Goffstown School Board - June 1, 2026

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

Recording

1st, 2026 for our school board meeting. First order business is the Pledge of Allegiance.
Shane, will you lead us on? With correspondence. None this evening. No correspondence. We will move on to
good news and accommodations. We will start with student rep. All right. A good amount happening
at the school right now, kind of just with the time of year that it is. I'm joined by a friend,
as you can see. But to start with kind of some of the senior stuff that's going on today,
this upcoming Thursday is going to be scholarship night where students are going to be recognized
and receive some financial aid for their academic achievements. Next Thursday is going to be
graduation held at St. Anselaums in the ice arena. Next Tuesday is the senior banquet
and the senior baccalaureate. And then the Wednesday between graduation and the senior banquet
is going to be senior paloosa. Last week, two weeks ago, I don't remember when it occurred.
The environmental science classes and the environmental club went with Dr. Hoden and Mr. Veyu to, where did we go?
NHTI for the Envirathon.
One of our school's teams, which I was on, came third overall, coming first in wildlife and forestry.
And then also with Kurt McDermott, he took two of his students from logic and rhetoric to go up to UNH.
Yeah, UNH for the CCC, which is a, like, a community design challenge.
Students are prompted to come up with a business that'll kind of identify a problem in the local area and create a solution for it.
And senior Cadence Beck came second overall in his room, so that was really good.
Now, introduce herself.
I'm Shavon McGardy. I'm a current freshman, and I'm going to be the new school board rep.
Peer outreach will host is end of year celebration of seniors on Wednesday morning, June 2nd, recognizing 9th.
amazing seniors who have been a difference in our school and community around raising
awareness with mental health and drug alcohol prevention. Each senior will get two courts for
graduation representing both the service and the leadership they have given for four years to
GHS. There will also be an end-of-year dinner celebration at Lavaca to give thanks for the hundreds
of hours of volunteering they have given to peer outreach for the last four years. These seniors
include Maria Calabria, Abigail Mitchell, Avery Bover, Casey Palmer, Kalin Lavery, Haley Hansen,
Luke Hall and Rick, Madison Giordano, and Corey Hall.
Thank you and welcome, Shavon.
Appreciate having you here.
Ms. Bean.
This past week's been eventful, to say the least.
Academic awards were held last Thursday evening.
The top 10 juniors from the senior class and the junior class were recognized, as well as
students, top students from all subject areas.
Teachers did a great job recognizing students.
Additionally, book awards were presented to students by our guys.
guidance counselors and a few teachers. This was an amazing evening to honor our top
academic students. And there's a lot. So rather than read them all to you, I'm including
the program that was handed out. And if you want more details on the program, I'm also
including who received all of the awards and also who presented the awards to those students
for you to take a look at.
And I'll sum that around.
Also on May 28th, the World Language Department held their inaugural Honor Society induction.
The teachers inducted students in level four and above with an A or higher average
into their brand new French and Spanish honors societies and combined that with their existing Latin Honor Society
for a wonderful evening to celebrate the world languages.
In total, they inducted 14 students into the Latin Honors Society.
five students into the French Honor Society,
28 students into the Spanish Honor Society.
They also presented several awards and honors.
25 graduating seniors received the New Hampshire silver seal of biliteracy.
21 graduating seniors received the New Hampshire gold seal of biliteracy.
Three of these students achieved the trilingual proficiency, earning the New Hampshire seal of biliteracy,
literacy in two languages beyond their English proficiency language.
Three students received distinction for their scores on the National Latin Exam.
Ro Kappa, our Social Studies Honor Society, inducted 37 members in May, bringing their membership
to over 100 students.
Ro Kappa will be volunteering at Bartlett Elementary School's Field Day on June 12.
GHS biology students, under the instruction of AP By,
AP chemistry, physics, and Running Start environmental science students spent the time last week at Rye Harbor, both at the State Park and aboard the floating lab research vessel that took them out to the Isle of Shoals.
These experiences complemented their online research and provided practical insight into the environmental issues that they've been studying over the last few weeks in the classroom.
All students will now analyze that information that they collected, draw conclusions between their online research,
and their field observations and reflect on the research process discussing challenges they faced,
insights gained, and it was a great week out on the ocean with our science classes.
After not making the playoffs at the end of their 2025 season with a 6 to 11 record,
the girls' lacrosse team came back this year with the ambition to win, and you bet they did just that.
The team finished their regular season on Friday, securing the third seed for themselves,
with an impressive 9-5 record and have earned themselves a home game,
hopefully under the lights, for their quarterfinals this Thursday.
Sidney LaVoy hit her 100th point.
Ella Coletti won her 200th ground ball.
Yes, that girl has won 200 possessions for our team, literally a pit bull out there.
Trinity Lund hit her 100th point this season and will most likely hit her 100th goal in our home quarter.
final game. Mia Brazette hit her 20th draw control win this season and will hit her
300th draw control win on Thursday at the quarter-sumings at the quarter-final.
On top of being incredible athletes, these teammates have some top-performing students in our
school. The senior captains, Emma Bird, Mia Brazette, Gabby Millis, and Paige Winters all have
GPAs above 4.0.
Nine girls on the team have GPAs above 4.0, 17 girls above 3.5, and the rest of the team above 3.0.
And Chauvonne Red brought my good news to oppose.
That's the good news from Gothstone High School.
Thank you, Ms. Bean. Assistant Superintendent Wendy.
Great. Thank you. So over at Glen Lake, they just held their Woody's Walk and Wellness Day.
where students walked and ran laps around the playground, getting stickers on their medals for each lap.
They had healthy stations like snacks, yogurt, water, dancing, stretching, and hydration stops along the way.
The students had a great day and many thanks to GLSP for their financial support and all of the volunteers that showed up for that event.
It was fantastic.
And also today, the principals from Bartlett and Maple Avenue came and read to the kindergarten students to make a nice
introduction with them getting ready to move to first grade.
Over at Maple Avenue, they have finished their state testing, which they are very excited about,
including all of their makeups.
They also had great weather for their Memorial Day assemblies and had a fantastic turnout from families.
A special thank you to Mr. Landano, Ms. Prunow, Mrs. Gray, and Mrs. Burby for their hard work and pulling
off a fantastic celebration. Also a big thank you to Dave Pellateer for donating his
audio equipment in time for that event, and of course, for GTV, always doing just such a
great job with live streaming our events.
Finally, a fourth grade student, Calisi, was this year's recipient of the Candace Champaign
Memorial Award.
This award is presented each year to a student who has overcome obstacles and adversary while being
persistent in their quest for all-around success at Maple Avenue.
So congratulations to her.
Over at Bartlett, student council is a
excited to host an all-around Connect Four tournament. The competition will take place
over several days during recess, giving students plenty of opportunities to play and cheer each other on.
To add to the fun, 16 staff members have joined the bracket as competitors as well. So as the tournament
progresses, they'll narrow it down to two finalists who will face off in the championship final
at our final all-school meeting on June 16th. So good luck to all of those that are participating.
And just as a reminder, please make sure you're checking out the school's
Facebook page in the coming weeks where they'll be sharing photos and highlights from not only the
tournament, but other events that are happening over at Bartlett.
And reporting for Mr. Davis this evening from Mountain View, the Gaga Pit at Mountain View is up
and running, and it's quickly become the most popular and used piece of equipment on the playground
over at Mountain View. A big thank you to MVP for the funding, and Mr.
and Mr. Hunt, who donated all of their time to build the pit.
Also, the Mountain View Chamber Choir, Chamber Orchestra, and Jazz Band had a well-received
performance at New Boston Central School, and they're looking forward to their last performance
of the school year at Glasstown High School during the honors concert on June 3rd at 7 o'clock.
Mountain View has also completed their SAS testing, and also for upcoming events, this Friday will be
the eighth graders year-end dance. This week, the seventh graders will be going to Camp Lincoln
in Kingston, New Hampshire, where they'll get to participate in swimming, kayaking, a challenge,
course, and a lot of other fun activities. This Thursday night is 7th grade transition night over at
Mountain View where the administration and some staff will be welcoming incoming seventh graders
and their families to get a tour of Mountain View and also to ask questions that they have. And then
And this Friday we'll be hosting our step-up day where our New Boston Central School's sixth graders will join the Mountain View six graders over at YMCA for a day of cooperative games to get to know you.
