[0:03] Good evening everyone.
[0:04] I will now call this meeting of
[0:05] the Dairy School Board to order.
[0:06] Please stand and join me. In the Pledge of Allegiance,
[0:11] I pledge Allegiance, speech flag,
[0:14] the United States of America,
[0:16] and to Republic religious stands, one nation under God,
[0:20] indivisible, liberty and justice.
[0:28] Thank you. We will start with the roll call.
[0:30] If everyone could introduce
[0:31] themselves, starting from my right.
[0:32] Dr. Carrie Sandon, assistant superintendent,
[0:35] Jane Sard, business administrator.
[0:38] I'm Michael Flynn, superintendent Brenda Willis.
[0:40] School Board. Michael Thiel, school board Chair.
[0:43] Jen Thoro, school Board, vice Chair.
[0:45] Jamie Crew. School Board. Karen Rand, school Board.
[0:49] All right. Thank you everybody.
[0:50] Our first order of business will be the consent
[0:52] agenda for tonight.
[0:54] We have the public meeting minutes of August 25th, 2026,
[0:57] the non-public meeting minutes of August 25th, 2026,
[1:00] and the manifest in the amount of $4,797,499
[1:05] and 2 cents of which $3,578,509
[1:09] and 90 cents is general payroll
[1:11] and $1,218,989
[1:15] and 12 cents is general expense.
[1:18] Do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda?
[1:23] So Moved first by Jamie. Second. Second by Karen.
[1:26] All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion passes. Five zero.
[1:32] All right. We have one presentation.
[1:34] We have the principles of our six schools with us tonight,
[1:38] so I will turn it over to Mike to introduce everyone.
[1:42] Thanks. As we are well aware,
[1:45] last meeting we had was the first day of school
[1:46] and we held all of the good news
[1:49] and things that have welcoming back for our principles.
[1:52] As always, this is their favorite board report of the year.
[1:55] They get to talk about all the cool things
[1:56] that are gonna kick off the year, the work
[1:58] that's done this summer, and really
[2:01] answer any questions that we have.
[2:03] Alright, we're gonna go in reverse order.
[2:05] 'cause Lisa always, yes, Lisa always says, well, what else?
[2:09] So here we go. Thank you.
[2:21] I can.
[2:27] Hi everyone Again.
[2:31] Thank you once again for this opportunity
[2:33] to talk about Gilbert H Middle School.
[2:36] When you work in schools,
[2:37] there's something always special about the
[2:40] start of every new year.
[2:42] And preparing for that successful launch
[2:44] starts in the summer, and that's a lot of our summer work.
[2:47] So I'm gonna talk a little bit about summer Big thank you
[2:51] to our custodial and FA
[2:53] and facilities teams that work tirelessly
[2:56] to get our building ready and just,
[2:59] and as a additional project this summer,
[3:01] we also had new flooring
[3:03] and it's really freshened up a part, part of our building
[3:06] and we're very thankful for that.
[3:08] Alongside those physical upgrades,
[3:11] we've also worked the summer hiring new staff
[3:13] to get prepared in that way.
[3:16] And we're thrilled to welcome 16 new staff members
[3:19] to our community.
[3:20] We have nine classroom new classroom teachers,
[3:25] a new school nurse, and six new support staff.
[3:28] And watching our amazing returning staff welcome these new
[3:32] hires into our community, has been fantastic.
[3:36] While a quiet summer building allows us to prepare,
[3:39] nothing compares to the moment our doors open
[3:42] and a little over 607th
[3:44] and eighth graders come through the doors.
[3:47] The energy, the smiles, the sense
[3:49] of connection reminds us all exactly why we do this work.
[3:54] As we look ahead for this coming year, our staff recognizes
[3:57] that a strong academic foundation relies on a
[4:00] strong positive culture.
[4:03] Middle school is a critical time of transition
[4:06] and students thrive when they feel grounded,
[4:08] valued, and seen.
[4:10] With this in mind, our overarching focus
[4:12] for this school year comes down to three clear words,
[4:16] connect, support, and Celebrate Connect.
[4:20] We're focusing on building intentional relationships across
[4:23] grade levels and teams.
[4:25] We're rolling out updated Cares matrices.
[4:28] You might hear some of the other principles talk about that.
[4:30] Embedding core competencies like cooperation, empathy,
[4:34] and self control directly into our daily instruction.
[4:38] While continuously re reinforcing our core motto,
[4:41] which you've heard me say before, which is, work hard,
[4:44] make good choices, and be kind.
[4:49] As far as the support part, we're strengthening our system
[4:53] of care for every individual in the building.
[4:55] That means providing targeted academic
[4:58] and behavioral interventions
[4:59] for students who need extra help.
[5:02] Cultivating a STU student leadership
[5:05] and ensuring our new staff members have the mentoring
[5:08] and professional resources that they need.
[5:10] And as far as celebrating, we wanna make sure
[5:13] that we are actively recognizing the good
[5:16] that happens every single day in our building.
[5:18] We're establishing regular recognition routines
[5:21] for both students and staff, highlighting achievements,
[5:24] recognizing areas of growth,
[5:26] and bringing our school community together
[5:28] to celebrate success stories.
[5:31] When we intentionally connect with one another,
[5:33] support each other through challenges
[5:35] and celebrate our victories together,
[5:37] we create an environment
[5:39] where every student at Gilbert h Hood can be successful.
[5:42] Thank you for your continued support of our school,
[5:45] our staff, and our students.
[5:47] I look forward to a fantastic school year.
[5:50] Any questions for me?
[5:54] Questions for Mr. Hall? Thank you. Thank you, Lisa.
[5:58] Thank you.
[6:13] Good evening everybody. I think Lisa said it all,
[6:17] so, no, I'm just kidding.
[6:19] No, it's really, it's really great to be here again.
[6:21] It, it's been a really exciting start to the school year.
[6:24] There's nothing quite like the first day of school,
[6:26] like Lisa mentioned,
[6:27] we have 657 students as of today, I believe,
[6:33] and that's an increase from last year, about 30 students.
[6:36] So it really was great
[6:41] to start the year seeing all the fifth graders come in
[6:44] with the sixth graders who have been there last year
[6:46] and the support that they showed
[6:47] them when they entered the building.
[6:48] We also are basically fully staffed at this point,
[6:52] which is really excellent way to begin things.
[6:57] We just need almost two days of a para,
[7:00] I think at this point is really all we're looking for.
[7:02] And we're excited that we have ESSA new program
[7:06] that we're piloting at West Running Brook for our students
[7:08] with emotional disturbance.
[7:11] And that has gone really well
[7:12] and we're looking forward to working with
[7:13] that group over the course of the year.
[7:16] The building looks amazing.
[7:18] All of the work that happened over the summer,
[7:19] we can't thank this board, Jeremy and his team
[7:22] and our custodians enough
[7:24] for the new flooring that's in our building.
[7:26] The courtyard has been paved
[7:29] and that is a much safer, better environment for students,
[7:33] which is used very frequently in the winter for recess.
[7:38] And then as all students enter the building that way,
[7:41] that was a long time coming
[7:42] and we appreciate that very much.
[7:47] We shifted our schedule a little bit this year.
[7:49] We're happy to report that with the time change
[7:52] that we have, we were able
[7:53] to carve out more instructional time,
[7:55] which we had talked about over the course of last year.
[7:57] So we have an additional 15 minutes that we were able
[8:00] to spread out over the course of the day,
[8:03] which doesn't sound like a lot,
[8:04] but over the course of the year, 15 minutes a day is,
[8:06] is quite a bit of time.
[8:09] What that looks like for fifth grade is their core blocks
[8:12] are pushed together.
[8:14] So they will stay with their ELA social studies
[8:16] and writing teacher for a period of 96 minutes.
[8:20] They'll be with their science
[8:21] and mathematics teacher for a period of 96 minutes.
[8:24] And it gives that teacher flexibility to either work
[8:28] more heavily on maybe reading
[8:30] and less on the social studies piece,
[8:32] or if they're working on a social studies project,
[8:34] expand the time there without that transition time.
[8:39] Just saw it today where students in a fifth grade classroom
[8:42] are working on a science experiment,
[8:43] which takes a little bit longer.
[8:45] They were able to have that time
[8:46] and use the flexibility within that longer period to,
[8:50] to do what they needed to do.
[8:51] So we're really excited about the potential there.
[8:54] Also, it, the students are extremely excited about the
[8:57] potential of the athletics that they're able
[8:59] to join over at Kil Day should.
[9:01] So we are, we have several
[9:04] of our students playing on soccer field hockey cross country
[9:07] this year and that's been a really exciting addition for us.
[9:11] We want to thank Mitch Edwards for once again,
[9:14] helping us out, securing the funding
[9:18] to have some really great team building things
[9:20] at the beginning of the year.
[9:21] On September 1st, the Brown Center from UNH
[9:24] who were experts in team building worked
[9:26] with our sixth graders.
[9:27] And although it was kind of a rainy day,
[9:30] they were in the classrooms working on team building
[9:33] and that went really well in it.
[9:35] For the second straight year,
[9:36] we've sent our entire fifth grade on a field trip.
[9:39] It was not the first week of school this year,
[9:41] it was the second week, which actually worked out much
[9:43] better is, you know,
[9:45] teachers knew the students a little bit better,
[9:47] but they traveled to Camp Carpenter
[9:48] and just had an amazing day.
[9:51] You know, working together and building relationships
[9:53] with their peers and with the staff.
[9:57] We continue to be a partner school
[9:59] with Southern New Hampshire University.
[10:01] That relationship continues to expand.
[10:04] So we do have six interns this year at West Running Brook.
[10:08] We also, in the past three year
[10:12] or two years rather, first two years, we had
[10:15] a special education class
[10:16] that was taught in our school with undergrads.
[10:17] And then they went out across the building
[10:20] and gained some field experience.
[10:21] We are also gonna have a science class taught there this
[10:24] year where best in HU the professor will come to the school,
[10:28] instruct 14 or 15 students,
[10:30] and then they'll gain some field experience with hopes
[10:33] that they'll want to intern in Derry
[10:36] and then eventually join our team, which we've seen a lot
[10:40] of positive results in that regard.
[10:43] So we just want to thank you for the support.
[10:45] It's been a great, a great start to the year
[10:49] with the time change is one more thing that I wanted
[10:51] to mention is our bus ridership is up tremendously
[10:54] and I think that's, that's really good.
[10:56] Our, our drop off has gone down, our ridership is up
[10:59] and as we navigate the beginning of that, the beginning
[11:02] of the year with those things, we should be able
[11:04] to get students into the building on
[11:05] time in an efficient way.
[11:07] So thank you for the support.
[11:12] Thank you. Any questions?
[11:15] Questions? Not a question.
[11:17] Just a comment to say
[11:18] that we sat on the time change committee together over the
[11:22] course of several meetings last fall into the
[11:24] early winter maybe.
[11:25] And I'm really pleased to hear about the positive impacts
[11:29] that, that time change is having,
[11:30] particularly at West Running Brook.
[11:32] I know that I would often look to you
[11:34] and during that meeting, a lot of times it was about busing,
[11:36] which was definitely an issue.
[11:38] And a major component also though, was instructional time,
[11:40] particularly at West Running Brook.
[11:43] And you said it was what, 15 minutes
[11:45] Gain?
[11:46] Just about. So we are at, so it 15,
[11:50] about 15 minutes.
[11:51] So our core blocks for fifth grade
[11:56] are 96 minutes.
[11:57] Last year that would've only been 90,
[11:58] which doesn't sound like a big change,
[12:01] but six minutes is a hu is a massive change.
[12:04] And over the course of an entire year that that really
[12:08] makes a difference and it allowed us to be able to do it.
[12:12] It's complicated to schedule like that to get it.
[12:17] The middle school, the intermediate school schedule's really
[12:21] difficult to work
[12:22] through all the things if students need band
[12:23] or they're, you know, they have different service delivery.
[12:25] So to be able to have some additional flexibility was huge
[12:29] this summer and it just benefits all the students.
[12:31] Yeah, I'm, I'm really pleased to hear that.
[12:34] And I also, Mr. Flynn had told me a couple weeks back
[12:36] that you had said the first week of school
[12:38] that ridership was up, particularly in the morning,
[12:41] which I think maybe wasn't an impact we, we saw coming,
[12:44] but I think it's a very positive one too,
[12:46] so that's great to hear.
[12:48] Yeah, anecdotally, I mean, I would say 30 to 40%,
[12:51] but I don't, I don't have a number so I could,
[12:53] that could be totally made up.
[12:54] But I'm out there every morning and,
[12:57] and I noticed that we won't quote you.
[12:58] It feels like almost half fewer cars in the morning.
[13:03] It's really quick. So that's, that's excellent.
[13:06] Just to put it in perspective, 15 minutes a day
[13:09] ends up being about 46 hours extra during a year.
[13:13] Yeah. Which ends up being about seven extra days. Yeah.
[13:17] Mathematically instructional time.
[13:18] So every minute does count in our schedule.
[13:20] That was a very large sticking point for me.
[13:22] And I would often look to Bill during those meetings
[13:24] and kind of like say like, it was Bill's mantra, like,
[13:27] I just need 15 more minutes.
[13:28] We were gonna put that on his headstone. Yeah.
[13:30] And so I, I'm really pleased to hear that.
[13:33] And that number could totally be made up. So,
[13:35] And yeah, we gonna put him on that.
[13:37] Alright. Thank you everybody. Thank you.
[13:39] Thanks Bill.
[13:50] Hi everyone. Thanks for having us here tonight.
[13:52] We had a great opening of the school year at Grinnell,
[13:56] but to get there, I have to go back to the end of last year
[13:59] and I, I still am super excited at the hard work
[14:02] that our students in SAF did last year.
[14:05] And just looking at one piece of data, their
[14:09] NWEA map testing results in math.
[14:12] Everybody, every grade level was in high achievement,
[14:15] high growth, which is something for the students
[14:17] and staff to be proud of.
[14:19] I followed the end of the school year
[14:21] by joining the curriculum team at the NWEA
[14:24] Fusion National Conference.
[14:26] And we got to showcase our district
[14:29] and talk about some of the things that allowed that growth
[14:32] to be possible, which was exciting.
[14:34] And then over the summer, lots of things took place.
[14:37] We had some tile replaced, we had some carpets replaced.
[14:42] The contractors maintenance
[14:44] and custodial staff did a great job in our building.
