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Keene Board of Education Meeting for August 8, 2023

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Keene Board of Education Meeting for August 8, 2023 Keene High School LGIA, Keene, NH at 6:30 PM Transcription available upon request.

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good evening and welcome to the Keene Board of Education public meeting for August 8th two in 23 please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance the Republic for which it stands one nation oh my God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you reminder for public input we are open for a half-hour public input at this time no public right now but if someone does come in in the next half-hour they're welcome to give input at that time and I was going to do this as part of the board report but I'll just put this here we do welcome public input at any of our meetings you can come in we usually welcome public input for the first half-hour and we ask people to limit their comments to about 3 minutes to have respect for everybody else this time as well you are also welcome to submit public input either directly to the board dare I might email addresses on the district website or you can email it to Shana pelkey at central office or to the superintendent at central office and all of that format will get back to us for review at least meetings and also I'm going to drop this in now because most people don't hang out until the very last minute of the meeting when I normally do this thank you to AMT productions for handling the streaming of our meetings on the Facebook page locking public input we're going to move on to the consent agenda can I have a motion to approve shocking thank you any documents people want removed any concerns with the wording of the items on the agenda being on all those in favor and he opposed carries under the revised 6 nothing report of the board chair previously interrupted this is the first public meeting for the school board for 2324 Academic School year welcome back everyone who is here tonight we do have a couple people with other commitments as is common in August we do as a board take July off that's primarily to give the castration some breathing room as they start getting ready wrapping up the previous year and getting ready for the next year which is not to say that it's been slow around here a number of people on the board have been on various committees over the summer the administration is busy helping onboard Susan Grover as the new principal at Simon's school she's a former Simon's teacher returning to Simon school to take over for the retired Clark who had been principal at school for the Kate all right for a real to okay maybe one of those meetings for 40 some-odd years so welcome back Susan I know the Simon school is very excited to have her back and also Michael Smith previously the curriculum director here at the high school has moved over to become the principal at the middle school replacing Dianna zelsky has been there for about 6 years I think she is returned to I heard childhood Elementary School to take over as principal they're returning to her Roots I'm so both schools are pretty excited with the new people and we're looking forward to working with them this year we've also been working with the superintendent on a steering committee that is hoping to develop a five-year strategic plan and mission statement that work is really picked it up in speed in the last three or four weeks and we are pretty domestic for what's going to come out of that Rob was hoping to speak to that tonight before he remembered that he actually had family commitments this week and couldn't be here the kickoff meeting with the group that is facilitating that effort as a close point they asked everyone for an adjectives to describe how they felt coming out of that and pretty unanimously everyone was either optimistic or excited and that I think has a lot to do with the attitude of the facility so they're very committed to working with all of the stakeholders in this District we spent a much of the meeting talking about what are the voices that you don't normally you're at this kind of table and how to engage them who is important within the district and how to engage them and right now I am really excited for that working and hoping that it comes through as it appears that it will moving for outside yes we do have the new interim director of student services as well replacing a Richard Maddie who has left to be closer to family and that is our own Kate Adams of observed in a number of positions are the SAU and will be taking over for at least the next year and that position and that's also very exciting to see where that department moves moving forward our regular committee meeting schedules will start up and next month I believe education is not meeting next week we were just talking about that policy is going to meet the following week we have a couple of policies pending that we want to get in place for the start of the new school year and we just got a review of our own policies from the New Hampshire school board Administration no one needs to be updated and coming shortly there will be a list of all of the state laws that were passed last year in the policies were going to have to revise out of that action so that's this is probably the busiest time of the year for the policy committee schools are starting up there are several athletic group meeting in the high school tonight for sign up to meet the coach and that will continue several teams are starting their tryouts and