School Board Meeting 11-25-25

001Welcome to the meeting of the Lenary School Board to be held on Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 in the cafe at Lenardary High School, 295 Mammoth Road, Lenandere, New Hampshire at 700 p.m. The meeting will be broadcast on district YouTube channel as well as a cable access channel. Eight. Uh 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. All right, we'll jump into the consent agenda and upcoming meetings we've got listed here, but you'll see down below at 6.1, uh, we have budget workshop schedules. So, I'm going to Dan, you want to hit on that now? And we'll just do that

002before the consent. We don't have to go back to it. >> Sure. >> With a memo in your packet. >> Yep. >> Um, you know, basically, uh, the school board reached out to the administration, uh, saying there's some conflicts. you know, the the the original timeline was uh the first three Thursdays in um in December. Um but they they couldn't make they couldn't make the meeting. So, what we're proposing and obviously, you know, with with uh the budget committee, too, is can we condense two of those meetings to a Tuesday meeting on December 9th. Um keep the December 18th meeting and then we would kind of update some of the things we were going to do uh in normal public uh meeting. I think we would shove the fall data report, do a combined winter

003fall report kind of later in the year. Um, we would still do the calendar on December 18th. We'd still do um kind of a behavior and culture update, but kind of minimize the work of the administration with with this new schedule, kind of seeing if everyone's okay with it. >> So, what we're looking to do is take the 4th and the 11th, convert it into one meeting on the 9th starting at 6:00 p.m. instead of 700 p.m. if that works for you folks. So, we wanted to run that by and see if that's possible. >> I like it. I won't be able to make it. I'll be on a business trip, but if everybody else can make it, I can watch the video. >> Okay. Appreciate that. >> Uh, no, I can't do the night.

004>> If he I can free it up if we can get a quorum that way. >> Is it necessary that we have a quorum for the budget workshop? >> Um, I Is it just a school board that needs to have a >> Yeah, just we have to have a quorum. So, >> all right, then I if you guys are are all set, um we'll we'll move forward with that. We're good. >> All right. Appreciate it, folks. Really appreciate it. All right. So with that being I will um our upcoming meeting then next meeting will be on December 9th um budget workshop here in the cafe at 6:00 p.m. And then on December 18th will be a budget workshop and regular meeting here in the cafe at 7 p.m. Uh could I get a motion to

005approve the consent agenda, please? >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor I >> I 50. Thank you. Um, announcements and presentations. Um, Mr. Dutton here, come on up. [clears throat] >> Good evening. >> Happy Thanksgiving. I just wanted to give everyone a quick the board a quick update on our playground since we last met or saw each other in the fall. Um we have some exciting updates. The playground um been everything has been removed. Um I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. At the same time it is being delivered um sometime over the next I'll say 7 to 10 days scheduled to be delivered and then looks like sometime uh that first or second week in December will be installed. So our students are

006really excited. Um big thank you to Joe and Jr. on our grounds um just for the coordination and oversight um of a big project like this. And then really the monumental task was how do we remove uh the playground um and everything that kind of comes with that playground which ended up being about 250 yards of material. Um and that really, you know, was a unique story cuz Blaine Dorman um Dorman Login u former student at North School um with the help with his dad um was part of Thunderground and and when we got our playground back then kind of came full circle and now um gave up his time, his equipment and um his weekend to remove our playground. So I just want to really thank him. Uh today at our all school assembly

007we had a thankful assembly. we got to recognize him um in front of all our students with his son Tom uh given him a card from all of North School and then also a big hug um so that was a special moment and just want to take a minute to recognize him and thank him for um making something that I thought was monumental and possible um a weekend's work. So we'll turn it over to him. when he says a weekend work, he first came to me and thought it would take weeks, but um my dad raised me right and taught me how to work and we had it all crushed up in a dumpster like you said. Um 240 yards of chips hauled out of there, which in a triacle dump truck is 12 loads.

008So, it was a monumental task, but we slammed it out and I feel good about it. Um I'm a North School Bear like he says. Um so, it's all full circle. the next generations is already there and uh I'm happy to help. So, whatever it takes, we're going to keep moving forward. We're getting all local material, keeping it all trying to push for donations and whatever it takes to make it happen. So, no more out of people's pockets and we'll do what we can do. >> That's great. >> Thank you. >> That's great. >> Bla Blaine, I remember when you were running back out here for your dad, you know, many years ago. So, I can't thank you and your dad Winston for all the time and um donations you've done for the whole school

009district working with Bob Lincoln in the summertime and that um you know it it's just so nice to see community members giving up, you know, giving that much time and helping out the school district. So, thank you to you and your entire family for what you do for the town of Londary. >> Appreciate it, coach. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Good. >> Yeah. Thank you. All right. >> Thank you so much. >> Have a great Thanksgiving. >> All right. Jump right into the superintendent report. Uh 5.1. Uh Mr. Black and Miss Small on our 2627 budget presentation. >> Yeah. So, we're handing over the budget tonight. Uh everyone got it a couple hours ago. Uh the first thing Miss Small wanted me to do is show the public how to find it on the

010website. If you go to our website, you go to departments and then business office. And if you scroll down, there's a link called budgets. And at the bottom, we're in the FY27 budget. You can kind of see uh the 300 pages of budget kind of sitting right there. Uh and I just emailed everyone the PowerPoint I'm about to give, too. So, that is where we are at. So, in terms of a process, uh you know, we're handing over the budget tonight. Uh and then we'll have, you know, a long meeting on December 9th where we'll go over the personnel, student services, food services, athletics, curriculum, music, and all the schools. Uh so, thank you for starting at 6 p.m. I think it'll be, you know, a longer meeting. Then December 18th, we do it, buildings

011and grounds, revenue, and all the warn articles. Um and you know, I think we'll go into the details of the full day kindergarten warrant article. Um then by January 8th um that's where the school board kind of finalizes their decisions and it becomes their budget. Uh and then that moves on to the public hearing. There could be an update uh for full day kindergarten. What we're trying to do over the next uh month or two is really watch registration close closely and see if we need to update our model. Um then we're on to deliberative session and then the town vote. But that's our whole process and it kind of begins tonight. Um, oops, I was in the back. It's the same one there. Sorry about that. I gave it all away. Um, but, uh,

012this year's budget's a little bit different. Um, I think, uh, from what we've been doing the last couple years. So, I want to take some [clears throat] time to to share what's the same, and there's some different things this year. Um, I think we still crafted a budget that matches staffing to enrollment and student needs. So, I think you'll see that. Um, we were very mindful of growth. Um, so the the operating budget is coming under default. It's always a hard thing to do, but I think we found a way. Um, I think we're still making investments that are needed in academics and co-curricular. You won't really see a lot of them this year because I think we're very mindful of the overall costs. Um, you know, and you know, I think one thing we

013really tried to do, number four, is probably the most important thing is we've made so much progress as a school system academically uh over the last couple years. We didn't want to do anything to disrupt that. Uh so we want to keep the whole system moving forward, the whole system kind of focusing on continuous improvement and making sure we don't do anything to kind of damage that momentum. Um and then you will also see the capital reserves at the end where we're we're trying to deal with old buildings and make sure uh we we keep them up to date. What's new and I think what's different about this time around um is healthcare. That's the first thing. Um, you know, we we all were surprised by the $2 million assessment we got from from school

014care and the news from both house trust and school care didn't get much different for next year. Um, I think the whole country is seeing pressures around healthcare and we're definitely seeing a very abnormal budget and I'll kind of go over that a little bit when it comes to healthcare. Um, I think what's also different about this budget is, you know, we talked about this a little bit last year. you know, people were asking, you know, how we're going to respond if the federal government changes their grants, and we didn't really respond to this year's budget, and we almost got caught in it. Uh we lost three federal grants uh over the summer, and and we were scrambling, you know, to be able to make sure we can kind of keep those programs running for

015our students. So, I think this budget is starting to respond to just the uncertainty and lack of clarity coming out of Washington. We don't want our students to lose out from decisions being very be being made very far away from London. Um and we don't we don't make many many investments uh in in this budget. We're trying to be very careful but uh we do make them in career connected learning. Um and I think connected to the point above what we saw in some of the changes in the federal government is making us think differently about some of our structures and I'll preview that tonight and that'll be something we talk about on the 9th again with the high school. Uh another big driver of this budget is the voter approved collective bargaining contracts. um

016you know um it is putting pressure on the budget but I hope uh we can also see that our our school system has responded so well to the challenge of improving uh that our staff are working hard and they're and they're worth it. Um what will also be different about uh this budget is full day kindergarten is kind of sitting to the side in a warn article. I'll touch on it lightly tonight, but that'll be a lot more details by December 18th. Um and you know we are seeing declining enrollment. Um, we always try and make sure we we're we're able to have the same academic program from year to year, but I think we're going to start to see some small examples where we're losing out on choice in some of our programming. And

