Goffstown School Board - May 11, 2026

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

Recording

1.01, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Do correspondence for the evening.
No correspondence this evening.
Good news, commendations.
So we'll start down that way.
I can kick it off.
All right, so from Mountain View,
the MVMS Music Department successfully
hosted over 240 students and teachers
from 18 Central New Hampshire Middle Schools
for the New Hampshire M-EA
South Central District Festival on May night.
NVMS had 13 vocalists and three instrumentalists.
The festival band and chorus had an amazing performance in the afternoon,
and thank you to the Cooperative Middle School for hosting four of the MBMS string students
at the Southeast Festival.
The MBMs Music Department is excited to present the students' work on May 1920 and 21st at 630
at Mountain View, and they will also be visiting and performing at New Boston Central School on May
28th grade language arts department has started reading the outsiders in
conjunction with their poet poiety projects and for those people that don't know
what the poitie is it's where the students bring in white shirts and the
students find favorite poetry drawings and they decorate their their t-shirts
and then the kids all wear them and it has all of their favorite poetry and
stuff written all over and they do that kind of in conjunction with their
discussions on the Outsider book and novel through Socratic seminars.
And the students get to keep their poitie's, you know, as far as well on that one,
the poities forever.
And the last thing is, the SAS testing is well underway.
Thank you, Mr. Davis, from the middle school.
And we'll go on to our student rep.
All righty.
Starting last week and going into this week, we've had AP testing at the high
school. So lots of, lots of testing, lots of students involved. We've been doing
here in the library. I think we had like around 60 kids taking just the calculus test
today, so definitely our biggest group, but a lot of kids testing. These next two weeks, there's
a lot going on in the science classes. Some of the environmental science and the Environmental
Club is going to the Enviarathon next Tuesday, the 19th, where they'll compete with other schools
about kind of information about current and the environment.
environmental topics, specifically non-source and source pollution.
The day after that, students from our upper-level science classes will be going to Rye Beach
to their training for the Marine Bio Project, which then actually takes place the next week
following that, and is all four days of that week where sophomore biology students go to
Rye Beach and they learn about the marine biology in that area, and our upper-level students kind
of do the teaching there, and it's a really fun day.
Okay. What else?
Also next week, the same day as the Enviathan, we're going to have our student council elections,
which does mean there is going to be the election of the new school board rep,
so I will have somebody with me for the next meeting to kind of show them what exactly I do here.
And then there is prom next week next Friday. That same is. Very exciting stuff.
Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you, Brady. I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. Talbot.
Are you, Mr. Scheng.
Ms. Bean.
Don't want to skip me. I have to.
This one's a little timely, but still wanted to get in front of you.
This year, Science Olympiad State Competition, which was held back the end of March.
Golf Towns teams had great day with our overall fourth place for our varsity team and
10th for our junior varsity.
Students that got top top three medals in their areas of expertise included.
Shera Schaefer, Chloe Dumot, Julie Schaefer, Aidan Cockrell, Paul Gallagher, Emma Bird,
Bella Damboys, Sophia McAllister, Noah Babin, Eli Douglas, and Harold Aronima.
Additionally, students with ribbons were, I'm going to refer to my friend here.
Mason Nemek, Milo Cronvold.
Naraan-Civakumar.
And then Mason Emerson.
Thank you.
Ms. Kelly and Ms. Ferretti, teachers in our visual arts department,
wanted to thank the GHS administration and the school board for their support during their fund and funding of their trip Friday, May 8th, to Manchester.
They facilitated the trip for the GHS Interior Design class and the AP art students.
They toured two Franklin Lloyd Wright houses during the first half of the day, paused for lunch,
and then toured the galleries at the Courier Museum for the other half of the day.
Students really enjoyed this trip, and teachers and students really want to thank you for making that possible.
In family and consumer science department, we're currently conducting a
a two-week culinary competition designed to provide students with a comprehensive
and real-world experience in the food service and entrepreneurship fields.
During this project, each group is going to present a business plan, design a menu, target
GHS staff as their consumers, calculate food costs, prepare an ingredient order with
a structured budget. The planning phase is going to emphasize financial literacy, decision-making,
and practical application of math and literacy.
Students then move on to the food production where they're going to prepare and serve their selected menus to school staff.
Throughout the process, they're going to be expected to demonstrate proper food safety and sanitation practices
aligned with their serve-safe standards, effective kitchen organization and teamwork,
and then they'll be evaluated.
And then finally,
Our students in Graphics Arts, too, continued to develop real-world products.
I had hoped, I thought she had put them on easels already, but she didn't, and I can't even figure out how to open the easels.
So, in place of you seeing them around the room, I'm going to ask, I'm going to pass these around so you can see what our students are doing.
They're excited to share what they're doing.
They're actually working with Goughstone community members.
to do this, to design a logo that can be used in social media and nonprofit, and they're also
excited to share, the teachers are excited to share, that this program is growing to the point
that they'll have six sections of graphic arts in the fall and three sections of graphic
arts honors.
So the program is growing extensively.
I think when she started, there was only a couple sections.
And that's my news from Goffstown High School.
Mr. Davis, did you ready to go?
Yes.
You already did.
Okay.
Wendy.
Mr. Talbot, thank you.
Over at Glen Lake, the Glen Lake, the Glen Lake staff would like to thank their parent group for just putting on an amazing staff
appreciation week, and that's true in all of our buildings.
So a special thank you to our parent groups, parents.
Some of our students did really kind things for teachers, wrote nice letters, things like that.
So thank you to all of everybody that was involved in that.
Our preschool students has started the ABC.
countdown to summer, which is a daily alphabet celebration that marks the end of preschool.
So last week's preschool week ended with D for Dance Party Day, and today was E for Exercise Day.
So this is just the beginning of the special events that mark the end of the year for Glen Lake.
Over at Maple Ave, again, a special thank you to everybody involved in staff appreciation.
Over at Maple, May is extremely busy. There are a number of field trips that are either.
have happened or are going to happen. On Friday, May 8th, the first grade went to Squam Lake Science Center,
and they were thrilled to see all of the animals there. This Friday, second grade, is visiting American Stonehedge,
while the last two third grade classes will be going to the YMCA for their water safety program. If the board will remember, we started this last year, there's a very generous donor from the YMCA who pays for our students to be able to get,
water safety. They bust the students over. They feed our students. So all of our third graders
at Bartlett and at Maple Ave are doing this. And then that donor has actually extended it to New Boston Central
School this year as well. So we're really excited about that. And then on Wednesday, May 20th, the fourth grade
will be attending Strawberry Bank in Portsmouth. And lastly, on May 22nd, Maple Ave will be hosting its
Memorial Day assemblies. So just a reminder for parents to be watching the newslet.
for information about that. And over at Bartlett, in all of our buildings, state testing is in full swing.
Third and fourth graders have completed the writing portion of their New Hampshire SAS. And this week, they're working on their reading sections.
As always, we do a lot of things to get our students excited and motivated for those tests. And new this year, they're doing a big brain battle over at Bartlett, where classes work together as a team.
And effort matters for them being able to earn points and to be able to earn some really cool prizes.
So a special thank you to Mrs. Pishka and the staff over there for just coming up with really creative things to get our students motivated for that test.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other good news?
Combinations?
Shane.
I just had a quick one.
Although I'm a day late.
I just want to say thank you to all the mothers at this table in the community across the world.
Happy Mother's Day.
Although it's a day late.
We weren't here yesterday. Sorry.
I mean, how do you always say to all the moms?
That's it.
I don't think you're sorry about not being here yesterday.
Yes.
Usually our meetings are the first week of every month.
So that would have been the staff and faculty appreciation week.
So we weren't here, but all of the faculty and staff should have gotten a video from the board.
And I just want to say everybody here did a great job.
Agreed. I think staff were really appreciative.
I think you guys did a really nice job. Well done.
Some of the pictures that were added in that video of the teachers and staff was great, too.
It's much better than looking at us talking.
The cut away from Laura was excellent.
I'm like, that was the first one.
She had a lot to say. It was great.
Any other items for today?
Okay. I will move on to public comment.
seeing any public comment. We will close public comment.
Up next is a food service presentation.
So come on up.
So we'll welcome Megan Bizarro, our food service director.
Welcome, Meg.
Nice to see you all, and I appreciate being early on your agenda.
So I'm here to give you a little snapshot of what's happened in food service from a participation, financial.
perspective. But to start with, I do want to give you some of our own.
Our department's good news. We had an administrative review this year from the state.
They happen about every five years, and we did very well.
They look at everything from how we purchase, if it came from the U.S. or not,
wellness policy, meal charging policy, production records.
They went on-site to Bartlett and stood and watched.
breakfast be served, and then didn't watch lunch be served, and everything went beautifully.
The on-site staff did a great job, but I just wanted to let you know that we did have our big
state review, and now we're good for hopefully five years. New Boston will come up probably in the
middle of that, but we did get through it. We have a few things to kind of clean up, as you always do
with any kind of state review, but we should have it all wrapped up by the beginning.
of June, I believe.
So, you all should have a nice document in front of you about food service.
I'm going to start off with our meal participation.
The first year is, the first column is last year, and then the second column is this year. And then
the second column is this year. Breakfast, we've had a slight decrease. And lunch, we actually have had a
really nice.
increase. That increase has happened primarily at the high school and with only one lunch
and that it still is amazing to me that we're serving more reimbursable meals each year and at the
middle school. Maple Lab has stayed steady and Bartlett has had been a little bit below the prior year.
But part of that is a function of lower enrollment in that building.
The eligibility, and this is something that you are always interested in, this is our
free and reduced families, and this is based on information we received from the state for direct
certification, as well as when parents fill out an application. So you can see with free, we
actually dropped this year. Part of why we dropped is there has been a change.
this year in how we process meal applications. In the past, if someone filled
out a paper application or did it online, I just take it at face value and everything is fine.
And if they put a case number into this little box that says case number for food stamps
or temporary assistance, we take it at face value. This year we could not. We had to
if you will, verify those because a lot of folks were using Medicaid and in New Hampshire.
Medicaid numbers do not qualify you for free meals, but they do in Vermont and Maine and Massachusetts.
So when our state office was actually audited by Boston Regional, they found a lot of families putting, who
had moved in from those states using their Medicaid number just thinking, oh, we're fine.
And because we at that point did not have to verify the number, there was a lot of families receiving
the benefit who, from a New Hampshire point of view, should not. So that's why we have lost
some families, because when I ask for the information, either it's outdated or they don't
have it. So I can't approve them.
So, yes.
So that drop-off was not an interest drop-off.