[14:48] I wanna give a special shout out to the custodial staff
[14:52] for everything they did over the summer,
[14:53] including our summer custodians.
[14:56] And then our teachers spent the summer working on different
[14:59] task forces for curriculum and sharing
[15:02] and collaborating with each other, which is always a,
[15:04] a good thing to get the teachers
[15:07] voice heard in what's happening
[15:09] and what's going to be coming up in the school year.
[15:12] And then from a leadership
[15:13] standpoint, it was a great summer.
[15:15] The elementary principals
[15:17] and assistant principals in particular, along
[15:19] with the middle end intermediate at
[15:21] times did weekly huddles.
[15:23] So we got to collaborate and work together
[15:25] and that was the first time we've
[15:27] ever done something like that.
[15:28] And it was extremely positive
[15:30] and it allowed us time to share some best practices
[15:34] and think of different things
[15:37] for the upcoming school year in our building.
[15:40] Specifically at Grinnell, we hired six
[15:42] new staff over the summer.
[15:43] So we are also almost fully staffed.
[15:46] We still could use some paraprofessionals.
[15:49] So if anybody is looking
[15:50] to be an elementary paraprofessional, give us a call.
[15:54] And our kitchen staff
[15:57] and secretaries returned in August, like they always do
[15:59] with smiles on their faces, ready to greet students ready
[16:03] to offer help and support in any way we need it.
[16:06] And then we finished the summer
[16:08] with popsicles on the playground, an event we did with PTA
[16:12] for our kindergarten families.
[16:14] And it was great to see the kindergartners come
[16:17] and play on the playground, meet kids that they haven't met
[16:21] before, see kids that they've seen around town
[16:24] and families to connect.
[16:26] So that was nice. And it's always fun in the fall when you
[16:29] see the little kindergartners come in, you forget
[16:31] how little they are at the very beginning.
[16:33] And some of them are just four years old
[16:35] and those days are long when they first start,
[16:37] but they're doing a great job transitioning
[16:39] and we couldn't be any prouder of them.
[16:41] So we finished with our meet
[16:43] and greet where we had almost all of our families attend.
[16:46] It was extremely well attended
[16:48] and we started the school year ready to go
[16:51] and just excited for what the school year is going to bring.
[16:55] Great. Any questions?
[16:58] Questions? Alright, thanks. Thank you.
[17:16] Mary and I were trying to decide who was going next.
[17:19] Thank you. As I said, thank you for having us tonight.
[17:22] We, we really enjoy coming out
[17:24] and talking about our schools at South Range.
[17:28] We certainly had a busy summer.
[17:30] I know you've heard a lot about it
[17:31] and I'm gonna give you a little bit
[17:32] of a different perspective about our summer.
[17:35] Clearly construction was, was a big part of that.
[17:38] I had weekly meetings with the contractors
[17:40] and with the facilities department and Mrs. Joseph
[17:44] and I spent our summer,
[17:46] although I was there at the school,
[17:48] checking in a few times a week.
[17:50] We spent our summer with all of our, our colleagues.
[17:53] They were very welcoming.
[17:55] They allowed us to have interviews at their schools.
[17:57] They welcomed us to spend some time there.
[17:59] So that was really great to, to have
[18:01] that admin time together with,
[18:03] with the other building admins.
[18:07] We were, we were definitely grateful of all of
[18:09] that support that, that we received.
[18:11] So although the contractors told us all summer,
[18:14] Mike reassured me,
[18:15] everything's fine, Michelle, everything's fine.
[18:17] Jeremy told me it's gonna be great.
[18:19] The contractors kept saying that.
[18:20] It took a while for me to see that light at the end
[18:22] of the tunnel of, okay, we're gonna be ready to open
[18:25] and we're going to be ready to have that, that meet
[18:27] and greet on Monday the 24th for our students,
[18:30] as you've heard from, from everybody else,
[18:33] it was just incredible to watch the buses pull out,
[18:35] watch the contractors pull in,
[18:37] and then at the end of the summer, watch the contractors
[18:41] and the dumpsters and the porta-potties go out
[18:44] and the students come in, you know, shortly after that.
[18:48] So while obviously that was a major topic,
[18:52] the construction at South Range was
[18:54] a major topic of the summer.
[18:55] What I really wanna highlight tonight is the incredible
[18:58] sense of teamwork and community that was on display
[19:01] as we prepared for our students to return.
[19:04] So there was, again, a lot of conversation,
[19:06] is it going to be ready in time?
[19:08] And we yes, it will, it will be ready,
[19:10] we'll be ready for students.
[19:12] Typically, we, our students are, our teachers are able
[19:16] to come back a little bit early,
[19:17] obviously that was not able to happen.
[19:19] They came back and just watching the teamwork
[19:22] of them coming back, they came back a little overwhelmed.
[19:25] There were still contractors, feet hanging from the ceiling.
[19:27] There were still things going on
[19:29] as the teachers were entering the building.
[19:31] And they, they were very overwhelmed by that.
[19:33] But then watching them just turn to not
[19:37] what hasn't been done yet, but changed their attitude.
[19:40] To have that attitude of, well, what do we need to do?
[19:42] How do we need to get this ready
[19:44] and make sure that our school is ready for,
[19:46] for students to come back.
[19:48] Having the, the teamwork from the
[19:51] SAU leadership team coming over,
[19:54] almost the entire BARCA staff came over
[19:55] to support our, our teachers.
[19:57] And just, it was, and again, our lead, my team,
[20:02] my leadership team over here, everybody just came together
[20:04] to support us to say, what can we do?
[20:06] How can we help? How can we ensure
[20:08] that this is ready for students?
[20:10] And it was, it was truly great just to see
[20:12] that all come together, just to make sure with
[20:17] that shared goal of our students coming back to a building
[20:20] that is ready for them.
[20:22] So we had a line out the door on Monday morning at,
[20:27] I looked out the window at about 8 45
[20:29] and there was a line out the door
[20:31] and down the, down the sidewalk for our meet and greet.
[20:33] And just seeing those,
[20:35] those families come in the smiling faces
[20:37] and going, this is what, this is why we're here.
[20:39] This is what we, we do this for.
[20:41] Was, was really great to see.
[20:44] The excitement just made our building
[20:46] feel like itself again.
[20:47] Obviously all summer long, it,
[20:49] it didn't, it didn't feel that way.
[20:51] But seeing all of the exciting smiles
[20:53] and families come in really, really made it feel great.
[20:56] We have positive energy to start the school year.
[20:59] We are ready to go.
[21:00] It has been a fantastic start to the school year.
[21:05] Our teachers are building
[21:06] relationships with their new students.
[21:08] Our students came back in ready to do every routine
[21:11] that they had before they left our kindergartners,
[21:13] as Melissa mentioned, they come in and they're so little,
[21:17] but they came in and they knew exactly
[21:18] what to do on that first day.
[21:19] And it just, it's been,
[21:21] it's been a great start to the school year
[21:26] Questions, I've just gotta say, I went over
[21:30] to South Range about two and a half weeks
[21:32] before the beginning of school
[21:33] and stood in a classroom with Jeremy
[21:35] that had no ceiling and no windows.
[21:38] So, you know, it's pretty impressive
[21:40] what the construction crews were able to do to get
[21:42] that school ready in time and everybody throughout the
[21:44] district to get everything put back together again.
[21:47] Yeah, Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon,
[21:50] teachers came back on Thursday, Wednesday afternoon,
[21:52] our classrooms were still empty
[21:53] and everything was still in the cafeteria in the gym.
[21:56] And it was, it was just incredible
[21:58] to watch it all come together and just seeing step by step.
[22:03] I knew it would, couldn't see it.
[22:06] I knew it would, I couldn't see it quite there.
[22:10] I kept saying to the, the superintendents,
[22:12] the contract superintendents, I believe you.
[22:15] I hear you. I just can't envision how this is going to work.
[22:18] But it did.
[22:19] And, and again,
[22:21] everybody really pulled together to, to make that happen.
[22:23] So that sense of community was great.
[22:25] I think maybe you should have done like
[22:26] cookies for the custodians.
[22:29] Oh, they, yeah. We, we took, we fed. We fed. Yeah.
[22:32] We took care of it. We took care of it. Yeah.
[22:34] They, they were, they were well fed. Everybody.
[22:37] And they were custodians from all different schools
[22:39] that came over to help the facilities team, you know,
[22:42] over there, again, just members of family,
[22:45] members of our staff.
[22:46] Like it was just, it was, it was great.
[22:48] Everybody came together, but we did make sure
[22:50] that they were, that they were
[22:52] fed. Thank you. Thanks
[22:56] Michelle.
[22:57] Thank you very much.
[23:05] This is way go first.
[23:07] Now I know what it feels like for everything to be said.
[23:11] So at East Area, we didn't have as much work
[23:13] as other people, but the work that was done was amazing.
[23:16] The roof, that's something that you don't always,
[23:19] you can't always appreciate because you don't see it.
[23:22] But the work, it took quite a bit of time
[23:24] and people were just up and down getting things done.
[23:27] So that's outta the way. But more importantly,
[23:29] the rugs were taken up and tile put down
[23:33] and the wax put down and the custodians over the summer
[23:36] and the summer help were amazing.
[23:38] To the point where with the concrete walls, when you use
[23:41] that sticky, that sticky putty to hang things up,
[23:44] it gets in the pores of it.
[23:46] They literally had toothbrushes and things
[23:48] and toothpaste to take it out.
[23:49] They took such pride in it, painted the walls,
[23:52] and if there was a holiday, they went back
[23:54] and they even used little paintbrushes to do it.
[23:56] It literally looks like a new building when you go inside.
[23:58] They also had the time to set up the
[24:00] classrooms furniture wise.
[24:01] So the teachers and the teachers totally appreciated.
[24:03] That was one of the things they brought up was
[24:05] that I walked in my classroom,
[24:07] my everything was where it needed to be.
[24:09] I could just get down and get working and,
[24:11] and decorate what I needed to decorate.
[24:13] The meet and greet was amazing.
[24:15] Year three, now they're at East Area
[24:17] and the, you know, the teachers do all the real hard work
[24:20] and the staff, you know, has to pull everything together.
[24:23] And I get to be like the mother of the bride kissing
[24:25] and hugging people as they come in
[24:26] and as we walk through the halls,
[24:28] it's like such a proud moment
[24:29] and such a strong sense of community.
[24:32] And the work of cares is really showing up in the sense that
[24:35] morning meeting is flawless.
[24:37] Fourth grade bar, the whole fourth grade team in
[24:39] to do a morning meeting together.
[24:41] And Kelly and I got to join them
[24:42] and the routines are so established that
[24:46] building those relationships and ha doing those activities
[24:48] and learning more about each other came, came
[24:51] with absolute nee ease.
[24:53] You know, again, our PTA I'm looking forward
[24:56] to the things they have scheduled for us.
[24:58] They are so supportive.
[24:59] The volunteers that come in, like Jen who runs off papers
[25:02] and stuff, they, those are the things
[25:04] that people don't necessarily see.
[25:05] They come and have the fun or the teachers have the
[25:07] materials they need to get it done.
[25:09] The great work that's done all the time.
[25:11] So again, looking forward to a great year.
[25:13] The weekly huddles was probably my favorite year.
[25:16] This is, I'm going to year 41
[25:18] and dairy, but not as a principal.
[25:19] But my most favorite year as a summer as a principal,
[25:22] because we, it's not that we don't collaborate
[25:25] or talk in the summer because you call and stuff each other
[25:29] and we lean on each other,
[25:30] but being in the same room with each other,
[25:32] to have those conversations and think of things together
[25:35] and plan things out together was amazing.
[25:39] Like, so appreciate the work that we got to do side by side.
[25:45] I have a question. So now are all the classrooms at East
[25:48] Area tile floor?
[25:50] Like all the rug is gone.
[25:51] They are except the C Oh,
[25:54] I'm gonna have to think about the library.
[25:56] No, I the library
[25:57] sells carpet, right Picture, there's still carpet.
[25:59] So the classroom, yeah, but the three cubbies,
[26:01] the last three rooms that, that had the cubbies
[26:02] that were blocking the view
[26:03] for when kids were hanging up their things are going
[26:05] to get things or maybe not doing
[26:07] things they should do behind there.
[26:09] Now we can see it. We don't need the little mirrors,
[26:11] the backup mirrors that for teachers to look
[26:13] and just opening that up along with the tile floors,
[26:16] make the room seem brighter and bigger.
[26:19] So tho those look beautiful too. But those are all done.
[26:21] We're down to like minimal rugs in in
[26:23] that back suite in the small offices.
[26:25] There's rugs back there, but they
[26:26] but the classroom, it's the, the classroom,
[26:28] the classroom structure themselves are all yep,
[26:30] tile, easy to clean.
[26:31] Yeah. And, okay, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah.
[26:38] Alright. Thank you Mary. Thanks Mary.
[26:41] Last but not least,
[26:49] Well now I do get to know what it's like
[26:51] to have everything said, but there,
[26:53] there's some important things to, to say about Barker here.
[26:57] We had a, a busy summer, but
[27:00] before I get into that, I just want
[27:01] to thank the Barca custodians.
[27:03] You know, you guys are gonna notice a, a theme here,
[27:06] the Barca custodians.
[27:07] We have four guys that put their heart
[27:10] and soul into everything they do there
[27:11] to make that school shine.
[27:13] We are fortunate with the school that we have
[27:15] and we know that, and those guys do a lot of work
[27:18] to get the school ready so
[27:20] that it does shine the way that it does.
[27:22] But that being said, Jeremy's crew also
[27:25] did three new things for bark.
[27:27] And I don't want that to go on set either.
[27:28] The new sign out on 28 is, is a beautiful sign.
[27:33] We also had the bleachers that were in disarray.
[27:36] They needed to really be repaired and,
[27:38] and they repaired every single seat in our bleachers in the,
[27:41] in the gymnasium and then the tactile pads outside.
[27:45] We have a couple staff
[27:47] and a few students that are in wheelchairs.
[27:49] And those tactile pads are important
[27:50] for them coming into the building.
[27:52] We have three main spots where they enter the building
[27:55] and those tactile pads were replaced.
[27:58] And that's a big deal for them.
[28:00] So we just wanna acknowledge that, you know,
[28:02] that work was done at Barca and, and it was important work.
[28:06] Like I said, we were busy this summer at Barca
[28:10] and I just wanna make sure that, you know,
[28:12] people are acknowledged for that as well.
