Hampstead District School Board Meeting | 9-8-26

Speakers are labeled SPEAKER_N. This transcript is machine-generated.

Recording

May is September 8th, and the time is 701.
Melissa will please take the roll call.
Richard Pore, Carl Hubner,
Denise Meyer, here.
Melissa Denton, Bob Weimer.
Here.
And also seated at the board table is Superintendent of SOS, Joe Crawford,
and CFO, Jeffrey Dowd.
Please all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge to Allegiance.
flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it ends one nation under God,
indivisible, liberty, and justice for all.
Board members, in your packets, we have the previous meeting minutes.
If you could use review those.
I'll make a motion to the August 25th minutes.
Second.
Any other question or discussion?
Melissa.
Do we have anyone here for public comment this evening?
We do not have any.
Thank you.
Rolling right along into highlights with principal Dr. Cheney.
All right, good evening, everybody.
We have had successful opening this year at the Sun School.
We have welcomed that 450 students with a couple more even registering this evening.
I provided a board report for you in your packet, but I'm really excited to talk this afternoon.
about our full-day kindergarten program.
You'll remember from our spring this year, we're piloted a universal full-day kindergarten program for all of our students.
We've eliminated our half-day program for this year, and I'm excited to share a little bit more of that with you.
So the first thing to know is that we currently have 77
kindergarten students enrolled, which leaves us with classes of about 15 to 16 students enrolled.
students. Board policy IIB is that undergarden classes may not exceed 18 students
per class, and this 15 to 16 student range is really a pretty sweet spot, five and six-year-old
kids as they're learning to come to school for the first time. And so I wanted to just share with you a little
bit more about our day program versus our full-day program. As we discussed in the spring, there really
is an inequity between the two programs. In our half-day program, the students were at school for about
two and a half hours a day, which really afforded about an hour and a half of solid
academic instruction. Students attended three unified arts per week. They had two P.E.s
in a music class, and then the other two days a week, they had recess with their full-day peers.
Our full-day students, however, have four hours of academic instruction daily. They have a daily
UA, including PE, technology, art, and music. They also have lunche.
in recess at school, as well as two additional recesses a day, both morning and afternoon.
So that inequity between the programs and the time spent on instruction was really one of those
driving forces behind this movement forward. So I wanted to share with you a little bit about a day
in the life of a kindergarten student. They come in with their peers between 8.45 and 9 a.m.
And during that time is what we call our choice time.
Students have the opportunity to choose something to play with and do in the classroom.
It's an opportunity for them to check in with their teacher, be social, trade any notes that
mom or dad might have sent in or anything that we need to send home.
That's followed shortly thereafter by their morning circle time, which is their opportunity,
again, to meet in a group. They're talking about greetings. They're sharing information just about their day.
or their favorite color, just getting to know each other.
They move right into core literacy, and then that first recess of the day.
After that, we have our center time and intervention.
At center, students work independently at different centers, on different skills that they've already practiced with their teacher.
We also have the paraeducators in the classroom, and right now you can see in this photo at the bottom,
our reading specialists are going right into the classroom and working in with the students,
We're calling it a flooding approach, where it's an all-hands-on-deck to support those incoming kindergartners.
They then have their lunch and recess, a read aloud.
They go to their unified arts for the day.
They have another block of literacy and math, and then they end their day with their favorite thing of all, which is recess.
I did have a lot of parents, a lot maybe is the wrong word, but I did have a handful of parents asking at the beginning of the year
about their stamina and readiness for a full day.
And I talked individually with each of those families, and we talked a lot about how in New Hampshire, the compulsory education law is you have to be six on or before September 30th, and if their children were below that, we could work together to design a schedule that worked for them.
I worked with about a handful of families to design an individualized schedule for their student, and none of them have used it yet.
Every student has come every day and stayed for the full day, which is a really exciting piece of information.
to share.
Again, currently we're very play-based and focused on building relationships and routines.
You know, parents are, if we can go back one, that'd be super great.
You know, kids come home off the bus and they are tired.
It is a long day when you're five or six years old, but they're doing a tremendous job handling it.
And when they get home, you know, they're showing mom and dad all those feelings.
They've held in all day because they've been using all their best listening muscles.
listening muscles and they're sitting still muscles and so that's not always
happening at home but we let parents know that those first six weeks of school are
really that transition period and come beginning to mid-October they're going to come
home ready to go and ready for those afternoon activities again they'll have
adjusted so we do spend those first six weeks of school teaching so many
routines such as lining up lunch transitions even little things like how do you
use a pencil how do you use scissors what are our
expectations at school that might be different than what you had at home.
How do you make a friend?
How do you share toys?
Things that, you know, we sometimes assume kids might know, but they may not yet.
You know, when they're in a room all of a sudden with 15 other five-year-olds, it's so much fun.
And the payoff of this work will really also show us past dividends in first grade.
So right now, as much as our kindergarten students are learning the lunch routine,
we have a population of about a quarter of our first grader
who are learning that lunch routine as well because they did not have a full-day opportunity.
So this will help next year as well and we'll see those first graders returning to school
with much more confidence and ready to go.
So some of our next steps include we will continue to progress monitor students
and their acclamation to school.
We will conduct our fall, winter, and spring assessments to see what the impact is on student learning.
We talked a lot about that last year comparing the
numbers of students in intervention in half-day K versus full-day K, and we'll continue to look at that this year.
And I'll continue to work with families and staff to gather feedback on their experience in full-day kindergarten.
Do you have any questions for me this evening?
I really appreciate that you worked with the parents, your concerns,
and made them feel comfortable when they're letting their little ones in the school and that kind of thing.
And that's extra effort does mean a lot over the course of the time.
that they're in the school. So thank you.
Teachers have done a tremendous job building that trust and those relationships with parents.
I can't say enough of underverting.
They're lovely.
All right.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Moving through.
This update from HMS Principal Amy Hart.
So before I get into talking about some of our green alignment that we've been working on in last two years,
I did want to share that we were rolling out a new
way to connect families.
We are starting a coffee with the admin and counseling team.
And we're starting with just a really informal question answer session.
We're inviting please to our library just for after student off at 745 in the morning.
We're going to offer babysitting for those that need it.
And we're just going to answer questions for them about them school.
You know, at the beginning of the year, we recognize that
some of our parents have more anxiety about school kids do.
And so the more that they can see us, see what we have to offer,
know that their kids are in good hand,
and the more we can begin those partnerships with our families.
So we're going to start just with whatever they want to know,
whatever questions they have, and then we're going to move into some other topics.
We're going to pull families to see what they want to hear about,
but we're investigating topics such as peer conflict,
helping your students with study skills and grades,
looking at attendance and school refusal.
Those were some that we had in mind.
So stay tuned.
But again, the first one that we're going to do
is going to be Friday, September 25th at 745.
So I'll be putting out a lot of information
and I'm just hoping we have some families join us.
So moving in from there,
I'd like to share what we've been working on
for two years here at HMS.
and that is looking at our grading practices here at the middle school.
So over the past year,
we conducted a comprehensive review of our grading practices,
looked at what every teacher was doing in the classrooms
across all grade levels, UAs,
to see kind of where we stood.
And our goal was to align with educational best practices
and clearly communicate academic progress
to our families,
and our students. So grades shouldn't be something that they have to figure out.
We should all be on the same page with how to support our students,
and our students should be able to look at their grades and understand them as well.
Also, grades should really reflect what a student knows, understands, and can do.
So we shouldn't be grading kids on compliance.
We should be grading them on understanding and comprehension.
Grades, again, should be very clear to families
and those that support their students
so that we can all be on the same page.
page and they should really show mastery over time.
So what we did this year was we looked at our grade level teams and our UA teams and
we developed a common grading practice throughout each grade level.
So if a student is in fifth grade, how the student is graded is going to be the same
across all subject areas.
Our UA team has also aligned their grading.
So that this should be pretty clear to families.
so that they kind of understand, you know, what the policies are for missing work,
for retakes, for what, you know, what the assignments are.
It's just so that we have a clear communication with our families.
The information is going to be shared in various ways,
so we're actually going to embed it into power schools.