So that's what's going on.
Thank you.
What other combinations good news do we have?
I went to Maple Ave's memorial celebration for the first to second graders.
It was very nice. It really was. They sang their songs lovely.
And it was great.
The kids did a good job.
The presentation was nice.
It was outside, which is even better.
Very nicely done.
It was a great day for it, too.
It was. It really was.
Absolutely.
Any others?
Okay.
So for last accommodation, good news, it's with mixed emotions that we say Brady is graduating,
and we appreciate your efforts in time.
And Brady, we do have a certificate we'd like to present to you.
And we'd like to get a certificate.
picture of the entire board with you as you take this from us.
Unfortunately, we need to get another piece of Plexi or something because it broke on the way here.
But we want to hand this over to you.
You can do it now.
You want to do a quick photo?
Let's do a quick photo.
Okay.
So come on up.
Mr. Gross, you want to be the photo coordinator?
It'd be my pleasure.
He feels that way.
No, I'm still unwaited.
And Chiavon, you know what to look forward to now.
Before we move on to public comment, I just want to recognize all of our reps here.
There's a, there's some conversation that occurred.
side of the meeting that I wanted to make sure that was brought to this.
As a board, we ask the reps to not only give us accommodation good news and then sit around for two hours.
If there's anything on any of our agendas, any of our motions that we're making, any conversation that is happening,
the reps are allowed to and encourage to interject their thoughts and their representation into this board for any decision-making that we have.
So don't feel that you have to sit around for just two hours after you give us the great news,
but we want to make sure that we hear your voices.
you have a voice at our table, and it does weigh in some of our decisions that we make.
So if you do feel compelled to talk, please do.
I will call and recognize on you, or Shane will, if I'm not here, so that we can hear what you have to say about the decision-making process that we're going through.
Yes.
If I could add just one thing to that, Mr. Talbot, thank you for saying that.
I would also share that by policy, we have a vacant position on the board right now for an elementary teacher representative.
So we've been fortunate to have, Mr. Talbot,
as being in Mr. Davis, but we have a vacancy.
So if there is an elementary teacher from Bartlett, Maple Lab, or Glen Lake, that would,
I didn't have anyone interested in that seat.
So if anybody's interested, they too could be at the table.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Mr. Talbot.
No problem.
Great.
So we'll move on to public comment.
Are there any public comment for today?
Seeing no public comment, we will close public comment.
Just in the essence of time management and people management,
I do want to shift our agenda around before we get into reading our community presentation.
I'd like to jump into Old Business to finalize our schedule.
So if you look under Old Business A, finalizing school start and end times for fiscal year 27.
I'd like to bring Mr. Gross up to the table and so that we can have the conversation that was tabled from our last meeting to talk about that specific item.
And hopefully come to a resolution on what our start to stop times will be for our meeting.
school district next year.
So with that, do we have in our packet what the times were?
So I believe everybody should have some kind of a handout that looks like this.
Mr. Gross added a few pieces to it that I'll have him speak to.
But if everybody has that handout, that's what Scott will be speaking to.
Good evening, everyone.
So I had heard feedback from the superintendent regarding some discrepancies.
with both Maple Avenue and Bartlett with the end times.
And I just want, more specifically what's on the website and what is, you know, practice.
So I did add some notes for both Bartlett and Maple.
So walkers are dismissed at 235 at Bartlett and then all others are dismissed at 245.
And at Maple, Walker, Walker, walkers are dismissed at 3 p.m. and then all others are dismissed at 3.10.
So I think there was some confusion with respect to that with what might have, what might the start and end times that you had before.
So I just wanted to, you know, clarify that.
So with that, as you saw from your last presentation, there are going to be changes to the Glen Lake start in end times of about the 15 minutes.
So right now they currently start at 8.30 a.m.
and that first session ends at 11.
The new schedule for next school year will be 845 to 1115.
And then the PM session currently is scheduled from 1230 to 3 p.m.
That will pivot 15 minutes ahead to 1245 to 315.
Bartlett, there are no changes there.
And then Maple, it's a five-minute shift.
So currently Maple starts at 840 and it will start.
start at 845. And again, those walkers will be dismissed at 305 versus 3 o'clock.
And then the rest of the students will get dismissed at 315. As you know from your discussion at
Mountain View, there has been eight minutes added to the school day there. So their start time
remains the same at 825. But their conclusion time will go from 310 to 3.18, which again, results
an 8-minute increase. And then lastly, for Goffstown High School, it starts at kind
of a weird number of hour, a 756. It will go to 8 a.m. and it will conclude at 245. So again,
it's a four-minute shift in that direction. So I just wanted to give you just a little bit of clarity.
I think some of you have students at Maple or Bartlett, and there was some, I guess, confusion as to
with the walkers and the other students.
What questions do we have for Mr. Groves?
Laura.
I'm just concerned that there aren't bus times on the spreadsheet as well, and I would just be curious to know,
especially with the big change at Glen Lake, like what time those kids would be getting on a bus,
what time some of those kids would be getting home with a 15-minute shift, that kind of thing.
And how long would some of these kids, like the ones where,
the walkers are dismissed a certain time, buses, kids are dismissed in another time.
How long are those kids spending in, like, a bus room at Maple, Barlitter, Glen Lake?
Good question. So according to STA, which is Goughstown Truck Center, you can anticipate a shift of
about 10 to 15 minutes for Glen Lake in terms of when those. So right now, if parents are wondering,
you know, we typically don't, first of all, we don't typically publish the bus routes until about the second week of
of August. But what parents can anticipate is that if there is a shift of five minutes,
it will probably be zero to five minutes is what they share with me. But in the situation of
Glen Lake, it will be a shift of about 10 to 15 minutes to accommodate for that. So if they're
currently being picked up at X time, add 10 minutes to it, and at 10 to 15 minutes to it.
So will those students be in a bus room for an additional 10?
Not necessarily, no. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to extend, you know, they're trying to time the route. So they're going to redo, just like they do every year. So the difficult part is that depending upon how many kids are on a particular bus stop, et cetera, they make those types of adjustment. So as silly as it may sound, but if you have a particular bus stop in one part of town, if there are no students map to that particular bus stop and the bus stop does not have to stop.
there, that could be a swing of like two or three minutes.
I mean, we have some on Gorham Pond Road. Brian and I were well aware of this one where it was a five
minute swing on a bus on a bus route due to a bus stop, either not being there or being there.
So that's, the plan is, is that we'll get these bus routes in that second week of August so that parents can make, you know, know what those bus routes are.
But you can figure that for the schools that are,
shifting like four minutes or so, it'll be a zero to four minute shift in the bus route.
For Glen Lake, it'll be a 10 to 15 minute shift.
But with no anticipated extra time on the bus.
So that's what they're shooting for.
But again, you don't know some of these variables based upon how many, you know, where the kids are
and where they're being picked up.
So it's always, it changes every year.
Frank, do you have a...
Yeah, I just wanted to add.
Laura also asked the question of how long kids are waiting.
So this is something that I want the board to be really clear on.
We have kids waiting a long time for dismissal.
At Maple Lab, kids are waiting 45 minutes.
Mountain View, the dismissal takes 45 minutes.
It is a very slow, arduous, tedious process.
The only way that ever potentially changes is to significantly increase the number of bus routes.
So that's the unfortunate reality is we have a two,
We have a, we use the same runs to do all of our, all of our buses do all the runs.
So they actually start at New Boston Central School.
They bring those kids home.
They then go and pick up kids at Goffstown High School.
It's a big, a big loop.
And same thing with the schools in Goffstown.
So those runs are doing, they're collecting high school kids.
They're going to Maple Lab.
They're going to Glen Lake.
They're going everywhere.
So our runs do take as long as 45 minutes for.
kids to get home. And kids are waiting up to 45 minutes to be picked up. So I just want
everyone to know. And by the way, this is how it's kind of always been. It's gotten, we have more
people being picked up by their parents than they used to. That doesn't necessarily decrease the
duration of weights because we still have the same geographical area to cover. So even if there's
a few less kids, but you still need to cover the same elements of town, it still takes a long time
to do it.