[28:14] We had four programs that were running this summer in ESY
[28:18] and we also had Title one that was done
[28:22] by our curriculum department.
[28:25] And that's a big undertaking.
[28:26] We had about 200 students at school.
[28:29] And so that requires a lot of preparation, a lot of staff,
[28:32] a lot, a lot of organization and student services.
[28:35] Did a great job doing that.
[28:37] It really was, was a pleasure to run at Barca.
[28:42] That being said, it was also talked about the administration
[28:45] being able to get together
[28:47] because we didn't have construction at Barca.
[28:49] We were able to use that, that space
[28:53] and the administration pulled together
[28:55] and took days to make sure
[28:57] that the ESY program ran smoothly.
[28:59] And that allotted us time to get together
[29:02] and do a lot of team building.
[29:04] We are, I would say close as a group anyway,
[29:08] but having that time together uninterrupted,
[29:11] where you can just sit like Mary kind of alluded to,
[29:14] where you're just bouncing ideas off of one another
[29:16] and, you know, talk about things
[29:18] that come up throughout the year really does help you
[29:21] grow as a professional.
[29:22] So it was nice to have everybody together
[29:24] and I think that that's, you know, a testament
[29:27] to these guys in their professionalism.
[29:28] So it was great to have that together.
[29:32] As far as the school year goes, we've had a great kickoff.
[29:35] Like everybody says the star times, you know,
[29:39] everybody has made a great shift for the star times
[29:41] and we, we can't go without talking about our PTA.
[29:45] Our PTA puts a lot of work into making sure
[29:48] that the students are welcomed.
[29:49] We have our first welcome back event on the 18th
[29:53] and everybody's already, already looking forward to that.
[29:56] So the school year is off and running
[29:58] and we're gonna be busy with, you know, night events,
[30:00] PTA events, things, just getting kids welcome back to school
[30:04] and excited about going to school.
[30:07] And then last
[30:08] but not least, I can't thank the teachers and staff enough.
[30:12] They really are the ones that put every, you know,
[30:14] put everything into the opening of the school.
[30:16] They make it what it is,
[30:18] and then the students, you know,
[30:20] doing the routines like the other,
[30:22] the other principals have talked about,
[30:23] that's really important for the kids.
[30:25] They know that they're taken care of.
[30:27] They know that they're loved in these schools
[30:29] and so that's why they're able to do so well.
[30:32] When you feel comfortable to even make a mistake
[30:36] and learn, that's really what going to school is all about.
[30:40] So we're excited for a great school year.
[30:42] We thank you guys for your support
[30:44] and look forward to seeing you in a couple months.
[30:49] Any questions for Dave? Alright. All right, thank you.
[30:52] Thanks guys. Thank you. Just quickly, I, you know,
[30:56] I want to thank the six of them.
[30:57] I mean, principal is the hardest job in any school district.
[31:00] I stand by that. I'll never think differently.
[31:04] Every day's different, every minute,
[31:06] hour could be different at certain times.
[31:09] Dealing with adult problems, right?
[31:12] Teacher problems, concerns, issues throughout the day,
[31:14] dealing with parent issues, concerns,
[31:16] problems throughout the day, dealing
[31:17] with student issues throughout the day.
[31:20] They are the lead manager of, of that facility,
[31:24] but they are people pleasers, right?
[31:26] So their job is to try
[31:27] and solve all those things in a single day.
[31:29] Some crazy stat bill I'm gonna make up right now.
[31:32] But they make 3000 decisions a day
[31:33] or something along those lines as principals.
[31:36] But you know, it's, I've been here now 14, 15 months
[31:41] and the dedication that that group puts in is,
[31:43] is unmatched to where I've been.
[31:45] So we wouldn't be able to sit up here
[31:47] and do our jobs if it wasn't for you,
[31:48] because of the front lines and,
[31:50] and you work really well with our teachers
[31:51] and our students and our families.
[31:52] So thank you for all that hard work. I really appreciate
[31:54] It.
[31:55] Yeah, and I'd just like to add to that, thank you guys
[31:57] for getting together and kudos to whoever put
[31:59] that together for you guys.
[32:01] That's, I mean, you guys carry the weight
[32:03] to dairy on your shoulders.
[32:04] You have the children, you have the future.
[32:07] And the fact that you guys take that so seriously,
[32:10] it's just, it's awesome.
[32:14] It's been a year now that we've had you guys coming
[32:16] with these updates in this format
[32:17] and I mean, I think it's been a fantastic update, you know,
[32:20] to our agenda to provide us
[32:22] and the community with a look into what's going on at your
[32:25] schools, all the great things that you're doing.
[32:27] And good luck with the rest
[32:29] of the fall and we'll see you soon.
[32:34] You guys can go,
[32:38] Hold on.
[32:39] 'cause I just wanna say thank you, thank you for helping
[32:42] get South Range back on their feet without question.
[32:44] That's goes above and beyond
[32:46] and it just does show the kind of team that you have.
[32:49] And it's amazing. I was able
[32:51] to tour the four elementary schools and see the difference.
[32:55] They haven't been to the middle school and the intermediate,
[32:57] but the difference in the floors,
[33:00] the difference in finally finishing those last
[33:02] cubbies moved at East Area.
[33:03] That was the best idea ever. It makes a big difference.
[33:07] Just the floors alone make it so much brighter
[33:10] and so much more welcoming.
[33:11] And I also wanna recognize this, the custodians
[33:15] and the maintenance people because it, it was a huge summer
[33:20] and it shows in the building.
[33:22] So thank you. But thank you to you guys as well.
[33:29] All right. Alright, see you later, Faru. Yeah.
[33:30] Thank you guys. It's a school night. Yeah.
[33:37] All right. Our next order of business will be delegations
[33:39] and individuals at this time.
[33:41] Residents of dairy, parents of currently enrolled dairy
[33:43] students and employees of the district may address the
[33:45] school board on matters that pertain only to school
[33:47] and district business for a period of time.
[33:48] Not to exceed three minutes per person.
[33:51] As a reminder, the board welcomes your input,
[33:53] however questions are not
[33:54] entertained during the comment period.
[33:56] If you would like to speak, please come up
[33:57] to the microphone at this time
[33:58] and state your name and address for the record.
[34:01] Brian, is that it?
[34:09] Oh my goodness, you don't have to you. It's okay.
[34:13] I can't help yourself.
[34:25] Well, good evening. Oops. Can you hear me?
[34:28] Yes, I knew you'd tell me if you couldn't.
[34:33] Someone started that. I don't know who.
[34:35] Well, you know, I worked around aircraft for 20 years, so
[34:39] my hearing is not the best, you know,
[34:42] and tonight I even sat in front, you know, so I didn't have
[34:46] to, wouldn't take five minutes getting up.
[34:49] But anyhow, my name is Richard Tripp
[34:52] and I live at 44 Windham Road.
[34:57] The, I wasn't here last
[35:00] meeting for some reason.
[35:02] I neglected to check the
[35:08] so, but as I usually do,
[35:13] I always check the school board page to see
[35:19] what the agenda is and what the attachments are and,
[35:24] and if the video has been posted.
[35:28] So everything was fine.
[35:31] And I found the school board go goals presentation
[35:36] on the school board site.
[35:40] So as I was watching the
[35:42] video this afternoon, I thought it was great.
[35:45] You guys are going through all the goals,
[35:48] you've got this great presentation
[35:51] and you never put it up on a big screen.
[35:56] So I was wondering, well
[35:58] it probably would've helped a lot in communicating.
[36:02] I think that was one of the goals on page 10,
[36:08] if you would've done that so people at home could see
[36:11] what you were talking about.
[36:13] But anyhow, so anyhow, the,
[36:19] I listened to the, that's the only part
[36:21] that I watched on the,
[36:26] The video was the, the goal section
[36:29] and the being is, I'm on the,
[36:32] oh, I did notice that.
[36:36] I remember when Mike showed up, he says,
[36:38] there's gonna be no more acronyms.
[36:44] And one of the principals
[36:48] tonight, he says he's, he's really glad
[36:51] that they had an opportunity to, to have the ESS.
[36:56] Oh, yeah, yeah. And I just wanted, he did
[36:58] Followed up with what it was called though.
[36:59] What he did follow up with what it was called.
[37:02] Well actually he said emotional support.
[37:05] I don't, I think I thought there was two S's in ESS,
[37:11] I don't recall.
[37:12] Oh, Emotional student support.
[37:14] Probably. It's effective School Solutions is the
[37:16] Effective School Solutions. It's Oh, okay. Thank
[37:18] You.
[37:19] It's emotional school solutions. Effective
[37:20] School Solutions.
[37:22] Oh, effective. Oh, alright.
[37:24] Well, like I said, is that a 50 cent fine or It's a dollar.
[37:33] Always a dollar. Oh,
[37:36] but Richard, the other thing was Richard, when they,
[37:39] when they said they needed a prayer
[37:41] Profession, Richard, your time is up.
[37:42] So if you would like to request additional time,
[37:45] I would like some extra time. Do
[37:47] I have a motion to extend Mr.
[37:48] Tripp's time? So moved first by Jamie.
[37:51] Second. Second by Karen. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
[37:55] All opposed. Motion passes. Six zero.
[37:58] I'll try and be brief, but
[38:01] that was such a great presentation that give a lot of ideas.
[38:08] So anyhow, you know, yesterday was a primary
[38:12] and I, I survived the calling of the herd, you know, so
[38:18] maybe come November, I'll have one more term
[38:21] and the state house and I'm gonna quit
[38:24] after that. I, that's
[38:26] What they all say. Yeah,
[38:28] No, no, no, no.
[38:29] I am getting old, you know,
[38:32] and you know, when I graduated high school I wanted
[38:35] to be a teacher, but unfortunately my, I had to go to work
[38:39] for my uncle, uncle Sam.
[38:44] And so maybe I'll, I'll
[38:47] see if I can get hired as a paraprofessional.
[38:52] But, so anyhow, on page five of the goals,
[38:57] this is the finance where you're talking about the
[39:01] fiscal advisory committee.
[39:05] I think that we could have improved
[39:10] what happened last year a lot if
[39:15] what was gonna be discussed had been
[39:18] provided to the advisory committee members prior
[39:21] to the meeting, because you know, what was discussed
[39:27] at the last meeting was that, you know, if,
[39:29] if you're just wanting to volunteer
[39:31] and you don't know anything about budgets
[39:33] and whatever, it, it's hard to follow
[39:35] and hard to know which questions to ask.
[39:38] So, like I said, I would, when,
[39:41] when you're going over the fiscal advisory that
[39:46] what can be done to, you know, clarify the, the job
[39:51] and what they do.
[39:53] But if you could provide the material
[39:57] that's gonna be discussed that night prior to the meeting,
[40:00] I think you'll get a lot more questions.
[40:02] 'cause I remember that last year I was probably
[40:08] asked, ask 95% of the questions that were asked, you know,
[40:14] the, but it,
[40:19] the, i the concept of letting people,
[40:24] giving them some orientation on how to follow a a a budget
[40:30] package is a good idea too, you know?
[40:34] But, so anyhow, the,
[40:42] I had some other comments,
[40:44] but I, since I'm over time, I'll
[40:50] probably
[40:54] give you this one.
[40:55] I was, I remember when I was talking with Maryanne,
[40:59] I asked her what kind of kindergarten readiness assessment
[41:05] the schools do prior to accepting
[41:10] children in kindergarten.
[41:11] Because, you know, some kids are not really ready
[41:15] to go to kindergarten.
[41:17] You know, when, when the one principal said
[41:19] that they have four year olds going into kindergarten, I was
[41:24] somewhat taken aback because I, I have a hard time believing
[41:28] that four year olds are ready to be in kindergarten,
[41:32] you know, and if the kids are not ready
[41:37] to learn, it's gonna be a bad time for the rest
[41:40] of their life because they'll probably just be
[41:43] pushed in the first grade.
[41:45] But, and
[41:49] so anyhow, thank you very much.
[41:53] Thanks. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
[41:57] Thank you.
[42:16] Good evening everyone. Tom Cardin, two Cunningham Drive.
[42:19] I will try and keep it under three minutes or so.
[42:22] That was a, a great presentation by the principals.
[42:25] Incidentally, you know,
[42:26] especially they talked about all the, you know,
[42:29] constructions that have gone on at their school
[42:30] and pretty uplifting to, to see that.
[42:33] And I, I agree with Mike.
[42:34] I think they have the, the hardest job
[42:37] that when I was a teacher, I never wanted to be a principal.
[42:40] I love teaching, but, you know, they were very enthusiastic.
[42:43] That was great. So anyway, I wanted
[42:47] to talk about the town council meeting last week.
[42:50] Two of the, of our state representatives, Leon
[42:54] and Love, got up
[42:56] and spoke to the town council about HB 1331,
[43:00] which is gonna put the, wants to put the
[43:03] school district under a town department.
[43:07] And you know what they,
[43:09] what they basically told the town was to that, you know,
[43:12] either the, you know, town council puts it on the, on the,
[43:20] On the, excuse me, sorry.
[43:22] Either the town council puts it on the ballot in, in March
[43:26] or they were gonna get signatures
[43:28] and they were gonna put it on.
[43:31] And I thought that was kind
[43:33] of lousy the way they treated the, the town council on that.
[43:37] You know, they, they talked about people coming up to 'em
[43:40] and telling 'em that, you know,
[43:41] they're concerned about losing their homes
[43:43] and you know, one guy, you know, lived here 50 years
[43:47] and is concerned about losing his, his home.
[43:50] But what they, what they didn't say
[43:53] was they didn't talk about the process.
[43:55] They didn't talk about, you know, what's gonna happen
[43:58] with the SAU?
[43:59] Is that, is, is that gonna be dissolved?
[44:02] And, you know, does Superintendent Flynn call the
[44:05] Department of Education?
[44:07] Say, Hey, listen, we're a town, you know, we're,
[44:10] we're a town department, now we're dissolving, you know,
[44:13] what happens with with Pinkerton?
[44:15] Is Pinkerton gonna be subjected to the, to the tax cap?
[44:18] I, I don't think so. They seem to be a private school.
[44:21] So basically a third of the school budget is gonna be,
[44:25] you know, we will not come under that.
[44:28] And, you know, then, then again,
[44:30] they didn't talk about the process and the, and the timing.
[44:33] So, you know, those things all, all really concerned me.
[44:36] And, you know, I would think if,
[44:38] if they were gonna do something like this, I think the way
[44:40] that they should have, have gone would be
[44:43] to form a charter commission.