It was an eligibility drop-off.
Yes.
Yes.
Very much more of that than anything else.
Thank you.
And you can see our reduced actually went up this year.
So it's more having to do with a stricter approval process.
The next one is.
Not one that we're excited about whatsoever at any level or point of view is our active student accounts receivable.
You can see we've had a huge increase over last year.
And it's been, it's at New Boston as well.
So it's not just Gostown.
It's in New Boston.
Some other districts are seeing this as well.
But the caveat, I would like you to know.
is that roughly at the end of March, we had $23,000.
We actually, when you look across the state, we actually are still low.
For example, I believe Concord was up close to $100,000.
Now, I know they're a much bigger district than we are, but that's still quite a big dollar amount.
So, you know, what are we doing to attack this dollar amount?
this obviously affects our bottom line.
We do very much the same as we have in the past.
Make phone calls.
We sent emails two to four times a week, depending upon what level folks have in their account.
I will mail out the bill with a meal application right with it.
In the information that families get from us, it always has.
how to apply, how to contact me, and how to reach out to St. Matthew's Church,
which has a fund that will send if the parent goes to their website,
they can request a payment be sent, and then it's sent to my office, and then I will post it on the account.
So we are trying to use all of the avenues that we can, but unfortunately it has risen.
this year. I have heard from some families this year, and this is the first time I've
heard this before, and actually, our manager in New Boston when she called, she, a family,
she got the same answer, was, do you know how much gases? Do you know how much groceries are?
I will pay you when I can because they know we're going to feed their child, and they have
other pressures happening right now, and the people who we spoke with were people that we
didn't speak with last year. These are new families who are, you know, some of you have heard
me say this before, but I still believe in this country we are missing that working, hardworking
families who are working really hard to try and make it work, but just can't quite get there.
And they don't qualify for reduced price.
So then they're stuck.
And we have the belief that all students must have food, as Doug says, they're here for six hours.
We've got to feed them.
We've got to feed them something good.
So we are going to be looking, Doug and I, and Brian, will look over the summer at what other districts are doing to see if there's something out there that we're missing besides, you know, something that's very
harsh. We don't want to do anything harsh. And I know that this board in the past has
agreed with that sentiment. So we will bring, hopefully, something to you in the fall for you to take
a look at that might help us to help our families a little more. Any questions about this increase
or concerns?
Gin, go ahead. Maybe this would be good information to get out to our representatives so that
maybe the state could reverse what they've done so that we could go back to the old way
and or align with the other New England states at least if they're seeing that this kind of thing is happening.
So you're talking about having the Medicaid number as a categorically eligible for free meals.
And that has come up a few times, and it would be great if we could get it there.
I do believe some of the concerns from the legislature is how much it would cost them if more students qualified.
That's just what I have heard.
But I think you're right.
It's certainly not anything that we can't go back.
And, you know, I sit on the New Hampshire Hunger Coalition, and they sponsor a lot of or help to sponsor a lot of legislation.
And one of them, it was that a few years ago.
This year they did not bring it back.
They chose to try and do more education in the hopes to bring it back probably next year.
But they read some tea leaves and decided this is not the year to push.
But if they had this info, you know, with towns across the state, it would be a big eye-opener, I would think.
I would hope so.
Laura.
I just want to know.
To clarify for the public, so if a child has a balance on their account, they're still able to get the same lunch as everyone else, right?
Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And that's right in our board policy. It's been there for since 23, since after COVID.
It used to be an alternative meal. Yeah. But we changed that. Okay. Thank you.
My daughter is still Scott. Rhett. Do you know if anyone's collecting data from the other, from all of the school?
I mean, this is a significant jump.
We have encouraged the Department of Ed to track this at the state level because all New Hampshire school districts are dealing with this same challenge.
So we think that this is a state level issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It would, you know, occasionally we try and grab the information through the buying group, but that's not the whole state.
But I can tell you, for example, Beau, small district, they have eight.
no charging policy, period.
End of story.
And they have very little outstanding.
But they also, if a high school student comes up and doesn't have money,
that high school student does not get any food.
So I'm not sure that would be something that we would want to stomach.
Just as a follow-up, and maybe this is more for Brian.
If they are looking at this information, could they include that policy that might clarify, you know,
why there might be discrepancies from school to school?
Yeah, I think fundamentally the state could look at whatever data they'd like.
But as Jack has said many times at this table, New Hampshire is the only New England state
that doesn't provide lunches to all students.
So this is something that the legislature has said.
as evaluated in the past, and they have not chosen to fund this.
So it leaves us where we continue to be.
Yeah.
Jimmy?
Kind of the other thing when you think of it is the churches are running, like, food banks
or groceries for people, and it doesn't really seem fair that they also have to help provide school lunches,
because most of them also help with weekend bags.
So the state really...
really should be taking some responsibility in the food situation when you think of it
and not expect churches and community programs to be the people that are doing all of this
when the state really has, you know, a responsibility here, too.
I keep looking over here at Jack.
So, Jack, please go ahead.
I'm waiting.
I don't get on the soapbox, but yeah, vote.
what I think. I would wreck the budget and feed all the kids and try and pass it through
and see if the mandate is really that we're so depraved that we don't believe we should feed kids.
But I know that is not the place of the board, but certainly my place.
And I've been on the soapbox and the evidence that kids that are fed do better in school
is out there every way, shape, and form. And the reason it doesn't happen is,
because we vote for the wrong people to go to the state, in my humble opinion.
Ann? Two things. Jack, if you're tired on the box, I'll take a shift. My question is,
when I look at expenses, the $1.4 million, is that an accurate capture of what it costs to feed the kids
in the school system today? That's right, from the General Ledger.
Okay. Thank you.
So I can, I'll move down. Okay. So you. So you can see. So you can see. So you can see. So you can see. So you can see. So you
see where we're projecting to be. We still have May and June. Sorry. May and June to go. But this is
where we're expecting to come in roughly $1.3 million in revenues, $1.4 in expenses to give us a net loss of
around $120,000. Now, I do break out and track what are our capital expenditures of $73,000.
We bought $40,000 worth of equipment for the serving line for Mountain View.
We had about $15,000 to $18,000 in compressors that need to get fixed.
We had $3,500 just the other day for a dishwasher booster.
Every time impact fire came in, they saw our suppression systems and said,
oh, no, that's not right. It was kind of a, got to be sadly funny every time they
showed up. So we've had, and those are things that we use our fund balance for because
those are things that once we fix them, they should last a little longer than two days. And
you could see that we started the year our audited fund balance was $314,721.
dollars. Out of, if we just look at the day-to-day-day operations, out of, if we just look at the day-to-day
operations in terms of a profit and loss, we would have lost $46,000 if we didn't spend
any money on capital expenditures, which is too bad, but is still a loss. At this point, we are
projecting a fund balance after all of the, everything is said and done of $195,381, still around
$200,000 in the bank for us to work on, we are looking at probably four new ovens for
Mountain View. We've had trouble with them all along. That'll be probably about $30,000, no matter
which if we go with convection or with a newer technology called Combi. So that right now is
the biggest dollar that I can see that we're probably going to need to read.
to replace over the summer.
So that's part of what those dollars are for so that we can buy what we need when we need it or ahead of time,
and that's what we're trying to do with that.
Obviously, we're trying to find ways to increase revenue.
The elementary schools, it's really, really tough.
Lunches are tight, and, you know, we want them to eat lunch.
We don't want them worrying about, you know, did I buy the ice cream today?
Do I have, no, we're not, we're not going down that road.
I'm not going to have a eight-year-old crying because they don't have 50 cents on their account to have an ice cream.
That's not a way to have a good day.
So at the middle school and high school is where we focus on the a la carte sales,
and that really does help to try to generate extra revenue to pay for the lunches.
because the price that we pay, does not fully pay, that we charge or that we receive from the feds doesn't fully cover all of the expenses that we have.
Our labor, you know, next year we're looking at a 4% increase.
That's the year four of their contract, which is fabulous, but that's 4% on our labor.
Food will go up.
All of those things will go up.
We're spending on average, probably about $2.25 on food for every lunch.
When I convert all of our breakfasts and all-a-cart sales, I kind of go back to that common denominator and the fractions there.
You know, and then we're spending almost $250 in labor as well.
And we get a total on a student who is on our free meal program because that's really,
the dollars that we can truly count on getting, we're getting about $460 from the feds.
So you can see how tight it really is.
And that's not paying for supplies.
It's not paying for anything.
It's just paying for food and labor.
So we are on a shoestring, but we're not alone.
Pretty much everybody across the country is the same.
So.
Meg and I meet monthly.
We talked about finances quite a bit during that time.
And, you know, as this year started, what we started seeing was that supplies were actually coming down.
They not only were they stabilizing, but they were coming down.
That's no longer going to be the case.
We both believe due to gas prices, food prices have not come down.
They started going up less, but they did not come down.
But I think everyone's expecting food prices to continue to go up at a higher rate.
rate at this point as well.
So, you know, the board, we've asked for smaller increments as far as increases before,
knowing that we could kind of bite into that fund balance as well.
But, you know, what we did see as stabilizing is no longer projected to stay kind of the same.
It's expected to go up at this point.
And we're already paying a fuel surcharge with our produce.
company of $4.75 a drop.
And we have four drops across the district, sometimes six drops a week.
It depends upon how the cooks are ordering.
And that's adding up fast.
But we are feeding more students, so that's exciting.
It's not all doom and gloom.
It really is.
And you have amazing teams in your kitchen.
They are excited.
They are trying new things.
and it's May, and the elementaries are trying a unicorn parfe this week,
complete with a sugar cone as the horn.
I have old kids, not a little one.
So you do have great people who are trying to do some great and fun things for the kids.
We see that there's an ask down here.
Yeah.
So.
Yep, we did.
We met with Brian.
and given everything that's happening and going on,
we are going to ask for the board to consider a 25 cent increase.
Again, this is only on our families who pay full price for breakfast and for lunch.
And it is up to the board if you choose to do this or not.
But again, like Doug said, we're trying to keep ourselves even as much as we can.
But I would expect we're going to see some more fuel charges probably in the fall.
Yeah, you can just add to this that every time we go to the grocery store, it costs more money.
It costs more money to get there.
It costs more money to buy the food.
And what I advocated for with Meg and Doug is we have to make sure that we're continuing to increase prices.
I recognize that that creates hardship for families, but there's a reality to all of this.
Everything costs more.
So for us to be able to return.
a fund balance to make sure that we have enough to offset the some of the operational losses.
This is where we recommend we need to be.
Dan. With this increase and not expecting you to predict the future, but to guess the future,
would this bulk up the fund balance at all or just keep it flat or reduce it a little?