017I think as we get smaller, that'll that'll become uh more and more. Our core mission has not changed. Um, uh, the team, the communications team updated my graphic. They were tired of the old graphic I was using for years. Um, but, um, you know, we are still the same organization. We want to make sure our kids are college ready or career ready that they have lots of clubs, arts opportunities, and sports all on the way. So, we're really focused on the whole child. That has not changed. But I think what's different about this year's budget again is those skyrocketing healthcare costs that I'll go over very shortly. And really kind of navigating Washington that that you know, we we got caught flatfooted this summer when we thought we lost about $220,000 in grants that would

018directly affect our students. So, we don't want to be there again. Um, and I think we're we're still trying to make investments in career connected learning and hopefully um, you know, we can we can make an investment in full day kindergarten through that Warren article too. But I do want to highlight just how much uh, our schools are improving. So I I do one one little snapshot for each school. I'm not going to do the hour and a half presentation I did in July, but just in one little snapshot. Um, a lot of good news came out of uh, the high school last year, but I think one of the most impressive things was the advanced placement scores. You know, what we saw over a 2-year period was this huge 140% growth in the number

019of kids uh taking advanced basement tests while we saw a 20 point jump in the number of kids uh passing those tests. Um you know, it's really hard for us to quantify how we compare to our neighbors because none of this stuff is is necessarily public, but Rick and Jason and I believe like I don't think there's a a high school in the state that has that many advanced placement tests happening along with that kind of high rate. So, it's a really really good uh outcomes from Lungberry High School last year. For the middle school, I want to highlight the eighth grade team. They did really really well and kind of the the big jump we saw in literacy, 20 points uh from the prior year, but also just huge growth in the PSAT test.

020It was actually a ninth grade test um in both literacy and math and then also a really good jump in their science scores last year. So, you can tell they're really focusing on improvement, really trying hard. It's been great to see. At the elementary schools, it was math. It's the first time we saw the systemic math jump. So, I'll start with South School. Um, here's how they comp performed uh to the state average uh kind of across the board. And you can see in most grade levels, they're 20 points or higher than the state average. Um, in some of the rival school districts we want to catch up to, South School is kind of producing the numbers we want to see districtwide. And it was really great to see. Uh, and we were able to

021use their success across our buildings. And, you know, North School had a lot of big jumps in math, too. you know, big improvements from the prior year and big jumps above the state average and we saw the same thing at Matthew Thornton. So, it was really really nice to see that big systemic jump in math last year. A lot of progress was made, a lot of hard work went into that. Then we get to we get to Musio. Um, you know, they they always do a great job with very limited time. Uh, we measure them against half-day standards and year in and year out they get 80% of their kids or more to kind of reach those half-day standards. So again, the system is doing really well and you know the main point of this

022budget was to make sure we continue to make progress. Um but what we will see when we look at the numbers uh our budget is up 4.33% uh nearly $4 million from last year. Um there's a lot of a lot of pressures that kind of pushed us there. Um but uh the proposed budget is also $120,000 below uh the default. So, the the current proposed budget is $95,76,09 without any warrant articles. How we got um to some of those pressures I'm going to come back to in a little bit. Um but when you're when you're looking through uh the budget book, you know, here's some of the main documents. Understand it. Um the ad swap sheets very important. I'm going to spend a lot of time there on December 9th. So, we are proposing a

023net reduction of about $400,000 in staff. Um, again, we're trying to react to lower enrollment, but make sure we keep generally the same academic program and and and and number of staff to meet all of our student needs. So, you will see an overall reduction there. Um, but we're trying to keep the whole program moving forward. Um, I think the next part of the budget is what AMD works on. She gives us really nice broad picture of the financial impact uh for the next 10 pages. You can kind of compare how we look to other towns and the tax rate and state funding. Uh the tax rate calculation is another, you know, very important part of the budget. It really explains all the moving parts of revenue. Um then I think the next two pages,

024uh 39 and 40 are the are the the right way to start at the budget. It's the really big picture. You can kind of see the departments or the object codes and kind of see how we're spending money and how it changed from the prior year. That's how you can understand this budget. Um, and then when you look at the tax rate figures, um, again, uh, the budget is up by nearly $4 million. Uh, we're below default. Um, but the local tax rate would be $987. That's 52 cents higher than last year or um up uh 5.51%. And the default budget's obviously a little bit higher. But again, you know, we worked to get below default on purpose because we, you know, we were mindful of the increase that's there and I'll explain it in

025a little bit. Um and then the next way to really understand your budget is to start looking at the functions. Um and that's just the different major major departments and the ways we spend money or the variance report which is about 17 pages allows you to see how the budget changed from last year. Um the debt payment schedule is also another important part of the budget. We did have one more bond coming off. Um I believe it was the north school. >> Was it North school? >> North school. Um so that that is lower. That's why the district office uh overall spending is lower. And then you have about 200 pages of all the schools and departments which we'll see on most of them on December 9th. Um but you know the main reason why

026the budget up the budget is up as comes to healthcare cost. Uh for the last two years every fall um you know all the superintendents are kind of sharing how we're doing on health care costs and we were doing fine for the last couple years. we had pretty pretty low um growth, but uh all the districts that were part of health trust were were talking to us about 20% or 25% or 15% just you know big increases that we weren't getting. So we felt good about everything. Uh and then in mid midepptember we got this $2 million bill uh an assessment from from schoolare which kind of caught us out of the blue. Um and you know it wasn't good and we'll we'll talk about that later tonight too. Um, and then they gave us

027an average cost increase of 11.7%. Um, and our health trust uh plans with custodians was up 20%. So that 11.7% is something we've never seen before, at least in the last 15 years. So this is a huge anomaly for us. This is a big increase that we just haven't seen. And you know, again, I think it is a national and regional problem what we're seeing with healthcare costs and it it's definitely playing out in our budget. Um, obviously, uh, when that $2 million assessment came in, uh, we're kind of nervous for where costs were going. So, you know, we're going to go through an internal multi-year process to really determine, are there other ways to do health coverage, uh, uh, than what we're doing right now because this is, you know, this level of growth

028is not where we want to be. Um, we're also going to talk about later tonight is, you know, maybe we should, um, start a reserve account, uh, that helped us with these spikes in the future so we can kind of smooth them out as they come. Um, but this is something we shared at a school board meeting recently, but basically this year's increase of 11.7% is um two times higher than what we've seen in the last 5 years and three times higher than uh anything we've seen the last 15 years. We've generally been under um you know 8% for the majority of the years with with school with school care. And sometimes it's 1%, sometimes it's 1.8%, sometimes it's 4.6%. we tend to get pretty pretty slow growth from them and we were pretty happy

029and that that obviously all changed. So graphically when you look at this year uh you can kind of see what an anomaly this is. You know we've definitely had years in the past uh you know when you look at uh the seven and 8% that's definitely you know kind of directly related to co years when obviously healthcare uh costs went up but this 11.7% uh was was definitely a huge increase and and drove a huge increase in the budget. Um and you know in the past um you know school care is not allowed to hold on to any surplus. So they when when there is a surplus they they return contributions to us. It's called a contribution holiday. In the past we've kind of used that to lower um the the healthcare costs of that

030of the current budget when we get them. I think we're thinking about that a little bit differently now. I think we're we're we're we're at least want to entertain the idea of the school board and the community is do we want to start to create a uh a healthc care uh reserve fund. So if we do see future assessments, we have a way to kind of lessen them and mute them a little bit if they do um come around again. So healthcare is a huge driver uh of some of our increases along with collective bargaining um uh that happened the last couple years as well too. And you know, I think the third driver of of any increases we did see is we're trying to adapt to, you know, vanishing federal funds. So again, about

03110 weeks this summer, you know, we lost the title 2 grant, the title 4 grant, and the perkins grant. It caught [clears throat] us off guard because the money was already allocated. We already submitted our plans to the state at how we're going to spend them. And I think um you know, our kids were going to lose out. And you know, there was a point in July and August where we're kind of scrambling, what do we need to cut to make sure our kids don't get affected? um that didn't play out. I mean, we were we're ready to do things differently and we just don't want to be caught there again. Um so, the the federal grants we lost were title two, which is focused on professional development. Uh title 4, which is wide ranging,

032uh but Jay's done an excellent job kind of steering it towards all the advanced placement test costs, which have really, you know, kind of increased our numbers, what we already saw. Then the Perkins grant uh supports our adult ed uh program. So, so together, you know, th those three grants are about $230,000. We're not proposing uh to try and replace all of that, but we want to start to slowly build in local costs so our kids don't lose out. So, what you're going to see in uh the assistant superintendent's budget, the curriculum budget is we're putting in $25,000 in in costs for the advanced placement tests. So, when and if we lose that grant again, our kids don't lose out. Um, and then we're also proposing uh uh 20 grand for Lancer Academy, which is

033meant to make up, you know, losses in the in the Perkins grant. Um, to make sure we can keep on uh running our adult dead program. Um, and, you know, we know that we're running the risk of not having the same professional development uh that we had in the last couple years. Um, you know, we couldn't do everything in one budget, especially with where some of the growth was. Um, so, you know, that's something we'll kind of address in future years. Uh but we wanted to focus on our kids and make sure we don't lose out in a few areas. Um and you know what what this loss of funding kind of did over the summer is it is it kind of pushed on us in a couple different ways. You know, for a couple