practices in the next week or so so there's already a lot of activity within this building and then the first day of school for everybody is a Wednesday August 30th there's a couple of students that are groups of students it'll have to be in sooner there's orientation at the high school on August 29th for incoming Freshmen leave the middle school has a similar orientation for their incoming 6th graders so if you have a student in those schools keep an eye out for those dates and otherwise everybody will be back on the 30th that's all that I have find Campell is sitting in for Rob Malay do you have a superintendent's report and that is a reminder his reports for this coming year are supposed to be more directly tied to the superintendent's goals to allow the seven individual boards in the SAU to I keep better track of Rob's Prague on his goals for the year so that all should be starting next month standing committees this is kind of a mixed bag a lot of committees have not met since June some of them have not met since our last meeting so it will go through them as we can Ron is not here for facilities but I did ask Tim Roar for a quick update on a few things that I know was going on and he sent that in so I'll go ahead and read those out the Wheelock HVAC safety renovation this is continuation of the elementary school renovations to bring up the HP AC air quality at cetera the third phase of wheelock's renovation is in full swing as of Monday August 7th is on schedule to stealing grades are in the windows are mostly installed flooring starts on Wednesday in case work has already begun and painting has already begun substantial completion date is August 24th so that we can get an occupancy permit the new door installation in stairwell will continue until the 29th on a phased-in approach and as a reminder that kindergarten classrooms are on schedule for a December Kelis could completion because those were much more expensive on the actual project is currently slightly ahead of schedule does somebody want to check I think Chris Roberts would have been trying to get in one of the back doors and found it locked or at least somebody tried that door j.d. playground construction playground construction is currently right schedule all contracts with vendors have been executed except for the hydroseeding which is in process the dirt work is 50% completed the play structures are stored on site and it does have you been following along I know that we're pretty excited for some of the play structures the trees have been transplanted and installation of again yesterday once the post and bases are installed surfacing will commence to be followed by finished work on the dirt and dirt work and Paving and if I'm remembering correctly construct and that is supposed to continue a little bit into the school year but I know that the playground is very excited to get that updated the preschool is very excited to get the updated playground and finally the Wilson pond dam status believe it or not I think we're on year 7 of this process the bids went out they've been received and evaluated and this is important for the board the cost of the bids were double what we budgeted all of those bids were rejected in the business office use the information and competitive process to negotiate a lower contract than the process originally produced the final contracted amount is 600 + 94900 + 100 + six thousand five hundred design and permitting that is about $300,000 over the original budgeted amount largely because it's taken us so long to work through this process the initial budget for this project was put in place at 3 years ago now so given what's happened to the construction industry since covid it's not surprising that it's going up and so we will be moving forward with the project is basically were required to move forward with the project by the state construction will begin next spring we'll be addressing what if any of that overage amount we will have to deal with in next year's budget and the budgeting process so that's what we got forwarded from Tim Roar for facilities education committee Rebecca is not with us but I'm thinking education has not met since our last board meeting so you have something to report on while I'm going to give it a try Jacqueline give education drive and others internet committee call Phil in but the minutes are also in our Drive in the egg committee Drive obviously we ate we spoke about and got an update from Doctor Maddie on the summer program obviously that's done complete now in light of where we are now is we're looking ahead to this new school year it was reported to us that we are fully staffed in nursing beginning for this new school year coming up we did have a presentation from Mike Atkins with the co-curricular report Scott of memories maybe you can fill it I feel like we got a little sort of we gave some suggestions I know that we did ask for him to return in October to give us an update before budget season cuz I believe we talked about sort of establishing a little bit more equity among the various positions that one can have you no be a coach or a club or some other activity and the microphone and the work that's been going on by the co-curricular committee as well was was tied into their information was shared on you not remembering back to that me which was June 20th I feel personally that we we cleaned a lot from mr. Atkins presentation and it gave us some good momentum with you know where do we need to button things up and where can we just improve with co-curricular options for our students cuz obviously that that was our bottom line go here to make