[0:00] Be wonderful to see the high school or something, get involved in something like this. So basically what it does sets up the conversation, because it takes some, you need training, actually, to start that conversation, because you can actually hurt the problem when you can help it if you don't know how to do it.

[0:18] So, get the conversation going, locate resources in your own community, invite the families in, because sometimes the families are in hurt and worse than the veteran is, because they won't talk to anybody.

[0:29] And then get them on the road to recovery with it down the road that can go for professional help.

[0:34] But that's really what we're doing.

[0:35] It's really taken off all over the nation.

[0:38] We sponsor a race car with Indie car racing.

[0:41] We call the be the one car that came in as a championship this year.

[0:44] We've partnered with the VA with the be the one logo.

[0:47] Now we have access to 99 million veterans that are enrolled in a health care system.

[0:52] And we signed a coalition with USAA in insurance company.

[0:56] company, you know, they're basically all veterans that get their insurance there.

[1:02] And we joined a coalition with them called face-to-fight, which is exactly the same thing

[1:05] we're doing.

[1:06] So it's really expanding well.

[1:08] And the third goal, and this was not a goal when I started was they visited military

[1:13] bases all over the United States.

[1:15] VA, health centers, I was an open-hour, I visited a six or seven bases there and went

[1:20] to Pearl Harbor to do the same thing there.

[1:23] Military bases all over the United States.

[1:24] And I found out the Legion already knew about this, but I found out there's a quality of life situation with service members families, in the adequate housing with mold with contaminated water with just not livable things like that food insecurities.

[1:43] So we were able with the Department of Defense developed a program called base, base assessment, service member experience.

[1:50] And we were able to set up an assessment team that goes to military bases all over and does

[1:56] count holes.

[1:57] Get see information from whatever is going on here.

[2:00] Bring it before Congress.

[2:01] Bring it before DOD.

[2:04] House on services committee and get you the funding or get what they need to put them back

[2:09] on track because we actually consider this as national security issue.

[2:13] If you're out and you're deployed and you're trying to focus on your mission and you

[2:19] you have your family at home that may possibly be drinking contaminated water, you can't focus on the mission.

[2:25] So that's basically, I'm talking about the military now.

[2:27] Our children youth programs, a lot of you know about them.

[2:30] Boy, state, girls, state, or historical contests.

[2:34] I was in order to talk for a chairman for nine years, so a great program.

[2:38] And if you get up into the national finals, you can actually get some big scholarships.

[2:42] We have 22,000 scholarships for the top three winners in the article.

[2:46] Mark Lee's in baseball, I was just there at the World Series and a team from me and actually made it.

[2:51] We got 29 hundred teams and a team from Ellsworth actually made it into the finals.

[2:57] So that's basically a redest digest version of a year.

[2:59] I'm thinking about writing a book, I meet her.

[3:02] But thank you so much for the leave of absence and thank you for having me here tonight.

[3:05] Appreciate it.

[3:07] Thank you, Jim.

[3:09] We would love for you to come up onto this stage and we'd also love to invite our students who have something to share.

[3:15] Thank you.

[3:17] Jim, we'll have you just go across the front if you can.

[3:20] And just we'd like to give you a heartfelt hand shake.

[3:23] And we have some of your superfan riders who want to

[3:26] present you with something else else.

[3:28] Abby, if you just come up that way.

[4:26] Before we close out the recognition segment of our evening, I do want to highlight the upcoming

[4:32] Veterans Day Assembly at the High School, our Music Department and National Honor Society

[4:38] hosted this event annually and it's an important moment on our campus when we pause and honor

[4:45] service members of our own community and beyond. Veterans and their families are invited to join us

[4:52] at the high school starting at 1 o'clock on day of and we will begin to live stream the event

[5:00] at 1-15. There's also a brief reception with refreshments following the event. So stay tuned in

[5:09] principles, notes, and through social media, we'll be making a number of additional announcements

[5:14] about this assembly, which will be held on the 9th Thursday.

[5:19] So thank you very much.

[5:21] Thank you, Gretchen.

[5:25] Moving on to item number six for communications, our student representative report,

[5:30] Millen Abbey.

[5:30] You want to share it?

[5:32] Thank you.

[5:33] Okay.

[5:34] So last week at the high school was a spirit week and I'm coming, both were an incredible

[5:41] success, bringing our school community together, and showcasing our unity and spirit.

[5:47] A highlight was Wednesday's spirit, anything but a backpack day, where students were encouraged

[5:53] to carry their school supplies in the most unconventional ways imaginable. Students arrived at school

[6:00] with items like inflatable rafts, laundry bins, and even many wagons all filled with books,

[6:07] notebooks and other school necessities.

[6:10] The energy and enthusiasm displayed throughout

[6:13] spirit week carried over into the homecoming football game,

[6:16] pep rally, and the homecoming dance.

[6:19] While celebrating success and positive energy surrounding these events,

[6:24] it is essential to acknowledge the concerns

[6:26] raised by our students regarding communication between

[6:29] students and staff in planning these activities.

[6:32] Whether it is the frustration of unanswered emails

[6:36] or other communication barriers, there's a genuine issue if the kids are trying to make the

[6:42] most out of their spirit week and homecoming but the staff holding them back by being

[6:47] responsive.

[6:50] Lastly, for this month's report, I would like to propose the installation of an additional

[6:55] school zone sign in the middle of the school zone.

[6:59] So basically at the exit of the parking lot of the high school parking lot.

[7:04] Currently, drivers leaving the parking lot cannot tell whether the school zone lights are

[7:10] active until they reach the end of the school zones on either side.

[7:13] There have been cops controlling what of a road and regular, regular leave, stopping drivers,

[7:19] and by not having something to indicate the lights are on, exiting the law.

[7:23] It leaves those drivers at a disadvantage and more likely to be pulled over.

[7:27] Some might argue they're on at the same time.

[7:30] And once I got to the end of the schools on, I noticed that. So I could have been pulled over by a police officer and having no idea I should be going 15 miles per hour.

[7:40] By placing these additional schools on science, we can ensure that drivers are promptly informed about the school's own status.

[7:48] This proactive approach will enhance safety, making our school environment even more secure.

[7:53] Thank you.

[7:56] Thank you very much, continuing our highlight on communications, Gretchen, our cross campus service learning.

[8:05] I am thrilled to invite John Carter and Jen Bush to come to the podium who are going to provide us some updates on the huge amount of service learning activity that's already been happening on campus this year.

[8:23] Good evening everybody. I would like to second Jamilo's request. I think it would really help

[8:30] to have that notification had a similar problem. So John Carter and I are here today to talk to you all about

[8:37] a service learning and what's happening within our campus. Lots of things are always happening off campus,

[8:42] but one of the many benefits of having the one campus is there's lots of opportunities for students to go into other buildings

[8:48] and provide support to our family schools community.

[8:55] Next slide, Nate, thank you.

[8:58] So we're going to just sort of run through a handful that are happening, and if anybody

[9:01] has questions, feel free to let us know.

[9:04] One of my most favorite is called Dream Dancers, that's been going on six or seven years

[9:09] now.

[9:10] It was started by a student Daisy Parker, when she was a junior, and it is a program that brings

[9:15] high school students down to the elementary school to work with the C's students, the special

[9:20] ed kiddos, one day every week. So we go down after the high school is ended but the elementary

[9:26] school still has another 45 minutes left in their day and the kids get matched one on one so

[9:31] then their buddies throughout the entire the year. The timing is such that it works even when

[9:35] kids are in sports they're able to squeeze it in and continue so that the kids the high school

[9:39] aren't coming and going. It's a structured 30 minutes. It's always run by a senior to. Sometimes

[9:46] for a senior project. Sometimes just because they love it and I've been doing it since

[9:50] they were freshmen. It's a super popular and very fun program. There's some photos up there.

[9:58] That's what those photos are from. Another popular program for the high schoolers, particularly

[10:02] the freshman and sophomores are recess mentors. So if you were to happen to be on the

[10:09] email list for the elementary school building you would get like seven emails a day saying like we did help

[10:14] it recess and um so we now send high schoolers down to help out at recess and it um for kids that are not able to leave campus

[10:22] during their study halls. It's become quite popular if they happen to have a study hall in the time frame when recess is happening

[10:28] They go down. They check in with the teacher and find out how they can be helpful and

[10:32] sometimes they're

[10:34] playing, sometimes they're kind of refereeing fights on the football pitch, but they always come back

[10:40] sort of laughing and red-sheeked and really enjoying sort of getting to do recess again.

[10:46] Pre-K, we have lunch helpers, which has been really fun. The administration at the elementary

[10:50] school reached out and asked for help with Pre-K lunch, because it was a bit chaotic, and so we have

[10:55] high schoolers that go down and help serve the lunch and then sit at the little tiny tables and help

[11:00] kind of teach how to have conversations, which is incredibly cute, and I sometimes walk them

[11:07] down because I like to go down there, and then classroom volunteers. So we often will have

[11:16] high schoolers who really fondly remember an elementary, it's often an elementary school teacher,

[11:21] and would like to go back on a regular basis. So this is for kids who have a study hall,

[11:25] and have a little bit of free time, and they'll sign up. We'll reach out to whatever teachers

[11:29] they've asked us to reach out to and often we can find some commonality in their schedule

[11:33] and then they'll go down on a regular basis and so they start to develop relationships with

[11:37] the students as well as start to become more and more helpful as the year goes with the teacher.

[11:42] So those are a few and then John's going to talk about some others.

[11:45] Yes, and we have a couple of new programs. One program is called Elevate.

[11:49] And we have high school students every Tuesday and Thursday from 839. They work with some fifth graders

[11:56] and from 839 they elevate their heart rate, we do lots of exercises, we do lots of group

[12:03] games with the idea, with the idea being that they're just much more engaged in class,

[12:08] you know, honestly when I was a classroom teacher, I had this idea for for many many years,

[12:13] and I was just never able to pull it off, but I'm fortunate enough with this position. I said,

[12:18] you know, I can finally do it. So, you know, the high school kids also love going down there.

[12:23] We have about five that run on Tuesday and Thursday and then the next week it's another group and there's about 10 fifth graders.

[12:30] So we've been running it for about two weeks and it's going great.

[12:34] We have some heart rate monitors so we're talking about, you know, what does the target heart rate zone mean?

[12:39] And so I'm looking forward to it.

[12:41] It's off to a great start.

[12:43] The next program we have across campus is called Students Helping Students.

[12:47] and that is eighth graders tutoring and mentoring fourth graders that actually started today.

[12:53] So a couple weeks ago, we went over to eighth grade science.

[12:58] So all the eighth graders got the same message as for volunteers, got over 50 applicants.

[13:05] And so in groups of five or six, I'm working them through the schedule.

[13:08] So every Monday, we start.

[13:11] Like I mentioned, we started today and I gotta tell you, it was awesome.

[13:14] we had more tutors than fourth graders today.

[13:18] So the fourth graders were a little intimidated,

[13:21] but I had like everything all planned,

[13:22] right, we're gonna start like this

[13:23] and the kids walked in and the eighth graders got up

[13:26] and they walked over and they introduced themselves

[13:28] and they immediately made the kids feel welcome.

[13:31] And I didn't do anything.

[13:33] And it was just, it was so fun to see.

[13:35] So that's every Monday and the parents

[13:38] just have to sign up.

[13:40] I think the next slide.

[13:43] So we have a service club that meets every Thursday.

[13:47] It's very active at the high school.

[13:48] We have over 100 members.

[13:50] And they really wanted to have active meetings.

[13:53] So one of their ideas from the service leaders would to go down to FES

[13:58] and to volunteer once a month.

[14:01] So that hasn't happened yet.

[14:03] Our hope is to do it the first Thursday in November.

[14:06] So about 110 students will kind of descend onto the other

[14:11] I'm at your school campus from about 145 to 220, and the volunteer in classrooms.

