School Board Meeting 8-5--25

001wear the same outfit. I was I was just sitting here. I was like, "Thank God I changed." >> Oh my god. Welcome to the meeting of the Londereerry School Board to be held on Tuesday, August 5th, 2025 at 700 p.m. in the library at Londereerry High School, 295 Mammoth Road, London, New Hampshire. The meeting will also be broadcast on local cable access channel 8 as well as the district YouTube channel. Could we please rise for the pledge of allegiance to our left here, please, or behind in folks? I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We'll jump right into our consent agenda with some upcoming meetings. uh August 20th, 2025, we'll

002start our building tours at North School uh the middle school and Matthew Thornton starting at 6 PM. And then the next evening, August 21st, 2025, the other building tours will start at South School, then go to Moose Hill, and then the high school starting at 6 p.m. On September 2nd, 2025, it will be a regular schoolboard meeting here in the library at 7 p.m. And on September 23rd was originally a 9:16th, we changed it to September 23rd, 2025 to a regular school board meeting here in the library at 7 p.m. Could I get a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I zero. Thank you. Uh jump into committee reports. Uh start with Amanda. Anything on your end? >> Nope. >> Sir,

003Tim. >> Nope. >> Kevin. >> Uh nope. Nothing new. >> All set. I'll jump into uh just a couple updates. I was at the town council meeting last night. Um just an update. Uh we got an update from DOT on the Stonehenge 28 construction projects going to start next uh spring on mobilization. Most of the heavy construction um sounds like it's going to happen during the summer. So it will not hamper the buses as much near the end of the year. Um if all goes well, a brunt of the work will be done uh come early fall. There will still be, you know, one lanes closed and and just one lane of traffic. So be prepared. They'll update the schools as well. Um they did a great presentation last night and then the finish of

004the project will happen in early 2027 spring to summer and finish that project up. But it's quite extensive where they're shifting lanes for a period of month, month and a half while they construct half and then shifting it back. And they said if it gets too late, they're going to stay that way through the winter and finish it in the spring and that so we can have a good flow of traffic and plowing and that. So, um, they said they would do all they could that during the the summer months to help with with school buses and a lot of the major traffic. So, uh, update on that. Um, another thing, uh, got brought up is, uh, old home day um was has been done over the years by volunteers for a long time. This

005year, the town has had to kind of take it on and last year and it's really draining their resources. So, they had a conversation last night about the council getting some volunteer forms out of getting volunteers again to kind of run old home day. I think Kathy Wagner did it for like 15 years, her and her team and that. So, I think uh we've got luckily we've got the town manager here tonight, but um we uh their their resources are thin just like ours are in areas and for them to be doing dual roles this time of year is really taxing them. So I think if we can champion with the council to try to get a volunteer group from the schools, all the people we deal with on the school side as well as

006regular town people and promote this that you know we could get it back to that volunteer. So, I'll I'll try to get some more information from the council and work with the school board too to and and the superintendent to get some information out to our school community that may not, you know, be involved on the town side as much on a day-to-day and maybe there's some volunteers on the school side that would love to help with old home day. So, just some thoughts um after listening to the conversation last night u to get it back into the volunteer hands. Um, another um, thing I just wanted to hit on, there was a nice article I shared with with the superintendent yesterday and with with the board. There was a um article in Monday's paper

007in in the board and superintendent and staff have been talking about this for the last uh three to six months is and I thought the topic was was uh spot on is improving student engagement um with our staff with our families uh with you know uh community events. And this was a summit they held this weekend. I wish I knew about it. um I didn't realize it was even going on, but they had a couple of keynote speakers um and that uh Rebecca Winrop and um wrote a couple of novels. Um and they just hit on some key points that I think we all want to see and working with the superintendent to happen in our lendidary schools is is you know and a couple couple of the notes are the key to building better

008partnerships between schools and families with the goal of better serving kids all starts with engagement. So, if we can have that positive engagement with our students, with our staff, and bring that back into our buildings, and really promote it and getting engaged and and and keeping our parents informed, um I I think you're going to see not only have we done a good job with grade point averages and in increasing, but I think it'll be twofold. I think that's the part that's maybe holding us back a little more is getting these these students to want to come to school. um get mom and dad involved, get to know the teachers, get to know the parents, and let's make that a community environment again inside our buildings because I think there's a lot of that disengagement.

009I'd love to see that come back to Londereerry uh on that part. So, you know, it's it's a great article. It was in Monday's paper. if you get a chance to read it, people at home and that um and uh I'm going to look some more into it to these speakers and that and maybe we can look at them possibly coming into the lenderary community and and see if we can put a forum together for this. So, a great piece and I uh I was excited about it because we've been talking about it and and I really want to see this implemented um coming into our buildings and that. So, that's all I've got. Um, so we'll move into now announcements and presentations. And up at 5.1, I'd like to introduce our new town manager,

010Sean Mahalland. Please come on up, Sean. Take a seat right over there. And welcome. >> Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to come before you folks today. It's uh great that I've have a chance to meet with you and and uh further uh strengthen the relationship that the school and the town already has. Uh I'm used accustomed to that in the community communities I've worked in in the past. It's really critical and you'll notice this across the country in cases where you have an independent school district and the municipality and the school district work closely together. Those communities are thriving and those communities are successful. And that's it's just as critical here as it is anywhere else. and I want to continue to strengthen that relationship. And as you know, and I think

011you're going to be talking about a little bit later, is we have a project that's going to allow us to work very closely together. I'm really excited about that. I think there's a lot of opportunity to save the taxpayers money across the board, which is what our collective mission should always be other than providing the services that we provide, but trying to do that is a cost most cost-effective manner that we can do that. So, I think we've got a a good opportunity here. this this project having to uh come before both of us and we have the ability to use our cash value instead of having to bond that the town has to be able to do meet the objectives of the school district which meets the collective uh objectives of the town I

012would suggest in the school district. >> Yeah. So, thank you. >> That's great. Welcome to Londereerry, Sean. I know uh you've been up in Lebanon for quite a while and but you were local here before that. >> I was. Yes. Yeah. >> Well, well, welcome home. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. appreciate what you're doing already in the town and look forward to the future. So, thank you so much for coming in. Anyone have any questions or >> No, I look forward to working with you. >> Yeah, appreciate you uh working with us on that project as well. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you, Sean. >> All right, we'll move on to 5.2 2025 to 2030 enrollment space and staffing study for our elementary schools. and >> oh yeah, good point. Uh we do have

013this presentation in a large stack on that table right there if anyone wants a copy. Um you know, we got here today starting three months ago um when uh someone from the budget committee came up to a schoolboard meeting and said, "Dear school board, we hope you're bringing back last last year's project." I think it was kind of a moment we were all dreading. Uh I think the March vote was tough. Um it was it was a project we worked on for many many years and got very close to approval but didn't quite get there. Um kind of after that point in time I think all the elementary schools saw a large uptick in parents kind of asking them about full day kindergarten and and where it's heading and that kind of led to our

014uh first roundt discussion in June. Um and Sandra Mack and I have been on this journey for many many years. It's probably the first time we we saw real passion in the room. um not that people weren't passionate before, but we seem to kind of hit a breaking point where people really want us to figure it out. And I think at that time, um myself, Jason, and the elementary principles and other administrators kind of asked for a little bit of time to do some study. So, we we have done our work and and we're presenting it to you all. And I think, you know, we thank you for your patience. And you know, I think what we wanted to get done is really give a broad picture of enrollment, what it most likely will look

015like over the next five years, what that means for space, uh, and staffing, which is part of that, and and kind of loop everything back to kindergarten, which is something we've been talking about for a while now. Um, so Jason's going to drive the shift. This will be Alex. I can't see what he's doing. Hopefully he won't be making fun of me behind my head, but but we'll try and move on. So if we go to the second slide, >> say again. microphone. >> I'll pull my pull pull my mic closer. Thank you. Okay. Um, you know, there there the the main movements of of this report and it's 44 pages. Sorry it's so long. Um, we're going to go through our enrollment journey and kind of really understand why we see this big downward

016shift. Um, then what we're going to do is connect it to our space needs. Um, we're going to we're going to walk through the prior projects we see we have seen the community has seen and and kind of show how the immediate future will probably be different. Um, you know, one thing I will say upfront is we do believe in a high level of confidence, and this is myself, uh, Jason, and all the elementary school principles and and their admin teams, is we have the space right now to start full day kindergarten next year by 26 27 without modulars or the need for 60% voter approval for capital needs. So, that would be a big change from what we've been doing. Um, and when we go through this, we're going to show you when that

017statement will work and pay may not work if enrollment suddenly comes back up. And we'll talk we'll talk about our pay as we go model. Uh, moving forward, we're going to relate this all to staffing. At the same time, and really and really kind of tease it out a little bit and and just like last year's project, we believe we can save money in this process. Um, and we think it's an overall stronger financial process. Um, there are some investments we need to make. Um, you know, I think our building principles did an excellent job. They they they scoured every single inch of their buildings. Um, there's a small project we would have to do at Matthew Thornton that I think um is really beneficial. Um, we we have to invest in some furniture and

018some curriculum supplies. We'll go over that. And then there's also a a slightly larger project we would recommend for Matthew Thornton, too, because that that seems to be the hardest building in terms of space, in terms of enrollment, but also we have a lot of classrooms from the 1940s that aren't as big as a lot of the other classrooms there. So that's kind of where this is all heading. So if we go to the next slide, um where we were in 2022 was many years of predictable enrollment. For the nine years before that, we were pretty much getting 300 kids in every single class. You know, may maybe not everyone went to halfday kindergarten. Um but usually by first or second grade, we would see about 300 kids in a class. And it and it

019eb and flowed uh every year. And we were we were very used to it and it was very stable. Um, and that's that was the place we began kind of our journey on full day kindergarten after COVID when we were through that process and kind of ready to kind of tackle the full day kindergarten issue. So, we go to the next slide. Um, three summers ago, you know, what we had in our KTO 5 um space was 1745 kids. Um, if we would have had full day kindergarten in that year, we would have needed 87 classrooms to pull that off. Now, the problem with understanding our schools is that's 87 regular ed classrooms. There's a lot more that goes on in all of our buildings. You have special education programs. You have special classes like

020art, music, and PE. You have inter interventions in reading or or special education or guidance. You have office space. You have all these little things that happen in a building, too. So, it's always hard to kind of make it all work. So, if we would have wanted full day kindergarten three years ago, we would need 87 classrooms. And we didn't have them. Uh we didn't have that space at the time. and still at the time our our kindergarten is at Moose Hill. So what we realized is we would need about 10 more kindergarten classrooms um in that space to kind of pull it off and have space for art, music, library, and a cafeteria, gym, uh space. So we didn't have that space. Um I'll kind of go over the numbers in a little bit.