034years now, we've been talking about um you know, how do we transition London High School to lower enrollment? Um what's the right way to to carry uh our adult ed program into the future? Um what's the future of extended learning opportunities? So, you know, when we lost the funding for our adult day program over the summer, it it really kind of sped up that conversation and I think u collectively the administrators and and myself and Jason and I, we all decided we want to be ahead of this. We don't want to be flatfooted. Um but we want to come up with a better plan uh when the when federal grants go away. So we think um by the 2728 school year, maybe even sooner if we can find a budget neutral way and and kind

035of sort through a lot of issues we're doing right now is we're going to shift London High School to a three house model. Um and we're going to create something new called the Lancer Academy. Um you know the three house model would basically work with 90 to 95% of the kids. Um and Lancer Academy would be 5 to 10% of the kids. And you know, I think what we're proposing is we we would take our current adult ed um you know, program and kind of shift it from a federal model to our own local model um and and come up with you know some updates to it. So we still have this local 20 credit diploma to make sure none of our students drop out of high school, but we've set them up on a

036good path um for getting getting a high school degree and and being ready for the rest of their lives. Then I think what we've also seen is obviously you know growth in our extended learning opportunities and kind of career connected learning. We think this is the kind of the right place um to kind of to kind of put some of that effort and work too. So there's a lot of things we're sorting through right now. We don't have all the answers. Um you know we're really thinking through um personnel, how do we interact with local CTE centers and and just general coordination. But, you know, the loss of the federal grant over the summer really sped up our timeline and kind of made sure we wanted to be proactive and at least be able to

037pull this off by 2728. It could happen sooner if we can find a good budget neutral way to do it too. Uh, and I think it's all tied to uh our growth in career connected learning. So, a couple years ago we had about 100 students that would attend um you know local CTE centers. It's now up to nearly 150. That's 50% growth in a short period of time. Um, and you know, we're we're we're trying to, you know, expand and broaden all that we do. Um, and I think in this year's budget, I'll go over this again on December 9th, is um, you know, we we do have more extended learning opportunities coming. So, we have the fire science program, which we saw a couple weeks ago. It's been a big uh, public success that

038will continue. Uh, I think we were able to figure out how we can add to that with a with a new EMT program. Um, we're also going to kind of update how we how we do engineering and and what we've been doing in the high school. And another area we're going to kind of delve into is serve safe certificate, which is what you need to be able to work in, you know, local food industries. And I think that can grow out of our uh, you know, uh, food programs to be able to kind of put kids on that path, too. So, we're excited we can continue to expand these opportunities. And I think one thing I want to kind of put out there, too, is when I go back to this graphic, it's all good.

039Um, you know, I I I I think we als we need to make sure that when we look at what's happening inside the high school, inside our more traditional classes, kids are thriving. We want to we want to continue to invest there. We also want to invest in Lancer Academy and some of these, you know, more creative pathways for our kids, too. We don't want to create this like eitheror, but they're all good and we want to find this good range for all of our students. So, I think that's where we're heading. Um, and again, one thing that'll be different about this year's budget is, you know, full day kindergarten will be [clears throat] a conversation that's kind of to the side, uh, on a warn article. Um, you know, the advantages have not changed.

040Uh, basically, if if if, uh, the community supports full day kindergarten, the kids would get 103 more days of school. And that extra time allows us to build a stronger academic and social foundation. [clears throat] Um, and then our early elementary classes would spend a lot less time trying to catch kids up uh, and a lot more time advancing our students. And what's different from the last couple years is now it's a simple majority because there's no building tied to it. What we're seeing right now is, you know, if if the community supports this plan, um, and this goes to the voters in March, is we'd be shifting from four schools to three schools for our K to 5, um, we would naturally become more efficient in in how we're spending. Um, uh, and the

041net efficiency, what we're seeing is about $540,000 in savings. I'll go over all the details. uh on December 18th. I put a few more details in in my opening message in the budget book you can kind of read through. Um but we do see lower costs. Um and [clears throat] also um by having full day kindergarten, we would see increased uh state aid by about $470,000. So that total change is about a million dollars to the benefit of the taxpayers, but obviously the big benefit would be to our 5-year-olds and all the the learning time they would get. So we're hoping uh this is this is a choice that London area would make. So obviously that would change the overall budget. So the the operating budget would then be about $616,000 below defaults and only

042up by 3.73%. So that you know it's a big change. Also the other $469,000 in uh state aid. So you know lots of moving parts there. I'll go into the details in December 18th. Then the the other warn articles that you can kind of read through in the budget and we'll go over in the 18th is, you know, we typically have a buildings and grounds capital reserve. Um we have a a wonderful building grounds director. We kind of go over his long-term plan. We do have some big fixes we need to make and he'll go over them. So we are proposing $660,000 um for that capital reserve. Um we we typically have our technology infrastructure account too that that basically you know works in our network. Um we're a lot more digital than we ever

043used to be. So we have to kind of keep up with the needs there to make sure everything works. Um we also have the equipment capital reserve. Um you know that's uh you know small requests like furniture and things. Um this one this one we believe would be paid by fund balance so there' be no tax impact. Um we do have some some uh vehicles and machinery uh that are from a collection of our departments we'll go over. And then there's two new um you know health insurance sorry two new reserves we're proposing as well. So again, one of them is that health insurance capital reserve. It obviously take us a while to kind of add add up funds uh to make sure it it's it becomes a useful financial tool in the future, but

044we at least want to start it uh based on our recent journey with school care. Uh and then you know there's been a lot of exciting work that's uh gone on around uh trying to raise funds for a turf field project. So we want to we want to establish a a capital donations capital reserve fund as well. And then I think also part of December 18th is we'll talk about the district office. Even though it's not on our warrant, we do want to, you know, kind of lay that all out uh for the community as well. So again, where we're at is we're handing over the budget. Um then we'll have a big long meeting on December 9th starting at 6 uh p.m. and go through nearly all of the budget. Uh then we'll get

045the final couple departments on the 18th followed by the warn articles. Uh then the school board will kind of decide where we're at by the 8th and we'll have a public hearing on the 15th. Deliberative SE deliberative session on the 6th and then the town vote on March 10th and that's kind of where we're at. Anything I missed, Mrs. Small? >> No, but I just wanted to take a moment. We're we're lucky we have welcomed a new finance director. Um she's with us tonight, Colleen Lewis. She'll be with us through uh the the process. So, um she's brought her calculator and her book. So, we'll be ready for any questions that will come. Um and a a big thank you to Cheryl Rich, our outgoing finance director, who is still with us uh for another

046couple weeks. Um, but they they both work together to really make sure everything uh that Colleen needs to know um is there. So, we appreciate the work of of everyone. >> Thank you, Dan and Amity. Um, budget committee. Any questions for the superintendent or Miss Small? I know it's the first night. you're just getting a glimpse at it, but if there's anything that jumps out and at any point in time you have questions for the superintendent or uh Miss Small, please reach out um during the week uh when you have some time and set up some time if you need to get more information in that ahead of time. We want to make sure it's all ready and available for anything you folks may need. Um what typically happens is when we start on the

0479th is uh the presentation will be made by either the schools or staff. Um then we'll open it up to um any questions of the of the school board, you folks, and we open it up to the public on every presentation so people don't have to go through a presentation and then come back a week later or two weeks and ask any questions. So, we try to be fluid in our meetings so we can do it and then uh we'll take as much time as we need to to hopefully get those answers and if we don't have it that night, we have the technology and and the staff to get them for you relatively quickly, you know, shortly after the meeting. So, that's kind of how we run things over here for the ones that

048haven't been here before. Um hopefully that works for everybody. Um but if there's any questions you guys have at this point in time, it'd be welcome to I think I I have one quick question about the Lancer Academy. Um it says we're we're investing about $20,000 into Lancers Academy and where we would have gotten title 4 funding to the tune of $50,000. Yeah. So it seems like we're still $30,000 short. Is that because of the title 4 funding needing that federal money? There was >> constraints with that federal funding that [clears throat] required you to spend more than you actually needed because of the requirements for that funding. >> Yeah. I mean, it's really it's really hard to kind kind of kind of describe this, but we're we're trying to hedge our bets. >> Yes.