It would either be flat or reduce. It just depends. I ran some real rough numbers.
Sure. On breakfast.
if participation stays the same, it might be an increase of $5,000 in revenue.
And lunch, again, if everything stays the same, it would be a $35,000 increase.
That's assuming everyone pays.
Right.
So there's a lot of assumptions in that number.
Yeah.
But it's a good question to ask, you know, if it might get as operationally to
close to break even, but I'm not sure.
Sure. We don't want it to shrink.
The important thing is to remember, this is an enterprise fund, which means that the revenues that are generated
from the individual meal sales should equal the expenditures that are going on.
Hence, that's what the enterprise fund is.
So, you know, just thinking if this is what it takes, this is what the ask is to kind of get us to be
level, I think it's a good ask to have.
Any other questions or comments?
Ginny?
And I know that it increase is needed, but the other thing is if parents aren't able to afford it
and kids aren't getting lunches, you know, it's kind of like a hard decision that you make.
Well, our policy, as stated before, we don't deny kids lunch.
You don't give them cheese sandwiches like has been the misinformation in the past.
They get the full meal that's there.
Exactly. But then at the end.
And you have to figure out.
There would be a deficit, and then we would have to look at how we're going to fund or fix that deficit as we move forward.
But would parents understand that?
And would kids go up and get a lunch or just not sit in their chairs and say, I don't have money for lunch today?
You know what I mean?
That's just, that kind of whole thing kind of scares me.
Do the kids know?
We have a lot of folks around at lunchtime.
you know, not our people, but monitors, teachers, parras, and they have a good sense of what's kind of happening out there, even in this building.
And if there's somebody who's not eating, I could think of probably 10 times it's happened this year across the district,
then they'll go up to our food service staff and say, hey, how do we, what do we need to do?
And our staff will be like, well, first thing is let's get them lunch.
And then they'll call me and we'll figure out what we need to do next.
Okay.
So the community that we have really works hard to make sure that the kids know that they can come up and get a lunch.
So there is that safety net.
So, yeah.
Thank you.
Do the kids know they have no money when they go up to get lunch?
Sometimes.
Some kids do.
The high school and the middle school, we will tell them, you know, just remind your parents to send the payment in.
We don't say, you know, oh, you owe, you know, $2.
We don't say that.
The high school kids, they sometimes will come around to see, you know, and some of them pay their bill themselves.
So we do give them that kind of respect, if you will, to let them see.
But, you know, the older they are, the more they know, but sadly some of our youngest ones do know, and it's not from us.
Yeah. Okay.
Laura.
I just wanted to say, I just think it's so important, too, that it's not just that kids eat, but it's what they're eating too.
And I know you do a lot of work just to make sure they're filling their bellies with really great stuff.
And so, like, if the cost needs to be more, I know that this, you know, the account's receivable.
Likely, that's going to be a bigger number last year if you just follow the trend of that lunch prices were raised last year and the number is really bigger this year and what's happening across our country right now.
But I just think it's really important.
to ensure that they're getting fruits and vegetables and the right portion of a healthy meal.
And even, if that's on the main meal, even more than the al-a-cart items.
I know the al-a-cart items bring in the revenue.
But, I mean, I have two boys, but just they, you know, all the pizza, all the food in their way.
But I know, like, hopefully those things, too.
Do you feel like, I guess my question is, do you feel like they're for the main meal that though more students are engaged,
are you able to store the amount of food at each school that you need for those entrees and all of that?
There hasn't been any issues in terms of supply needed for those students.
No.
No, we're good there.
Shane.
I just want to thank you.
Every year you come before us, and it usually feels like bad news.
But, you know, you work really hard to come up with new and exciting ideas and new and exciting meals with your staff.
And you're always thinking about how to...
help alleviate the stress on families and children while making sure that they're fed.
So I just want to thank you for continuing to kind of, you know, I know you're one of the best in the state.
So, um, you know, please, you know, I know it's a hard job, but we really...
She won't tell you this, but I'll tell you this. She's a mama bear.
She wants to make sure that kids are fed and they're protected.
Like, I'm sitting here listening to you, and I'm just like, this is like heartbreaking kind of, you know,
but you try really hard, you're doing all you can, so we really appreciate all you do, and just thank you.
I know.
I know requesting an increase every year is tough, but it's kind of unavoidable at this point.
Thank you very much.
Any other questions or comments?
I remember the day where he had a formula that we had to use and the prices had to increase, even though, do you remember,
the price, even though we didn't need to increase the price, even though we didn't need to increase the price.
And so this is still a thing.
Is it really?
Yep.
Right, Meg?
It is.
And because we have a positive fund balance, we don't have to do that.
I mean, that spreadsheet absolutely makes no sense.
But it's a base-by.
These are federal hoops that to get the money, you have to jump through.
So we get to check a box.
I can remember doing that we have money.
What in the name of God are we doing here?
Right, yeah.
So at least this is a necessary increase.
And realistically,
the 25 for lunch and dinner at lunch and breakfast probably should be 50.
We're not recommending that.
Right.
But it probably should be.
Yeah.
Jack.
I just want to say that you get lunch for $5.
It's amazing to me.
And I'm willing to make the motion now, other than to fund free lunches for everyone,
in abstention of that, to raise the prices of 256, 25 cents for
cents for breakfast and lunch at the three schools for the FY27.
Thank you.
Jack is here.
A second?
I'll second it.
Second by Vanessa.
Any further questions or comments?
I'm sorry.
Can I just clarify?
You said three schools.
I think it means three levels.
Three levels, yes.
Three levels, yes.
All of those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
Passes unanimously.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Okay.
Next order is approval of the April 20th meeting minutes.
We people had the opportunity to look through them.
People's names are spelled correctly.
Yes, sir.
Great.
Even I'm remembering wrong, and I don't remember the details.
Wasn't, and I'm not seeing it in the minutes.
There was a discussion about administrative assistant position
at Mountain View.
Right?
There was.
It was discussed under staffing.
It's not in here anywhere that I saw.
Right? Was it staffing?
It was...
Wendy Doug?
Like, we were talking about pilots and sitpens and it was in that.
It was under staffing.
It was in the same area, but it's not...
In here, and I think we voted on it, didn't we?
No, public here.
Mm-hmm.
So some of the discussion that we had for the particulars was...
I don't know.
We talked about, because there were two part-time positions that we talked about
combining into a whole-time position.
We did it in the theater.
I need to go back and see the video.
Yeah.
Like, I'm remembering it distinctly doing it in the theater.
Well, at this time, for this then, Adam, what we'll do is we will table
table the review of the approval for these minutes.
Make sure that we get that information looked at appropriately.
If you're okay with that?
Yes.
We'll take a look.
We'll double-check that.
So we are going to table the review of the April 20th meeting minutes at this time.
And we'll move on to committee reports.
We'll start with the Finance Committee.
And Jack, as the chair of the Finance Committee, I turn it over to you.
All right.
I'd like to make a motion that we accept the
April 27th to May 4th, 2026, manifest for the total amount of $1,410,563.86 cents.
Second to that motion and second it?
Yep.
Motion by Jack.
Seconded by Adam.
So the was the major things, major expenditure, payroll and taxes, benefits was 1,048.
$1,878.82.
Then we add special education activity.
The district expenses of around $26,000 for Lighthouse Schools, $16,000 for 7,000 for 7 Hills.
11,000 for Cresta Collaborative, all totaled $84,793.76.
Then we had general expenses with the big ones.
being the Gothstown Truck Center regular ed transportation 50,490, books and equipment from Amazon, 21,000 in change, Eversource electricity, 14,000 and changed, Dead River, 13,000 in change, and copier services, 12,000, some other small ones, for a total of 146,000, 716, 46 cents.
And then we had the food services of 26,110.
That all totaled up to 1,306,498, which leaves approximately $10,000 in change of expenditures purchases under $5,000, which can be found on our checkbook registered online.
Any questions?
comments.
Jack, I know you're going to be able to answer to this, so I'm going to ask Doug, for the check registry,
for those items that are going to Amazon, I know that we get a bunch of them every cycle.
Do we list out what they're for, or does it just say a payment to Amazon for each one?
It just says a payment for Amazon, like what we see online for the check manifest?
It's payment for Amazon.
What we have within the business office is exactly what they bought and how many of what they bought.
Okay.
Should we?
we'd be putting things like that to say what the Amazon purchases were on the online check registry?
I don't know if the description would be as specific. There's more and more purchases from Amazon every year.
And, you know, what we can do, you know, from time to time if we want, I can bring in all the purchases.
But I don't think it would be overly descriptive from the e-finance software where we'd run our report.
from it. If I can add to that, though. So when I mean, obviously Amazon has just
continued to grow. So when we first started purchasing from Amazon, it was a very small amount and
it's steadily grown. So now, as we see here, $21,000. This could be something, Doug, if the ANF
committee wanted to spot check Amazon purchases, they could choose a month to do that
and ask Mr. Totten to bring in all the Amazon bills and go through.
through all of them. That would certainly be, I think, within the purview of ANF.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so a name you might recognize from the past is Quill, so that's where
people bought a lot of their school supplies before. And that has mainly been replaced by
Amazon. Not that we still don't purchase from Quill in other places, but it's just, it's...
More expensive. It's expensive. And so we do get some discounts with Amazon being a business account as well.
And then eventually, we're working towards getting a rebate from our purchases there also.
So that's something that's in the works right now.
Thanks, Doug.
Okay, there's a motion on the floor to accept the manifest as presented.
There is a second.
Any other further questions, comments?
If not, I'll call the roll.
All those in favor of this manifest is presented, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
We are in the MS.
Okay.
It looks like we have the revenue.
and expenditure reports that are provided.
Any detail that you want to add to these, Doug?
I just a reminder that they are online for everyone to
see as well. And I think we'll talk about
them a little bit more as we go down to the
estimated fund balance as well. We,
every month we talk about them
in A&F,
we spent a decent amount of time on it
this past month as well as a little bit today
as well. Any questions for Doug on this one?
Okay.
Project title allocations.
for fiscal year 2627.
So small typo there.
Projected Title I allocations.
So this is
some of the money that comes in from
the federal government.
And I put together a table that goes back
several years. This is available for people
at home as well. And the board
has it as far as their finance report.
So the main Title I
that we get is Title I. And as you can
see, that was relatively consistent.
That was down 2.3%.
Our Title IIA,
was down about 16,000
in the year before. It was up 16,000.
And Title 4A
was up about
$2,800 in the year before.
It was down $2,500.
