year grade level meetings where we go over the handbook and the things we normally do. Um and finally one of the things that we brought to the school last year that we continue to

292do um and that's highlighting excellence every day. That's having a growth mindset um and a strength-based perspective where we're holding showcase assemblies every quarter at this point where we're showcasing, you know, where the kids are aligning to portrait of a graduate graduate where they're going out into the community. We're reaching out to to parents in the community to talk about the other side of kids and the and the goodness that they bring. And again, if you check out the nations, you'll see pictures of all this stuff. Um, you've probably already seen it, but um, those are are the big things that we're doing universally for all students, all tier one student sets we're doing. Um, for tier 2, I'm going to turn this over to Dave, uh, who's going to explain the next step. >>

293And I'm not going to talk as much because all of our efforts are, you know, the more we put into the tier one behaviors and doing what we need to do there, that's going to minimize our students that rise to that tier 2 and tier three level. Um, and I will say one more thing about that Bodaborg trip, uh, is that John and and William came back from there and the manager of that Bodaborg went >> what owner the owner >> owner came up and spoke to them took time out of his day to walk up to them and say how well behaved our students were down there um, for those two sixth grade teams. So that that speaks very highly to them. But for tier 2, we do have 26 students currently or only

2943% of our population that is rising to that level of additional interventions and supports, which is well below the 10 to 15% that MTSSB identifies as typical for that particular level of the pyramid. Part of the things that we do is we have our monthly target team meetings uh with a uh basically a subcommittee of teachers from all around the building of which all three of us attend and we talk about the building level data at that tier one level and see what we need to adjust based on what comes out of there. So that might be looking at the hallway, what's occurring there, what's occurring in the classrooms, and figuring out if we can make small adjustments by working with the teams, ourselves, any other staff members um to put a bigger presence and

295oversight into those areas and hit it right away. Um the second thing we do is is each one of us has our tier 2 intervention meetings with our teams because we meet with our teams twice a month. So we then bring up specifically students who are in this category with the teachers and that begins that conversation about what's what they're seeing and we strategize through the data determine where the behaviors are occurring. So then because there's three of us at each grade level along with the counselors that ties in that strong relationship that we have with the counselors to wrap around those students because those counselors are also with them for all three years. So for for me for instance I have Mrs. McCarthy and she literally is 3 ft from my office. So I

296see what goes in and out of there all day long and I know if I'm working with a student and she's working with a student, we're going to be collaborating and we're going to say, "What's going on?" Right? And that's where that um because we have those relationships with them and we're able to have the time to meet with them and talk, we're able to hit that tier 2 intervention strongly. There's many times where I have to have those conversations repeatedly and explain to kids how their brain works. At the middle school, it's not, you know, these are not quick conversations and we have to have repeated conversations about how there's two parts to their brain and how they've got the emotional regulation part and then the logical thinking part. And frankly, at this age,

297they don't talk to each other in the brain. And the kids need to learn that and they need to learn the strategies to try to build the connection between those parts of the brain. And that takes time to do. And we only can do that because we have time to sit with them and and have those conversations that alter the behavior, not just give a consequence. Um, additionally, we consult with our district-wide behavior specialists and of course strong relations with our special education staff. And then we also we meet bi-weekly just the three of us so that we can look at the data and find out how we can be very consistent and see what we're seeing among our three grades to see what we can bring to the building and that does drive those

298decisions about who we bring in. For instance, you guys were talking with the high school about vaping and and those things and you asked does what does the middle school do? And we absolutely of course have that embedded in our health curriculum, but we talk about that and say, hey, we want to bring in that speaker at the start of the year. What are those behaviors we want to target with that speaker when we meet with them? And of course, vaping is them and is one of them. uh this fall it was all about good decision-making and about what it means to um believe in yourself and have a good time without drugs and alcohol. Uh so we h in these meetings is when we're able to formulate those decisions. Um and then of course

299lastly because we really hone in on our grade it gives us more time with the teachers and more time with the parents. I'm able to make many call I make a dozen calls a days to different parents and you put that out over 180 days. That's a lot of parent phone calls. Um, and and I squeeze in the good ones, too. And I know these guys do, too. And we let parents know when their kids are making good decisions. Uh, and we have time to do that and and have that conversations and help our teachers have those conversations with parents as well. We mentioned about all the, uh, Dan touched base on the calls and the stuff that goes into our journals that the teachers handle and those teachers are calling home every time they