So I just wanted to make sure, Laura, because you asked that question, that we're real clear.
We have kids waiting a long time.
And during that time, it's a supervision challenge.
Kids are antsy.
We have to manage them.
So we can't have a free-for-all.
We need kids kind of controlled and orderly so that we can supervise them and keep everybody safe.
So it is a challenge across our schools.
Brian, if I could also add that, and I think if anyone has gone to Mountain View Middle School,
both in the morning or an afternoon pickup, the traffic on Tibbets Hill Road
dramatically affects these bus routes to the point where the reason why, I mean, and I've seen
it firsthand because I've been to Maple Avenue and I've been to Mountain View, it takes a long
time because of the queuing on Tibbets Hill Road. So it adds easily 10 to 12 minutes to get from
Mountain View to say Maple Avenue or vice versa.
So that is one of the biggest challenges is that is the Mountain View, Tivots Hill, issue.
Because there's a lot of traffic there.
And some of that is beyond, you know, obviously our control just due to the logistics of, you know, the road, et cetera.
The other thing that I should, and I just want to tag along to what the superintendent said.
At one point, we had 20.
two bus routes. We have 16 now. So there's budgetary reasons for some of that.
I want to plant the seed now that there may be a need to add a bus route or two because some of these buses have 70 kids on them.
So that's another thing that we're going to have to think about. So not just trying to reduce the amount of just physically,
depending upon, you know, what transpires. That's an issue. So some buses are crowded.
Or do you have any question or continuing?
Yeah, just a follow-up question, if that's okay.
I'm just wondering if at this crossroad that this busing issue is something that we can address.
Like, it's a pretty big concern that I'm seeing in our community and as a parent,
just the amount of time the kids are waiting, continuing to admin aathon.
I realize wanting to, of course, do the 30-minute lunch.
But then would the additional eight-minute increase affecting all of the schools and how tight the busing is, obviously it's a domino effect.
So at what crossroads can we re-examine the busing?
process and budget around busing.
We have an else late follow-up.
I know that we are budgeted for 22.
No, how many now?
16.
16.
Okay, we're budgeted for 16.
It was at 22, and then we reduced it.
And partly because of right, because we could.
So when STA did a re-analysis, you know, it was easy to reduce by three, four routes.
You know, my sentiment and my discussion with the bus company is that 16 may be too few
and that 18 may be the sweet spot, but we've been, the other thing I want you to also know is that
the bus routes are determined by the number of students who may take the bus, not by those
who actually take the bus.
So you might have, say, 70 kids assigned to that bus, but only 42, take.
it on, you know, on average, then there are other routes where, you know, there's the numbers
in the high 60s. So if every single eligible kid on a couple of bus routes took that bus,
yeah, it would be, it would be, you know, at full capacity. So, but we typically, we are not seeing that
on the majority of those 16. I say we have two, maybe three, where it is, you know, more,
is a little bit crowded. That's why I think that if there is,
need for reconsideration, it would be one or two more bus routes. Again, all depends upon
student population and all those other things, but that's where I would see it go.
Yeah, I saw your hand up earlier. I kind of want to keep talking about busing, but before I forget
this, for Glen Lake, why the bump back? And I only ask, thinking of parents who have to be
out of place, out of time, and we're extending that by 15 minutes in the morning, and I assume there's a
good reason. I just don't know it is. Yeah, it was simply to try to accommodate the other, you know,
the other schools. So, you know, so when you look, busing. Yeah, it, everything has a ripple effect.
Sure. So if you, if, if, if it's a high school run that impacts Glen Lake and elementary schools,
New Boston also has, they use a couple of the same buses and bus drivers where they share a
new Boston and then a Bartlett route. So there's a lot of,
sharing of buses and drivers that kind of impacted, and the bus company felt that that was the
wiggle room that they needed to make it work.
And then the follow up, for the sake of, you mentioned that the bus, the routes are built, assuming
70 kids attend, but they don't always attend. Right.
Is that the law, or is that just something we do?
That's something we do.
Yeah.
Cheney?
Would having some traffic control at Center Street and Tibbets Hill help with the time management at all and that the buses go from one school to another school?
Certainly. Anything that alleviates the traffic flow would help. Those are old conversations that we've had over the last several chiefs of police.
They don't have a police officer.
to put there?
No.
Is that basically what the conversation is still?
So the police department oversees all the crossing guards.
That is not, those are not school district positions.
Right.
So we've had conversations with Chief Serino over the years and Chief Brown before him.
I mean, they understand the traffic concerns in Goffstown for sure, but I think it's a limited
resource as far as their availability to staff crossing guards, you know,
throughout town.
But those are not our people.
I realize that, but would it help?
Sure it would.
Could we pay a police officer or somebody that could, like the crossing guard that does at the library?
Perhaps that would be an inquiry I would take up with the chief, not sure.
Okay.
I think it's a little bit of an issue, too, where it's no one's crossing the street.
there. So it's one person, it's one thing to have a member of the public stepping out with a sign
to stop people to cross. It's another thing when it's just straight up traffic control, really,
at that intersection, there's no walkers crossing the street there. Someone who's going to step out
in front of moving cars and say, stop, get out of the way, let this guy go. And if he doesn't
have a gun in a blue hat, he's maybe not listened to as well as other people.
I think we can do the blue hat.
Yes, Ms. Bean.
Are you aware that kids that go to Glen Lake are on that same bus as the Maple Ave kids as the Middle School kids,
and I think that's why they stagger the times, and it looks to me like they're going to drop off at Mountain View,
then drop off at Glen Lake, and then drop off at Maple based on those times.
And I think that might help explain.
Yeah.
Thank you.
What other question? Vanessa?
Yeah, I just, I want to say a couple of things out loud.
After the last board meeting, when we talked about this, I heard from a ton of parents, a ton of staff who live in the district and live outside.
And this, and I get it that we have to have solutions that aren't going to make everybody happy.
But this bus shifts and shifting out.
of all of the times.
It's just really challenging.
As a parent, like, my kids already come off.
I got kids in three schools, too.
And they're already getting off the bus after four,
and to, like, even add another 10 minutes.
It just throws off your whole day, let alone the beginning times.
I also have one that always gets in trouble on the bus line, my little guy.
And I'm sure that they would not like to call me once a week either.
But again, when we're saying,
getting kids up to just sit around.
I just don't know if this is the answer, and I don't know.
I just wonder if there's a different way.
And I understand that there's been a lot of work on this,
but the time's shifting and affecting every single route and every single start
and finished except for New Boston is just a tough pill to swallow.
So I don't really have a question.
I just want to acknowledge that it stinks.
Not it, the situation does, not the work that's been done.
I think that some of that's true.
But I think that there are also some important things that we're accomplishing.
Getting the start and end times on, you know, reasonable increments of, you know,
quarter hour increments is a good accomplishment.
It's really hard for people to know that Goughstown High School gets out at 241.
It's much easier to think Gostown High School gets out at 245.
That's an easier number for people to remember.
And remember, this is also all the outcome of the contract that we negotiated with GEA to make the changes to
the lunch periods. So I hear what you're saying. If we really want to improve the bus
ride times, we need to add buses. And then back several years ago, we couldn't have added
drivers and buses even if we had the budgetary dollars to do so. We might be in a slightly
different situation now. I think that the commercial driver availability is better than it was
years ago, but it would take adding several buses onto the road to make any difference to this.
We recognize that this is not a great scenario, but this is a very old problem, too.
This isn't anything new.
This has been happening in the Goughstown schools for decades.
We haven't had the buses to make all the runs short and quick and easy.
We've never had that resource.
So we could definitely do some things to improve it through the budget process if that was what we wanted to do.
Adam.
Just a couple things.
The eight minutes at Mountain View, that's just a one-year thing, if I recall.
I would anticipate that it's a one-year thing because this year, not to rehash all of this from last meeting,
but there was a scheduling committee that worked throughout the entire year after they all attended
a conference through the New England League of Middle Schools on best practices for middle school scheduling.