021Um you know, we had 72 general ed classrooms in Matthew Thornton North School and South School, and we had our our classrooms at at Moose Hill, too. Um, but we didn't have enough space to pull off full day kindergarten at the time. We're about 10 classrooms short. So, if you go to the next slide, you know, that led to the $34 million project um that that went to the voters. Um, you know, and and I think one of the big regrets I see is I wish somehow we would have gotten here sooner because I I knew that a similar size project back in 2017 or 18 was 9 10 11 12 million. Those are the initial quotes we were getting from from architects. So inflation was definitely not our friend in this process by by

022not being able to figure it out before co it definitely we paid a huge price. Um but um you know this this was the the expansion we needed at the time to kind of make it all work. Um and it's unfortunate it didn't get passed. So if we go to the next slide by the fall of 2023 when we were kind of building up to this project um we saw our first small class and it kind of came out of nowhere. That was kind of a surprise. Um, and I'll go over the numbers um, in a bit, but when it happened, we reached out to a group called NASDAQ and they do regional enrollment projections um, for for everyone in the Northeast. And we had them come study us and you know, my main question

023for them is, is this a blip or is this a pattern? Like what's going on? And their conclusion at the time was this is a blip. Um, because London area was very unusual with, you know, just a high housing turnover rate. And that what that means is new families would move in when old families move out. We had a pretty we had a pretty steady flow for many years and we were unique in the amount of new construction. So they were like this is a blip. Um you know I I would you know go with your normal uh predictions and and kind of go from there. So we went with them. So if you go to the next slide um there was that first small class. You know it was about a hundred kids smaller

024than what we're used to. Um and it it didn't slow us down from that larger $34 million project. It kind of meant we had a three to four classroom buffer um for the next five years. And that seemed like uh a right amount of buffer uh you know about seven or eight%. And um you know I think at the time too we assumed a lot more families would come back into the school system because they would be able to access full day kindergarten. Um so we were worried about growth. So, it seemed like, you know, at the time that that $34 million project w was the right move. So, if you go to the next slide on on page eight, uh, unfortunately, we did not get that 60% threshold. Um, that's what we need to

025finance and pass a bond and and use taxpayer money for for those needs. And we only got a 50% support for full day kindergarten and 50% 54% support to kind of expand Moose Hill for some of the preschool growth we had at the time, too. Um, so we weren't quite there. So you go to the next slide, Jason. U by last summer um you know we had begun this process again like okay um if you know $34 million um was was too much money. I think our main interpretation at the time was there's interest in full day kindergarten that was maybe too large of a price tag. Is is there a more costefficient way to do it? And by last summer uh we also saw another small class uh 209 kids come in. So definitely

026historically smaller um than what we've seen. We did see some some kids come into first grade from that other small class, but we were down um and we were still short of space. But at the same time though, we were still looking for for options for full day kindergarten. Um and you know, and you know what we kind of figured out at the time was um that there probably were other ways to do this. Um and so we go to the next slide, Jason. you know, what we were trying to get to was was there a way to kind of move full day kindergarten out of Moose Hill, potentially saving money and capitalizing on some of this, you know, extra space we kind of had. Um, and we we came up with a project that

027was basically building 85 general education classrooms in three schools, enough space for all of our special education programs, our specialist classes, the interventions, the office space, and it really was this multi-deade approach um to to to elementary schools. So, if you go to slide 11, Jason, um, you know, this was this was the project. was, you know, adding a couple different modular uh classrooms at each school to make sure we had the capacity to to to build for full day kindergarten as we saw it from last summer. Um, you know, where there were still a lot of 300k classes and two small two smaller classes in there too. If you go to the next slide, um, yet again uh we did not reach that 60% threshold. Very very close. it got to 58% was aboutund

028uh you know 30 kids sorry 130 votes short um and you know all of our capital costs and furniture needs were kind of in in that Warren article that did not pass. Um you know so I know a lot of families have asked us well what about this fall? So we we don't have the space and we don't have the funds for furniture to kind of start full day kindergarten right now. Um you know we're just not able to do it. I I I estimate right now we're about three classrooms short. We're really really close. Um, frustratingly close. Um, you know, and you you know, I think to to get to full day kindergarten, there's a lot of reorganization that needs to happen within staff and that's a big process. It's not something you can

029pull off in July. I know we've had a lot of people kind of ask us, can you do this by the fall? And I know there's a couple of teachers in in the room and I asked them in our last round table, what would you do if I sent an email, we're starting full day kindergarten in in uh in in the fall. And I think they would not feel ready. it's it's not enough time to kind of get ready in a few short period of time. And I think the other roadblock we kind of run into at least for this fall is uh Jason was doing a lot of work on the master schedule, the curriculum planning, the staff reorganization, that all paused when when the vote was not positive. You know, so none of

030that work has continued. Um and you know, I think you know, politically, uh when you know, the the term no means no is said a lot. If the voters vote it down, you're not allowed to do it. Um, you know, so I think those are all the things that were the roadblocks for this fall. Um, but if you go to the next slide, make sure I'm on the right one. Yep, I'm on the right one. Okay, here's where we are this summer. Um, so we have a third really small class and this class is even smaller than what we've seen the last two years. So this there's this there's this pattern of rapidly declining enrollment we're seeing. So our current second grade is about a quarter smaller than what we've seen in the past. Our

031current first grade is about a quarter smaller than we've seen in the past. And now our incoming kindergarten class is 40% smaller. Those are huge changes um you know we've tried to adapt to them but you know as best we can but these are really a really big swing in a short period of time. Um and I know in some of the round table discussions a lot of the parents were asking well how did all the other school districts get the full day kindergarten? They just had the space. Um you know I even look at Bedford. Bedford just went through the process put it on a warrant article got it passed. they had the space in their schools to do it. They just had to kind of change staff around. Um we were not so

032lucky before COVID and even after COVID to kind of have that space. But I do think things are changing. If we go to the next slide, um you know, again, here's three small classes in a row. Um and you know, even though, you know, our our um our enrollment is down, I think it is providing us um you know, a clear pathway to pursue full day kindergarten. Um, I think what we have now is a pattern of smaller enrollment. We can see it. It's clear it's three years in a row. Um, I'd much rather be part of a school system where where the problem is enrollments going up rather than enrollments going down because it's always a scary thing to have to kind of deal with. But, um, we we're we're prepared for it and

033we can kind of work with it. And if you go to the next slide, I think what these three small classes have done for us is basically provided us a path to pursue full day kindergarten. um without that 60% threshold because we don't need to worry about building classrooms to get there. Um and we didn't have that opportunity in 2022 or 23 or 24 or even this or even this summer, but it will present to us uh by next year. So, you know, for us to be ready to to start full day kindergarten, the space needs to be clear, the staff needs to be clear, we need to have the furniture, we need to have the supplies. Um, so you know, kind of the rest of this presentation is to say we will be ready

034for that one year from now. Um, and that's how we can be organized for full day kindergarten. So if you go to the next slide, Jason, I threw this in. This wasn't in the board packet, but I threw this in and I can update on the website. I think we get a lot of questions. Why is enrollment declining so rapidly? I think it's a whole host of factors kind of working together. I think summer economic high cost of housing um high interest rates and low housing availability which jacks up the cost of houses. You know, when we're talking about a start a starter home costing 7 $800,000, that's a big that's a big purchase that was very different from even five years ago or 10 years ago. So, it's harder for younger families maybe to

035be to be moving into that to that dynamic. Then you throw the you know the demographic factors. We still have an aging population. We're starting to see lower birth rates. I think it's hard for young families to move in and hard for older families to move out. I have some wonderful empty nesters or soon to be empty nesters not too far from me that have not sold their homes yet in London area um to to replenish it with younger families and that's okay because I think in the past it was easy to kind of cash out on your home, find something cheaper at a lower interest rate. That world doesn't seem to be around us right now. So I think you have all these factors um that are kind of playing each other. I think

036the economic and demographic are the biggest, but there's also us. Um we we lack full day kindergarten. You can go to Hudson. You can go to Derry. You can go to Bedford. You can go to Windham. You can get full day kindergarten. All of our neighbors. Um you know, it's it's us and Gtown and uh that are they're basically left. Um I think we've done tremendous work in the last couple years to really move our public facing numbers. I think when the US News and World Report comes out, we're going to look great. we weren't always there um in some of those things and and I think our school district's doing great work, but I think when when when we compare to some of our our neighbors, I think people might choose them over us,

037but I think we're we're doing great now. And obviously, school choice options are are more relevant uh right now. So, I think all those things together are really making the enrollment go down and and it's actually increasing in its speed, which is quite scary to watch. Um so, if we go to the next slide, number 17. Um I think you know what we're seeing is if we look to next year um we don't expect to get a sudden influx of kids um back to this 300 uh number level. Um I think it's a more legitimate uh space for us to say that we're going to be back in these lower enrollments. So if we have about 216 kids and I'll go into excruciating detail in a little bit about how much that can rise. Um,

038basically because a year from now we'll be graduating 306 fifth graders, having 216 kindergarteners come in, that frees up about four classrooms. There's your simple math. How do we get the space for full day kindergarten? Um, and and and that's I think where we're heading. So, if we kind of go to the next slide. Um, you know, this is the chart that kind of summed it up for me. Um again, back in the summer of 2022, we had 1745 kids um in our K to5 classrooms. One year from now, we'll probably have uh 1474. That is a huge decline in a short period of time. Um and it's even a big decline from last summer where we had 6610 kids. So, you know, last year's project um we we needed 85 classrooms and with modulars

039in three schools to kind of pull this off. I think by this time next summer, we'll have about 140 less kids. So, that's about seven less classrooms. So, that's a big change in in a big period of time. That's opening up a lot of space. Um, and I and I do think we can uh fit full day kindergarten within the three elementary schools. Um, you know, kind of honoring last year's project and plan. And we're not going to overload North, South, or Matthew Thornton in this process. We're really just replacing kids we've lost over time. And I'll kind of go into a lot of detail in a little bit. Um, so if we go back to if you go to slide number 19, I think the main question is, do we have space for full

040day kindergarten? And I think with three years of incoming small classes, we will be able to have the space to fit it in uh by 2627. We can definitely handle growth in this process, and I'll go over that in a little bit. Um, there doesn't uh seem to be a need to to bring a capital project to the voters that would require a 60% majority at this time. Could there be points in the future where that happens? Yes, I think there could be. There could always be that. there could always be that um in that in our future or any future if you see increasing enrollment. Um I think Abby and Scott and Lisa did a wonderful job at Matthew Thoron to really look at the space and kind of really figure out um how

041to how to how to bring this project forward. Um and we'll go over that in a little bit. But there's there's a few uh walls we need to take down that are all sheetrock that are easy to do that Joe and his building grounds team can kind of take on and that would that would get us one more classroom and and make sure we have enough uh space also for also our intervention programs. But in a little bit I'll kind of go over too there there is I mean one of the problems with Matthew Thoron is you have this 1940s wing where the classrooms are not 900 square feet they're like 660. I think it would be really smart for us to combine some of those 660 foot classrooms to make two modern uh 900

042foot classrooms to have more space in that building. And you'll kind of see why in a little bit. So I think we do have the space uh by this time next fall. So if you go to the next slide, um I'm going to go over a lot of enrollment projections um in kind of the upcoming part of the the uh presentation. And we built out multiple scenarios for each school because we really want we really wanted to know like okay if we know we can start in 26 27 what could the future be like? Where would we have problems? Where would we would not have problems? So we're trying to build out a lot of different scenarios. And you know the good thing is uh we we know a lot of the kids right now.