So when a family pulls up a student's grades,
they're going to see a table in there.
And every team, all grades are going to have the,
exact same table, but the percentages will be a little different.
And I'll talk about that in a minute.
And it also be in team communication and on syllabus, so various different ways.
And then all grades are going to be divided into two categories.
So two main categories, and those are formative and summative.
So for those people that don't know what those terms stand for,
formative is the work that's done during the learning process.
So this is the practice that provides feedback.
and helps the students growth.
So examples of that could just be daily classwork,
exit tickets, practice worksheets, short quizzes.
That's the work that's done in the learning process.
That should have a very small impact on the students' grades.
And then summative, that's the work that's done after the learning process
to evaluate the understanding and mastery of the skills.
So examples of that would be unit tests, labs, presentations,
and essays. So our teams have gone through, and they have decided how much percentage
each of these categories will be, and then listed different examples of work depending on whatever
their content might be. Each team will use that same waiting procedure for formative and
summative, and they also have developed the same procedure for retakes and missing work, and all
that will be communicated to families. So they understand what students
can make up with a, you know, with a timeline that's involved and how much percentage
that would be. The procedures have been developed and aligned for both formative and summative
categories. And again, there's the same across the grade levels. So we're actually have
a progression towards having our summative way more as we go from fifth grade all the way to
eighth grade. And then, you know, knowing that this is the first
that we've sort of rolled this out and tried to have a more consistent practice across
the grade levels, we're really going to be looking at this academic progress of our students
and analyzing the data to see if we need to tweak these percentages or if they're really
showing mastery towards content. We understand that mastery doesn't happen for every student
at once, right? So a perfect example of this is going to get your driver's test, your driver's license,
right? If we, if you failed that test and we're never able to get your license, that would
be a problem, right? But you can take it as many times as you need in order to get it. And so
we really have to look at our retake procedures and process, and we really have to refine our assessments
so that we are making sure that we, our students are understanding concepts. That's really what
it's about. So our PLCs are going to be looking at our retakes and our procedures around that.
And we're going to be kind of working those as we go through this process. So that's kind of what we have on ahead of us. So I think that might be it for me. What questions do you guys have?
So the question I have is, right, you have the kid that doesn't do a lot of the homework kills the test. They're fine. They can move on because they understand it. You have a student that doesn't do the homework. They then fail the test is is a part of the process.
that they actually have to go back and do the formative work to get ready for the test?
Or is that something you guys are working on to figure out?
So, you know, for a robust retake process, there has to be reteaching, right?
So that is also going to be communicated in the communication from our teachers.
So that would involve getting extra help, going through different assignments, things like that in order
to show mastery to be able to retake an assessment.
Awesome.
And then I love the sitting down with the parents, just like the kindergarten parents.
Middle school is really scary for people, and I think that's really proactive and a great way to do it.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Bob.
Because I'm not familiar with a grading process, even when I keep going to the school system,
how do you characterize or describe the actual elements in this process?
What is it that you're comparing?
What is it that you're comparing?
using as a basis for evaluating these things?
Well, we're looking for mastery of content, right?
So we want to know that our student has understood what the objectives of the course are.
And we don't want to look for just compliance, right?
So the day-to-day assignments are not changing, right?
We're not changing what we're doing in the classroom.
We're just making sure that our students understand the material before they move on.
How are we going to do?
do that, though? It's a, you know, a valued concept, but what specifically will you do to
demonstrate that they have this mastery? Well, when you look at the percentages of the various
different assignments, right, and you're weighing the summative assignments, whether those are
performance tests, tests, labs, whatever they might be, right? If you're weighing them heavily
and those are your competencies in a class, then if a student passes those, then you know they've
mastered those competencies, right? So if they don't, then we have to look at re-teaching
that and making sure that they understand that. And that happens in a variety of ways.
I don't know. I'm not sure I fully appreciate the exact process, and perhaps I would need to
understand that, but tell me what an exit ticket is. Oh, sure. So that would be, you know,
you're working on a scale in a class, and you just want to check a test.
to see if the students understood what the lesson was. So you might just give them a short
problem and ask them to hand it in their answer on the way out. So you can just check
for understanding. I see. So it's not really a ticket. It's an assignment that they're turning
in based upon the studies that are going on in that class. Correct, because you can't leave
if you don't give the ticket. How do you structure final essays? One of the
concerns that has been expressed in today's world is when you write an essay, are you using any
kind of aids? So are these essays that are being written at home? These essays that are being
written at school? And how do we know if someone is actually using one of these excellent AI
tools to help write essay? Wow, that's a loaded question. And I believe that we are
looking at various different softwares that our teachers can run essays through in order
to see if there is any AI components involved in that. But also, we are going to be doing
an AI training with our staff in March and for a couple of different things. So one of the pieces
will be about how we can use AI to our advantage as professionals. But then the other
piece is how we can look at developing lessons and
assessments that are AI proof and really testing for understanding. So we're
actually going to be having a workshop on that and bringing some experts in in March.
I would love to see it done earlier, but I know schedules are schedules. The grading
weights and it retakes and missing work. I think that was one of the things that was
mentioned earlier. Am I to understand that the historic practice has been to
allow retakes rather than basing a grade on an actual first test? Are we basically giving
people second chances, third chances, in order to finalize their grade?
So our current process in the handbook has not changed.
at this moment in time so we're going to be looking at that but that is
that students can retake an assessment for up to 80% that the assessment has
to be a major assessment. That's what's in our handbook at this time. It doesn't
have a number of times that they can retake it because the idea is that mastery
doesn't happen at the same time for every student, right? So it does that we
don't have that in our policy but certainly we're going to be looking at
if that aligns with best practice.
Well, you've used that particular term, best practice several times.
And I have to admit that I don't understand what best practice means.
And perhaps it's a, you know, it's a specified thing that I could read somewhere, but
when you say best practice, is this a practice that is coming from some national program?
Is it something that's coming from the state?
what's the basis of what you're calling best practice?
Well, so there's many different people that have written in a best practice, but I guess
maybe to answer your question better would be to explain to you when I was looking
at my own lessons, my own grading in my chemistry class.
So as we were exploring this at Pinkerton when I was a chemistry teacher, at first I was a
a little irritated because I had been in a classroom and a teacher for 15 years and I said,
well, why are they making me look at my grading and examine that? I already know all that there
is to know about grading. And I graded on total points. And so my students had homework every
single night, mostly, right? And our labs and tests were 100 points apiece, and each homework
was 10 points, right? So then when I actually look at what I was grading my students on, and if they
homework every single night of the week, right? They could have in one quarter a thousand
points in homework and only 300 points in tests. So when we say best practice, am I showing
that my kids understood the material or was I showing that they were compliant in following my
directions? Does that make sense?
Well, it does, but I guess the question comes back to, you're saying that you're saying that you're
trying to use what you're calling best practice and having everybody follow the same.
Is that exactly what's happening? And maybe I'm getting into the weeds and we shouldn't,
but, you know, perhaps it would be better if I understood more about the process. Maybe you could
send me, you know, what your guidelines are. Maybe that would be helpful so I could understand,
you know, how this all fits together. Yeah.
And can you mind if I just say?
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think assessment practices are incredibly complicated.
And I think there's a couple pieces happening here.
One, we've talked about the need for consistency so that parents and students and teachers all understand what the rules of the road are.
And ensure that they're developmentally appropriate.
So, you know, these two buckets of formative and summative are really important to understand.
So formative is practice.
That's, you know, if anybody remembers the old Alan Iverson tirade about the difference between practice and performing in a game.
And his argument was, you want to talk about practice, but really what matters is how I perform.
And in many ways, that's how we look at educational assessment.
The tiny little things that we ask students to do oftentimes in homework assignments or exit tickets or class work,
they're snippets and they're during the learning process.
So sometimes they're pre-learning.
It's a good way of the teacher understanding, like, what do you already know?
What do you need help on?
Those measures, to go back to your best practices question, there has been a lot of literature
that's come out over the last probably 15 to 20 years around ensuring that the grade that we put out there
truly reflects what the student knows and can do after that.
they've had teaching and instruction.
When we, when I was a kid, we would get a grade if we covered our textbook.