049Okay. >> We know it's going away. Um, we don't think it's responsible to ask for the full 60 right now. >> Yep. >> You know, we have good questions for ourselves. Can we do things more efficiently in house? So, we're going to start with $20,000, kind of add on top of what we already have in the operating budget, >> see where it goes, and then if we do need more, that would come back in in another budget season, or, you know, maybe we're fine, you know, and I think so, we have a lot of open questions for oursel when we bring it in house. We've just never had to do it before. So, I think, you know, but also too, it's like the budget's up by $4 million. We're trying to be we're trying to

050be prudent in what we ask for. And you know, $230 $230,000 problem is a big problem, but we're not going to try and solve it all in one year. We'll kind of see how things fall in the future. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, good question though. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> First of all, thank you. Great presentation. Very informative. Appreciate it. >> Um, quick question on slide 22 about the full day kindergarten warrant article. Yep. >> Um, it says on the left that there's going to be a net savings by shifting from four to three schools for K to 5. >> Yep. Is that consolidation going to happen whether or not the warrant article passes? >> No. Um, so if the warrant article doesn't pass, we would still be in four buildings K

051to 5 with half day kindergarten. >> And if I may ask, why why why couldn't we then shift to three buildings if we still are at half day >> if the voters vote against it? It just be we u we the way the way we're structured we wouldn't be able to save on staffing because you know in in four it's like an economies of scale. In four buildings you're going to have similar people. When you shift to three we can we can basically capitalize on natural attrition and retirements kind of in that process. But if we don't have the go-ahhead to do that we won't be able to do that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yep. Good question though. >> Anyone else? >> So, uh, with the increase in the healthc care costs that

052you said that it's been around, um, with other school districts as well, what is there any reasoning as to the sharp increase that that you've heard that's been given? >> Yeah. So, it's it's not necessarily our program um or our our structure. It's the whole risk pool. What was the exact term, Amity? The high cost individuals or >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a we we do a risk pool. It's kind of like a condo association for simplicity sake where all of the school care members across the state put in the money for that and that pool is used to pay all the claims. So there was a shortfall which caused this this assessment that we had for this fiscal year um because the the spring claims came in at much higher than they thought they were

053going to be and there weren't some rebates with some of the pharmaceuticals. So it was a a problem of the of the whole pool. It wasn't related to London's cost per se. We just contribute, you pay relative to your percentage that you contribute to the pool. >> And you know, and Bob or Lisa or Emmy can correct me, we're actually on the lower end of the increases. There are districts getting like a 30% increase, which would be even more catastrophic for our budget. Um, you [clears throat] know, so I think it's it's just where the healthcare industry is and the economy is right now around that. >> Right. And then in the um for the the $10,000 dollars that's going to start in the new health insurance capital reserve, is that all just going to

054be raised from the taxpayer, will maybe either this year and for for future years take some out of UFB and just add some there so we can build the fund just in case there's another spike or >> Yeah, I think we have a couple tools. You want to answer that one? Um, so we we're going to start with surplus from this year um to start it. And then I think we're we're going to look more into if we do get premium holidays again that instead of returning them, we would put them into this account. So because if you look at what we had gotten back in premium holidays compared to what we're paying for the assessment, we still would have been ahead if we hadn't returned that money. Um, so I think we're looking at

055things like that, too. So to the short answer is we would look at fund balance probably but also the potential of of getting back from school care in the future. >> Okay. >> Uh that's all I have. Any other questions from the budget committee? >> It's early. >> Yeah, it's early. I'm excited to get into this. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Great. Um is there anyone in the public that has any questions on the budget? You're welcome to come up and ask. I know it's early. It's first night. >> We are going to have another public comment here. >> Regular public comment. >> They're here for the budget. >> Um, >> just state your name and address, please. >> Uh, Katrina White and Paige Road in London. >> Thank you. >> Um, so you did state

056that the budget was only shared to everyone this evening via email. >> Yep. And then you can you can find it on our website. >> Yeah. Um is part of that the document that was released early via email to the email group? >> No. >> Okay. >> That that'll come out more later on December 18th. >> Okay. So that one's going to be spoken on on December 18th, not the 19th. >> Yep. >> Um so the only reason I wanted to address part of that is maybe it even answers some of your questions. Um because some of it did look like where you asked how why we would stay in the four schools versus the three. Um part of this even stipulates if we were moving to the full day kindergarten that we were for

057example cutting $200,000 in par support services which is huge for all of your IEP 504 students and everything. So, I'm not sure if we're waiting to do all of those discussions until these December dates. Um, but that kind of seems to highlight to where you're trying to save those costs where it just shows there's a dip in less funds needed. >> Um, but essentially those do still seem to be needed since you're making cuts not just from the Moose Hill school for preschool, PK, and kindergarten, but also from the middle school and high school. Um, so it kind of shares it between all of the schools to push that forward. >> Now, what you're going to see um on December 9th here, let me just get the summary. >> So, you what you'll see on

058December 9th is when we go over personnel, it's largely 6 through 12. >> Mhm. >> And then when we on December 18th, we'll go over full day kindergarten and how the elementary schools could change if the if the full day kindergarten uh warn article is approved. >> Okay. Um, now is there any place besides obviously if anyone actually decides to go look at the budget, which most of the town doesn't half the time, um, is there anywhere that this gets posted, the newspaper or anything else that would share publicly where we're either cutting student funding or teacher funding and everything cuz that obviously depicts on whether they are truly going to vote for that or not since you have a lot of >> elderly, for example, my in-laws who aren't aren't great with the internet

059or say people who don't even have internet, they're never going to see any of that. So all they're going to say is, "Oh, here's for me to vote on do I want to approve full day kindergarten or not?" And they're not adequately informed of truly who is affected and at what cost. >> We put everything out there publicly. It comes all these meetings and it goes on our websites and everyone can always find it. They could always reach out to Mrs. Small, you No, but that's why I'm asking. Is there anywhere besides online for them or so we don't put it anywhere else for anyone? >> We put it online and if people want to come and ask for paper copies, we could always give it to them. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> we do

060we do post some of the things depending on how it shakes out. We do have infographics that we might put in the London Times. It kind of depends as we go through. Okay. >> But the communication committee does put voter education things together so we can >> we'll share them as many places as we have access to. And we've visited the senior center several times, right, for to talk about the warrant various warrant articles. [snorts] >> Perfect. Um, and then just cuz I wasn't sure if I heard it correctly, um, how we had the $2 million assessment, you said, um, cuz obviously briefly before that, a month or two it was we were returning, I think it was 1.7 million. You said that that was already returned. So we towards it. It was like a

061week. We got it. >> OKAY. I KNOW IT WAS very close the paper and I [laughter] couldn't it was it was about one I think it was 1.36 that we returned. >> 1. Okay. So it was already definitely returned. >> Y >> All right. So that's why you want to do the roughly 10,000 and start like >> Yeah. We want to establish it. Yeah. Um how often do those assessments >> It's the first It's the first one in 35 years. >> First one in 35 years. Okay. All right, perfect. I think those are all of my questions since we're not going into full detail right [clears throat] now. >> Thank you so much. Christine Perez, 5 Wesley Drive. I just have a suggestion and I understand exactly how if you go on the website you

062get to this and you get to that. Might it be possible to put in the London Times a link that would go directly to the budget so that people didn't have to you know they could say here's the budget blah blah blah that they could just type in this link and instead of negating it would go directly to the budget. Just just a thought. >> Sure. >> Because I've learned in three years at the state house, we have a lot of people that are just so uninformed. And I just think uninformed voters are going to be are a problem. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Hello. Take home six manusc uh regarding healthcare. Um do you guys have in your plan system with your employees if they do take their spouses healthcare instead of taking the

063schools that there's a bio adoption like what the town has? >> Not as not as large. Um it's a much much smaller. >> Okay. >> Might be more of an incentive plan. So it's not as much of a burden upon >> uh our budgets. [clears throat] >> It's part of the collective bargaining agreement that was agreed upon last year. So we wouldn't be able to revisit it for two more years. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Just something to maybe think about in the future. >> We are. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Thank anyone else. All right. Thank you guys. appreciate it and uh look forward to uh several meetings with you and uh like I said welcome all the questions help us get through this so and that. So >> well if I had

064a quick question um I know we harped on the health care costs as the percentage of the 4 million increase is that the single largest individual piece >> and if so what amount of the 4 million is it? cuz we're talking about the approximate 12% increase, right? >> The 2 million isn't factored into the 4 million increase at all. That 2 million is the onetime assessment. >> But the 12% increase in the healthcare cost is part of the 4 million increase. What percentage of that 4 million is that 12%. >> Yeah. So, if you look at a lot a lot of that detail is in in my opening and then in the next 10 pages that AMD works on. So, about $2.4 million is benefits increase and about 1.4 for a salary increase. So nearly

065all all of the $4 million increases, those two things together, which is again why we didn't really have many other investments where we were kind of being mindful of just how big that jump was. >> You said 2.4 is the benefits increase. That's not just healthare. >> Correct. Yeah, >> that's retirement. >> It's about it's almost 2 million. That's the >> about 2 million. So it's about half of the 4 million is just the healthcare assessment. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone else? >> Well, and that's the sorry, uh the assessment is what we're paying this year. It's the rate increase. >> The 12% rate increase. >> Yes. The rate increase is in our >> makes up approximately 2 million of the four increases. >> Yes. And then the separate $2 million is this year's assessment.