[44:44] I think having a, at least having a charter commission,
[44:47] we'd be having, oh, I think
[44:48] I'm gonna go over my three minutes.
[44:50] I think, I think at least having a charter commission
[44:54] is gonna give, you know, all the residents a chance
[44:57] to hear what's gonna happen.
[44:59] And, you know, they'll come to meetings
[45:01] and they'll have, they'll have input.
[45:03] And I think that would probably be the, the better way.
[45:06] And you know, I mean, basically what's happened is,
[45:09] you know, they've, they've laid a lot of their, a lot
[45:12] of work on, you know, on the, you know,
[45:14] school administration and, and town administration.
[45:17] So, can I have another minute?
[45:21] I have a motion to extend Tom's time by one minute.
[45:23] So moved. Second by Jen. Second by Jamie in favor. Aye. Aye.
[45:27] All opposed. Motion passes. Six zero. Go ahead.
[45:30] All right. So anyway, you know,
[45:31] it obviously it's gonna be a lot of work for, for you guys,
[45:35] and I just wanted to, to read this was,
[45:37] this was kind of interesting.
[45:39] This is the, this was from
[45:42] HB 49 B four dash three.
[45:44] You don't need to know that. But it talks about the amended
[45:47] analysis and it says, this bill enables the town council,
[45:50] dairy town council to incorporate the dairy school district
[45:53] as a department of the town through a charter amendment.
[45:57] And then the analysis on the bo then it goes down
[45:59] for another prayer, another sentence
[46:01] that says it is a template
[46:03] for neutering school district independence across the state.
[46:08] And I thought that was, I don't,
[46:11] I don't even have the word for it.
[46:13] So anyway, thank you for your time
[46:16] and you know, I I wish you a lot of luck,
[46:18] especially getting all this information
[46:20] out to everybody. Thanks.
[46:22] Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom.
[46:40] I too am as co-sponsor on HB
[46:45] 3 30 13 31.
[46:48] And I, I got up
[46:53] and spoke also, and I basically said
[46:58] what Tom hinted at, that the,
[47:03] the intent of this bill is to simply
[47:08] have the tom have a,
[47:14] the final say on the school budget there,
[47:18] there's nothing in the bill that says we're taking over the,
[47:21] the town is taking over the, the schools,
[47:24] the schools are gonna con continue to run, you know,
[47:28] the education program.
[47:32] And oh, by the way, Richard Trip 44 Winter Road, sorry,
[47:38] We got you the first time.
[47:39] What? We got you the first time.
[47:41] I know, but sometimes, anyhow,
[47:44] I don't wanna talk too much.
[47:45] But like I said, it's one of these things that, you know,
[47:49] the idea is, is simply to give the
[47:56] citizens dairy the option
[48:00] of deciding whether they feel
[48:04] the school budget could be better
[48:09] managed by the town
[48:12] rather than the schools.
[48:15] 'cause and that is, I I remember speaking with
[48:20] several of the Democrats
[48:24] and up at the State House
[48:25] and they said, well, this is a bad thing.
[48:27] And I go, this is democracy.
[48:30] This is giving the people of the town the opportunity
[48:35] to make a decision on how
[48:38] the schools are gonna be funded and managed.
[48:41] You know, and you guys talk about democracy all the time.
[48:45] I, I feel that democracy is a good idea.
[48:48] But Richard, quick question by, could you clarify,
[48:51] when you say being run by the town
[48:54] who would be running the school
[48:55] budget, then the town council,
[48:57] This town council would have the final say
[49:02] on the school budget.
[49:05] So instead of it being
[49:06] Jenna, sorry, this is not a discussion period,
[49:09] this is a time for Richard to make a statement. And
[49:11] Then we can, my apologies if you, I I've spent some time
[49:17] studying the, the way the Manchester school budget this.
[49:21] Richard, you're almost outta your three minutes. So I'm
[49:23] Gonna ask you, so I, you know, like I said, we're, we are
[49:27] studying this in, in addition
[49:28] because all this election is going
[49:32] to do is determine whether the,
[49:37] the people approve a charter commission as,
[49:40] as Tom said, thank you.
[49:46] All right. I think everyone has had their
[49:47] opportunity to speak tonight.
[49:49] So we will move on with the meeting.
[49:50] However, the public comment period will remain open
[49:52] until 7:33 PM if you wish to speak prior to that time,
[49:56] approach the microphone and I'll recognize you
[49:57] at the next break in the agenda.
[50:00] Still no student updates tonight,
[50:01] although I believe we will have a Pinkerton
[50:03] representative very soon.
[50:07] So we will move on to deliberations.
[50:09] We have two items to consider tonight.
[50:11] The first item is the RFQ for the sale
[50:13] of the SAU building at 18 South Main Street.
[50:16] The board received a proposed RFQ from the administration,
[50:18] and I believe Mike and Jane will have a presentation for us.
[50:21] Yeah, so this afternoon late to the packet
[50:25] where we are waiting for legal to, to have a final look over
[50:29] in your packet is a, it's an RFQ draft, right?
[50:33] So there's been this discussion since we started on
[50:36] what the best route was.
[50:37] And then at the last meeting I had discussed with the board
[50:41] that the recommendation from our legal
[50:42] firm was to do an RFQ.
[50:43] So an RFQ is a request for qualification
[50:48] and the board can determine what the qualifiers are
[50:51] for the people or the, the group, the person
[50:53] or whoever can be qualified to sell 18 South Main Street.
[50:58] So we, Jane and I did some comparisons of other districts.
[51:03] They sent us their RF Qs of people that recently put land up
[51:07] for sale or buildings up for sale.
[51:08] And we did a little bit more detail oriented.
[51:10] We thought it was, we thought it,
[51:12] we thought we needed a little bit more detail
[51:14] because we've heard through the committee work, Brenda,
[51:17] about what it should and shouldn't be used for.
[51:19] Should it stay, should it not stay? Who should we sell to?
[51:23] So this is really basically soliciting a firm
[51:25] or a person that has the qualifications
[51:27] for commercial realistic.
[51:28] So you would see that we were kind
[51:31] of having them do some hard work upfront, which is the goal,
[51:36] so that we know who we're gonna enter an agreement with.
[51:39] So what their background is, if they're qualified,
[51:43] maybe some history of purchases and sales.
[51:46] This is really up to the board.
[51:48] All we did was draft what we recommend
[51:53] and then you guys get to kick it around this evening and
[51:55] or na, each category, qualifications add, subtract.
[51:59] We put an anticipated timeline on there.
[52:01] I think that was important so that we can stick
[52:03] to a schedule and move forward and move along.
[52:06] But all that is up to you guys as the board as,
[52:08] as we've said through legal, you guys get
[52:10] to ultimately make the who we hire decision
[52:12] and then really who we purchase.
[52:15] Remember the one caveat is once we enter an agreement,
[52:17] there is the charter school requirement that we have
[52:21] to offer Final first ref refusal ref.
[52:23] Thank you. So that's in your packet
[52:26] for discussion for you guys tonight.
[52:29] I even drafted a recommended motion so
[52:32] that you guys had some path of guidance on that,
[52:37] but I look forward to any questions or concerns
[52:40] or objections, whatever it may be.
[52:44] Thank you Mike. So we have a proposed RFQ.
[52:47] I hope everyone has had the chance to take a look at it.
[52:49] We have a recommendation for how
[52:50] to move forward on the table.
[52:52] So I'd open it up to the board for questions, discussion.
[53:01] Anybody have any questions, comments?
[53:06] I'll just say thanks for getting this done.
[53:07] I appreciate it. I think it looks pretty comprehensive
[53:12] to me, not a realtor, but from what I've can see
[53:16] and having been through selling a piece
[53:19] of property from the school district pre prior,
[53:23] I think it looks pretty comp comprehensive
[53:27] and hopefully we will have a good,
[53:29] somebody good come out of this.
[53:31] Yeah, our goal, we saw some rep,
[53:33] some from other towns I think, and after Jane
[53:35] and I discussed, we, we wanted
[53:37] to make it a little bit more detail oriented so
[53:38] that people knew that they were doing,
[53:39] but more importantly, we were able to know
[53:41] what we were doing towards the community, right?
[53:44] There's no secrets here, right?
[53:46] We, we have it all mapped out, this will go live,
[53:49] everyone can digest it and then firms
[53:51] or individuals can really say,
[53:52] do I want to do that work or not?
[53:53] Right? So that you're not getting someone that
[53:55] that just says, we wanna purchase
[53:56] and we need someone, then it's gonna
[53:58] turn in some questions and answers.
[53:59] So I feel like we're gonna, we're doing a,
[54:03] a very fair process for anyone that really wants
[54:05] to enter into an agreement with us.
[54:09] Yeah, I thought you guys did a fantastic job on this.
[54:11] You know, we want to, you know, move forward with this,
[54:14] you know, the right way to get this taken care of
[54:16] as quickly as we possibly can.
[54:17] So I think this looks pretty good to me
[54:21] as written questions.
[54:25] Somebody gimme just one. Anyone gimme a question. No,
[54:29] No, I'm just, I like the way it's all spelled out.
[54:31] Great. You guys did a great job on that. Thank you. Alright,
[54:35] I'm just curious, I'm just curious where this goes out to,
[54:39] like you said it goes live on the website page
[54:42] and then where does it go out as far as like
[54:45] who views this where?
[54:47] Yeah, so How does it get advertised?
[54:51] That's a great question. So the, it goes onto our, and,
[54:53] and then we, we have our contacts that we reach out to,
[54:57] meaning it goes on to some of our listervs of people.
[55:03] We also have to understand that we,
[55:04] we can't solicit business.
[55:05] So that, that's part of the requirements of an RFQ
[55:08] or an RFP is that people normally are paying attention
[55:11] or if they've been interested.
[55:12] We've already received questions on this stuff.
[55:15] I know someone on the board
[55:17] that probably knows people that might be interested.
[55:19] So all that stuff goes live, we,
[55:21] but we don't solicit business
[55:23] and just wanna be very clear on that.
[55:26] I can tell you too, Jenna, people are already watching
[55:28] this, you know, everybody knows that it's empty.
[55:32] Yeah. So, so yeah. So, and people talk,
[55:35] Well we talked to Mike Fowler, the community,
[55:37] so he has those people.
[55:38] Yeah. So all the right people will know. Yep.
[55:40] And if you don't know then you aren't paying attention.
[55:43] Yeah. I mean if you're a resident in town,
[55:45] we voted to sell it.
[55:46] Yep. So yeah, everyone should be aware if you know,
[55:49] if you're a resident in dairy and a voter.
[55:54] All right, if we have no other questions
[55:55] or comments, I would accept a motion for the school board
[55:58] to approve the proposed request for qualifications process
[56:01] for commercial real estate brokerage services related
[56:03] to the former SAU property at 18 South Main Street
[56:07] and authorized the superintendent to finalize
[56:09] and issue the RFQ subject to legal review.
[56:12] So moved First by Brenda, second by Karen.
[56:15] All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion carries. Six zero.
[56:19] Awesome. We'll get that going.
[56:22] All right, looking forward to it.
[56:25] Second item tonight is gonna be the appointment
[56:27] of a school district treasurer.
[56:29] As you may recall, deputy treasurer Kathy Kennedy has been
[56:32] serving as interim treasurer since the
[56:33] resignation of Jason McLeod.
[56:35] Kathy had been on the fence,
[56:36] but she has decided to put in her application
[56:38] for the treasurer position.
[56:40] We've received no other application since the position
[56:42] became available, so we're happy
[56:44] to bring Kathy's nomination forward tonight.
[56:47] Section RSA 1 95, section five,
[56:50] paragraph two governs the position of treasurer
[56:52] for cooperative school districts.
[56:54] The law dictates that treasurers are to be appointed
[56:56] by the school board for a term not
[56:57] to exceed five years in an annual salary
[56:59] to be determined by the school board.
[57:01] Net salary has been budgeted at $2,000 a year
[57:05] on top of state law.
[57:06] This board has a policy BCC that further limits the term
[57:09] of the treasurer to three years.
[57:12] So like we did with the clerk position,
[57:13] we're moving towards setting the term for this position
[57:15] to align with the district's fiscal year
[57:17] beginning on July 1st.
[57:19] So for this appointment, we're asking for a term,
[57:21] they would begin immediately with the appointment running
[57:23] for the rest of this fiscal year
[57:24] and the next two full fiscal years ending on
[57:27] June 30th, 2029.
[57:30] So anybody have any questions about this?
[57:32] I just wanna thank her. She got into this kind
[57:36] of unwillingly to start and then Jane
[57:40] and David have been phenomenal at kind of coaching along
[57:43] and honestly, you know, she kind of offered it.
[57:46] So we're ecstatic to her to stay in the family,
[57:50] quote unquote, and she's really bought into it.
[57:52] So the good news is
[57:54] by the next meeting we believe we'll have a deputy
[57:56] treasurer for you as well.
[57:58] So we're hot right now, we're gonna keep it going.
[58:01] Yeah, I know when, when Jason first resigned,
[58:03] the answer seemed like it was a hard no from, from Kathy.
[58:06] So I'm glad she came around. Yep.
[58:10] So if there are no other questions, I would accept a motion
[58:12] to appoint Kathy Kennedy as the school district treasurer
[58:15] for a term to run through June 30th, 2029 at an annual
[58:18] salary of $2,000.
[58:20] So, moved First by Jenna.
[58:22] Second. Second by Jen. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
[58:27] All opposed? Motion carries six zero.
[58:31] So yeah, thank you again to Kathy for stepping up
[58:34] and like Mike noted,
[58:35] we do now have an opening for Deputy Treasurer.
[58:37] Hopefully we will have a nomination for
[58:39] that position pretty soon.
[58:44] All right. Our next order of business
[58:46] is administration report.
[58:47] So first up will be Jane
[58:48] with the business administrators update.
[58:52] Sorry, it's my
[58:54] Fault.
[58:55] That's okay.
[58:58] Didn't look like it was on. Okay.
[59:00] So we've been busy in finance working.
[59:04] We've had auditors in the district Tuesday, Wednesday.
[59:08] They will yesterday, today
[59:11] and the loss will be here tomorrow for the full day.
[59:14] We also have been working on, as I've mentioned
[59:17] before, the DOE 25, the full financial reflection
[59:21] of the prior school year.
[59:24] And also working on our MS 24,
[59:26] which is our report on revenues that we'll need to go
[59:30] to the Department of Revenue.