a little bit more viable and more attractive for for folks that want to be involved with her students but the co-curricular item step and I think that's LAX and then we did get out field trip request I'm or two there might have even been to so that is that Fred committee text Jaclyn Finance Chris do you have anything for us other than we do have a funds transfer so I will accept a motion to approve the budget transfer report dated June 2023 is informational some budget transfer reports in your drives favor can you post Carrie 70 Personnel Scott we just finished a meeting a few minutes ago we talked about process pieces for the charge at you want that in non-public I would and we also received a outbreak update superintendent was a delegate the authority to continue hiring through the summer that's ongoing sounds like there's been some good progress on that but within this iron climate as we might expect this it's an ongoing process thanks policy did meet in June the only item on our agenda is policy Kate District distribution of materials by non School persons and you'll notice if you look at the policy that's in the drive that's actually the Snapple policy from an HSBC aeon solicitation in schools an entirely different topic and if I'm remembering our committee meeting correctly we have some policies that don't match the standard policy labeling that we're going to have to address that we do also have a distribution of materials policy that the superintendent has asked us to look at basically it's codify what we've been doing for the last four or five years anyway which is to get the schools themselves out of the business of handing out flyers that much don't make it home or did live in the bottom of a backpack for the whole year and just take up time in the schools and replacing that with a more robust online system and also talking about how we can get the schools to promote. So parents have access to those versus again so take a look at the solicitations one which we do have to adopt and then we will also have the distribution of materials by non School persons ready for next month alright School Liaisons I did ask her I did remind you that we don't necessarily require those this month I know some of you have met with your administrators anyway. Anyone want to go ahead and speak out on their schools is everything good go ahead Jennifer but yes I had the opportunity to meet with Eric and it went very well and he gave me a tour of the building and we had a very good conversation I'm looking forward to working with them thanks you wanted to go with Middle School I got my regular update from Vicki Farrington who's our director of King community at her update for me this month few of the highlights we now have 11 new ESL students in just under and they're all in our summer classes right now some other good news our most recent hiset completer I was an inmate from the county jail so congratulations to that individual are farmer director Linda Morehouse will be rejoining the staff as a part-time adult education teacher also two other important things. I'm just trying to start a pick and choose here Vicky has volunteered to serve on the state digital Equity committee as an adult education rep and what's involved with that committee is there's two and a half million per year to be spent for the next four years the state's plan so I'm pleased to hear that King school district will have a representative at the table there also worthy of note if you get the Keene Sentinel on the receipt very nice profile about Vic over the weekend would encourage folks in the community to read about it it did a very nice job of highlighting all of the various programs that we offer through Keene community at if if you're not it's a very robust program we we do really have a lot of great offerings and then lastly We Begin our apprenticeships and August 31st and then all of the other classes begin the week of September 11th female skull as you heard George mention earlier we now have our new principal Mike Smith he and I met last week he's off and running a really hitting the ground and and with staff getting things moving forward working closely with our school counselors and with our high five to ensure that for this upcoming school year language is going to be choose love that there's consistent messaging you know allow for instance of organization such as high five they still have their method of how they're delivering the great work that they do but you know Mike's thing was just to make sure that the overarching theme that we're being consistent so we're not being confusing to our students that was his big takeaway obviously a cve starts the school year parents have already been informed couple of times now to stay tuned there's actually going to be a handbook specific for students as well as parents to have really good primer on how CPE works a lot of FAQ so I I think that's going to be a great tool and resource so that there's again and understanding right out of the gate with house Ebe works I'm just want to add something from we we've never really had a curriculum website and we created a live cricket on website today we uploaded this morning I have the number of resources on there for parents for competency-based add presentations article dictionary done things to clarify their understanding and they were also having to Mike and I are having to meetings with nek a parent on August that Wednesday and Thursday I think it's the 25th 26th Keene Middle School auditorium from 6 to 7 so we'll also presented to them so they have they can ask questions for clarification and then one other