for a Pledge of Allegiance, please.
From everybody.
We do have a public hearing pursuant to RSA 198, that's 2C.
Doug, this is for the public hearing for reimbursement of completed CRF objects.
I will first ask if there's any public comment for this particular public hearing.
Seeing none, I will close public hearing at this time.
And, Doug, I'm looking for formal authorization for reimbursement for the CRF.
Could you explain that to us, please?
Yeah, so our Capital Reserve Fund will use for larger type purchases.
On this, you can see there's four items which have been talked about previously and voted on previously by the board,
and now they have been completed so we know the exact amount that has been expensed towards them.
So our goal tonight is to get the authorization from the board.
So when I write over to the town trustees that they have the formal authorization from the board
as agents to expend from the trust fund for us to get reimburse that amount of money.
from where it is accruing interest right now, and then it would come back into the general fund
for us to offset the expenses that we have.
So the four items, one has been a phone system replacement, so that's more of the hardware of that,
and that is $82,538.60.
The MMS Cistern project, that was a phase two, which was completed last summer, and this is the one that we like a lot
because we get to say on time, on by.
budget, not a penny more.
And kids were back in the building and the teachers were back in the building with plenty of time to go for the start of the school.
That was $285,392.
Next one, again, is at the middle school, and that is the IT course, which is replacement, so that's $50,000.
The total amount for that was well in excess of $50,000, but we're able to match it with $45,000 of E-rate, which is educational rate.
So that is a federal grant, which helps schools with high-speed internet as well as the backbone
and the infrastructure for internet and telecommunications.
So that was, for us, $50,000.
And then lastly, was the softball field, the scoreboard at the high school.
And that was $20,702.25.
We thought it was going to be more.
around $20,000. It did bump up by that almost $703.
So we'd be looking for either additional questions on those or authorizations, but everything worked out well.
Everything is working now.
For questions, I see, Ginny, first.
The scoreboard was the football scoreboard, not the softball board.
It was a softball scoreboard, but one of the goals was to kind of make it look like what is at the football field as well.
So they took some of the theme of the football scoreboard,
and they made the new softball scoreboard kind of look a little bit more similar to that.
Updated it?
Well, it was broken, so yeah.
Yeah.
We didn't have it finished.
Ginny, you're good?
Thank you.
Yes, thank you.
I see Jack.
Jack, go ahead.
Motion one, or we need four separate motions.
We're going to go four separate motions, please, so that we can actually record the numbers
in the minutes.
Oh, question first?
Yeah, question on the scoreboard, the extra 702.
Was that a labor thing?
Was that a parts thing?
Was that how did we end up over?
Well, when we're getting quotes or when we're first,
the scoreboard thing was a little bit more last minute, too.
I think Jack was even out kind of holding up signs, right?
Yes.
And it was kind of going into playoffs, and the goal was, you know,
we need to get something going here.
It's long enough type of thing.
So, you know, I think the original idea would be, okay, it's around $20,000
because we had just done a larger scoreboard and tried to kind of ballpark what it would best be type of thing.
But the work went to the actual scoreboard itself and then the aluminum header.
So it really went to those two things.
There was a little additional electrical work, which we just kind of did as part of the budget.
But just those two items itself.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
Any further questions?
Okay.
Just as a procedural note, I do want to take a moment.
We don't have any of our teacher reps here, but under policy BBF for student representation and voting,
Brady, I know that I had said vote with the rest of us.
Just so that we can record the minutes, I'm going to ask you if you do choose to vote,
which you do not have to, please raise your hand at the appropriate time,
whether it's approve, not approve, or abstain.
So I'm just going to ask you to do that so we can record it for the vote.
Okay.
At that time, I will now accept any motions that we have.
Jack, I see you our first up.
I'll make a motion to withdraw at $82,538.60 from the facility's Capital Reserve Fund,
held by the Town of Gostown Trustees and Trust Funds, and Deposit into the Capital Projects Fund
to fund to fund the Gostown School District phone system replacement.
Okay, do I see a second?
I'll second.
Thank you, Vanessa.
Any questions?
on this motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. We're
unanimous. On to the second motion, please. Okay. I'll object. Just keep going, I guess.
I'll just keep going. I'll make another motion to withdraw $285,392 dollars from the Facilities Capital Reserve Fund held by the town Gostown Trustees of Trust Funds and deposited into the Capital Projects Fund to fund to fund the completed MVMNMN.
cistern project phase two and second by Vanessa Vanessa you got it all those in
favor signal by aye opposed abstentions we're unanimous for the third one Jack I will
make a motion to withdraw 50,000 from the facilities capital reserve fund held by
the town of Gostown trustees of trust funds and deposited into the capital projects fund
to fund the completed MVMS IT
switches replacement seconded by Vanessa thank you Vanessa all those
in favor say aye opposed abstentions unanimous on that okay and then finally how a
motion to withdraw 20, seven hundred two dollars twenty five cents from the
facilities capital reserve fund held by the town of Goss town trustee of trust
funds and deposit into the capital projects fund to the
fund the completed GHS softball field score board replacement.
Great.
Thank you, Vanessa.
All those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Abstentions.
We're unanimous.
With that, this concludes our public hearing for expenditures in the CRF.
I am now going to call the meeting to order for our regular meeting.
We have the one more thing.
Oh, go ahead.
So we're also looking.
to promote transparency to as far as future projects.
So these, again, are all projects other than one that we've talked about.
So it's kind of the second part of the public hearing just so that people know where we want to spend the money going forward.
So part of the package tonight, too, is the history of the CRF and kind of where we are now.
So after those motions, we have 308,000 roughly in the CRF.
after we reduce it by what was just motioned.
So the town just approved the eighth CRF deposit of $300,000.
So that will be coming to us in July.
And then what we're doing is we're starting to hold that money,
continuing to hold that money for the turf replacement.
So we'd be on our third turf replacement as far as the hold,
50,000 each.
So that would be minus $150,000 that we're just kind of parking off to the side
and say when the turf does need replacement,
where we're going to be in a better spot for that.
Again, we're doing a lot of stuff so that hopefully you can push that turf replacement down the road.
Instead of having the company come out a minimum amount of times per year,
we're kind of more where they want us to be per year.
So they're able to kind of find that the problems when they're smaller,
correct them when they're smaller, which they're letting us know, which makes sense,
which is going to prolong the life of the turf.
So our goal is to prolong that life, but then also be ready for eventually when that turf does need replacement.
So with that addition, and then the holds, we're more at about $458,000 that we'd be expecting to be in July.
So throughout the budget process, we talked about different projects through conversations with the board
that we were asked to focus on safety projects, so which had a lot to do with the doors at the high school,
smoke detectors at the high school, as well as some firewall, IT firewall, IT firewall, and then the course,
is for the high school as well. So we just approved the middle school course, which
is the reimbursement for that. So the high school is the last building that would be getting
their course, which is replaced. Again, that is E-rate eligible. The reason why the high school is
the last one is that it was hoped to be done this year, but they had maxed out the E-rate
grant, which again is a good thing. So if it's almost 50%, and every time the E-rate
becomes available, the district is maxing it out.
That's their goal in helping to save the taxpayers' money.
So we had to push it off by a year for it to open back up money for the high school, but that will be now as of July.
So we're going through the process of making sure that we're communicating with the e-rate,
and that's happening now to make sure that we'd be ready to go in July.
So that is one of the projects would be switching at the high school, and then the firewall replacement,
which impacts all of the district.
districts, all of the schools in the district, and that's E-rate eligible as well.
We've talked about the exterior doors at the high school already.
We did a walk-through with the budget committee.
We are in the process of replacing three of our worst doors even before we got to this point
because of the need for that, but we still have many additional doors to replace at the high school
as well.
And then something new was the smoke detectors at the middle school.
So it appears that they are also end of life.
So that has not been something we talked about.
But with our facilities, folks, they came back and they confirmed that those are also end of life.
So as we kind of focus on safety, that 32,000 is new to people here, but in the same type of theme as focusing on safety.
So this would not necessarily need a motion for each one.
It's just kind of the understanding that we're putting forward what we believe we was consensus of the board.
and, you know, the appropriate use of the CRF.
What questions do we have for Doug?
Thank you, Doug.
And I apologize, I didn't have that list in my packet, so I didn't know we're discussing that as well.
Thank you.
It was deep, yeah.
I looked.
I did. I did.
But quite all right.
Now, with that, I will close public hearing.
And we will start with our Goffstown School Board meeting at 715.
And with that, we've already done the pledge.
So I will move right on.
the correspondence, Mr. Superintendent.
Thank you.
A few things for the board to be aware of.
In the correspondence folder, the first thing is the legal notice for the public hearing that you just had.
So just assuring you that it was properly posted and all of the requirements were met.
The second thing is I've included a couple of different elements that pertain to a House bill 1815.
So this particular bill was quietly signed by the governor.
last week.
And it essentially, in its most simplistic form, it removes judicial oversight of school funding.
So this, my read of this and my analysis of this, which is still pretty new,
appears to be an end game that's associated with the Conval lawsuit.
And I think that we're establishing definitions likely for a potential challenge around possibly
even appeals of things like Claremont 1 and Claremont 2.
So this appears to be a very purposeful insertion of some very broad language.
And it was done by a representative from Winham, who is a retired Supreme Court Chief Justice.
So this is an individual who knows a thing or two about the law that he was amending.
So I'm sharing that with you.
It essentially says.
says that the funding of public schools is a political matter and the courts need to stay out of it.
So if you're a property taxpayer in the state of New Hampshire, I can't tell you what this means
to you, but I do know that it will not make your property taxes go down.
So there's that for you.
I wish I could present a more positive tone that I have hope and optimism that we're going to take
care of school funding, but this appears to be a move in the opposite direction of that, essentially
saying we're good with 80% of the costs coming from local property taxpayers and we're
going to codify that in memoriam moving forward. That appears to be what's transpired.
And two other things in the correspondence folder. One is a copy of an email that I sent out regarding
a court required notice for Power Schools Naviance platform. So that's included.
And the last piece at the request of Derek Horn, our town administrator.
I wanted to share with the school board the reallocation that the select board did as a press release.
You should have gotten that as an email, but I included it in the correspondence folder as well.
Thank you, Mr. Superintendent.
Good news and accommodations. We'll start with Mr. McCann.
All right. I've got three things on my radar today. The first one, this upcoming Thursday,
speech and debate will be going to Concord and staying for two nights for the youth and government program through the YMCA.
I think two weeks ago, I want to say, the Science Olympiad took place where our school team took fourth place overall.
Performed very well in all the individual events.
Came first in rocks and minerals.
Came third in the chemistry lab.
Fourth in the circuit lab.
Fifth in astronomy.
Third in water quality.
Third in bungee dump.
Third in designer genes.
First in entomology.
First in remote sensing.
And sixth in robot tour.
So very impressive list there.
And then this week, there is the stamp testing.
at Gostown High School, which is basically where you get your seal of biluracy.
And I believe we mainly offer this for Spanish, Latin, and French, but then also I know a friend who's taking like the Romanian one.
I don't remember the language. Sorry.
But it's like there's a lot available there for students.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do we have anything from Wendy who normally reports out some other things?
I do not.
Okay.
Any other correspondence?
Accommodations good news?
Ginny.
I just think a cool thing, there was a young man who's a neighbor of mine came to the door,
selling raffle tickets for Mountain View lacrosse that start, their first game starts next week.
So good luck to Mountain View.
Great.
Other items?
I know all the eighth graders are bouncing off the wall about their upcoming trip to D.C.
Thank you, Ben.
They are bouncing off the wall.
I can confirm that.
Great.
With that, we'll move on to public comment.
And for those of you that might be new, public comment is one of those of those times where we listen to the public.
They do have three minutes.
We're going to ask them for their names and their address for residency.
This is their opportunity to bring things to the board that they feel as appropriate.
And we, of course, always listen to our members at your leisure.
Hi.
Nancy Biederman, New Boston.
How are you doing? Congratulations, Jared. I'm the chairmanship.
The first start off on HB. 1815. I'm not sure if Superintendent Balke misspoke, but it's not a political thing.
It's a legislative move. And so all of the concept of educational funding is not going to be decided by the courts.
It's going to be decided by the legislature, which is where funding should be decided is in the legislature, which is what the point of the bill was.
from my understanding.