300do it as well. and sometimes they need they need help and they need to work as a team with us to have those tough conversations um that are so very important. So that takes care of the tier 2 interventions. >> I thought you said you were going to talk less than John. Sorry. >> All right. So I am going to share a little bit about our tier three and as uh John mentioned at the beginning uh tier three typically you're looking at about 5% of your students in a working model and in uh across districts. I want everyone to know in the board right now that we have less than 1/ half of our percent of the students four students in the entire building of 891 are at the tier three level. Okay. And I

301think there are a few uh factors. Number one is the work being done in tier one and tier two to hopefully minimize the chances that a student is actually going to get to tier three. But it's also worth noting we're only halfway through the year. So I'm sure we'll have a few other students in our tier three by the end of the year. But um the fact that we're halfway through the year and we're at 04% I think speaks volumes about the work that is being done to uh to reduce the the chances of students getting there to begin with. >> Great. Uh in addition um uh it is the the time spent in all of these meetings and all of these conversations. Uh and it is a collaborative effort. Uh it's not just teachers,

302it's also members of the staff including our SRO, our school nurses, our counselors. Um many of whom uh have input. Uh it's the relationships, it's the conversation, it is the processing. I want to uh echo what John and Dave both said, and that is the time spent getting to know these kids. I'm gonna take a little moment to brag about my fist bumps because I like to fist bump kids as they go into their lunch cafeteria every day. And I also, if you've heard, I've been known to tell a dad joke or two. And I actually have students who come see me on the way to the bus who actually want to know what the joke of the day is. So any opportunity that you can build those connections, that is going to help reduce

303uh the chances that these behaviors are going to um occur on your campus anyways. and all three of us in our own ways uh we we take that time to really build those connections and those relationships and I'm a big firm believer that that is going to help improve student outcomes across the board academically, socially and emotionally and of course encourage them to make better decisions going forward. Uh in addition, not all of the students are part of the MTSSB process. So if a student is identified, they're already getting the additional supports. All right? So if they have a 504 or an IEP, they are not part of the MTSS. So these are students who are not currently getting supports outside of these outside of their programs. Um those individuals of course or even those

304in MTSS may uh have their individualized behavior plan. So of course we'll we'll do whatever it takes to help encourage students to make better choices. And we are I do want to recognize just beginning to access the LHS school to community program counselor in the eighth grade. And of course, our tier three program of ARC uh certainly plays its role as well in supporting students and making I would say better decisions on and off our campus. Thank you for your time. Do you have any questions? >> So to kind of close out, what I'd say is like they're a microcosm of what's working well in the middle school and Jay's done a great job kind of making sure these processes are all in place in all of our buildings. And the only other thing I

305kind of threw in there is um ad council right now is kind of looking at attendance um and starting to really think through can we update our practices around attendance to kind of look at kids who who might be chronically absent. I think we've learned a lot uh in a short period of time. We started looking at positive engagement and I think we're going to kind of use the winter for ad council to learn some things kind of spread it down to our schools uh and then really think through are there some things we want to do last year uh next year sorry and we got there of course I'm going to throw out a data chart so I got this from this uh statewide task force I'm a part of um so the state

306of New Hampshire kind of studied u kids who were absent and kind of what it meant for their test scores surprise surprise the more that you are absent the lower your scores are going to be >> and it was such such a compelling graph uh for the whole group we're part of. We're like, "Yeah, we should do more as a state around chronic absence absenteeism, you know, uh you know, this is the whole state uh kind of what happens in grades three through eight." And it's just such a such a stark reminder of the more kids are in school, the better it is for them, the better it is for us. And I think that's coming next another wave. But I think uh all the assistant principles like the ones here are doing an excellent

307job kind of making all this happen. >> Great. to to that I just want to jump in on that point and I hear and see a lot you know the one to one is great um it it's a lot of advantages to it but I think since co um we have a lot more students taking vacation time during the year >> and when they can access their work on Google >> and do it sitting at home and not want to go to school today I think that's that's not helping the situation correct Yeah, we were just having kind of this conversation. Do you want to jump in Jay or >> Sure. Just put you on the spot. Yeah. >> No, not at all. That it was a really good discussion actually because the way that

308the students and and sometimes the teachers look at as there's an output. If you miss the class, you need to make up XYZ, right? So the most efficient way to do that is through their their laptop, >> right? >> Yeah. That aside, there's I don't think the teachers give themselves enough credit that there's a lot of enrichment going on in the classroom, a lot of small group work, uh their own lectures and the materials that they're sharing. All of those things the student actually is missing. So they may be able to keep pace with an assignment or keep their grade up because they got, you know, they got their homework in or their formative or summitative assessment, but they miss a critical piece to actually being in the classroom working with their peers or understanding