[14:17] So the K-5 teachers and support staff can all ask, ask for a volunteer in the classroom.

[14:24] And so we're hoping that that's going to be really successful.

[14:26] The high school students are very excited about that.

[14:29] We also have a new program called Falmouth friends and sports teams or clubs.

[14:36] We'll greet the elementary school students in the morning.

[14:40] We have gone through all the fall sports.

[14:43] It's been great.

[14:44] We started with the football team,

[14:46] which was a tad intimidating with some

[14:49] of the big linemen right in front of the school.

[14:51] And they were standing like that.

[14:52] It looked like it would.

[15:00] All right, guys. You got to relax, you know, and the kids just loved it. They just get swarmed. We have the volleyball team, everything. So that's that's off to a great start. We have someone something planned on on Friday for lightning thief. We'll be there on on Friday. And then we have the changemakers. So I gen and I are going into a third grade classroom and we have some. That's a great group of of students and they're identifying a problem in the community.

[15:29] and what we can do to help solve that problem.

[15:33] So that's more in classroom work.

[15:37] And then we have some service trips.

[15:40] So we took a group to Vermont about a month ago

[15:43] to help with the flood that happened in the middle of July.

[15:46] We left on Friday and we camped overnight.

[15:49] A couple of them had never camped before.

[15:51] We had a great time.

[15:52] We made s'mores and fire and everything.

[15:54] And then we camped and we got up on Saturday.

[15:56] And we had another volunteer that helped us.

[15:58] And so we worked hard on Saturday, you know, like mucking streets and things like that, and then we drove back and we have also a volunteer group a service trip going to main huts and trails the first weekend of November so also trying to do some local things because we have also some other trips that general tell you about.

[16:20] Yeah, so in addition to the local ones we have the usual two week long trips for the high schoolers applications are actually available right now so the kids have been grabbing those.

[16:29] Habitat for Humanity, we always go somewhere that's been impacted by a natural disaster.

[16:34] We're returning to Punta Gordaflore again this year, so it's where we went last year post-herking

[16:39] Ian.

[16:40] They're a really wonderful affiliate. They have housing and for the volunteers, which makes it a lot easier

[16:48] for us to navigate during the week and so we're going to go back and help them some more.

[16:52] So really looking forward to that trip.

[16:54] safe passage in Guatemala, that's back in February.

[16:57] We were the first trip, the first support group to go back after COVID last year.

[17:03] And they were really excited.

[17:04] It was a film with group, because films developed a really wonderful reputation with

[17:07] safe passage over the 15 years they've been going.

[17:10] We've been going.

[17:12] And so things have changed a lot.

[17:14] We were masked.

[17:15] We weren't allowed to interact with kids that much.

[17:17] And then they've loosened up a lot.

[17:19] So this group will have a totally different experience than last years.

[17:22] and I'm really excited they'll have that and then John and I have been talking more about just

[17:27] having more mini trips because they are they are they're easier to do one of the weekends

[17:32] they certainly don't involve missing school and then the price tag is significantly less

[17:36] so it opens it up to a lot more kids for a lot of different reasons and we've had a lot of

[17:40] interest in this habitat check we have coming up so I mean in the, sorry I mean Hudson

[17:44] Chelsea that's coming up so we're looking forward to doing more of those in the spring.

[17:48] Any questions we can answer?

[17:51] Any questions?

[17:54] Are you, first of all those are just all so wonderful.

[17:57] Thank you so much.

[17:58] Are you specifically trying to target each grade?

[18:02] Or are you just, are you building the programs and then finding the appropriate grades?

[18:06] I just wondering if like, is every grade get a touch or just,

[18:09] or that's building towards that?

[18:12] We meet.

[18:13] So in the beginning of the year we meet with every team.

[18:16] So we've met with all K through five teams.

[18:18] we've actually met with everybody at this point, right?

[18:20] So we've met with everybody K-3.

[18:22] And the goal pre-COVID, we had a program, like grade-by-per-gram,

[18:25] and every single grade, and then we lost it.

[18:28] And so we're trying really hard to build that back.

[18:30] So when John set up the student's helping students

[18:32] see intentionally picked fourth grade, because that was a grade

[18:35] where we didn't have anything going on.

[18:36] So we do have like the, some of the outwardly-faced services

[18:42] coming back where some classes will start

[18:44] going to do senior living visits again, and we're trying

[18:47] get the land trust back in the mix and some things with the digital cameras.

[18:51] So we're trying to slowly get every grade, but it's hard and then the teachers have additional

[18:56] things on their shoulders that they're trying to juggle.

[18:59] Right.

[18:59] And then some of the first and second grade teachers have reached out.

[19:04] They want to start going back to Ocean View, going back to the Baron Center.

[19:07] And then seven to eighth grade, we've lost eighth grade, what's Discovery Week?

[19:12] Yep.

[19:12] We're hoping to bring that back and then seventh grade change makers.

[19:16] with changemaker, so we're hoping to bring that back as well, and that's at the end of the year.

[19:21] Oh, fantastic. Any other questions? It really does, you know, it speaks to what an asset

[19:26] it is that we are on one campus and that we're able to do this and have that cross-learning.

[19:34] It's, it's, we really are fortunate for that. And fortunate also for you for just making terrific

[19:39] programs for all the kids. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[19:46] All right, item number seven, our superintendent report.

[19:50] Thank you very much.

[19:55] I want to start tonight by acknowledging the students' families and community members who've been and continue to be impacted by the attack on Israel last week and the war that is now underway in the Middle East.

[20:10] We know that ongoing wars in Europe and throughout Africa also continue to impact our community.

[20:18] Our school services teams have reached out this time and will continue to make themselves

[20:23] available to our students who may be struggling these latest events.

[20:28] We have also forwarded resources to staff.

[20:32] In light of questions from several of our community meetings, it seems like an appropriate

[20:38] it's time to remind folks about some of our safety protocols in the schools.

[20:44] We receive all updates and alerts from the Maine Information Analysis Center.

[20:50] So that means central location for collecting and sharing intelligence information from

[20:55] the federal government to state agencies.

[20:59] We're also in regular contact with Chief Kilbride and other members of the FALMIF PD, who

[21:05] stay on top of national state and local concerns that could impact our community.

[21:11] If there are any known increases in alert levels or known threats to our region or our

[21:17] town, we are informed. We know of none at this time. But we will, if and when we learn

[21:27] about any such thing, respond and communicate with our community accordingly. The district

[21:34] safety team regularly reviews our protocols.

[21:37] And as the district and school,

[21:39] we continue to have zero tolerance

[21:41] for any form of anesthetism, Islamophobia, or discrimination.

[21:46] We hope this goes without saying,

[21:48] but we just wanted to make sure that our community members knew these things.

[21:55] So my board of report stands this submitted tonight,

[21:58] and there are a few items I'd like to draw attention to.

[22:02] First, the goals and action steps that we reviewed at the last school board business meeting have been added to the website's mission and strategic vision page.

[22:12] These items were collaboratively developed and designed to advance our progress in the five priority areas identified in the vision.

[22:20] So they can be found by going to the strategic vision site.

[22:23] And then there's a length that says action steps for school year 2324.

[22:28] Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video, and I'll see you in the next video.

[22:30] Next, we are very much looking forward to Lawrence Alexander, our newly signed-on equity consultant who will be joining us on campus on October 30.

[22:43] He will be meeting with our leadership team and several community groups in the afternoon and then he'll be here in the evening for a special school board workshop at 6.30 p.m. that will be here in the theater.

[22:54] following the conversation with school board members.

[22:59] Mr. Alexander will take some questions from the community.

[23:04] For those who are unable to attend the event,

[23:07] we will be live streaming and we've also set up a form

[23:10] to collect questions that community members may wish

[23:13] to share in advance if they're unable to attend

[23:17] or if they don't wish to speak in the live context.

[23:21] The link to the form is in my board report,

[23:23] but it's also posted on the equity and inclusion page of the website.

[23:28] Additionally, reminders will be sent out in principal's notes this week.

[23:32] And next, so stand a look out for those.

[23:36] I also want to highlight the special education review

[23:38] we're undertaking with Dr. Kate McCloud,

[23:41] and our team from the University of Maine Farmington.

[23:45] The purpose of this review is to identify areas of strength

[23:48] and areas of need in relation to our MTSS, otherwise, known as our multi-tiered system of support.

[23:57] That includes RTI, Special Education, 504 GT. It will overview the implementation of referral

[24:07] interventions and assessment processes and hopefully inform more effective, inclusive, educational

[24:18] practices and structures. The team will be on campus on October 26 to begin meeting with staff

[24:25] and to visit classes. They'll also be conducting surveys, examining data, and doing

[24:30] a range of stakeholder interviews over the next couple of months. We hope to receive their

[24:36] observations and recommendations fairly early in the new year. Last, I want to thank our

[24:42] technology and communication teams for creating a new page on our website that's called live stream,

[24:50] which can be found under the Community tab.

[24:52] This page allows for real-time viewing of our live stream events, as well as access to previously

[24:58] recorded events and meetings, including all school board meetings.

[25:04] So we are very much looking forward to the opportunity as this new equipment affords us, but

[25:10] also really appreciate the ease of access that has been set up by our technology and communications

[25:17] folks.

[25:18] So, any questions tonight?

[25:24] Very thorough.

[25:26] Thank you.

[25:28] All right.

[25:28] Item number eight, leadership team reports.

[25:31] For FAMET Elementary School, we'd like to welcome Principal Peg Armstrong.

[25:39] Thank you and good evening.

[25:42] So, our report also stands as submitted.

[25:45] I did want to highlight our campus point south points around coaches and our

[25:51] Covers 6 professional development.

[25:55] As somebody who's been here now two weeks, I'm still learning and getting to know all the

[26:01] people and the procedures and all of that that are in place and I was just very impressed

[26:09] with the October 6 professional development, several of our teachers designed and facilitated

[26:16] learning sessions for our teachers, and I attended two of them, and I chose to attend the

[26:23] ones that were facilitated by our two new coaches, and I was very impressed with what they had

[26:30] to offer. I've also experienced our coaches in our team leader meetings that we have with the

[26:36] level teams and the professional development that they've been bringing to those forms as well.

[26:42] And I just wanted to say thrilled to be in a district that supports coaching because I think it

[26:47] makes a huge difference for our teachers to have that embedded professional development.

[26:53] Do you have any questions for me?

[26:56] Good.

[26:58] I have a question about and I'm not sure if you're the right person to answer this yet, but about

[27:06] coaching cycles. I'm just wondering how the teachers access them, how long are they,

[27:14] kind of what are the stated goals, or is that decided between the coach and the teacher?

[27:20] Yeah, so they have set up five coaching cycles for this year. So there'll be two coaching

[27:29] cycles between now and our December break.

[27:32] They're about four to six weeks, and teachers access them either as small groups where

[27:39] they may be working on a similar goal or on a one to one coaching basis where they're identifying

[27:46] a teacher goal based on the individual teachers needs, as well as student performance indicators.

[27:54] Thank you and I just had a minor suggestion in the communication department just I know there's a lot going on especially with the older kids like in the mornings with bands and choir and things and

[28:09] I just wanted to see if we could see how we could implement something of a little calendar in the principles notes or

[28:17] There's just different teams that sometimes you have questions, and it's like the weekend, and you're thinking, does my kid go to school on Monday at 7.30 or so, we can talk about that later with different things, but some things are missing, and I think they could be added there just for parents FYI, there's already so much information.

[28:40] Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you. But they're always very great to read.

[28:43] Thank you.

[28:46] Go ahead, Laura.

[28:48] Hi.

[28:48] Welcome.

[28:49] Thank you.

[28:50] I was wondering if the plan was if you thought the I ready results would be ready in time

[29:02] to provide some of that feedback to the parents with the November conferences.

[29:07] I am going to defer to Jen.

[29:11] Thank you.

[29:15] Thank you.