I'm here tonight to make a public complaint, according to Goffstown School Board Policy
K.E. I have already emailed Mr. McBride about my concerns, and his last response to me was
a list of school board policies, and I feel that my concerns and questions were not taken seriously
as they have not been in the past either. For those you that are new to the school board, I have questioned
a few books in the past that have either been in the classroom or in the library here at Goughstown
High School.
In 2019, I questioned a book that was required of all juniors and seniors to read for their summer reading book,
and it was then later integrated into the English curriculum for the juniors and seniors.
This book was bought by the district and given to each student in the junior and senior class at the cost of over $30,000.
The two administrators who recommended the book, American like me, only read the first two chapters,
and I know that because I had a meeting with them, and they admitted that.
The book was never brought in front of C&E committee, and when I brought all of these concerns
and attention to the school board, I was told it was too late, and they would do better next time
and make sure policies were followed in the future.
I have a copy of the letter that I sent to the editor of the New Boston School New Boston paper
and about this book and its contents.
It was not age-appropriate.
Then in 2024, I decided to test RSA 577.
B.
There was legislation at the State House that was talking about whether this RSA was being followed by the schools.
So I decided to test it.
And it states, this RSA states, it's illegal to give pornography to minors.
I chose three books and worked my way through the school board policy, IJL.
I was disheartened that the high school principal and the committee, which included teachers and the curriculum director at the time
that reviewed these books that thought that all of these books should stay on the show.
Two of those three books were finally removed by the superintendent, not because of the pornography, but because of low circulation.
I have the pictures of the books here that you can look at and tells you exactly why there was pornography in these books.
I did agree with the superintendent.
The third one did not reach the criteria of pornography, but there were sexual content that I questioned was age-appropriate.
I am glad to see that you have updated the IJL.
and stipulated that the time period for the superintendent to reply for a request for reconsiderations has been put in there.
The other policy did not have it, and I had to wait a long time to get a response from the superintendent.
Last month, I found a book called Siboline by Melissa De La Cruz that was in the high school library.
This book was published February 2, 26, and it was on the shelves at GHS by at least March 20th when I knew about it,
probably sooner.
Ms. Biederman, you're coming up on time, so I just want to be mindful.
I sent an email to Mr. McBride, Mr. Valky, and Mr. Talbot,
and I alerted them that this book contained a chapter about a threesome with a dead body.
It took three days for Mr. McBride to respond, and in that email, Mr. McBride's day of the book
had been removed from the library shelves, and that there were only two pages that had this content.
I don't care if there's two pages or not. It should not be in there.
When I said,
other emails to Mr. McBride asking if there's going to be investigation, how this book
ended up on the shelves. I was just sent emails saying, here's the policies.
My also concern is this book was checked out when I found it in the card catalog.
So my question is, it was this student or a teacher that took the book, and if it was a student
or their parents aware that this child was reading this book.
If you look on Barnes & Noble, it shows that this book says age 17.
So in conclusion,
I would like, first, to have an investigation to find out who actually purchased this book, or is it donated?
Secondly, whatever source suggested this, according to your IGL policy, there's a bunch of sources.
I suggest that we do not use this source any longer so that books like this do not end up on our shelves.
Thirdly, I strongly suggest that purchasing the purchasing of all newly published young adult books
be put on hold for at least six months after they're released.
This will allow reviewers.
time to assess the book. I found multiple online reviews of this book that said it was
an adult content and not for minors or even appropriate for the young adult genre.
Thank you, Ms. Biedersman. I appreciate your time, but you are at time.
All right. Thank you. I'll leave this all here to the record.
Thank you. Any other public comments at this time? I will be closing public comment at this point,
and we'll be moving on in the agenda to the presentation of the GHS trip. I'll turn over to
Superintendent Bulkie, please. All right. I'm going to welcome up Lorenzo Angelides. Come
on up, Lorenzo. And he knows the drill, so I'll let him do introductions, and we've got a wonderful
opportunity to do another partner trip with Pinkern Academy. So good evening, everyone. Thank
you very much for giving us the time. I'm here with my colleague, Amber Bandapool, the Latin teacher at
GHS. My name is Lorenzo Angelides. I'm the French teacher here at GHS. Pist orders, I want to thank you
for approving the previous trip to Quebec and our students wrote a card for the board to extend their thanks.
And then briefly, we've seen an uptick in student interest in foreign travel this past few months.
And students have been asking for us to look into hosting more trips in the future.
And so Emma has a trip she would like to seek your approval for.
three different trips starting with a Quebec trip in January. It was so successful
we'd like to host it again next year. The details are pretty much the same and I think in your
packets you have the shared information. It'll be in January and the goal next year is
for French students to benefit from three different trips with three different price points.
So this, the Quebec trip is the cheapest trip and it'll happen in January.
Then we're proposing a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana in February, right after
Mardi Gras through Gerber tours.
And that's at a mid-range price point of around, I think, 1,900 per student for the week.
And then there is a trip to France during the spring break that we'd like to offer the opportunity
for students to travel to France, and especially to visit the D-Day beaches of Normandy,
I think it's very important for young people to realize the sacrifice that our servicemen went through in the Second World War and considering the state of affairs in the world today, I think it's good for them to see Normandy and visit the Mose Michel and spend a week in Paris.
So these are the three proposals for the French department.
And then Emma would like to present a proposal for the Latin students.
Yes, so this program would run over February break of next year.
As you would see with the itinerary, it mirrors the trip that we took last February break,
so the trip would be occurring every two years.
Once again, we have proposed that we'd be traveling with Pinkerton Academy
and their Latin teachers, Valerie Smith and Matt Opelibicus,
with whom Goffsown has traveled two past times to Italy.
We solicited quotes from different vendors, and we settled upon its Florico by World Strides
because they offered the boat.
tour that could be most easily tailored to our shared curricula, as well as be at the best cost for our students.
And so you can see that, the exact itinerary outline there, which will be traveling to both Italy and Greece,
and students will be able to learn about all the different sites that they learn about in our Latin curriculum here.
So I'm sure all of you are aware of costs are increasing across the board for foreign travel,
so we've been pretty diligent in shopping new vendors and new companies that maybe have cheaper markups than they usually do
You might be surprised to know you're probably familiar with EF tours out of Boston, Massachusetts.
They're one of the biggest providers, but starting this year, they're taking 43% markup, which is astronomical, considering it's students that are traveling.
So the companies we found usually are at the 20% markup mark, which is pretty standard for smaller operators and more personalized experiences.
So we're trying to save our students' money.
to tailor on the trips that are affordable at different budgets for different families.
Go ahead, Jeanette.
I expect you have enough chaperone to cover the kids.
And these trips, I know, are usually the costs are covered by the students.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'd like to make a motion to accept all of the trips for the students.
I think traveling is good for students.
There's a lot of education to happen.
And I know through the history of the education trips that students have gone on,
we've always heard good reports when they've come back from the parents and the teachers and the kids.
So I'd like to put that motion forward.
Thank you, Jenny.
The second for Gina's motion is by the second by Jack.
Okay.
Any further questions that we have, Rhettah.
I fully support all of these travels.
I think it's a great learning experience.
We've never had so many at one time, which, you know, I'm hoping there's demand for this.
But from your perspective, is this, is it all managed by the same group of teachers?
And do you think you'll be able to get enough students to go on all of them with there being so many options, which is a good problem?
Just to give you a little bit of background, I was interested.
this year with the trip to Quebec. And maybe it's just a sign of the way things work.
But we had very low enrollment numbers until maybe it's two days before the deadline.
And then the day before the deadline, we went...
Well, they're teenagers.
But we went from 16 sign-ups to 31.
Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was amazing. So it happened very quickly.
The trip to France, we're going to limit the trip to France. It's 16 students.
because it's much more personalized.
Students will be rooming two per room.
They'll be taking the train and they'll be taking a Mercedes sprinter van to tour them around Normandy
instead of a big coach bus.
So it's much more a personal experience.
And the trip to New Orleans, we already have maybe 10 students that have expressed interest
in going to New Orleans, Louisiana.
So as far as Quebec, Quebec will be more for our incoming
freshmen who are coming from Mountain View Middle School, and that gives them an opportunity
to travel as freshmen, and then it's open to other students.
And again, we're considering, we're talking to the admin here, especially on the French side.
We're growing the numbers this year, and we're seeing it maybe opening the trip up to the whole
high school, so it gives other students the opportunity of traveling overseas.
And today, what?
Oh, I was just going to say, last time the Latin Department ran this trip, we, after our first meeting, we fill up the spots within 24 hours.
Do the organizations commit to the rates when they print these?
Yes.
So even if whatever.
Yeah.
Flutuations.
Yeah.
Two questions.
Go off.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The cost of judgment.
fuel has gone up about 110% in the last 30 or so days.
So that's a very real cost factor.
What other questions?
I don't know.
This might be in the paperwork somewhere, but is travel insurance included?
Yes.
Yes.
Perfect.
Does you guys fundraise and all for the?
We do not.
I do not, at least, no?
No.
No.
We're looking at fundraising.
Yeah.
lot of big sales.
Something like that.
Other questions?
Just as a question, for the ones that you are limiting for student capacity or student
capacity to go to them with 16 students, what's your priority if you have more than 16 students?
We're willing to host a trip over the summer as well.
So we could do a trip over spring break and one when we break from school over the summer.
But we will prioritize students who are enrolled in play.
primarily, I think, and then we'll open it up to other students.
We've had a teacher already express interest in traveling with us, and she's not related
to the World Language Department, but she's never had an opportunity to leave New Hampshire.
And so it's been a dream of hers to travel to France, so she offered to chaperone.
Great.
So if you get more than 16 French students, is it going to be based on, you know, class status?
That's a really good question.
Yeah, we may go with seniority.
seniors and then sophomores and again it really depends it's to be seen
depending on the numbers so if we double the numbers of 32 then you know we'll just
take two groups separately with double the shop rooms any further questions
is there's a motion on the floor to approve all programs that have been presented I will
call the roll so all those in favor please signal by saying aye aye aye I'm opposed
the abstentions.
We passed unanimously.
Thank you very much for all.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate your both being here tonight.
Thank you.
Okay.
Moving on the agenda, we have the
student family handbook approval.
I know that those were sent out by
Assistant Superintendent
Wendy Coler earlier, but I turn it over
to Mr. Balke.
So at this point,
Mrs. Kohler is not able to be with us
this evening, so if there are any questions,
I'd be happy to try to answer them.
or Mr. Taughton, we'd be happy to do our best to answer those,
but we would be looking for the approval this evening.
What questions does anybody have from reading the information?
Seeing no questions.
I'll move on. Are there any comments? Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
It's not a question. It's more of a comment just to speak to the process of going through the handbooks,
which it's a long process going through all of them,
and they did a really great job of putting all the information up front.
So if you read through them,
you could see where the changes were a lot of efforts being made to be consistent between schools and, you know,
getting the right language in there, you know, for certain policies.
So this is pretty routine, and a lot of it's typos are tightening up the language.
There's not major changes.
Other comments.
Ginny.
C&A did approve this to be brought forth to the board.
I just want to thank C&E and Wendy and whoever else worked on the handbook
for preparing the kind of one-page cheat sheet that tells you everything that's new or has been
adjusted because then it helps you, it's a big handbook to go through.
So it's helpful for the rest of us.
So thanks for all the work on that.
And now developing that sheet every year is always a process.
So thank you.
Any other comments?
At time, we'll take a motion.
Coming from C&E or RETA?
I make a motion to accept all of the school's handbooks as presented.
Thank you, Ginny.
I'll second.
Thank you, RETA.
All those in favor, please ignore by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any objections?
Pass unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay, moving on, we have the approval of the March 16th, 2026 minutes.
I know that people have looked through them, and I believe Dan has a.
friendly amendment to make to be minutes. Yes, page one, nomination for Vice Chair.
Vanessa was nominated by myself.
That friendly amendment is accepted.
Did it have to be friendly?
It does. No hostile.
Yeah, we like the friendly ones.
We do.
Yes, Laura.
Just one other friendly amendment.
I think it said that P and C met, I was going to meet next on April 1st, but we met this evening,
April 13th.
What page is that on?
Sorry, sorry, it's not the 13th.
Yes, it's six.
Sorry.
Yeah.
On page four.
Thank you.
That amendment is accepted.
Any others?
Everybody's name is spelled right.
Dan?
Yes?
Okay.
It's pretty hard to mess Dan.
Yeah.