066>> Correct. I got you. >> If you look on P, it's on page six of the budget book. So, the healthcare is two about 2.4 4 million and then uh teacher and allied health salaries is about 900,000 and support staff is about 500,000. So it's salary raises and healthcare basically almost in total. So >> correct >> which is why it's part of the default budget. >> Exactly. That's how the default budget works. Yep. Yep. >> Yeah. That's what we're on the hook for. Yep. Y [laughter] >> you all set? >> Yeah. No. >> Good. Over there >> till the 9th. T I >> All right, we'll move on to uh 5.2 uh tax cap study. Um and before Miss Maul gives her presentation, Miss Perez, come on up. You asked to uh say a few

067words. And this is regarding a citizen petition tax cap um that went out that got approved to be have a study done. So that's what we're presenting tonight. That was my citizens petition and I want to thank Tony Dorenzo who is probably going to be shocked for making it a study because that was really the appropriate thing at the time. Um, and I want to thank you for the hard work you put into it and allowing me to come in and hear all about it because if I just tried to go over it, way over my head, out of my ballpark. So, thank you very much. Um I want you to know that this was not directed at this school. It was just a um a lot as you know you must know a lot

068of schools are having a lot of a lot of trouble and the state is actually looking into bailing people and that's the only way you can say it bailing them out which this state representative has an issue with but um but I just wanted to thank you for this and I also forewarning you that there are um caps directly for schools being put forward this year again. And if those get passed in the way that they're trying to pass them, unfortunately, the way I perceive them, they're going to be much like some of these zoning bills that were passed that it's not going to be an option. So, um, I'm going to try to keep you all informed as much as I can. Um, and I will look for people to come up and speak

069against them if possible. So, but again, thank you. This was the appropriate way to do it and thank you. >> Thank you. You ready? >> Yeah. So, just to continue off of that, last year voters did approve uh the change to the citizens petition article when we changed the word deliberative to study. Um so, we spent uh several months looking at um what what a potential tax cap would look like for us. Um it's a lot of moving numbers, a lot of things you have to apply. So, it changes from year to year, but essentially if we had one, that would have been the first thing that we needed to do this year is to figure out what our cap was. Um, so the first thing you'll see is what the language was, what the

070citizens petition was changed to, what was on the ballot, and what was was voted in. Um, so the formula basically is to get the tax cap, which is a tax levy cap actually. It's last year's tax levy minus the base amount times 1 plus the CPI in October. There's specific CPIs that are listed. Um and then you take this year's attendance divided by last year's attendance as the final multiplier. Um and it's important to note, I think sometimes there's a misunderstanding because these are complicated that it's it's levied. It's the tax levy. It's what is gotten from local taxes, not the budget. It's not a budget cap. Um, so you have to, you know, look at the language. It's part of an RSA. Um, it was cleared up, so it just tells you the components,

071what the definitions are, and then the effect that it it would have on the budget. So, a couple of background um, information. If it is not, like Christine referenced, a mandated RSA from conquered and it's something that Londereerry had on a ballot, it would require a three-fifth majority to pass. um prior to it going on the ballot, it would also um need to have a public hearing. Um and then if you ever find yourself in a circumstance where you're asking voters if you can exceed the tax cap, um you would also have to make that a Warren article and it would get a three-fifths majority vote um to be able to exceed the tax cap. Um it's important to understand that budgets aren't completely built on per people costs. Um they exclude uh the state

072number excludes tuition and transportation costs, food service cost, and capital and debt service costs, which are a very real part of a day-to-day operation of the school. Regardless of how many students you have there, you have to have those or obligated to pay them. Um what's also troubling about this model is you're creating a budget plan for a number and not needs. So you are saying here's the most you can go up now. here's everything we need to do and now we need to figure out how we get to this number. So, it creates a lot of deferred maintenance and unfortunately it creates a lot of staff and program cuts because you have to get to that number per the RSA. Um, it's a loss of local control because right now we are calculating a

073budget that's calculated based on needs and obligations and long-term planning. Um, what do we need for our kids? Where are we? Um, and right now we have local control of this whole process that acts as a tax cap. starts with the administrators, then the superintendent, then it goes to the school board and the budget committee, and then the voters. So, all of these components are your tax cap. They're looking at you and challenging you to to defend why you need to um ask for what you're going through. So, it's not like we we push things through without a process um to do a fiscally responsible plan um and budget from year to year. The other piece of this is any reduction in revenue and we're going to talk about revenue on the 18th. Um, but

074that also changes your tax levy. So revenue is very tenuous right now from the state, what we're going to get, what is adequacy going to be. Um, we tend to get less, not more. If we got more, it would make this process a lot easier. You'd be getting more money, but oftent times um, you're basing your revenues off what you think you get, and if there's a shortfall, you have to make up for it someplace else. So it would be problematic if that makes you exceed a tax cap when you didn't know when you were planning for the year that you weren't going to get the revenues that you expected like what would have happened with the title funding that we had lost over the summer. Then we're already adopted a budget then you have

075to make some changes midcreen midstream. Um we can't control what the federal government cuts um and then there's fluctuations during the year that would impact the the tax levy. So it's always reactive based on your numbers. um um and it's it's a hard plan um to follow with long-term planning. So other things that that play a role in this CBA agreements could be ratified with a 50% vote. So they go to the voters, they're ratified at 50%. But if the money in a CBA exceeds the tax cap, then you actually need 60% to implement. So legally that hasn't completely been worked out what what you do with that. Um and then a bond project would be exempt in this equation because to pass a bond finance project you have 60% anyway to pass. So by

076getting that 60% you're you're getting that 60 three-fifths um threshold you need to pass. Um utilities and interest fluctuate from year to year making exact figures hard to predict and emergency expenses could force freezes once the year is underway. And we have old buildings. We had a roof nearly blow off last winter. So, all of these things um could impact us. So, um I'll show you the equation in a minute. Um but if we looked at last year's proposed equation with our tax levy from last year, um we would have lost with the enrollment factor because we're in lower enrollment year. We would have lost about 1.9 million. So, it would have first given you about 1.9 with the CPI adjustment, but then you times it by the multiplier, which has a loss. Um, so

077that would have taken us down and that would have exceeded what we were still bound to pay through CBAs and contracts. The insurance alone would have been well over that. Um, and we still have to pay those obligations. So these sorts of things would have forced cuts. And districts that do have this, they from year to year have to pink slip a lot of employees and then kind of see where things fall. There's one district um up north that will literally let go of all their staff from year to year and then see where they are and then rehire based on what they can do. Um which is not a great practice to to attract quality teachers. Um and then you look at personnel and programs um to get you there. On the other end

078of the spectrum, if we had gained a hundred students this year, we would have been up $2 million higher than we would have anticipated. um this would have exceeded what we would have been bound to pay on a on a typical year. Um if if you had this, it it then kind of forces you to race like, "Oh my gosh, enrollment's up or CPI is high. So this list of projects that we've put off when the other things were lower, we're going to try and force it." Um as far as that goes. So it it really comes down to it's such a fluctuating process. It prohibits the district from consistent and sound financial planning for for long-term plans with with what we think we're going to need to do that. So, um, if you see

079this this next slide, if we go to the this is the equation itself. So, I took the explanation of the multipliers and then filled in last year's tax levy, the CPI 3.3. Um, we were down about a 100 kids. So the three I took the October 1st enrollment report and then when all was said and done, our new tax cap levy would have been 70,000 343148ish dollars. Um and that would have mean we we couldn't have gone up more than $426,000. And as you've heard, that's um like 10% of of what we need just to fulfill our contract. So, we would be if we had this tax cap, we would be talking about who are we letting go? Um and and what programs do we have to cut? So, um you can see some of

080the costs. Um these were pulled earlier. Um but our CBAs would have put us over, our contracts would have put us over with transportation and insurance. Um energy fluctuations, our bus costs, special ed costs are so difficult to predict. You don't know from year to year what an IEP might have. you could have a move in midyear that's um you know requires an outplacement and and that would um impact us as well. So it would mean cuts to staff and programs and deferred maintenance um in a year like this uh to meet the tax cap. And then this gets back so just some of the next slide gets back to unexpected bills and emergencies could put us over um a tax assessment. this year if we had had a tax cap um the assessment would

081have put us in a real predicament because we have to pay it this fiscal year. But on the other end, if you go to the next slide, uh if it was higher, we could increase we could be asking for more rush to get deferred maintenance in. Um and then the other important note that's kind of an unknown right now is adequacy. There's some state bills trying to increase what we get for adequacy. If if that were to happen and we get more adequacy, we would be in a much better place. That would be taking some of the burden off of us to keep that tax levy low. So that that's a better place um to to push in my opinion uh that conquered pays more for adequacy. There's been um legal proceedings around that. So

082in conclusion, after studying and looking all these different factors, um, Londoner would lose the ability for sound and consistent budget planning based on need and long-term planning and contractual obligations. The local control of boards and committees does do this um for us. Um, but right now in the process we have, but if we had this equation that those people and their votes would be limited based on trying to get to the number. Um, we feel like we've been successful in constructing fiscally responsible budgets. And by no means are we saying that we think a tax cap would be limiting because we want to misspend or overspend. We just want to have local control for our needs and what our students um need to have a quality education. Um, and we we never want to be

083in a position where we're having to cut large amounts of personnel to get to a st to the tax cap um that could be presented. So, [clears throat] this is this is where we were a lot of multipliers. >> Thank you, AMD. >> Yeah. >> Um Yeah. And I to Christine's point, I know the state is revisiting this up at the state level and um I know you have busy days, but when when there is testifying times, it may be worth the trip up. this is a very good presentation for them to see. Um be glad to go up with you and >> No, I I would be happy to do that >> to put this in front of the legislation >> and um the representatives so they [laughter] can great >> so they can