[29:15] I have a quick question, clarification.

[29:19] Welcome.

[29:20] Thanks a lot.

[29:21] Thank you for coming tonight.

[29:24] If you could explain, break down the difference between the differentiated and the explicit instruction,

[29:30] because I see that that's part of the coaching.

[29:34] And I think that's something that parents would also benefit from understanding the difference.

[29:41] the different ways we're trying to get in with the kiddos.

[29:47] Yeah. So, explicit instruction has to do with your basic teaching methods.

[29:54] So, really identifying what are the key learning targets and what...

[30:00] We're getting the exact information that they need and they're getting the right practice that they need so that we can go from a, we do, I coach you, you're able to do this individually kind of model.

[30:14] And then differentiated instruction is targeted towards really understanding the different levels of need in the classroom.

[30:25] So, you know, there's a bell curve in terms of how students learn and and some students learn at different rates than others.

[30:33] So, developmentally, we want to be able to teach to all of our students, which means that some of the techniques we might use with one student are not the appropriate technique.

[30:42] We want to be able to change them up or differentiate them so that we're meeting the needs of all of our students. Does that make sense?

[30:51] Yes. It does. Thank you.

[30:54] That's great. Any other questions for Peg?

[30:58] Thank you so much.

[31:01] Thanks.

[31:01] All right, for family mental school.

[31:03] We'll have Jan Adams come.

[31:09] Good evening.

[31:11] The middle school report stands as submitted.

[31:14] I did want to come in on a few things.

[31:20] First of all, this substitute situation in all of the buildings is pretty grim.

[31:30] We, you know, as I mentioned in my report, we are generally, well, so far.

[31:36] We've always been able to cover classes by having colleagues give up their planning or prep time

[31:42] to cover a colleague's classroom, it's far from ideal, it puts a teacher in every classroom,

[31:50] but it obviously isn't the best thing for students.

[31:54] So I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention.

[31:59] It's on our minds and it's a stressor.

[32:03] So that's there.

[32:04] I know that we're doing all we can to get more subs.

[32:08] And so I recognize that.

[32:11] We now have our intercom and bell system back.

[32:14] So we're happy about that at the middle school.

[32:17] Still a handful of classrooms that don't have a working intercom.

[32:21] It can be heard in the hallway or it can be heard from next door, but they're still investigating why there's just random rooms that still yet don't have their intercom system fully back or it's very faint so that is being looked into worked on actively as we speak.

[32:40] I also wanted to just give a plug for our staff and their attention to their own wellness.

[32:50] Right now we had at least two or three staff members who ran in the main marathon.

[32:58] One of whom was the woman who placed fourth in the whole state.

[33:01] So congratulations to all of the people who ran, but that kind of motivated a lot of people to say,

[33:10] hey, why don't we put a relay your team together for next year's marathon?

[33:14] And so right as of right now we have 12 or 13 staff members who are going to participate in next year's marathon.

[33:19] In the relay, so they're already gearing up and training for that.

[33:22] It's not only, you know, physically healthy thing to do, but it's emotionally and mentally great for this to have to get together that way.

[33:31] So that's exciting and it's kind of a goal that a lot of people have and we're we're cheering them on

[33:38] So there's that I also wanted to

[33:41] Let you know that on the middle school portion of the website under the families tab

[33:47] There is information about homework. It's just some bullet points that we have put together and I wanted to reiterate that

[33:55] teachers support homework. For middle school students, we also support kids having

[34:01] ample family time and ample downtime for their own mental health. So there's always

[34:06] a balance with that. And so, you know, our sixth graders may get less homework

[34:10] than our eighth graders do. That's developmentally appropriate. There is a place for

[34:16] homework in middle school as it reinforces the executive functioning skills that

[34:19] we're teaching explicitly and homework is not only a way to support and

[34:24] But to promote planning, prioritizing and task completion, which are things that kids need lots of practice with.

[34:32] So there's that. Any questions I can answer right now?

[34:39] I wanted to thank you.

[34:40] I didn't see it in your report. I'm glad to hear you bring it up.

[34:43] The homework page under the Families tab for the middle school.

[34:46] I think that's a great overview, it's a great way to kind of,

[34:52] but there's a lot of information on our website,

[34:55] but this is a very specific question that I get asked before I was on the school board,

[35:01] just having a couple of kids who've already gone through the middle school.

[35:04] And it reminds, you know, the one hour of homework kind of reminds me of the old school.

[35:08] I have no idea if it's still an effect of like the ten minutes per grade kind of thing.

[35:14] Yeah, which I get is the genesis of that, or I assume,

[35:20] just probably the genesis of that time management,

[35:22] but also acknowledging the different supports

[35:25] that are in the school in the website kind of breaking down

[35:31] the homework club, the Whip WIP's whips,

[35:35] is that I haven't used that acronym with my kids.

[35:38] I think that might be a new acronym

[35:39] from the last time I had a member of the school or now.

[35:42] But anyway, but breaking down not just, yeah, homework happens, but here is how it happens.

[35:49] This is the expectation around the time management, and also I'd use my microphone to

[35:57] remind parents that if this is a great time, middle school is a great time for kids to

[36:04] figure out that if you don't chip away, it may be the 45 minutes hour every night.

[36:09] there could be a night where you have three or four hours and that's not optimal and not

[36:15] what anyone's team up here. So thank you very much for that. I appreciate that for you put into

[36:22] that and getting that up on the website for everyone to to be able to access and reference. Thanks.

[36:29] Hello. In your board report, you mentioned the learning about the high impact teaching strategies

[36:37] and I was wondering if you could give an example of one of those?

[36:40] Sure.

[36:41] This comes out of the work that John Haddy's research on learning.

[36:47] High impact strategies are things that teachers do that have a high impact on student learning,

[36:54] that hence the name.

[36:56] And when they're done with integrity, they enhance the effect that the teachers action to have on student learning.

[37:04] And there's tons of them, and they range all the way from things that have very, very high

[37:10] impact at things that have very low impact, so there's a whole wide range of strategies

[37:17] that teachers use, but some of the ones that are the most powerful.

[37:30] That are a professional development day on the six direct instruction, teaching vocabulary in context, providing targeted feedback.

[37:43] Space versus mask practice, like having students, learn something practice, learn something practice, learn something practice,

[37:49] is a high impact strategy, reducing anxiety for students by having things be predictable and

[37:57] routines in place is a powerful strategy, formative evaluations, teacher student relationships.

[38:06] That's a handful.

[38:09] Thank you.

[38:09] You're welcome.

[38:13] Thanks, Dan.

[38:13] Thank you.

[38:19] We'll welcome Dr. Gowers up for the Family High School report.

[38:37] My report stands a submitted just a couple of highlights.

[38:41] I want to take a moment to thank assistant principals, Spencer Libyan, Vicki Deca,

[38:46] for the work they're doing to bridge the gap between administration and students.

[38:50] This last Friday, they hosted their very first lunch with the APs.

[38:55] We're trying to get away to connect with some students who may not be on student counts,

[38:58] who may not be on executive boards to try to have a bit of spectrum of guests.

[39:03] students were talking to a listening to. At this stage, they're responding to that invitation

[39:07] if you like to the students who've showed acts of kindness, either to each other or that

[39:12] they've seen or they have been relayed to them, to bring those students into a chance to have

[39:16] lunch with the AP. So I know that a reward for kindness may not be thought of as having lunch

[39:20] with a Vicky in Spencer, but the very nice people I enjoy lunching with them as well, but it's

[39:24] a great way to show that we are not only trying to find ways of listening to our students, but also

[39:28] simply to respond to when they are kind to each other, and that's a great thing for us as a community.

[39:35] And also just a shout out to the folks today, today was in WEEA testing, had the high school,

[39:42] which went well only because of the massive amount of ordering, arranging,

[39:45] proctoring, and managing it that happened over the weeks prior.

[39:50] So particularly a big thanks to Monaco and Dan and to Norm and Sharon, a few of the people I'm probably going to forget,

[39:55] thank you for putting that off. And at this stage, having listened to Dr. Adams and the middle

[40:01] school, on behalf of the high school, I currently make no statement about the high school

[40:05] participating in the main marathon. I wish the middle school would best next year. Can I answer any

[40:13] questions about our report?

[40:16] Any questions? Great. Thank you, Richard. Thanks.

[40:25] What do we have next?

[40:28] Susan Prince, director, special education.

[40:35] I always go after tall people.

[40:38] Good evening, my board reports.

[40:39] The answer is submitted.

[40:41] Just a couple of highlights, Mark.

[40:42] And I are so excited about the review that we're going to be doing

[40:46] with Kate McLeod.

[40:49] And then the other piece kind of piggybacking on what Pat

[40:52] shared, I mean, Jan.

[40:54] I'm sorry.

[40:54] Jan shared about staffing and subs.

[40:57] In the last two days I've lost an ed tech a day.

[41:02] I hire two, I lose two, I hire three, I lose one.

[41:06] So just keeping that on there, and I'm trying everything.

[41:11] So are there any questions?

[41:16] You know, obviously we can't share confidential information,

[41:19] but are we losing them to other districts?

[41:21] Or are we losing them for personal reasons?

[41:23] It's a combination.

[41:24] One today that was really sad.

[41:26] She's young, she wanted to do the Apprentice program and she's driving from Oxford and her car can't make the distance.

[41:35] And because she's at a lower, it doesn't have the education, she's only making, I think, like, $15 a now.

[41:42] She can't drive from Oxford here, so she was, it was sad reading her email.

[41:49] Any other questions?

[41:53] Good.

[41:53] Thank you.

[41:58] Director of Learning, Jen Kelly.

[42:07] Hello.

[42:07] Good evening.

[42:08] My report stands as submitted for the most part.

[42:11] I just wanted to make a note.

[42:13] We were a couple of days behind our aspirational plan to get the NWA,

[42:18] spring 23 reports the May 3 year assessment out.

[42:22] They actually went out today to family.

[42:23] So families can check those through bright arrow,

[42:26] which is linked in power school.

[42:30] So, and then I want to touch based on Laurel's question

[42:33] around the I ready, just reminder that it's only grades one and two right now.

[42:40] It's just across the schools that are doing the testing.

[42:44] We're doing some spot use in other grades and grades three through five

[42:50] and then at the high school.

[42:53] That data, we've gone through that testing at the elementary school.

[42:58] We have a lot of testing going on right now.

[43:00] We're in this film in the middle of the fall NWA testing at the elementary school.

[43:07] So, I already reports can be available during the conferences.

[43:12] We're not mandating that teachers do that.

[43:16] I want to leave that open to teachers and families, right, because the conference is about their students.

[43:22] The NWA data, one of the, one of the interesting complications from the, through your report is that the teachers can't access the same report that the parents are accessing.

[43:39] The report doesn't provide a whole lot of information to begin with.

[43:43] So, we're working on trying to figure that out, the state is trying to get an answer from

[43:47] NWA on that, because the testing, what happens is teachers are assigned to their testing

[43:53] here.

[43:53] So, they're assigned to a class in the spring when they administer the test.

[43:58] Well, now they have a different class, so they're still assigned to, so they can see who they

[44:03] tested that they can't see who their current kids are in that platform.

[44:08] So, working through that, however, they will have some of the fall data, but the window there's still some flexibility with the fall data until the window closes on October 27th for the stage.

[44:23] So, you don't have all of the comparison data and so there's a little bit of wiggle room there, but for the most part the scores are pretty stable.

[44:30] So, that is available. Teachers can access that.

[44:33] And we do plan on sending those reports out.

[44:37] We're thinking window member, the window ends October 27th.

[44:41] We need a few days to make sure it's all there.

[44:44] Make-ups.

[44:45] And then get those reports out.

[44:46] Those reports.

[44:47] I think families will find more useful because they look like the old reports.

[44:51] We're also thinking that it looks like that spring data point will also be included in the reports.