043Um so when we look at the kids entering this fall we know 100% of them. We know them right now. Even two years out, we know about twothirds of our kids where we would only be projecting K and one, but we already we know what's in second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade from what we know right now because pretty much year after year, um once they enter the school system, we don't see this dramatic change from each grade level. Um about the same number of kids that that uh join us in first grade or they're in fifth grade or they're in eighth grade or there in 12th grade. When you get farther out, obviously you you have less known, but even by 2030, we still know onethird of our kids. So, we're

044pretty confident um in our projections and and and and thinking through our space needs kind of in this model. And I think for one year out, we know 84% of them. So, we feel pretty good uh to to confidently say we know we have the space. And you know what what the principles did with excruciating detail, it took us about six to eight weeks to figure this all out is, you know, they mapped out their buildings for the general education classrooms. They mapped out their buildings for specials, that's art, um STEM, music, library, and gym. um obviously looking at all of our special education programs, our special education case manager needs and a lot of the intervention services. Those are the things uh they have to really have to plan out well for to kind

045of make sure this all works. So if you go to the next slide, this is definitely the busiest uh busiest slide uh there is. Um but what we know right now is we know that Nor school can handle 25 uh general education classrooms and art and music and PE and all those other things I just talked about. Um, you know, I think what we found from from Nor School is when we built it, we didn't build a lot of small group spaces. So, a lot of times in Nor school, small group spaces eat up whole classrooms. That's where we become a little bit less efficient. But, but, um, we're pretty confident or we're very confident that we know we have space for 25 uh classrooms. South School's a little bit different. Um, we have space

046for 24 classrooms and, uh, all of our special ed classrooms together. Um, you know, I think what we're seeing is a big growth in our friends program. So, a lot of our projection accounted for that. Uh, moving forward and making sure we have enough space for all the small group needs, too. Um, at Matthew Thoron, we have space for 29 uh general education classrooms. Um, so the total is 78. So, when you when people ask how much space do you need for um, you know, to run full day kindergarten? um in in our three schools, we would need space for 78 or less. Um but again, I I think there's a way where we can maximize space a little bit better, maybe use our capital reserves, maybe use surplus set aides. Um we'll have the

047cost next month to kind of reconfigure a little bit of that 1940s wing so we can get two more classrooms out of it because as you'll see, uh Matthew Thornton will still have the the kind of the tightest space moving forward. Underneath this is kind of all of our current classes where they at are they at right now from first through fifth grade. And then this is the model we kind of built. We kind of took the kids we had and we kept moving them a year forward and we started building models around the smaller class enrollment 210, 200, 220, not this 300 anymore, you know. So, so most likely, uh, you know, what we're going to see for for classes at Nor School in the future is about 72 kids with each each incoming

048group. Um, at each elementary school for kindergarten purposes, we can only have 18 kids in a class because it's a 900 square foot classroom. You can't go above it. So, we're projecting, you know, each year from now on, most likely about four four classrooms of kids at North School. Um, South School is seeing um a little bit more rapid uh declining enrollment. Um and um you know next year's first grade could be even smaller than we've seen where they might only have 51 kids. That that's a that's a big change for South School and we're obviously keeping an eye on that. So you know we're projecting I think moving forward forward probably three three classes of uh of kids at South School. And for Matthew Thoron we you know we spent the last couple years

049getting about 80 new kids each year. So we we kind of built a model around 90 that that five five classrooms of um of kindergarten. So if you put that all together um you know we would need 75 general ed classrooms and again we have 78. So I think we'll have the space and we'll have a buffer of two to three classrooms um within within the schools in general. So if you go to the next slide which is 22 um this is north school with a lot of detail. Um, so what we built out was, again, I think the most likely scenario and what we teased out as a group was most likely North School will see these four new classes every year, about 18 kids in a class. You know, if if if that

050holds true, um, we're never we're never going to get above that 25 threshold. So, we we should have space in Nor school for the rest of the decade. If Nor school suddenly had a big 25% jump in enrollment, that's again a huge jump from from where we've been the last couple years. um you know we would be at that 25 threshold um probably in that first year and that second year and maybe go maybe go above it in in that um by 2829 or 2930 but again that's a huge jump that's a 25% jump in enrollment we have not seen that type of growth um so that would be something that's very big we think that's very unlikely um and I think you know if if that does come to be it doesn't mean that

051school suddenly stops and you can't do anything it means you have to get really creative with how you use your specials and maybe you start rotating your specials in some way and it's something that Nor school has done in the past and you know Paul's the best to talk about it. Um if you look to the right um what you can see is you know back in 2018 we had you know 480 490 almost 500 kids in North school for for a considerable period of time and again that was at very consistent stable enrollment. Boom. Then we fell off the cliff. So if you look at the end of that chart, even if we bring full day kindergarten back into the nor school, they're not even as high as they used to be, you know.

052So again, we're we're not overloading the buildings, we're just replacing the kids that were not there. Um and you know, and and I think, you know, we work closely with all the schools. We kind of figured out, you know, the point where we have to consider modulars. So Nor school would probably we probably need to start talking about a modular. If we had uh 512 kids come at us, you know, that would be about 50 more um than the projection we have for 2627. That doesn't seem likely, but then we kind of know our threshold of when things uh we'd have to consider modulars. If you go to South School, it's the next page on 23 again. So, we kind of played out a couple different scenarios. So, you know, we think South School is

053going to see three three groups of classes every year from now on if that were the case. um we're not going to come anywhere near their their their threshold uh for the next decade. Uh they probably will drop a little bit because they have a bunch of bigger classes in fourth and fifth grade. Uh even if they had a 33% jump in enrollment, what does not seem very likely right now um to have 90 kids in a class um or or even, you know, somewhere near it, um we would still not hit their threshold. Um so so SAS school definitely has the most space and that also accounts for all the growth we've seen in the friends program over the last couple years, too. Um, so if you look at the chart on the right,

054kind of the the line graph again, South School used to have about 480 kids in it and then it took a dip and it rose again and then we've seen big drops the last couple years and even if we added full day kindergarten in the South School, we'd only be probably around 413 kids. So South School does have the space. Um, we we we wouldn't be overloading it. Um, but if we if we did get back up to that 480 level, that's where we'd have to consider uh modulars for South School. If you go to the next slide, number 24. I know there's a lot of detail. I can see glassy eyes out in front of me, but we'll get there. We'll get there for questions. Uh, Matthew Thornton's the most complicated and kind there's

055there's a couple different moving parts here. Uh, but I draw two thresholds. So again, right now, um I think the admin team did a wonderful job finding an additional classroom uh within their plan uh for for minor construction and I applaud them for it. Um but you know, most likely, you know, I mean, enrollments come down to Matthew Thornon, but not as much as as the other two. But if if we're building a school around 90 kids coming every year or five sections, we'll probably be right at that threshold for 26 27 27 28 and we'll probably dip below it. Um if for sudden you know they got a big jump in enrollment again you know back up to six you know basically six six grade or six classrooms per grade um we would be

056above that threshold uh and we would probably have to start talking about modulars for that building around 2728 or 2829 or you know what I think what we're recommending is you know let's look more closely at that 1940s wing and see if we can't more efficiently um use some of our space there uh to build uh fullsize modern 900 square foot classrooms. Clearly, there was a there was a point in time where we were putting full classrooms of kids in here when we had a thousand kids in that building. Um, I'm not comfortable putting, you know, 22 to 20 kids in a 600 foot classroom at this point in time. I know it probably happened in the past, but I I would definitely not recommend it. Um, so if you go to the next slide,

057you know, so we would need to see, you know, again, kind of a big jump in enrollment to not fit in Matthew Thoron. Um, like that 27% jump to get to 108 kids. It doesn't seem very likely from the last three years a very small enrollment that we've seen, but that's where we know we'd have to kind of discuss modulars. Um, and then on the right hand side is that line graph, you know, so, you know, for a number of years, Matthew Thornon kind of hover between 540 or even down to 500 kids, but it's up to come back up again. If full day kindergarten is kind of approved and we make it happen for next year, they would go up to 580. Um, but again, we have room for that at the building. I

058think we'd have to consider a modular in that building around 615 kids. So, we still have room for about 30 to 40 kids within that. And I I wouldn't expect you to get that many more kids for kindergarten and first grade, but that that's that would be we have to kind of keep an eye on. And again, I think investing in the 1940s swing is the right way to go there. So, if we go to the next slide, kind of have a quick quick summary. So we can fit fully kindergarten in our three schools uh elementary schools north south and Matthew Thordon by 26 27 um these three small classes in a row have provided this opportunity um you know and obviously discreet decreased our space needs so we're down about 12 classrooms since we