thing I do want to add as well particularly for households that may have already have a student KMS used to be his tradition extended home rum Whitaker for you know the first like four weeks of school Mike had several discussions with I believe the instructional learning team and and some other key players in the building and now extended if I swear your home run as it's some folks may call it is actually good play just the first 4 days of school and tell me Brian if I'm wrong in my notes here and for those who don't know extended advisory the goal there is sending clear consistent messaging to all of this things about what the expectations are messages around academic expectations building relationships and again just heard of setting that that that round work and framing right out of the but not having it going on and on because we do you know we're all to mately here to to learn so let's set those those Frameworks and then go from there and can't just really happy to have Mike on board and when I was on site last week a good energy going on there there was a workshop last week for trauma-informed schools that I believe Paris attended as well as any other teachers and staff thank you and if the dates of the meetings with K 8 p.m. Wednesday August 23rd and Thursday August 24th or any parents are interested in that anyone else with school liaison reports and I most of the schools are in the same place right now which is excited but you were busy and getting have the kids back in all right other Liaisons nhspca probably do you have anything for us tonight waiting for the new list of them we have to Institute here and I've been seeing it didn't come out yet we're hoping it was it came out last week but I know that the NHS be a is there a little behind in the report as well to which I was looking for so that's I don't have take now but we will have quite a bit in September the annual delegate assembly is October 14th which is a Saturday what I'm I do have a question if anyone knows what the athletic calendar is for having a homecoming game that day we don't know yet when do we normally out I guess that's a question for Cindy right should Mike Adkins certain cuz I know Cindy mentioned it at a previous meeting they have that day I don't know the date off top of my head but my talking to her send you would have that that's okay so that's um that's a conflict where we would have to resolve so I'm not super but in about this fact but I don't have a band kid this year so strings kid but no band kid so if that does turn out to be homecoming I would be you know I'd like to go to the homecoming game but we need to have somebody at this meeting so I will be available there does appear I'll jump in I hope you have more but I want to jump in right here because this is the specific Topic in the past we've been able to send anybody from the board who wanted to go now they are limiting it to one delegate and one alternative so only two alternative music called an alternate delegate guys so we would only have two that would be able to go this year Raleigh as our representative would be one unless he has a conflict so if somebody else is definitely Tristan being the alternate please let me know and I will make sure the fat set up for you okay there is one more thing we are still not getting the surveys back for the legislative priorities I was going to push that if you didn't mention that you guys all will have received an email from Shana I want to say early July then I can go tag and email and forward it to you guys but that is it's it only takes about 3 minutes all it is is is it's a list of about 9 potential legislative topics that you'd like Jennifer in Raleigh to track for us and just listing them as what you think are the most important so that they can kind of Focus their efforts on what is important to this port and once they have those results they will talk with Rob and Brian and Ben and a mic Mike Adkins do you happen to know the date of homecoming off the top of your head September 30th I believe is it is the Saturn is a Saturday open the gate I know it runs for a week yet so thank you okay I heard it here first homecoming weekend of September 30th so please fill in that feeling that survey for for Raleigh and Jennifer so they can start focusing their efforts on. And I will send out an email reminder nhsp a has also you said received an email out I'm sorry you're doing this you go a they have all the they have all their all things we vote on make sure I'll bring them up resolution for those for this meeting but they weren't in a format that was easy to copy into the drive yet but it's hard I'll make sure we get them for next next meeting so we can go. Is there any food that what you want the other thing I had is they've got their training webinar list up several things coming up a couple that I'm going to be looking at or the the legislative updates and how that affects policies that got two meetings on that there's also one on changes to the school funding law that once before our next meeting changes and adequate adequacy for fiscal year 2024 I believe that the webinar rather than it yes it is and that's on a Tuesday afternoon so that may be worth looking into it's probably even more important for Tim Roar in his Department to look at that but our state formula will have changed when they're for the money that we get back from the state will it change them and that's going to impact this year's budgeting thank you I'm going to read it directly cuz otherwise I'm going to screw up this summer school coffee tour just to talk about how to support public education that's coming