So overall, if we look at a couple years,
it's somewhat consistent.
And luckily, our largest one of them
is decently consistent.
So again, these are projections
from the state.
They won't become finalized
until a little bit later.
But they allow us to start realizing
that we're going to be relatively
what we had.
this year going into next year, which is a good thing.
Any questions for Doug on this one?
Okay.
We're going on to our next sub-bullet of budget transfers.
So the board has approved different budget transfers
that are over $10,000 this year.
Between over $5,000 and up to $10,000,
what we do is we report out to the board
when those budget transfers happen.
So one of them was $8,500,
and that was for the high school.
That was our tech ed, and it went
from two supplies
from software, from tech ed, as well.
So the courses are just turning more hands-on,
whether that be welding or working in a shop with wood,
then computer-based.
So in a lot of ways, a good thing.
Kids are active.
Students are doing, students are creating.
One of the newer courses, timber framing,
we've had grant money come in for equipment.
They actually mill some of their own wood,
but it is, you know, what they're making grew in size a little bit.
that took up some additional money.
So I went over to the high school a couple weeks ago
just to kind of meet with the teachers,
and I was able to talk with one of the students too
because $8,500 isn't your typical transfer,
and there was a lot of positive talk about it.
Being a former 6th grade math teacher,
it's great to see that they can talk about fractions
and actually using them and applying them.
There's a lot of precision that goes with it, teamwork, perseverance.
There are more students by far
that are signed up for next year.
then they have spots for.
So they've created a course which students are working together.
Students are working towards creating something that will actually be used by the community,
and they're excited about it.
So I think it's, you know, it's not going over their budget.
It's just a transfer, but, you know, from what I saw,
they've made some good decisions this year with that.
The second thing on here is $5,950, and this is the middle school,
and this is coming from the media center, from electronic information to software.
So about halfway through this year,
they found out that their online software was not going to,
not going to be going forward with e-books and audio books.
So what we did was we transferred that to physical books.
So students, they're looking at other software.
There's a chance to get that other software,
but it just wasn't going to be able to be completed by the end of this year
because as soon as you go to a software thing,
then you're involving our IT department,
and there are projects that are ahead of that one.
But we wanted the kids.
It's still to have choice in reading.
So we just transition the money from online books to physical books with that transfer.
So I don't know if there's any questions on those.
No questions.
Okay.
All right.
Estimated fund balance looks like next.
Yeah, so estimated fund balance.
So again, we are still at projection state.
Our numbers get better every day, and they won't become finalized out until the summer when the audit comes.
So you can see.
from the sheet. We have two different ways to calculate the fund balance. And what we want to see is a zero variance between the two. So the first way we're looking at revenue. And what did we bring in either over or under what was projected? So, and this revenue does not include the fund balance that was used to offset taxes or that went to the CRF. That will come in a little bit later down. It does show a negative amount as far as a very
but for revenue, that is actually a positive thing.
So we are expected to bring in 814,000 additional dollars than we projected during the budgeting season.
So then we have expenditures.
And for expenditures, we are projecting that we will be about $1.5 million less than the budget with our actual expenditures.
And this is for both revenue and expenditures, it's looking at where we are now, but also some known things coming in.
So some known things for revenue is the last New Boston payment for tuition, which is almost finalized, and that's around $2.5 million.
The last payment for special education services, that will be about $88,000.
And then we still have interest coming in each month for the money that we have in the bank.
For expenses, you know, one thing that has not done is substitutes.
So, you know, we're able to encumber different money with projections on what we're going to need to spend between now and the end of the year.
including graduation expenses, busing for field trips.
So all of that has been encumbered, but it's hard to encumber the substitute.
So what I do is I just take out a chunk of money from that, looking at historical, and I include that in increasing the expenditures.
So it's not only today, but it's kind of looking forward with that as well.
And then we have Fund 11, which for Goffstown, not too many schools use this, but this is last year's money that got encumbered to be.
used this fiscal year. And you can see that the actual is a decent amount more, about
$93,000 more than the budget. And the reason for that is, unfortunately, during the auditing process,
there was a board-approved IT storage purchase that happened at the end of last year that got carried
into the summer. It was definitely needed. We thanked the board for that purchase. But during the auditing
process, we had it started on the budget, but then somehow it got removed. And it wasn't noticed.
Until after the process was over, the purchase was still going forward.
And so all it really did was, you know, at the end of the day, it gave more money offset taxes last year than we'll offset taxes this year.
So it's because at the end of the day, we're always have enough money to offset taxes.
But that was something that got missed as the auditing process happened.
We will put more things into place this year, so something like that doesn't happen.
this year. So a mistake, but we still ended up with the storage product, which
was necessary to run our IT and to the demands that it needs. So you can see from that,
that nets out to a negative 921,000. But that does not include the fund balance that came into this
year. So remember the fund balance from last year came into this year, and it was money that we did
not need to raise in revenue. So if we net those two, then the
projected fund balance is $1.9 million. Now, from that $1.9 million, either things get added
or subtracted before we have our unassigned fund balance. So as we go down the list, we can see that
vacation carryover or accruals. We are expecting to take away about $50,000 from that. That's
banking of some vacation days that can be used in the summer, but they'd be using this year's
dollars towards that. We are liquidating the fiscal year 25 encumbrances. So even though we spent,
more than the budget on that. We still had that revenue coming of that $348,000. So we're kind of
adding that back on. We have fiscal year 26 income. So that right now is just a ballpark number of,
okay, maybe we didn't plan for everything. So it's a little bit of a buffer. So we put in $125,000 for
that. Then we've been talking about the reading program since the beginning of this school year. Wendy is
continue to negotiate. She's done quite well, and we believe will be actually less than
$375,000. So we at first, I think, talked about like $450,000 or $500,000 that the reading
program might be, but we are better than $375,000. So that's something that will be implemented
K through 6. K through 6 next year. And that includes the PD and the physical books as well.
Then we go into our contingency fund. So the town voted to hold up to a maximum of 5%.
That is a decision every year from the school board. So there are two times when the school
will vote on the contingency fund. One will be at your next meeting in June. And you'll put in an
initial amount of what you feel comfortable with that contingency fund being. And then the
final time will be after the audit happens in August. So you're meeting in late August or early
September, you'll confirm what number you want after being able to look at the audited
numbers for fund balance as well. So that is bumping it back in because again, it's in every
year type of thing, and then kind of for a placeholder taking out the same amount. So in a way,
it has a net zero impact right now, but I'm not the one who makes that decision. The board is the one
that makes that decision. I'm just using a zero impact right now until the board has a little
bit more information to make that decision. And then we take out $300,000 for the CRF.
deposit, which was a voter approved, and then $5,000 for some prepaid. So we then have a little
over $1.38 million in unassigned fund balance. As we were working our way through the budget
talks this year, you know, we have our budget, but then we also have our tax rate, which is made up of the
budget and then subtracting the known revenue, and then everything left over at that point is raised in
local taxes by the people of Gostown.
So during that, we said that we were looking to offset taxes. Sometimes I use the same mistake to us saying taxes will go back, but that's not the case. It's offsetting taxes of $1.35 million. So if we use that $1.35 million, then in my opinion, we have more of our true remaining unassigned fund balance, unassigned again, of about $40,000 at that point. So whether we use the first formula to walk our way to it or the second formula to walk our way to it,
we're getting the same thing. So it's just a way for us to double check our work.
And some people, I won't go into the second one as much unless people want me to.
For some people, the first one makes more sense to kind of walk through, and for other people,
the second one makes more sense to walk through. It's the same numbers. It's just a slightly different
presentation of the numbers. So I will go over this. You'll see the same sheet again with slightly
different numbers at our June meeting. Because again, every day the numbers get a little bit better.
they tend to, even though we've done work to get better at this, but as the year goes on, that remaining amount tends to grow.
It doesn't tend to shrink. It tends to grow as the last payroll happens, as our last checks go out to health trust and things like that.
So we keep putting things into place. I think we're getting a little bit better at it, but we do expect it to grow from there.
Doug, if we said this a different way,
basically out of a $55 million budget, you're basically the variance that you have projected
is $40,000 out of a $55 million budget.
Variants from this year, I would think...
Yes is the answer.
With the 1.35, with the 1.35, that is accurate.
Yeah. So I would personally combine it with the 1.35, that is accurate. Yeah. So I would personally combine it with the 1.35.
So I would say the variance was more about $1.4 million.
But then you're still at 2.8%, which is less than 3%.
And no one in the private sector wants to kind of wants to go much closer than 3% of their total budget as well.
It's always better to give back money to offset taxes versus being underwater and figuring out what to do.
Exactly.
And that remaining amount, that remaining amount would then,
if that was left over at the end, would go back to further offset Texas.
Any further questions for Doug on this?
Thank you, Doug. Thank you for the explanation. We look forward to seeing updated numbers as they come up.
Great.
And then we have the CIP plan.
All right. So your CIP, that's the larger pages in their packet.
So the CIP is put together by Scott Gross.
And what he does is he meets with people at schools. He meets with people at the SAU.
He looks at the past ones, and he's looking at just kind of that, just what the town's doing as well,
trying to have put together a good understanding of where the money needs to go for the next seven years here.
So there hasn't been a lot of changes between this CIP and the last one you saw.
Some things maybe got pushed back a little bit further, but I think everything has pretty much stayed on.
We do have two add.
to this. So as we look at the CIP, Scott, let me know that it is due to the town later this week. But without a lot of changes, I think we're in a good spot for that. So along with those pages, I'll talk about the two main additions. And those are on the bottom of page three. So they're both at the high school. And there are two supplementary summary worksheets for those as well. So the first one that I think you'll see talks about.
expanding the high school parking lot. So before I start with us, a big thank you to the town DPW. As you look through here, you'll see kind of
schematics of it. And they helped us create those. They definitely have different expertise than we do. And we always appreciate our partnerships with the town no matter where they are. And so thank you to the DPW from the town. So the first one in regards to the parking lot, I don't think it's a surprise anybody that we have a lack of parking here, whether it's
during the school day where all of our seniors get parking and part of our juniors are able to buy parking passes.
And then there are not enough parking passes for the rest of the juniors and then none for the sophomores at all as they get their licenses.
If you go to sporting events here, especially the football games, people are parking off campus and sometimes not always in the best of ways as well.
So parking would, has been a problem here. We think it will continue to be.
a, well, we know it will continue to be a problem here. So there is a possibility, and we're looking into it more and more as far as enlarging the parking by about 80 spots. It would continue kind of where the student parking is, and then it would go behind the side of the turf field. So that is where the power lines are. So part of that is kind of more controlled by Eversource. Scott's been in contact with them. They do have some stipulations.
but it doesn't seem like anything that would make it not be able to be done.