They worked throughout the year on a proposed schedule. Ultimately, that proposed schedule
was not supported and we had to change tactics, which required us to, we had to end
the discussion because we need to build schedules for next year and have everything constructed in
power school. I would optimistically think, Adam, that we will absolutely have agreement on a schedule
next year and we have the whole year to do it. So I think that the likelihood is very, very, very high.
So if that were the case in Mountain Viewer, then, to go forward.
back to a 3-10 end time, would we be changing all these again?
I'm not entirely sure, and I think we would wait and see how the schedule all plays out,
and then we would look at them in totality.
We're not looking to yo-yo-anybody.
I think, you know, something that changes and then changes back is not good for anybody.
So sometimes if we make an improvement, like, you know, a change of a start and end time,
that we're looking to do some of these things permanently, but I don't think that there's going to be a back-and-forth.
but until the schedule is approved and agreed to and approved by this board, we don't really know.
Okay.
So my follow-up, I'm not understanding the ripple effect fully, I guess.
Why, by moving the MVMS time back, so the buses are coming there a little bit later,
why does that necessitate moving the Maple Ave time up five minutes?
Well, one of the one of the last time.
There's two different things going on.
One is to try to shift, let's say, the high school from, let's say, that makes sense to me.
Right, and then same thing, 820.
When you have like an 825, you go to an 830, trying to land on a 15-minute increment was also one of the goals to do it.
So in most of the schools, you're looking at a four or a five-minute shift.
Obviously, for Glen Lake, if it were not for the fact that we added eight minutes to the mountain view day,
we would not have had to shift the Glen Lake at all.
So when you asked that question before, like, if we were to go back to not that eight minutes,
there is a very strong likelihood at the bus company so that we would revert back to the
more traditional Glen Lake hours.
So, I know they all share.
So, like, do the buses, like, what order do they go in, I guess?
Do they pick up at Mountain View, then go to Maple?
It all depends.
It depends on what part of town you're in.
So in some cases, they're dropping off at Mountain View first, in other case,
and then they're going to the other schools.
In some cases, if you're in near Maple Avenue, they're dropping them off first.
It all depends, you know, what part of town that you're in.
I'm just thinking of the pickup thing that Laura's saying.
Like, if the buses have.
Maples out earlier than Mountain View and the buses have more time to get from Maple to Mountain View.
Wouldn't that decrease the amount of time they're waiting at Mountain View?
As I said before, the traffic congestion on Tibbets Hill Road creates that, it creates double problem.
So if the bus goes to Mountain View first, it has to then deal with that traffic to get out of Mountain View.
And if it's going to Mountain View, it has to go to Mountain View.
it has to deal with that potentially five to ten minutes to get up Tibbets Hill Road,
bang the right on Lauren Lane, and drop the students off.
So that in and of itself represents a 10-minute challenge to the bus company,
no matter whether they're starting near Maple Avenue or if they're in the grass smear section,
it's a double whammy.
Yeah.
You have to go either end at Mountain View or start at Mountain View, and it's a 10-minute
problem. Yeah. Dan. Do we do the routing or is the bus company? The bus company does it
with a computer software platform, but they also, they use the software and then they kind of
hand do it as well. Yeah. So it's a two-prong approach. Other questions or comments? So I know we are
looking to finalize the schedule for the next school year as this is our last meeting in this
building before our retreat, which is our next meeting. So hopefully,
we've been able to deliberate on this. Again, if there are questions, please get them out there
so that we can make the best informed decisions we can for the next fiscal year.
Shea. So I guess my question for the administration is just that
if this board doesn't approve these changes, then what is the ripple effect of that?
If you didn't approve the changes, then we would probably
revert back to
So whatever you do or don't do, there's probably a reality that
there will be congestion.
So for example, if you didn't want to change start and end times,
it may be the reality of how the buses show up anyhow.
So just longer, two times in between.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
No, I'm good for right now. Thank you.
Adam.
Yeah. Same question.
I just want to echo the sentiment Vanessa shared.
I recognize the reality that lived in the routing space professionally.
I just don't want the output, and that's all.
So I guess that does lead to another question then.
Are there other things that we can do to look at this?
I mean, I know this has been a fairly thorough process.
Something's been going out for a long time.
because I also don't want the scenario to be that kids are just getting to school late now
or, you know, or they're getting too early and having too much downtime.
So I think we're really looking at two different things.
If the objective of the board is to reduce the duration that students are riding the bus,
that that's maybe a different initiative or a different ambition of the board.
This is, at this point, we need to finalize
start and end times. We need to publish all these things. We need to do the planning,
the coordinating, and those pieces. But longer term, if you want to, if you want to fix the
Goffstown ride duration problem, realistically, you're probably looking at to really change it,
to really change it, not just we're going to add two buses and we're going to go from a really, really full
bus to a partially full bus. If you really wanted to change it, you're looking at adding a whole bunch
of buses. You're probably looking at it at least six buses to make a meaningful
change. And Doug or Scott, how much is one bus?
What, 100? 120?
I think it's a little bit less. I think it's between like 80 and 90.
Okay. So if you use 80, you want to add six buses.
There's your math.
I'd rather feed the kids.
The routing that they do, is that someone that could
I don't mean tonight by any stretch of the imagination.
But at some point, in the future, we could have a conversation with somebody from the bus company just to ping it off them,
kind of have a discussion about it.
Or we would have Scott and Doug do it.
I typically don't get involved in the nuances of the routes.
I trust them to do it.
But, yeah, if we had questions, we would bring the questions on behalf of the board.
Yep.
And this would be a discussion with the bus company.
You know, how many buses if you really wanted to have, if you wanted to set the ambition that no kids are going to ride the bus for more than 30 minutes and no kids are going to wait longer than pick a number, 20 minutes, the question to the bus company would be, what would it take for you to accomplish that, and have them come back to us and say, we would need to completely redo all the routes, we think we would need to add, you know, six buses, eight buses, whatever the number is, and we would really have a meaningful opportunity to evaluate the budgetary.
of doing something like that. Right now, until we would need to give very specific parameters, no kids waiting longer than X, no kids riding longer than Y.
And if and when we did that, that would be when we could talk to the bus company and get a sense.
And then for, look at, you can do a couple of different things.
FY27 budget is all set, but that doesn't mean you couldn't use contingency funds.
That doesn't mean that you couldn't do a budget transfer, prioritize adding buses or something of that nature.
But I'm probably going to, if I were to guess, this is probably a $500,000 fix to make meaningful change to this.
It's probably that much.
I need to just point out, I agree with your assessment in terms of the number, but let's also not forget that if there have been traditionally a certain number of parents that are driving their kids to Mountain View Middle School and picking them up,
that 10-minute wait time, unless there is a massive change in behavior where more kids would be taking those additional buses, you're still going to have a 10-minute queue to leave or to get there.
You can add 10 buses, and you're still going to have a 10-minute queue.
Make it worse.
I don't think anybody's upset about a 10-minute queue.
I think, and I recognize what the board members are saying, it's the kids who have to wait for 45 minutes and then get on a bus and ride 45.
minutes home. I get it. That stinks. That stinks for little kids. That stinks for older kids. That would be horrible for any of us as adults to do that. It's not a great scenario, but it's a function of the resources that we have. So if this is something that we really wanted to tackle, let me know, and we can start making inquiries with the bus company and starting to evaluate what we think the implications could be.
So for Brady, go ahead.
Yeah. Maybe just to get back to the original issue of like with the actual scheduling, and maybe this has already been said, but just to clarify, is this change can have any actual impact on the wait times that they have, or is it just a change that's going to be an inconvenience to people?
This is just a change.
The changes weren't, the goal was not set out to eliminate or to reduce the duration of time. Kids are waiting or riding.
But it's not going to make it worse.
It is going to make it about the same.
same. It's just going to slightly shift by a few minutes, but it's going to be basically the same.
I guess my thing is I just don't see why we just go with it. Like, I know for those few years,
it's going to be a bit of an inconvenience, but it sounds like either way, getting kids home into school,
it's an inconvenience either way. So just, why don't you bite the bullet with it and fix the issue of the 30-minute
lunches? I agree with Brady. And also, your kids are going to grow so fast that four years of
Sitting in a Maple Ave bus line is a blip in their life and a blip in your life.