084really see how um you know districts operate, >> you know, with a good business plan. Yeah. >> You know, we try to be fiscally responsible. We have our qualified budget committee that's going step and toe with us through the budget process. Um, you know, as as the superintendent presented tonight and has the last several years, um, you know, cognizant of our taxpayers, we know all the rates are going up, but um, to limit us to where we may have to cut 20, 30 staff if this is implemented in this formula. I'm not saying there ain't other ways to do tax caps, but this formula that if they're proposing this at the state level is a problem for a lot of well-run districts that have a budget committee and have a school board, you know, um

085with business background in that. So, I think it would be u well taken at the state level this presentation. So, >> it's a totally different is the one that I saw one that I haven't seen them all over. >> Okay. >> It's a totally different way to do it in my opinion, but I'm not a number person. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. No, we want to get word out there. I think we we never want somebody from a different community telling us what our community needs to do. >> Correct. Yeah. But thank you for that uh presentation. Any questions for anyone? Thank you so much, Emity. >> All right. Uh, moving on to 5.3, uh, school care update and recommendation. [clears throat] So, uh, you know, Lisa and Ammy are going to jump

086in. Um, we're ready to solve the problem if you guys are. So, we'll just we'll review our options and we don't need to act tonight. Uh, but, uh, we can, uh, if you guys are ready. Um, so thank you very much. Um, basically school care has now the board has now voted to adopt a payment plan option that was actually advocated by your very own school board members. Um, and Ammon and I with the executive director. So there are now two options for members to pay the assessments levied. Uh, option one is what we advocated for with school care. So essentially uh you can pay 1/3 of your assessment by December 31st of this year and then you can determine when you'd like to pay the remainder uh by July 15th of 2026 with no

087interest levied on the remaining balance. The other option is the one they originally proposed which would include interest acrewing as of January 1st for any unpaid portion of the assessment. So having said that, they sent out the documents that we can execute and send back to them which would indicate which option the board is choosing. Um you all can take a vote either tonight or soon so that we can execute by December 31st so we can get those documents back to them. Again, option one is what we originally advocated for and they adopted and made available to all member entities. >> Great question. >> Yeah. So option one, we pay a third of it by the end of the year and pay no interest to pay it all off by the summertime. Option two, we

088got to pony up like 60 grand and >> correct. >> So yeah, I think we can vote on that. >> Okay. [laughter] And and again, I I want to thank my colleagues and and Lisa and Amity as well um to work with school care uh to come up with this as at their presentation at their annual meeting a month ago or so. they they brought up Londereerry and Conquered for coming up with this plan between the school board and the business office and HR um to work out a payment plan which they are now offering everybody in the state that they weren't offering at our myself and Mr. Porter's meeting at the state level with [clears throat] the uh house finance and school care presentation two months ago. So this has taken a lot of

089work on all fronts of the school board. the our our staff to bring this to a head where we have money to work with because let's face it, it would drain our reserves depleted if we had to pay this on January 1, okay? >> And we would run the risk of the next 6 months of running nip and tuck if anything goes major wrong with the building. Um, so this gives us some flexibility to see where our fund balance is at the end of the year. it will still drain our our uh unfund balance uh pretty low depending on fund balance and we will slowly build that up. But this made it possible that we didn't have to throw a boatload of money into this year's budget that is already up due to insurance increases

090and and salaries and benefits. So it was a win-win for the community uh in that with a lot of efforts of our school board and and our staff. So, thank you to all he is in that cuz it it makes a world of difference to our taxpayers that don't realize that cuz a lot of the school districts that don't have fund balance are dumping between 400 to a million4 into their next year's budget to be able to pay it in July before they even get into this year's increases. So, a a valent effort on all parts of this school board and school district to to work this out and put this forward for school care to pick this up and offer it to the rest of the people in the state. So, thank you so

091much to to everyone involved in this means a lot. Uh, with that, I don't think there's much discuss discussion, so I'll look for a motion to approve option one for school care payment, please. >> So, move. Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I 50. Well done. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So that takes care of deliberations. Now we're going to jump into 5.4 policy JFC breathalyzer policy and procedural connection to vaping. >> Uh Mr. Yeah, Mr. Barnes might join us as well. Um, you know, basically running a modern high school, um, vaping is a is a thing thing we have to kind of worry about. And, you know, what we gave you guys was a, um, a policy that was written, um, where in the past

092we we've had to use breathalyzers with students and it basically maps out uh, what is reasonable suspicion. Um, and I think we're finding ourselves in basically very similar territory with vaping right now with these things called wands that can kind of detect if there's a vape on on a student. And so we're we're trying to just get a litmus test uh you know from the school board. Are you okay if we kind of use the same bounds um with wanding and vaping uh that we kind of have here for breathalyzers or should we go through the process of coming up with a new policy and taking a little bit more time? I know that Rick and his team work very hard uh to to really make sure vaping is not part of London High School,

093but I think we're just running into it more and more and I think we I just want to be able to give them the tools to follow up and keep out of our school to the greatest degree possible. And um there might be some questions you ask where we might have to go into nonpublic because there's there's some like uh student examples that we wouldn't want to share publicly. Um but you know so we just want to kind of start that conversation and it's just timely because it's it's a it's a it's a daily occurrence for the high school staff. I don't know anything you would share or >> Sure. So as you know we recently installed uh some vaping detectors in the high school and those do get hits. We get responses for them

094and which were alerted. Um it's not probably when those came out I don't know five or six years ago it was pretty easy to recover the the devices. Um it's the easiest way to say is it's less easy now and I know of another school um because students can hide things and they do um and there's only there's limits to which we tend to search um for good reason. So there is a school that I reached out [clears throat] to at uh Timberlane and they've been you using the uh deploying wands like you would see at the airport um to detect whether or not the device is on a student's person and that's has worked extraordinarily well for them in terms of really bringing [music] down the numbers that they're seeing in their school. So

095based on the numbers that we're seeing um and based on the amounts of time we're we're able to recover things and move forward with the consequences and interventions as appropriate, it's definitely something we would look to seek permission to do um for health and student safety because I know some of our students are kind of tired [music] of tired of it as well. And >> and we talked through all this with our lawyers and you know they basically kind of mapped out yep the reasonable suspicion is very similar to what is in your breathalyzer policy. So questions. >> I just have a comment to start out with. Um >> I think we all know this is starting a lot earlier than high school even, you know, potentially, you know, middle school. Y >> um so

096I I would love to see our school district getting to the root of the problem and doing more educational things with the students around vaping, having presenters come in. Um, so I don't know if we've looked at doing things like that. Um, but I think we need to start somewhere about that education because just just removing it, taking from a kid, wanding them or whatever is not going to eliminate the overall problem. So I think education wise, I I want would like to take a look to see what we're doing to try to inform students and families about vaping and the harmful effects. >> It's definitely a big part of our health curriculum at the middle school. Well, I mean I mean I don't want to put William on the spot. >> And then during

097their wellness day, they their keynote uh keynote speaker addressed that very subject. So, um I know they're trying to address it uh as >> Are they getting anything in the high school though? If they're >> getting anything in the way of >> the wellness day at the middle school? >> In the middle school? >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> So, high school's a little different. So, I don't know. Middle school, we're doing a few things. Yes. But are we doing anything at the high school as well? >> Same in health classes. um you know their fresh freshman it's a required class your freshman year you know >> yeah no I know but how much exactly how much in detail are we're getting into it you know because >> I you know I don't know how >>

098you know I think we can always do more the idea is interventions and prevention too with the consequences it's not one over the other >> but given the rise that we've seen that led us to do the detectors that's why you're recommending this but I agree we could do look to do more on that front as well And that's just funding and securing funds depending on what kind of programming we're looking to bring in. But there are programs out there. >> Yeah. >> How are the um the detectors working is what they were put in a few weeks ago, right? >> Yes, they are working. >> Uh like how are they working? Like >> so they they'll they'll detect whether something is being a vape >> and then who responds to that? >> One of

099the assistant principles. >> Okay. So, is it like an alarm that goes off or is it >> It's We can set it for a noise. We've elected not to do that because we have the Alice alarms and things like that, but so far it's just made to go straight to our phones. >> Um and then then we can use the cameras or do whatever we need to do to speak with students. Often times there's groups of students, so it can be very difficult. Yeah. >> To tell who's doing what's, not just one student in the bathroom. So, um sometimes it happens, but um often times there's more than one student. So there's a lot of different variables that go into it that make it more difficult than one would expect um to to track something

100down. >> Yeah. Yeah. I was just curious to see how it was working so so far. >> No, it's definitely working. That's that's I mean in terms of detection that's happening, but in terms of what the outcome you would expect is not quite the what we were expecting. >> How many alerts do you would you say on average you're getting a day? I would say within two bathrooms on average off the top of my head probably close to six >> and only in two bathrooms. >> Correct. We started it small intentionally just to see what the roll out would be like and what >> the back and forth would be like in terms of a process. >> Um and just because we wanted to go slow. [clears throat] So, I actually I'll preface this by