We would get a grade if we brought in a permission slip.
And what ends up happening, so we can point you to some great articles.
So like Rick Wormley, Rick Stiggins, there's some great assessment experts to talk about
the distortion that happens when you start adding in all of these, I heard Amy say
earlier, compliance measures that are important.
I would be the first to say that I think it's,
It's important that we measure whether or not students are showing up the school,
whether or not they're turning in their homework, whether or not they're organized.
But when we mix that in together with whether or not they understand chemical compounds
or whether they can perform a lab and we mix it all together, we distort the grade.
So we don't really get a true measure of what students know and can do.
Isn't that the reason why in years past you would have attendance as a separate
Yeah.
Recognition rather than having it become part of a total grade.
It would be a separate item on your...
Sure.
And I think historically, though, many teachers, and I was a teacher that did this too.
And I think, Amy, your example is a great one because when I was a middle school teacher,
I used to keep track of homework assignments and you'd get a check if you turned it in on time.
And it goes back to Carl's example.
I had students that could turn in their homework every day because they were very organized, but they
didn't know the material.
But if I overvalued that compliance of homework, it distorts it.
So that homework piece, which is formative, it doesn't really tell us a ton about what
they know.
It tells us, are they good at playing school?
Are they organized?
Do they have a lot of those skills together, which are all important?
That's a smaller piece of the grade, the formative side.
The summative side is where we have to write and design assessments, and I think you're right to call it out.
force the student to demonstrate and prove that they understand.
The best example, I mean, I know I use the sports analogy, but Grant Wiggins and Jay
McTie from Understanding Design, they're another assessment experts, talked about the purpose
of school is not to get good at school, right? The purpose of school is to develop an understanding.
And how do you know if somebody understands when they apply that learning to a real authentic
context. So I think projects, really well-written tests, a lot of stuff that we can do
in school. I am worried about students taking stuff home and then whether or not it's truly
they're a reflection of their knowledge and mastery. I also worry about the homework piece, right?
Because we have some students who go home to an environment that is highly supportive of getting
their homework done. And we have some students that have lots of other family responsibilities.
and it's a somewhat unequal playing field.
It always has been, though.
Yeah, it always has been.
Which is...
This isn't new.
I have one final observation that I'd like to make, and I think it's embedded within your coffee
with administration and the parents.
But I've become more interested in the whole question of,
and primarily because my own grandchildren are struggling
with the use of tech. And I wonder if an element of these building independent
study habits should address issues like how do you manage the use of tech?
And I just finished reading a book called The Digital Delusion.
I have to say it provides a litany of ideas on how to improve or improve is the wrong word.
word, how to help teenagers and adults manage their use of tech.
And I would hardly recommend it to any parent out there to come up with strategies that would help them manage the use of tech.
That's what that book is all about.
So I literally was trying to think of a good example, and I thought your driver's ed example is really good
where the kid may show up to every single driver's ed course, he may pass every quiz, he does all
all the required hours, and then you go to do the test, and he's a horrible driver.
That's the end of it, which, and then the formative processes, you may have them do certain hours.
And then, like, best practice Bob would be like, I'm going to talk to other driver's ed or research.
They struggle with blah, so we go to the parking lot and practice blah, and then, say, like, writing an essay,
like, you may have them write the outlines, you may have them do the research.
But then when you sit them down at a computer,
may be terrible at writing the actual essay, and that might be anxiety.
It might be the fact that they've used AI too much.
It's figuring out that formative process to give them it again, and they wouldn't get the full credit
from doing it the first time, but they still get credit to get where they are.
But it's funny, like, I love that you ask these questions, because in my head it makes sense,
but it's such a hard, vague thing to put in a word sometimes.
So I understand.
teaching and some of the frustrations of teaching.
I also have grandchildren, and I had children, so I understand the frustrations, particularly in today's world with tech.
And I know my one daughter doesn't struggle as much as the other because boys seem to have more tendency to want to play the games.
But the observation I'll make is that there are a lot of challenges out there that probably were never part of parenting 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
and it does have an effect on education.
So that's why I was raising that particular issue.
Sure.
And we're just, I'm really excited to be able to communicate with our families clearly.
You know, our students are going from having one classroom teacher and a few UAs a year
to now having a set of four teachers, multiple UAs,
parents are getting on to power school and looking at grades for the first time
and not really understanding what they're seeing.
And how can you support you're a child if you don't understand the grade book?
So we're all going to be on the same page going forward, and I'm just really excited about how we'll be able to support our kids.
Great.
I just want to say thank you, because I think that's a great point.
So as a parent with kids in the schools, it has been difficult to understand what are they actually getting graded on.
Now I also come from a family where I have educators surrounding me.
So I have to ask them things.
What is formative mean?
What is summative mean?
How do the things tie together?
So I think the exercise that you went and did here is,
highly valuable for everyone to understand and also help their kids further their learning,
right?
So it's that partnership between the home and school that I think the grading practices will start
to, I guess, support a little bit more, too.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Now, maybe don't go anywhere because you're up next for overnight field trip request
that you'd like to share with us.
Okay, so I'm super excited to be able to take our seventh and eighth graders on overnight field trip.
So talk to me in March and April when I'm exhausted from these ones, folks.
But we're going to start, we'll start with the seventh grade.
So I'd like to ask this school board, I would like to ask your permission for our seventh graders to attend the overnight field trip for ecology school.
This year we would like to go in March and going in March, so the dates are the 17th through the 19th of March.
And going at that time of year, we'll, we'll, we'll,
allow us to observe the maple syrup process.
So we haven't been able to do that yet, so we're really excited about that.
But ecology school is a fully immersive learning experience.
The kids are in it through the time they wake up in the morning till the very moment they go to bed.
They'll be exploring the forest, the fields, the coastal river, the coastal river,
by the Saco River, they'll be learning about conservation and energy, and it's just a really
awesome experience, and we'll bring them home very tired to you. So I'd like to ask your permission
for the seventh grade ecology school field trip. Something we've done before?
Yes. Yes. Okay. And what's been the result? I only get rave reviews from the kids. It's
absolutely fantastic. And the parents as well? Yep.
I can attest to that. So I've had one child that went through it, and it's a fantastic learning opportunity for them.
They're very excited about it. They get to bond with one another from a social standpoint. It's really great.
And just learning things and getting hands-on time out in nature, which some of them don't get a lot of that time.
They're not an outdoor-inclined family.
Exploring, hiking, waterways. It was highly beneficial.
Again, speaking from personal experience with a child that went to it.
it was something that they all really enjoy doing.
For many, it's their first time away from home.
That too. And no electronics.
So, no cell phones.
And since you're first, when we go to a new location, it's much cleaner.
And just, I just knew and the kids love it.
I'll make a motion to accept the request for the seventh grade field trip.
I'll second.
Any other questions, comments?
All in favor?
All right.
Terrific.
So next one, I would like to ask your permission to take our eighth graders on our overnight field trip to Washington, D.C.
So this year, our dates are going to be Tuesday, April 20th to Friday, April 23rd.
I didn't say the cost on the last one, which is roughly 400 a person.
But this one is roughly just over 1,000 per student.
And this is the purpose of this.
trip is to really connect our students to their civics curriculum and everything that they're
learning throughout the year in their, in our social studies program. So they really get to witness
democracy and action. We're going to tour the Capitol building. We tour major monuments
and memorials, Arlington National Cemetery. So it's three nights, four days. We go to Pennsylvania, and
we tour the historic Philadelphia, awesome experience for the kids.
Having been on that trip many years ago, as a chaperone, I can assure you that it is an
unbelievable experience. I heartily recommend it.
Well, and I can say too, taking my family just as a side was a different experience than going
with the tour because we have tour guides for all of the different parts. And the kids are
really, like, engaged with what our tour guides are sharing. So through every single
tour, we have a personal tour guide that goes with a small group of students. So they really get to
learn so much in every space that we go.
Even the bus drivers are knowledgeable. I feel like it's just a tradition. It's like if you live on
the East Coast, like, that's what you do for middle school. Oh, schools across the nation do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make a motion to accept the request for eighth grade
trip. I'll second that.