[59:32] And it's used for, it's also be used for tax rate setting.
[59:35] So we've also, you know, we had our committee meeting
[59:41] and we talked about presenting the update
[59:44] for the bond project and I'll bring it at the next meeting.
[59:47] We only had a few very small bills that were paid
[59:50] and they were paid right up until
[59:52] before I left for the meeting.
[59:53] So we just didn't have a, a chance to update the report.
[59:56] So we'll bring that to the next August,
[1:00:00] next September meeting.
[1:00:04] That's it unless anybody has any questions. Short
[1:00:06] And sweet questions for Jamie.
[1:00:07] That's sweet. Short and sweet. Alright. Mike, you're up.
[1:00:10] Yeah. So a couple things.
[1:00:12] First is our five six athletic busing.
[1:00:18] I've received a few emails from parents and,
[1:00:19] and Danielle's done a phenomenal job of,
[1:00:21] of feeling those questions as well.
[1:00:23] So we've had a challenge and I just, I wanna go on record.
[1:00:26] We've actually just had a challenge finding a driver, right?
[1:00:29] So those are some challenges that we're trying
[1:00:30] to run a shuttle in between boys and girls club.
[1:00:33] We were working with them, but that wasn't gonna time up.
[1:00:36] Good news is they ran a practice run today.
[1:00:40] They're gonna run another practice run tomorrow.
[1:00:41] And we believe that we'll be launching a five six shuttle
[1:00:44] for those student athletes that need to get in
[1:00:46] between starting next week.
[1:00:49] Tomorrow. They are picking up the boys soccer team
[1:00:52] and the girls cross country team.
[1:00:54] No, not girls, it's just cross country.
[1:00:57] So those are all starting to get into motion.
[1:00:59] We just wanna thank the, the bus company
[1:01:01] and the drivers that are essentially adding onto their
[1:01:04] routes for the end of the day there.
[1:01:05] But we think Clifton's done a great job working with that
[1:01:09] to busing in general.
[1:01:10] It's been a, it's been a challenging opening year
[1:01:14] and as a point of reference as I've been working with DEA
[1:01:17] and our own building and,
[1:01:18] and things like that, we have nothing
[1:01:21] to compare this year to, right.
[1:01:22] So all of these runs
[1:01:24] that our bus drivers are making are brand new,
[1:01:26] as Bill alluded to.
[1:01:28] Even though his number might be fake,
[1:01:30] all the rider ships up.
[1:01:31] So that's continued reevaluation of those routes,
[1:01:35] even though we're nearly 10 days in, we feel today.
[1:01:40] Do you have a timeline when it cleared today,
[1:01:42] by chance you had been keeping track?
[1:01:44] Yeah, I wasn't. Okay.
[1:01:45] So the, it's been getting better every day
[1:01:48] and we've been making alter alterations to those runs.
[1:01:51] Several parents, one spoke last meeting about an
[1:01:54] evaluation of stops.
[1:01:55] Those are all included on
[1:01:56] what we're trying to continue to do.
[1:01:58] And then we'll send out a communication
[1:01:59] to those individual families along with other ones
[1:02:02] that we may have had challeng, the morning seems to be down,
[1:02:05] we're still running into some afternoon
[1:02:08] unintended consequences.
[1:02:10] So traffic circle when we were out 20,
[1:02:13] 30 minutes earlier last time.
[1:02:15] So them returning.
[1:02:17] So just, I wanted the board to be aware, aware
[1:02:19] of we're still working through it,
[1:02:20] but it's been getting better each day.
[1:02:22] We feel pretty good about where we're going.
[1:02:25] We are full in budget season in our world.
[1:02:27] So, Jane, Jeremy, Carrie
[1:02:29] and I met for quite some time today, met
[1:02:31] with the principals last Thursday.
[1:02:33] They're doing the department budgets with the goals of
[1:02:36] what the board has discussed publicly, trying to find
[1:02:38] that target, I've said it on record,
[1:02:40] we need to show restraint this year.
[1:02:41] We need to show proper budgeting.
[1:02:44] I'm gonna continue to say that.
[1:02:45] So year over year, we don't wanna have spikes,
[1:02:47] we don't wanna have huge laws.
[1:02:49] We wanna just become a, a predictable budget each year
[1:02:52] so the, the community knows what's coming.
[1:02:54] Facilities, we talked about the capital improvement plan
[1:02:58] being released, that's gonna happen at the next meeting.
[1:03:00] So we have a lot of these projectors
[1:03:01] that are gonna be coming into place.
[1:03:03] So what Mr.
[1:03:04] Trip has said this year through the fiscal advisory,
[1:03:07] we really intend on communicating the purpose behind it,
[1:03:11] but having the documents prepared so that the,
[1:03:15] the advisory committee can digest those
[1:03:17] and come prepared so that it's not more
[1:03:19] of a learning session on the go.
[1:03:20] So we're doing a lot of that work ahead of time.
[1:03:23] And then facilities, it came up as well
[1:03:28] with the bond and the money and the interest earned.
[1:03:32] We've been working already with legal counsel on
[1:03:35] how do you hit those next things on the list.
[1:03:37] That was part of probably just Brenda
[1:03:40] and Michael on that initial bond that went out.
[1:03:43] The larger number, 50 something
[1:03:45] million, somewhere on those lines.
[1:03:47] Yeah. So we're getting those jobs lined up
[1:03:49] because the law allows you to, to check off boxes
[1:03:52] with saved money on what was discussed publicly.
[1:03:55] So we're gonna create that list that's gonna come
[1:03:56] to the board for full discussion
[1:03:58] that came out of facilities.
[1:04:01] And then tomorrow our assistant principals are the,
[1:04:07] the new bullying law that you guys adopted two weeks ago.
[1:04:10] The, our legal firm's coming tomorrow
[1:04:12] to do a full in-depth training on the new requirements
[1:04:15] and the new necessities to make sure that we are in align
[1:04:17] with it, along with updating our forms.
[1:04:20] So looking forward to that, which is,
[1:04:22] which is always exciting.
[1:04:24] Onto the two big topics
[1:04:25] that are sublist out there on the agenda.
[1:04:28] I'm gonna skip ahead 'cause I think the town council will be
[1:04:31] more of a discussion, but, oh, sorry, it's not on here.
[1:04:34] It's in my brain. So 1300, 1300
[1:04:38] is gonna be on,
[1:04:41] might be on the November election ballot, right?
[1:04:44] So 13 hundred's, the one that's proposing a tax cap
[1:04:46] for all districts statewide.
[1:04:49] We had a statewide legal training
[1:04:53] and it only made things worse.
[1:04:57] So right now there is an emergency, I'll call it a lawsuit,
[1:05:02] against the, the order specifically around the language
[1:05:05] of the, the, the ballot
[1:05:08] or the warrant article that's going on the ballot
[1:05:10] and how it's misleading to the voter.
[1:05:12] So that's gonna be a thing
[1:05:13] that's gonna happen in the courts.
[1:05:15] The other interesting part,
[1:05:16] 'cause it was a statewide training.
[1:05:17] We had representatives from New Hampshire
[1:05:19] Department of Education on the call.
[1:05:21] We had attorneys on the call,
[1:05:23] and there's discrepancies in the math that's presented.
[1:05:27] So the state saying that it's one number,
[1:05:29] which would only do a 1.039 increase in your budget
[1:05:33] as a tax cap, whereas the legal firms are interpreting it
[1:05:37] as a 4.39, a one plus inflation number.
[1:05:41] When we brought up the discussion
[1:05:43] and someone said, well, we should reach out to DRA,
[1:05:46] the response that we got from DRA, which is the Department
[1:05:49] of Revenue Administration, is that they are not allowed
[1:05:52] to provide any guidance at this time.
[1:05:54] So a lot of these districts are just, as I said,
[1:05:58] it hasn't gotten any easier.
[1:06:01] So for me to sit here and try
[1:06:03] and advise the board on any form
[1:06:04] or fashion, I wouldn't be giving any type of good opinion.
[1:06:08] The other part that came up is the default budget.
[1:06:10] So if the default budget is higher than the tax
[1:06:14] cap, what do you do then?
[1:06:16] And so there was no guidance
[1:06:18] because the default is if it could be a way
[1:06:21] that the budget fails, but if it fails,
[1:06:23] but it's above the tax cap,
[1:06:24] do you then slice the default budget,
[1:06:25] which is the minimum requirements plus one time,
[1:06:29] you know, expenders reduced.
[1:06:30] So that wasn't clearly articulated.
[1:06:33] And then the other one that's out there is
[1:06:35] that districts are preparing,
[1:06:37] because this isn't our ballot, right?
[1:06:39] This isn't the school district ballot in no means no
[1:06:41] in school district voting.
[1:06:43] So districts are preparing counter
[1:06:48] votes for their election in March
[1:06:51] to override the November election.
[1:06:54] All of these things are out here in play on
[1:06:58] what to do, how to do it.
[1:07:00] If I'm sitting here trying to give you just a quick, the,
[1:07:02] the biggest problem that we're having
[1:07:03] is what's the math gonna be?
[1:07:05] Right? There's a big difference between 1.039 and 4.39.
[1:07:10] Significant difference if,
[1:07:12] if you're telling a school district specifically ascending
[1:07:15] district, in which last year Pinkerton won up alone, 3%,
[1:07:18] three points, somewhere around there,
[1:07:20] that means we're still gonna have
[1:07:21] to find another 2% on ARC K to eight side.
[1:07:23] So the math is the challenge.
[1:07:26] I think the other stuff that we talked about's all up
[1:07:28] for interpretation, but we need some guidance from the
[1:07:31] state, from DRA
[1:07:35] because when you have attorneys saying one thing in
[1:07:37] New Hampshire Education Department saying another,
[1:07:40] that doesn't make our job any easier
[1:07:41] and it doesn't make us help the boards any easier,
[1:07:43] so, Hmm.
[1:07:46] That's the update on 1300 not great update meaning?
[1:07:51] Yeah, I mean it's incredibly
[1:07:53] frustrating when you look at the way this question is worded
[1:07:57] and you know, we're sitting here today, it's September 9th,
[1:08:00] you know, we've got less than two months
[1:08:01] until we could see a vote on this.
[1:08:03] And there's no consensus from the state on
[1:08:05] what the question means.
[1:08:08] So, you know, I mean, communication, communication.
[1:08:11] So, I mean, this is the question
[1:08:13] that the law mandates is gonna be on the ballot in November
[1:08:15] pending this lawsuit.
[1:08:16] Of course, it shall the town
[1:08:19] of Derry limit property tax growth
[1:08:21] for the Dairy Cooperative school district under RSA 32,
[1:08:24] section five I if adopted for a two year period,
[1:08:27] the property tax levy may not grow
[1:08:29] beyond the prior year's amount adjusted for inflation
[1:08:32] and new construction,
[1:08:34] SAU central office spending may not exceed 6%
[1:08:37] of total school district appropriations
[1:08:38] and bonded capital costs are excluded from both limits.
[1:08:42] These caps apply only to administrative operations
[1:08:45] of the SAU central office
[1:08:47] and do not affect classroom instruction,
[1:08:49] school-based services or other municipal expenditures.
[1:08:52] These limits may be overridden as provided in RSA 32.
[1:08:56] Section five I adoption requires a
[1:08:58] three-fifths majority vote.
[1:09:01] So yeah, and I don't even want to get into the detailed part
[1:09:04] where it says the SAU cost, which is 6% again,
[1:09:08] which I just wanna be clear, this is all fine.
[1:09:10] Like we're not, we're not worried about control costs.
[1:09:13] That's not where we're, we're, we're just trying to,
[1:09:15] we're trying to make sure we do it appropriately
[1:09:16] because it's my job.
[1:09:19] But the 6%, when we were getting, when we were in
[1:09:21] that training, it was amazing what interpreting
[1:09:25] what was in an SAU budget.
[1:09:26] Because there are some things that we don't have in our SAU,
[1:09:29] but now they're gonna force it into that line.
[1:09:31] And then there are some things that we budget
[1:09:33] for at the school side that maybe become part of the SAU,
[1:09:37] that interpretation was off.
[1:09:39] And then to draw an assumption that it wouldn't impact
[1:09:44] school or kids.
[1:09:46] That's a tough assumption too,
[1:09:47] because specifically I'll keep saying
[1:09:51] specifically ascending school,
[1:09:53] let's say pinkerton's insurance rate go up
[1:09:56] 10%, they gotta make up a difference.
[1:09:57] Let's say they just go up for fun, four point half percent
[1:10:00] that's still gonna make us on the K to eight side,
[1:10:02] have to make up that cost.
[1:10:03] And that cost isn't just sitting in an SAU line, right?
[1:10:06] There isn't enough cost to make that up in NSAU line
[1:10:09] that will then go into how you operate your school district.
[1:10:13] So I'll say there's a lot of interpret.
[1:10:16] I'm trying to be very nice,
[1:10:17] like the interpretation out
[1:10:18] there that we still have to work through.
[1:10:20] But I find it challenging for us in four meetings.
[1:10:24] I have to advise the board, the board has
[1:10:26] to make some decisions and conclusions.
[1:10:28] We have to communicate it to the public appropriately,
[1:10:31] get the right information so
[1:10:33] that people feel informed on a ballot that people are going
[1:10:37] to the box for, not for schools rather for
[1:10:42] senate seats and representatives.
[1:10:44] And then there's gonna be a school question on like,
[1:10:48] as you can see as I'm working through this out loud, it,
[1:10:50] it becomes more challenging for you guys as a group.
[1:10:53] I have, I have three questions after he read that.
[1:10:56] My first question is, oh, maybe
[1:10:57] before one, was this applicable just to dairy
[1:11:00] or this was across statewide?
[1:11:01] Statewide. Every community will have it on
[1:11:03] The ballot.
[1:11:04] Second, you said that it's two years.
[1:11:06] So this would come back onto a ballot every two years to be
[1:11:11] Re voted on in the November elections? Yes. Okay.
[1:11:13] And then the last line you said was
[1:11:15] that this may be overridden.
[1:11:17] Is that what you were talking about?
[1:11:18] Is the possibility of it going on to a march ballot
[1:11:21] for the town to then override the state's?
[1:11:24] Yes. It's part of the interpretations.
[1:11:27] I have to keep saying interpretation. Okay.
[1:11:28] Just like with the tax cap statutes
[1:11:30] that you already have on the ballot.
[1:11:32] Yeah. If you're operating under a tax cap,
[1:11:34] the tax cap can be overridden with a super majority vote.