Well, I...
It's not the Dan and get wrong.
Just a comment.
The April 1st date was just an April 1st date was just an April school.
That I will take a motion to accept the minutes as a mandate.
Thank you, Dan.
Do I have a second?
By Laura.
All those in favor, please signal by saying aye.
Aye.
The opposed?
Any abstentions?
Passing unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay, moving on to committee reports.
We will start with finance.
So, Doug, I know that we don't have a finance committee committee right now,
but please take it away.
Yeah, next time we will, which will be great.
So manifest tonight, March 19th through the 30th of March,
total manifest value of 2,251,991, and $2.2.
Of that, what, 1,738,146 went to payroll taxes and benefits.
We had one payroll on the 19th of March.
Payroll was $758,000.
$470. Paral taxes, $2,125,192.
Health Trust for Health and Dental premiums, $726,76.
Our next group of activities has to do with special education,
which had a total that went to vendors in excess of $5,000 of $276,797,797, $794.67.
$97,9,9,96.
$65,000 went to seven hills for out-of-district services.
$91,542 went to Durham School Services for both in-and-out-of-district transportation.
$31,359 went to Lighthouse Schools for Out-of-District Services.
Next category is general expenses, total of $117,215.
$25,000, $25,000, $25,000, $25,000, $25,000, $25,000, $259,000, went to Dead River Company for
propane, $18,205 went to peak solutions for the copy releases. So those are two of the
bigger purchases there. And then the last court category is food services, and we had $29,674
went to performance food services for food and commodities. So definitely available for any
questions on anything else that's on there. What questions are we have from Mr. Totten at this time?
Yes, Dan.
Copy-er, is that copy-er?
Copiers, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
That's all the school. A whole bunch of them.
Other questions.
With that, I will accept
a motion to accept the manifest as
presented by Jeff.
Seconded by
Dan. Any further questions
or comments?
All those in favor, please signal by saying
aye. Aye.
Oppose?
The abstentions.
Very unanimous.
Moving on to budget transfers.
Yep.
So we have one budget transfer.
We're looking for school board approval tonight,
and that is for
a vacant middle school para to other professional services.
So this has to do with special education
and meeting the needs of
either a student or students.
So that is in the amount of
$28,710.
So that's on the top of the sheet that
you have on the bottom.
Although they don't need
school board votes,
we always want to show what other
transfers have happened this year as well.
So we would need
a motion on, we would
appreciate a motion on the top one, though.
To be able to make the
budget transfer
as shown in that amount.
Any questions for Doug or a motion?
We'll go with questions and comments first.
The four motions.
Okay. Jack, I think you're going to say something.
Yeah, I'll make a motion that we
accept the budget transfer as
presented. Do I need to
state out the numbers?
I know for that amount. That was provided
$20,710.
Second.
Second by Adam.
Just as a question on
this particular item, since we're transferring
it, is this position
going to be eliminated in next year's budget
or are we looking to maintain this
in next year's budget?
So we're not quite sure if the
service needs to still happen.
year. So it was a vacant position
this year that was not filled.
The service had been
started, needs to start,
and is going to last for the end
of the year, but we're not quite sure if the
IEP team is going
to have the service continue next year.
So my
state is that the IEP team has only made a decision
for the remainder of this year,
but not necessarily for next
year. But for next year's budget,
this is still in the budget
to be at this school for this amount.
Yes.
Thank you.
Any further questions or comments?
Transfer.
Seeing none, all those in favor of transferring the money out of the MVMS Special Education Fund
in the amount of $28,710 for other services, please signal by saying aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
Passed unanimously.
Thank you.
And then I see a third item for the draft.
budget schedule.
Here we go.
Here we go.
We're all excited.
It's time to go again.
It hasn't ended.
We just keep cycling.
Just keep cycling.
Yeah, so this is here a little bit earlier, more because of when the Budget Committee meets.
The Budget Committee meets a lot in the fall, and they meet kind of sporadically after that.
So they just had a meeting at the end of last month, and they were looking at a draft proposal.
So I brought this to the Budget Committee, and I did let them know that the Board hasn't seen this.
this and the and the SAU leadership hasn't seen this at all either.
So what this really is is taking last year's same sheet and just moving it by the dates.
So something happened on Thursday, August whatever.
It's now happening on Thursday, August 6th of 2026.
So there's been no other changes.
I don't really see us making really big changes to the beginning part of this.
So obviously it's up to the board and then all
also up to the Budget Committee if they want to see changes after, you know, the superintendent starts presenting the budget as well.
So in talking with the Budget Committee, they had, they confirmed that they wanted to stay with the two presentations.
So we will continue to present to the School Board, and then the School Board will have a time to deliberate and then make their decisions, and then we will re-present to the Budget Committee.
No decisions have to be made tonight about the schedule.
I wanted to make sure that the people new to the board have seen it, and the fact that I brought up on the budget committee, I wanted to bring it up with the board as well.
But, you know, we can definitely take back feedback tonight.
We can take feedback at the next board meeting.
But, you know, just want to hear from the board if there was something that was missing last year that had to do with the calendar that they wanted to make switches with for this year coming up.
Jack, I see your questions.
Just to follow along.
with that. The one question that they had was this year we didn't meet as the SAU joint board to make sure that that budget met with the timing so they had to sort of wait for us to get into Boston's vote.
So they were hoping that we would move that date to a place for that joint meeting so that it could all go before they took it to the presentation to the public meeting.
Did they mean the December public hearing for the SAU?
That's the date that they were referring to?
Yeah, they're looking to move that up a bit, which does make sense.
Because remember, that kind of created that almost two-part budget because we were able to bring down the SAU budget,
but the budget committee had already voted on it without it being brought down.
So that's something that we can definitely bring up next week at the SAU board meeting as well.
You know, were we thinking that that would just be a little earlier in the month of December, not trying to move that?
Because typically we have in October is the first presentation of the budget for the SAU followed by the public hearing in December.
So would we keep that in December just maybe a little earlier or trying to move it closer to November?
No, I think we could take a look at the dates, but I think it's more just moving it a little bit earlier.
Okay.
So that one may vote. That number is solid.
Okay.
Our contribution to that total number is solid.
I think it fluctuated like 50, 70 grand or something this year was not a giant number.
Just looking at the draft schedule, it looks like we'd be giving our presentations to the budget committee end of October.
Depending on if we're first on the docket for the budget committee versus the town being first on the docket,
district which the SAU lines are in, is the first thing that we present.
So that would be early November is when we'd be.
presenting that to the board the budget committee yeah we'll be ready I think if
we ever say you meeting in November I think it would be better that way we don't have to
keep ping-ponging back and forth with the budget committee okay that would be my
opinion that we could try to bring up on an SAU leadership agenda okay what other
questions do we have on this draft budget schedule okay thank you Doug
Thank you.
Speaking of budget, there was a budget meeting that a good friend Jack represented as the alternative from a prior holdover from last fiscal year.
Jack, how to go?
I think it went okay.
The talk that you and I had was spot on.
Personal note, but yeah, we let's just talk about their setup for the way they wanted to run the budget committee
and sort of the way they've been doing it so they didn't abstain from one vote
that maybe I should have but I did vote the way that this board handled it when they
were seating the new member because of Allison's departure I think the biggest
thing was I just made statements to the effect that if the budget committee well I
told them that I thought their place was has a person I said that their place was not
put forth the budget that would pass but a put forth a budget that would fund
the services of the town and the school the way that the taxpayers had been
accustomed to it being funded and not necessarily be focused on a pass and I made
statements to the effect of how I thought part of the town not passing was part of
the way that the number the percentages and numbers were moved around or stated by
the budget committee about how the town's budget was so inflated and
said that if their belief is that there should be a percentage that they believe
is a fixed number that should not go over or they're not going to recommend the budget
that I think they should put that number forth ahead of the budget season say here is
our cap 5% say whatever that number is and present that to the school board
or the select board so that they can then draft the budget that tries to fall within those
parameters and then if it doesn't they have an opportunity to present
why it did not fall within those present parameters but then if it did
fall within those parameters that the budget committee ought to then go
for unanimously because I believe the biggest thing for why things pass and
don't pass unfortunately is not transparency of information but whether
it's recommended a hundred percent unanimously by the budget committee in the
select board or the budget committee in the school board
those things pass almost 100% of the time no one showed me any
time when that wasn't the truth so it was a lot about procedure like that and
that they're going to have a sit down with the select board ahead of the budget
starting process and there was a little bit of talk about maybe asking to do
that with us but not so much because we have been consistently producing a
budget that had a very low increase above default in keeping in line
under inflation etc so that that wasn't wasn't deemed as critical for us as it
was they felt for the meeting with the select board so not that was about it
I don't think there was any real major changes in the in the in the procedure
anything in they in they they sat uh Jessica Putin has the
has the member at large to fill Allison spot the vacancy vacancy for
select boy did they say when their next meeting was or the next meeting it was it's
going to be proposed it will be they had two dates and I don't have it in front of me
single in Ohio may fit right that's what it was yes to meet with the to meet with
the to have that joint meeting with the select board
and sit down and discuss the thing so I think that will be there in their next
meeting if the select board if that time works for them great any questions for
Jack great thank you Jack appreciate you fill in for that moving on to C&E
um C&E has not met and we will be meeting April 13th 2026 at 17 at the SAU thank you
thank you Ginny moving on
PNC yes so PNC did meet this evening we've got a lot on our agenda so
we felt like we should meet even though our committee isn't hasn't been
ratified yet we did do provisional elections contingent on the subcommittees being
confirmed this evening so I'm the contingent chair I'll continue to be the
chair but we will equally carry the load of this committee we as I mentioned
we got a lot on our plate so the we talked a little bit about the employee spotlight
the videos that are being put out on the faculty the teachers and staff and the
schools and this past one which you should have received in your email was on
Jamie Grattan it was great
good way to get to know the the people in the schools we also talked about
our communication strategy we bring this up at every meeting we're we're going to
be meeting in a separate meeting on April 14th to dedicate our attention to
this to see if we can get a draft together that we might look at at the board
retreat so we're trying to move that forward quickly to get something to you
The other thing is we didn't receive any feedback on the new school board member orientation
or the draft board of officers and responsibilities.
We shared that at the laps meeting.
I'm assuming that everybody's good with that.
I don't think we really need to approve that it's mostly informational and internal processes.
Volunteer appreciation is coming up on April 19th.
We are still looking to get.
some pictures active volunteers in the schools there's been a couple
communications to go out on that but at the very least we'll be looking to post
something on social media and in the the newsletters from the schools to thanking
all of our volunteers that that do a lot of work for us and then the next
thing is teacher and staff appreciation which is the first week of May
and we would like to do the video again.
I need to speak with Emily at GTV,
but this is something that we invite all the board members to come in for a couple minutes
and say thank you to the teachers and staff,
and that gets sent out.
So stay tuned.
We'll be looking for people to sign up for that.
And that is it.
Great.
Any questions for RETA or PNC?
Moving on, we will go to policy, Shane.
So policy has not met since we all last met, but we will meet next Monday, April 13th at 5.30 at the SAU office.
I believe I should be there.
I appreciate it.
The SU board meeting is on April 15th, which is next week on Wednesday.
So new board members, that is over at the SUU building.
And good times had with the new Boston School Board.
together and we actually have comfy chairs now so I look forward to that joint
meeting I see she I'm sorry Jack is listed for June 10 June 10th still
must still wait for it to happen great thank you Jack we will move on to the
superintendent's report thank you mr. chair so just a few things we have a draft agenda
going for your school board retreat so mr. Gross has access to that kind of draft
agenda for the P and C committee but we've been
working on that so that's in process I wanted to let you know that the
New Hampshire Education Department is holding input sessions on two
different important processes the first is what's called I-BAS which is
input-based accountability system and the second is called P-BAS which is
performance-based accountability system there are two different sides to
accountability with the state of New Hampshire one is I-BAS the other is P-BAS so
they're holding
an upcoming input session on Tuesday, April 7th from 6 to 7 p.m. at Pinkerton Academy
in Dairy at the Pinkerton Academy lecture hall. So if anyone is interested, this is going to have
a fairly significant outcome. So this will indicate what schools have to do for the performance-based
accountability side of things. So at this point, we don't really know exactly what that's going to be.
This is the first input session.
but more to come on this one.
So I wanted you to know that was happening.
Regarding the generator project, there's still some, a little bit of life breathing in this.