[44:57] .

[45:00] That's where we are with the testing.

[45:01] Thank you.

[45:02] I know we're all really challenged by this process with the state and the VA.

[45:09] But I wondered, I mean, I printed out one of my kiddos assessment because

[45:16] and I agree doesn't give that much information in the form that was submitted today,

[45:21] but I also understand what we're up against here.

[45:24] But, you know, I have a couple questions, but one is, you know, everybody has a three-digit student score in the breakout area scores.

[45:35] But there's no, unless I'm missing something, there's no rubric, what these scores are isolated in space.

[45:41] Like, my kid's score of Yadiyada, what does that mean?

[45:45] Great question. So pay attention to that continuum, that the whole purpose of this test is to be a criterion reference test.

[45:53] the criteria that they're referencing other standards for the grade level, so that's why it's

[45:59] they're either on above below or exceeds the grade level. So that's the whole point of this change.

[46:05] They had to do that in order to meet the federal requirements for funding. So that report,

[46:11] primary, the only real information is whether the student is at above beyond or exceeds grade level,

[46:19] which is the purpose of it. It's not really useful.

[46:25] We were between, do we continue to wait until we get something better,

[46:32] or do we send this out and say this is what we have?

[46:36] I reached out to other districts to see what they were doing,

[46:40] and it was a mix. A lot of people were like,

[46:41] we're waiting, we're not touching this, and others were like, well, we just sent it out.

[46:45] So we decided, this is what we have here, and we in a couple weeks will have something that we think will be more informative.

[46:57] I don't, I hope that answers somewhat, Sarah.

[47:00] It looks like from what we can tell they've added 1,000 points to the old red scores, not sure, but that's what it looks like.

[47:06] That's wild. Okay, and um, is there any way just trying to assess, you know, what we've all been given today and I understand, you know, and I wonder if you might consider sending a follow-up email to today.

[47:19] Like, hold on. Absolutely.

[47:21] Yes.

[47:21] So, as if we get any more information, and this isn't, we're not the only school that's frustrated by this.

[47:29] We're getting a lot of conflicting information first or saying this, and then, um,

[47:34] If I would love some more information that I could share with families, I think that would be really helpful to teachers as well, you know, we're putting them in a complicated situation.

[47:47] Do we have, are we able to access, again, we might just, are we able to access the growth reports from the spring, the map growth reports?

[48:01] That's a great question.

[48:04] So the state hasn't completely, so there was a problem

[48:09] with the high school data, the standard error of measurement

[48:12] was uncomfortable.

[48:13] Higher than NWA would like and higher than the DOE was comfortable

[48:18] with that hasn't been remedied.

[48:21] So that's still sort of out there, right?

[48:23] The comparison data from the state.

[48:27] We got the data from the state on October 2nd on October 4th, we were told, well, the comparison

[48:31] data from the state is preliminary that could change, I don't think it's going to change

[48:36] our data, but the comparing to the rest of the state is not finalized yet.

[48:46] So, yes and no, Sarah, I mean we have, I understand, a number, but it doesn't have a whole

[48:52] lot of meaning behind it.

[48:53] I hear the pain in your voice, and I know this has been very frustrating, so I think one of the messages that I'm taking away is hold on tight.

[49:03] It's coming in November, there will be some comparison and you'll be able to look at your child's progress in a better way from this future report.

[49:11] The one that sent out today doesn't reflect that, so perhaps sending some messaging, you know, that says,

[49:17] Which you did but I think we could do more I think because I got a little unsettled just reading it

[49:24] Thinking of as even though you had prepped us, so I think

[49:28] Yeah, but I know it's a lot and I'm sorry it's been that the state and W.A. hasn't been able to really get a handle on this

[49:36] Thanks for your work. Unfortunately, and I long for the days when the state would just send the reports to families. That was those were nice days

[49:44] Thank you

[49:45] And our teachers, we have conferences coming up so I imagine parents will be coming in, you know, bringing that or talking about it and so is there some format or something that teachers are, you know, made aware of this and can talk through this so before I sent the reports to families and we checked to make sure the teacher access that was one of the weights for us because we're like the teachers can act at these reports and we're going to send it to families and then they're going to get questions and that could be very stressful.

[50:14] So, I took the personal information out of a report and sent it to teachers and said this is what families will see.

[50:24] And I also sent them the language that I sent to families so they could see what you're getting.

[50:33] What we could do is print all their reports and give them to teachers.

[50:36] It just seems like such a waste for so little information.

[50:39] And I don't know that it's worth it.

[50:41] if parents want to come in and say, here is this report and the teachers will say, well,

[50:45] yep, they're on, I would agree. They're on grade level.

[50:50] I mean, maybe you could say parents

[50:52] feel free to print out and bring your report. Absolutely, that's a good idea.

[50:59] Yeah. Go ahead, Alicia.

[51:00] Well, you mentioned that it's that what the information is used when the teachers look at it.

[51:05] They're looking if the student is on grade level or what is it's just a metric that's not that's not

[51:12] teachers look at it all right actually the whole NWA was developed to be a growth measure because

[51:19] people were not happy with criterion based measures 20 years ago hence why NWA rose up in

[51:26] popularity so now they've taken the NWA and tried to fit it into a you know around box into a square

[51:31] hole not working um they tried um so no teachers don't look at the at honor above what they look at

[51:40] are the sub scores which are not included in this report. So like looking at math, for example,

[51:46] whether it's numeracy, geometry, or what area of math the kids are doing well in or struggling in.

[51:53] Okay, great. And then my understanding is in December we're going to be

[51:58] workshopping to look at the data. Look at the data and we'll be able to analyze whether our data

[52:04] is, you know, our students are doing better,

[52:07] or scores are going down, et cetera, yeah.

[52:10] Well, we can look at all the other what we have.

[52:13] Yes, yeah.

[52:14] OK, OK, thank you.

[52:16] Sure, I'd love.

[52:17] So I just want to play back what you've told us many times, yeah.

[52:30] The NWA assessment was done to measure the progress of growth.

[52:35] So how quickly are you progressing in this learning, where maybe are you not learning as quickly,

[52:40] so that teachers could impact those growth areas?

[52:45] May, through your assessment, was designed to satisfy the federal requirement that students are

[52:54] performing at grade level.

[52:56] Right.

[52:56] So they kind of mashed it, forget about how fast you're learning, are you meeting these standards?

[53:02] All right.

[53:03] Thank you.

[53:04] It doesn't adjust.

[53:05] So the older version, the version that they're having in the fall, has an adjustment that's unlimited,

[53:10] high, unlimited low to find the students' actual achievement or growth area.

[53:17] Whereas the criterion references cat both at the high and the low.

[53:21] So that it can measure the grade level equivalent.

[53:24] Thank you.

[53:26] Sure.

[53:30] Do we have any other questions?

[53:33] Jen, I just want to follow up a workshop in October which was all about literacy.

[53:39] There was a report for the elementary school talking about phonics and how Aaron Valley is

[53:45] in working, you know, coaching teachers refining the approach to phonics and how there's

[53:51] the team that's going to be led by her hunting for a new phonics curriculum.

[53:56] So, just a couple of questions.

[53:58] One, are we using a phonics curriculum right now?

[54:03] And, obviously, you must feel like it's outdated.

[54:08] And two, I do feel like there needs to be this sense of urgency,

[54:15] you know, for K through two.

[54:16] We've got these readers that have this finite amount of time

[54:20] that they can master reading.

[54:22] And we know it's before third grade.

[54:24] And so, if I know there are lots of curriculum programs available, I am not comfortable

[54:31] really waiting another year, especially after the exit from COVID.

[54:36] So I just want you to talk a little bit about that.

[54:40] Sure, so sounds easy, right?

[54:44] Let's just pick a curriculum and go an actuality that's not how it plays out.

[54:52] So, several factors are a play, so first we need a rubric, which we can do quickly, not a problem, like how we're going to judge these curricular.

[55:01] There aren't a ton out there that meet our needs, we've kind of already done that.

[55:05] So, we have narrowed, we have probably five that we're looking at three, probably seriously.

[55:14] teachers need to be involved in that process.

[55:17] We feel very strongly about that.

[55:20] If not, if we take something off the shelf and we're like,

[55:25] this is the best I promise do it.

[55:28] Again, it's about the implementation.

[55:32] You can have a fantastic curriculum resource

[55:36] and teachers not knowing how to implement it

[55:40] are going to turn against it because it feels like they can't be successful or be implemented

[55:49] without integrity, which could be worse because then you're teaching misinformation.

[55:55] So your first question was, are we still using a curricular resources? Yes. We are. Erin

[56:02] is actually, she has a scope and sequence with the K team that they are following. And if you

[56:09] resources and you look at a case scope and sequence. They're going to be mostly similar,

[56:15] developmentally. The ordering is going to be different depending on your publisher. But for

[56:22] the most part, they're going to be similar. She's doing that same work with a great one team. I forget

[56:29] if it's this week or next week, she has an appointment with them. They selected, I think it was three,

[56:34] maybe four different scope and sequence to look at with a rubric to determine the scope and

[56:39] That's that systematic piece, the scope and sequence that's fundamentally important.

[56:46] And is the foundation to a solid phonics program.

[56:50] The next level of importance for a solid phonics program is that implementation.

[56:54] The teachers really need to understand the different syllable patterns and the rules.

[56:59] If they don't understand them themselves, and I'm not saying that we have to wait until they all know,

[57:04] but that's part of our process this year,

[57:07] is so that they know what to look for and appreciate in a curriculum so that they can pull out

[57:12] the jams that they are supposed to teach and focus on. So that the kids aren't getting gaps

[57:21] because the teachers are just sort of cherry picking without the appropriate guidance. So I agree

[57:32] with the sense of urgency, and we are moving as fast as we can without pulling the rug out

[57:38] from our teachers and causing undue stress. That is so that we have to be very mindful of.

[57:45] I mean, there's in their second year of their math program. We're trying to align science, social

[57:53] studies, there's a lot happening. There is a lot happening and actually one thing that is

[57:58] to see is the curriculum on the web site so I would like for you to talk about that for

[58:04] yeah that's a long time coming and a lot of people worked on that.

[58:09] Like every teacher at the middle school had a hand in that.

[58:13] Every teacher at the elementary school had a hand in it.

[58:16] We're at different stages in the development.

[58:19] For example, the math web page at the elementary school has already been

[58:25] second draft now because we had the first one done and nothing else was ready and now this

[58:30] one's been revamped already. So that will continue to happen and we still need to add we're

[58:37] revamping the outdoor learning page. Place-based learning to showcase some of the great units

[58:44] that are happening at the middle school as far as outdoor learning at the high school within

[58:49] new if this land could talk class among others so yes we're psyched it it's at a point

[58:58] where we can put it out there it feels good yeah and hopefully we can direct parents there

[59:05] because there is really good information there so yeah thank you for that yes Emily I had

[59:13] Hi, how are you?

[59:15] I had three questions about the NWA that were answered

[59:19] in the information that came out.

[59:22] I have some new questions, but I can't even,

[59:25] this is a very confusing topic.

[59:28] I can't even fully articulate my questions.

[59:30] Stand by, I tell November.

[59:35] So, but I did, I did one to second without backtracking

[59:39] too much.

[59:40] It did want to second the sense of urgency but acknowledge the difficulty of threading the needle

[59:48] in a relatively large human organization with lots of knowledgeable to be respected professionals.

[59:57] and

[1:00:00] That we have, we're kind of measuring different groups of kiddos. And where were they, when COVID hit, where were those, where was that year and a half, two years of when COVID hit. And I want to, with all due respect, second, analysis, notion that, that there is a finite amount of time for these kids that we hear about it.

[1:00:30] a lot and from different from parents and from teachers. I know you're working hard with the curriculum

[1:00:39] getting up. I had some platitudes about the great Kirk come online. Thank you. She took that from me.