Then there is some thoughts that maybe there's a little bit of wetland back there.
So we're looking at that aspect as well.
Because as we look at the $400,000 to $500,000 for estimate for this,
that does not include too much mitigation to any wetland.
So if that did include a lot more, then it might not make sense to move forward with this plan.
But looking at it, how we see.
it we don't think there really would be a lot of wetlands impact, but we're not experts.
So this could it be funded.
A lot of it could be funded by impact fees as we are growing due to capacity.
And currently as of like end of February, we had about $394,000 in impact fees.
Our first use, if not lose, would be by December of 2028.
So we are in a good spot of the district's been a good spot of using it.
when they needed to. So there's no need to do something quick without losing money.
But this does seem to match a lot of what the school needs, the town needs,
and would benefit a lot of things and just kind of check off one thing that definitely needs to be done at some point.
So, you know, we're presenting this. I think there's definitely more conversation to come with something like this.
Any questions on the parking before I move.
on to, before we move on to the next.
So just as a reminder, for student parking, the payments that they make for student parking,
where does that money go into what funds?
So it goes, it goes into kind of its own fund, revenue fund, and what it does is it pays for.
There's a person who kind of walks around and patrols it in a way, so it's paying for that,
and then anything left over just doesn't really go anywhere.
It's one of the things that gets over revenue in a way.
Does it just go to the general, like the general fund, or does it stick with a student, like a student balance?
No, it's all in the general fund.
Okay.
So it is, at the very end, if you look at the revenue sheet, there's principal services, and that's where it is.
So we've raised about $34,000 in parking fees this year.
If we have an additional.
80 spaces that are being proposed, that would be additional money that would go into that.
There would be additional money.
Thank you.
Any other questions for parking before we move on to the second proposal?
Yes, Gene.
Any kind of parking that would be up that far would have access, not on the road, but on school
property for safety, I'm very sure.
Any plan would include that.
Yeah, so this parking proposal is just an extension to the left of the existing parking lot, so it's right there.
But certainly anything that would be on our campus, we would want to ensure all the appropriate safety mitigation measures would all be in place.
Thanks.
Yep.
So part of this cost does include four to six additional parking lot lights as well as security cameras on that as well.
So it gets dark here so quickly that we'd light it up and people.
would feel comfortable. That would be our goal.
And the next item, Doug.
All right. So the next item, as you can see in the second summary worksheet is in regards to a baseball
field. So there is no 90 foot, 90 foot being the distance between home plate and first base
or first plate base and second base field in Goffstown, which is owned by the school. So this is more
your high school size field. So as your baseball, as your base path is bigger, obviously so is your out
field. So they are the larger type of fields. So for years, the school district has
been kind of lucky to use both Lionsfield and Allard Field, which has been a great partnership.
Allard Field has gone away. That family has, you know, was very gracious to the district for
years, but has now made different decisions on that. So we thank him for that for that. And so we have
Lions field. But obviously, we have two teams. We have a JV and we have a varsity.
Again, neither one is right here at this campus.
And as we look at a 90-foot varsity or baseball field, doing anything currently at this campus
or at the middle school campus would be hard with as far as extending our current fields.
So there is a thought, and you can see where a projected field could go.
It would be behind the JV softball field, which is the one that kind of, you get the JV.
field and you got a little extra of the field and then it goes into the turf field area there
as well. It would require an access road. So a field by itself is not cheap and then you add it
an access road and it just adds money as well. But without having any fields at all for baseball,
it is something which the district and it makes sense for the district and the town to look at.
As we look at this, there's an estimated project cost.
of $1 million. But there's also very clear information in here that that cost does not include
backstop and fencing, dugouts, scoreboard, public address system, and security cameras and wiring.
So it does include the access road and about 20 parking spots down there by the field, but nothing
more than that. So we don't see this as like a next year thing. We see this as something that the town
would benefit from talking about and kind of thinking about, but it is something that we want
to say is a need for the district because of what we have now. And it's something which we think
would benefit the district as well. We don't have a lot of fields by our campus. If you were to go
on to Google Maps and you looked up Goffstown and you looked at other high schools in the state,
you would see a lot more green around the other high schools than you would see around Goffstown.
So adding a field definitely could make a lot of sense.
What questions do we have for this?
Vanessa.
Doug, and thank you for getting this all together.
You said the DPW helped out.
Do you know if there was any consideration,
just looking more long term and seeing if there was a way to put a second field there at the same time?
Because two fields won't cost $2 million.
Wouldn't we be able to consider maybe some cost savings by bringing the equipment in?
once, you know, do you know if that was a conversation at all?
That's a good point.
So if I can jump in, it wasn't part of the conversation for this, but we've had general conversations
about the need for increased field space.
So general rectangular fields that you can use across multiple sports and multiple seasons,
that's really what we've seen the need to be.
You're right.
If you're going to mobilize the equipment, you're going to do the engineering to do a slightly
larger project is certainly not double the cost.
So that could be something that we could explore a little further.
And again, I think it was the town engineer, Scott Osana, is the one who did the work on this.
So we're very appreciative to Adam Jacobs from DPW as well as Scott.
But we could take a little more of a look at that.
We did talk about and have talked about general need for rectangular fields.
Yeah, 100%.
Okay.
Yeah, if we're going to talk more about it, I don't want to be it on course.
So we're going to talk, this is certainly a topic that the board will talk more about it,
but the CIP is due to the town this week.
So I think for now I would recommend, let's move it forward,
because we know that the need is there.
The town knows that the need is there, but then we can always go back and revise these things.
The other thing, if I may, is I wanted to make sure that you saw,
Mr. Gross also included what we call
affectionately, the mini CIP.
So these are items that are on our collective radar,
but they are less than 25,000.
If Mrs. Vermakowicz is watching this,
she will appreciate that we're still maintaining this list
because this is very important to her.
But so these ones don't hit the dollar threshold,
but, you know, all of these things are important.
All of these things are critical for us to make sure
that we're maintaining our schools appropriately.
And as you've heard me saying,
many times, the schools are the most valuable asset that the taxpayers of Goffstown own.
So it's our responsibility to do a good job of keeping them.
So with that being said, Doug, it looks like we need to approve or adopt a CIP plan
tonight so we can send it to the town.
Do we want to go over a high-level summary, especially for our new folks that are here for what CIP is
and working with those particular items?
Yeah, so capital and capital and
Improvement plan is a way for towns to kind of budget out their needs as far as the buildings or parking lots or items that cost a lot of money.
So as they're looking at expenditures over 30 years or six years, they're trying to get to more of a level when they can and then when are they going to use municipal leases or bonds also.
So it's a planning tool that's supposed to be.
kind of the school and the town working together.
And that's what I think we see within Goffstown as well.
And that's where the meetings this summer will kind of lead towards.
So as you can see here, there are some years if you flip all the way to the back, last page.
And we go down to, I think it's row 321 in the red, where you're around 2 million or 1 million or 1.5.
So you're somewhat consistent and then you move on to.
And again, this doesn't mean it's going to happen for the people at home, but this is to lead a conversation,
28, 29, where there is larger expenses.
Because you can't always chip away in an even way and that kind of supports normal tax growth
without sometimes bonding things out.
So you can see during that year there are more projects, which we'll
would lead more towards a bond if that were to occur.
Because you can see the total price for that would be about 13 and a half million.
So, you know, what could lead to that?
You know, if we look at 28, 29, a lot of it's the roof replacements.
So again, it might not not sound fun, but we know at our own homes, we mostly last for so long themselves too.
So we do have to plan for those replacements.
There's things like septic system replacements at the middle school, which Boston is dealing with
in the moment during the school year as their second system failed.
But as I remind people, they got 50 years out of it.
That's awesome.
That is good.
Oh, that guy back.
That is great.
They don't make them like that anymore.
But there's a lot of parking lot work too during that year.
So sometimes, you know, it might be replacing different doors or a generator or windows,
but sometimes it's grouping of things that would add up more to a bond early.
any questions about any individual line items for the CIP
because we are going to be asked to adopt this to move forward for this summer.
Dan is going to be representing us.
Thank you, Dan, for taking on that.
Doug, just looking at line on the last page, you know, it's near and dear to my heart, line 295,
the new elementary school that we had listed.
I know that we had listed out for years earlier than the 3132 range.
And I know that there was widespread discussion of an elementary school versus a middle school.
It looks like the price has increased out in that fiscal year from what it was.
I think Mr. Gross has, he pushed it out, but I think he looked at some of the current costs of building a large-scale facility, and they are outrageous.
So I think he's, I think that's a high.
number, but I'm sure he would say, you know, by the time 2030 comes around, who knows
what anything is going to cost.
So I think he kind of went a little high.
I just said to follow up on that, I just know one of the reasons why we looked at a new elementary
school versus middle school was because that's where our bubble was, continued to be,
as if the elementary school, not the middle school, and elementary schools tended to be a little
bit cheaper to build versus middle schools.
That's why we kind of looked at having a new elementary school listed.
So, Dan, just for your information, if it comes up.
Any other further line items from the CIP?
If not, then I will entertain a motion to adopt the CIP as presented to be sent to the town for review.
So that motion has been made by Shane, seconded by Ginny.
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor of adopting the CIP as presented, please signify by saying aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
We are unanimous.
Thank you, Doug and Jack.
We will move on to budget committee.
Vanessa, how was the first meeting that you went to?
Well, guys, buckle up for budget season.
It's a great watch.
It was a joint budget and select board meeting,
and there wasn't any motion or anything,
but it looks like what they're looking for,
to, like, establish targets early on,
get things out in front of them early on,
and then work more collaboratively over the entire season.
So another joint budget and select board,
I guess will happen every quarter,
so the next one will be in August.
And there was a little bit of chatter about, you know,
caps and percentages and things like that,
but nothing obviously sent in stone.
Can't wait to go back.
Was there any takeaways that we had
from the school board perspective?
No.
No? Nothing. Nothing.
They were happy to see me.
I was happy to be there.
And I just want to say, they put their tables up on the stage
and made it more to you, so I would highly suggest maybe
that next time the school board is in there,
we could consider that shape so we can see everybody's face
instead of the long Last Supper tables.
Just a thought.
It was nice to be able to see faces.
I saw to see.
Easy fix.
It's harder to paint when it's in the U-Shshed.
shape, though.
Yeah, it's work on it, too.
Great.
Do we have a next meeting for the budget at this point?
No, they didn't set it yet.
Okay.
Thank very much.
Moving on to C&E.
C&E.