309from their teacher. And I think we probably should all do a better job identifying that to say if you are not in class or not in school that day, you are missing something. you might be able to make up some of the work or the outputs of it, but you're missing a critical element to learning which is learning from others, understanding um research. So, you're right, Bob, that this tool, this laptop is a great way to do research. It's a great way to expedite how work gets done and transferred to, you know, to the recipient, but it's not a great tool to actually learn in the classroom. they're missing that element and we have to kind of focus on that and educate our students and our families better and that's our job to kind of

310really talk about what a lesson looks like and what a good classroom looks like and what they're missing when they're not here. >> And do we still hold um our attendance policy if you miss so much time you flunked a class and you got to retake it? >> Yeah, that practice has actually been um really uh absolved because of the competency based education. So you're really focused on skills and learning. So it wasn't we've moved away from seat time. Um and that has its drawbacks and and uh and its benefits really because what we found in some of the research was um in my day as a principal at the high school if you went over six days you had to have paperwork to take you under. What that meant for students that could keep

311pace and actually do work remotely or on their own is I get five days to do what I want. I can miss those five days if I go over. Here's where I have to be held accountable. So, it actually was counterproductive with some with that demographic where they're missing school because they thought they could miss school without having to. And and teenagers especially, they're much more autonomous in in making those decisions and and staying out. sort of to combat that. You know, I know we we talked about that, too. And you really wrestle with those things to say, should we bring attendance back? But if you do, >> are they going to are they going to find other ways? >> I don't know if you guys want to jump in on that, but >> we're

312having a good big picture discussion about absenteeism and how should we how we should do things differently. And I think that's coming, you know, and I think that was just a kind of a preview. And I I think it's I saw a great conversation the other day in ad council kind of looking at all the bigger picture stuff and all the moving parts of how we probably should act differently >> to kind of really address the issue. >> Yeah. One way to counter it was to provide incentives and actually celebrate the students that are here and are showing up every day and doing their work and really emphasizing that, you know, and and kids love, you know, you're recipient in a raffle because you've been here for the month and you're eligible for whatever prizes

313we can give out. So, we're kind of celebrating that and really changing it from being a punitive model to really again focusing on and valuing how critical it is to be here to be in the building >> and also putting it more on the parents too. I think if they're going away on vacation or whatever um absences are unexcused and for a certain amount it becomes a report to DCYF for neglect. So, >> if it gets to that extreme, I think we're holding that over parents as well and making that report. But um yeah, I think incentivizing the students who are showing up or even improved attendance for those kids that maybe had crappy attendance last year but are doing so much better this year, >> recognize them a little bit. >> Yes, every little

314bit helps. >> And we actually started that this year. We had just implemented certificates for attendance and then at the end of the year we will be raffling off um if there is stellar attendance, you know, putting it in for a raffle for some type of award. We're working through that. But even that's a fine balance. We had a big discussion about that because if kids are sick, we want them home. We want them getting better at home. >> So, we actually had to debate long what we wanted that to look like to incentivize it, but yet not be like getting that kid who's got a fever but pushing themselves to come to school for perfect attendance. We don't want that. Stay home, get healthy, come back when you can. Um, but we did implement

315that at the middle school to incentiv to at least reward that and recognize it. >> One thing we started this year was incentivizing staff attendance. >> Yep. So adding in a little gift card raffle for that too and it's seemed to put a little perk in things. >> Sounds good. >> I love that idea. >> Coffee goes a long way >> especially on Fridays and Mondays, right? >> Oh yes. Oh yes. >> Yep. >> So Dan provided ad council with a ton of re research and researches for uh and resources for us to really explore and dive into. We just started that work but there there's it was really eye opening I think and and again we had a substantive discussion about the things we can be doing better. We probably don't talk enough about

316the importance or lay out the expectations for students and parents of why in attendance it here is important. Those parent conferences are a perfect time to talk about, okay, Jason parents a decent student here, but let's talk about how often he's here or how often he's out and why. What what challenges are there to prevent him from doing maximizing his potential? So those elements and those conversations, having messaging that's consistent coming from the schools to families, having a plan if you don't have a ride to school and you know what's what are the supports available to to kids so that they know what to do if if you know something comes up. So, lots of things there that we can kind of keep the keep the board and the community ab breast about and things

317that we're going to probably implement for next year, right, once we put together. >> And and to your point about recognizing the students and that bring them here, >> right? Have the have you guys bring your students here one schoolboard meeting and recognize them right there in front of the community. >> You know, more people are going to see that. They're going to say, "Hey, wow, they had 27 students with perfect attendance in the month of November." >> I shouldn't pick that month. That's the shortest month. That's an easy, you know. >> Yeah. >> Saying bring them here so we can publicize and congratulate them >> and and show them to the community. >> Great. >> Just a thought. >> Yep. >> And we could have each school do it at a different time of