[1:00:49] But is there without using, I mean, calling something a band aid kind of feels like a bit of a

[1:00:59] are these with the questions that Peg answered about the explicit learning?

[1:01:06] Are these are their kind of phonics band-aids that teachers like the K through two teachers

[1:01:13] are in the time that you're finding the right curriculum and getting the professional steps

[1:01:23] in place to implement it?

[1:01:24] Are there kind of phonics band-aids that are being applied now?

[1:01:28] I would say it's more than band-aids.

[1:01:32] I mean, not for lack of a better time.

[1:01:33] They have a lot of resources.

[1:01:36] In, for example, the K team was two years ago,

[1:01:40] they were trying to pull in some other programs,

[1:01:45] because they recognized the need for more explicit instruction.

[1:01:49] So two years ago, the K team said,

[1:01:51] you know, they started, they went to a different school.

[1:01:54] They did an observation of a program that is now no longer one

[1:01:58] that we're considering for, because it doesn't meet our criteria, but that process started.

[1:02:05] Last year, they took a class, all of them, about the shifts needed to make, take away

[1:02:11] the curricular resource.

[1:02:13] It's about that instruction.

[1:02:14] So the whole team has taken a course on shifting the phonics, it's called the six shifts, shifting

[1:02:23] the balances, what it's called.

[1:02:25] And now that KTM is also taking a course on teaching sight words.

[1:02:30] So they are informing and educating themselves with that course comes a sight word list

[1:02:37] so that they're all doing the same sight words.

[1:02:39] They have a scope and sequence and they have an articulated explicit lesson pattern they're doing.

[1:02:45] So for every say vowel team, they have a lesson sort of framework that they're plugging it into.

[1:02:51] The first grade team and the second grade team similar but a little bit different, because

[1:02:57] an easier different.

[1:02:58] So what they have done is they have really leaned into the decodable text that Aaron and

[1:03:03] Robin spoke about.

[1:03:05] So rather than pulling kids to do level of reading groups, they're leveraging the kids and

[1:03:10] applying the skills that they've learned into the decodable text so they're doing a lot

[1:03:14] more processing.

[1:03:16] Yes.

[1:03:17] Yes.

[1:03:19] Yes.

[1:03:19] is everybody all the time?

[1:03:23] Okay.

[1:03:23] Great.

[1:03:24] Thank you.

[1:03:24] Sure.

[1:03:25] Thank

[1:03:27] you.

[1:03:28] Well, now you're provoking more questions.

[1:03:31] So, too, I assume the literacy coach is also playing a part in the not band aids, but

[1:03:40] real support in the moment.

[1:03:42] And then just out of curiosity, are there any particular criteria that we're looking

[1:03:46] for that sounds like we're holding some of these curriculums to a higher standard?

[1:03:52] Yes, so looking at the language that they use and looking at the ordering that they teach,

[1:04:01] those are all indicators for us for, we have several rubrics that we're looking at,

[1:04:08] put out by the reading league, et cetera, I can share those with people,

[1:04:13] but essentially looks at every piece of phonics like how much time do you spend on

[1:04:18] with these teach valid teams at the beginning of the middle of the year.

[1:04:22] You know like it's literally a checklist for us.

[1:04:29] The reason I'm trying to think the program that we sort of dismissed after seeing it looked good from the start, very teacher friendly, very friendly.

[1:04:38] But some of the language wasn't explicit enough.

[1:04:43] It was very sometimes with the elementary materials.

[1:04:48] you can get into this sort of kitty language speak. And we don't want that. We want the words

[1:04:57] for the actual meanings of what we're doing, right? Because that's transferable. If I say

[1:05:03] snap words and you say, you call them this word and we all have a different like kitty term for it.

[1:05:10] The kids aren't. They're going to be confused. So language is a big piece of these

[1:05:16] resources, another one, so fundations is off of or in Gillian Wilson, very popular in some places,

[1:05:27] one of the downsides of that, and it's super, like very science-based, huge teacher prep.

[1:05:35] That's a deficit. So we're trying to find that balance of really quality curriculum,

[1:05:42] less teacher prep, because they don't have a time.

[1:05:50] What is your, we all have our plans, you know, as in the, and then we have the reality.

[1:05:57] What we see, shaking out, what is your, what's your timeline?

[1:06:01] Is it to narrow this process down to find curriculum to start assuming implementation next year?

[1:06:12] But would it involve some or work like what's your kind of not holding you to it?

[1:06:17] I get your saying it into a microphone, but what's the timeline you're hoping for?

[1:06:24] Yeah, because I think that's a finite answer that a lot of people would like to hear.

[1:06:29] Absolutely.

[1:06:30] I would like us to have something in hand and like excited about ground running by next year for sure.

[1:06:37] But if we can do it earlier, there's one that we really like that literally just came on the mark.

[1:06:41] It's $1,600 a classroom, just saying that's super expensive when you have 24 classrooms.

[1:06:48] That's a lot of money. Yes, we can afford it.

[1:06:51] But I want to be careful if that's the right thing before I spend the spend amount of money.

[1:06:58] I think that's what we're going to be spending a money on now.

[1:07:00] I'm sure.

[1:07:03] Thank you, John.

[1:07:05] I'd like to take a moment to thank all the administrators that come and do this.

[1:07:09] This, you know, we had a big conversation tonight with you and we never know exactly where it's going to go.

[1:07:16] And this is something we've been doing here for a long time with our various administrators and it's part of what pulls other areas kind of into the world.

[1:07:33] I would like to thank everybody for coming tonight and extending your work day and there's real benefit to it and it's grateful for it and it's valued.

[1:07:44] Thank you.

[1:07:44] Thank you, Jen.

[1:07:50] James, James, coffee, our athletic director.

[1:08:02] Good evening.

[1:08:03] My report stands as submitted.

[1:08:05] There were a couple of things I just wanted to highlight really quick.

[1:08:08] First being that our golf team is state champions. Again, so congratulations to them and the last four years

[1:08:15] They've won the Class A state championship twice and they've come become runners-up two of the years as well

[1:08:22] So we have a great thing going on on our golf program right now, and I just want to congratulate the team and AJ Simakitis

[1:08:27] who's our head coach in a film, a graduate,

[1:08:31] who played golf here on a great season.

[1:08:36] And then our participation numbers for middle school

[1:08:38] are in the report this month.

[1:08:40] Last month you had the high school numbers,

[1:08:42] this year you have middle school.

[1:08:43] Last year you had me this month,

[1:08:44] you have middle school.

[1:08:45] And the third thing, just being,

[1:08:48] I thought homecoming was a great last week.

[1:08:53] I've been here for eight years now,

[1:08:55] And I remember, they're used to not always be a homecoming.

[1:09:00] It was called fallfest.

[1:09:02] And we didn't really have a pep rally.

[1:09:04] We had this thing called fallfest, which is kind of just

[1:09:06] a one-day event that was not what it is today.

[1:09:11] And so for a lot of people in here that were never

[1:09:14] a part of it, fallfest was the different thing altogether.

[1:09:17] And it wasn't the most welcoming environment

[1:09:19] from most students.

[1:09:22] And so I saw a little bit of that, my first year here and over the years things have changed and the student council has been great.

[1:09:30] And this administration and prior administrations have done a lot to really get it to be a more inclusive event.

[1:09:36] And I will say I thought personally that at least the pepper alley portion last week was the best one we've had.

[1:09:44] and I give all the credit to the kids because they made the environment fun, so it wasn't

[1:09:51] a aggressive, in-your-face thing that it used to be years and years ago, it was a really

[1:09:57] fun environment and the games were fun and it was light-hearted and the kids deserve a lot

[1:10:02] of credit because they were awesome, so I thought it was great, so nice job.

[1:10:09] So that's my report for this month, and can I answer any questions?

[1:10:15] Any questions?

[1:10:18] Go ahead and move on.

[1:10:19] Hi.

[1:10:20] Let's talk about the survey for the student athletes.

[1:10:23] And the seasons are wrapping up.

[1:10:26] Golf is over, but a lot of the seasons are wrapping up.

[1:10:29] It was one of the strategic priorities.

[1:10:31] Yeah.

[1:10:32] We had a chance to talk about your other one at the facilities meeting with the turf.

[1:10:38] And I'm curious to know where you stand on that.

[1:10:41] I'm bringing that back.

[1:10:43] How are you going to roll it out?

[1:10:45] You've got the most Instagram followers

[1:10:47] of all the filmist school's pages.

[1:10:50] So you've got access, congratulations.

[1:10:54] And I'm wondering what it's going to look like.

[1:10:56] It's going to look like the old survey, what data

[1:10:59] you're hoping to collect, and the different ways

[1:11:04] You're going to kind of, I mean, we're all, we're found with residents and they just did their

[1:11:09] town survey and they pushed real hard and got 500 people to answer it.

[1:11:16] So, so it's obviously, it's hard to get responses to surveys, that's part of getting feedback

[1:11:24] of any sort of, but that's also part of the management process, right?

[1:11:30] So I'm curious where you stand with that part, that portion of your strategic background.

[1:11:35] So the seasons are wrapping up, but we still have play after you still have things to go.

[1:11:40] So I'm thinking sometimes it will be probably mid-November when this goes out before the winter season, but definitely in November.

[1:11:49] I've collected several surveys from schools in the SMA and the Western

[1:11:55] Inc. Conference of local schools. I have prior surveys and then I've started to

[1:12:01] collect those all and I started to put together like a rough draft but I'm

[1:12:06] working with certain people within our district leadership team who have a

[1:12:09] lot of extensive survey results so I'm working with them to kind of help me

[1:12:15] out with that piece of it too and just to get second third opinions and things

[1:12:18] like that, so I'm still in the draft phase,

[1:12:22] but I'm hoping that I'll have something finalized,

[1:12:24] I don't know, in the next week or so.

[1:12:27] And James, so how is it going to be like,

[1:12:31] will parents be made aware of this

[1:12:33] so that they can like encourage their student athlete

[1:12:36] to fill out the form?

[1:12:38] I mean, just how will it be rolled out?

[1:12:40] Yeah, I hadn't thought that much into how I'm in a blivered out.

[1:12:45] Obviously we'll put it out in the nav's news.

[1:12:47] I can talk with Mr. Gowers about principles and notes and things like that.

[1:12:54] We can send it out. Obviously, I can send it directly to our student athletes at the high

[1:12:59] school to be email. There's a lot of different ways I can deliver it and encourage them to

[1:13:03] participate in it. And I can even have our coaching staff, you know, push that point as well.

[1:13:10] And I don't know. So we used to do surveys, used to do them, right? What was the student

[1:13:16] great of like return. I mean, I know our parents have great, they're great about doing surveys.

[1:13:21] I know we have a high rate of parents who will do a survey, but do you know what it was for students before?

[1:13:28] I can't give you a specific number. This is probably four or five years ago now.

[1:13:32] But my first couple of years, it was a high participation number and then it waned off almost completely by

[1:13:39] a 2017-18, it was really, something that's more to do.

[1:13:46] Yeah, sure, we get it back.

[1:13:48] It was really only a select few and two distinct directions.

[1:13:56] But yeah, we'll definitely push it hard

[1:13:58] to our different channels to try to get student athletes to take it.

[1:14:05] Yeah, yeah.

[1:14:06] Yeah, I think the world's become more extreme,

[1:14:10] So it's difficult to find that middle ground, but I think we've got to do our best.

[1:14:17] Yeah, everyone needs it.

[1:14:18] Right?

[1:14:19] And I'm sure you want to hear it all.

[1:14:23] And you know, there are a lot of different extracurricular activities that are happening in our school.

[1:14:29] Visual arts, performance arts, and we have math and science clubs.

[1:14:36] And all the athletics are an extracurricular activity that really, that have a really high rate of participation.

[1:14:43] I mean, I'm sure by the time we get into another season and have new kids participating in new sports,

[1:14:48] we're looking at half of the high school population.