[1:11:38] Yeah. Okay. So it's the same concept.
[1:11:41] And then we have a third challenge
[1:11:42] as we people have spoke to tonight.
[1:11:45] So let's say, let's say that this goes to ballot,
[1:11:50] it's voted on and approved by the November election.
[1:11:54] Then we have our 1331 on, which is another, as Mr.
[1:11:57] Tripp said. It's just, it's the start of the process.
[1:11:59] It's not just a hammer. But then which one is like,
[1:12:03] those are kind of competing as well on certain things.
[1:12:05] So we have our work cut out for us as, as,
[1:12:09] as both of them have mentioned.
[1:12:10] And we have our first statewide superintendents meeting on
[1:12:14] Friday, which we'll be getting an update as an entire state.
[1:12:17] And the new Department of education will be there.
[1:12:19] So I anticipate that being a large discussion point
[1:12:21] for how we handle these things.
[1:12:24] So, so I have a question.
[1:12:25] If, if they can't provide any guidance at this time
[1:12:30] for this, when are they going to, I mean,
[1:12:34] Well, I guess is as good as ours.
[1:12:36] I mean, I know, I know you're,
[1:12:37] I know you're asking a good question
[1:12:38] that I don't have that answer. It's just,
[1:12:40] Yeah.
[1:12:41] Well I think Friday will be a good point.
[1:12:42] 'cause again, all a hundred of us will be in a room together
[1:12:45] and and Caitlin will be there.
[1:12:46] The, the commissioner. So we
[1:12:48] Is that hoping is, that's not a live or a zoom in
[1:12:51] Anything. No, that's, that's our,
[1:12:52] That's our own conversation.
[1:12:53] So when will we hear the fallout from that?
[1:12:55] I'll give you an update after that.
[1:12:56] I can, I can email you if
[1:12:57] anything relevant comes out of it for sure.
[1:12:59] Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:13:01] I mean, from our perspective, you know, we need to
[1:13:04] put some sort of messaging together
[1:13:05] that's gonna tell our constituents
[1:13:07] how this question is going to impact their schools.
[1:13:10] And we can't do that if we don't know
[1:13:14] what the impact of the question's gonna be.
[1:13:15] Not. Yeah. One of the questions in our training was,
[1:13:17] can a board, 'cause it's not our ballot
[1:13:20] and it's actually not the town's ballot.
[1:13:22] We gotta keep that in mind.
[1:13:23] This is, this is this attorney
[1:13:25] general, it's the state's ballot.
[1:13:27] But can each board put on voting in favor or not?
[1:13:30] Like what's recommended under the article
[1:13:31] that no one knew that answer either.
[1:13:33] I mean, the guess is probably no,
[1:13:35] since it's not our ballot in any way form or fashion.
[1:13:39] So this doesn't help any of you,
[1:13:42] but I just, I just wanted, I wanted to tell you where we sit
[1:13:45] and we're attending everything we can.
[1:13:47] Did you guys take anything, anything else?
[1:13:49] More than I feel free? No. Okay.
[1:13:51] I'm sure they didn't wanna step in that either.
[1:13:53] But it, it's, I mean, just to look at this question,
[1:13:55] you know, you step into the ballot box on election day
[1:13:58] and you know, you have to make a decision on this.
[1:14:00] I mean, just for me, looking at this, there are
[1:14:03] so many unanswered questions.
[1:14:04] You know, there's so many things going on here.
[1:14:06] You know, you've got the, the only thing that's clear
[1:14:09] to me is that bonded capital costs would be excluded
[1:14:12] from the, the tax cap.
[1:14:14] Yep. That's about the only thing in this entire question
[1:14:16] that makes any sense.
[1:14:18] Which would actually help us. Right? Yeah.
[1:14:21] That's a, that'd be a benefit quote unquote for us.
[1:14:23] Beyond that, you've got two caps.
[1:14:25] You've got one limiting the local property tax levy
[1:14:27] to the prior year's amount adjusted for inflation
[1:14:30] and new construction, whatever.
[1:14:32] Yep. That math. It's math. Yep.
[1:14:35] And, and then you have one limiting the SAU central office
[1:14:39] spending to 6% of the total budget.
[1:14:41] And then you have this last sentence that says,
[1:14:42] these caps only apply
[1:14:44] to administration administrative
[1:14:45] operations of the SAU office.
[1:14:48] So it's not clear to me reading this
[1:14:51] what it is that we're capping.
[1:14:53] Are we capping the overall property tax levies?
[1:14:56] So the entire net assessment,
[1:14:58] are we somehow separating out the central office
[1:15:00] operations and only capping that?
[1:15:03] And, you know, what are we even consider
[1:15:05] to be central office operations?
[1:15:07] That was, that's, that's the confusion.
[1:15:10] That's the confusion and the list that we received. Right?
[1:15:14] So transportation
[1:15:16] of the students is normally an SAU cost, right?
[1:15:20] So that's our obligation to get K to eight students to
[1:15:24] and from school within one mile of their house.
[1:15:26] Right? But then they were saying how IT director
[1:15:33] was in, but then the IT staff were out.
[1:15:38] My god. But the curriculum director
[1:15:43] could partly be in, but partly out.
[1:15:48] But all special ed people were in like Laura,
[1:15:53] but then the assistants were out.
[1:15:56] So trying to differentiate all that, again,
[1:15:59] I keep saying like there's an equation in a
[1:16:01] math issue that we have here.
[1:16:02] 'cause we just want to play by the rules,
[1:16:04] but we don't, I don't think we have a very clear
[1:16:06] line of what the rules are.
[1:16:08] But if DRA doesn't know how,
[1:16:10] is anybody else supposed to know?
[1:16:11] I Did you take a screenshot of that? I did. I did. Yeah.
[1:16:14] I mean, just, we all were like, that can't be real.
[1:16:18] But we, we did,
[1:16:19] because I'm like, they,
[1:16:20] they literally said they cannot
[1:16:21] advise us in any form or fashion.
[1:16:23] Who, who is it that gets to determine this breakdown?
[1:16:27] I think that's what's gonna happen in the courts.
[1:16:29] Like, I, I, I don't know
[1:16:33] Because at the end I understand, you know, making a, a,
[1:16:36] a bill, but like if there's no higher up of who gets
[1:16:41] to do a breakdown,
[1:16:43] then it sounds like it comes down to each.
[1:16:45] I, I, I really, I'm, I'm well, I'm obviously just
[1:16:48] as lost as you guys are.
[1:16:50] Sure.
[1:16:51] So normally when, when bills come out
[1:16:53] or new laws come in place, there's, you know, you get,
[1:16:57] you get advice from the Department
[1:16:59] of Education on how to proceed.
[1:17:00] You get N-H-S-B-A, whether it's maybe a policy,
[1:17:05] this one is this one.
[1:17:07] It feels like there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen and,
[1:17:10] and no one knows who the head chef is to answer
[1:17:13] what the ingredients are.
[1:17:14] So it's been challenging. Okay.
[1:17:17] I'll tell you what's also kinda scary about this, right?
[1:17:19] So let's say our net assessment is limited to the rate
[1:17:22] of inflation, you know,
[1:17:24] and that's one of our revenue sources,
[1:17:27] our other revenue sources.
[1:17:28] We're lucky if they even keep up with the rate of inflation.
[1:17:31] I mean, Danielle, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
[1:17:33] but like our state adequacy has actually gone down a year
[1:17:37] over year, the past few years.
[1:17:39] So like, I feel like you're getting hit from both sides.
[1:17:42] You're gonna be where we usually have our
[1:17:46] state adequacy aid that has been going down year over year,
[1:17:49] the past couple of years.
[1:17:51] Obviously it's not, not keeping up with the rate inflation,
[1:17:53] it's literally negative.
[1:17:55] And then we've been having to make up with that for
[1:17:58] that loss with increased taxation.
[1:18:01] So if we're on the one side now, we're now limited
[1:18:05] to this tax cap at the rate of inflation.
[1:18:08] I mean, that could become a huge problem. Yeah.
[1:18:12] What's the, what's the one, what's the one revenue
[1:18:16] that we continue to lose? It's called something funny.
[1:18:18] Medicaid? No, The remember it's
[1:18:21] called like the unharmed.
[1:18:23] Oh, the hold Harmless. Harmless.
[1:18:24] Well that's because, yeah, they changed
[1:18:26] the formula a few years ago.
[1:18:28] Less on that too. And the hold harmless is
[1:18:31] to help districts like us who are hit the hardest
[1:18:34] by these changes to the formula to phase into these changes.
[1:18:37] And yeah. And that is a big part of why ar
[1:18:40] state adequacy has been going down.
[1:18:43] Yeah. And I, I have to just emphasize like,
[1:18:47] being ascending district is very,
[1:18:49] very different than someone that own, like if I'm in hopton,
[1:18:52] I'm staring at this totally different.
[1:18:53] 'cause I have all of my control costs, everything is mine.
[1:18:57] Being ascending district, we, we lose a significant, a third
[1:19:02] of our budget is really uncontrolled.
[1:19:05] I mean, I've only been working with Pinton for a year
[1:19:07] and I think they did a great job of,
[1:19:09] of being respectful of what's going on.
[1:19:10] But that, that changes year to year two.
[1:19:13] So we have to be cognizant that a third
[1:19:16] of our budget is uncontrollable
[1:19:18] and that we K eight have to make up
[1:19:21] that difference every year.
[1:19:23] And so if the, if the number is 1.039,
[1:19:28] I think that's a really big different discussion.
[1:19:30] But if the number's 4.39, that's, that's all.
[1:19:32] Again, that's achievable to me. That's all.
[1:19:34] That's what we're trying here. That's what our goals are.
[1:19:36] That's all restraint. But, and
[1:19:37] Pancreatin is not affected by this, correct?
[1:19:39] No, they, because they're semi-private
[1:19:41] Only they're goodwill.
[1:19:43] You know, I mean, you would hope that they would see if all
[1:19:45] of their sending towns are impacted by this,
[1:19:47] that they would, you know, try to help us out.
[1:19:50] But they don't have to. Well, we're, if we're going down
[1:19:52] that lane, like we're also a different boat.
[1:19:55] We send the most kids, we don't, we're not,
[1:19:57] we can't really go shopping.
[1:19:59] But if you're, you know, if you're one of the smaller towns
[1:20:02] that only sends 25 a hundred, you,
[1:20:04] you could then go shopping and be like, all right,
[1:20:06] we can't keep up with pinkerton's inflation.
[1:20:08] We gotta go somewhere else and make a deal. Which
[1:20:11] Then hits us again.
[1:20:12] Yeah. Again, sure. 'cause it'll raise the price of our kids.
[1:20:14] 'cause there'll be less kids. Yeah.
[1:20:16] So we're, we're, I just, we're in a different boat than
[1:20:20] all a hundred percent controlled.
[1:20:21] Okay. Sorry, I just bring up that topic.
[1:20:29] So to transition, I'll go to fiscal advisor quickly.
[1:20:32] 'cause if you wanna talk about town council,
[1:20:34] those dates are in there.
[1:20:36] Kathleen May or may not have sent 'em out yet.
[1:20:38] I think she wanted you guys to look at 'em first
[1:20:39] before we send 'em out to committee members.
[1:20:41] We did it a little bit different this year from
[1:20:43] the feedback from everyone.
[1:20:44] We booked solid dates throughout the season
[1:20:49] and more importantly,
[1:20:50] I wanna talk about the targeted approach that we chose.
[1:20:53] So that Tuesday is really,
[1:20:57] I'll call it a level set slash training.
[1:20:59] We'll get documents in people's hands, discuss the review,
[1:21:03] discuss you know, what really shifts a budget, what can be,
[1:21:08] you know, my phrases are needle movers.
[1:21:10] I think Mr. Tripp said it several times
[1:21:11] in his questions last year.
[1:21:13] But then you get into the first presentation on
[1:21:16] October 20th, then you have a board meeting in between.
[1:21:20] We get to come back and kick it around as a,
[1:21:22] a fiscal advisory group.
[1:21:23] But more importantly, that date is
[1:21:25] after the election, right, Michael?
[1:21:27] So November 5th, is that after? That is after, right?
[1:21:31] I think the date, yeah, I think the,
[1:21:32] yeah, the election is Tuesday.
[1:21:34] Yeah. So we chose that Thursday so that we can regroup
[1:21:38] on the impact of what 1300 may
[1:21:40] or may not have had as a fiscal advisory group.
[1:21:43] Then we go back, of course my
[1:21:48] folder just closed, so I'm gonna go old school
[1:21:51] and go paper come back for that December 3rd.
[1:21:55] So that's after the Pinkerton numbers.
[1:21:56] They normally come out around Thanksgiving.
[1:21:59] And then last year, the, the fiscal advisory,
[1:22:01] we did not have a second December meeting,
[1:22:03] but some feedback was people felt kind of pressed in
[1:22:07] that first December meeting.
[1:22:08] So we put it on the books in case we want to come back
[1:22:11] depending on what's going on.
[1:22:12] So all of those meetings will be at
[1:22:15] the new professional learning center, at the new SAU so
[1:22:18] that our community can start to see
[1:22:20] what we have going on there. Some questions,
[1:22:23] The training, is that just for everybody
[1:22:26] that's on the fiscal
[1:22:27] Advisory committee?
[1:22:28] It'll be for the board and the fiscal advisory committee.
[1:22:29] Okay. Yep. It's open to the public.
[1:22:31] But yeah, it's, it'll be a training
[1:22:32] session directed for the members. Yeah.
[1:22:34] Will they be recording it? Dairy cam? Yeah. Okay, good.
[1:22:37] Because I won't be here, so. Sure.
[1:22:40] Yep. Any questions on that?
[1:22:46] Alright, last, this is more about discussion.
[1:22:49] Michael, do you want to take the lead on this?
[1:22:50] The joint one? Yeah.
[1:22:52] So we, in two weeks
[1:22:54] before our next meeting at five 30, we're having a workshop
[1:22:59] with the town council.
[1:23:01] So we wanted to take this opportunity during Mike's update
[1:23:05] to hear from the rest of the board on
[1:23:08] possible agenda topics, things
[1:23:09] that you think we should be discussing with the town.
[1:23:13] I mean, I think, you know, it's pretty clear
[1:23:17] what the number one topic is gonna be.
[1:23:19] You know, Mr. Carden brought it up earlier.
[1:23:22] You know, we're gonna be wanting
[1:23:23] to talk about this possible vote on a charter amendment
[1:23:25] to consolidate the schools as a town department.