Our next meeting is May 18th at 7 p.m. at 7 p.m. at BSA.
Okay.
Thank you, Chene.
Yes, PNC met this evening.
We will have non-public later at the end of the meeting.
We talked to.
about the retreat quite a bit, and we've been working with Brian on the agenda and what items
will cover at the retreat, and if we can move some of the items to June 1st.
Is this?
I didn't, because you're not going to be here June 1st.
We had a little bit of discussion about that.
Where am I going to be?
You're going to be here?
I think the thing that made me cover your center on.
Oh, yeah, no, I'll be here.
That clears up any confusion.
Anyway, so we did talk about the retreat and we're narrowing down the agenda, so we should have something pretty firmed up.
And Brian, Scott, we'll have some notes for you on that.
We, the, what we call the straccom.
our strategic communication plan, we're still working on that.
We will have a draft to share with you on June 1st, and it's something that we will likely discuss at the retreat.
And then for the, actually going back to the retreat, we're exploring the possibility of maybe bringing in a facilitator to have more discussions around.
topics of interest to the board.
We don't often get a lot of time to dive into some of the issues.
There's been a lot going on.
So we're working on that.
And to that end, we'd like to send out a survey to get some ideas from you on topics
that you'd all like to be able to spend some more time on.
We've got some initial ideas on that.
So we'll share those out.
And what else?
The, I think I've got everything.
Is there anything else I missed that we wanted to cover?
We will be meeting again because we want to get this done.
We're going to be meeting again at the end of May on the 28th to work on the strategic communication plan,
so it'll be in better shape, and we'll get that to you on June 1st.
Yes.
Could I just ask?
one thing. Reda mentioned that we would be going into non-public later this evening to discuss a PNC item. Those are scholarships here at the high school. So it's not very often that we have non-public for this subcommittee. It's a really good thing. It's for student scholarships. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Thank you, Reda. Move on to P. Policy. All right. So policy has not met since our last meeting. We will meet again on May 18th, which is next Monday, 530 at the SAU office.
And in just a few moments, we will look at the Q&A policies from our last meeting.
You'll remember that the first two of those policies are policies for review.
And after that, going into the C's and the Ds, those are policies that are optional.
And we had discussed about whether or not we want to delete them.
So hopefully, y'all did your homework.
Thank you, Shane.
I see a board meeting report.
Let's there a report about that.
We won't be meeting again until the fall.
There was conversation about
potentially looking at the budget and approval of the budget earlier earlier
earlier yeah I think we we had already talked about Doug I'm not sure if you had
weighed in on that but we didn't have any objection to that made sense
pretty good and then I think it'll still be a September date
because there's a meeting in October so they were looking to do the budget
adoption earlier than December so we'll so we'll so we may end up
doing in October and a November might be how it how it actually plays out.
And then we'll move on to the Superintendent report.
Thank you. So I wanted to give an update on some legislation stuff.
There's a lot going on with respect to legislation.
There continue to be around 70 bills that are still moving through the process with another 24
that are on the table until the final gavel falls.
May 14th is the next date for House and Senate sessions. A very full agenda is expected.
and a committee of conference will form the week after that.
Amendments, including floor amendments, which do not receive any kind of a public hearing, are now being acted on.
So there's a lot going on.
A couple that I'd like to highlight.
House Bill 564, this was a new one that has popped up since our last meeting regarding SAU budgets.
This bill changes the SAU budget adoption RSA and would require a vote on town meeting day.
for the SAU budget and one thing I wanted to share with Goffstown in particular is it has to be voted on by all the towns in an SAU and if the vote fails in any of them then the budget fails so essentially new Boston if new Boston voted the SAU budget down
Goffstown would have no ability to act upon that even though you're around 80% of the operational costs so I'd share that with you
here's another one House Bill 1300 establishes a biennial local tax cap question during even numbered state elections and there's also a cap on the SAU budget that's tucked into that it looks like there might have been an amendment to that one today so we'll see when this plays out but it's a it would be a tax cap even though a tax cap can be created at the local level this would be the state imposing that decision on all local towns.
Next one I would share is House Bill 1268 and this provides access to education freedom account students to things like academics, athletics, co-curriculars, and it requires the creation of a policy.
So the board is aware that I have a draft policy that I've been holding on to waiting to see what happens with this.
So we're going to continue to pause on that for now, but it looks like we're going to be required to have the policy.
So we're going to wait and see what happens with this.
that one. Minimally, what I would probably let the board know is if we have EFA students that elect to take courses or access things like co-curricular or athletics in the fall, that while the process, the policy would not be done, given our policy procedure and timeline in terms of presentation to the policy committee coming forth for a first read, having a Q&A, that whole process is going to take us a couple of months. So we might want to let EFA families know that over the course of the year.
that that policy will be adopted at some point.
So that can be something we can talk about at a later point, but I wanted you to know about that.
I wanted to share that there was some pretty significant damage done to Lyons Field.
I would call it vulgar graffiti.
Pretty disgusting, actually.
And I'm very pleased to announce, and I didn't include it in your correspondence folder because I didn't print out the police department's press release,
but they caught two people.
So two people have been arrested.
And given the nature of racist, hateful, vulgar graffiti, these will be felony charges.
So congratulations to those two individuals.
And a couple of other updates, I wanted to let you know that we're having some issues here at Goughstown High School with our elevator.
So the good news is, as Mr. Loring is optimistic, that they came and removed parts from the elevator,
which we believe means that the new parts.
to replace them are en route. But as of right now, we don't have the necessary parts and
the elevator is offline. So at this point, we're okay with that. If we had a need, we would
move courses or classes to another level of the building. Unfortunately, this is not a lack of
desire for us to fix said elevator. It's there are very few vendors. You can't get parts.
Parts have to be manufactured. It unfortunately takes time. So that's,
in process. I wanted to also let you know one of the things for the FY27 budget
process, we budgeted for replacement of our low voltage fire lines. So this in
in Goffstown, there are a number of these lines that it's essentially an old fire
system that the fire department maintains. They put us on notice that they would
stop maintaining those next year that impacts Mountain View in particular. So that
that has gone down and it's not being repaired. So we have authorized Randy to move forward
with that. So we will be changing to a private service that will be more like think about an
alarm type company. So we've activated that to happen because the fire suppression, it's been
taken offline earlier than the fire department anticipated. So we'll move forward with that. And I
wanted to let you know there was yet another data breach. So we continue to hear about a lot of these
data breaches. I wanted if you didn't hear about the one that pertains to Canvas,
Canvas is a learning management software that is used by all the university system of New Hampshire
and the New Hampshire Education Department allows districts to access that under their account
if they want to. This did not impact us, except for some students taking classes through the
virtual learning academy. There was some impacts there. So it did not impact schoology in any way,
shape or form, but I wanted to let you know about the impact to our Virtual Learning Academy students. And my very last one is kind of a sad, bittersweet one. I wanted to point out that this is Mrs. Morin's last meeting with you. So she wasn't going to tell you, but I wanted to make sure that I told you. So she didn't want a cake. We already did that at the SAU meeting with the cupcakes and stuff, but this is her last day. And I just wanted to recognize her and to thank her.
that again. Thank you, Mrs. Morin. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Myself, Mrs. Kohler, Mr. Taughton. I'm not sure how we'll get by on our meetings without Mrs. Morin.
Do you have a very good person in line? I suspect that we will have a very good person in line,
but not quite Mrs. Moran.
Shane, go ahead. I had a similar question to Ginny. I just wanted to see if we had some on
lined up because we know how important that position is, so hopefully there's someone that can
almost fill the shoes. I think we've got a really good replacement. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Moving on to old business, we have a Q&A of some policies, so I'll turn the
meeting over to Shane to review those items. Hopefully people have them from our prior meetings.
So these are the question and answer policies. So the first one is KHB, which is the advertising,
and recognition in schools policy.
So again, this is the question and answer kind of session where we can kind of pick through them if we need to,
and then they would be up for adoption at our next regular meeting.
So I didn't know if anyone had any questions, comments, concerns, input on KHB, which is the advertising,
sponsorship, and recognition in schools.
I have some questions.
And my general comment is, in my gut, I cringe a little when I think about
you know, the advertising, but I know there's a lot of pros and cons to it.
So, and it looks like you've had a lot of good information in here.
I did have a question about the revenues that will be derived, will be used to enhance the
curricular and extracurricular activities.
How, is it a separate fund, or how will we know that,
that this needs to be used for those specific activities?
That's a great question, because that's one of the things that we were hung up on quite a bit
in the supplement, was how do we know if someone's kind of, kind of, has the idea that
money is for the football team?
Right.
You know, how do we know that the football team is getting the money?
Right.
And things like that.
So I think that that's going to be something that we need to determine as far as how we're going
to kind of.
to do that. And then we also, the question that spawned from that was if we have a team or a club
that is less likely to have a lot of money, think, not know, bowling, you know, do we want them
to be unable to access any of this money or, you know, how we're kind of thinking about the equity piece
of it. Right. So we did bandy that around quite a bit. And I don't know, Brian New Fandy.
Yeah, one of the things I'd, it's really important to make sure where money is coming from and how
it's being allocated and to make sure that it's really clear. So I don't want to speak.
I don't know, Doug, if you can speak to this at all. Scott and I had talked about a couple of different
options, but to have a special dedicated revenue accounts is kind of what we had talked about.
There are limited ways to do that, though. Doug, anything to add to that?
No, I mean, I would agree that we would want its own account to keep track of it. And then the
question would be, and I don't know which way this committee
wants to go. I mean, if it's coming into an account, we can only hold on to that money for a year,
where if it goes into a CRF as well, we can hold on to the money longer. Right. So we would
either have to kind of move it forward to a CRF, which it would make sense to be its own CRF as well,
or kind of have known projects to do within that year as well.
But being a CRF, that takes time to create. So that has to
go before. That has to be part of the budget process. That has to be approved by the voters.
It has to be established before you can put any money into it or access it.
Ginny.
The money that comes from advertising, is that going to be available to all of the groups or is it going to be
going to be pinpointed to?
I think we're actually looking more facilities-related and less group-related. So don't think
about purchasing uniforms. Think about putting it back into the
facility itself. So that's my take is that I think the money that comes in
from, you know, ad revenue, we should invest back into the field, making sure that we're
taking care of, you know, all of the seeding, expanding, you know, our grass care, et cetera,
making sure that everything's being maintained properly. And this would be all of the fields?
Yeah, exactly. The gym. Yep. I think that would include inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would include inside.
as well.