Other questions, comments? I have one question. Sure. So obviously the cost here is significantly
higher than the other trip. Has there been any consideration to do other kind of fundraising
to alleviate some of that burden on families? We have talked about it, and it definitely is
a cost. And we are so lucky in this community to have so many wonderful giving families
who help support this. But I
definitely open to fundraisers. And the thing is, is we have to do that proactively
with a year in advance. So it's definitely something I've explored, and I'm still open to. And
I have to say, having, you know, your kids earn it a little bit does have, does kind of hold
some weight there. So I would like to explore a little bit more of that, for sure.
Yeah, I would just say that's the only thing. And then for those who can't afford, there's programs,
just for those who might be listening tuned in, there's programs to support.
Yeah, we don't turn anyone away.
Yeah. That was all that I have. We're good. All approved?
Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving along, a student services update with Mrs. McDonald.
Good evening. I'm here to finally be able to present to you our findings and outcome from our
PAGS process or program approval and general supervision process that we went through
this past spring. We finally received.
our report in the middle of July, and Francine, Flynn, Katie Ryan, and myself
had the opportunity to meet with our lead from the Bureau of Special Education to go through
everything. Overall, I want to make sure that I start with mentioning how impressed they were
with everything that we submitted, the quality of our IEPs, our paperwork, and just
everything that went into this process was highly recognized.
and not to be overlooked.
Just a reminder that all LEAs or local education agencies throughout the state go through this process
and are required to participate.
And this is just to improve educational results and functional outcomes for students with disabilities.
Every LEA goes through this process at least once every six years, possibly sooner if needed,
but definitely once every six years.
There's two.
rounds per school year. We happened to be in the spring, but some school districts
go through it in the fall as well. So there were eight components to this process. I just
wanted to kind of give some high-level review for each component. I don't want to go
into too many details, but this will be posted if anybody has more questions. So our
first component had two pieces. The first was our organizational chart, our personnel list,
The Bureau Special Ed conducted a personnel certification review to make sure that everybody that we have on staff,
either district hired or district contracted, are properly credentialed for the positions that they hold.
And then we also had our special education policies, procedures, and forms that we had to submit for review.
I do like to always highlight our organizational chart.
This just goes to show how large student services really is and how many positions are cast.
under each area. This did start with our SAU level and then goes down.
So this incorporates our, again, our district hired and district contracted positions that help to make sure that all of our students with disabilities have their needs met.
So good news is that everybody is appropriately assigned to the proper areas within the roles that they are hired or contracted in.
Our special education procedural manual, this is a rather large manual, about 38 to 40 pages.
It outlines our child find process, confidentiality requirements, our referral process, different placement environments,
evaluation procedures and monitoring of our annual and initial IEPs.
That was all within compliance.
And then the forms that we were required to submit for review were also aligned with what we were.
what was expected of us.
The second part of this first component was more like a, honestly, like a research paper.
So this multi-page narrative was put together by our assistant director, Francine Flynn,
and just really highlights Hampstead as a district, as a community,
and how we really support our staff and our students from preschool all the way through 21 plus.
The second component is, highlights our federal performance indicators and data probe.
So the Bureau of Special Ed, as you can see, the team is rather large.
I'm not going to read off all of the different areas of representation.
But all of these people at the state were looking at many data resources that were reviewed,
such as our LEA determinations.
I've reviewed that before.
It's kind of like our annual report card.
They're looking at all of our indicators and where we perform on each of those areas.
So those are some of the data sources that.
were looked at, our data dashboards, and also all of our indicator monitoring results.
So just some areas to highlight that were brought to our attention when we had our review meeting.
So we have talked over the past couple of school years about some of our higher areas of identification
and our high number of IEPs here in Hampstead.
One that was made especially of note to us was our area-specific learning disability.
This happens to be above the state rate by 7.4%.
So that was something, and this is actually a better visual that they provided us,
that's something that actually requires an additional action item,
which I will review in a little bit, but just because of the significant higher percentage from the state average.
Although we do have a tad bit of a higher percentage in other health impairment,
As well as in autism, they were not alarmed by those areas because those tend to be a little bit more in line with other school districts around the state.
And the next graph actually is a nice year-over-year visual that they put together for us.
So this looks at the years of 2016 through 2024.
They mentioned as a state that our area of developmental delay or DD as it's noted there has increased.
This has come out specifically with
our preschool population as it's an area where students can receive more service for global developmental delays,
the areas of motorability or adaptive skills or speech and language skills.
There has been an overall decrease in emotional disturbance or ED as is labeled up there.
However, with that, there's also been a little bit more of an increase in the area of OHA or other health impairment.
So in many cases it used to be with a
medical diagnosis of anxiety, it was an automatic educational disability of emotional disturbance.
We've started to pull away from that a little bit more and truly look at whether the anxiety
as across multiple environments and over longer periods of time.
If not, that can be just as well captured under other health impairment and still provide
a student with the same level of goals, services, and accommodations that they require.
And then you'll see where the significant increase in specific learning disability has come along.
Just a few other graphs I wanted to note just to highlight our graduation rates.
As you can see, the data for the very last graph was not pulled at the time this report was pulled together.
But not only have we increased our graduation data, but we're also above the target and the state level.
and the state level, which I think is something to be noted.
Our dropout data has decreased.
We've had 0% dropout over the past four fiscal years.
And something that I know, Mrs. Thomas Selli and I have mentioned in the past couple of years as well,
is just looking at our participation rates with our New Hampshire State Assessment,
or New Hampshire SAS, as we refer to it.
So the graph on the left is in the area of reading.
The graph on the right is the area of math.
And you'll see over the years that our participation rate here in the district is lower than that of the state average.
And a lot of this is a result of the opt-outs that we receive or students that are not able to complete the testing.
So we have seen more students on IEPs opting out or not taking the test and going quite below the state average.
So this is certainly an area that we want to continue to focus on.
participation.
Our third component was our educational environment analysis.
So this is an area where we're continually ensuring and improving our educational environments
adhere to the guidelines of properly credentialed staff, whether students are receiving
FAPE for free appropriate public education, the considerations for our least restrictive
environments, and then stock to student ratios.
Between both buildings, these are our approval.
programs. At Hampstead Central, we have Inclusion Learning Center, RISE
is our self-contained program that's more newly approved, and then the Teach Preschool
Program. Inclusion and Learning Center are resource rooms, so that is ensuring
students are in their classroom setting for more than 60% of the day. Then Hampstead
Middle School, they have three approved programs, our EH, or Emotional Handicapped, Inclusion,
and then Learning Center.
The next component does not actually apply to us right now as we currently do not have any non-profit private schools within our town boundaries.
However, we are required to put together a plan.
If we did have one open, what we would do.
Mrs. Thomas-Thoughley does ensure with Hampstead Academy each year that they remain the status that they're currently in,
but should they change their status, then that's when we would jump in.
Some of our grant allocations would have to be supported.
students that may attend there with disabilities should that ever change,
or should a school ever open.
Our next component is, this was actually when the state, the Brewera Special Education,
pulled and reviewed 14 IEPs.
We did have the numbers, our state assigned numbers ahead of time,
so we were able to provide the information that they were looking for.
Out of the 14, this spanned from preschool all the way up through 21 inclusive.
We did have six instances of what they're considering non-compliance.
And what this means is that we need to be providing professional development opportunities
to our staff to ensure that we are not going to be continuing to have these as areas of noncompliance.
This will be rolled out with this month's department meetings within each building.
We meet once a month with Central School as well as the middle school.
So the beginnings of these PD opportunities will happen then.
So we had three instances where attention
logs were used rather than service delivery logs.
So service delivery logs are just evidence that the services and the IEPs were delivered in the way in which they were written.
So something that we decided that we would do as an outcome of this is to create a universal service delivery log
in which everybody will receive.
And then we can ensure that all the information that is required is completed for each student.
There was an instance where evidence of documentation for paraprofessional support
was not properly documented for academic carryover in a classroom.
One instance where we just needed to be more clear about group versus individual related service settings.
And then evidence of consultative services.
Consultative services can be trickier to document, but not impossible.
And we'll make sure that that happens.
Our fiscal and financial profile, this is just highlighting areas that the state's constantly monitoring.