059began this process three summers ago. So again that's a big change and that's why we're able to say this and it's obviously different than what we were looking at in the past. Um, you know, we have to invest in minor construction in Matthew Thornton and potentially slightly larger, I think, to make more classrooms if we wanted to. And again, I think, you know, if you look at the numbers, uh, for Nor school not to fit, we need to have like 108 more kids than what we're projecting right now. That's a big 25% jump. I don't think a big 25% jump is coming. To not fit in South School, we need we need to have 148 more kids than we have right now. That's a 33% jump. I don't think those numbers are coming based on

060the demographics and the economics and all the things I talked about. For Matthew Thorn, it's a little bit different. It's an 8% job. We're 54 kids above, you know, the projected enrollment for for 26. So again, that's why I think we should invest in that 1940s project and kind of look at that more closely later in the year. Um, so that's those three schools. We go to the next slide. Um, what does this mean for Mooseel? So this this means Moose Hill is a is a is a preschool only. Um you know moving full day kindergarten to three elementary schools would leave the preschool at Moose Hill. Um I think one financial benefit of this is we have these leases of these two portables we put there seven years ago, eight years ago. It was

061a while now and it was supposed to be temporary. That's $44,000. That company has not been good to work with. They will not let us buy them. They're continually trying to raise the price on that lease. Um, you know, so, um, I think it's good to get rid of that lease and save that $44,000. Um, our preschool would probably take up about 12 classrooms of the 16 that are left. And that's for preschool classrooms, special education programs, related services. And, you know, when we when we began this process in 22, you know, when we walked around Mous Hill, we talked a lot about the closets that have become speech therapy or all the things that are kind of moved into the hallway. So, that would have that would end, which is great. Um, we don't

062want classrooms and closets. We don't want all the things that we're kind of doing now to make Moose Hill work. Um, you know, so we'd have about four classrooms um that obviously could be mothalled or use it swing space if we ever see, you know, large swings of enrollment we're not ready for. So, it's good to have that swing space. Um, you know, the the the district office is a separate conversation now. Um but you know um one thing we're losing now in the district office if it goes to the center of town is we we have a a professional development space we use throughout the year we could consider that in Moose Hill and I think you know just some brainstorming at the district office level is um you know our our Moose Hill

063team does amazing work I am sure lots of preschools would love to send their kids to us that have special needs that could be a tuition based thing for us I think we would do excellent work there um you know I think we also talked about is is there any appetite in town to to build childcare options for our staff there within a preschool? I don't know. You know, I mean, those are things we can probably talk about if we have some space there. Should we go to the next slide? This is very complicated stuff and I and I think, you know, I was trying to make this as simple as possible and I'm probably not doing a very good job of that. Um, but I think you know the the the summary for me

064is if you look back at the summer of 2022 when we began this process, we had 270 more kids. That's as bad as how many kindergarteners we serve in Musil at least four or five years ago. Now it's down to 200. So what what I'm basically saying is we don't have the need to use that space for 270 kids. We have lost that many children uh in this process. And it's sad uh you know we we don't want to be in this place but we no longer have the need to have our K through five system in four schools um with this big drop in enrollment and it's big big um and that's a sad fact but that's kind of where we're heading and I think we have to be smart. If enrollment comes back

065up great I would love to have that problem. That's a that's that's a much better problem to have than looking at declining enrollment. Um the next slide if we go to it um you know we've had some questions along the way at the round tables. What do parents really think? We've consistently um surveyed the community. We did this back in like 2017 and 18. We did it back in the summer of time and again. Uh what what what most community members and families tell us is just find a way to find full day kindergarten. That's at Orange. Um where it's at. I'll work with it. I'll work with you guys. We just need to have it. Um and I and I know there's a contingent in town that that loves Moose Hill. We all love

066Mousel. Like I'm sad thinking about not being zero the hero. I love going there every year and jumping around in a cape for the 5-year-olds and it makes me sad not to think about going there. But I also see, you know, the benefits of full day kindergarten and and unfortunately, you know, declining enrollments has got us to this place and we can capitalize on it and we can move ahead without having to ask for that 60% vote. And I know there is a contingent about, you know, 13% or 15% or 20% that really love Moose and we all love Mousill, but I think we've lost too many kids uh in the last couple years. So you go to the last slide. Um I know this kind of came up at our last round table. What

067about class size? So everything we've teased out is we're keeping class size as is right now in general. It's not it's not every single classroom, but but nearly all of our K to5 classroom is somewhere between 18 to 22 kids. Some in first and second grade and maybe kindergarten or below that. Um we did have a big bubble in second grade in one of our buildings. We corrected for that in in the budget process um this year. So we don't we're not above 22, but in general we're in 18 to 22 kids. All of our models that we just presented are between 18 and 22 kids. So we're not changing class size. We're not raising class size. Um obviously that was one way we could have achieved full day kindergarten, but I wouldn't want to

068stress out our system or stress out our teachers or stress out the things that kind of go on to to kind of achieve that. So we can make this change and and basically maintain normal class size in this process and get 103 days of more of more school for our 5-year-olds. That's huge. a huge boost to our system. We're always playing catch-up in first and second grade always. It is such a hard job anyway. Um so to be able to give them that additional time seems to be a huge benefit while keeping class size as is. Um so that's the that's the big stuff on enrollment and space and then I'll try and round it out on staffing, furniture, and curriculum supplies next on the next slide. So those are the hardest hurdles to clear.

069It looks like we've cleared them, but there's a couple smaller ones along the way, too. Um, so staffing, what does this mean for staffing? Um, in general, I think we have enough staff to pull this off by the 2627 school year. I'll give you some figures. They're they're rough. They have not gone through the whole budget process. The whole budget process is a wonderful three months of all of our lives in this room where you go through a lot of detail, but we've teased that enough with a lot of confidence. But in general, we're graduating these these classes of kids that are, you know, 300 in fourth and fifth grade and bringing in 200 will have the staff to be able to start full day kindergarten because these these bigger grades are graduating and we're

070bringing in um, you know, smaller classes. So, you know, I think what we need right now is 75 K to five classroom teachers to pull off full day kindergarten. And I think we have them uh within our within our needs right now. there's a reorganization we have to go through, but we have the staff to do this and we we can tease it out throughout the budget process. So, that's like the high level. Um, if you go to the next slide, I think one thing that that kind of surprised us in this process is we weren't trying to save money. Uh, we were mostly looking at um how can we find the space uh to pull off full day kindergarten. But I think one thing we realized is um moving from four schools to three

071schools is we're going to condense overall in staff and probably save money in this process which is why it will be cheaper to to do this. Um and it's mostly because when you go from four to three schools we already have specials teachers in art, music and etc at Matthew Thornton North School and South School. We already have special education teachers and programs. We already have related services and other support staff. So there's this natural condensing that's going to happen that would actually save money in this process. Um and you know we're and again we're just simply refilling uh the students at North and South School and increasing Matthew Thornton by a little bit. So there'll be this reorganization that happens without this huge expansion of staff. Um so um and you know and we

072will get we will get to lower costs and that was not one of our goals. Um but it is something we kind of realized along the way. So we go to the next slide. Um, you know, so again, I think what this would what this would require is we're, you know, we're shifting five kindergarten teachers from Moose Hill into the elementary schools and then we're probably shifting other teachers around to to teach full day kindergarten. Um, I think there's some excellent first and second grade teachers that that would probably relish that opportunity and we find a way to make it work. Um, you know, we would have an instructional assistant in every one of those kindergarten classes like we have at Moose Hill right now. Um, I think we would probably need to increase the

073part-time staff at Matthew Thornton for that are teaching specials because our our specialist teachers are based on teaching 25 sections. If we're at 29, we'll probably need a little bit more. Um, so we would use the budget process to kind of fill figure that out. Um, and and again, you know, we have the staff for allied health, special ed, and and and the support staff at the buildings that kind of take this on. Um, our goal is to is to not have a reduction in force. that that's not why we we started this process or kind of went through it. But I think we can capitalize on natural attrition and and people retiring uh to be able to have this larger reorganization of staff still save money and still and still have full day kindergarten.

074So that'll be a big process that we can definitely take on. We would use the budget process to to figure that out and look at all the different moving pieces. Um but that's what we're looking at right now. So we go to the next slide. Um, you know, I think our estimation, and again, this is not a budget ready number. This is not a finalized thing, we would probably we would probably save about $400,000 in staff. And that's just moving from four to three schools. Um, and we would, again, we're not we're not seeking any reduction in force. We're just kind of shrinking around lower enrollment and kind of adjusting staff to that. And we would find those natural retirements and and you know, natural attrition to kind of get to that level. um you

075know if in the budget process the enrollment goes up or down we can change that number and and obviously we would be able to review it more closely from September, October and November to to really nail a solid number. We have not looked at power professional staff. That's a whole separate um analysis we have to do. Um I think we want to get the school year started, figure out how many par professional staff we have in our buildings, but again enrollment is down so we're not seeing the need to having to add uh par profofessional staff in this process. So again, even though we're adding full day kindergarten, we still think we had smaller staff costs in the end. Okay, next slide. And again, this was not one of our goals. It's just one of

076the things we kind of discovered along the way as we were really teasing out all the details. Um you know and I think one thing I would share is you know last year within the process of of searching um you know for the the right way to move forward I did propose a model where we kept full day kindergarten at Matthew Thoron um you know in that process what we found is it's actually we would save more money if if we shifted the three schools than than kept that model. I think we would save about $400,000 moving to three schools but if we kept full day kindergarten and Matthew Thornton we would only save about 150. So I think that that was definitely another factor in me for realizing, you know, why we should continue

077down the path of last year's project and make sure we have a viable way to um to move forward on full day kindergarten. More financial stuff. We go to the next slide. Um state aid. Um what we learned last year is we'd actually get a hefty chunk of state aid from from New Hampshire for having a full day kindergarten program. We leave a lot of money on the table right now by not having it. uh we would gain about $2,100 a kid. So we would we would we would gain about $460 grand in additional uh revenue for for each budget year that that we have full day kindergarten. And we also learned from last year's process we'd save about $280,000 on midday bus runs. Those are two huge savings by pursuing full day kindergarten even

078before we get to the staff savings. Next slide. Um these are all the details. I mean they seem more minor in the end but we want to make sure we do our due diligence. Um, we don't have the budget for kindergarten classrooms. School furniture is really expensive. I don't know if the general public actually knows that because it has to be durable. It has to be fireproof. It has to kind of meet code and it has to last for a long time. And kindergarten stuff is actually very specialized. Um, so we're probably about five classrooms or $150,000 short in in that kindergarten uh classroom right now. So, we need to budget for that. Um, and you know, we could use the budget process for that. Um, we're also short on curriculum supplies. We've been we've