318the year to kind of promote. We're really looking at attendance, you know, to get the most education we can into the students that day, you know, not sitting at home doing it online. >> Yeah. >> So, I think it's uh we're headed in the right direction. So, >> cool. >> Any other questions, gentlemen? >> I cannot say anything. Yes. And so, I was waiting for you. >> I I love this and um great job. This impacts the kids positively, but it also impacts people wanting to come to work because they can teach and without disruption and it and that's really what everyone loves when they start teaching and it's the behavior and and all of the other stuff that gets in the way. So, this is really important work. I know it's not easy and

319it's hard to take the time. Um, and I love the emphasis on the rapport building. Um, but also like I said earlier, like there are certain things that you know we don't do here and they might not seem like a huge deal but over and over over time um they are a big deal and the teachers calling and you guys supporting that and just changes the entire culture and it results in you know staff staying longer and kids doing better in school and um obviously I think this is the best ever. So >> yeah, great point. >> Yep. Everybody good? Thank you, gentlemen. >> Thanks for standing. >> Thank you. >> Um Dan, on the open enrollment. >> Sure. >> Tim mentioned it earlier, too. Um could we put that to the eight? >> Sure.

320>> Cuz I want to have the budget committee here. >> Yeah. >> To hear some of the reasoning financially. >> Sure. >> Um and in that. So, I'd like to >> definitely >> put it like right there right after the budget section before they leave and ask them to stay for that one segment. >> What'll be good too is um you know this is a fastmoving thing and like literally in the in the last week or two it's it's shifted entirely. >> Jay's going to go to the superintendent meeting tomorrow. >> Okay. >> I got to figure out where everyone's at. >> Yep. because because over the last week um with Prospect Mountain and kind of some of their behaviors >> all this discussion is ramping up so quickly and really no one understands what's

321going to happen. >> Okay. >> So Jay's going to get a good sense. Yeah. >> I think it's really important for us to understand where our regional districts are at in all this >> as we talk about this. >> Yeah. So that's great. And um um I've reached out to other school board chairs over the last week or so to start conversations about funding adequate funding at the state level and special education >> to see if we can engage in some and and BF4 suffet conquered. Come to find out there's a group that has started the last three months of school board chairs and there's a dialogue. They met with the the um uh with Caitlyn Davis last week as a group, sent me all the notes. So now I'm part of that group to

322try to be a force and send the same message to conquered on adequate funding and how we can do this and come up with another mechanism for for school funding. um whether that cape court case gets moved forward and they're going to implement it. There's no date or is there another mechanism we can come up with as school boards join together to implement at the state level to do some funding. So I'll keep you guys po um posted on all that too as I join that group >> uh on some additional funding okay ways to to do it. Um, so that was good. But I think it would be important with the open enrollment to get that info and to um, uh, have the budget committee kind of hear some of the in the the

323reasons we're looking at it too where it that'll resonate through the town. Okay. >> A little more if you don't mind. You guys with that? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> It's too medy of a topic for the fourth hour of our >> meeting. And our full crowd. Yeah. >> Well, our full crowd was four people to begin with. So, >> it doesn't take much to uh drop that down. So, >> now we're five. Sorry. >> Um with that, any anything else? >> We're just at the calendar. >> Just the calendar. >> Yeah. You want us to look at the calendar? You don't want to approve it, right? >> No. So, I'll just I'll I'll explain it in under a minute. Um it's generally our same calendar. Um because Labor Day is so late next year,

324>> if we would have gone our normal 3, four, five startup, we would have carried the school year into the fourth week of June. Okay. >> We figured that would make people very upset. >> So we did. So we squeezed in one day in August and had a four four five startup, which is a little bit different. >> Um and then everything else is pretty much the same since there. So that's the only main difference to really think about. look through it and we can talk about it on the 8th and the 27th and you know maybe maybe have you know maybe have a solid calendar by the 27th or you know even the February if we need to. >> I like it a lot better. It's starting us almost in September like we used

325to back >> a little later is >> and we've done a thorough check. >> Yep. >> And no complex all the unions have reviewed it. Yep. All the unions have reviewed. Yes. >> Y >> All right. So, we'll uh revisit this uh in the near future to approve the calendar. Yep. >> Okay. Anything else from anyone else before we close out? >> All good. >> Good. >> All right. With that, uh look for a motion to go into non-public session requested under RSA 91A 3 section 2B, please. >> So, move. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. Ask for a roll call vote from my left to right, please. Hi Kevin Gray. >> Hi Tim Porter. >> Hi Bob Slater. >> Hi Sarah Laughlin. I am Amanda Butcher. >> Good night London Derry.