I'm a little surprised to tell you.
So the board will recall that we pursued under a FEMA grant, which is through building resilient
infrastructures and communities, BRIC, that there was a previous allocation of money that we applied for
for a high school generator here.
And we just received notification that FEMA has an additional billion dollars for the BRIC program.
So I'm hoping that we're going to be eligible for some money.
One piece that I wanted to share is FEMA has pushed back quite a bit on the size and scope of the generator project here at Goughstown High School.
And one of the things that I'm interested in potentially doing is if we feel like we might not be eligible for that piece of the grant,
I would like,
to chase a replacement of the middle school generator instead.
So right now, I would rather go for the big high school generator, which is a bigger project.
But if we're feeling like we're getting the wink and the nod that we're not going to be chosen for this,
then one of the things I'd like to put in for is replace the middle school generator.
I would probably upsize it a little bit, not much.
We would keep it essentially the same scope.
We have portions of the kitchen that we can't run right now, which would be pretty important.
for an emergency operation as a school shelter but that's something that we are hoping that if we're not eligible for the high school generator that we may be for the middle school generator so one of the things I wanted you to be on kind of notice is that if we get to a point we may need a formal motion just like you did last time to authorize us to pursue that I don't think I need that quite yet but I just wanted you to know that we we potentially will shift the generator project if we
feel like we're not going to be able to get it for the high school.
Next thing is we sent out some communication today for eighth grade families,
letting them know that after much debate and discussion, we will be returning to St. Anselm College
for middle school promotion on June 11th at 1 p.m. So essentially it's the same as last year. It's
just one hour earlier. So the kids will be there. We'll start the activities at 1. It will be
a nice afternoon for those students.
And Mr. Talbot, you had asked me to remind everyone on the last day of school.
So in Goss Town, the last day of school is Monday, June 22nd, which is an early release.
And New Boston's last day will be the Friday prior, which is June 19th, which is also an early release.
And my last piece, we received notification from the planning department that there is a new eight-lot subdivision off Rainbow Drive.
Fairly small, not a huge impact.
It's off Rainbow Drive, Map 5, Lot 70, and there's a hearing plan before the planning board on April 23rd,
if you were so inclined to want to know more about that.
And that was all I had.
I'd be happy to stop there and ask if there any questions, anything I can clarify, either myself, Mr. Totten.
We have Mrs. McGrath in the audience, so I would offer her up, and probably not.
not Mr. Gross because we all want to get home and watch the basketball game a little later.
What questions do we have from the superintendent?
The 11th is the high school date, so it's all on the same day.
It's all on the same day.
We're back to the 11 days.
We're back. We're back.
We're back.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
We'll figure it out, though.
We heard families loud and clear.
They think that the big ceremony is important, so we're happy to honor that.
Do you want to continue?
I had a second question, but we'll come back to you.
Getting old.
I'm just curious if the earlier start time will affect the graduation rehearsal for high schoolers at all.
So we talked about that, Brady.
That was one of the things that we talked about.
So it's not supposed to.
So we have an ungood authority that high school that you will be practicing earlier than that,
and that you guys in the past, we used to do the barbecue, you guys, we believe, will be cleared out in plenty of time.
Okay.
Thank you.
So should be.
un-eventful as long as you guys do a good job practice now if no problem
if the graduating seniors are a little distracted then we'll see yeah it came back so
the thought is if we get the high school generator that this will become an
emergency shelter correct so but so but I do in terms of the generator I want
the board to sort of understand the scope of what my vision is and has been on
this. It is my desire to have a fully functioning operational generator here at Goffstown
High School to be able to run this entire campus if we have no power. And if you think about
the location of Mountain View Middle School as our emergency shelter, it's on a dead-end road
in a rough part of town that is prone to power. I don't mean rough as in like that.
But we've had things in the past where we had a tree come down and blocked access
to Mountain View. We've had a number of other kind of site-specific challenges. So my hope has
always been to get this high school generator. This would include the running of all of our
IT equipment. So one of the pieces that we've been trying to remedy with this high school generator
is that we have IT functions that we don't have on backup. We don't have on generator. So that would
be our hope for that. And then the secondary pieces, I had shared with you, that the current
middle school generator is not running. It blew a head gasket. We can't replace it. The thing
is dead right now. It is not running at all. So we have put the Gostown Fire Department on notice
that, and we thought that maybe this would help push the FEMA application along. So I keep
hoping that we're going to get the approval, but we haven't.
And then my third part of the vision on generators is I would like to pursue a generator
that is on a trailer that we could pull between the other three schools.
So we could go between New Boston, Glen Lake, Bartlett, Maple Lab, and the SAU.
And so if we had a prolonged power incident in Goffstown, that we would have the ability to go and
run the generator for six to eight hours at one school, move it to the
next site, run the heat, move it to the next site. So these are, this is kind of the scope
of what we've hoped to do. And I keep hoping that I'm going to get that call and it's,
you got it. You got the generator at the high school and we're good. But increasingly, it's
looking like more and more hoops, scale back, more questions. So hopefully we'll have
some good news at some point. But if not, then we probably were going to punt and pursue that
middle school project instead.
Dear.
Yes, June.
I'm living in that area, I could help you out by telling you which corner to put a sign on
that usually has the accidents that put the electricity out.
That rough part of town, did it?
Great.
Any other questions for the superintendent report?
Great.
Moving on, we will go to Old Business, which is the approval.
First up is the approval of committee assignments.
So in your packet, and I know that you've received it,
email are the assignments draft that we put together. I try to take everybody's input
in this. I try to match the level of expertise with the board and the assignments that we've done.
I also looked at time commitments. I know that some people want to change some things that they
had done in the past, and I completely respect that. I am one of them. But also I want to make sure
that, you know, we had the opportunity to grow as individuals and still be able to function
appropriately. The one structural change that I
I did make, and I'm just going to verbalize, is I do not differentiate between GEA and
GESS negotiations.
We only have GESS for this year.
Correct.
In the past, usually there was a conflict of interest with board members.
There is no conflict of interest that I have seen for the members that are assigned to this subcommittee.
So I'm listing them as both GEA and GESS, even though GESS is the only one that we have going forward.
That was the only structural change that I made to our subcommittee assignments.
at this time, I'll open up the floor to see if there's any questions, any debate.
Again, this is how we'll be functioning for the next year, and I welcome all input to this.
I'll start it off with something neutral.
So we tried to capture all of the subcommittees on this description, but it looks like we missed GTV.
So is there anybody that would be able to provide us with a description of the,
that committee?
No longer.
Cut it?
Mr. Gross, if you'd be happy to help with that.
Okay.
There is no committee?
No.
Okay, so we'll be making an amendment to cut GTV cable committee,
but I'm sure if there's anything that comes up, RETA, you will, of course, be points.
Generally, that had been a committee that had only met
when the local cable franchise contract was
up, Scott, that was, as I recall in the past.
So if that were to come up again, then we would reform.
Okay.
What other questions?
Laura?
Just another logistical question.
The SAU policy review committee, that has not typically met every month, correct?
It's a second Monday of each month at 630.
We've generally only met when we've had specific policies that we were working on.
And at this point, we would need to speak with Mrs. Morin, but I don't think that there's a push
for any SAU policies.
I think we're in pretty good shape right now.
So that's my understanding.
But I try to keep it with the same people and the same date and right afterwards.
Was that the basic understanding of order?
But go ahead, you know.
Just to speak to the SAU policy committee,
I know that there was a lot of discussion about making sure that the SAU policies are in alignment
with the Goffstown or New Boston policies.
So there might be some meetings of kind of just cross-checking to ensure that.
the SAU policies are in line with what the policies are in Goffson, which they should be,
but it's always good to double-check those.
And Laura, seeing you on there again, if there is going to be a meeting, we'll make sure that it is sent in advance.
Other questions, comments.
Okay, I will accept a motion to ratify the subcommittees as amended today.
Motion.
Motion by Dan.
Seconded by Ginny.
All those in favor.
notice the single by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Any abstentions.
We have our subcommittees for this year.
Thank you, everybody.
Okay, moving on to further old business.
We have second read and adoption of policies.
I'll turn it over to Shane for these items.
All right.
So for the second read slash adoption,
we have, the first one is policy JFAA,
which is in regards to admission of resident students.
There was a little.
bit. You'll see in yellow about three, two-thirds of the way down the page there.
That was added to it. Other than that, it's about what you've been seen.
We will do this individually. So are there any questions about JFAA? We can still ask questions if needed.
If no questions, any comments for JFAA.
Okay. I will accept a motion on policy, JFAA.
FAA then.
By Adam.
My motion to accept policy J-F-A-A as written.
Thank you, Adam. And Ginny, I saw a hand up to you. Seconded?
Second.
By Ginny.
Any further questions or comments?
Okay, I'll call the roll.
All those in favor of J-F-A-A-A as presented, please signal by saying hi.
Hi.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
We are unanimous.
All right, the next one is J.I.H. and J.I.H.R., which is in regards to student searches and their property.
There were some amendments that were proposed at our last meeting, as you'll recall.
Yeah, there was some on page one and then page two.
Yep. So it's more on the regulation.
Any questions for J.I.H. or J.I.H.R.
Just a question from the chair on this one, and I'm going to direct this to the superintendent.
I think I made it comment at the last meeting about the section C of the regulation, as well as, you know, the actual policy of JIAH, saying that any searches of students, I'm sorry, basically articulating that a student couldn't be course.
I couldn't remember it was a JIH or JIHR.
But when we look at the reg three of JIH.
Thank you.
3. Authorized personnel may conduct a search of students' persons or students' belongings, as noted,
whenever a student freely involuntary consents to a search, consent obtained through threats or coercion
is not considered to be free and voluntarily given.
When we look at the regulation of C, it starts out if the student refuses to allow their person to be searched,
comma, administrative discretion will be used when issuing appropriate disciplinary consequences
based on all circumstances evidence of the situation up to 10 days' suspension period.
I'm just trying to reconcile in my brain how the first part of the regulation of C matches what we have with the policy of three.
And the question I have specifically is, will it administrator say to a student, if you refuse a search,
you may be disciplined up to 10 days of suspension?
Generally, what we've done in implementing this is if we suspect a student has contraband of some sort,
then we make it clear so that they know.
exactly what we believe they may have, where it may be. We are not coercing anyone,
but I think we also have to be open to the idea that if a student has something that they don't want
revealed, their move might be to refuse the search, to say that they don't have anything,
to double down, et cetera. So we added some of the language that under E, that school administration
will make reasonable efforts to contact a parent prior to a search. What we've found
is that a lot of times, if we call a parent and say, we believe a student may have
a vape device or whatever it may be, that the parents want to know, so that parents have said,
oh, well, you can use the wand, better still, why don't you wait, and I'll be in your office
in a half an hour and we can do it together. That's really what we'd like to see, that kind of
partnership with parents. I guess my follow-up is, but, you know, are you saying that to the student
if they say, no, I don't want to be a search? Is it going to be, well, you could be suspended for
10 days or we're going to contact your parents. As a matter of fact, in our regulation,
you try to articulate that they should get the search, even though they said no?
Yes. And we generally try to encourage them. If they truly don't believe that they have something
inappropriate, then consent to the search. Prove us wrong.
Okay. How often do you not, sorry? No, go ahead. How often do you not get a hold of the parents within a
a timely fashion? It definitely happens. There are challenges, sometimes getting in touch with
parents working with parents. We had one recently that I could think of that sometimes
it's hard to get in touch with parents. That definitely happens. But that also happens for any other
number of reasons. It could be a student who's vomiting and needs to go home ill. It could be a student
who's been suspended for gross misconduct. It could be any number of things that we sometimes
struggle to get parents in.
So a long time ago, I used to work loss prevention for marshals, which I was very bad at, by the way.
But you often catch kids stealing. We couldn't search their person until the parents would show up.
And for us, it was if we couldn't get a hold of them, we had to call the local PD.
Now, I'm not suggesting that here. But I think if a student has something on their person
and they're not able to leave that seat until we have permission.
either from you or from your parents, then, you know, that's a reasonable way to kind of
get them across the line where do you really want to sit here all day until mom comes, or do you
want to just get this over with? And we're trying to make sure that we have a safe environment,
right? So we want to make sure that students don't have any kind of contraband that they shouldn't
have. Unfortunately, we are thinking always about weapons. We're thinking about drugs. We're thinking
about nicotine devices, any number of those things. But primarily,
were most concerns about weapons and drugs.