[1:14:52] And, but the athletic department is the only extracurricular that has an administrator running it.

[1:15:00] With that comes the sense of care that we've got to have with the experience our students have, but also just encouraging them to become young adults that are using their voice.

[1:15:13] So finding that, getting creative to find ways to get them back to responding to those surveys is one way we can show them and encourage them that their voice matters.

[1:15:25] not influences the overall culture in the entire school so thank you for bringing this back

[1:15:31] and thank you for working hard and I know the fall is busy and I look forward to November

[1:15:36] and hearing more. Thank you, James. Okay. Thanks, James. Thank you.

[1:15:44] Director of Technology, Nate Barnes.

[1:15:52] Good evening everyone. My board report stands

[1:15:55] this submitted. I'll just highlight this evening. We did apply for and get a $20,000 grant for

[1:16:01] security that we're using to implement a ransomware system and big thanks to Matt Vanneberg.

[1:16:06] He did all the work on that. Any questions for me this evening?

[1:16:13] You've been busy. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:16:17] Thank you for giving us all of that.

[1:16:20] And finally, Director Finance and Operations, Dan Osteck.

[1:16:31] Evening reports, stands as submitted,

[1:16:35] items of note, October, busy month, and the finance,

[1:16:39] end of things, audit preparation.

[1:16:41] I didn't mention the day, but it'll be the last week in October.

[1:16:45] Same auditor does the auditor for the town and the school.

[1:16:50] We typically alternate weeks and have to balance with the town.

[1:16:55] We don't manage our own cash checks.

[1:16:59] We go through the town, so there has to be reconciliation process between the two.

[1:17:04] It's a great work in relationship, and not kind of what I have, so don't have to keep us

[1:17:09] in balance, which is excellent.

[1:17:12] But that process for those that don't know is review of our financial statements for the

[1:17:17] year ending June of 2023.

[1:17:19] We have the general fund, which is the fund supported by local taxes.

[1:17:26] Special revenue funds probably have 10 to 12 of those.

[1:17:30] We're also on agency oversight for scholarship funds and booster funds as well.

[1:17:37] The food service fund is in there as well.

[1:17:40] It enterprise fund, which essentially runs on its own as its own self-balancing fund.

[1:17:46] So that doesn't get any help from the general fund to operate,

[1:17:50] which is very unusual in a school service environment.

[1:17:54] And then in addition to giving us

[1:17:58] audited financial numbers,

[1:18:00] the process includes an evaluation of our internal control systems.

[1:18:04] So everything from approval processes for purchases

[1:18:07] to how we manage cash receipts,

[1:18:11] how we process accounts receivable accounts payable.

[1:18:16] You name it, anything financial there, and then in particular grants that we receive a lot of federal funding for, and primarily that's a local entitlement,

[1:18:26] special education federal funding, they get a separate audit called the Single Audits, called the Single Audit Act, which is a more specific audit geared just for federal programs

[1:18:38] because they're restricted in use and purpose, so the audit there verifies that any expenditures

[1:18:45] made are in line with what's approved to be spent for that grant.

[1:18:50] That's a whole separate thing, in addition to a normal reporting DOE, which is the other

[1:18:55] thing that we do in October as we're gearing up for the budget process, the Magic ED279 report,

[1:19:02] which is our state funding for education relies on most of the stuff that we submit in

[1:19:08] October, so it'll be our October one enrollment figure, which is by grade. Other factors

[1:19:16] are Neo, it's called Neo. I don't know, that's probably a text thing, the Neo system.

[1:19:23] That's complete staffing of the district. So every teacher would education, they have what

[1:19:29] experience they have, how many years have been in the district. All ed text, regular red,

[1:19:36] special ed, so it really gives you, we provide the demographic of the district to the state.

[1:19:43] And all those figures are included in the calculation of the essential programs and services

[1:19:47] funding model, which generates in the end, are funding back to the local district,

[1:19:53] so at least they're best guessed by typically the start of February.

[1:19:58] And we wait very eagerly for that number to help us in the budget process.

[1:20:03] I

[1:20:05] think that's the other than making a plug for substitutes.

[1:20:09] It's not like the old days.

[1:20:11] If you're interested in setting, you've got control.

[1:20:14] It's not, you don't get called in the morning out of the blue and assign any job.

[1:20:19] It's very proactive for this set.

[1:20:21] So you sign up and say, I'm available Monday, Wednesday, Thursday.

[1:20:27] I want to work in this school with this age kids.

[1:20:31] I do want to be called at home.

[1:20:33] I don't want to be called at home.

[1:20:34] I want to be contacted by email or text.

[1:20:37] And the jobs pop up on the screen for you.

[1:20:39] So you can just pick and choose if that's what you want,

[1:20:42] or you can work every day.

[1:20:44] But the power is really in the given us off

[1:20:48] for an hour days.

[1:20:48] It's much more in the hands of the substitute hunter.

[1:20:54] Please do apply.

[1:20:56] We need you.

[1:20:58] We do need you.

[1:20:59] Any questions?

[1:21:02] I'd like to.

[1:21:05] principal notes and to to to to to to to to put to our parent body or

[1:21:10] me please I'm in principal notes before we're starting to use

[1:21:15] Stephanie modern's expertise to social media much more aggressively we've had some real

[1:21:20] good success with some recent ed tech a little more pizzazz on our marketing

[1:21:26] assess the students will have to revisit that as well. I just feel like maybe some

[1:21:31] parents in our community knew we were in a sub-crisis that they might be able to help.

[1:21:39] We'll do that. We'll hit that.

[1:21:43] That's great. Any other questions for Dan?

[1:21:46] Thank you Dan.

[1:21:47] Good. Thanks.

[1:21:50] Moving on to item number nine, items for information.

[1:21:56] I think we can put it up on the screen, but I just have you draw your attention.

[1:22:04] We have a list of our current openings, and obviously we're still in search for some well-qualified folks to fill these positions.

[1:22:12] The positions are all listed on the career page of Family Schools.

[1:22:16] Thank you.

[1:22:18] Also, the district had some success over the last month with filling some district wide available.

[1:22:30] Reminder that the Board votes publicly on staff who are included in the teacher contract, as well as new administrative staff.

[1:22:38] So item 10, when we move on to committee and project status reports, before we get to the individual committee reports, I'd like to first thank each of our committee chairs for preparing the minutes of each meeting.

[1:22:50] As I mentioned last month, we've been working on getting the committee meetings posted up on our school board website under the school board committee tab,

[1:22:57] And I'm happy to report that they are now up

[1:23:00] so they're there for everyone to review.

[1:23:03] So thank you for the committee chairs.

[1:23:06] And also in our continuing efforts

[1:23:08] to clearly communicate and inform the public

[1:23:10] for our work we ask you to continue to follow us

[1:23:13] on family schools, on Facebook, Instagram or X,

[1:23:17] formerly known as Twitter, for all our upcoming school board

[1:23:20] meetings and workshops and our community meetings,

[1:23:23] those are updated each week.

[1:23:26] So with that brief overview,

[1:23:27] I'll turn over to committee reports, finance committee chair Nicole, would you like to give us

[1:23:31] report?

[1:23:34] Thank you.

[1:23:36] The budget season really doesn't kick off for a little while yet, but the town and the schools

[1:23:42] have been in communication planning the budget calendar for the year.

[1:23:48] The town is just about ready to finalize that on their end, and so once that's done we'll

[1:23:53] get that up on the website and we'll be ready to roll at last just as much as you can.

[1:23:59] Thanks, Nicole.

[1:24:01] Next, Laurel Regan for Facilities Committee.

[1:24:05] Thank you.

[1:24:07] So, the Facilities Committee toured the campus on September 22.

[1:24:11] Thank you to Superintendent McFolty, Dan Oche,

[1:24:14] Topper West, James Coffee, Chris Hughes,

[1:24:17] Jan Adams along with many accommodating teachers and staff.

[1:24:22] We had additional board members join us as well as some community members.

[1:24:26] So that was fun morning.

[1:24:28] We saw the wood chip boiler at Phelmeth High School,

[1:24:32] which then takes every opportunity to remind us

[1:24:35] who can heat our whole campus with renewable energy

[1:24:37] and saves us plenty of money.

[1:24:40] But it's also cool to see that was really built

[1:24:41] to facilitate some learning.

[1:24:43] So it's, you know, it's little portals and to conveyor belts and, I guess, things that interest

[1:24:51] of right of people.

[1:24:54] Then we went through a film with high school, looked at some of the fine art spaces, the science department,

[1:25:00] many examples there of where some of our spaces are

[1:25:06] undersized and maybe not meeting the real, the needs of those groups.

[1:25:10] We also looked in at the technology center in the library and that's a real jam, a really unique program I feel for our school.

[1:25:19] And then we toured the common spaces which some are repurposed for some tutoring.

[1:25:27] Then we moved on to found with middle school parts of which we know our approaching 70 years old, connected by some unique twists and turns and a lot of stairways to the newer sections.

[1:25:40] And that presents clearly you can experience it and see some of the challenges with that building.

[1:25:47] And about we ended on a high note in our beautiful gardens and green houses.

[1:25:53] Unfortunately, the pizza oven was cold.

[1:25:55] We were not greeted by the pizza, but we were greeted by, I think, we all had an Asian pair.

[1:26:01] That was nice.

[1:26:03] So, next steps in the master planning process is really to finalize that assessment that was

[1:26:09] facilitated by Oak Point, including, you know, creating a cover letter with a purpose

[1:26:14] statement, a scope statement, an explanation of what next steps could be.

[1:26:19] That master plan assessment document is really kind of an integrated collective set of projects

[1:26:25] and recommendations.

[1:26:26] It's not necessarily hard commitments or it doesn't include dollars and timelines, but

[1:26:32] It's really meant to kind of put all the needs in one place so that we can move forward and start prioritizing those projects and putting together more planning.

[1:26:44] So while that continues to be finalized, meanwhile the school continues to plan for general maintenance and capital improvement projects,

[1:26:51] items that the districts planning and getting quotes for include resurfacing the turf

[1:26:57] and the track, increasing cooling spaces in our schools, the middle school is particularly

[1:27:04] challenged during that heat wave we had at the beginning of the school year, and we're

[1:27:08] also reviewing options to update bathrooms to foster increased personal privacy.

[1:27:14] Any questions?

[1:27:19] Your next meeting is, our next meeting is Wednesday morning at 730 in the greenhouse.

[1:27:26] Next, we have policy committee, Whitney is our chair, but she's absent, so I'm going to ask Sarah to contribute.

[1:27:34] Policy committee continues to me twice a month. We have policy BEDH tonight, a second read and approval, which I'll address in new business.

[1:27:43] In addition, the Policy Committee is working on the development of BED-A, which will allow

[1:27:51] for online submissions of public comment, which will be posted with meeting minutes.

[1:27:59] The Policy Committee continues its important work on policy A, B, A, A, A, A, a policy

[1:28:05] for supporting transgender and gender expansive students.

[1:28:08] Earlier this month, Whitney the Policy Chair and myself, as Wellness Committee Chair, met with the district equity leaders to hear their thoughts on similar policies from neighboring districts, from neighboring districts, and we're going to continue to meet with stakeholders and different groups from within the schools over the coming weeks.

[1:28:29] Thank you.

[1:28:31] Any questions for Sarah?

[1:28:37] Thank you.

[1:28:38] But you weren't here.

[1:28:42] The next policy committee meeting is November 8th.

[1:28:50] Wellness committee met September 29th with two agenda items.

[1:28:56] We discussed the emergency operations plan, which I will talk about in new business.

[1:29:03] And then we also discuss the committee's roles and responsibilities for the year.

[1:29:08] And as a group, we discuss changing the name of the advisory committee to client-climate,

[1:29:16] safety, and wellness to reflect the more expansive work the committee is doing as well as

[1:29:22] to differentiate it from the wellness committee wellness council, which will be meeting to discuss

[1:29:28] nutrition and physical education, so I just wanted to kind of pull apart those two committees

[1:29:33] and some language around that.