101saying obviously I want to root out as much of this as possible if we have kids that are drinking or vaping on property. Um, I think I have less of a problem with the general idea of what we're doing with detecting the vapes. I did not realize until I read through this that we have a policy where unbeknownst to parents or even SRO's an assistant principal principal can administer a breathalyzer test on students at the high school. Um it concerns me a bit. I I'd like to consult maybe even our attorney on this. Um because just doing some quick reading on it, I think we might be opening ourselves up to a potential problem with that. Um cuz I think it might be overstepping our bounds in the high school by allowing an assistant principal

102to take it upon themselves to and our language is very vague reading through the policy. I think that's my biggest problem because it simply states they observed unusual behavior so they can conduct a breathalyzer test on a kid and that concerns me. Um, I think it should be buttoned up a bit. The existing policy that we have, if we're going to allow the there to be a breathalyzer um, test conducted, I think it should involve probably the SRO and I think that the parents should be notified that it's occurring. That's my personal opinion on it. Um, again, obviously, I want to root it out. I just think it's it needs to be done appropriately so as not to infringe upon their rights. Um, if it's a general vape detector in a bathroom, that's different than

103an individualized accusation that they're going to be held accountable for. Um, I don't know how that plays out. Again, just reading through this kind of got my hair up. So, those are my thoughts. I don't know what you guys think, photo. >> Tim, can I can I add a few layers here? I I think, you know, um, I'll let I'll let Jay or or or Rick drop in, too. It it it's always a strange place you're in when you're in a school versus the police. And I think when you have the SRO's in your building, they're they're never trying to enforce the legal bounds of the world. They're trying to enforce the rules of the school. So you always have a smaller threshold as a school official of what's reasonable suspicion because reasonable suspicion is

104a very defined thing in the legal world for the police. Reason reasonable suspicion is a much lower bar for school officials because you're just trying to enforce the rules of your school. I mean, I I get what you're saying, but it's it's never the same legal dynamic for what happens in a school for what happens outside the world. Does that make sense? >> I guess I I get what you're saying. I'm just playing the scenario out where you might have a parent, >> Sure. >> that has a kid that gets accused or disciplined for it. >> Yeah. >> And these means were applied, then pushing back and suing the school for it. What are we exposing ourselves to for life? >> Do you want to jump in at all? Yeah. Yeah. >> Um so so

105many years ago when we um first of all our our assistant principles and the principal were trained to use the use the device each year was calibrated each year. Um the police would work with us and that detection is like it's an alcohol detection. It doesn't give you the actual like code. It doesn't codify, you know, that really we used it to often if if a student denied use or if you had suspicion that something was in this bottle, it was a way to clear um clear the incident. So, we would ask like, okay, we want to run this over your uh you know, your your your bottle to to clear that because we you know, something seems off >> um or was reported that something was off. So, as a way to kind of

106use that device to either clear that or if there was refusal, generally you're looking for in those that due process uh for the student to speak to the violation and either accept responsibility or deny it, but that's often how we used it. I'm not sure if it's been used the last 2 years or not. >> No, no, we have not in my time used the um the breathalyzer now. Everything now for us is just it's it's vaping. >> 958% of it is that's what it is. >> Okay. just to clarify what you said before. So the detector goes off and then there's a small group of kids >> and then from that moment it's hard to determine exactly who who was doing it. So then essentially maybe you don't follow through at all in a

107scenario like that. >> Oh, we follow through. I mean we we bring students in and they're often not all but depends on the circumstances. There's typically general general process would be a search which we're allowed to do because this we have more than reasonable suspicion with the vape going detector going off. Um and but we may or may not find a vape even though within minutes we know who was in the bathroom. We know the specifics but we may not find the device. So when that happens multiple times it suggests it's being our searches are limited as they should be in a school to a certain degree. Um, but there's also we know that more likely than not we're receiving anonymous reports that these vapes are on their person somewhere else. Um, that we wouldn't

108ordinarily look and with a wand where it's not invasive and it just goes over and detects something um that that's what one school is doing and they're having a lot of success with it. >> So in that situation like you would not find anything and then you would move on with your day is essentially what you're saying, >> right? And we also that's what I meant by follow through. >> Sure. Yes. I apologize. We also communicate with the parents too to let them know where there's a search. This is what was detected what was you know because we have the ability you know this is what occurred um and and the parents are informed too. So it's not we're definitely closing that loop as well so that you know we have a duty to inform

109and I would say warn um and if you're if it's multiple kids and it's the same students over the same amount of time I would hope and the parent would take action at that point. Um but again that's outside of our control what goes on at home, >> right? My reason for asking that was more of like the cultural impact of knowing that it happened and then not being able to address it and then knowing that if if it work if that works for them and they're going to continue to do it out quick too. So it is the intent behind wanting to try something different, >> right? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> So, actually bringing together what Tim said with what you just mentioned, it sounds like there is kind of a non-codified policy

110to inform parents when any of this happens anyway. So, maybe to Tim's point, maybe it makes sense to at least put that part of it kind of as we write it up to say and parents will be informed just so that it is in writing and that to to bring that kind of >> make it more policy even though it's informally done. So, it's laid out. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. And they I'm guessing the APS would maybe get in contact with the SRO if they're going to do a search and that too just for some backup on their on their behalf to protect personnel as well as >> we typically we try to keep the police piece very separate from the school piece deliberately kind of for the same reasons that that um Tim mentioned.

111There's there's a there's a line within a school. We're not, our goal is not to prosecute minors or get see kids get arrested and those types of things. We really try to handle things as a school first. That's always the priority. It's definitely the priority at London Area High School. The SRO's brought in as if there's a real significant safety concern upon a, you know, conclusion of a search. if something's found or there was a looking at something we were not familiar with definitely um if we were to come across something else like a weapon obviously um the big the big major pieces as one we otherwise we keep a very clear line about that cuz there's a lot of rules around search and seizure of law enforcement and staff so I think what I'm

112hearing from all of us here is if we could make sure this policy has a a procedure >> sure >> well laid out that we can disperse to the parents that this is what's going to happen. It's there. We've made them aware of it. You know, everybody, but make sure we're legally >> covered with our staff. Anything we can do, let the board review it. And then we can we can push this out after the third reading and everybody will know what's going to happen if if that student, you know, it comes under this this situation. >> Okay. So, I'm here. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I mean, is there anything with regard to the breathalyzer policy or vaping that's laid out in the student handbook? >> Yeah. There is within the student handbook, we talk

113about the our right to search and their procedure for that. >> Okay. >> Communication with the parents is always important, especially under any kind of search. >> I just think we got to be clear, you know, just layman's terms, lay it out in this policy. This is our process. >> Now, they can make their student aware that this could happen. So just to clarify, do you guys do you guys want us to come back with a new policy or just a procedure? >> I I believe a procedure that would come under this policy. >> We can do that. >> And that way we can get it out to all our parents and that. So it's uh >> there's no gray area. >> Agreed. >> I would like to see the parents informed first before any

114>> any nothing in the policy, states, parental, anything. >> Right. I think they should be aware and have the option to even come in um made aware >> prior to any of that happening >> and that's where to your question I think it actually may make sense to adjust both >> to amend the policy as well. >> Yeah. So we'll have some language ready by the 9th just so the high school can get moving. >> Yep. >> Sounds good. >> Sounds great. >> That'll work. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. >> All right. I will uh takes care of our business. I will open the floor to anyone that has any regular public comment. If you need to come up and speak, the floor is yours. >> Only just pertaining to that last

115beat, um because I know that your question was about the whole separation between the school and um the police obviously um cuz you guys said that you have like a general one kind of thing. It doesn't test like actual specific percentages per se that you would use for like bottles and everything. >> Um, but would that also test for example say you have kids who cold and flu season that cold medicines can stepped to 0.02 on a specific blacker. Would that also be testing essentially positive for those kids? >> I'm trying to remember now cuz this is this is several several years ago. that would question me as a parent is say like my kids started to have a cough. They take some like dayquil or whatever it is before they go into school and

116they can see them a little drowsy a little off but otherwise they're >> not under the influence. >> Absolutely. And that would be established in the due process. So the the instrument itself is really a last resort if um AP or principal was not convinced of what a student was explaining to them. So they were looking for all kinds of signs. So, if you saw that, like, geez, you seem drowsy. Talk to me about this. What's, you know, oh, I'm taking cold medicine. I'm not feeling well. You know, generally you're we're calling the parents to say, you know, we've noticed this. We're dealing with this right now. Here's where we're at. >> Cuz would any of those the wands or anything be I guess put into the verbiage of those um kind of regulations? Would

117those communications to parents be done before any of the wanding, any of those testing to make sure they are aware just because most of the student body is underage and adolescent. So even though they would be if the explicit details are put in their handbook that they sign off of, they are still underage, >> right? And we ask our parents to sign off on that handbook as well. So, the parents and students are supposed to go through and say, "Here are our policies. Here are our procedures. This is what Londere High School does, >> you know, and how they'd act on that." >> But again, I think I don't want to speak for Rick and the administrative team there, but it's really a last resort. Again, >> almost rule out or to make sure that