Right.
And this is the reality of the world that we live in.
Any further questions about these policies?
Has it, I assume it's been reviewed?
Like, where do we stand legally?
To me, that's the biggest issue is if there's a legal,
you know, if there's a liability issue.
Yeah, if you have the policy, that's the authorization
that the school administrators need to.
have to be able to move forward with searches. I believe that sometimes there have been
some other school districts that maybe have done searches without a policy. That is not
something that we've ever done here. So the reason we brought this change to the policy
was we felt like it was time to have this additional tool at the disposal of school administrators
who are very busy chasing any number of bad choices from students.
Yeah.
And just to follow up that by me, I'm not.
that in in why in where does it come that we don't just put it to the police
to the SRO or to the is it yeah we generally because some of it is not illegal so to
speak it's well there are different standards so in order to do a search of a school
for a school district personnel we're looking for reasonable suspicion yeah
and that's different than the standard of probable cause
So from a legal perspective for the police department, they have a different legal standard than we have.
That makes sense.
So we're better to keep the SRO generally out of the investigation until there is criminality that we've been able to identify.
Okay.
Other questions?
If not, any comments on policy, J.I.H or the regulation of J.I.H.
It's a matter of comment.
I cannot, I believe in the totality of circumstances and I believe in safety is one of our paramount
items that we have in the school. However, I don't think we can sacrifice our civil rights needed.
I would not be able to adopt this if we continue to have the first part of C, if a student refuses
to allow the person to be searched. If that was stricken, I think I could approve this, because
I do understand the 10-day suspension of the totality of circumstances there, but
for the possibility that administrator says,
allow me to search you, if you don't,
well, I'm going to call your parents,
and you can get a 10-day suspension
just because you're saying you're refusing a search.
I think that that is a course of statement
and is against our policy.
So if that does stay,
unfortunately, I have to vote no for this policy.
Any other comments?
I will take whatever motion
a board member wishes to have.
I'll make a motion to accept policy J-I-H and J-I-H-R as presented.
Thank you, Adam.
Does Adam have a second?
No, thank you.
Do you have a motion?
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
All those opposed say nay, nay.
Any abstentions.
This motion passes with one nay.
That is made.
Thank you, Shane.
And we have one more
for adoption tonight.
That's J.I.J, which is
student protest, strikes, and walkouts.
And I believe we made a small...
No, we did not make any adjustments to this one last week.
There, we had a couple questions on it,
but I don't think there was anything that was actually changed.
Any questions for this policy?
Yeah.
Maybe it's a little difficult question.
How can policy J.I.J start with consistent with school district policy J.I.J.
I don't know what it should say, but that doesn't...
It does a little bit.
Obviously, we have to adopt it.
Yeah, so, I mean, I think we could just start with the following procedure
we'd be adhered to.
That first clause of the sentence is unnecessary.
But thank you, English teacher.
I've read this like 1,400,000.
So that would be the amendment to this.
Amendment has been accepted, as it is in a friendly content.
Back to the friendly.
Any other questions?
Okay, we'll turn to comments.
Any comments for this particular policy?
Actually, I have a question.
Question.
Go ahead.
It mentions the school staff,
if they're not to encourage organizers, so far.
Is there a policy about what happened?
if the school staff does engage with this?
There are personnel policies that would probably be appropriate.
And really, we're looking for staff to not be encouraging student protests.
Right.
Certainly during the school day.
During the school day.
I don't want to impact instructional time.
Okay.
You want to do something after school in your own time?
Great.
Have at it.
Yes.
Just looking at.
Just my gut reaction to this however many weeks ago it was, was that I
kind of didn't like it. And then in talking to my friends who are civically engaged,
there was kind of the same view. Like in that first section, it kind of says will be treated the same
as any student who leave school without authorization. So I mean, there already is punishments in place
for this. I would know my friends got in trouble a few weeks ago for leaving school without
permission. But it just, it feels redundant in a way that all it does is discourage civic engagement
in students, which I don't think is something we want. I think we want. I think we want the
a specifically engaged student body.
And when it doesn't really change any way that we treat our students and our staff, as we were saying,
like, we have policy for if they encourage students to go against the rules, I just, I don't
see a need for it.
And I just personally dislike it.
I don't know if anyone might share that sentiment.
Thank you, Brady.
Bretta.
I had the same reaction last week when I heard it, and I've heard other feedback about the importance of
civic engagement and I did a little bit of research and it seemed to be
consistent with this policy I'm and I think it's okay the way it is it's pretty
simple I think this is an opportunity for you to get fee I know you're leaving
but for our student representative to maybe have you know at student
council talk about what that wording is because I had I did have the same reaction but
I also found a lot of support for it including the ACLU and for and there are when people do
civic engagement there are consequences and there are consequences if you leave school.
So that that's also an important lesson. Are you going to do the civic engagement and accept
the consequences? I think what was really clear is it.
be any more severe than leaving class.
I mean, so whether you're going on a walkout or you're leaving because you felt like it,
the consequences are the same.
I thought I saw Vanessa's hand up.
Yeah, I mean, just as a matter of practicality,
Brie, like I agree.
Should we just take the existing school skipping policy and just like put in parentheses,
including protests or walkout are the same?
Like instead of making a whole separate.
policy? I don't know. Does that simplify things? Because it is the same
exact issue. You're leaving school.
You're going down to cumvies or are you going out with a sign?
It's the same. I don't know, Shane, if you thought of that.
So there wouldn't be a policy
I would govern that, but the code of conduct for the school would.
But I think school administrators had asked for this
to provide some type of guidance.
And that's why I think it's important.
You're right in that it's not any different than
a kid who leaves school because they want to, right?
So I understand where you're coming from, for sure.
But I think this helps make things clear for our administrators
who otherwise could find themselves in some kind of muddy areas.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Just the policy prior and this one,
I am personally saddened by the fact that we have to address those things.
But that being said to,
to your point earlier
about actions have consequences.
Rarely do protests that move
communities necessarily always have
the stamp of approval from all involved.
And if you're going to make a decision like that,
I think there's a consequence tied to it.
And calling it out specifically
for something that has occurred recently
in, you know, it was Nashville,
this happened not too long ago,
just provides clarity for the leadership of the schools
that we know we have all agreed on how this is
So there's no ambiguity there.
Ginny?
Yeah.
I don't think that this discourages civic engagement for students
because if there's something that you really want to do
that's civically engaged,
is just don't come to school.
You know, I mean, that's a terrible thing to say,
but instead of walking out and then getting yourself into trouble,
you can, or, or, you know,
do it after school.
It's like this is just saying
people can't just leave during school
because it puts the school
in a legal situation,
really.
And so just don't come to school
if you want to do it.
So then the school isn't, like,
where is this kid that just left?
We need to get hold of the parents.
You know, are they safe, whatever.
Do it after school
or, you know,
take an absent day for it.
And, you know, if you're civically engaged
and that's something that's important to you,
then that's something to use
one of your absentee days for it.
So that's just my thoughts about it.
So Laura.
So this is coded as a J policy, right?
Which is student.
So I was just curious, because it makes reference to staff as well.
It's going to do the same thing.
And I was just curious if it's in the right coding.
We think it is.
Because this is particularly, it's,
focused on students.
The students, okay.
Yep.
So, and then, yeah, I was just curious
if the administration's need was for the student side of it
or more for the staff side of it
and saying, are staff having questions on if this happens,
do I, you know, if I feel like I want to participate,
or is it that if, you know, they show up on the newspaper
and they're standing outside with students,
then they can say, the administration will ask me to supervise this event or whatnot.
So I just was curious how it's coded and what should be included.
It's coded as a student.
policy because we think that that's rightfully where it needs to be.
Yeah.
So I actually, I had the same thing as I was reading through it again because when, in hearing
like Brady talk about it, how it impacts the students and things like that, and then I'm looking
at it and it's actually, it actually gives administrators the outline of what to do with staff
become involved.
So I actually have the same thought as Laura, whether this should be double-coded or maybe
a separate one that maybe leaves out the student part of it.
in the staff portion of the policies.
I think this is a pretty low occurrence for staff, and I think that if it did occur,
I think that there are a number of personnel policies as well as the New Hampshire
Code of Conduct for New Hampshire educators that there would be violations of.
So I wouldn't be concerned about me being able to identify a policy that was violated.
I would feel pretty confident between staff policies.
as well as the Code of Conduct Code of Ethics, that there would be multiple violations.
And I would share, this one didn't come from me.
This came from high school administration.
So as much as I supported, I wasn't the one to initiate this.
I was the metal detector ones.
That was me, but this one wasn't me.
Other questions?
I know we made comments.
So any other comments for this point of that?
If not, I will.
accept a motion to adopt J.I.J. as amended today by Adam.
And seconded by? Seconded by Dan.
All those in favor, please say aye.
Aye. All those opposed?
Abstentions. One opposed.
By student wrap. Thank you. That motion passes.
Excellent.
Thank you, everyone.
We now have.
have the Q&A policies, so these are for adoption at our next meeting on April 20th,
but I don't know if anyone has questions based on what they have looked over so far.
I have a couple.
Okay. Go ahead.
The floor recognizes Adam.
For policy, K.E, on page 2, let's see complaints about the superintendent says
maybe be submitted directly to the school board through the board chair, and then on page 3.
under C. for complaints about the superintendent, the school board be as a board clerk.
Can we just be consistent in where that's supposed to go?
We should spend a lot of time with that, Brian.
No, no.
It should be the board chair, not the clerk.
That's what I would have thought.
Yeah.
So on page 3 under Cesar, it just has to be amended.
I'm making that motion to amend.
Page 3 of that policy?
Yes.
Sure.
made by Adam. Do I have a second?
Second. Second by Ginny.
So, Adam,
could you just repeat what that change is,
please? Just to amend
Policy K.E.
On page 3, Section
C for complaints about the superintendent. Step 2,
should say school board via
the board chair.
Thank you.
Any questions or comments about this?
About his amendment?
About the amendment.
Okay.
I do have a question.
This is a vote for the amendment, not that we're adopting
the policy. All those in favor
of Adam's amendment, please say aye.
Aye. Aye. The opposed.
The extensions.
Passes unanimously.
Now, moving back to the
policies themselves, we can talk about that
policy in particular or any others.
I want to continue on
with this one, and maybe I'm
not seeing it, but is
what starts off
is one public complaints,
and these are general complaints.
on page one, and then
the second section
starting
with B.
Is this just a repeat of what's on
page one? Am I?
I don't know. I don't know how it in front of me.
Okay.
My binder's not with me.
I'm looking for it, too.
I'm trying to distinguish what the difference
is. I think it's about
school personnel or not school personnel.
Okay, great.
Yes, general complaints.
General versus.
Complaints.
Okay, great. Thank you.
And I'll
just like, what's the difference?
Okay, so the other question I have
is complaints that are
received by
an individual board member
and it says that they should
be referred, those
complaints should be referred to the
superintendent.
I was under the impression
that it should go through
the regular process, and
because I did have this
happened to me and I said,
oh, have you talked
with the principal yet?
You should start there.
So according to this policy,
they can
bypass that by coming to a board
member and just go directly
to the superintendent.
So the superintendent
is going to refer them back
to the lowest level
to resolve their issue.
It says for
we've heard the complaint
So if somebody ends up with me,
that's the conversation
that I'm going to have with them.
But it says for
investigation and handling,
that that's...
The handling would be,
I'm referring you back
to the building level.
Okay, so I should not even engage.
I should just refer
them to you
to handle that process.
We would encourage them to resolve
resolve it at the lowest level,
so it should start with,
and I think the PNC
committee did a really nice job
with part of this policy.
I can't remember where you had it.
But it involved for every kind of issue,
whether it's a classroom-based thing,
athletics, food services, special education.
There was a whole spreadsheet
that identified the first primary contact,
the secondary contact, the third,
the tertiary contact.
So that already exists.
Okay.
It is just by
scary and so I just want to clarify
that that's the process. Okay, thank you
for me. Any other questions
about our first three policies?
Adam.
Policy E.H.R.
On page one, number two,
starts written
requesting cards to help ensure
a common understanding between the
requester and the staff responsible for responding to a
request, comma, from persons
making requests for records, comma,
or strongly encourage to submit their
request in writing.
I'm very confused as to what,
I feel like something's missing.