079been carrying out a half day kindergarten program for years. Um we've never fully invested in that full day program. So there probably is about $50,000 in curriculum costs that we would have to budget for in this process. We can we can refine that in the budget season. We go to 39. Uh you know I think what we're kind of seeing is there are some costs uh furniture curriculum suppor um and we'll know those numbers by September. But between the midday bus runs of saving $283,000 um saving on the modular at at Moose Hill staff savings and increased state aid, you know, we're we're probably almost a million dollars in in the good for for pursuing this. So to get full day kindergarten and to have that benefit the taxpayers, I I would hope uh we

080can kind of rally behind behind that. Again, u you know, these are not budget ready numbers. These are all estimates. I mean, we we studied it pretty well, but we would have the budget season to kind of get into the details. If you go to the next slide, um, you know, again, there was a financial strength to last year's plan. Um, somehow that didn't land on all voters. I mean, I'm I'm hoping, um, you know, we can we we do a better job of communicating and making it clear that this actually saved us money. There's a big financial benefit in the end while getting something that's a huge huge benefit for our 5-year-olds and all those first grade teachers and second grade teachers right after them. Um, so if you go to the next slide,

081if you look at kind of the timeline of everything, you know, we're still in the summer, even though all the administrators in the room feel the pitterpatter of school coming back to us in a few weeks. Um, you know, we have time to to kind of build this into uh the operating budget. Um, and you know, we present our operating budget on November 25th. So if we pursue this route, we would have all the details figured out by November 25th, which is about three months from now. And um we could also do this in a in a separate majority warrant article. So this would not be one of the warrant articles where you need 60% support. You just need 50.1%. Um it'd be a weird warrant article because you basically be saying um do you

082want full day kindergarten to save money. I don't know who would vote against that, but you know, people could vote against that. I mean, people vote against our federal grants every year. It's about 10 to 15% of the of the public. Um um but either way, you know, what we're seeing is low lower overall costs on staff savings, midday bus runs, and that pre-state aid. Um and obviously, you know, this is this is something that would be still part of our long budget process every year that starts in November and concludes in March uh with that town vote. Um but uh from what we're seeing right now is we don't think we need to pursue that that capital project path. Uh if you go to the next slide, uh in terms of the program, uh

083again, Jason had done a lot of work last year to kind of set up getting the full day kindergarten. So I think we just kind of reignite the fires there. There's already a lot of work that's been done, but we have to kind of commit to it again. Um you know, we'd have to develop master schedules um in each of the buildings to to pull this off. That that is actually, you know, there's a lot of work to to be done there and we'd have to transition the curriculum to full day. Um and you know having a whole year to do that gives us a lot of time. Every year there's a number of teachers that they might be a fourth grade teacher and in April they're told they're going to be a second grade

084teacher. So they have a few months to plan. This is this is 10 12 uh you know 10 12 months to kind of get ready. So I think we have plenty of time to kind of get there to make sure we have our we have our master schedules. Um we have our our full day curriculum ready to go. Uh and then I think the last moving piece is kind of the reorganization. So I think you know reorganizing staff is something we would take on in the administrative budget. Um we kind of really need to think through what are all of our student needs and kind of match the staff to that. And through that process we would know generally how many people might need to move around within all four schools uh to kind of

085make this all work. Um, and then I think once we figure that out, we would want to partner with staff and really think through what's their best long-term fit. Where do they want to be? Uh, what do they want to be doing? Is it a grade level? Is a school, you know, what's more important? But, you know, there'll be a lot of moving pieces. And we've we've actually seen that already because with some of this declining enrollment, staff are starting to move grade levels to kind of be ready for it. So, uh, those are all the moving pieces. There's a lot there. I know there's a ton there. I'll stop and see if there are questions, comments, other information. I know Jason worked on the uh the agenda. How did you how did you view

086the next segment here? >> How did you how did you view the next segment here after I'm done speaking? >> So, I just thought that if we received um community input and if the administration can't answer questions tonight, we certainly will, but where the board is is looking at this for the first time along with the rest of the community. Um they're not prepared to to have answers tonight. uh in the future we certainly will have a work work session where there'll be a lot more dialogue and a lot more back and forth um and hopefully a lot more answers as we move forward. I hope I so yeah what I'd like to do is invite anyone up that has some questions. >> Okay, I do have a question. Um currently there's a lot of

087space at North School, correct? >> Uh uh maybe >> we have space, right? Do we still have a um modula there? >> Yes. >> Are we renting that? >> No, we purchased it. >> Okay. If there is space there, >> so now we own it, so it really doesn't matter. Okay. >> Y >> um LEAP. >> Yes. >> Where our declining enrollment is happening all over the place and it's not just London. Um is LEAP declining in enrollment also or is that increasing? >> The best person to answer that question is right there. Yeah. >> Hi, Kim. >> Hi. So, we are actually not declining. We are actually at our highest numbers um since I started taking data. Um because Dan likes a lot of data, I added another data point to see where those

088kids are coming from. And the majority are coming from early supports and services. So, their children already identified with delays. And that's kind of what started this years ago is the growth in LEAP was just pushing everything on on Moose Hill and you know we were putting classrooms in closets and all these other things we had to do. Um so that that's kind of how we got here too and that has not changed. >> And I'll also say our children with more intensive needs have also increased. Um children on the autism spectrum, children with medical medical needs have greatly increased over the past couple years. Can you just speak to the early supports and services and how that process works because this comes up every time and I think the majority of the public doesn't

089know how that works when kids are identified before they're three and that's federally mandated and all of that stuff. Do you mind just reviewing that? >> Sure. So, um up to nine months prior to their third birthday, uh we might get a a referral from the early supports and service team. We then meet with the families. We talk about a transition plan which usually involves our evaluating the children, determine if they're eligible for special education in the public school. Um within um by their third birthday, we have to have a signed IEP in place. So um pretty much we have a very strong relationship with early supports and services. In fact, it was one of our saving graces during COVID. We were able to work closely with those team members to continue our evaluation process

090because our evaluation process did not stop because of the pandemic. So again, we have very strong relationships with our early supports and service team. >> Thank you. I think sometimes we hear like preschool and it seems like we're like looking for students. So I just wanted you to highlight that they're coming. >> I know I often say, you know, I'm not out there with an ice cream fan, you know, hunting down kids. We have we we just happen to have a very good program in the London School District and a lot of families do move here because of our strong our strong programming. >> Thank you. >> I have one other just comment. Um these numbers look great. My taxes are going to be better than they are now, I guess, but who knows? Um,

091I'm still not an advocate for splitting up Musil. I still would like to see Musil stay together. Um, just from seeing all this for the first time. Also, it looks like we need 10 classrooms to do full day K 26 27 if I'm correct. >> No. Um, I think what I was trying to say is back in 2022, we needed to add 10, >> but our but our numbers have shrunk so much since then, we don't need to add any. >> We only need to add eight. >> We don't need to add any in terms of physical space. >> Right. Yeah. >> But what I'm saying is right now we have, as far as I know, still six kindergarten classrooms. >> Yep. >> So if we had full day, we would need 12 kindergarten classrooms.

092>> 11 or 12 probably. >> Okay. So, come this projected enrollment for full day K, >> how many classrooms are we going to need for kindergarten? Are we down to 10? >> It depends what comes in. Um, you know, I what we tried to build was as conservative as possible. Probably 11, maybe 12 at most, but somewhere in that 10 to 12 range. >> Okay. So, right now, Moose Hill has eight classrooms. >> Six. Kindergarten. >> Six. You're right. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, this takes a lot of digesting. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Hi. Sorry. Um, I do have a few questions. So, in the paperwork, you said that obviously as she just mentioned, you have six current kindergarten classrooms. That's for the incoming 25 26 year, correct? I don't know if I'm wrong.

093I want to say at the kindergarten info night, we were told there were going to be roughly seven. >> So, did we get a drop in enrollment already? Okay. >> Yeah. So, last year, again, I think when we were budgeting, I mean, we were we were still assuming maybe we would get 240 kids. >> Okay. >> That did not happen. So, now we're down to 180. So, that's why we have six. >> All right. So, we have six currently. Um, but you're saying we're only going to make five classrooms across the three schools. >> Nope. We would probably make 10 or 11, maybe 12. And so, you know, I think I got to find an easy way to explain this. There'll be a reorganization. >> So, there might be some first grade teachers that now

094become kindergarten teachers. There might be some third grade teachers that become kindergarten teachers that kind of make this all work uh within this because again, these big classes are graduating in fifth grade. So, we'll have access. >> Correct. Because part of what you're saying is you're going to have the Where is it? The influx in the 2100 per student for the full date kindergarten increase, but technically you're going to be losing the per 321 graduating class. So, you wouldn't really have that influx really. We would just not be losing as much. >> Yeah, that's another way to look at it because our 12th graders once they graduate, we no longer have. >> Correct. cuz I want to say it was >> $674,000 that we get from the 12th grade. >> Sure. >> So technically we're

095losing that money. >> Um >> my question is is as Kim mentioned, we have the largest leap, so early education program enrollment. Um, but we're saying that the paras are not part of the cost in all of this, but the paras are what are needed for all of those early education program students. >> Yep. So, we we didn't change any parent professionals kind of in our in our model now. >> Okay. Um, but we're also saying that we're not going to have any too much of a shift in staff, but if we are having more of them historically, at least right now by the enrollment, are we going to need more of them? So we're going to need more for costs for those >> staff members as well. >> We don't know that we that

096that's something we would kind of tease out in the budget process because we got to kind of see all the needs. I mean, so Miss Carpon who who runs student services, every year her and her team kind of do this very big process to figure out how many par professionals we need. We haven't done that yet. >> So that would be dictated by the IEPs. So that's a recommendation based on the student needs. Correct. Every year when we do the budget that like that those IEP needs are going to be reviewed in that annual budget as opposed to as a part of a project. Is that what you're trying to say? >> Yeah, it's it's kind of separate from this process. >> No, I do understand that. My son, for example, is on an IEP.