[1:23:28] You know, I think that's gonna dominate the discussion.
[1:23:30] We need to talk this out with our counterparts on the
[1:23:32] council, make sure we all understand.
[1:23:34] If this were to come to pass, what is it gonna look like?
[1:23:37] I mean, I think that's one of the, the points was that
[1:23:40] it hasn't really been discussed.
[1:23:42] If this were to happen, what would it look like?
[1:23:44] You know, what would your role be as a superintendent?
[1:23:48] What would the school board's role be? You know?
[1:23:50] 'cause I mean, when you look at cities that are organized
[1:23:54] with the school department, you know,
[1:23:56] there is still a school board.
[1:23:58] They, you know, they,
[1:24:00] and it's the, the city council, in this case,
[1:24:03] it would be the town council that sets the
[1:24:05] overall budget number.
[1:24:06] But it's the school board and the superintendent
[1:24:07] that decides how that money is spent now, I mean,
[1:24:12] I don't understand why we're going through the trouble
[1:24:14] of consolidating the school district into a school
[1:24:17] department just to have a tax cap when we could just have
[1:24:19] a vote on a tax cap.
[1:24:21] But, you know, here we are. Yeah.
[1:24:24] Mike Fowler and I met for about,
[1:24:26] I wanna say about an hour the other day,
[1:24:28] and kind of started to work through scenarios.
[1:24:31] I guess that's the easiest way.
[1:24:32] And we were kind of already ahead of it.
[1:24:33] Mike had brought the idea up in May in regards to like,
[1:24:36] the consolidation of benefits,
[1:24:38] if HealthTrust would even do it for us.
[1:24:40] We're running those scenarios.
[1:24:41] But, you know, I don't, I'm not gonna go on record on, on,
[1:24:45] on some of our concerns.
[1:24:46] I think that discussion needs to happen amongst both boards.
[1:24:50] But trying to discuss the consolidation of hr, I mean,
[1:24:54] we have 608 employees.
[1:24:55] That's the town can't handle that processing, that payroll,
[1:24:59] those payments, you know, that's just one area.
[1:25:03] So it, it'll be an interest discussion amongst the,
[1:25:06] you know, elected officials of the town and the community.
[1:25:08] You know, Mike and I are just, we are,
[1:25:11] we are your employee, right?
[1:25:12] So Mike and the town council and me and the board.
[1:25:14] So how you guys work things out
[1:25:16] or scenarios that you want run, you know, we've, we've kind
[1:25:20] of talked it out, but it, it's, I think Tom, you know, Mr.
[1:25:24] Carne did a great job. It's like,
[1:25:26] what are the results of this?
[1:25:27] Right? It's, it's kind of, it's there's, there's,
[1:25:32] it's not as simple as we just go under the town council
[1:25:35] and then everything consolidates,
[1:25:39] or there's a reduction in cost necessarily.
[1:25:43] Right? It's two totally different worlds
[1:25:47] of municipalities.
[1:25:49] So I'm looking forward to that discussion.
[1:25:54] Yeah, I mean, I think we need to, you know,
[1:25:56] talk this all out with our counterparts on the council,
[1:25:58] you know, make sure we all understand, you know, how
[1:26:01] that we approach this with our constituents.
[1:26:04] You know, we all have a, a unique view into what the outcome
[1:26:08] of something like this is gonna be.
[1:26:10] And, you know, we have a duty to our constituents
[1:26:12] to keep them informed
[1:26:13] and, you know, tell them our opinion of doing these jobs
[1:26:17] and understanding what these jobs are, what the impact
[1:26:20] of this is gonna be.
[1:26:23] Yeah. Would would the, yeah,
[1:26:28] I mean, I, I can go down something like,
[1:26:30] we talked about mowing, we talked about snow removal,
[1:26:32] we talked about management of properties.
[1:26:34] What about break-ins at ours? Can you speak up please?
[1:26:36] Sorry. So there's, there's multiple layers
[1:26:41] of property management alone.
[1:26:45] Does the town have that capacity?
[1:26:46] Do then, then do we, yeah.
[1:26:51] It sounds like you guys discussed efficiencies across the
[1:26:53] town and schools in terms of management of Sure.
[1:26:55] Parking lots and buildings
[1:26:57] and all those types of things. Just,
[1:26:59] Just facilities, right.
[1:27:00] Not even getting into the depths of payroll, right.
[1:27:04] Benefits New Hampshire retirements
[1:27:08] for the, for the different classes.
[1:27:10] There's, there's a whole lot of
[1:27:14] educational management that we do
[1:27:16] as an administrative unit out of the SAU
[1:27:19] and then there's municipality management.
[1:27:22] It's significantly different.
[1:27:23] So it's not just a cross train, right?
[1:27:25] You don't just drop in how we, how we do payroll
[1:27:28] and how their hourly rates are computed.
[1:27:31] So it would take a significant amount of time and effort.
[1:27:33] Yeah. Sorry Brenda. That's
[1:27:35] All right.
[1:27:36] All of those are important,
[1:27:37] but at the end of that decision are children.
[1:27:40] Yeah. That need to be educated and be taken care of properly
[1:27:44] and the schools need to be taken care of properly.
[1:27:46] The end of a plow, the end of a mowing, mow
[1:27:50] a mower.
[1:27:52] There's still children involved.
[1:27:54] And I don't think the town council,
[1:27:57] and this is not a slam to them,
[1:27:59] I don't think they understand
[1:28:00] what it's like to run a school district.
[1:28:02] What is in the school district, how education is managed
[1:28:07] and how classrooms are managed, how schools are managed,
[1:28:10] and how a child's actually educated.
[1:28:13] And I think it's unfair to them to expect them to have to do
[1:28:16] that because somebody wants
[1:28:17] to take over the school district, my, just my opinion.
[1:28:21] But at the end of it all, you better remember
[1:28:23] that there's kids at the end.
[1:28:27] I think to your point, Brenda, it does beg the question,
[1:28:29] what problem does the town of Derry have have
[1:28:32] that this state level legislation seeks to solve?
[1:28:38] And that's really where I take issue with it. I mean, Mr.
[1:28:41] Tripp mentioned this evening at public comment that,
[1:28:44] you know, this is democracy, it's a democratic process.
[1:28:46] Well, as a reminder, there is a democratic process
[1:28:48] that takes place called a charter
[1:28:50] commission within the town of dairy.
[1:28:51] And if the dairy residents decide that that's a way
[1:28:54] of looking closely at how the town
[1:28:56] and schools have a relationship, there's a process in place
[1:29:00] for that to take place already to study the implications,
[1:29:04] to study the efficiencies that Mr. Flynn just mentioned.
[1:29:07] And so that process exists right now.
[1:29:12] And so I, I do think, I look forward
[1:29:15] to the collaboration a couple weeks
[1:29:16] with our town counselors.
[1:29:18] I think that there's a lot of good conversation to be had.
[1:29:21] And, you know, I, I will just state
[1:29:24] that I have very real concerns.
[1:29:29] I think one of the things that I have seen floating
[1:29:33] around online, which is the, the takeaway is the
[1:29:37] idea of there are too many administrators.
[1:29:41] That seemed to be a, a main theme
[1:29:45] when I was reading about these, these bills.
[1:29:48] And I, I know that you don't follow social media, mike, so,
[1:29:52] but this, you get a, a, a pulse,
[1:29:56] a finger on the pulse of what's going on out there.
[1:29:59] And it wasn't just dairy, it was outside of dairy.
[1:30:02] And that was like, well, you know,
[1:30:03] there's just too many administrators,
[1:30:05] too many administrators.
[1:30:06] And it's that, that, that one idea
[1:30:09] and a concept in a bill.
[1:30:11] So I think the thought is, well, if there's just too many,
[1:30:14] it's administrators and too many business costs,
[1:30:16] we're just gonna cut that.
[1:30:17] And instead of there being, you know, like, well,
[1:30:19] why don't we just have one principal
[1:30:21] and not a vice principal, and why don't we just, and,
[1:30:23] and just do these little tiny, it's like death
[1:30:26] by a thousand paper cuts, where they think that
[1:30:28] by taking out these big ticket numbers,
[1:30:31] that it won't affect the kids.
[1:30:33] And it's just office costs.
[1:30:35] But as Brenda just said, at the end of it, at the end
[1:30:39] of everything is children.
[1:30:41] So I don't think that they understand that trickle
[1:30:44] down that's gonna happen.
[1:30:47] And what we are ultimately going to have to deal with by
[1:30:51] the idea of like, we'll just cut SAU costs,
[1:30:53] but everything funnels just in a tiny way into SAU costs.
[1:30:57] Sure. There isn't, there's a big picture
[1:31:00] and there isn't enough tiny details
[1:31:04] to make this float right now. Yeah.
[1:31:08] And minimum standards tells us when we have to have a,
[1:31:12] an assistant principal, how many students you have to, like,
[1:31:16] there's rules that have to be followed.
[1:31:19] I know they can be changed, but right now, there are rules
[1:31:21] that say this ma and I don't know them in my head,
[1:31:23] but this many students, you have
[1:31:25] to have an assistant principal, this many students, you have
[1:31:27] to have this many nurses.
[1:31:29] And it talk about democracy. We vote on the school budget.
[1:31:33] The citizens of the town vote on the school budget.
[1:31:35] The citizens of the town can come
[1:31:37] to deliberative session and change the budget.
[1:31:39] If that's their choice, they have a vote.
[1:31:42] I don't know why that isn't part of democracy.
[1:31:47] I mean, that is an excellent point.
[1:31:48] I mean, if anything, you know,
[1:31:50] the town meeting system in New Hampshire,
[1:31:51] the deliberative session, I mean,
[1:31:53] it is the ultimate expression of democracy, right?
[1:31:56] It's the opportunity for everybody in this town
[1:32:00] to come together and determine
[1:32:03] what the school budget is gonna be like.
[1:32:05] You know, us as a school board, you know, we take the blame
[1:32:08] for the budget a lot, but all we do is propose a budget.
[1:32:11] You know, anybody in town can come to
[1:32:13] that deliberative session and propose a
[1:32:16] change to that budget.
[1:32:17] And if 50% of the, you know, 150 people
[1:32:20] that show up in the room that night, you know, say that,
[1:32:24] that they want that cut, then it is done.
[1:32:28] You know, I mean, that's democracy, you know,
[1:32:32] and the discussion that Jenna alluded to, and,
[1:32:35] and Brenda brought up the, the, you know,
[1:32:36] the New Hampshire ED three oh sixes, right.
[1:32:38] And minimum standards. And just, I quickly pulled it up
[1:32:41] for the, the administration ratio.
[1:32:44] So in Bill's building, he said his enrollment was what,
[1:32:47] 6 37?
[1:32:48] I forget what he said, all that. Okay.
[1:32:51] So that requires one principal and one assistant principal.
[1:32:54] And guess what, we have one
[1:32:55] principal and one assistant principal.
[1:32:57] So at the elementary level, if it's one per 500,
[1:32:59] you could reduce an assistant principal.
[1:33:01] But then you talk about the points
[1:33:03] of emphasis, which is your services.
[1:33:05] So when a bullying report comes in,
[1:33:07] when a parent thing comes in,
[1:33:09] how's the delegation of duties happening?
[1:33:11] And what's your return quickly to your customer,
[1:33:15] which is your student or your family member.
[1:33:17] So, I mean, that's what the school board does.
[1:33:19] They analyze those costs
[1:33:20] and you guys make determination on what you think is best.
[1:33:22] So it, it's all worthwhile discussion.
[1:33:25] I think that's democracy as well too.
[1:33:27] Like point, counterpoint, you know, and, and,
[1:33:29] and information as generous, you know,
[1:33:30] seeking the right information rather than assuming,
[1:33:35] you know, being informed takes work.
[1:33:36] It takes time and it takes effort.
[1:33:38] And, and, and it's, it's asking the right people, the,
[1:33:41] the appropriate questions.
[1:33:42] So I look forward to all this as we get into the fall.
[1:33:45] I think it's definitely a, a, a, you know, a kind
[1:33:48] of a crossroads for a lot of us in our, in our profession.
[1:33:52] Because I think, going back to the core issue
[1:33:54] of the November one, to say that it's not gonna impact kids
[1:33:56] that, I mean that's, I don't even know how,
[1:34:01] I don't know how you can even think that it wouldn't, that
[1:34:04] that's, that's very challenging for me in my seat to say
[1:34:06] that a a three
[1:34:08] and a half percent cut isn't gonna impact kids.
[1:34:12] So Yeah. I mean, 80% of the budget is personnel. Yeah.
[1:34:16] And pinker intuition. Yeah.
[1:34:18] So, you know, if we have to make a, you know, as massive
[1:34:22] reductions as this might be, you know, we don't really know
[1:34:25] what the impact of this is gonna be.
[1:34:26] You can't tell me that that's not gonna affect kids. Right.
[1:34:30] One thing I would like to say, and I don't know,
[1:34:31] when we were, we were just talking about the town workshop
[1:34:34] and, and ideas to come up, right. To circle back. So we
[1:34:37] Started that. So yeah. Any,
[1:34:38] Anyway, talking about the town workshop, I think one
[1:34:42] of the ways is to see
[1:34:43] how we can collaborate and work together.
[1:34:46] And I mean, we already have a, like if, for example,
[1:34:50] the deliberative session, we have a minimal turnout.
[1:34:53] I am a hundred people, maybe max one 50 come to that.
[1:34:58] And that's only from word of mouth
[1:35:00] through the Dairy Cooperative School District
[1:35:02] and letting our parents know what's happening.
[1:35:05] If we are really concerned and we want,
[1:35:08] and a lot of things that come up in this town are people
[1:35:11] that don't have kids in the school system,
[1:35:13] but they still pay into the school system
[1:35:15] and they are concerned,
[1:35:17] but they don't know about these things.
[1:35:19] So to be able to collaborate with the town as far
[1:35:22] as getting out communication to other taxpayers,
[1:35:26] to having those talking sessions with other taxpayers,
[1:35:29] it might already be happy.
[1:35:31] I don't know. But that's something that I think
[1:35:34] that we should maybe partner with them a little bit more.
[1:35:36] Because if we're super concerned about having everything
[1:35:40] super transparent and hearing back from everybody,
[1:35:42] then we've gotta get the word out to everybody.
[1:35:45] I mean, we put things up on the town signs, right?
[1:35:48] So by the fire station and on things like that.