It sucks while you're going through it, but it's over with so fast.
And I can just speak from two kids six years apart going through that.
Do they, are they tormented in their lives because they had to sit in a 45-minute bus line?
Nope.
Yep.
great going through it, but again, it's four years. It's not the end of the world.
Other questions or comments about the start? Yes, Law.
Yeah, no, I didn't need to distract us about the bus time. Yeah, to clarify, like, the bus time,
not increasing, but just in general, bus time plus now later for, like, the youngest kids at Glen Lake
is what I was really targeting. Plus, I just, the wait time in general is a concern of mine.
And I think the experience is really varied. It's the hardest part of the.
the day for a huge number of it gets. So that's all. But I, we have to do something, so
that's all. But I would really encourage the conversation about buses to happen soon at another time.
Is that something that we could put on our retreat, Greta?
Absolutely. We have an agenda that will allow for issues like this to come up organically.
So let's make sure that we kind of have that discussion. And specifically, I like what the
superintendent said is, if we have goals, you know,
those X and Y kinds of conversations, those KPIs are key milestones that we want to make sure that we can say,
this is what we want, are people that we employ, the bus company, give us your best options to support this.
I think let's have that discussion during the retreat if we can.
I just want to say in 1969, when I was going to second grade, I had to walk from here all the way to Maple Lab and home.
uphill both ways in the snow.
Jack, you could have taken the horse.
It could be better in front of the horse. Any other questions?
If not, I'll entertain a motion to either go with the current or proposed times that are listed on our sheet
or any differences that you might want to come up with.
Make a motion to do the start and end times has proposed.
Okay, I have a motion by Jack to go with the proposed start and stop times as delineated in the sheet.
second from Jack.
Rhettta?
I'll second.
Okay.
Any further questions or comments
about the specific item?
Seeing none, I'll call the roll.
All those in favor of going with the proposed start
and stop times for the district schools,
please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
Okay, we've got two opposed.
Any abstentions.
Okay.
Motion carries with two
maize.
Thank you, team.
This is Gross.
welcome to stay or leave
in your progress.
Thank you.
We just said that
is the
gross.
It was like,
wow.
Yes, sir.
Thank you, Scott.
Just in the
essence of time,
I do want to
move agenda of item
number three,
which is a cultural
journey for Peru.
Move that
to our next
discussion point
so that our
lovely faculty
doesn't need to stay
for the whole meeting.
We're going to welcome
Lisa DeMarco.
Hi.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I'm here to propose a trip for June 2027 to Peru.
It'll be an adventure, cultural adventure.
Students will have the opportunity to visit some historical sites in Peru, visit the Amazon.
We will also spend four nights with a host family in the Sacred Valley region of Peru,
which we feel really strongly in the Wood Language Department
is very impactful for students
and something that they really can't experience otherwise.
If they were to pick up and go with their family, for example,
to any of the destinations that we've chosen in the past,
that homestay is really something that's very unique
to the programs that we try to provide,
at least in the Spanish end.
It allows them to use their Spanish language
and really see the value of the cultural impact
of how different people live.
Can you talk a little bit about the itinerary that might be listed there?
Sure.
So, yeah, we will spend some time in ancient Peru.
As I mentioned, we spend four nights with host families in the Sacred Valley.
We will visit a lot of the different Incan sites.
We're going to expose students to the Quachia language,
which is the typical language in Peru other than Spanish,
which we've talked about, particularly in the upper levels,
but all of the students at all levels, we do a...
Mania de Marzo, like language battle, and it's a song battle for March Madness,
so the kids each class vote on different songs.
And we always have one song that's in both Spanish and Quecha,
so students have heard of it, even at the Spanish one level,
and then they do a lot more of that in the upper levels.
I know Senior MacKinnan does a unit in Spanish 4 with the Quecha.
So I think it's something that.
is valid and then they will visit a textile like you know learn how to how
they weave textiles and we're hoping to have them have a field day and really get
hands-on with some kids because that's been something with our trip to Costa Rica that we've
really enjoyed in the past so that was something that I really wanted to make sure
that we maintained after our time
In the Sacred Valley, we head to the Amazon.
We do some stuff with sustainability, regenerative agriculture.
The students will obviously get to see lots of cool animals that we would not find in this area of the world
as they spend some time canoeing through the Amazon area.
But it is the company that we have used now for the past three different trips that we've done,
at least with the Spanish Department,
and our tour guide that led us in Costa Rica is the director of the Peru program,
which is one of the reasons why we chose to go in that direction as well,
because he was excellent and highly recommended Peru,
and we think it'll be a really great opportunity for students.
Looking at your travel dates, just seeing that tentatively for June 18th,
knowing that that could change based on flights.
Yes.
Seniors would be targeted.
Next year, seniors would be targeted for this.
or could be part of this trip?
Seniors?
Yes.
Well, I mean, it would be anybody that is involved in Spanish, so.
I think he's looking at graduation date.
Specifically, that's my follow-up question is,
knowing that's so close to graduation date, Mr. Bulki,
you know, would we be able to have people that have graduated that have graduated from the school,
take part of this trip, knowing that they're no longer part of the school
and may not be part of our policies that we have in the student handbook?
My immediate answer is, I think,
they would certainly be covered, and even though they've graduated, it would be a school-sponsored
trip, so I think that that would not be problematic.
And in terms of graduation day itself, I think that any seniors next year who wanted to go on this
trip, I think that they would be good.
We're typically before the 18th.
Yeah, I think our schedule for next year is, I think, two days prior to this trip departings,
because I figured if I looked at the last several years, we seemed to have no more than two snow days,
just with the, the, you know, worst case, I figured, you know, I figured, you know, if we do have to
probably the teachers more than it would the students at the high school level, because
that last day tends to be make up exams for students anyway. So, you know, I don't think it
would impact kids as much as it would impact us.
trying to get our grades done before we leave.
And we have had, to answer your question, we had, I think, six seniors last year travel with us,
or graduated seniors, travel with us last summer when we went in 2025.
And the year before that, as well, I think we had four that chose to travel as well.
So it's definitely, I think, something that's valid for obviously the seniors, but also.
you know, the underclassmen, and, you know, we tend to recommend it for students who have
completed Spanish 2 and up just because of the homestay, you know, element.
But, you know, we've had students in the past that have done it after Spanish 1 and still had a great experience, so.
Great.
What questions do we have?
Yeah.
Yes, Dad.
Do you have a minimum number of students or a maximum?
I believe our minimum is 10.
My personal maximum is 16.
And I think that's probably our tour maximum as well, just because we want to keep it authentic.
But I think we could look at with the company what that looks like.
We haven't had that many in the last two trips that we've had.
We've had around 12.
I think we had 11 last year, and then 12 the two years, because we go every two years.
So in the trip prior to that, we had 12.
So it was 11 and then 12.
Yeah, I'd be thrilled to get 16.
But we'll see.
Is this staffed exclusively through teachers at the school or are there chaperone?
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, so it's teacher, the teacher run chaperones.
No helicopter parents.
No, no, this is meant to be a student trip.
It's not for...
Maybe a schoolboy run.
Charge double.
It's still would be cheap, actually.
Other questions?
If I could just offer, I would offer my support of this program.
I really believe in kids having the opportunity to travel, to do so through a safe, supported environment is really important.
I recognize that these trips are not inexpensive, but to provide the opportunity to families, I think, is a really nice thing.
So many thanks to Lisa for being willing to do this, and I offer my full support.
Shane, I don't think there's other questions.
So I think they can make a motion to approve the Goffstown, the 2027-Govstown-approved cultural journey for next June.
Okay, motion by C-Chane, seconded by Ginny.
Yep.
Seconded by Jenny.
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor, please signify by saying hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Oh, did you have a comment?
I'm sorry.
I was just going to say, I always support these trips.
I think they're great for kids to get out on their own and travel.
They seem to learn so much more when they're not with them.
parents, you know, they can get out and, you know, I, you know, they, never mind.
Go ahead.
So, again, all those in favor of approving this, please signify by saying hi.
Aye.
Any opposed?
The abstentions.
Pass unanimously.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Okay, moving to our regularly scheduled program.