097We have two kids who are autistic. Um, but the point is when do you do that separate budgeting then for those pair of professionals because essentially it would impact some of this >> September through November. So already when the school's starting >> because you're projecting for next year for next year. Yeah. We we have the pair professionals we need right now for this year. We use the budget process to figure out the following year. >> So just to clarify that number wouldn't be a part of that budget because that's an individual student need. Right. This this would be kindergarten and then that would be the student service budget. >> Yeah. again like it's all one big budget, >> right? >> You know, this this is a separate piece of it. >> We wouldn't be voting

098on like Paris support in the budget. That would be a student service. So, that would be teased out not in a on an article. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Can I just remind everybody say your name and address too please before you start. >> Hi, I'm Caitlyn 113 WY Hill Road in Monary. >> Thank you. >> So, I have two questions. So, we're talking about saving all this money um in all different ways, but I'm concerned about the kids that aren't getting their needs met at LEA. So, we're already at the highest capacity numbers that we're seeing, but we're still not supporting all of the children in town that do need services at this time. With all this money saved, can we use it to give more students services that

099aren't receiving them? So my son um he has multiple diagnosises but he has an IQ of 124 out of 130. He is not educationally deficit. Kim Carpioni told me to my face it is my job as his mother to get my child private services. He needs minimal supports. That was wrong and it was something that will always stick with me that she said that. But for somebody that has a background in early childhood, if we're getting these kids the services that we need early, as they get older, they're not going to need as many services because they've already received things to help them cope. Is that something that's going to be into play? Are we going to spend more in the LEAP programming getting kids things that just because they're not educationally deficit doesn't mean

100they're not deficit in other areas. He struggles socially and emotionally and with routines and things like that. But because he has a 124 IQ, he did not get services and people can't afford the services that are presented because it is so expensive through your insurance. He did go to LEAP, but did not receive services. I sent him there as a typical student so that he would hopefully get a red flag waved, but he's too smart, so he did not. Is that something that we're going to >> again? So, I mean, I think, you know, trying trying to keep things simple. I understand your question. Um, what I was trying to show was fully kindergarten as a separate part of the budget. That that's what this is behind here. Then we have this big $90 million

101process to try and make sure we we we meet all of our needs. So, that's a whole separate process in the budget, you know. So, I I can't I can't speak to all the budget pressures we have right now. Um, but it you know what happens is, you know, every building advocates for what they need for, every department advocate for we need for, we try and make the the best decisions we can with with limited resources. I do I get that. I think that there's a lot of kids that aren't going without things and then they're getting pushed on to first grade and now it's going to be their problem >> because they weren't educationally deficit enough and autistic children aren't always educationally deficit and we're excluding a whole group of people here by say

102by using that words by using those words. So that's a big concern. Sure. >> Um and then we talked a lot about saving money. Um but where are you going? Where's the district office going to be going? separate process um late so later this evening uh you know the the new town manager was here uh there's been discussions around kind of bringing it back to the center of town right next to town hall >> that's a whole separate process >> okay so we're not using the the saved money for grown-ups we're using that for the kids >> yeah that that would be ideal yes >> okay cool thank you >> thank you someone Karen Kernney 20 Hazelnut. Um Jason, can you do me a favor? Can you just pull up um 21 slide 21? So

103since I'm home for the summer, I've done a lot of first grade math. Um, and I just want to want to just look at the numbers because when you look at the average number of kids that are going to be in each classroom, if we just look at first grade going across the board, um, North and South, they're in great shape. They're looking at like 17 or 18, but there was a drop in first grade classrooms at Matthew Thornton to four and that's getting us to 20 to 21. And then the next year when we take those 90 kids and bring them into first grade, we're looking at 23 or 24. >> No, no, there's there's there's five. >> So you would add a first grade classroom. >> Yeah. What what we're trying to project

104is I mean you can't see it in here, but there's a whole model we built for each year. >> Okay. >> So if if 90 kids come in, that's probably five classrooms. >> Sure. >> If 78 come in, that's probably four. >> Even that 82. Yeah. You know, I've been in first grade for a long time and our number is typically 17, 18, 19, not very often 21 or 22. So that's a lot of sure >> hurting cats. So I just want you to make sure because you know when you look at 21 or 22 in first grade, that's really different than 21 or 22 in third grade or fourth grade. So I just want to make sure that you're going to drill down into that to really make sure what those class sizes look

105like. >> Okay, great. But but no one likes when I make this statement. Uh there's never there's not a lot of good research around small class size having an benefit on kids. I know it creates a lot more stress and I and I've done the research, but I'll say that too. >> Okay. But I also think that the second grade class at Matthew Thornton last year should be something that we learn from. >> Yeah. No, it's definitely bigger for sure. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Come on up. Uh Nate Greenberg, Lori Lane in London area. Uh first I want to thank the administration and the board for putting this information out. I think it's extremely important and it was extremely well done. So I want to thank you guys for doing that. Um, moving ahead

106as you look at the whole process, I think there may be some things that may want to keep in mind which are more on that technical end than anything else. Whether or not this proposal is going to be included in the budget or as a separate Warren article and I think you're going to have to discuss that in public so that the community clearly understands why you're going to do one thing versus the other. Uh, I think that would that would be extremely important. The other thing too I've learned since I've been retired. Um, is that I don't necessarily have my daily focus on the schools like I did when I was working. And I'm willing to bet that there is a large population in town that basically does feels the same way behaves the

107same way I do at this point in my life. So I think having a simple as you go through this one page or twopage thing that can be given out that's simple and clean um and provide that information to the community at large. uh also like you've had in the past roundts but maybe neighborhood coffees to invite other people in I think and to discuss it similar to what was done in the dark ages when I was working here when we had building um projects going through we had neighborhood coffees and if I remember at one of the first kindergarten roundts large group of kindergarten parents said that they would be willing to participate in this stuff and maybe having them do it would be important. I think not the fact that I think people

108have to realize too the fact that if you run this as a separate warrant article because it's not a capital issue uh it just needs a simple majority. So you need 51% instead of the 60%. So, I think that's got to be laid out for everyone so people understand that and that's clear and get that information out. I think that would be very important to do it. The other thing on the quote unquote cost savings, I think what you've got to remember is it's cost avoidance more than cost savings. >> All right? So when you look at the revenue, the additional revenue that would come in and the reduction in cost for staff, what hopefully that will do will have a positive impact on your tax rate, right? So it's not like all of a

109sudden you have this bundle of $442,000 or whatever the case may be um as far as savings is concerned. So I think that's that's important for people to understand and it's part and parcel of the entire budget which you're balancing out. So I think that's really important looking at the revenues it's really important too because I think as noted in the presentation just as a reminder to everybody federal money is a bit on the inconsistent side this time around and not knowing what you're going to get for federal money. also some sometimes too what you're gonna get for state money >> uh also tends to flow uh from year to year from minute to minute and so on which has been a habit in the past but I think this is a great proposal um

110a lot of really hard work has gone into it and very thoughtful and I'm glad to see you moving forward with it that's my two cents for the night >> thank you Nate need those names. >> Good evening, Tony D. Francesco, Chester Court. Um, so, um, first things first, um, my wife texted me and said, "Please, whoever's getting the one text every 8 seconds, please remove your phone from the table because it's buzzing into the microphone and put your phone in your lap. So, this is a different room than the than the cafeteria." Um the topic at hand this is this is amazing work and congratulations superintendent uh Jason assistant superintendent and whoever else I'm I'm sure the myriad of dozens of people who who helped put this um this thing together. It's very concise.

111It's very understandable. Um and it's easy to uh tease individual things out and explain them to people who are not plugged in. Um, I would say it's an it's an easy thing to say that people with my color hair in this community are not plugged in at all and have no clue what's going on. Many of them we have to explain how to get to the place where we vote um every March. Um, I will also tell you that the uh new assessments are out. They're on the website. It's not pretty. But I will also to you because phones are going to start ringing and to everyone who's listening and watching this on YouTube because apparently it's not making it uh through the regular cable channels. But for anyone who's going to watch this later

112on, understand that the the new assessments, you don't multiply the new assessments times the current tax rate of $16.14. That's not how it works. The new assessment is going to be assessed on the new tax rate that comes out in October. That new tax rate is is um formulated by uh the DRRA up in conquered. But I've I have personally gotten quite a few phone calls already from people with their hair on fire uh saying, "Oh my god, my assessment went up $100,000 and I did the math and this is crazy. Nobody can afford this." and that's not how it works. So, please uh help get that word out there uh so that people can understand that that the number that you're seeing now, your assessment is correct. How much you have to pay is

113going to be different once the the the new tax rate comes out in October. Um, I will tell you as a uh former uh teacher with a kindergarten through 12 certification and a master's degree in education that there is no question in my mind that that the way to go and by the way I taught in every school in the district um except for the kindergarten. Uh but but there's there's no way that someone can convince me, this is one person individually, um that having the kindergarten kids in the neighborhood schools is not the way to go. One person's opinion, it's definitely the way to go. If for no other reason, it's one less transition. They're in the school with their older brother, sister, or whatever. Um the the the fact that we had uh

114the opportunity to have um a standalone kindergarten uh for half-day kids was a wonderful experiment. Um seemed to work out pretty well. Um seemed to have everybody happy in it. And you know what? Nobody likes change. Nobody. I don't talk in generalizations ever. You know that about me. But I will tell you, I will tell you that nobody likes change. And this is just yet another change that people are going to get used to and frogs are not going to have five legs. The kids are going to be fine. Life is going to be good. I will also say that um in aping what uh Nate had to say, the cost avoidance thing is is something that that sure that you that you need to look at, but but I would lean more towards the

115personally I would lean more towards the educational aspect of what it is you're doing here rather than the financial part of it. Certainly the financial part is important but for me it would not be the lead in a story that I was writing. My story would lead with the educational benefit of doing this. How you do it moving forward is certainly going to be the hard part. I would also argue and and I've had actually many arguments with people because I'm around town a lot. I've had many many arguments with people about what what you said, Dan, about no means no. There is no data and there is no way to tease out the data on the votes that were taken voting down the warrant article that did not allow us to have full day

116kindergarten nor build brook sorry brick and mortar. Right? There is no way for us to know which of the voters voted no for brick and mortar or which voted no for full day kindergarten. What we know is those two things were combined and you didn't get 61%. I will tell you, I had dozens of people tell me I voted no because I didn't want to do the brick and mortar because I thought it was too expensive. Dozens of people told me that. You will have people come to these meetings and say the people voted no. Yep, they did. But what did they vote no on? There is no way to tease that out. It's impossible. So, I wish you the best of luck moving forward. You all know what you need to do. The staff