This is a time.
time of the year right now where we're getting emails from the state regarding specific indicator numbers and we're allowed to make any corrections if possible.
So they're looking to make sure that I'm submitting our reports for reimbursement of approved grant activities on a monthly basis within a timely manner.
That we are expending our funds within our grant activities to prevent the return of unspent funds.
that we are ensuring spending of the oldest grant to the newest grant first,
so that we are, again, are not returning funds and that everything is aligned within our cycles, our grant cycles.
Our seventh component actually was not able to happen.
So the Bureau of Special Ed, just like we're facing in our public schools, is not always fully staffed.
So they were not able to send anybody out to conduct classroom observations as anticipated.
That was actually an area where people were waiting, expecting me to give them a date, and I didn't, and come to find out they just weren't.
They didn't have the capacity. They are not going to come out and observe unless there was a reason to.
So as of right now, that component was just not included.
Another component was engaging our staff and parents and caregivers and providing us some feedback.
So all of the staff were emailed a 10 questions.
survey. And we did have 11 staff that completed the survey due to the small number. They were not able to give us specific results.
However, the questions ranged from short answer to open-ended longer answer, just kind of looking for some feedback for us as a school district and a department.
And then the parent caregiver listening session to accommodate families with young kids at home, we did offer that virtually, nine family members.
members participated, which they were very pleased to see.
So overall families expressed satisfaction with staff and recognized the strengths of our district.
There's always room for growth, but it was nice to hear that overall they're pleased with how things are running.
So just to conclude, our next steps, due to the high level of students identified with a specific learning disability in our district, we are being asked to form a stakeholders group with staff members from
both buildings. The result of this will be to complete a root cause analysis and review our evaluation
procedures for the specific area of educational disability and identify a potential cause for the increase
and submit this to the state. And then also we need to provide evidence of our professional
development opportunities around the six instances of noncompliance that I outlined founded in our IEP review process.
Overall, everything.
as I mentioned, did go very well. We have colleagues in neighboring communities that I know have a lot more on their plate coming out of this process, so I really am pleased with everything that our staff was willing to take on and help with, and it was a great learning experience.
Question.
That was a lot. I thought it was really well done.
It's okay.
Sorry.
It's okay.
Go ahead.
I'm self-spoken tonight, go ahead.
That's okay.
Do you want to go?
Okay. What are examples of SLDs or specific learning disabilities?
So specific learning disabilities can be in eight different areas.
It could be math calculation, math problem solving, reading, basic reading skill,
reading fluency, reading comprehension, oral expression, or written language.
So is it like if you, so if you have dyslexia, you might be in that,
like you'd have a diagnosis and that would be the impact of it?
Yes, so that would fall under a specific,
learning disability in the area of reading, for sure.
And then when they talked about noncompliance, it wasn't that we weren't giving them
services. It was that we weren't documenting it in the way that they want it documented?
Right. Within those instances of the IEPs that they pulled, they noticed areas where we could
improve our documentation.
And that recording, and the oversight on that recording has changed in this past year compared to previous years?
It was just part of this problem.
part of this process. So I can't say that it's changed, but it will improve moving forward now
as a result of. Okay. All right. So we were doing the services. We just weren't doing the paper
quite right? Exactly. Okay. Thank you. I have a quick follow on and then I'm going to toss it over to Bob.
Question. What exactly is evidence of consultation services? What's in consultation services?
So oftentimes our teams will come together for consult to make sure that what's happening in the classroom
is also happening outside of the classroom. It could be a
a consultation with the occupational therapist of skills that they're working on in their sessions
and how those could be reinforced when the student is not in an occupational therapy session or any related service.
So those are written in specifically into the IEP.
Typically, the teams meet about 15 minutes per month just to make sure that everybody's on the same page.
Again, it's note-based because it's not a service delivered directly to the student.
So it's just evidence that the team came together, met, and fulfilled the IEP required.
So again, it's down with documentation.
Okay, I wasn't sure what comprised consultation.
Thank you for that.
Of course.
Over to you, Bob.
I have two very specific questions.
Every year I see a number of total students
who receive some form of special education system.
If I look at this chart on a child count
trends, and I look at this chart,
and I look at this chart.
at the most recent year, I just generally added up and came up with 290 students out of our total student population.
Now this includes the high school population as well, does it not?
Yes, this is preschool all the way through age 21 inclusive.
Right, so it's all 11, if you will, 1, 1,100.
I mean, I don't know what the exact number is right this minute, but it's 1100 or in that range.
So we're saying that 290 or more than a quarter of the students are receiving some form, if you will, assistance.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we are above the state average with our IEPs.
Again, not unusual for the state, but certainly we're talking about just Hampstead.
Right.
Well, my recollection is from past years that it was in the range of 21 to 23% statewide, and we're at 20%,
we're at 25 to 27.
I mean, generic numbers.
Right, vary.
Four or five percent higher.
Mm-hmm.
And is that an issue that they're identifying?
Is it that, or is there some other more credible explanation
as to why we seem to have more,
what's your sense of what that explanation might be?
So they were looking specifically just that
are areas of disability, they weren't looking at our overall number of students
and IEPs being higher than the state average when this report was put together.
However, I know that we have recognized that as a district, which is why we've started
to put some things in place such as our Bridging the Gap grant that we have spoken about recently
happening at Hampstead Central, grades K through 4, really analyzing our reading, the certifications of our
are reading teachers and reading specialists and making sure that our students
are receiving the most highly qualified instruction.
It doesn't happen overnight, so I know slow and steady steps will see
the impact over time.
Probably not as quickly as we'd like, but I'm hoping that what we have implemented and put into place
will start to decrease specifically this area of disability.
But we, when we,
When we went through this process, it was specific to what you're seeing on these charts, not our overall IEP number, but this is certainly a driving factor for that increase.
Okay.
This is probably controversial, but I'm going to raise it anyway.
I'm disappointed that only 11 staff submitted.
How many staff do we have that were given the opportunity?
This went out to everyone who is either
employed by us or contracted by us.
So that was...
Hold on a second.
I can't do math quickly on top of my head in front of you,
but that was a good
60-ish people, give or take a bit, probably more,
if I'm looking at this.
I think just day-to-day,
you know, people might have meant to fill it out.
I got buried in email.
I did send out reminders.
I'd have gone to their spam.
It's something.
so hard to say.
Well, I think this goes to an issue that I think it's important, and that is that we are
compensating teachers to assist us in managing the school, and one of that is that they give us feedback.
I recall that last year there was a study or some kind of survey done on tech use, and a similar
percentage submitted.
Now, I don't know if that's, you know, recognition of the interest of the teachers.
I don't think so.
But on the other hand, I'm disappointed that the teachers who we pay to help us run the school,
help you run the school, aren't providing the feedback.
And I'll just make that as a statement.
So if we are feeling as though we should have gotten more feedback,
I would just kind of challenge the team to think about
to think about how to make it more of a positive experience and, like,
incentivize people in some way to do that.
It does take time. They have a lot on their plates.
Understand that. Their feedback is critical to children's success.
They also know that.
So maybe just taking a look at, like, how do we improve that rate
so that they're encouraged to do it.
Maybe bring it to them.
Maybe just do it differently.
So things aren't getting lost in email.
I mean, we're all guilty of looking at email meaning to go back and not,
and then a deadline passes, right?
So that's my two sense on how to just encourage that participation
so that we're able to get that feedback.
I've already thought of a few things if we go through this again
and even like trading off I'll cover a duty if you can fill out your survey
and, you know, just kind of pulling everybody together.
Last 10 minutes of a PD, here's the QR code, everybody do it.
Yeah, make it easy.
Right.
Did the feedback go to the state and then back to the district?
Yes.
So it was here filled us out for the New Hampshire Department of it.
education.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, they forgot to give me a heads up so that I could provide everybody with a, hey, this is coming
your way.
Okay.
But I can't blame them for that.
They just got ahead of themselves.
Yeah.
There's also some friction between local educational people and that statewide, too.
Well, and having a one-month opening is a long time.
You usually want to get that off the plate.
So if you're going to complete a survey and return it to, in a month's time, yes, it's going
going to get buried and forgotten about and, you know, even if you search it, you might not find it.