We will now go to the Reading Committee presentation, the Collaborative Classroom.
Mrs. Kohler.
Great.
Thank you so much.
So just to give a little context before I get started is at our last C&E meeting, I made a presentation on the program that we are proposing for approval.
That program that I presented was well over an hour, so I'm taking what was an hour-long presentation
in trying to squish it down to about 10 minutes for.
this group. For those watching at home, I also want to let you know that I did send
some materials to school board members ahead of time so they could read a little bit about the program
that I'm going to talk about. And I also had some sample materials at the SAU for board members
to be able to come over and take a look at as well. So just to give context to that.
So in looking at a reading program, and I know that Mr. Bulki talked a lot about this,
actually during the budget season of the new.
new RSA, which is RSA 189 colon 53, that mandates all school districts to have a literacy
skilled development in elementary grade by July of 2027. So this mandate is coming, and that is
for all reading and math programs in K-to-5. We currently are using the Wonders program, and our current
program is actually getting ready to sunset. So though our subscription is up, the program is
actually going away. There is a newer version of the Wonders program. However, McGraw
Hill, who's the publisher that we're using right now, has made it clear that they are soon going to
also be sunsetting that product because they have a brand new product that is coming out. So just to
give a little bit of context about the why we're looking at this now. So our committee, and I had a lot
more explanation when I met with C&E about this, has been meeting for almost a year,
year and a half now, getting ready and looking at our reading program and what it is that we're
looking for as a district. So one of the things that we wanted to make sure is that the programs that
we were looking at aligned with the science of reading. And for those of you that aren't aware,
the science of reading is not a single program, it's not a curriculum, it's basically a large group
of research that's come together to talk about what are the best strategies for students to be able
to learn to read and write, and I apologize. I just went ahead on my slides. So when
we're looking at programming, we were looking at things like phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. So those were the things that we were looking at in
that documentation that I sent you from the Reading League. It really does look at all of
those factors as it looks at a reading program and whether or not it's effective.
to be able to use with students. As a district, we also wanted to make sure that
we were finding a product that met the needs of all of our learners. It supported some of those
foundational literacy skills, build comprehension, writing, and communication skills. One of the things
in looking at our current program wonders that we've really struggled with is we had to do a lot
of supplementing. There wasn't a lot of writing that was a part of the program itself.
We were also doing some supplementing with Hegarty and some other programs to get phonics into our programming.
So we were really trying to find something that was all encompassing in one program rather than trying to find all of these other pieces that we had to supplement with.
We also wanted to make sure that we were providing differentiation as part of that program for our students who are excelling in reading and writing and being able to offer them what they need, as well as our students who need intervention.
And then obviously we wanted to have that consistency among the district.
So regardless if you were in second grade at Maple Avenue or second grade over at Bartlett,
that you were getting that same experience with the program that we were looking at.
So those were the goals that our committee looked at.
So we had a really large committee that has been getting together.
We had more than 30 educators from K to 6 that were part of this committee,
and that included some of our interventionists, some of our classroom teachers.
We had building administrators from every building on there, as well as our partners over at New Boston Central School were also a part of this process.
So a really large group of educators getting together and trying to figure out what was best for our students.
Some of the programs that we reviewed were collaborative classroom, which is the one that we are recommending for approval this evening.
But we also looked at some other products, HMH into reading, open court,
Bookworms, Witten Wisdom, Arts, and Letters.
Our committee looked at a lot of different programs to try to figure out what was best for our district.
As part of that, we met with vendors in her presentations.
We did a lot of researching.
We went to the Reading League League Curriculum Evaluation Reports to be able to find out information about what was great about these programs
and what were some things that might be red flags for us to take a look at as we were looking for
adoption. We also were able to get feedback from other districts that are using the product.
We did classroom observations, and those observations weren't just administrators going into
teachers' classrooms to watch them use the products, but we also had teachers going in and watching
peer observations to make sure that they could have those collegial conversations about the products
we were looking at. And then, of course, we did all of our pilots as well. When we were looking at programs,
and these are all pieces, as I had mentioned, that the Reading League looks at.
The Reading League, for those of you that don't know, is a nonprofit that's made up of a lot of different experts,
including dyslexia experts, school psychologists, et cetera, that look at these reading programs
through different lenses to be able to make suggestions on programs for schools to be able to use.
So as we took a look at that, we looked at phonemic awareness, which for those at home that,
Phenemic awareness is the ability to hear and identify and manipulate sounds. Phonics and
word recognition, fluency, vocab, language comprehension, writing instruction, are assessment practices,
which is a big one. In the program that we are going to be asking for approval this evening,
there aren't just large benchmark assessments that are associated with the program, but there
are diagnostics. There's formative assessments, which are happening more frequently, and then there
summative assessments and projects associated with it as well. And that's really
important because teachers are able to get information about their students and where
they need intervention, where they're excelling to help inform their instruction. I'll also
mention that even though we're looking at this programming, we also have some of our local
assessments that we're going to continue to use. So NWEA is, and you've heard a lot about
this when we've done our assessment presentations, is a program that we're going to continue
to use in I-XL is a diagnostic that we use for both math and language arts that will also
continue to use on top of this. So collaborative classroom. So collaborative classroom, when we
looked at this product, first of all, this was made by a nonprofit. This is not from a big box
company that we typically tend to order some of our programs from. With that comes a significantly
significantly decreased cost. So if you remember during the budget process,
Mr. Bulki had talked about the fact that we thought that this program in the adoption
was going to be around $400,000. And through some negotiating, we were able to get the final
price for adoption at $310,000, which is significantly cheaper than some of the big box vendors
that we typically go with. Some of the strengths that our teachers loved about this program and
our administrators, it's explicit and systematic instruction. In one,
of the things that through our observation we realize is there are routines in those
classrooms so that students and teachers know what to expect every day. So they know
when writing is going to be a part of the process. When they're doing small group work,
when they're doing independent work, all of those things follow suit through all of the units
throughout the year. It has really strong differentiation. So again, as I mentioned earlier, regardless
if you are a student who needs some intervention because you're struggling,
and writing and reading or you're a student who's really excelling, this program is able to provide
teachers with everything they need to meet the needs of all of their learners. I mentioned before
those strong assessment practices, and it has a really strong writing component. And this is something,
again, that I feel like our current program that we've really struggled with is having a really strong
writing component, and it's very strong in the program that we're looking to adopt. I also included
and I'm not going to go through and read these, but several staff statements that were part of the pilot process and what they loved about this program.
For example, one of our third grade teachers saw a significant increase in student engagement in reading and writing.
They were really excited to talk about high-quality text, make meaningful connections, and they demonstrated greater interest in reading.
So that was from one of our third-grade teachers who used this product.
I happen to be in that room a lot because I tried to go into a number of these classrooms
and really follow students. And they were begging their teacher not to go back to our current programs.
That they wanted to continue with the pilot because they felt like it was harder, which they loved.
So really interesting for me to hear that from third grade students is this is really hard and we can do it.
That was what they were doing. And they were excited about learning. Just to see that love for learning going
in the room was truly special and I appreciated that.
A couple of the students in that third grade classroom also asked if they could write letters
to say how much that they wanted to adopt this. So I'll just put that out there that they were
really invested in being part of this process. Same thing in kindergarten. So again,
looking at different ends of the spectrum when we're looking at adoption, our kindergarten
teacher saw a really strong increase in student engagement, stronger participants. Stronger
in literacy discussions, and growth in comprehension and communication skills,
which our kindergarten teacher really loved.
And I'll also mention Dr. Chisholm, who you've heard speak in front of the board on several occasions
throughout the year. She very much loves this program. She loves that it's balance of
whole class literature instruction in those targeted small groups for support
and how it really does meet the needs of all students. So I did want to want to do.
to share that and I wanted that to be part of the notes from tonight's meeting as well.
Also as part of collaborative classroom is there is a SIPS intervention program which stands for a systematic instruction
and phonological awareness phonics in sight words. And this is a tier two or tier three intervention program
that is for some of our struggling learners. And what's great about this program is it takes what you're
reading in whole group, what you're writing about.
and whole group. And it's able to take it into a level where students are able to meet their needs
using kind of that same information of what they're doing with the regular class, which is really important.