117clearly worked tremendously hard on this and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you for listening. >> Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Oh, come on. John Wilson, Tranquil Drive. Um, this is a lot to swallow at 8:30. time for the first time. I'm curious as to how many if we draw a circle and looked at like a radius around Londere 100 miles or so towns that kind of close to London. How many of those have moved to this model of uh integrating the uh kindergarten into the local neighborhood gram schools? Do you know like >> a K to five building? >> I mean like having a kindergarten to fifth grade building >> having a having a kindergarten to fifth grade building. >> Yeah. In in and yeah adding instead of having the traditional

118I guess I would say model of having a separate >> Yeah. >> and distinct kindergarten system integrating kindergarten into basically just a a minus one grade >> grade system. I >> I think there's a handful of towns that had a separate kindergarten building. I think Gofftown has one, which is why they're kind of stuck with us, too. Um, I think Amherst has one. Um, and I think you you will see some K to threes, some K to fives, some K to fours. You know, it tends to be more typical, but having separate kindergarten probably is not as typical as maybe once was, you know, but we have to we haven't studied it intensely. >> The reason I mention that is my first thought about first of all, I can see some advantages to this. I

119first thought about this after seeing it and the reason I asked about others is this screams out for unintended consequences analysis of where this may you know 10 years from now do we regret this because once you go down this road I would suspect it would be very hard to go back. So I think you know obviously we we uh have to get this um right but uh that's you know basic basically the thoughts I have now you've you've uh put a lot in an hour presentation and uh but I always if I don't like usually to be an early adopter which is what we're doing here. And man, that us well in the business world at least, that usually causes just as many regrets as it does, you know, glad we did this. So,

120>> I mean, I think in terms of kindergarten and full day kindergarten, we're we're like last of the game. uh because you know once once governor Cenounu kind of incentivized full day kindergarten the all the school district that had the space moved to it in different ways you know kind of depending on the space they had we just didn't have the space at the time >> the other thought that I have just as you went through is I was thinking if we already had kindergarten we had we been there done that we've solved that problem it seems like when I was kind of surprised about some of the class It seems to me that where we would be now now going is cutting down those class sizes since you had the physical capacity to do

121it. And it seems to me that this is in fact kind of a tradeoff of doing that because you can't you won't be able to tackle the classroom sizes uh going forward for quite a while because you know because of the obvious huge. >> Yeah. >> You picked you picked between you know the classroom sizes. >> Yeah. >> And to me to me although my years of having kids in schools was long gone, but I remember uh and it may a truism, but I suspect it's not true anymore because of a lot of the technology things we're seeing is uh once you hit a classroom size of 16 or below, magic between starts happening in the classroom and we are quite a ways away from that. Now, is that still hold true that that concept?

122>> No. And and I'll preface, no one likes when I talk about class size. Um because, you know, when I was a fifth grade teacher nearly 25 years ago, I had 32 kids in a classroom. Um I know probably when Nate was a superintendent in uh Arizona, they're in the 30s, right? >> Yeah. Um you know what the research has shown time and time again, there there was one study, the STAR study from Tennessee, you know, nearly 40 years ago now that that that tried to land at a number. What's the right number for class size? And it and it made a conclusion like in 84 85 or 86 and in the couple decades after that what what all the you know people who studied it came out of is what really matters is whether

123you're effective teacher or not. If you're an effective teacher with 18 kids or 32 kids you're going to you're going to make a difference in those kids' lives. If you're an ineffective teacher with 18 or 32 you're going to be ineffective. So there was there wasn't there's never been a really strong um you know sense for class size. There are some caveats to that. If you live in really high poverty areas, especially for boys, some lower numbers can be more beneficial. But on on the on the broad stroke of on the broad scope of things, lower class size doesn't lead to higher achievement. And no one likes it when I say that, especially staff. >> Has the technology that you have now weakened that argument is with the smaller class rise or taken taken away

124from >> Yeah, that that's a good question. I don't I don't know if anyone's looking at that specifically, but you know, it's a good question. >> Okay, that's my two cents. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Come on. >> Um, Megan Corker, Farm Meadows Lane. I actually don't have a question, just a comment. I just want to put out there, I appreciate all the work that has gone into this. Um, as somebody who has spent a lot of years in elementary education, pre-K through fifth grade in many different districts, I have seen lots of preK through fifth grade successful schools. I know we're only talking K through five schools, but I just wanted it on record. I think this is a great plan. I, again, as an educator, but I have two young children who are

125about to enter the London school system. Um, I'm excited for this plan. I know there are a lot of logistical details that still need to be ironed out through the budget process. I think we're going to need more people on board come deliberative and things like that and really helping the public understand. Um, but I think it's a great plan and I just wanted to put that on record for you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone? >> Kaylee Digman, 16 King Charles Drive. Um, I know that there's a lot of building going on, a lot of apartments. Um, and I was just curious if there was any information about how that might affect enrollment. >> Yeah, so I I just uh I reached out to the assistant uh town manager to kind of see if they

126have any updated enrollment um coming our way. But I think what I've seen from from working with them last couple years is the number of kids that show up in each development keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller based on the assumptions we had even five 10 years ago. Um, I think for all the factors we got it brought up, it's just it's it's really hard to move in here with a young family, but that's something keep keep an eye on for sure. >> Um, I just wanted to make a comment too because I think we've heard from you guys and I agree this was a great presentation and a great proposal. Um, and we've heard a lot from teachers and past teachers. Um, but and people with kids with special needs, but I'm a

127parent of a kid who's gone through Moose Hill and I have a daughter who is going to be entering the 2026 school year. Um, and I just want to say as a parent, half day kindergarten, sorry, is very hard. It's hard to deal with. Most parents, I mean, most households are two working parents now. Um, and it's not even about the money. It's about the schedule. It's about trying to figure out how my child is going to um be okay restarting their day every single day with new people, new schedules, um, new environments. So, I just want to put out there that as a parent, it's really hard to deal with. And I really, um, thought moving in here 2013 that it would have been figured out by now. Um, so I just want to

128say thank you too because as I think I've heard from a lot of parents, this was something that they also thought was going to be um part of what you know 5 years down the line that they would have and um it just is good to see that there's some momentum going now. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none. Going once, twice. There'll be many uh many more as uh Jason said earlier tonight. We're just receiving this information tonight as a board. Um so we we're going to compile our questions and that um and work through some things, but we hope to have a uh another go around or a workshop per se in September uh with parents and that with other additional questions as we work through all this with the superintendent

129and staff. So there will be many more opportunities for other questions and as always you can reach out to the staff with any questions meanwhile until we uh have another get to uh get together on the kindergarten process. But thank you for all coming out tonight and uh we'll see you in the near future. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, Jim. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving on. Regular agenda. Um, >> I will open it up for public comment if anyone's here for anything else before we continue on. Seeing none, I will close public comment. And now we will go on to 7.1. And this is uh to discuss the withdrawal of fund balance for architectural plans for district office at town hall proposal. This will be a public hearing. So I

130will look for a motion to open the public hearing. Please move. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second. Second by Tim and a roll call vote please from my left to right. >> Hi Kevin Gray. >> Hi Tim Porter. >> Hi Bob Slater. >> Sli Amanda Butcher. >> Thank you. Uh public hearing is open and Amity. >> Yes. Um so this actually answers the question that was asked earlier. This is so it it seemed overwhelmingly um that the two projects the full day K and the district office needed to be separated. So there are two separate plans being worked on. Um, so as Sean Mahalan said, um, the town and the school district are collaborating to work together to build a one-story build adjacent to town hall to house the district office. Um, there's going to

131be more meetings that come. There's a lot of benefits to this. It would end the current lease at Kittyhawk. It brings um the district office staff back to the center of town. It's a fiscally responsible plan for the taxpayers. It's a it's a complicated plan that we have to fund it. Um I think that will come out more during the um budget season to see how that unfolds. But in order for us to make this possible um we need to get accurate cost and a guaranteed maximum price that we would need um to make this build happen. So we need developmental design plans from an architect who will need to um consult with engineers to get the correct numbers for the budget process. Um so in order to do it, time is of the essence.

132engineers are booking out weeks to months in advance. So, what we are asking for tonight is for the board to consider impro to consider approving the expenditure of $90,000 from the unassigned fund balance to fund this work with Marinese architecture who's worked on several different district projects. Very familiar with our buildings, familiar with the town. Um they already had some basic um drawings completed for us that we had okayed the expense for earlier in the spring. This work to get more details um would depend on the collaboration between the architect and engineers um and we would need the plans completed in time for November in order to have um the correct budget season calculation. So time is definitely of the essence. Right now we have about 1.4 million um in our unassigned fund balance after

133we had had money taken out to approve the district-wide VoIP phone project that is nearly complete. Um, we are anticipating a significant surplus from the F fiscal year 25 that just closed. We'll discuss this in more depth on the September 2nd board meeting. So, tonight we're really just looking for the approval to expand the unassigned fund balance to get these developmental design plans so we can move forward for the build on town hall plans. Any questions or anything for you guys? >> Any questions? Just to hit on what AMD said, um we had a conversation uh with um Paul, right? Paul Marines. >> Um and he was able to reduce the number down approximately 30,000 from his original quote. uh was in the 120 area to get us to a point where we could get

134deliverable drawings to um qualified contractors to be able to come back with an accurate number for for budget season and um and that. So he's aware of, you know, what we have for funds. Um, as as Sean hinted a little bit, we're working on the task force um, which has another meeting this week to set it up and formally kick it off um, on Thursday. And, uh, so Paul is well aware of where we are and where we're to be. So once these plans are developed to a 20% margin, then we will probably have a estimator look at it like we did with the last project and see where we're heading budget-wise. So then we can take a look at it before we finish the drawings and say it's x amount of dollars heading over

135what we've got for a budget uh or available funds with the town funds and and our funds. we can look to make some changes if need be, whether it's size, whether it's, you know, applications or construction models. So, it's a process that's going to take several months. That's why it needs to start now, um, to get us into November, December time frame. Um, and we're fortunate enough to have the town really partnering with us to push this forward. Um, and that, uh, could be significant savings to our taxpayers on on interest money and that moving forward, too. So, just a little more history to the conversation we had with Paul. So, um I think everybody's on the same page and um you know, we want to try to make this as viable as possible so

136we don't have to get into a negotiation uh of extending the lease up where we are, which is only two years away after this year. So, just a little more. Any further questions? I will look for a motion to uh approve withdrawing $90,000 from an unassigned fund balance to cover the cost of developmental design plans, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I 50. Thank you, Amony. >> Thank you, Dan. >> All right. I will uh look for a motion to close the public hearing. So move. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I I. >> And I want to just jump back, guys. I apologize to my colleagues that do you have any questions for Dan regarding the