As an English teacher, I don't understand
what that sentence really needs.
I don't know if something's missing, like,
I don't think that's clear.
I don't have a suggestion, but I don't think
that's clear.
So, just don't like it.
So the way I'm reading it, written requests in courage,
helping share a comment are saying between the person
who's requesting and the staff
who's responsible for responding.
So it does sound a little funky.
I see what it's saying.
we could clean up the language definitely yeah my other question
about that policy under on page two under six copy fees the school district will
charge a fee of 50 cents for copying photocopies is that supposed to be 50 cents per
page or 50 cents for the whole shipping per page I would assume that's supposed to be per
and generally we say the school district may charge okay I thought we changed that I
thought we did too.
Yeah, we definitely wanted to change that, so if we didn't change that, let's do that.
Okay, motion is coming from Shane.
So yeah, so I'm in that to from the school district may charge a fee of 50 cents per page.
I'm sorry, will to May.
And add to it per page.
Second.
Motion by Shane, seconded by Adam, and this is for an amendment to the policy.
All those.
favor or any questions before we vote all those in favor of the amendments to the policy
signal by saying aye aye any opposed any extensions very namonds do we want to clean up the
language up top too so we can just amend that now yeah so to help and share
common understanding between the request area and the staff responsible for
responding to your request we could say we just say persons
Get rid of the from in the comma.
Persons making requests are strongly encouraged to submit.
I think it's the commas that are throwing.
It might be the comments.
It might be the comments.
And I think if we change it,
responsible responding to a request,
persons making requests for records are strongly encouraged to submit their request.
Get rid of the from in the convox.
Yeah.
I mean, that's clear.
Okay, this motion will be coming from Adam.
I'm defraying to the English.
The diagram that sounds like you want to.
So Adam, when you're ready, please.
All right.
I look to amend Section 2, their written requests encouraged to read,
to help and share common understanding between the requester and the staff responsible for responding to a request.
Persons making requests for records are strongly encouraged to submit their requests in writing.
So striking the from and the common.
Any questions?
Should we also then remove and include a specific description of desired records or make the request in writing
and include a specific description of desired records?
I think you keep that.
Yep.
Great.
Any further questions?
This is a motion on amending this particular policy to the language that Adams provided.
All those in favor, please signal by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
Motion passes.
Great.
Any other questions or comments about our first-read policies.
These will be coming back at our next meeting for adoption.
And so if there's any...
that we do see further.
We can definitely talk about it then.
And then policies for deletion, again, turning it over to Shane.
All right.
So we had the large list of policies that were recommended for deletion.
I don't know if anyone had any thoughts about any of them that maybe they should be taken
off the table for deletion.
These will not be voted on until the 20th.
So we have a little more time.
I know there was a lot there to go through.
But if anyone has any preliminary...
thoughts or questions about any of that were presented to come to deletion that should maybe come off the table.
Mr. Superintendent.
Yeah, can I just clarify that these policies are optional?
So none of these are required by law.
None of these are priority policies.
They're all identified as optional policies.
And when we, by the way, there will be more of these.
We've targeted this.
There's a whole batch of these that we're looking to thin out and cull.
our policy manual.
So many of these older policies are 20 plus years old, and there is no newer version.
That there's, they're just very old and very obsolete.
So we will have another batch of these, but I just wanted you to have the context.
These are all optional, and the majority of them are in excess of 20 years old.
And just to follow up what Brian said, they are alphabetical, so we are only at the B's.
So there's a lot more to come.
This is part of a bigger effort.
And as an example, I was just looking at, I did not have time to look at all of these,
but one of the second ones is recognition for accomplishment.
And essentially it's a policy that gives reason for us doing the awards,
but I assume the board would do the awards without the policy.
it, let's get it out of the policies.
Any other questions for policy deletion, Laura?
I just wanted to look at BBBE and BBER, which have to do with unexpired term fulfillment.
And I know these are in here because we have the RSA, and again, like, it's a very short policy.
And I was just curious if the RSA was very descriptive about what the procedure would be,
because I just watched the Budget Committee meeting, and that's the, you know, that they're in the same boat,
and was just curious, you know, I'm only one year on the board.
But if this happens and we remove this policy, is there a very specific procedure?
Or is that determined by whoever sits on the board at that time?
Yeah, so we have had a number of these occurrences over the years.
So you're right.
It is the statutes identify the process of replacing a board member.
So it would be up to the sitting board to identify what that process would be.
in terms of people submitting letters with a resume, board interviews, discussion.
So it would be up to the board to identify what that particular process would be.
But absent the policy, you're still going to follow the statute and you're going to replace somebody if you have a vacancy.
A comment that I'll make more on this one.
I'm not looking at the policies right now.
I didn't actually bring these ones with me.
But I think if we have something documented on how we implement the law,
as a policy, I think it's very important for a driving consideration for the board that has to tackle that challenge.
So if that is one of those things that is on this deletion, I would probably ask that it doesn't,
just because we've encountered it so many times lately, that it's good to say, okay, what is our,
how are we implementing the RSA, I think is always a good thing to have.
I agree, yeah, this was one that, and these all made sense to me when we answer it on policy
as to why, you know, these would be brought forth for deletion.
and there's the RSA supporting them.
But in this case, it felt like if there was a policy listing that was really specific in procedure, it might be helpful.
So are we asking or looking to potentially remove that from the solution?
Is that one that's targeted for deletion, in your opinion?
Yeah, I would ask for reconsideration for that one not to be deleted.
Which one was that?
I'm sorry.
B-B-B-B-B-E and B-B-B-R.
Okay.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask.
the board to do homework before our next meeting to review those two policies to see if it's
something that we want to keep as we continue forward, not actually take action tonight.
Great.
Does it state what the RSA is that governs that policy or I'm going to have to put that up on my...
On, I believe in last meetings packet, the RSAs were on there.
We're on there. Okay, yeah, then I get it.
But also, this might be, I'm just thinking now, this might be something policy meets that.
next week. So this might be something
where we look at maybe taking this off the table and then
looking at what it says
because I know there's been some
challenges
to what it currently says and how
that's been acted on. So we can look at that.
Any other questions and comments for policies
for deletion?
Kind of to the same effect. We have
the board organizational meeting
and, you know,
there's a statement here I haven't seen
before. The election of the chair
person should be based on qualifications
for the position. Other
methods, such
as rotation, should be discouraged.
I mean, is
I'm thinking if, you know,
like we have a turnover and we've got lots
of new board members, is this something that's
helpful
to have in place
or is it redundant?
It's funny because I was looking at
some, especially the bees earlier
today, for some of our governance
items and how we run
and I wouldn't, the board at the time is going to do what the board at the time wants to do.
Yeah, one can't find the other.
Yeah.
And, you know, the qualifications are they have to be a sitting board member.
Right.
I think the only one that we really have, and that win by plurality vote, which I believe is covered by a different policy.
But that's my understanding.
So I'm not sure if we need this or don't need it.
Okay.
And I'm just thinking how we pass this.
you know, because we went into greater detail on P&C
just because it's helpful for new board members to understand that.
And the same thing, this may be helpful to understand how
the chair gets chosen.
And, you know, now we've got this document that we
created on the definition. It's like, okay, where does this live if it's not a policy?
So let's add BDA to our homework
for the next meeting as well.
And you may want to do BDF.
to go with it. It says advisory
committees. But
even trying to come up with the definitions
understanding whether or not
all these committees existed
and why, we had to do some homework on
that, and it wasn't always clear.
Again, I'm all for
cleaning up the policies that
the stack of policies
is probably too big.
Thank you, Rella.
This will be
coming back for our next meeting.
for the policy deletion.
And I would just remind people that if they want
to look at the RSAs, I think on last
meetings packet, I think the RSAs were listed
next to them.
So if you want to just kind of look at and see how
things line up. They are all listed
right beside all those policies.
Well, yeah,
and beside all the ones we talked about,
they're all there.
Case laws and RSA.
Perfect.
My ask for the administration
is if we could just get reprint
reprint of any amendments for the policy.
that are going to be coming for next week.
So for C.E.
specifically for any of those changes
that have been made, if we just have reprints of those
so that we can look at a clean
policy for adoption.
With that, we'll move on to
new business. General assurance
signing. So I turn this over to
the superintendent. So each
year, thank you, Mr. Chair. Each year,
we are required to sign off
on what are called the general assurances.
These come from the U.S. Department of
Ed, provided they
still continue to exist.
And each year
it becomes a little more
of a process.
And I think she provided
you with a copy of
the 20 pages
that the school board chair
and the superintendent have to sign
every single page, every
initial, every page, as well
as signing in a
number of areas.
So what we like to do is we like to ask the board
for author
for the school
board chair and the superintendent to
sign the general assurances each year.
And I will share, if we
don't sign these, we get
zero federal funds.
Zero.
I'll make a motion to authorize
the superintendent and the school board chair
to sign the general assurances.
Motion
made by Shane, seconded by
Jimmy. Any questions
or comments?
Of course of my signature. All those in favor.
say aye.
We opposed?
Any abstentions?
Motion passes unanimously.
We've already talked about
CRF history of projections, so
we're good?
We are good.
We're good with that one.
So, I like that one.
Thank you, Doug.
EFA account
and enrollment, open enrollment.
Mr. Pretentian.
Yeah, so let me give a little bit
of an introduction. I'm going to ask Mr. Gross
to come up, who's going to be presenting on this
topic. So this is Scott
Gross, our operations manager.
And I wanted to provide a little context before Mr. Gross goes over his report.
I want to make it clear to the board and to the community that this particular topic on the agenda came from me,
that I have wanted to provide additional information and clarity to the general community about education freedom accounts.
And I wanted to go through the entirety of all the years of the process of the program.
which was started in Mr. Gross will share FY22 or FY23 and since then the program has been expanded.
So I again, this did not come from Mr. Gross. Mr. Gross. Mr. Gross did what I asked him to do and he put together a very comprehensive analysis of the current state of the state of education and freedom accounts.
Now, I do want to say one more thing. I want to be clear that I
fully support parents being able to access education freedom accounts. I think parents should
have multiple pathways. My issue has been and continues to be that the state continues to
not make appropriate adequacy payments as we've continued to see. So my issue has always been
the state is not properly funding an adequate education for all New Hampshire children
irrespective of zip code. That has never happened. And the education freedom accounts
is just more money coming out of the education trust fund.
So I share all of this just as a preamble that this came from me.
This did not come from Mr. Gross.
And so if anyone has any issues or objects with anything that we've done here,
they should direct this towards me, not Mr. Gross.
So with that, Mr. Gross.
Good evening.
A lot of caveats.
Beastrous.
I wanted to say that in trying to, you know, prepare this report, there was a lot of
data that had to be not only accessed but analyzed, and I wouldn't have been able to prepare
this report.
Bless you. If it wasn't for our data team, especially Jamar Starkson and Betsy Murdick,
a lot of the data, it's gotten better on the EFA program over the last year or two, but prior
to that, it was a lot of work to try to capture the data that is in this report.
So I want to thank Jamar in particular.
I also want to say that when I reviewed and prepared this, try to be as neutral as possible,
I happen to know many families who partake in this program.
So this is not a pro or con either way.
I think we'd try to call balls and strikes on the EFA program.
On the first two pages of this report, which I've not going to go over,
is just a little bit of the history.
I know Brady is into the history of things.
You'll be able to read that, but I want to try to hit on some of the highlights.
So if you can turn to page number three, and what you'll see, I want to, we try to take a look at
the historical participation of the EFA accounts in Goffstown and New Boston.
So as the superintendent alluded to, in the year, FY22, when it started, there were 21 students
in Goffstown who were participating in EFAs and 11.2 in New Boston.
and you say, hey, point two, it reflects that some of these kids commit mid-year.
Okay?
If you fast forward to FY26, that number went up dramatically.
Okay?
And as you can see from bullet point number two, the combined enrollment crew, 546% over five years.
Again, this is combined.
From 32 students combined in New Boston and Gopstown to 208 in FY206.
I'll make mention of this, but in FY25 to FY26, the income limits were taking off the EFA program.
So before there were income limitations for a family of four, they removed all of that.
In lieu of that, they put a cap of 10,000 EFA students.
So when that happened, a dramatic increase.
So again, just for those in the audience, it went in Gopstown from 65 students up to 120,000.
and in New Boston, it went from 35 to 83.
All right.