Yeah.
And then I had a question on, I was talking about the eighth graders and how many were opting out.
And obviously, like, we literally talked about OHA and anxiety and that kind of stuff.
Is there a negative impact on the district if too many people opt out?
Yes.
Yes.
There is.
What's, like, what's the impact of that?
So, um,
Well, one, we have to hit a threshold of the 95% participation.
I'd have to look up the statute of what the threshold is.
I did notice eighth grade in particular was, I think, our lowest participation rate last year for SAS.
And I'm unsure of how they calculate those opt-outs in.
I'd have to do a little more research on that.
Okay.
It is 95% and even the same.
state average is below that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
I just want to say one, I mean, this presentation I think just underscores a little bit, more than a little bit,
of how complex student services is, and in particular special education,
I think that Melissa has an incredibly difficult job.
She and Francine and Katie are managing this monster process.
So anybody who,
familiar with special ed law. A lot of what she just talked about is, is really federal
and state law that requires a ton of compliance, documentation, and it is really labor-intensive.
And it makes up just her organizational chart when she and I were talking about it last week.
I mean, the student services department makes up such a huge percentage of our core staff, because
these are rights that are guaranteed in federal and state law that we must provide,
even though we don't receive the funding to provide it.
So it's pretty well documented that IDEA, what it was passed,
has never been funded at the rate that Congress promised.
So that burden falls on states and it inevitably falls on communities like Hampstead,
and it is very expensive.
But as you talked about FAPE, I think that's a state,
I think that's an important acronym everybody here is FAPE stands for free and appropriate public education.
Every child in the United States of America is guaranteed a free and appropriate public education,
which is that appropriate piece is pretty important, which means we need to meet their needs regardless of what they are.
So I credit you and your team, Melissa, because I know this is a lot of work.
Yes, and thank you to everybody who participated.
I will second that.
I have one related question, and that is that we know there's been discussion
about having some cap on administrative services from the federal, from the state level,
in our budgets. Are all of these costs part of the administrative costs?
That's a great segue into our next agenda item, I think, right?
So I want to answer it. It's a bit complicated.
And between Jeff and I, we probably have 20% of the answer and the other 80% is TBD.
Sounds like legislative.
Yes.
So there are, I'm sorry.
Do you want us to move on to that next item, which is about administrative SAU budgets?
Is that the next one?
Yes and no.
So the next one is SAU budget budget budget budget.
SAU budget public hearing requirement, and then it goes a little bit deeper.
So we're kind of segueing into things.
All right.
So I'm going to get to that question because I think it's kind of baked into some of the things
that Jeff and I are going to discuss.
So in the agenda and in one of the handouts that I provided in the packet,
I wanted to make sure that the board is aware of a new SAU budget public hearing
requirement. So this is as a result of new legislation that was passed, H.B. 564.
So just to zoom back out and then I'll kind of zoom in.
Historically, districts like Hampstead have had a public hearing in January.
And in that public hearing, the kind of full budget is presented and any warrant articles.
This law made a change to
all districts, all SAUs, including single district SAUs like Hampstead, that put an additional
requirement on top of us so we need to hold two public hearings. The first public hearing is a public
hearing on just the SAU budget. Now SAU stands for school administrative unit.
We are a single district SAU. So you right now serve
as the SAU board and the school district board, you're one in the same. But there
are some communities out there that have an SAU board that is made up of representatives from
the participating district boards. So it's a little less complicated for us, but nevertheless,
there are still additional requirements. So when we prepare the budget this year,
we are going to need to kind of segment the budget into two big pieces. One is going to be the
SAU budget. And that is primarily the administrative district level or SAU level services
that are provided. It gets, as soon as you start pulling on threads and asking what those are,
it gets very complicated. We've done some work and we're waiting for some additional guidance
from the state. And so to answer your question, do all of the special education services fall under the
SAU budget.
Likely, many of them do. But there is also another bill out there that is the tax cap bill that you
kind of talked a little bit about, which doesn't use the term SAU budget. It talks about
central office spending. And in that legislation, there was a carve out for some of the categories
that would be included in the SAU budget. So it is incredibly complicated. I think it will be
confusing for many voters. We're in the process of putting together some educational materials
to help people. But I'm going to stick to this first one first, which is the 564, which is the
reason that we need a public hearing in December. The law calls for a public hearing of the SAE
budget before January 1st. So once we have that public hearing, we can kind of move that budget
forward, and then we'll hold a second public hearing when we normally do.
in January for the general operating budget. Normally, we would really have one vote
on the budget and the SAU pieces would be included in that. This new legislation calls for them
to be separated. In March, voters will vote then on the SAU budget and the operating budget.
And there's a variety of possible outcomes. They could approve.
both. They could deny both. They could approve one and not the other. And there are
all sorts of contingencies that are put in place. So the key today is just to ensure that
everyone understands that we do need to add another public hearing to the calendar. Melissa
and I were looking at the calendar, working that out, ensuring that it is on our agenda.
There are additional reporting requirements that have to do with the posting of
materials and information for people.
prior to that public hearing.
As I said, and I'm trying to kind of avoid Bob's question, because it's, there's so much
ambiguity among legal counsel, among the Department of Revenue, the New Hampshire Department
of Education, there's a lot of ambiguity as to what exactly is included in these two different
budgets. But we'll work on it. I think our goal is to make it
as simple as possible for voters.
I just want to make sure people, because it happens to be the day of the primary today,
so people are already thinking about a November election.
As I shared with the board a few weeks ago, there was another bill that was passed HV-1300
that has placed a question, a tax cap question, on the ballot in November, which is a little unusual.
It's a lot unusual because we typically don't have.
school district budget questions in November they're usually in March this
one will be in November and we will put out some material and information to
ensure people understand it because it is not common so people might not
know what they're voting on though at that point they'll be voting on a tax
cap and a cap on administrative expenses at 6% of the total budget that is
not the same as the HB 564 bill which is going to be
the SAU budget on the warrant in March. So I'm sure that's confusing, but I'm happy to try
to answer questions people may have. I think the one question I have is how can
we help you develop and disperse this information? Great question. So I'll be
attending the statewide conference on Friday of superintendents where we will be talking
through some of this to ensure that we have consistent legal interpretation of these
bills. And once we kind of wrap our heads around that, and we are, I know Jeff is waiting to
meet with his group of business administrators around the state. We are waiting for some guidance
from the Department of Revenue Administration about how the tax levy will be calculated. So once
we get all that information. I think we probably will need to think about ways in which we can
share very simple information in lots of different ways. So through social media, through our meetings
here, through material that we send home to families that we post on our website. Simple, simple
materials. We looked at some examples. Rich probably knows more about this. I know he does
than I do. In Massachusetts, there have been several communities that have gone through this tax
cap process. So there's a lot of actual material out there that kind of breaks it down for
taxpayers. So yeah, we'll need many voices and people willing to go out and talk to people
about it. Well, I, for one, I'm willing to do so. Great. Did I leave anything out of it? I'm
sure I did, but okay. Any other questions about 564 in this public hearing requirement?
Many, but we're not going to answer them tonight.
Are you okay? Yeah, don't ask them tonight.
if they're into the weeds.
So I'm guessing it would screw up our normal timeline, but could you put the two public hearings
back to back on the same day?
Hypothetically we could. Typically, so we've got some timing issues that we work through here,
actually, in all of the sending communities. We typically don't get our Pinkerton Academy
tuition number until after Thanksgiving. And then we have one meeting in December.
So, I mean, I can certainly work with Jeff and the team.
When we talked about it, our feeling was trying to do the general budget in December might be really aggressive.
It might be challenging to get that done.
But what we can't do is do the SAU budget meeting in January when we normally do our,
because the statute requires it's before January 1st.
So be done in December.
So hypothetically, yes, they could be on the same day, but pragmatically it might be.
Yeah, really difficult.
No, I didn't think so.
Yeah, and we have our system in place to be able to be comfortable with what that budget number is come January.
It would also have to be pretty darn sure that we're going to have that budget finalized,
the entire budget finalized in December because of the posting requirements for the public hearings.