It's not a separate program that's pullout that doesn't have anything to do with what they're doing in the classroom,
which is really great. As part of that, we did do the intervention with the SIPS program during our pilot,
and our teachers saw an increase in student confidence and motivation.
as part of that and saw real growth in a really short amount of time using that intervention program.
I mentioned the Reading League and their findings. They met approximately 93% of the evaluation criteria
that this group looks at, which is a pretty outstanding number, and they looked at scope and sequence,
vocabulary, and comprehension instruction, how it aligns to the science of reading, and then explicit
foundational skills were all part of that evaluation process. Moving forward, as part of our
implementation plan, if you do go ahead and approve this program this evening, we're going
to do some initial district-wide training. We're going to have ongoing coaching and support, so rather
than just front-loading teachers at the beginning of the year saying, here's your program, we'll
give you some PD, there's going to be coaching throughout the year what's going to happen. We've
We've also planned as an elementary group to have collaborative planning opportunities.
That's not just within a school by grade level, but also between like Maple and Bartlett as well
to make sure that we're communicating with one another.
And then obviously having those conversations about vertical alignment as well, so that teachers
in fourth grade, for example, know the skills that those third grade students are working on.
Throughout it, we're also going to monitor and evaluate where we are.
So we'll continue to look at our achievement data, and that's not just our New Hampshire
SAS data, but our NWA data, our Excel data, just to be able to make sure that we're meeting
the needs of our students.
We'll do ongoing assessment analysis, we'll continue to get feedback from our teachers, and then
make any adjustments that we need to.
With any program that we adopt, we always look to adopt it with fidelity, because that's
important that we're getting every classroom doing the same thing so that if we feel
feel like a program is not meeting our students' needs in one way or another, that then
we can have those collegial conversations.
So in year one, we would be looking for that fidelity, hoping that the program meets everything
that we want it to meet, and right now, we believe that to be true.
But if there are any things that we need to look at scope and sequence, for example, if there's
a standard that perhaps comes after New Hampshire SAS testing and we're like, wow, that's
really important, we need to move that up, we're going to have those collegial conversations.
And with the ask this evening, we are requesting, obviously, for your approval tonight, is 310,000, which is a five-year subscription.
And in a moment, I'm going to talk about the sixth grade curriculum, because this is K-2-5, which includes all the classroom materials, which includes some classroom library information that has both informational texts and fictional text as part of it.
teacher resources, all of the student consumables, the online access, and that includes all of the professional development and coaching that goes along with it.
So that will not be an additional cost.
We've actually put it right into the proposal for this evening.
One thing I'll also mention is, currently right now, our Wonders program goes through grade 6.
All of the vendors that we're looking at, and we have looked at, all of their programming now goes K to 5 in Descent Hitz.
6th grade. And that's because most middle schools are 6th, 7th, and 8th, so they've kind of stopped at 5th grade.
With that being said, we're looking at an open source material that we'd like to adopt for next year at Mountain View for 6th grade.
And also, our 6th grade over in New Boston, we'll be looking to slowly onboard this as well.
But it is an open source program, so what's great about it is anybody can go online and be able to get this information free
of cost. There is no online component that we'd be paying for. There are PDFs that we'll be able
to take and be able to put into Schoology for parents to be able to see, but it's a completely
novel-based program. So right now, as part of Wonders, we're using a lot of anthologies. So it's short
pieces of reading that we're doing. Instead, we'd be moving to full novels. So right now at Mountain View,
they actually went beyond the pilot, and they have continued with this program.
And they just finished the boy that Harness the Wind, which is one of the modules, and now they've moved on to hidden figures.
All of the books that are associated with this program are all either science or social study-based novels.
So they're getting a lot of that instruction as part of their English language arts component.
There's a huge component of writing associated.
with it. We still have vocabulary. We'll still be hitting all of those grammar
pieces. But again, this is open source material that our teachers will be using
rather than getting a subscription to one of the other vendors. All three of our
sixth grade language arts teachers piloted this program and they love it. Their
students love it. I was able to go in and talk to some students beyond talking to
staff. They love the rigor. They love the fact that
that they're finishing an entire book.
So rather than having that anthology in front of them,
they're able to really finish that book, have really great conversation,
and there's a really large writing component associated with it as well.
Though I mentioned, it is an open source material.
One of the things that's a part of that $310,000 is a $5,000 startup that I would like to do
because they do have teacher manuals rather than having everything online.
that it matches all of the instructional approaches to everything that is in those worksheets
that are online for the staff. And when they're in the midst of teaching, it's hard to have
their Promethean screen on for students and to be able to get what they need as a teacher.
So that would be part of the startup, but from there, everything is there for them to be able to access.
Just as a clarifying statement. Sure. Are you looking for $315?
$300.00. That includes the $500.
$5,000.
Thank you. Thank you, Jared.
Ginny, I know this came out of your committee.
Any follow-up that you have specifically this?
We did vote to recommend this to the full board.
Shane.
Thank you.
And, Wendy, thank you so much for this.
I know you hit on differentiation quite a bit, and the question I have is probably more.
Bless you.
It's going to be different depending on what grade levels and things like that,
and it's probably more.
resource and consumer rule-based, but does this reading program allow for kind of students
of different learning styles, like there's a hands-on component and like a, do we kind of have those
different types of?
There's definitely flexibility.
And one of the things that I love about this is regardless of the grade level is students
aren't just sitting in their desk listening to a teacher facilitate the conversation.
This program more works for the school.
students being able to use their inquiry skills. So we're building student stamina rather
than having our teachers have their stamina in front of the classroom, which is something that
I love about this program. And one of the things that all of our teachers commented on throughout
the pilot process is the fact that we've been bringing in those building thinking classrooms,
those math principles for a few years now, and it's so similar to the methodology of kids doing
the work and building that stamina, figuring things out.
and persevering through problems. So, yes, there's a lot of that. They're not just sitting at their desk.
They're getting up. They're moving. They're working in small groups. They're researching.
All of that is a part of the program.
Great. And I also do love the cross-disciplinary learning with the incorporating different subjects into the text.
Absolutely.
Great. Other questions are coming to stand?
Is the 310 a one-time payment or over five years?
That's one time, and that will cover us for all five years.
So it would be 310 year one and then 0-0-0-0. Correct.
And if I recall, that money has been allocated for this fiscal year, correct?
So we wouldn't be going into next year or having to go through the budget process for it.
We've already earmarked it for this year to consume it.
Absolutely.
Fair. And then Paul's question, first three-five in Boston. Do they adopt the same?
They did not. So they adopted a different program.
To be honest with you, and I think the superintendent kind of said this best is a lot of the programs that are
out there right now are very similar.
And you've got to figure out, do you like the Dodge or do you like the Chevy?
What is something that's going to work for your district?
I believe that New Boston chose what was best for their students,
looking at their data, looking at their staff members.
And I truly believe that Goss Town has made the right choice for our students,
looking at our own data, what our teachers need and want.
So I'm happy with both programs.
I think they're both phenomenal and we can't go wrong.
One of the things, Dan, that I think is important is that sixth grade bridge of doing that novel-based program,
I think it's going to be really important.
But the standards of each program are the same.
So regardless if they're using HMH into reading, which is what New Boston has adopted,
and what we're looking to adopt here in Goss Town, we're going to get the same results.
It's just the program and how it's set up.
But I feel very confident that our Goss Town teachers have made a really good decision.
like I did in New Boston.
Okay.
In my mistake, do we pilot two programs and then this is the choice made by the educators?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And administrators were also part of that, Jeff.
But yes, we piloted more than one program.
Okay.
Yeah.
Between the two districts, we actually piloted three programs.
I was just curious, will all six-grade students have those novels to like bring home back to school
and read?
How will that work with a novel part of the sixth-grade?
That's a really good question.
So we...
We will have enough novels for every student.
How teachers will figure out what they're going to be reading in class
and what they'll be taking home.
I would let the six-grade teachers kind of figure that out.
What I wouldn't want to have happen is for kids to bring them home all the time
and then leave them at home,
so we're going to have to figure that piece out.