[1:35:50] But what else more can we do
[1:35:54] Collaborative?
[1:35:55] We tried, we tried, last year we, I went,
[1:35:57] I brought flyers out to the fairways.
[1:35:59] I pla we went, we brought them to Marion Garish.
[1:36:02] We tried really hard, we had an ad in the dairy news.
[1:36:06] We tried really hard to get the word about word out
[1:36:08] about deliberative last year.
[1:36:10] And still there was very minimal turnout. Yeah.
[1:36:14] But yeah, I mean obviously as much as we can do
[1:36:17] to get the info out there, we need to do it.
[1:36:20] But I don't know, we should definitely keep trying. And
[1:36:23] I mean, I think a lot of it is
[1:36:24] that people do don't even know
[1:36:25] what a deliberative session is. Yeah. But
[1:36:28] That's why we had, we did videos.
[1:36:30] I know those online.
[1:36:31] Like we really, we can lead the Horse to water
[1:36:34] And communications committee.
[1:36:35] We really focus really hard.
[1:36:37] Yeah. I mean we've gone through this with
[1:36:38] so many things like, you know, outside of, you know,
[1:36:40] going door to door to everyone in town's house.
[1:36:43] Right. You know, it's kind of hard to, you know,
[1:36:46] to get this information out.
[1:36:47] And correct me if I'm wrong, Jane, but I think at some point
[1:36:50] before we had worked with the town to send things out to,
[1:36:54] you know, they have mailing lists
[1:36:55] that they collect information.
[1:36:57] I remember us doing that when we were, you know,
[1:37:00] promoting the facilities bond.
[1:37:02] Does that ring a bell for you?
[1:37:06] I, I don't remember specifically,
[1:37:08] but I believe we did work
[1:37:09] with them on getting the mailing list from them. Yeah.
[1:37:13] Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we Can because we don't have
[1:37:14] one, so, but they did. Yep.
[1:37:16] Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure we can do that again with, you know,
[1:37:18] getting people to come out to the deliberative session
[1:37:21] and I'm, I'm sure that they do it themselves,
[1:37:23] you know, for the town election.
[1:37:24] You know, it happens on the same day. Right.
[1:37:31] All right. Any other agenda topics anybody would like
[1:37:34] to consider for, for this meeting coming up?
[1:37:40] I think that's such a big ticket item.
[1:37:42] I don't know what else we could talk about.
[1:37:44] We have hour's to talk to them.
[1:37:46] It's gonna, that take all that,
[1:37:48] It's gonna dominate the discussion. I'd like hear
[1:37:49] Where each council member stands on that too.
[1:37:52] So they sent over some recommendations
[1:37:53] for the draft agenda just so
[1:37:56] that we're all on the same page.
[1:37:57] So what we cover discussion on the November vote
[1:37:59] and the tax cap of 1331 town budgeting and, and,
[1:38:03] and the tax rate of the town.
[1:38:05] Because that's all changing if you're,
[1:38:07] as we've been communicating 2027 warrant
[1:38:12] and future purchases.
[1:38:13] So I wanted to communicate to the town
[1:38:15] that the CIP p's coming in live
[1:38:17] and we're gonna have a projection out
[1:38:18] to 2033 on our big purchases, which is important.
[1:38:23] Capital projects, future legislation,
[1:38:25] state funding, things along those lines.
[1:38:27] So kind
[1:38:29] of everything we talked about will probably all encompass in
[1:38:31] that start starting to point of the discussion.
[1:38:33] 'cause it all kind of fends off of that. Yeah.
[1:38:36] One thing I was thinking about is, you know,
[1:38:38] possibly talking about how we can work with the town
[1:38:40] to coordinate traffic flow around the schools.
[1:38:42] During the school year,
[1:38:48] we had, we had a four hour meeting on Thursday
[1:38:51] with principals and I'll be reaching out
[1:38:53] to the dairy police department pretty soon.
[1:38:57] East Dairy School. The, the pickup line is, yeah,
[1:39:02] it's, it's, it's new to me.
[1:39:04] Not having appropriate properties to support
[1:39:07] both flows is new to me.
[1:39:10] So we're gonna be talking about it.
[1:39:11] I mean there are so many pinch
[1:39:13] points, you know, around the schools.
[1:39:14] You think about like even a school like Barca, you know,
[1:39:16] 500 students there.
[1:39:18] There's one road in one road out
[1:39:20] and it ends at a stop sign at the bypass.
[1:39:22] Yep. So like, you know, if you've ever tried to leave Barca
[1:39:26] after drop off or
[1:39:27] after pickup, I mean that lines up, you know,
[1:39:31] our biggest challenge now is, and that's just one school.
[1:39:33] Yeah. Every school has their, their challenges.
[1:39:35] Going back to my, my busing update
[1:39:37] where our buses are getting stuck in the car pickup lines.
[1:39:42] So our ridership is up now.
[1:39:44] Our buses are delayed parent pickup.
[1:39:47] 'cause we've gotta wait for all the things to clear.
[1:39:49] So now our buses end up running behind.
[1:39:52] We need to, we need to find a way to get our buses ahead
[1:39:54] of all of them or around them safely.
[1:39:59] So we started drafting ideas
[1:40:01] and I have to get in touch with them.
[1:40:04] I know Melissa had reached out earlier about Grinnell
[1:40:07] and trying to get the buses
[1:40:09] to come up from the backside just to get them in.
[1:40:11] Like there's, yeah, we're trying to be very, well,
[1:40:12] I mean, I've talked about this before.
[1:40:14] You know, my son went to Grinnell
[1:40:15] and the first two years that he went there,
[1:40:18] the cars came in from Mount Pleasant
[1:40:20] and the buses came up from when, from the other way.
[1:40:25] That's a one. It's a town road, Grinnell Road
[1:40:27] and it's a one way street.
[1:40:28] Right. So we were told we couldn't do that anymore.
[1:40:31] And now the buses
[1:40:33] and the cars co-mingle in one line going,
[1:40:35] you know, down from Mount Pleasant.
[1:40:37] Yeah. We got some work to do.
[1:40:38] So yeah, I mean that was always the thing at Grinnell is
[1:40:41] that the buses would wait at the corner of Grinnell Road
[1:40:44] and like, you know, if you wanna get outta there quick,
[1:40:46] you gotta get there before the buses
[1:40:47] and go in the get in the line.
[1:40:49] Well, I think that's why, I mean,
[1:40:51] half the time I remember seeing parents, you know,
[1:40:53] getting into the parking lot at two
[1:40:56] school didn't get out till three
[1:40:57] and they would just sit there in their cars
[1:41:00] with the cars running for an hour just
[1:41:02] because they wanted to be there before the rest of the rush.
[1:41:05] I used to drop my son off every morning at Grinnell
[1:41:07] for chorus once a week.
[1:41:09] So, you know, 30 minutes
[1:41:12] before school starts, I would get there to drop him off,
[1:41:16] you know, about 40 minutes before school starts for chorus
[1:41:18] and there would already be six cars waiting
[1:41:21] for the regular drop off.
[1:41:24] We gotta, we have to be
[1:41:25] considerate of all the parties involved.
[1:41:26] But, you know, but it, it's definitely the,
[1:41:31] the ratio as Bill said, has gone down.
[1:41:34] But now, 'cause we have more students on the bus,
[1:41:37] the routes are longer.
[1:41:38] We gotta get 'em moving sooner.
[1:41:40] So it, again, it's one
[1:41:42] of these unintended consequences of the time shift.
[1:41:44] So we're working on it.
[1:41:49] All right.
[1:41:49] Anything else from anybody? Sounds like a packed agenda.
[1:41:55] Yeah. All right, Mike, is that all you've got?
[1:41:59] That's it from, that's it. So sorry about that.
[1:42:02] So we can move on here.
[1:42:05] Move on to committee and liaison reports.
[1:42:08] First up will be Karen
[1:42:09] with an update from the finance committee.
[1:42:12] Thank you Jane, for that update on the finance committee.
[1:42:17] I do wanna let everyone know though,
[1:42:20] we still have retained funds
[1:42:23] well under the 400,000 that, that we took for the capital
[1:42:28] for the SAU when we, when we switched it
[1:42:32] and we got 4,000 for that.
[1:42:33] We still have tons of funds left on that.
[1:42:35] And one of the reasons, so he has something on the positive
[1:42:38] for the school board is
[1:42:39] because SNHU donated a ton of furniture for us.
[1:42:43] So that was awesome.
[1:42:45] And the other thing I wanted to say was,
[1:42:48] we did vote last meeting
[1:42:50] to give $533,811 back to the taxpayers.
[1:42:55] We also had another 1.5 million budgeted as a placeholder.
[1:43:00] So in reality we gave the taxpayers back over $2 million.
[1:43:05] So that, that's a good deal. So happy to report on that.
[1:43:09] And that's it.
[1:43:12] All right. Thank you Karen. Any questions?
[1:43:17] All right. We also had a facilities committee meeting.
[1:43:20] David is the chair of that committee
[1:43:22] and he's not here tonight, so I can take this one.
[1:43:25] We discussed a few things now
[1:43:27] with this summer's work wrapped up at SRS.
[1:43:30] They're beginning planning for phase two next summer.
[1:43:33] I think Mike can correct me if I'm wrong,
[1:43:35] but I believe they said they completed about 40%
[1:43:38] of the roof work this summer.
[1:43:40] Yes. About 60% to do next summer. Yep.
[1:43:43] But the expectation is, is now that we've done that 40%,
[1:43:46] they have an idea of where the potential pitfalls lie from
[1:43:49] that initial roof work.
[1:43:50] And they'll be able to tackle the remaining 60% next
[1:43:53] summer at a faster clip.
[1:43:55] And a positive note there too, even
[1:43:57] with all the unexpected complications we've run into at SRS,
[1:44:00] all those projects are still under budget.
[1:44:01] They are additional planning for next summer's.
[1:44:05] Other projects, mark job's been working
[1:44:07] with LaValley Resinger to plan
[1:44:09] for district wide door replacements.
[1:44:11] They're gonna be reviewing doors
[1:44:13] and identifying candidates for replacement.
[1:44:15] We've also got a window replacement
[1:44:17] for the fifties section at Hood Untapped for next summer.
[1:44:20] And the expectation is Mark will have bids
[1:44:22] for those projects to bring
[1:44:23] to us in the late fall or early winter.
[1:44:28] And Mike already kind of hit on this earlier in his update,
[1:44:32] but since we are looking at coming in under budget on a
[1:44:34] number of these projects, we have that interest income
[1:44:37] that's been reallocated toward the bond projects.
[1:44:39] Mark and Jeremy are working together to develop that list
[1:44:42] of additional projects that we'd be able to complete
[1:44:44] with those additional proceeds.
[1:44:49] Mike and Jeremy also have the capital improvement plan.
[1:44:51] They work to develop with UMass
[1:44:52] Lowell students this past spring.
[1:44:53] They're working to update that to account
[1:44:55] for all the projects that have been completed.
[1:44:57] And they'll be bringing that forward to the board
[1:44:59] for adoption in the near future.
[1:45:02] And one final note, just on top
[1:45:04] of all these big ticket improvement projects throughout the
[1:45:07] district, with the beginning of schools staff
[1:45:09] and students back in the buildings, Jeremy
[1:45:11] and his team have been working through over 300 maintenance
[1:45:13] tickets submitted by staff.
[1:45:15] So, you know, again, we've gotta give it up to Jeremy
[1:45:18] and his staff for not only shepherding all these major
[1:45:20] projects along throughout the summer,
[1:45:22] but all this work that they're doing every day
[1:45:24] to make sure our staff
[1:45:25] and students have safe inviting and functional spaces.
[1:45:33] Moving on to our next agenda item.
[1:45:36] We've got member updates in any other business.
[1:45:38] I've got a couple of things.
[1:45:41] We've, we're going to be doing a facilities tour
[1:45:44] as a public meeting Thursday, September 17th at 4:00 PM
[1:45:48] That's gonna be for the board.
[1:45:49] And as a public meeting, any interested members
[1:45:51] of the community could also come out with us
[1:45:53] to take a tour of the facilities.
[1:45:55] You can see all this work that
[1:45:56] we've been talking about firsthand.
[1:45:58] I believe the plan is to begin the tour at 4:00 PM at SRS.
[1:46:03] Correct. And then the group will move on
[1:46:05] to the other schools from there.
[1:46:07] So if you're interested in seeing
[1:46:08] where your tax dollars are going, come on out.
[1:46:11] What's the date? It said it is Thursday,
[1:46:15] September 17th at 4:00 PM So the
[1:46:19] second item is for the board.
[1:46:21] The New Hampshire School Board Association's Delegate
[1:46:23] Assembly is coming up Saturday, October 17th.
[1:46:26] You've all been receiving emails from the
[1:46:28] association about this.
[1:46:30] At our next meeting on September 22nd, we will vote
[1:46:32] to nominate a voting delegate and alternate to the assembly
[1:46:35] and on our position on the resolutions
[1:46:37] and bylaw changes that are gonna be considered.
[1:46:39] So please go over those emails you've been getting
[1:46:42] and if you're interested in serving
[1:46:44] as a delegate, let us know.
[1:46:47] Did anyone else on the board have any other
[1:46:49] updates they wanted to bring forward?
[1:46:54] All right. Not hearing any.
[1:46:57] So we'll move on to our upcoming meeting schedule.
[1:46:59] As we discussed, we'll be meeting with the Town Council
[1:47:01] for a collaborative workshop discussion at 5:30 PM on
[1:47:04] Tuesday, September 22nd.
[1:47:06] That'll be followed by our regular meeting at 6:30 PM
[1:47:09] And then our next scheduled meeting would be Tuesday,
[1:47:11] October 13th at 6:30 PM All meetings
[1:47:14] here at the municipal center.
[1:47:17] That wraps up our public agenda.
[1:47:19] The board will be meeting in non-public session tonight.
[1:47:21] So I would accept the motion to enter non-public session
[1:47:23] under RSA 91 a.
[1:47:25] Section three, paragraph two, subparagraph A.
[1:47:28] So moved first by Jamie second. Second by Karen.
[1:47:33] This statute requires we take a roll call. Vote. Brenda.
[1:47:37] Jen. Yes. Jenna? Yes. Jamie? Yes. Karen? Yes. Chair votes?
[1:47:41] Yes. Motion carries. Six zero.
[1:47:44] The board will now move into non-public session.
[1:47:45] Goodnight everybody.