[1:29:36] And we're next meeting.

[1:29:44] No, November 3rd.

[1:29:46] Thank you.

[1:29:46] Yes, November 3rd.

[1:29:50] Thank you.

[1:29:52] Thanks, Sarah.

[1:29:52] Any questions?

[1:30:00] Thank you. So the paths and WRVC advisory committee met on Thursday, October 12th.

[1:30:09] Gretchen McKinalty and Chris record from Cablezbith, our chair and co-chair of the paths advisory committee.

[1:30:17] I attended along with Dr. Gowers in a school counselor, so I think found this can really be proud of the support and interest we share in that program.

[1:30:24] In Roman is strong in most of the programs at Pats, they did note that there were some, this

[1:30:30] is not necessarily regarding Falmouth students, but there were some higher summer drops

[1:30:34] than they were used to, so they're still analyzing those reasons, which could include things

[1:30:39] like cold feet moving out of district, great performance at their sending school, but regardless

[1:30:45] Pats would like to improve their communication with students over the summer in the hopes of

[1:30:50] keeping their interest and sense of welcome.

[1:30:55] There was some discussion that Portland

[1:30:57] as a school district is working on an application

[1:30:59] to create an integrated high school,

[1:31:02] which would include the Career and Technology Education Center

[1:31:06] that's a CTE.

[1:31:08] I'll be using that acronym.

[1:31:11] That's in very early stages.

[1:31:14] There are a lot of infrastructure challenges

[1:31:16] at the path's building right now that reduces

[1:31:18] ability to expand some of the more popular programs, especially welding, which uses a lot of

[1:31:23] electricity. Meanwhile, Portland has been completing their portrait of the graduate. For 2030,

[1:31:29] they ask sending schools to review if their students align with that portrait. It is very well

[1:31:34] aligned with Falmouth's portrait of our graduate. And then they mentioned that legislation

[1:31:42] was passed the summer LD436, which would require schools to establish equivalency agreements

[1:31:48] with CTE centers, to award students' credits in course subjects when they're enrolled

[1:31:54] in CTE programs. An example would be get a math credit for participating in a carpentry

[1:32:00] program. That really won't change what we do in practice with the Foundlet Schools. We already

[1:32:05] award our students' equivalency credits as recommended by paths per program. It may require

[1:32:11] for the board to formalize that agreement.

[1:32:14] Our next meeting will be November 16th in Westbrook.

[1:32:18] Any questions?

[1:32:21] Thank you all.

[1:32:23] Item number 11, we have no unfinished business.

[1:32:26] So we'll move on to item 12 for new business.

[1:32:28] This evening, we will entertain public comment

[1:32:31] on the first two items under new business.

[1:32:35] So our first item under new business

[1:32:37] can I have a motion for the second read

[1:32:40] of policy BEDH public participation at board meetings.

[1:32:45] Thank you, Alicia, for the motion is there second.

[1:32:48] Thank you, Nicole.

[1:32:50] Before we take public comment on this item,

[1:32:52] I'm going to turn the mic over to Sarah.

[1:32:55] And she can walk us through what is transpired

[1:32:57] with this policy in the last month.

[1:33:00] Thanks, Sandy.

[1:33:01] This policy is not a substantial difference

[1:33:04] to the policy that was presented for first read last month.

[1:33:08] However, after listening to comments from the board and during public comment, the committee chose to add two phrases outlining the rationale for limiting visual aids and comments and applause from the audience during public comment.

[1:33:23] Both of which are to provide equity to all speakers and attendees, not to limit or restrict voice.

[1:33:30] And this applies policy, applies both in person and via live stream or video recording.

[1:33:39] Thank you, Sarah. Now, I'd like to invite any member of the public who wishes to offer comments about policy BEDH to please come to the podium, state your full name and your address.

[1:33:51] Individuals are welcome to speak for up to three minutes on this agenda item.

[1:34:10] All right, Joe Campbell, five-year-old, and I just wanted to say, regarding the no visual

[1:34:18] aids, I still strongly object, I guess, to that clause, I, you know, participated in

[1:34:23] Saturday or a lot of these meetings, and it seems like we're solving a problem that doesn't

[1:34:28] exist.

[1:34:29] I've never seen it become a problem, and any of the meetings that I have attended, and it seems

[1:34:34] like any good governing body we're solving for a problem that doesn't really exist in restricting

[1:34:39] and people's rights to bring information here and share it and communicate it.

[1:34:45] And just because one person may not be able to participate in maybe having all the information,

[1:34:53] we're going to restrict everybody's right and ability to bring something here just for the sake of equity.

[1:35:00] And it's not right.

[1:35:01] and you should vote against tonight the passage of this public participation board and fix

[1:35:09] that before you pass it. I think it needs to go back to another revision because it's not

[1:35:17] right. Thank you. Thank you, Joe.

[1:35:22] Is there any other member for the public who would like to speak

[1:35:24] on this policy?

[1:35:35] Seeing none. I'm going to close public comment on the topic and we'll open this up

[1:35:38] for board discussion.

[1:35:46] Go ahead and call.

[1:35:49] This policy has been looked at and revamped really extensively over the last few years.

[1:35:56] And one of the reasons it's been brought back so many times is because COVID was really

[1:36:02] a catalyst for garnering interest and participation from the community in a way that we never

[1:36:08] saw before.

[1:36:09] And it's so valuable and important and that is absolutely one of the silver linings of what came out of COVID is people coming and wanting to participate more in our schools and in our board meetings.

[1:36:22] So I am very confident and comfortable with this policy.

[1:36:26] There's been a lot of research done looking at how other school districts have handled this and are handling it. There's been advice from attorneys. There's been advice from the main school board association.

[1:36:38] And just a lot of depth of conversation among three or four different school board make-ups in

[1:36:46] Falmouth.

[1:36:47] So, I am very confident that this has been well thought out and we'll satisfy the needs

[1:36:54] of our district for the time being.

[1:36:55] I'm sure we will revisit it as more things come to light, but for right now I support this.

[1:37:04] Thanks Nicole.

[1:37:06] Any other comments?

[1:37:08] I mean you make a great point, this was adopted originally in 2007, it's gone through three revisions, this is the fourth one.

[1:37:17] I will really, you know, I commend the committee for adding the paragraph if you've looked at this online with the link anything that's been added is in green.

[1:37:30] e-mail, or even regular mail, which people have done. In terms of the, you know, bringing the visual aid, I also think, if there is something you want to share with the board, electronically send it to us so that we all have access to what you're talking about, which really does help us.

[1:37:50] And I think I also would add because I was on the board for six years a decade ago when this policy came to be.

[1:37:59] And just as a community I am really grateful to the public for showing up so much because

[1:38:08] whatever you feel, whatever your opinion is, it's really clear that you care.

[1:38:13] You care about your students, you care about your community, and we're here to listen and hear what you have to say.

[1:38:21] And I also would say that, you know, there's a lot of material out there right now in the press about public participation meetings.

[1:38:29] There are many districts surrounding us that cap public participation at 30 minutes.

[1:38:36] Some don't even allow public comment and so I'm glad that we're able to do that and that's a lot of that is really due to our public who comes here and is really civil and

[1:38:51] Very good with you know very good with their time. We don't have to worry about I hope I'm not going to be eating my words at any at any point

[1:38:57] But there's always a good civil discourse here. So I really appreciate that and

[1:39:03] I'm happy to support this policy, and I have no doubt that it will go through a revision at

[1:39:09] some point again.

[1:39:10] But for now, I think this is our best policy in place, and I'm happy to support it.

[1:39:21] I don't know whether it comes, then I will call for the vote.

[1:39:24] All those in favor of adopting policy BEDH, public participation at board meetings,

[1:39:31] and

[1:39:32] post, this policy passes a 6-0. Thank you.

[1:39:38] Moving on to our second item under new business.

[1:39:41] May I have a motion to approve the District Emergency Operations Plan

[1:39:45] for 2023-2024 year.

[1:39:49] Thank you, Nicole, and a second. Thank you, Laurel.

[1:39:52] Gretchen, would you like to give the public some background on this plan?

[1:39:57] So, the emergency operations plan, which is required to be voted on each year by the school board, was developed collaboratively by our district safety team, which is composed of members of the FOMET Fire and Police Department, student services team, health services team, and district leadership team.

[1:40:21] a lot of teams. The plan provides a framework for this school district to use in performing

[1:40:27] emergency response functions before during and after a natural disaster, technological hazard

[1:40:35] or any other kind of violent or destructive event in our schools. Importantly, it helps us ensure

[1:40:44] we're on the same page with our emergency response agencies and regards to the language

[1:40:51] that we're using as well as our protocols and approach.

[1:40:55] The plan also includes updated information related to infrastructure, facilities, use, and

[1:41:01] staff.

[1:41:02] The district safety team needs regularly and as needed, such as after any kind of event, for

[1:41:09] the purposes of debriefing and continuing to hone our prevention and response efforts, and

[1:41:14] we update the plan as needed throughout the year.

[1:41:18] At this time, I would like to acknowledge Colin's say, our Deputy Fire Chief, thank you for being here.

[1:41:24] Colin, have I left anything out that you would like to add?

[1:41:29] All right.

[1:41:31] So at this point, I will turn it to the board.

[1:41:34] Thank you.

[1:41:36] At this time, I'd like to offer any member of the public who wishes to come up to,

[1:41:40] offer a comments on this item to come up to the podium,

[1:41:44] state your name and your address, and you have up to three minutes.

[1:41:52] All right, seeing none, I will bring it back, close public comment, bring it back to the board for discussions.

[1:41:58] Sarah, do you want to comment a little bit because wellness, I think, has looked at this and it's quite a bit of work.

[1:42:05] I'd love to, thanks.

[1:42:07] So we, again, in September at the Wellness Committee meeting, we met with members of the district safety team to do the boards work of the annual review of the emergency operations plan.

[1:42:18] as per school policy.

[1:42:21] We learned about safety updates, we learned about safety upgrades that took place over the

[1:42:26] summer.

[1:42:26] We reviewed and gave feedback on some of the language of the plan, and we learned

[1:42:31] about some of the staff training that took place as well as some of the other, you know,

[1:42:36] confidential components of the plan.

[1:42:38] All of our questions were answered and will continue as a board to check in with

[1:42:48] The plan sometimes doesn't follow the practice since what's written on paper and you know what happens in

[1:42:56] Relife sometimes doesn't align exactly having said that I'm very confident that our administration has done great work on this plan

[1:43:04] And I'm very happy to support it

[1:43:07] Thanks, Sarah

[1:43:08] Any other discussion or questions from board members?

[1:43:13] All right, seeing none I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the district emergency operations plan

[1:43:18] for the 2023-2024 year, I'll post none, thank you, the motion carries 6-0.

[1:43:30] And item 3 under new business, can I have a motion to approve Lisa Hild as our speech

[1:43:35] language pathologist for the 2023-2024 school year?

[1:43:40] Thank you, Laura, for a motion.

[1:43:41] A second.

[1:43:42] Thank you, Sarah.

[1:43:43] Any discussions?

[1:43:45] All those in favor?

[1:43:46] Thank you, the motion carries 60.

[1:43:51] All right, moving on to item 13 comments from the public.

[1:43:56] The Family School Board finds great value to public participation and access to our school board meetings.

[1:44:01] The school board allows public comment at its meetings to enable individuals to address the board on matters within the scope of the board's responsibilities.

[1:44:10] are policy, BEDH, state that comments made at this time must pertain directly to the

[1:44:17] specific operations, management, policies, and governance of the FAMAS school department.

[1:44:23] We ask that you please refrain from public comment regarding individual employees or students.

[1:44:30] At this time, I'd like to invite members of the public to speak to come to the podium.