118you have your determination more accurate >> and only because you had brought it up as well because you had said obviously you see it long before the high school often and middle schools back in most of our day. um they had the DARE program that they did forever ago that kind of then got debunked and defunded. You've seen some schools are kind of starting to roll that back out. Is there any possibility of that kind of going out in the future to kind of address that more more than just the one, you know, general health class? Because >> Right. >> Yeah. >> almost nobody listened to those. >> Dair offered those the cessation programs, right, that we've had students sign up for. they they've had those and then at the elementary level I think they

119have more of those assemblies and they do red ribbon week at some of the schools early on to and they share statistics on a you know highle um basis to let them know about that but we haven't had like a specific >> we haven't had any real programs kind of come back into play for any of this >> just because where vaping obviously has kind of increased and has become different and smoking is now 21 and older versus >> 18 where it could be that some of you know your student body were of age to be able to take on any of that. >> Right. >> I just want to address before you do the beginning part of your statement when we rolled out the vape detectors I intentionally put those in the newsletter as

120well. So to the point yes there's a student handbook of course we hope people read it but I also would put out >> we want the goal is prevention. We don't want want we want to make kids aware. We don't want to catch students, but there's always going to be a counter to anything that we do for a very small percentage of students. So, >> yeah, cuz if your SRO's obviously are doing any type of breathalyzer, then obviously then there is definite legal action that is going to come into play which would affect their future. And I'm sure that the school board's more of just trying to hold accountable. Um, do they have like a standard practice of like if it is confirmed any of these items are on them? Like is it like a

1213-day suspension, detention, like what is there? Is that kind of defined in all of that as well for the regulations? >> Typically substances are five. >> Okay. >> But as a 5day suspension, >> okay, >> unless there's some sort of ex mitigating circumstance, but it's more mostly 95 98% of the time it's a 5-day suspension. >> Okay. >> The other piece to that too though also is there's work [clears throat] um and some counseling set up. Rick, I think this is still established with our school uh to community counselor. So that's like our drug and alcohol counselor, crisis counselor. So um that individual has access to resources and can triage and work with families as well if they're willing. So it's not just about uh consequences and being punitive. It's also the education piece to

122your point of like how can we work with you? Is there addiction or is there um an issue you know without overstepping to try to help and educate. >> Okay. I also want to just add this year that uh the school actually worked with the local police department brought in a speaker that spoke directly to kids about vaping. Um and that was through a grant and through a local organization who does that type of work. So um you know when you look back at some of the programs like DARE some of which have kind of faded away. I think when you bring in people who are really skilled working with this level of student and are very good in articulating uh to them and connecting with them that sends like a really strong resonating message.

123And we brought somebody in this year. It was through the health department that actually connected with the police department's uh subdivision that they have I think that works for rehab rehabilitative type care. And together with a grant from a local organization, we brought in a national speaker who came in. So I think the middle school sees it more as a um yeah definitely as Sarah's indicated there's the time you want to start and you really want to send that message that strong message then. And I think uh whether there's really good programs, but bringing in people to speak like that um does does a lot of good for kids. So, but just just to add that it's not something that's being ignored by any means as we do see some some some instances of that

124throughout the course of the school year. So, >> was it the Breathe New Hampshire? >> What's that? >> Was it the Breathe New Hampshire? >> I don't think it was. I I want to say it came out of a um and I'm sorry I'm not going to know off the top of my head, but it did come out of the local police department. They connected with there's an acronym for their organization. I was new. I hadn't heard of it, but essentially they do these types of programs. They bring in in speakers and they use grant money for that. So, it may be something we continue to go forward with since we started this year. Um, we are familiar with I'm familiar with that program somewhat, but I don't think that's exactly what it was. I

125can find out what >> they're saying. The breed New Hampshire has a lot of uh resources, presenters and curriculums um and even will come in and do like a parent presentation. So even if you look on their website, they offer a lot of different alternatives and at the middle school and high school level. >> Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So >> yeah, it's not fully posted too, but sometimes even if you reach out to your local like hospitals and whatnot too, they'll have medical professionals that will actually donate their time too to doing that. Um there's even actually there's a therapist clinic um for ABA therapies, for example. um who I've put in contact with our fire department who's willing to donate their time and resources to helping teach our first responders just to help work

126with our special education people in the community for any you know emergency calls you might have your hospitals being willing to do that too. >> Great. >> So bring more options there. >> Thank you so much. Appreciate I think when you look at like any challenging behavior that you're trying to curb, you you have your preventative things that you can do to try to pre prevent that from happening or anticedent management. And then that that's I completely agree that that's necessary. We want to keep doing that. But then you also have like a behavior occurs cuz it's being reinforced. So if you're getting physically high from from a behavior that feels good, you're going to try to access a way to do that. And then you look at like the escaping the expectations. If there's

127a way to do that without getting in trouble, you're going to try to do that. So, I think like both I think everything's true here, right? We need to definitely make sure that there's education and preventative me messaging, but we also know that these kids are at like a risk-taking age where part of the high is that you got away with doing something that you shouldn't have done, right? So, um and there, you know, it's since since the dawn of time, they they've been adjusting their behavior to get over what we put in place, right? And we were all in that seat where we were doing it, too. um not this but things. So, um I think for this, you know, intent like coming up with a clear response that everyone's comfortable with because I

128think part of the issue, Tim, I don't want to speak for you when it comes up is like we don't want to ask staff to do stuff that might cause parent conflict or lawsuits, but obviously I think no one here agrees that that should be happening in a school. And for me, when stuff like that happens, it changes the culture. And then if if we don't want a school where kids get getting away with behavior, especially like such a high level behavior that could impact them. So, um I think both things can be true. >> And I have a question about the counseling piece of it with the counselor. If if a student is suspended, do we, you know, require them to go see the counselor? Do we recommend do we have the counselor come

129in at the suspension meeting with the parent and have them meet the you know >> not it's not current our current school to community counselor is not necessarily a um a a laidback or something like that like some schools have um it's something we can look to implement we did talk about when the vape detectors came out do looking at restorative practices or some online pieces I am familiar with breathe new hampshire I don't know if they've evolved in the last few years I'm sure they have um for resources around those types of things. Um, often, well, there's some, well, I it's I can't say too much because I'm going to ver into non-public territory here, but we do use our resources in other capacities to alert, but yes, is it part of a formal

130process? I would say it's not necessarily part of a formal process at this point. I even wonder if um even if parents agree to it, if if the five-day suspension could be a different option of a three-day suspension with 6 hours of counseling [clears throat] with the school community counselor, you know, I wonder if we can look at options like that because really that's what we're trying to get down to, you know, how do we how do we fix this issue and get them the counseling [clears throat] they need to kind of help with the the bigger problem, you know? >> No, I I completely agree with that. I mean, I think when you have something in place, you have to be able to you have to be able to catch it first. >> Yeah.

131>> And then but then to be able to kind of negotiate that in the best interest of the student, I think is the way that makes the most sense. >> Yeah. And a lot of that is written in the life of a Lancer as well. So there are some parameters there about 85% maybe more participate in something at Londary High School. So, um, if there's a violation there, there is that community service piece, touch points with the restorative pieces and some restorative practices there that are built in. I know, um, our athletic department does a great job about talking to their student athletes about how hard they're working and working out and training and how much any type of partying or use sets you back. A lot of the research will show that one night

132of drinking or vaping would set you back two weeks of working out. So like we're trying to reach these student athletes um to a point to say all of your efforts won't pay off if you're partaking in those types of things. So there's a lot of education going on I think naturally too >> around them. >> I like that idea >> with the uh working with them you know rather than the whole five days. >> I mean really that's what they need is it is you know. >> Yep. If we could look into that. Yep. >> Anyone else? Any further public comment? >> Yes. Take home six minutes one circle. Touching back on the tax cap situation that you had described. Um I'd like to implore uh the school board and our officials to please

133uh go up to conquered and try and fight this if possible because this would be um detrimental to our town and as well many other towns across the state. You won't be able to plan. uh this is not smart budgeting. You know, you brought up the example of if we go down in students, all of a sudden our aid goes down, but what if all of a sudden that next summer when you just passed a budget, we get a 100 to 200 more students and we just laid off a ton of teachers because we had a huge drop in our budget that now we cannot adequately educate it. This is a horrible practice, a bad plan. And you know, as many people, a wise man in town had said at one point, we have two

134pockets, but one wallet. And if we cannot plan for up and down budgets in our taxes, this will be a roller coaster every year. This will be horrific. And this is no way to educate our students. Um, I hope that many of you will be able to go on up to conquered and fight this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll close public comment. And that finishes at the regular part of the meeting. I want to thank everybody for coming tonight and uh hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving. Get some rest and some time with family and friends. And with that, I will look for a motion to go into non-public session requested under RSA 91A 3 section 2B and C, please. >> So moved. Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin.

135Uh, roll call vote, please, from my left to right.