The example of that, Jenny, was when this start first came about several years ago, when Scott
and I stumbled into a meeting, there was questions about, you know, wrestling mats, you know,
being able to have those. And, you know, this would be an opportunity where we could use this fund
for new wrestling mats. That would be advertising from a wrestling program or something along
those lines.
Okay. Because there's some programs they're going to generate a lot of revenue football.
And then there's others like bowling.
probably bass fishing, you know, but they still deserve to have equipment that works
and or field or gym that's up to par. So I'm just hoping that it, you know, everybody has
stake in the game with the funding, not just the, you know, the big sports.
In fact, I would give you my assurance that it wouldn't be that. It wouldn't be that, you know,
the football group or the softball group or, you know, you know,
some motivated group is going to come and access those funds.
It's going to be district directed back to the facilities.
It's not going to be, this would not be, you know, uniforms and those kinds of things.
It would be more hard-scape facility stuff.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because I just think it's fair to, if we're going to advertise it, everybody has a playing field.
Yeah.
Yeah, just in regards to that, I just wanted to say in our committee discussion, we talked a lot with Scott about this.
It being that it doesn't replace some of the activities of the booster clubs, and I think page three of this really outlines that more,
where if there was, you know, the football booster club has a certain thing.
They're doing signage, that's something different than this large scale, something that would be on scoreboard, something like that.
That would be money that would go into the established fund for CRF, however it's established.
But I think page three offers, like, some of the guidance on that.
Okay.
Thank you.
This is a lot easier, and I'm not looking for the answer.
But in the middle of page two, there's a numbered list, and it looks like everything got made small case and then a period.
I looked online.
I'm not the grammar police, but it seems a little awkward.
You know, should it be a comma, should it be capital?
I don't know what the answer is, but I think maybe look back into that because it looks funky to me.
And I think we'll have that as a takeaway.
I think we did note that, too, and that we need to, I think it was actually Laura who said that we need to kind of make that uniform as far as the sums up, uppercase, lowercase, yeah.
I don't know what the correct way is, but.
Right, but something consistent.
Well, if it's right, I know what's wrong.
You can't do it, right, do it neat that.
Good with that much on, go on to the next one.
All right, the next one is JFAB, which is the foreign exchange student policy, which is,
Again, I think the major thing that we had discussed last time was the, we're at five, bringing it down a three to be more in line with districts surrounding us.
I don't know if anyone had any input on that.
RETA.
With, do we know what it costs to host an exchange student?
What does it cost the school?
Is there any cost to associate?
These are some of the interesting factors, and there is no cost.
Okay.
There is no cost to the family.
There's no cost to the organization that sends them, but there are costs associated with our school district.
Okay, and that's what I, because this is a budgetary decision going.
I mean, you would think it's essentially a per-pupil cost.
Right.
Okay.
And then the other question I had on page two, and it's the board has the ability to,
waive this, but anything beyond three, New Boston would be responsible for paying for that
student.
Is that correct?
So right now, if you have a high school student from New Boston, New Boston is not
paying tuition for that student.
Right, up to three.
If this, with this new policy, it would be up to three.
But for Goffstown,
If the board approved to have another student, Goffstown wouldn't pay anymore, but New Boston would,
or is it just, it's coming out of our budget, it's coming out of the Goffstown budget.
I'm just looking at the equity, you know, is it the same for New Boston as it, if it's more than three students?
I don't know that we discussed that.
So we've discussed that internally, and it would probably be a function of who came in at what point.
So when we identify three seats, when the three seats,
when the three seats are full, then it would be five is high.
So I think that Wendy had shared this with the policy meeting.
I kind of had a hanker in that this was a little high.
And then when we had Mrs. McCann called around, we are the only school district that's at five.
Okay.
So everybody else is at three or lower.
So I think that the adjustment is appropriate.
Okay.
Great.
No, Sarah?
Yep.
Jenny, did you have the question?
No.
Okay.
I thought that's how you had to end up.
I was just thinking because we seem to get,
every year somebody comes in and asks for more spots.
That's because they know that we're very generous.
Okay.
And so we have that reputation.
You may have that reputation as a board as well.
Okay.
All right.
So those two policies will come back to the next full board meeting for adoption.
So then we're getting into the optional policies.
starting with CBB.
So as we talked about, they're alphabetical.
So we did the A-Bs.
Now we're into the C's and Ds.
So hopefully you guys were able to review some of these.
And if you have any thoughts about whether we should eliminate them or should keep them, please share them.
C-B-B is the appointment of superintendent.
It's basically a one-sentence policy.
So this is saying that it has to be the SAU that would appoint.
It can't be Goffstown that New Boston has to?
It couldn't legally be Goffstown or New Boston independently.
Right.
So if we get rid of this, do we have anything else written any place else that would state that?
It's in the state statutes around the SAU responsibilities.
So as an SAU, there are certain functions that fall to the SAU level.
Okay.
Yeah.
So some of a lot of these, and this will be a theme that you'll hear,
A lot of these optional policies are very, very old.
And many of them have not been revised in 20-plus years.
And if there are things that are otherwise in other statutes or in other administrative rules,
it makes good sense to consider getting rid of them so that you have less policies in your policy manual.
Maintain the ones that you have to have and keep them more current.
So that's kind of the thinking.
And if I can just comment,
on that. I think one of the things, if we just say, oh, it's in the, you know, it's in the regulations,
then people don't, you know, they're not going to go looking in the regulations, whereas it's in the
policy, they can see it. It's a limited list. It's in plain English. It's easy to find. So if
we're getting rid of the policy, would anyone know? But with that said, when it's a policy that's one
line. It's like, what does this mean? Well, and if you didn't have the policy, nobody would
know either. Right. Right. If it wasn't in the manual, you wouldn't know it. Right. Sometimes they have a
purpose, though, to help people understand that it's important. Yeah. Sure. That one is. All right, so
we're keeping this on the table for deletion. Okay. All right. The next one is CBF, which is the code of ethics for
administrators, and I think this becomes a little bit redundant because of the fact that we have the state
code of ethics now. So I would argue that this is probably redundant since we have that.
Okay. All right. All right. All right. Next one is CHC, which is regulations communication.
Again, this is basically a one-sentence policy, and seems pretty self-explanatory.
Unless anyone disagrees. All right. Next one is DBB, which is the fiscal year.
which basically defines our fiscal year.
First day of July to the 30th day of June.
Is that a state mandate?
So, okay.
Let's see.
RSA 3210, transfer appropriations.
We just made our own local copy.
Okay.
We just made our own local copy.
Pretty essentially, yes.
All right, we're good?
All right.
To support state law.
we now have DBF, DBG, which is budget hearings and reviews slash adoption procedures.
So again, we're citing RSA 32 and RSA 40 colon 13.
Any objections?
All right.
And that brings us on to D.C., which is taxing and borrowing authority slash lamentations.
Or limit, it's limitations, not lamentations.
Look at this.
I was read that.
I said it.
I'm like, I really, I really don't want to have to borrow this money.
Does that have any strong opinions?
Then we have DED, which is funding proposals and applications.
I see no objections.
All right.
Moving on to DEA, which is revenues from local tax sources.
People are reading.
Everyone okay?
Jared.
Thank you, Shane.
Just looking at this, I don't know if this might be good to keep.
because it at least explains the process to somebody that doesn't know the process very well.
I don't, you know, I'm just looking at this.
I know this pretty well.
I think most of us do, but I don't know if keeping this helps explain it to, you know, Joe's citizen or Jane citizen if they don't know the process.
And therefore, it should be kept.
We could certainly keep it an update for review date.
RETA?
I'm just saying this is an example.
one of those things that it's useful because it's plain English.
It's not some reg that you have to dig deep for.
All right.
So let's keep this and we'll update the review date.
That's not fair?
Yeah.
All right.
DJF, which is local purchasing.
I'm hearing crickets.
We're moving on.
All right.
And the last one is DG, the depository of funds.
And now I'm hearing air circulation.
So I'm guessing we're good on that one too.
All right.
Thank you all.
all for reviewing all these.
I know it's a lot to go through.
So thank you for kind of taking time
to look through these as we.
That's the Ds.
So logically,
we'd be looking into the
these next.
All right.
Thank you guys.
We won't even get to the Eps
because there's so many.
Thank you, Shane.
I know that we're going to be going
in a new business now.
I know we're going to be doing a scholarship discussion,
but RETA, I didn't know
while the cameras are on,
if you can kind of do at least an elevator
speech of the scholarships
to let everybody know what they are
and know that we're going to be discussing them later on.
Great idea.
There's two scholarships
that come before us every year
and there is a scholarship
committee and they make some recommendations
for us to review.
So one is the Mildred Stark Scholarship
and I'm doing this out of memory
but I believe this scholarship
is for community service,
civic engagement,
and there has to be two students.
students, a male and female?
Yes.
Boy, girl.
And then the other
the other one is
the Doris Bailey,
who I love.
She was our nurse in the school.
Anyways, this is a scholarship
specifically for those
going into nursing and or health care.
And so the processes that
they would be brought to the board
and selection will be made
for the award.
winners and those would, again,
we have videos of those for the presentation.
Right.
For those particular items or not?
For those will be presented
at when they give out all of the scholarships.
And I believe that's either happening sometime in May or early June.
Correct.
Thank you, Rhonda.
Thank you for kind of.
Yeah, and as the committee had, we discussed a little bit,
if you have a chance to go to those presentations,
it's really pretty impressive.
and I really like that the scholarship committee tries to make sure that, you know,
they're not all going to one or two people that they're really trying to spread them out to to all the students.
Thank you, Red.
I appreciate that.
So we will be going into non-public for those discussions.
And the next item, Brian, I know that you talked about it at our last meeting briefly,
but looking at the start and stop times based on the GA contract and how that affects our school.
You bet. Thank you, Jared. So you should have in your packet a memo that was put together and highlights the status of this. So I reported that we were still working on this. So at this point, I don't want to read the memo, but it does provide a lot of really good important information. So in March 2006, voters approved a new collective bargaining agreement between the Goffstown Education Association and the Goffstown School District. In addition to salary adjustments, a key provision of the approved.
CBA was the requirement that teachers receive a 30-minute uninterrupted lunch period.
And as part of that, we have the authority to extend the instructional day to accommodate to meet the required 30-minute lunch period.
So as we looked at this, implementation of this provision affects each of the schools a little differently.
So at some schools, including Goffstown High School and Glen Lake, existing schedules already allowed for a compliant 30-minute teacher lunch and did not require any other.
internal schedule changes. At other schools, most notably Mountain View Middle School, the current schedule did not allow for a dedicated 30-minute lunch without some restructuring.