So we'd have to know two months ahead.
Yeah.
So it would be nice.
I'm the same.
But they're so generally pretty quick in terms of the public, you know, these serve, like a public hearing December 8th.
I never had one that night.
I assume it'll be a pretty quick run-through.
Yeah.
No, thank you.
Discussion, we can move on to the 2027-28 school budget process discussion with also Superintendent Crawford.
All right, so I know it has my name here, but I am going to, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff and have him walk us through the timeline and process, and then we can answer questions.
So I can tell from the excitement in the room tonight that you're all into budget season, just like we are.
Enthusiasm is overwhelming at times.
So we kicked off, which is hard to believe, are 27, 27,
budget planning process and information is out like here at the middle school I know
we have department requests out that those budgets will be loaded into our system on
September 25th Joe and I will take a look at the week of the a couple weeks of the
28th to August 12th to review with our principals to meet down meet with them on one go
through and really put a fine tooth comb to the department budgets we have a board meeting on
October 13th. We'll give a some, hopefully we'll have some direction for, hopefully you'll
have some direction from us as to where the budget is going at that point. And if we require
additional guidance, that would be helpful at that meeting as well. October 20th is our work
session. I'll be developed, budget development with liaisons. Those are articulated on the
schedule. The 27th, we expect to have our larger budget presentation, budget drivers and challenges,
goals, enrollment data, and schedule of our major changes, plus or minus.
October 28th to the 30th, we'll meet for a final review with principals, directors, budget
owners. On the 10th, at the board meeting here, we'll have an update on any pending budget
items or capital projects. I'll have the proposed budget presentation slideshow at that meeting.
On the 24th, hopefully we'll be able to finalize those budgets and review district
numbers. So on the 8th, December 8th, that would be to approve the school budget,
and that's the date that we are proposing to also have the SEU public hearing. I would
venture to guess, and because this SAU budget issue is a newer one, that we would have
SEU budget approval a little earlier on in the process, maybe November 10th in that
time frame. So I don't know if there any questions, a very exciting topic, where I'll just
So if that concludes that part, we can move on to the 2026-27 school board goals discussion.
All right, so board members, in your packets, you have the Hempstead school board goals that went into effect on September 23rd of 25.
I wanted to open a discussion on the floor here to review these, see if any stand,
or if members would like to propose that we add something else, move something around, reconsider what we have is our line.
up things of importance. So for those who may have thought about this in the past,
are there things that immediately come to mind, or by all means, if we want to have a different
type of discussion, lead the development goals of a different direction, feel free to chime in.
Personal feeling on this is that I think last year we had a lot of pretty productive discussion around
these goals, and I don't think we got them done until later on in the year, right?
Personally, I think letting them stay for another year, especially if we're coming up with a new strategic plan,
would make sense rather than reinventing the wheel.
Yeah, for me, like, we ended up with informational literacy, and just to give Joe an idea,
for me, that's like the, can kids evaluate the authenticity and relevance of information?
And, like, we had a big discussion about a board.
a whole bunch of different words before we shrink it down to informational literacy.
But, like, I think that, and like, especially even, again, it's a year later,
and AI is even crazier.
And I think that's, like, a, that is a goal that has to exist within the district where, like,
these kids have to be able to look at something, doubt it, and then to be able to figure out
the actual answer.
But, like, it is in there, and as long as you guys and the schools understand, like, that's the
impetus for that, those two words, I think it's fine for this year, especially, like you said.
If we're doing a new strategic plan, like, we're going to, that'll develop into the new strategic plan.
Yeah, I mean, they've broad enough that strategic plan kind of come from that, right?
And then you have your measurables from there.
Yes.
Versus we never really got that far away.
So you're feeling maybe, like, some of these are left a little undone?
We don't have...
I don't think we have data that support that we don't.
done any of them.
If I could, I'd like to make two observations.
One, since I wasn't part of this process before, I really probably don't understand the elements
that are buried in the words.
And, you know, that's always the case.
But it seems to me that the emphasis on emotional well-being is in almost every goal.
And while that is an important element, I don't believe it should be.
be emphasized in all of our goals.
I think we need to be going back to some more basic goals for education, which may include
things like performance.
And while I don't know how that would fit in here, because I wasn't part of this process, I do
believe, though, the underpinning of this may be fine.
but the overlay comes across as we're worried more about social, emotional issues than we are what I would consider to be reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I mean, and that's old school, I understand that, but I think the emphasis on learning needs to come more clearly through these goals.
And maybe I just don't read them well enough.
But that's my take.
And I'm more than happy to spend some time trying to see how that might fit in there.
But I will admit that this is not my, this particular set of goals are not my forte.
I'd have to do some hard thinking.
And I would recommend that there be some discussion about it before we adopt it.
Yeah, so that's something I was going to raise.
I feel like, you know, we can have an initial discussion.
Do we have to have our discussion?
Do we have our board goals done now in this meeting?
Okay, so to your point, Bob, I tend to concur.
So some of these things I feel like are also a little bit table stakes at this point.
So they're also existing kind of in the fabric of the community that we've built here.
So there are certain things we want to see.
We want to see more measurable things that we can come back and say, hey, this was success.
But then also if we're talking about SEL and some of these other practices,
those to me, at least as kind of outsider, since I'm not in any
It seems like we've woven that in so tightly with everything else that we stand for and we do.
I don't know that they need to be a board goal.
So we may want to consider swapping that out for something else that we feel is leaning more into the educational outcomes that we're trying to achieve.
Yeah, I think something kind of to that vein, like I think one thing I had said last year is really us looking at more of a mission and vision
and then allowing that to kind of be the foundation for the social
superintendent and his team to create goals based on that overarching mission and vision.
And then perhaps at some point having almost like a workshop to create those two things rather than
I feel like every year we try to shoehorn it into this 10 minute section of a meeting and we're all like
and just post a meeting on a Saturday morning or something where we set two hours apart to have a little
workshop on it. Just a thought. Yeah, I would tend to agree with that approach. I think.
this deserves a little bit more attention and time to really do a thorough vetting of
what we're what we're wanting to establish here.
I think it sends a good message to the town as well that, you know, we're being proactive
in thinking through what our goals need to be.
Strategic plan the last time, and it's interesting, like the strategic plan got linked to the goals
and the goals got linked to the strategic plan and then you wonder like the chicken and the egg
kind of thing.
But the last time that committee, the
committee had like, I don't know, 12 or 14 people and I met over multiple weeks and there
was a facilitator to try to grind down the language to make it actually accessible, which is
what the six goals were. Yeah, and I do think it's, when you talk about mission or vision,
you want something that is, that everybody remembers because I don't think, if you ask this
district, like what's the staff, what's the mission and vision of this district? I don't think
most people would be able to, like, come up with it at all, but, like, if you can come up
with something that's, like, it's a feel, right?
Everybody knows kind of what Hamp City School should feel like, and I think that is pervasive,
but how do you put that in words, I think, is hard, so, yeah, I'm good.
Yeah, I mean, we're the elected representatives of the parents, right?
So, like, our job is to basically convey the feeling, right?
And what we want it to look like broad strokes.
then give the superintendent the ability to take that and run with it.
Makes sense to me.
So I think takeaway from this is we need to decide when we want to have some kind of a workshop
come together and do that.
Melissa, is that something that we, or Joe, is that something that we publicize, people are able to come
if they want to, observe the discussion?
And I think like even just coming up with what the process looks like, because do you ask for
like stuff beforehand by survey versus like I think that's something like if
I don't know if like Joe can put together what that might look like or something
some sort of a process outline
sure sounds like an AI task
no no so just sometimes I struggle to hear in this environment but I want to be clear
so we can we can put together some potential dates and times for a meeting
get it out to you guys see what works and then put together a bit of a strong
to that meeting with a clear understanding of what are we hoping to to walk away from.
To Rich's point, I agree 100% from my chair having a clear set of overarching expectations,
whether we call them goals, mission, vision, priorities, that's extremely helpful.