[1:44:35] Please give your full name and your address and individuals are welcome to speak for up to three minutes.

[1:45:00] That a parent petition had been submitted to the school board that petition directly against the safety and rights of trans kids.

[1:45:06] I was able to read this petition via four requests and saddened to read that these parents felt unsafe, allowing trans kids using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

[1:45:17] Let me be clear, trans kids and non-binary kids are not scary.

[1:45:22] As part of the LGBTQ community myself, I'm confident to say that trans students want the ability to use the bathroom safely without fear of bullying.

[1:45:29] or violence. As I stated last meeting, the statistics and studies show that these children

[1:45:35] are safer when allowed to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.

[1:45:40] And as a member of this LGBTQIA community, it isn't news to me that the vast majority

[1:45:45] of parents here at Phelmath are heterosexual and cisgender. It isn't news to me that

[1:45:49] majority of you on the board are heterosexual and cisgender. So why is this important

[1:45:55] Well, most times, it is heterosexual cisgender people who create and vote on policies that our LGBTQA families and children will have to live with.

[1:46:05] Many of these policies have been harmful and, most recently, through advocacy and support from our heterosexual allies, they have been hopeful.

[1:46:14] I want to give you a personal perspective so you understand.

[1:46:17] As a family, my partner and I were finally allowed to marry only after three votes, nationally, at three votes in the state.

[1:46:26] By the time I could legally marry my partner, we had been together 15 years, and our child was six years old and ready for kindergarten.

[1:46:33] December 29, 2012 was the first opportunity we could legally marry.

[1:46:38] This was extremely important to us, and we felt it was important to our child, so we made the plans to marry that very day.

[1:46:44] The morning of December 29, 2012, the Falmouth Police called.

[1:46:50] They recently received threats that warned them, and so they asked us to get married in the police station.

[1:46:56] We were fearful and stunned, but also thankful for the police to keep us safe.

[1:47:01] We could not fathom the hate that would inspire somebody to threaten violence in such a small town.

[1:47:07] We felt strongly that we did not want our first steps to, as a married couple, to be taken in the police station.

[1:47:12] So we asked that it was done if we could in another place safely.

[1:47:16] Despite the threat of violence, the film with town clerk and deputy town clerk and the police

[1:47:21] bravely opened the town hall at midnight December 29th, 2012, and we were married.

[1:47:27] I'd like to mention that even at that time at midnight the door was kept locked because there was a man there protesting and wanting to get in.

[1:47:35] So here we are again, fear.

[1:47:36] Fear over trans kids trying to use the bathroom, fear over a policy that's already been in place for years without issues from these kids.

[1:47:45] We're not scary, we're actually LGBTQIA folks that are vastly outnumbered.

[1:47:51] We live our lives in fear that those of you who are not LGBTQIA will come up with additional harmful policies or laws that will deny a dignity and basic human rights.

[1:48:02] Thanks.

[1:48:02] Thank you.

[1:48:29] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Bonnie Rodden.

[1:48:34] I live at Ten Shoreline Drive. I'm the mother of a former Falmouth student and I am a former

[1:48:43] town counselor. I'm aware that there is petition signed by some parents in Falmouth that have

[1:48:51] submitted to the school board. Some students, according to this petition, feel vulnerable

[1:48:59] and unsafe sharing bathrooms with students of the opposite biological sex. I'm curious.

[1:49:09] What exactly are they afraid of? Is there any evidence that trans students who

[1:49:17] who trans students would identify as girls or those that identify as boys have actually heard someone.

[1:49:31] These parents are speaking on behalf of anonymous students who the parents say are afraid to share their feelings openly.

[1:49:40] for, and I quote, fear of being labeled targeted and retaliated against, they feel being labeled targeted and retaliated against, and yet transgender students are brave enough to be public about their gender identity and are willing to suffer humiliation and retaliation for being true to themselves.

[1:50:07] This kind of fear-mongering is not supposed to be happening in a school system where we teach students to be tolerant, courageous and compassionate as they go out into the world.

[1:50:23] The solution that has been offered is supposedly a compromise.

[1:50:27] restrict the use of bathrooms to students of their biological sex and provide some sort of

[1:50:34] alternative for students who are transgender.

[1:50:40] This only segregates transgender students

[1:50:43] and emphasizes that they are different, which is exactly the opposite of what students

[1:50:49] learn in history class. Our forefathers wrote in the preamble to the declaration of

[1:50:56] independence that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

[1:51:06] that they are endowed by their creator with certain unaliable rights that among these

[1:51:11] our life's liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[1:51:16] I hope that students will learn that the unsadstantiated fear that is behind this proposed policy

[1:51:24] is the kind of fear that has poisoned our country in the past and sadly, the vices now.

[1:51:33] Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

[1:51:37] Thank you.

[1:51:41] No applause.

[1:51:41] Please.

[1:51:52] When else like to speak?

[1:52:15] My name is Carolyn Thomas, and I live at 13 just in our road.

[1:52:19] It's not often that...

[1:52:30] I'm at loss it for words, but after reading the open letter to the policy committee, regarding the

[1:52:35] safe path from locker room use, I confess, I am. Should I start with the section that states,

[1:52:42] there are females who are expressing that they do not feel safe sharing this space with biological

[1:52:47] males, and although speculative, it seems likely that the sentiment would extend to the

[1:52:54] biological females using the male breast rooms.

[1:52:58] As the parent of a non-binary child, I would tell you that I am more afraid that the cis-gender

[1:53:04] children in the school will be living daylights out of my child for using either restroom,

[1:53:10] than I am worried that any trans or non-binary child will hurt your child in the restroom.

[1:53:18] I think what bothers me the most is the insidious

[1:53:23] insinuation that because a child is transgender,

[1:53:27] they are sexual predator.

[1:53:31] Just like all children, my kid is going to the bathroom

[1:53:35] because they need to go to the bathroom.

[1:53:38] No other reason.

[1:53:39] Transkids are no more sexual or aggressive than any other kid.

[1:53:44] That is all fear that has been whipped up in some parents' minds.

[1:53:51] I do wonder if it occurred to any of those who signed this petition.

[1:53:56] The psychological or physical damage that would be done to these kids by requiring them

[1:54:02] to use a restroom in conflict with their lived agenda.

[1:54:07] Picture, if you would, telling a child that has lived as a girl for five or ten years,

[1:54:14] They suddenly have to use the men's restroom.

[1:54:19] Picture them dressed as a girl going into the men's room.

[1:54:23] What do you suppose would happen to them?

[1:54:26] Day in, day out.

[1:54:30] If they lasted that long, without harming themselves,

[1:54:34] or being beaten, or worse.

[1:54:37] Yes, that could happen here in famine,

[1:54:40] just as it's happened around the country.

[1:54:42] Or maybe you just want to crush their spirit and get them to transfer out of your town and away from your kids.

[1:54:51] Next, I wonder if anyone who wrote or signed the petition is familiar with Main State law.

[1:54:57] There's a 2014 Main State Supreme Court ruling, which makes what the petitioners are proposing illegal.

[1:55:04] So unless the petitioners are prepared for the district to be sued, this petition did nothing to build a bridge with the Trans and LGBTQ communities.

[1:55:11] communities. I want to thank the policy committee for working to bring forward a transgender

[1:55:17] policy that will keep all children safe as well as keeping the district in compliance

[1:55:22] with state law. I would remind the board that the 2014 Doe ruling stated that schools should

[1:55:29] ultimately be prepared to educate school staff and the broader school community about transgender

[1:55:35] issues. This petition suggests that the government has further walked work to do on transgender issues.

[1:55:43] Thank you.

[1:56:05] Good evening. My name is Guinness Clute and I reside at 79 Bavic Road. I'm here to support

[1:56:13] the work that the committee did. It relates to binary and trans kids. Our school's mission

[1:56:24] is to navigate creative pathways to courageous, compassionate, and fulfilling lives.

[1:56:31] One of the most important things to achieve this mission is to make sure that every child,

[1:56:37] each and every child that enters the campus is feeling home, welcome, and can be there

[1:56:48] as it's true self, if we can't meet them in their basic needs, we lie to ourselves and we don't meet this mission.

[1:57:00] Thank you so much for doing your work. I appreciate your time.

[1:57:24] I'm Amy Carr, 3606 Grayrod.

[1:57:28] I was made aware of the back of the water.

[1:57:31] That's just called a call at that.

[1:57:35] And I ask as well what are the students that these parents represent,

[1:57:44] afraid of.

[1:57:45] I also, voice the same concern that Caroline has,

[1:57:48] of the legality of it within the state and nationally.

[1:57:54] there's, it's ongoing, even almost looks like it possibly will go to the Supreme Court.

[1:58:01] And I personally feel it's a major setback for the positives we've made with the equity

[1:58:11] and equality report and in a district.

[1:58:38] Hi, my name is Libby Rideout and my address is for stream with Lane.

[1:58:44] Wasn't actually planning on speaking, but I have a 12-year-old bug in my ear that's basically

[1:58:51] telling me I need to get up here.

[1:58:54] I did have something short written down, but this is again about the bathroom letter.

[1:59:00] I was filled with fear after hearing about the bathroom letter.

[1:59:06] I understand that proposals like this one in Phalmyth,

[1:59:10] they're just smaller stepping stones to a larger scale attempt to attack trans people

[1:59:15] and trans kids in this case, just by pecking away at their basic rights.

[1:59:21] I understand that these kinds of policies or requests for policies start here in small settings

[1:59:29] and work to pull a larger scale to take away rights.

[1:59:35] Research shows that policies that force kids to use the bathroom and accordance to

[1:59:40] the false gender they were assigned at birth based only on body parts.

[1:59:45] Deny these kids the right to live their true identity and put these kids in the way

[1:59:50] of significant harm in terms of bullying and self-inflicted harm.

[1:59:56] Some people ask, well, what about a single gender neutral bath?

[2:00:00] Discipley, and has been had multiple instances of bullying in the bathroom from other

[2:00:06] cis boys. So he is choosing to use a gender neutral bathroom. He's never had an issue with

[2:00:13] any trans kids in the elementary school. But my point is that we've all learned in our

[2:00:21] education that separate is not equal. We should get to use facilities that match our identity.

[2:00:28] So as a parent to a non-binary child, my hope is that my child can go to school, be safe and be

[2:00:36] accepted and not have their basic rights taken away from them based on the gender they identify with.

[2:00:42] Thank you.

[2:00:44] Thank you.

[2:01:03] Would anyone else like to make public comment this evening?

[2:01:11] All right.

[2:01:12] Seeing that.

[2:01:12] I will close public comment.

[2:01:14] Thank you.

[2:01:15] I'm a reminder to everyone that in two weeks, Monday, October 30, at 630 PM right here in the high school theater, the school board will hold our special workshop.

[2:01:25] As Gretchen mentioned in her report to the board, Lawrence Alexander, will be beginning his work with our district.

[2:01:33] This will be a workshop that is devoted to learning more about Mr Alexander and his work and also hearing questions from the public.

[2:01:40] We have set aside two hours for question and answer and discussion, and if you cannot attend, there is a link where you can submit your questions electronically, and we will ask them and Mr. Alexander will answer them.

[2:01:56] This workshop will also be live stream and recorded for future viewing, but I encourage everyone to attend.

[2:02:02] And then the following Monday, November 6th at 7 p.m. in the high school library right across the hall,

[2:02:08] we will have our November workshop where we have invited all three of our state legislative leaders

[2:02:13] to attend and update us on all legislative matters.

[2:02:18] So with that, can I have a motion to adjourn?

[2:02:21] Thank you, Nicole, and the second from Sarah, any discussion?

[2:02:25] All those in favor?

[2:02:27] Thank you, motion passes. The meeting is adjourned.

[2:02:30] And thank you all for attending. Good night.

[2:02:32] Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video, and I'll see you in the next video.

2023.10.16 School Board

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