So now turning to page number four, again, this graph just shows the year over year growth as a percentage.
And it would jumps off the charts is the massive increase in from FY 25 to 26.
You should know that next year that the cap of 10,000.
in EFA students in the state of New Hampshire will up to 12,500.
All right.
Any questions so far?
So one of the things that we wanted to take a look at was also adequacy.
And on the graph on page 5, this is for Gopstown.
And what you'll see here, it's the number of EFA students is represented as 21, jumping up to 125.
But what I wanted to show was the level of FAPS town.
adequacy. This chart is a little bit deceiving. If you look at FY23, you'll see that
it was a spike in adequacy. But Jared and some others, Mike, who were on the board at the time,
may recall that in that particular year, the state had a reduction in the sweat tax. They had a one-time
holiday in Goughstown, I think it was around $1.1 million. So that was, and what they did was they increased
the New Hampshire adequacy aid by that same amount in that particular year.
But what you'll see is that the adequacy aid has been relatively stable over that five-year period
if you take that into consideration.
So again, that was it for page five.
I included both Gopstown and New Boston in this report, and on Wednesday I'll be doing the same
presentation in New Boston.
But you should, what you should be seeing here is that
adequacy levels, even in New Boston, aside from that spike, New Boston has had a decrease in their
adequacy based primarily on their decreases in enrollment. So again, all of these graphs kind of
just show the dramatic increase in EFA students from FY22 to FY26. Now, if you can turn
to page seven, what we wanted to do and what was
asked of both
Jamar,
was asked by the
superintendent of Jamar and myself, was to take a
look at students who were never
enrolled in
Gobs Town or New Boston schools.
So the first one,
I'm sorry, if you go to page six,
the bottom of page six,
what you're going to see is that in
FY23,
32.6
EFA students were
never enrolled in Gothstown
schools, and 15
were previously enrolled.
So previously enrolled means that they were in a
Goffstown school or were in an SAU-19
school and then they transferred out
of that school and they participated
in the EFA program.
In FY24,
it was 43 students
who participated and
10 switched out.
In 25, 54
students were never
enrolled and then 11
moved out, transferred out.
And then in FY26,
80,
students participate in EFAs that were never enrolled in Goffstown schools as compared to 39 that were previously enrolled.
So some of the takeaways here is that the majority of students who are participating in the EFA program
were never enrolled in Goffstown schools, and in New Boston schools, you know, for that matter.
So if you turn to page 17, I'm sorry, page 7, halfway through a couple of important
Bullets. 60 to 80% of EFA students never attended SCU-19 schools in any given year.
In FY26, 69% of Gopstown EFA students and 65% of New Boston EFA students never enrolled in public
schools. So the other big takeaways is that Gopstown has a small number of EFA students who
either attend a class part-time or they participate in athletic. So we're not seeing like a
massive number of EFA students who are participating in sports or co-curriculars and or taking
classes part-time. It's just not that big of a number. That being the case, the last bullet,
infrastructure costs remain while schools still have to maintain our buildings, staff and programs
regardless of EFA enrollment. Further along, I'm going to show you the EFA enrollment by grade levels. And
this kind of supports that notion that even though we have some grade levels where kids are leaving,
it's not allowing us to, like, reduce a classroom teacher.
So we'll talk about that a little bit later.
Page 8 is just simply a pie chart.
And, again, it's that same data set.
So if you look at the upper part of page 8, part-time attendance, there was, in FY26, there was only 10 students.
So 8% of all EFAs were students that attended class here part-time, meaning 50% or less.
If they go more than 50% then they're not considered an EFA student.
We only had five students or 4% who participated in sports for co-curriculars.
And as I mentioned before, the majority, 58% never attended Gopstown schools.
Any questions? Jack?
So part-time attendance, how is that?
that is that's not reflective of like a IEP services or services like that
occupational therapy speech therapy here now these are students who to give you a
good example they might be an EFA participant but they're taking a college level
chemistry class or an AP class here yep but there are students that are
receiving those services just not like it on this list keep in mind that when
you participate in an EFA you're signing off on your
not getting that. Okay? So it's different than the voucher in that way.
When you sign on to an EFA program, you are not getting those services.
At all. Not supported by the district at all. That's in the statute.
I'm over positive, right, Brian? Yeah, so as of right now, I want to make sure we're not going to go down a distraction here.
We have 10 students who are taking some part-time classes. As of right now, there is no policy that
authorizes them to do that, nor is there a policy that precludes them from doing that.
So this right now is an area that I think we need to have policy. I have a draft that probably is going
to be ready to come to the policy committee in the next month or so that you'll be asked to make
some determinations about this. So I don't want to get too much ahead of that, but as of right
now, there's nothing that allows or does not allow students.
to participate in the EFA program and still access courses and other co-curricular and other programming.
And I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole because I did have that question because it was my understanding they couldn't participate in schools.
I just want to clarify that if a student is a homeschool student, not on Freedom Account student, they can participate.
Yes, homeschool students are able to participate.
They're able to take classes.
They're able to access programming.
And unlike EFA students, we actually get a little bit of adequacy for homeschool students.
I believe it's .16 adequacy, which is not very much money, but at least it's a recognition that the district is receiving some revenue from the state because we have a cost associated with that.
Great.
But there will be a further need from a policy.
perspective to identify whether we will continue to allow students to access programming,
resident, non-resident, academic programming, non-academic programming.
So as a little later in the year, the board will be presented with a draft policy that
will further flush this out.
Question, in the first page it calls out, allow qualifying families to stay funds for
private school tuition.
That's still, I think.
Yes.
Are those schools receiving those funds, and I don't know if you have the answer to this, are they held to the similar standards as community-run schools?
They are not held to the same standards.
So generally, these would be considered private, non-public schools.
So school districts, typical public schools and charter schools have different requirements than private, non-public schools.
Okay.
So no.
different expectations, different certification requirements at times.
And if I could, Dan, your question, not only is it just private schools, but you could be a
homeschooled student. And the criteria for demonstrating educational attainment is part of the statute,
which I linked in the report. So in the PDF, which hopefully either I or Denise will share with you,
you can link to it, and it tells you there are a
four criteria, which, let's say, a homeschool student could demonstrate the attainment of
their education. But again, that's all in the spelled out of statute. Thank you.
One of the other things that the superintendent asked that I look at was, you know, what was the family,
how many families are participating? And this one was a little bit tricky because the data that we
got from the state does not provide any addresses.
So that being said, I put a caveat here is that when we were looking at the names,
it was very easy to determine many names because they were not common names.
So what we did, and there's going to be some degree of inaccuracy in terms of this,
but we looked at the last names, and we counted family households by last names,
recognizing that there were probably two that had a name that was like Smith.
But there were far many that had a name that was very unique and highly unlikely that there were multiple households.
So just recognize that I did want to put that out as a caveat.
And what you're going to see on pages, say, 9 and 10, was that for the most part,
I want to kind of highlight this would be the different bullet number two at the top of page 10.
About half of EFA students come.
from multi-child households. The average number of school-age children per household
with children enrolled in public schools is about 1.8 nationally and 1.7 in New Hampshire
based on U.S. census data from 21 through 23. EFA households appear to have more students
than typical public school households in Goffstown for EFAs. It's a 1.92 students per household,
which is about 7% above the U.S. average and 13% above the New Hampshire average.
And in New Boston, it's a bit higher than that, 2.12 students per household, which is 18% above the U.S. average
and 25% above the New Hampshire average.
What we're seeing, though, is from 25 to 26, that trend decreased a little bit.
So we're seeing more single-child households participate in the EFA program, which is kind of normal when you think.
about it if they've just lifted those restrictions. So I think that kind of makes sense.
But overall, not huge differences, but worth noting. In the middle of page 10, we try to look at
what was the adequacy impact of transferred out versus never enrolled. So as you can see,
I'm going to demonstrate in the middle of page 10 in New Boston, the number of EFA students,
that transferred out was $135,191, whereas $251,000 approximately our students who got EFA funds and they never were in the New Boston School District.
For Gobs Town, those who left our school system, $191,000, if I round up. And for those who never attended, 371,000. So when you look at
the loss of revenue, let's use Gopstown for an example, one could argue that those
students who transferred out, you lost about $190,000 of adequacy funds. And I'll show a little
bit later, you really didn't, you weren't able to do anything, but you had fixed costs. And you'll
see later that there's not that many students at each grade level where you could have made any
type of changes, especially at the elementary school level. Any questions on that?
Okay. The other thing that I wanted to point out, if you look at it from a percentage basis,
on page 11, I tried to look at what that loss was based upon the percentage of what you got in New Hampshire
adequacy from the state.
see that for those students who transferred out, it was about 2.4% loss of your
adequacy. So a lot of people are saying, oh, wow, you lose a lot of adequacy. And again, 2.4
is not nothing, but it's not a high amount, all things considered. New Boston proportionately
4.4%. So they saw a much bigger hit percentage-wise. Any questions there? Now, what I want
to show you on the top of page 12 was that this EFA program, while you could say that
Goffstown overall lost 190,000 in New Hampshire adequacy revenue, when you look at New
Boston, it kind of tells a little bit of a different story. So they lost, if you go to the red
bar, $135,000 approximately of revenue from lost adequacy. But they also, of those students who left,
there were four from Mountain View and four that attended Gopstown High. So if they had to pay
tuition to Goffstown, they would have had to pay $204,000 to Gopstown. However, they never attended
those schools. Therefore, there was a net savings of almost $70,000. So again, Gosstown, EFA's
kind of reduce your adequacy revenues a little bit. But for New Boston, if you're a lot, you
you apply the fact that eight students no longer went to Gothstown schools, their bill then
went down by $200,000, almost $5,000. They actually saved about $70,000. Any questions there?
So good for them, bad for Goffstown, because we aren't receiving that revenue for
tuitions that would be coming in. That's correct. But, again, I think the superintendent asked that we
take an agnostic approach to all this. I'm just trying to show you that there are
pluses and minuses depending on what community that you live. The chart number 13, what I wanted to
also show you the bottom of page 12. This is New Boston and the, I guess, the gold color,
never attended, and then the transferred out is in blue. This is the distribution of students in
2026 that left. So for New Boston, kindergarten, you'll see through fourth grade,
two students left New Boston Central School. Fifth graders, it was three. Six graders,
four, seventh graders, four, eighth graders, four, eighth graders, two. Ninth graders, two. Tenth graders
was three, 11th grader, one, and senior in high school, zero. Take a look at Goffstown. On the top of
age 13. And again, they transferred out as more in that maroon or red color. No
kindergartners transferred out. Two first graders, three second graders, five third graders, seven-fourth graders,
six-fifth graders, three-sixth graders, three-sixth graders, four-seventh-graders, three-eighth graders,
no ninth graders, two-tenth graders, one, 11th grade, and two in three.
senior year of high school. What you're going to see is a trend in both Gopstown and New Boston,
where the EFA participation is really more heavily concentrated in the elementary schools,
and it seems to peak maybe at the middle school, and then it really diminishes at the high school level.
So that to me, I thought, was kind of notable. And if you turn to, I think it's page 14, the second bullet,
both towns show elevated EFA enrollments in grades four and five, particularly for transferred out students.
This suggests that families may be pulling students out before middle school transition.
Again, that's an assumption. I don't know. We should look at that. Upper elementary may be where families are reassessing educational options,
and that this could be a critical intervention point for school districts wanting to retain students.
Next bullet. Both towns show lower EFA and
in grades 9 through 12 compared to elementary.
So again, it raises some of these questions.
Our students, maybe they're staying for sports or social connections or college prep classes.
Families who haven't chosen in EFA by high school are less likely to switch.
And the sports category, five students in Gostown, shows some families use a hybrid approach.
So really, I want to kind of read off some of these challenges.
and opportunities for those who might be watching on television.
So for policy implications on page 14,
school boards will need to review the implications of eligibility
of eligibility changes to the EFA program in their current policies and procedures,
more specifically regarding part-time enrollments,
participation in co-curriculars, and the consideration of tuition charges,
which the superintendent talked a little bit about before.
Programmatic and fiscal compliance.
Ongoing to ensure public funds are being spent in compliance with state laws.
School districts need to ensure the EFA families are not enrolled beyond part-time status so as to preclude EFA eligibility.
So this is where it gets a little bit tricky.
So we get those EFA participation reports from the state and we get it four times a year and it goes back three months.