up not this Thursday but next Thursday starts at 9 a.m. and that's it brubaker's with two people with the New Hampshire school funding fairness project until that's well worth of tending I've met one of them and she's very engaging and knowledgeable on the topic go ahead Jennifer oh that's right okay that's why we're going to as well and that's been promoted on our Facebook page if you want to take a look for more details and was the data Crazy Train I'd like to send all these but then you know work gets in the way sometimes the primary important news from that is we have finalized the superintendent evaluation from last year of most of valuation had already been done and you guys got reports on that we do have his goals for the year on those will be presented formally to all SAU boards that are January September meetings so that you guys have access to them and know what Rob's goals are for the coming year and by extension what the SAU goals are for the coming year in the next actual SAU meeting is going to be in November so there's a little while before that comes up all right old business we do have one item the 23:24 school district calendar is updated in our drive before and watches panics and says but we've already made our plan and all that the only change is that we've ad the three potential snow days to the end of the calendar based on the vote of this board in gym yes I may be meeting we approved the recommendation from learn from home committee to have an event of inclement weather or power outages or what not we will have three what are traditionally called snow days before going to the learn from home format if we exhaust all three cancel snow days then we go to learn from home for the remainder of the Year this was based on input from all sorts of sources and on the district's experiences with some of the difficult power outages in and weather relay closures of the past year that kind of exposed some weaknesses in the system so what you have in your drive is the same school calendar that we approved several months ago except that at the tail end it's got three potential snow days it would only be used in the event of the schools having to close for inclement weather or similar reasons so any change in the school calendar does need to be voted on by this body can I have such a notion concerns confusions why the heck are we doing this again all right all those in favor and you post carry 70 believe the only old business we have before the board does anyone have any new business for us Raleigh about how to make the school district better and one of the things that he probably can you move your microphone Jack White Love Is it better thank you one of the things that I would like to look at maybe  acacian committee or maybe it's some place else but the driver's training Graham we don't have one for kids here anymore and what makes it that a particular Roberts that it's a state law that kids have to have a certified driver's training program if you're going Drive By the time they're 18 and most of our students don't turn 18 till late in their senior year sell and we're looking at some students who can't are their participation is limited and some of that some of the town's because of that so it's becomes a bit of an equity issue so I'd like us to look at bringing back drivers training for for kids in that school for high school kids that's over a historical perspective eons ago it was actually in this school there was a there was a staff member here that audit there was a from down on the end of the mile are the quarter mile hallway that had the actual those old machines that the driver training machines that's right we were kind of awful but it's in there they were and then sometime after that it moved to be part of the adult and continuing education program and then it was really just a partnership with one of the local driver's ed programs registration was administered through the high school through the continuing ed program those a drop box out front the main office that you can sign up for the classes in the classes were taught in this building but it was not a School employee was just a partnership and that ended with covid yeah we couldn't host that they couldn't in our building scheduling was the first year of covid they were not allowed by the state to have in-person meetings my daughter took a training online that was an experience and now there are only two do schools in the region and both of them have a waiting list that's something like eight or nine months long really one of your kids is on that is a year I've heard as much as 18 months my suspicion is that a year probably about an accurate number so Riley is not the first person to mention this to me for sure other people have said can't we bring this back to the schools and I know it is a super complicated question there would be no benefit to once again partnering with the same school that we partnered before because the waiting list would be the same waiting list whether they drop an application in the front office or call them directly they still have a year plus waiting list but it does seem like a worthwhile listen to give to the education committee to work with the schools to find out at least what is involved is this even a feasible thing for us to do any more unless I see major objections from the board then then I would Chris I think there may be a lack of communication now in town concerning driver's ed my granddaughter turns 6 you just signed up and she's finished her driving ed at Monadnock High School pretty close to 200 kids and taking classes vitamin are not high school so