137presentation. >> We listened to all the folks, but um I kind of glazed over that. So >> we can jump back. All right. I just I felt bad when I was going through this and and that there was a lot of information there and I know I have to digest. I've got a bunch of questions, but I got to work through them. >> Same. >> Yep. No, I thought it was a great presentation, but definitely want to digest. >> Okay. >> So, we'll we'll have it on the agenda. Sure. >> For September 2nd, >> but you know, in between if you want to talk to Abby or Paul or Sandra or Deb or or me or Jay, you know. >> Yeah. One one thing I would like to see you do is where you've got

138it figured out if we could get a a layout of each building and where the classrooms are going to go. So if school board members want to go and visit with them and walk through where the services and all that will be as soon that's going to be part of it too. So >> yep, some are fancier than others right now. >> And the one other thing is playgrounds >> equipment for each school. Kindergarten playgrounds >> wasn't in last year's project, but >> it was talked about last year in the budget. So I'd like to make sure we have an area for the kindergarten kids like they have now. Um, looks like we've got some savings. So, we might be able to do something on that because I know uh that was a concern, but

139all right. Okay, we're good. All right, let's jump into deliberations. 9.1 feed it forward. Hi, Crystal. >> Hi, guys. How are you today? >> Welcome. >> Good. Thanks. >> I was going to be too close down too far. >> Um, it's a pleasure to see everybody. It's a little weird to see you so early in the year. I'm not going to lie. Um, so what I'm going to talk to you guys today about is feed it forward. >> Next slide, please. >> So, um, last year we had made strides as far as negative meal debt. Um, but as of yesterday, 8425, we are still looking at a negative $54,214.82. So, we are actively uh still working to collect the debt. Um we send weekly balance notices that are emailed every Tuesday and Friday. Um letters

140are sent home through the United States Postal Service. Um as well as letters from the district office. We make monthly phone calls um from food service. Uh we are working out payment plans with families. Um and the district did actively set consequences for high negative balances in place. Um so I actively reached out to our software which is link and I had asked them um if there was anything that we could do as far as donations. I had had a few families at the end of the year that had graduating seniors and they had wanted to donate what was left in their students accounts towards the negative debt. Um but because they are attached to students you cannot just move those funds. So I had actually reached out to our software and I had asked

141them if there was a means of being able to do that. Next slide please. And what they came back with was feed it forward. So feed it forward is a function that is already part of our link software. Um I simply just need to turn it on. So how does feed it forward help? Feed it forward allows parents to donate to their individual schools through the link app should they wish to. It also allows parents and guardians um of seniors to donate remaining meal funds towards negative balances again should they wish to. Um but what it also does is it allows the district to move funds from families that have left the district and did not request meal funds returned. Rather than have these funds sit, the district will be able to donate them to

142the negative meal debt. Um and just on a note, feed it forward functions like any other donation. So funds would be allocated fairly across the selected school grade and/or eligibility. Feed It Forward cannot be used to pay individual accounts. Next slide, please. So what would Feed It Forward look like for parents? Once enabled, parents and guardians would see a new area under the meal account section of the link connect payment system. It would allow them to utilize the feed it forward function. This function is 100% up to the parents. It will not generate any donations in that field. If the parents never wish to use it, they don't ever have to. Next slide. And then what does feed it forward look like in the back of the house? So what you can see there is

143actually a screenshot of my back of house system. That is every single school. Um, and all the way at the end where it has that current balance, you'll see that all of them are zero. That's because feed it forward is currently not active. So, essentially once I enable the system, it becomes active on my on my dashboard. Um from this BA dashboard I can move funds once approved and all movement is documented and printed through the software for recordkeeping. Um my overall goal is to move any funds from feed it forward at the end of the year and this would align with the time frame that the district utilizes to pay off any negative senior balances. Next slide. >> Any questions? Just a quick one. How do uh if a student graduates and they have

144a positive balance, how do they get that money back currently? >> Oh, they request it from me. >> They request it from you. >> If it's over a certain amount, families physically come into me and I will hand them cash. It's anything um under the $20 mark and then anything over that, it actually goes through the district office and they get a check. >> What if they don't currently request it for from you? >> Unfortunately, at this time, it just sits on their accounts for >> for how long? >> Indefinitely. >> Really? So that Okay. >> Do they get notification that it's there? >> Yes. Yep. Um I reach out to families towards the end of the year letting them know that your seniors have however much money >> on their accounts. Um and then

145we also send a letter as well. >> So currently there's a balance that's sitting there that might have been building up for years. >> Yes. >> You don't have authorization to just push that? >> I do not know. that would go through you guys at the board and the district office. >> Raw numbers >> um >> right now, >> right off the top of my head, you at least have a couple hundred dollars that I know of right off the top of my head and those are families that have been gone for >> but in total it's just a couple hundred bucks that's just sitting there. >> Janette and I would physically have to pull those numbers for you. I only have current enrollment. >> I'm just wondering if it's like thousands of dollars. >>

146It's not a substantial number. It's not like I wouldn't find, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars there. Um, but it does actively just sit there because the district can't do anything with it and there's currently no place to put it. >> Okay, >> Crystal, if you don't have this, that's okay, but do you remember the last time that you gave us an update what the number was? Was that in the spring? >> Uh, it was in the spring. Um, we definitely got a decent amount of money back from graduating seniors. So, I appreciate all the help that came from the district office for that. Um, but we were still within that 55 $60,000 >> range. >> I think it was almost 60. So, I think between the senior activities, we got that back.

147We are anticipating we'll probably get a couple of thousand back with parking passes. Um, so it's things like that where we we tend to see it come, but then it's like you get it back and then you're underway. >> Yeah. >> And people So we hang right around the same. >> Okay. Thank you. And thanks for looking into this. This is great. >> No worries. >> Uh, yeah. Just logistically, I mean, I like I like the idea of this. And is there How would this work from a budgetary process, right? Because that that negative balance goes against the budget. Is that >> So Well, yes. So we pick up any debt that's that's bad debt on the general fund. We budget for that. I think we budget 10,000 a year for potential um with that

148with the the senior class. So this would help offset. It's not necessarily the senior class. It would depend where the where the money came from. Yes. So um it would just help it would lessen the amount of debt that you see and then on the back end we would determine where that's being taken from kind of like what we did with the donation from the sugar house. >> Okay. There's no specific I guess I was thinking like are there is there any process that we'd have to go through like any specific process over and above what we're already doing just that we need to keep >> no because we talked to so the first person after Crystal was uh Janette Evans who oversees all of that because we don't like to make her job any

149harder to do that um and she the way that this system is pretty seamless and she already works with link to see what the negative balances are and that sort of thing so it would just be an added step and I think it was a relief to Crystal because that, you know, you never want to be accused of playing favorites of where you put the money. This feature protects that and and keeps it. And it allows parents that, you know, they may get their check or come in for $5 and they might have having this option, they might say just feed it forward. Yeah. So, you might get more money. >> Yeah. >> Cool. That's awesome. Thank you. >> Okay. Good. >> Crystal, thank you so much. I think that'll be a wonderful That would

150be a nice feature to have. >> So, >> that is the hope. >> Yep, it is. Thank you so much. All right, moving on. We've got several third readings. Any changes on >> No. >> district side? >> No changes. >> Any question from the board on these for the final reading to adopt? >> All right, I'll go through and uh and that. So, I'll we'll move through it like we typically do. Uh 9.2, to look for a motion to approve the third reading to adopt policy JCA change of class of school or assignment best interest and manifest hardship please >> so moved >> motion by Sarah >> second by Tim all those in favor >> I 50 9.3 look for a motion to approve the third reading to resin policy EC school property please >>

151so moved >> motion by Sarah >> second by Kevin all those in favor I I 50. Thank you. >> 9.4. Look for a motion to approve the third reading to resend policy ECR, building modifications, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> 9.5. Look for a motion to approve the third reading to resend policy ECAB vandalism. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second. Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> 9.6. Look for a motion to approve the third reading to resend policy EDC, authorized use of schoolowned materials. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I. 50. 9.7. Look for a motion to approve the third reading

152to resend policy EAB school bus routes. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> 9.8. Look for a motion to approve the third reading to rescend policy E A student transportation records and reports, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I. 50. >> 9.9. Look for a motion to approve the third reading to amend policy EA support services goals. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> And 910. Um look for a motion to approve the third reading to amend policy EB CD emergency closings. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? I

153>> I 50. Thank you everyone. >> And 9.11 discussion of working group on district office proposal at town hall. >> Just uh yeah I mean very very simply uh we have our first uh or our first real meeting on Thursday morning. Um Jason Amd myself and Joe Parzik will be part of the working group. Seems like Bob and Tim will be there as well. Um I think we're picking our chair that meeting and then kind of mapping out the scope of the work. Um Mr. Mahal has already done a lot of that in terms of like timeline and tasks for us to create. So um I think tonight is just uh to try and get if there's any specific input or or things the school board's looking for within this process um that'll kind of

154run parallel with budget process and everything else we do. >> Any questions? Now, I had um reached out um to see who could go the last time Tim was available because most of these mornings are going to be in the morning. Uh meetings will be in the mornings because of town staff and school staff. >> Um and he was flexible to do that. Is everybody okay with Tim still staying on there. I'd like to have two of us. The town has one um counselor, I believe, but I'd like I always like to have two of us involved in these meetings. Is everybody okay with that? >> Absolutely. >> Sounds good. Um, and we'll keep you as updated as this go, like we said, the official meeting, uh, as Dan just said, is Thursday. Um, and

155that, as you can see in the packet, the, uh, the town manager put this together, and he's got, you know, all the, uh, outlines of the town and the school working together and, uh, hopefully we can make this work uh, economically for for our taxpayers and uh, get us back in the center of town. So, stay tuned. So, seeing none, I think we're all set with that. And anything else? Say hello to our new human resources director, Lisa Dre. >> Yes, >> Lisa. >> Welcome. >> Um, anything else? >> I'm good. >> Anything else? >> Anything? >> Good. All right. 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 Tim. Uh,

156roll call vote from my left to right, please. I, >> Kevin Gray. I, >> Tim Porter. I, Bob Slater. >> I, Sarah Laughlin. I, Amanda Butcher. >> Good night, London Derry.