We then compare it against our own student roster to see.
see are they dual enrolled? We have seen some of that. We then notify the children's
scholarship group. They then contact the family and then they're no longer, if they're here,
they cannot do both. So then they are, you know, de-enrolled or unenrolled in the EFA program.
Sometimes there might be a lag. So somebody, there might be a family who participated in the program.
They got, you know, their check and then they enrolled. Let's say one of our schools.
and, you know, is there a possibility that they could have been involved at the same time?
Yep, but that's not our problem.
That's kind of the state has to kind of figure that one out.
Fiscal impact, the potential for public school budget pressures as funds are reallocated to EFA's
necessitates ongoing monitoring and transparent reporting.
So again, we are looking at that.
I don't know if other school districts in New Hampshire are doing that type of work, but
We do cross-check every time we get that state report.
That state report has gotten way better over the last two years than it did in the early stages.
So the state is doing a much better job, I think, of making sure that folks are not double-dipping.
Program sustainability, balancing program expansion with the financial stability of public education requires careful policy calibration and stakeholder engagement.
I think.
here right now, as I mentioned, there's a 10,000 student cap on the number of EFAs in New Hampshire
for this school year next year by statute that goes up to 12,500. So with that, that's why you saw that
big spike. It'll be very interesting to see when that cap goes up another 25%, how will it affect
New Boston and Dostown numbers? Data collection, improved data tracking at the
district level, especially in Goffstown and New Boston, which is important for the following reasons.
Accurate enrollment, information, and reporting to the state will ensure appropriate revenues are collected to offset district expenditures.
So we want to make sure that everyone is being treated fairly and that the money is flowing where the statute says that it should be flowing too.
And secondly, it will enable more accurate assessment of program outcomes and inform future policy decisions.
One of the things that I do not go into any type of detail here, and people have asked is, well, what are the academic type outcomes of the EFA program?
I did provide you with links that you can take a look at whether it be the audits that are performed for the EFA program through the Children Scholarship Fund.
So there are fiscal audits.
The state also has a committee.
which is charged with reporting out on the outcomes of the EFA program.
They were one or two years behind.
They just issued a draft report, and that's also included in a hyperlink, so you can take a look at that.
And again, this reporting is agnostic to whether or not you are for or against, whether you think the audits are actually,
or not accurate, it's just provides you with that information and you can make those conclusions on your own.
So with that, again, this just tries to give you a little bit of a flavor for, you know, where this EFA program is.
I know that there are likely policy implications.
I know from a financial perspective, whether it be with our database or data people,
who work for the district, or whether it be our business administrator, we're looking at
revenues all the time.
These are important decisions that have to be made.
But I do think, though, that there's a couple of takeaways here.
One, if you take a look at that great distribution, hopefully you can see that you're not seeing
these big jumps where you could, like, reduce one third grade teacher.
It's simply not there.
I think that was something that was stated at a lot of
hearings early on, that you're going to have fixed costs, you're not going to be able to do that.
I think the data, you know, kind of speaks to that.
The other thing that, you know, when you take a look at the lost revenues, 190,000 and whatever it was,
there were some concerns that that that number would be way, way higher.
It doesn't appear to be the case.
But again, depends.
That's current state.
We don't know where this is headed, you know, in the out years, whether that capital will go.
higher than 12.5. So that's a state cap.
State cap. Yes. State cap. And we don't and cannot have a local cap?
Correct. That's correct.
Scott, do you think because these are just the five years and it makes sense when kids are already in high school, they probably don't want to go away.
But when you have the students that start earlier is the assumption they will continue.
Not necessarily. So we have seen instances where students are part of the EFA program
and then they return to the public school. So I think you're seeing it all over the place.
The data does show that there are, I don't have those exact numbers, how many came back.
And that's the other thing too is that we had to like pretty much hand count. Like there isn't,
There was a lot of hand counting on this because that data is not super clean.
So, Scott, just going off for your challenges and opportunities, data collections, one of the things that you just mentioned.
Yeah. I'm going to ask the question, what can we and we as a you as a you do better for data collection so that we have a repeatable process to have consistent data here over year.
I believe that, first off, we're very lucky to have people like Betsy and
who are responsible for all of our data collection that's mandated by the state of New Hampshire,
not just for EFAs, but I'm talking about for beginning of year counts, you name it, okay, all of our grades, things like that.
I believe that FY26 was the best data set the state has ever given us, and it is now a much easier, repeatable process.
But it took a long time, Jared, to get, you know, the prior years.
was easy compared to trying to figure out FY22 in the prior year.
So I think it is going to be a – I don't think it's going to be a ton of work, but it's going to be a little bit extra to monitor it.
So it's not an opportunity necessarily for you or the team to do data collection is getting the state to give us the data in a way that sense.
Right. And they're also, they're promising to give us more data.
But as of now, you know, a lot of this was manual.
But I think your question was a great one.
Is it repeatable?
Yes.
And if FY27 or 28 was as similar to FY26 will be in good shape to keep the data and the trends will be able to keep tracking it.
Superintendent bulky.
Thank you.
One of the thing that I would just share with the board to give you a little perspective,
it's my understanding we are the only school district that has done a report of this nature.
So I wanted to give you the perspective that this is not.
an endeavor that other school districts have done so we are right now
probably one of one that we're at a point that we were able to to do this work
to be able to identify and then to look at what this is at the local level so it is
absolutely my intent to continue to replicate this moving forward I think that we
want to be able to look at trends we want to be able to look at data over time
we want to be able to possibly consider reaching out to some of these families
and inquiring why I think at some point there is a powerful opportunity to
engage with these families there are kids there are families I think we
should say to them tell us why you left and it could be I wanted the money it
could be that I decided that you know this was a better
better fit for our families but I just want you to know to have the perspective
that we are one of the only districts that have done anything remotely around
this and when I started talking about this several months ago with other school
districts they didn't know their own data was in the state database so we're at a
higher level that we have a really solid data team that was able to do this work
and then obviously layer mr. Gross on top of that that's why you got a good
comprehensive report but
We'll keep this moving forward because I think all of this needs to be analyzed for trends.
And I did make a note, everyone, that there's several notes in terms of the limitations of the data.
To give you one example, I gave you a link to the state's information on EFA accounts and the money, et cetera.
They were slightly off in terms of what we have.
So we were using October data, which is what the state uses for everything in terms of its beginning of year
support. So when the superintendent signs off on enrollment, they always use October 1 data.
EFA program, guess what they use? December data. So there's a slight little differences there,
but we wanted to try to be consistent, you know, from our perspective, that October is really the important date, not so much, you know, December.
So, and again, I mentioned that, you know, we had to hand count families and do other, we made some other assumptions. So the data is not 100%
perfect, but I believe it's about 95% good overall.
And I think it does tell some decent stories within the data.
Will this be available to the public on the website?
For a small fee.
50 cents.
It may not shall.
We're not charging for it.
I'd like to take my head off to the IT.
for their data collecting because we know they will fully understaffed and Scott,
between you and them getting this, all of this information together for us, whereas it's not
easily available at the state, I, you know, I take my hat off to them for spending that much
time and probably staying here way after hours to get that done.
So thank you guys.
This was a great project.
Dan, is there any outcome data on the dollars spent, like what it goes to?
to what achieved, not that I'm aware of.
There is some, if you check on those links, contained in some of those reports,
you will see where some of the state's EFA money went to.
So there are certain private schools where they will tell you that this is where the highest
percentage of EFA dollars went to, those particular schools.
So there is some, but again, it's contained in some of these hyperlinks.
If you go in the department,
of education website there is a specific area which is linked in this in this report
for EFAs and then from there you have to click around a little bit to find more and more
or so keep clicking away and you'll find a lot of information more than you can imagine
okay what are the questions we have for start what's the so the EFA what funds go in
there like it's capped at 10,000 students each student can get
It depends.
It's similar to New Hampshire advocacy.
You could get more if you have a student who is free and reduced.
You could have more if a student is reading below grade level, those to add those sentences.
Right, okay.
So it's still that way.
So then why, like, we call the vouchers, now we call it EFAs?
Is that a misnomer on my part?
Or is that fair to say?
I call it an EFA program.
There are people who use those who use.
those two terms similarly. Okay. So what do we have in New Hampshire? Only in EFA? No vouchers.
Correct. Correct. So I use my EFA and I go to a charter school. No?
Well, a charter school is a public school. Yeah. So you'd be able to enroll as a, so there is not a residency requirement for enrollment in charter schools. You have to be a resident of the state. So there is not a residency requirement for enrollment in charter schools. You have to be a resident of the state.
state of New Hampshire. So they're different. If you're attending a charter school full-time, you're not an EFA kid.
Okay. All right. That was the, I couldn't get around. That was the answer I need.
As I tried to say at the beginning, I don't have any objection to this program. My objection is we don't pay for base adequacy for all New Hampshire kids first.
And now you're just taking more money potentially out of the Education Trust Fund.
That's always been my issue with EFAs from the beginning of this in 2022.
So not concept execution.
Yep.
Yep. Yep.
There was no additional monies or revenues that went into the trust fund to compensate for what the impact was expected to be.
And as it turns out, is exactly what people thought it would be.
So that was.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you, Mr. Gross.
Thank you.
Okay.
Moving on to staffing.
It looks like we have some assignment changes that we have notifications of.
So a few notifications, we have assignment changes, no action required of the board, as well as a track change for a high school biology teacher here.
So congratulations to Mrs. Strickland.
And then leaves of absence, these are notifications only for you, for those three.
For your approval this evening, we have two positions.
that were one-year positions, so there are two non-renewals.
So this year for the non-renewal for the one-year positions, we have two teachers for your approval.
I'd like to make a motion for the teacher non-renewal approvals that we have.
Motion by Dan. Seconded by. Seconded by Vanessa. Yeah, it's coming back that way.
All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed. Absentions. Motion passed unanimously.
We have two resignations, and I would just point out.
One of them is Mrs. Cassavant, who was on a one-year leave of absence from Goffstown High School.
She's been in the dean role, so that's a permanent for her now.
So those two resignations for your approval, please.
Move by?
Okay.
Aye.
Move by Dan. Seconded by Jack.
All those and pay or say aye.
Aye.
Ascensions, noes.
Okay.
Approves, unanimous.
Nominations.
Okay.
Okay.
So I'm going to keep.
going. The next batch is we have, these are a new position or new, new staff for us for the
2026, 2007 school year. And this goes along with the big spreadsheet. So you should have a
spreadsheet that says all the teacher nominations across all the schools. So those would go
together for teacher nominations. I'll make a motion to approve the teacher nominations as presented.
By Shane, seconded by Dan.
All those in favor?
Say aye.
Aye.
Knows.
Ascensions.
Passes unanimous.
Continuing on, so the next batch on the next batch on the staffing sheet, our administrator nominations,
we're going to pause on that.
We'll have conversations in non-public this evening regarding those positions.
So those are on hold for now.
Same is true for the facilities nomination of our facility supervisor.
as well as our admin assistant supervisor.
So those are all on hold.
Support staff specialists. Those will also be on hold.
We will discuss salary for those three individuals.
And then the last two pieces, we do have co-curricular nominations for the spring.
So those would be for your approval this evening.
And there's also one in the fall for football.
So the majority.
So the majority of those are for spring co-curriculars as well as one fall entity as well.
We will do the co-curricular nominations as one.
So motion by RETA, seconded by Dan.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Noose.
Absensions.
Passing unanimous.
So with that, let's move on to the top three things, a number of items.
A number of items.
I know RETA you have.
Writing things down?
Yeah, I took some notes, but this is up for discussion.
So the three things I have are the opening public hearing on the completion and upcoming CRF projects,
the MVMS graduation update, and the presentation on the EFAs.
I love it.
The only thing I had was the student handbooks or the trips.
Those were also on my name.
list, but it's three things.
Somebody comment on the post.
Could we add the last day of school with the graduations as well?
Yes.
It is.
But they're together.
Three and a half.
Three and a half things, Jared.
So, last day of graduation is kind of go hand in and in.
The end of school year.
Exactly.
It's good.
Thank you.
I don't think we need a vote on that.
I think we have consensus.
So any other meetings for the board before we go into non-public?
Any new items?
No?
Okay.
So non-public session for RSA-91A, sub-colon 3.
So moved by Jack.
Seconded by Dan.
We will start with Vanessa, always setting the tone.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
We are now in non-public.
Thank you very much.
Three.