it sounds like there's another program out there that we don't know about in holding classes found at 8 in the morning to go right until 2 in the afternoon and then go for 2 hours he's finished and she's passed the test there she's done all her driving hours and she goes take the written exam tomorrow and I don't know how she found out about it because she kept saying hello all these different schools I'm such a long long time but someone told their yeah just go to 21 Manhattan Oak High School the program's there is it do you happen to know is it actually like a high school class a high school program or is it a partnership like what we used to buy Burgers driver's ed car Crosby while some people like she has eight 10 class somebody out other people out driving than this to 10 to 12 class it's there for two hours and that's what we used to have here in FL yeah said yeah that's worthwhile to know that there is another program out there right now she turned 16 in January and signed up a few months later for that some program up there all right so, I think I'll still give it to the education committee but that'll change the tone of the discussion I think helps to know that Monadnock is something similar whether that means is viable for us or if we want to try and partner with them or just let our cities know that it exists there is a lot of happy kids out there when I grandma got my G all right thanks Christy Frawley any other new business all right I had I didn't bring my prop I had one other item of new business so I had I've been cleaning because we're going to be renovating our basement in one place I'm cleaning is the desk that I use when I first came onto the board and ate something years ago and I found things like the hard-copy policy manual which was about three and a half in fat anytime we approved a new policy I would get a hard copy mailed to me from central office and I was supposed to pull out the old one Chris will have had one of these at some point and replace it with the new one so what I actually had was the three and a half inch thick binder and another 2 in mailings from the school district that I never did anything with because I never access the manual because the entire thing is online and easier to use you guys most of you didn't get one of these and that's a good thing the other thing I got was another three and a Half Men binder that served as orientation materials and it had like every single sea be a collective bargaining agreement hard copy was printed in there a couple other hard copy documents service of contracts that the district held a long-term long since outdated long-term building plan I forgot some of the other things some of it was useful some of its what you guys probably got in person from mr. Malay when you came on board but what it reminded me is that orientation actually used to be a little more extensive than what we do now now primarily its ears a bunch of documents you should read here's your Chromebook and here's how to use your Chromebook and I think need to find that middle ground and I think I'd like the board to kind of approach that this year and I don't know I might end up going that too personal but I might not depending on how overworked you guys are now depend on your workload but figuring out what orientation materials new board she got and then probably creating not a binder that sits on somebody's desk until they leave the board but an online site that you can say this is where all of this information is rather than some of the tear in some of its there the the school board used to be just like the city and we had elections in November into we had a couple of individuals on the school board who didn't like that cuz they had a problem with too many people showing up special on City elections they liked it the small elections and yeah you didn't you get elected in November Annette 7 week. Before you signed in even at the city and all those are in tations when I'm you get to meet people and now you get elected you're here the next meeting and you could get elected and you can be in the next eating and you got to be voting on stuff that you have no idea whatsoever in some of the stuff maybe I'm really serious and requires a lot of background information that's a tough one that we're going to have to get over I want to delve into this to deeply because it wasn't on the agenda is just new business but a possibility would be we hold the elections when we we do now but your term doesn't start until after the school year so that gives you several months now we just shift the term I'm pretty sure we're allowed to do that I'm not sure how the one year that you make the shift might have some legal ramifications but we'll have Adam look into this when we look at it and give me a little now that's a good point Chris I'd forgotten that the whole process used to work very differently all right any other new business alright I'm afraid we do need a non-public session can I have a motion to go into non-public in accordance with our essay 91a 3 for student Personnel so move second Jennifer roll call please mr. and mrs. heddings yes mr. o Murad yes mr. Roberts mr. Downing so this ends the well I will have to come back for non-public to officially end of meeting but thank you all for attending thank you anyone who was watching the livestream tonight thanks to AMC productions for managing the live stream for us and we will recess for about 5 minutes and then open non-public

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Keene Board of Education Meeting for August 8, 2023

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