So just to give a little history of this, prior to contract negotiations in late 2024, the middle school administration convene a working group of teachers and administrators to revise the middle school schedule.
That middle school working group attended a Nelms conference, which is the New England League of Middle
schools. So that was a dedicated special scheduling conference in January of 25.
And they worked for over a year to explore different school schedules and different configurations.
In late 2025, the group explored a block schedule for Mountain View Middle School, which would look a lot like the current block scheduling at Goffstown High School, with the goal of reducing transition times between classes.
Administration believes this approach would improve.
instructional efficiency and it would reduce lost time during transition.
So the long and short of it is GEA expressed some concerns with the proposed block schedule.
And despite good faith efforts, we were not able to reach an agreement on the proposed schedule by the established April deadline.
So I want to share a little bit about the April deadline.
In order for us to build all of our schedules for each of our schools, we have to do that through power school.
And that takes extensive time.
There's often special configurations that need to be done.
So we had a hard stop that whatever we were going to adopt for a schedule, we had to make that decision in April because we had to start building the schedule for the next year.
So this is one that I think that there was a lot of goodwill.
The teachers, I think, overall, really supported the middle school teachers, supported the movement to a block schedule.
But unfortunately, the clock ran out on us on this one.
We didn't have it wrapped up in time.
And so that brings us to where we are.
So if you look at the backside of the chart,
and it kind of gives an indication.
There are some slight start and end time adjustments,
but the only increase was at Mountain View and it's eight minutes.
So we did make a slight adjustment to be able to accommodate that.
We should share that we believe the scheduling committee
and Mrs. Kohler has been working with
the middle school administration on this, they will be getting the band back together,
and we will be continuing to work on that block schedule, and hopefully we'll be able
to resolve some of the outstanding issues.
So we do optimistically believe that this is going to be a one-year impact, and that next
year we'll have a new schedule that the board will hopefully be able to approve, which will include
implementation of a block schedule at Mountain View.
Mrs. Kohler, you were pretty involved in all these meetings.
Anything that you would add or anything that I left off?
No, I don't think so.
I think much appreciation to Mrs. Williams and the group that was meeting over at Mountain View for all of their hard work.
As the board knows and for people at home that are watching, at the elementary level and at the high school level,
we have 90-minute instructional blocks.
And at Mountain View, because we had a lot of itinerant staff and we also had halftime staff,
it was hard to go to 90 minutes because of that.
Now we're in a situation where the time is right for us to make that transition to 90-minute blocks
so we have continuity throughout the district, so they're working really hard on that.
Of course, there's a lot of logistics that go into scheduling, so trying to figure out how to get
lunches in there, how to get recess, and how do we make sure that we're meeting the needs of all
of our students is a big part of that, but I believe we're going to get there.
And I know from the meetings at Mountain View, the blocks
themselves, the logistics around the blocks were not the part that we were hung up on.
It was the other pieces that we needed to bring together.
So I just want to thank the middle school for all of their hard work on this.
I think we're going to be bringing something back sooner rather than later in the fall.
Questions? Vanessa.
Yeah, and I just, I want to make clear for, because this chart is super helpful.
Thank you for putting it out.
So every school, except for New Boston and Bartlett, isn't extending their school day necessarily,
but their times are changing, and so the bus times are also going to change and shift across all of those routes as well.
Correct.
Hopefully for the one year.
So we're trying to get part of, there are a number of things that we're trying to fix.
So we don't want to have start and end times that are 756 to 241.
We're trying to make things more on the five or 15 minute increment.
It's just easier for people to remember schedules.
So there are, so some of these things we are changing, but again, because we couldn't quite finish this, there's going to be another version of it next year.
But the busing impacts all the way down the line.
Yeah.
You change one, you change them all.
Right.
These are going into effect.
We'll come back to that.
Laura.
I was just noticing on the chart.
It just says Maple Avenue has a current end time of 3.10, and I was thinking it was 3 p.m.
at Maple Avenue.
I think you're accurate.
I think it's right now.
It says current start time 840, current end time 310, and then it says proposed start time 845, proposed and time 315.
So that would be a 15 minute difference.
Just checking it.
Yeah, that might be a typo on Mr. Gross's chart.
Okay.
I'll blame Scott because I know Maple is 3 o'clock right now because that's when we're picking up our daughter.
believe it's a typo.
I was thinking of you.
Jared, do arrive at 1 p.m. to park?
I'm just wondering.
I went there.
Just to be clear then.
So Mabel would go 3 o'clock, and it would go 845 to 305.
Is that correct?
I would want to double check all the times before I agree to that.
That sounds right.
Brian, are you looking for a vote for
approval of this, even though it's already been in.
It's a ratification by the board.
Yes, please.
So I think if we could at least get the information
accurate for a vote,
unless you need it tonight versus our next meeting.
Minimally, what I'm really looking for is the
approval of the eight-minute increase at Mountain View.
So if the motion
was even limited to that, that's
the thing that we need.
Other questions?
So just as a notation,
we won't be voting on the actual start and stop.
Times for any kind of vote
for tonight, but we would be voting on
an increase of eight minutes at the middle
school, knowing
when those starts-sought times will be at the
next meeting that we have.
Just a question. Yes, Ann.
So one of mine was that
Glenleg, he spent the other half of his day
at the Y.
Does this, and I don't know that he did,
does this jive with that
scheduling there, or is that going to create a problem?
It does. They typically try to
jive with us. Yeah. So they
They adjust whatever our start and end times are.
And again, the Y program is really important to families
because we still continue to not have full-day kindergarten in Goffstown.
So this is probably my chance to say next year,
we will be one of very few.
Timberlain doesn't have it, even though they have the ability that you can get it for some kids
and you can buy it for other kids.
Hampstead doesn't have it and Goffstown.
Boston is moving forward.
London Derry is moving forward.
So.
What are the questions we have, at least, for this,
for any questions about scheduling?
Just on this memo, it does
say that the GEA's request for the school district to implement
30-minute teacher lunch without making any changes
to the duration of the school day.
So is that still in play with the decision?
It is not in play.
Okay.
It is not in play.
Okay.
Nope.
I saw Jack first and I was going to make the motion.
Okay, Dan.
Just the 6.88 versus the 6.75, I know it sounds minuscule,
but is that for your hourly staff going to increase so much time they're working and then...
No, there'll be some slight shifts that could occur.
There will not be increases.
That would be a budgetary increase that we would need to address.
Okay.
Thank you.
Other questions before Jack goes and makes a motion?
I have...
I'm sorry.
more question, Jared. Go ahead, Vanessa.
The other line that I'm looking at, too, Laura, you just reminded me.
The SAU has recently informed that the GEA declined the proposed pods.
Did they give you a rationale for why they said no to table it to impact almost every school bus
and time change and then add on minutes to Mountain View?
I don't know that they gave a specific, and I really wouldn't want to speak on their part.
I do agree that I think teachers need to have a 30-minute lunch.
So that is something.
part of the day that I believe in so that is something that we we absolutely concur with
it's just the everything is not as simple as it seems and when you start to move one
domino you end up moving a whole lot of dominoes so I support the you know the teachers
having 30 minutes lunch I think they absolutely should so I think it's the right thing
and hopefully next year we'll have the the block scale
that I think we'll make some good positive changes for teaching and learning.
Other questions? Jack, give it a shot.
Okay. Make a motion that we increase the time of Mountain View Middle School by eight minutes for the school year of 20-27.
Motion made by Jack and seconded by Ginny. Okay, any further questions or comments?
Those in favor, a signal by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Nay.
Any abstentions.
We have one nay by Ms. Vanessa.
I don't know if I'm allowed to talk, but when my kids went to Mountain View, I'm into Maple Lab,
the school day did end at 10 past.
They just let walkers leave early.
Walkers.
But it was 10 pass for the rest.
I just, oh, go ahead, Wendy.
So eventually texting with Mr. Demer.
Thank you, Mr. Demer.
for any attention.
Walker's parent pickup in early buses.
There are some early buses that come at three,
but the majority of the buses
come at 3-10.
That's right for Mr. DeMers.
Once again, Mrs. Bean is on the mark.
And always, we welcome your
comments about anything.
So I don't know if that changes you want
to prove the whole thing now.
Yeah, if it's right, do I want to adopt the whole thing?
Well, do we have confirmation that it's right?
I'd want to know when the last all the day rings.
Yeah, that's the way you do.
There's different.
That's the end of the day, yeah.
Yeah, that's just there's an increase, there's time in the bus room
for those kids that are on those buses.
Yep.
So again, we'll just, we'll pick this up for next meeting.
So that we can be 100% on what, what is that we're voting on?
Great.
We go with your date, right?
Great.
Move on to staffing notifications.
So, um,
over to the superintendent. Yeah, thank you.
So three resignations for your approval this evening,
and we wish these teachers the best.
I'll make a motion to approve the teacher resignations as presented.
Second.
Motion by Shane. Second by Dan.
What questions do we have?
Seeing no questions, we will move on.
All those in favor of accepting the resignations with mixed emotions,
signify by saying hi.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
we passed unanimously.
Okay.
Another speech?
Yeah, another speech leaving.
Oh, yes.
Yes. You want me to make a speech?
Friend.
I can do the best.
Okay, Reda, I will turn it over for three things.
Okay, this is my take.
So you may have different versions.
The first one, I thought it would be worthwhile.
to do the account receivables for the lunch program.
There's quite a bit of conversation going on there.
I think it's good for the town to know about that.
CIP, parking lot, and the varsity baseball field discussion.
And then I did have the adjustment to the schedule, but I'm not sure if we want to do that now.
that probably right just when you said the lunch part are you including the
25% increase in that 25 cent increase in that yeah it will start kind of with the
conversation of yes thank you and highlight that there's help out there yeah in
the community I've got like two lines that's that's that I can include so if that's
something if that's something important then
maybe the school board has a one page or I don't know that we could give more
information so I'll I'll try to fit it in there but I do need a third thing
yeah that we're pleased to get two scholarships tonight and that would probably
just have to be the discussion we had under new business yeah this won't be
release into the awards but that's good that's it thank you team any other
items that come before the board so any other additional items that we do not
plan on discussing okay if not we will be going into non-public after non-public there
will be a vote for ratification of the scholarships in public but the names will not
be associated in that vote so I just want to let people know there will be a quick
vote after non-public about that by that time I will accept to go under
nonpublic under RSA 91 a 311 subsection C matters which it's discussed in
public it would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person
so moved motion by Shane seconded by seconded by Vanessa we'll do a roll call
vote starting with you at aye yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes we are now in non-public
and he will head downstairs.
Yep.
Thank you, team.