We did do some work this summer as a team, and each of the administrators have been charged
with the development of a kind of project.
based goal that is focused on one of three areas that we identified after me talking to you folks
and parents and serve and staff and so we're going to be ready to share those kind of project goals
with the board in a few weeks we had a meeting on it today and and there's been a lot of work but
I think it's going to dovetail and fit nicely inside of this but yeah I can work through that process
between Melissa and I, we'll figure out a good way to schedule that with you all.
Rich, I heard a Saturday morning.
Is that like an ideal time for most people?
So I have one this Saturday at my actual job.
No, I hear you.
You're the same thing.
Yeah, yeah.
It can be tough to find time Monday through Friday with everybody working and having other commitments.
I think, you know, if we're looking at carving out a short bit of time, I think it's hopeful.
I'm hopeful that we can do it.
Okay.
We'll work on that.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
All right.
Moving into board comments, correspondence, board members, anything to share or discuss.
Okay.
Moving around, consent agenda.
Personnel report.
All right.
We have nothing for personnel this meeting again, which is pretty good news.
For the most part, we're in great shape with our professional staff and, you know, just
just tying some final knots around just a couple paraprofessional positions that have been,
we're hiring right now.
And where I was looking for subs, so if you want to be a substitute teacher, fill out that application.
So when it comes to superintendent's report, I don't have a lot to talk about tonight
because many of the things that I was hoping to talk out, talk about sort of found their way onto the agenda.
I do want to, I don't want to go on too much about the,
the budget process and the new sort of many changes to laws.
I think it was a very active season, legislative season this past year.
And there were many bills signed into law in June and July that have significant impacts
on policy and operations.
So stay tuned.
I've been trying to feed you it slowly.
We do have a policy committee meeting coming up this month where we're going to be diving
into our bullying.
policy first because there was a rewrite of the bullying law in the state, which we have
already implemented here procedurally, but we need to get our policy updated to match those procedures.
The primary thing I wanted to spend a little bit of time just kind of circling back on is the
leach bed project.
So I know Bob had shared some questions that he wanted some kind of feedback on regarding that
project. I worked with Jeff and Jeff to get some answers to those questions.
So I'm going to ask Jeff to give just a quick update on where we are with that project
and then also check in with you all to see if you had a chance to review our answers and see if
any, they raised any further questions.
Any questions that weren't answered in the Q&A?
And I'd like to go through them briefly for the benefit of the public.
Bob, you submitted the questions.
they were so good that we wanted to share them with the whole board and why not here?
So thank you.
Great.
So your question one was, and again, these are questions related to the Leechfield project,
replacement project here at HMS.
Was the project bid?
I'm not going to read it, but yes, the project was bid for the removal installation of Bedfield B
and the construction of an access road to middle school.
The re-bid established a June 10, 2006 response date.
Were technical effects prepared?
Yes.
technical specifications were prepared by Keach Nordstrom.
I believe they are the town.
Are they the town engineers as well?
Yes.
So we included a detailed scope of the work covering the preventing the site preparation,
abatement of the existing system, excavation, installation of the new bed,
backfill and grading, et cetera, required the work to follow their plan.
The plans incorporated into the RFP were approved by the DES on,
September 18, 2025.
We had some slight amendments to the plan.
These the plan they put together, put a whole new septic plan together for all four of our beds,
or all four of our fields.
We have two main fields with two beds each.
That plan was reworked by Keach in time for the project to commence.
So were there bid documents yet?
What was the basis of those documents?
Third-party prep?
So we had had Keach-Nortstrom prepare.
the plan itself. The RFP was prepared by myself and by Mr. Mackey.
No, and our legal team did not review it, to believe it, not necessarily would.
How was it advertised? It was advertised on our website, and it was shared through Facebook
on May 21st, 2006.
Facilities director sent the RFP directly to approximately 10 local interested
contractors who had expressed that interest previously.
We had five unique bidder submissions, and what was the basis of the selection?
We really, I think our first goal here is we have to try very hard to stay within budget.
We received five responses of the five to fit neatly into our budget.
And so the one that we went with is 174,200.
And the other two, sorry, the ones that were above budget, we had one at 264, one at 345, and one at 415,
which is really quite a bit above what we were able to,
have the project bid at. The project was priced conservatively long before, as it normally
happens, probably about 10 months ago, and it was not estimated to be at the $250,000 range.
We included that to have some extra room, and three of the bids, three of the five that came in
exceeded that amount.
Were there any exceptions? There weren't any exceptions per se. We did have two that were
just alleged unsuitable materials exclusions.
Better qualifications.
reviewed, yep. It posed several requirements of responsibility,
mandatory site work, installed lex septic installer licensure,
liability vehicle workers comp, etc. performance. Another payment security
and compliance with codes. Yep. And a standby letter of credit was, could be
used as an acceptable form of alternative for surety or bond. Was the selected
bid based upon price, other references?
Price and budget were the major factors.
The winning bidder had been a, has been a reliable contract for the town of Hampstead
in various projects and successfully completed similar septic field replacement at the Memorial Gym,
many years ago with no issues of reported problems.
Were there any change orders?
Why? What was the basis? And the prices determined?
How much of an increased cost compared to the base bid?
So one change order was requested and approved of as of September 3rd.
The change order did not relate to the actual fee.
the actual construction itself?
It actually was just for loan coverage road at 5,000 square feet
so we can feather out that new access road that we have
from the lower field where the gaga ball court is to main road itself or to the new road itself
and then up to the field behind it, which will allow for better mowing, much better aesthetics.
Less than a dollar square foot for that.
So the current status of the project is that we are pending final inspection
they're looking to confirm existing pumping station connections at the edge of the pavement
out on the parking lot at the gym side.
We had only done from, we had only worked, I believe, from the area of the access road over.
So those septic holding tanks in the parking lot had not been touched at all,
but they wanted to go in and see if the baffles were set in hydraulic cement.
And so we had explained to them that, one, they're 50 years old,
and once we start digging around, guess what's going to happen?
First, second, it's largely inconvenient in the middle of a parking lot that we just repaved.
So Keach Nordstrom is submitting a request for waiver, specific waiver on those requirements,
which I didn't know that they'd be looking at.
I thought they'd just be looking at the operation of the field itself now that it's put in.
So they are submitting, I don't think that have been submitted.
the idea was, I think it was going to be submitted today.
Once that's approved, then that should help with the septic final inspection process.
I only have one question.
It's the...
Above you at 10.
It's a joke.
Thank you.
I appreciate the responses.
There is a reference here when we ask the question if there are
the question if there are exceptions to the bid documents.
As I understand what you've written here, you
did give one or more than one bidder the ability to carve out any latent subsurface conditions or unsuitable soils.
Did you offer that same condition to the other bidders?
No.
They could have excluded that in their response, though.
Well, but if you, again, I'm going to play civil engineer for a second.
If I were bidding a project,
and you told me that the project had to be complete no matter what was found,
which is the way the spec was written.
If somebody came in and gave me a bid with a carve-out that said,
I'm not going to tell you what the cost of that is because I don't know what it is,
then that same condition should be offered to all bidders.
And I realize the time constraints, I realize all the other issues that were going on,
but that is not a fair.
comparison of bids.
I'm sure that people who bid this normally expect to see some latent conditions.
And as I read the documents, there was no allowance for the carve-out.
So if somebody was given that opportunity, then that same opportunity should have been given to all the other bidders,
even if it was a phone call to say, would this affect your bid?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair enough.
It was nothing that we'd run into or that they had.
exercise. And if we can even get some money off a bit in the future, I'm more than happy to do that.
Good. Yeah. Any questions?
Leach fields are exciting. It does budget. Big night.
They're necessary. I don't have anything else for superintendent support. I know we've had a lot of
reports tonight, but I appreciate your taking so much time on this.
And I do believe the only other item on here would have any other business, anyone
to discuss old business. Seems like we're sailing on.
We did want to enter non-public this evening under RSA-91A-3, Section 2C, looking for a motion to move into non-public.
So move.
Let's take the roll. Questions?
Does the subject have to be described?
Yes, so it's, as Ms. Meyer said, matters which, if discussed in public,
would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person.
So Ms. Denton is not here. Dr. Hubner?
Yes.
Mrs. Meyer? Yes.
Dr. Poor? Yes.
Mr. Weimer?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. The time is 845.
Madam.