We have already ordered the ones that we're doing right now
through the pilot process and we order extra on purpose
in case they are going home.
home. We have some students for various reasons
that do need a copy of materials at home all the time.
They're not bringing them back and forth,
so we've been able to accommodate that.
We also have ordered enough, obviously, for all of our teachers,
but also our paraprofessionals as well,
because they're working with students in small group,
and we want to make sure that they have the resources that they need.
Questions, Vanessa?
Not a question.
I just want to shout out using real novels in sixth grade.
I love it. Adam and I were talking about that earlier.
talking about that earlier. It's wonderful.
But the other thing I just want to shout out too,
Wendy, you negotiated this down $90,000.
I did some negotiating.
Keep your hand on your wallet.
Listen, I always say when you're talking about it.
Keep your hand on your wallet.
I like it.
I respect that.
I do try to get things for free as much as possible.
I also, whenever we're piloting
and they have other districts that are piloting after us,
I always say to them,
know, if we're going with your product, you're going to want to use me because I have done X, Y, and Z.
So if your school district, if you've got a school district that wants to have calls, things like that,
I'm willing to do those things because if we're going to get a price decrease because of that,
I'm willing to give up my time to be able to do that after hours.
It's for the kids, Wendy.
Thank you.
Other questions or comments?
Wendy, as part of the sixth grade recommendation and all those novels,
novels? Are those novels going to be listed in power school for parents be able to review and make sure that?
Absolutely. And just like always, if parents have questions about any of the novels that we're reading,
there are alternatives that we can use if a parent doesn't like one of the novels, just like with any of our other materials that we have.
I'm going to be honest, there are great novels. I really hope that parents do look and that they're reading at home with their students.
I think there's some great conversation to be had. A shout out, if you haven't read them.
boy that harnessed the wind. It's a phenomenal book. There's also a movie on Netflix. I highly recommend it, but the kids just listening to their conversations that they were having, they were so focused on the book and what the main character was going through, and they were having their own conversation of how can we change things that we need to have changed. So they're making those real-world examples and thinking about how does this impact my life, which I loved.
Other questions or comments?
Okay, we'll be looking for a motion to accept the recommendation from C&E for the K through 5 as well as the six grade program for the amount of $310,000.
So moved.
Moved by Jack, seconded by Vanessa.
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor, please signal all of those. Please signal by saying aye.
Aye. Any opposed will be nay. Any abstentions.
We are unanimous.
Thank you, team. Thank you for bringing that forward, Jenny and Wendy.
Okay. Moving on.
So we are going to review our meeting minutes.
So I know the first one is the draft of the April 20th meeting minutes.
There are some questions.
I don't know, Superintendent Bulki, if you can kind of just make any notations of any changes
from the prior ones that were sent out?
I cannot.
Okay.
I cannot.
I'm sorry.
I did not specifically ask what changes were made.
Okay.
I know Adam had specifically asked about the question.
for the service staff at MVMS and making sure that we noted that correctly.
Adam, do you see the...
Yeah, it's page 14, 15.
I want to give Adam a shout out for making sure that he's okay with us.
Any further questions or comments on the April 20th meeting minutes.
If not, then I will accept a motion to accept the meeting minutes as presented to us at this meeting.
Motion by Dan, seconded by Jeannie.
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor, please say go by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed will be nay.
Any abstentions?
We are unanimous.
Moving on to the accuracy of the May 11th meeting minutes.
Give a moment for people to look at it.
Shane did a great job calling this meeting to order.
Everybody's names.
spelled correctly to far.
I'll get two things.
Okay. And if you could give the page and paragraph.
So on page four, a third from the bottom, it says that I reviewed Megan's expense projections.
I didn't review anything out loud in her projections. I don't know. She reviewed her own projections.
Why don't we just strike that sentence?
I agree.
Okay.
And then on page 10, just for sake of clarity under the staffing, we voted unanimously 9-0, and then it says Vanessa Hayes opposed.
So I think I'd like to strike Vanessa.
Vanessa Hayes opposed.
Yes, right?
It was a unanimous vote.
No, it was, no.
Right there?
Oh, staffing, yeah.
Under the staffing.
I think it was carried over from the motion before.
I think it was carried over from the motion before.
Okay.
should be 9-0. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, do you recall, that's how you voted, Vanessa?
Correct. Yeah. My opposition was for the one prior about the eight-minute increase.
So it should, the vote should be 9-0-0. And there's scratched.
The vote is 9-0-0. Yeah. The vote says 9-0 there. Yeah. Thank you. I'm good. And again, we review these minutes for accuracy. Maybe not that we agree with them.
questions or comments on the May 11th meeting. Okay. I will accept a proposal.
I will make a motion to accept the minutes with the amendments made.
Thank you. Jack. Second by Dan. Any further questions or comments?
Opposed a favor signal by saying aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed will be nay. Any abstentions.
We are in the events. Thank you. And again, thank you, Adam, for your diligence on this.
My pleasure, Jared.
Moving to committee reports.
We will start with the finance and go to Manifest and Vouchers.
Jack, I turn to the meeting to you.
Okay. I would like to make a motion that we accept the May 4th to June 1st total manifest of $438,41491.
Okay. Motion by Jack. Second. Second by Shane.
Jack.
Okay.
The manifest had two payroll periods that totaled in 3,359,241.80, the bulk of it being payroll of 1,500,000. Taxes, 400,000, give or take, health trust, 731,000.
the retirement contributions of 600,000 are the big ones in that line. Then we had special
ed activity. Term school services, 100,000. Lighthouse school, out of district services,
64,000 and change. Seven Hills out of district, 56,000 are the most of the big ones. Totals
up to spending of 341,363.21 cents. Third line is general expenses, mostly transportation
expenses from the truck center, 181,000. SAU assessment for Goffstown, 136, 136,000.
Equipment, end of the year, 50,000 from Amazon, some Eversource spending, 44,000, a big number of sewer, 25,000. Total general sub-total, 5754,29 cents.
And then food services had a one thing of $244.259.
$38,346. All that, all totaled into $4,303,194.87, leaving a balance of $135,000 approximately of expenditures under $5,000, which can be found online in our checkbook register.
Any questions about our activity for the month of May?
Have a proper motion in a second.
All those in favor of approving this manifest, please sign by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
We're unanimous.
Thank you, Jeff.
Moving on to the audit questionnaire.
So I'm going to give a moment for Doug to talk a little bit about this.
I know we sent it out by email, but we have some actions to take for this question act.
Yeah, great.
We work with Plodzick and Sanderson as our auditors, and they had different expectations of us as far as what we get accomplished before the audit.
There is an audit questionnaire for the board members.
There's a questionnaire for Stephen from IT.
They meet with the food service director.
There's a questionnaire for our treasurer.
So they have multiple things that they're asking.
They're trying to kind of have a wide net to kind of see what has happened financially over the past.
year for the district and they're looking at things like fraud or potential fraud
as well as practices so we're our goal is to answer this tonight and then to also if
something comes up between now and the end of the year please feel free to email me
you may you may call up any information that we have are what we always do in the
business offices whatever the auditors ask for we give them whether it's good bad
or somewhere in between type of thing so we'll have answers tonight from this and then
anything else that comes up please let me know so we go through the questions
I'll be kind of leading the discussion most of these are yes or no so we'll just get
started and dive in so do we have any knowledge of fraud or suspected fraud affecting our
entity which is the Gothstown school district first does anybody have any information to
say yes I am marking that as no doubt have we received any communication from employees
former employees regulars or others alleging fraud she had shaken the heads of no so
we're putting no have there been any recent or unusual circumstances that might
increase the risk of fraud that we are aware of a shake of no no have you or any
related party of yours had any interest direct or indirect in any of the following
transactions or pending or incomplete transactions since July 1st 2024
I think there should be July 5th of 2025 if you don't mind changing it
I will change it right here I'm gonna do this twice I've got to do this twice two forms
to which the school board district SAU or any retirement savings pensions or
other similar plan was or is to be a party was there any notice of sales purchase
exchange or leasing of property receiving or furnishing of goods services or
facilities transfer or receipt of income
assets any other transactions okay how does the school district
SU monitor for and respond to cyber security incidents or are there incident
response plans in place I would say yes we do we have policies that are in
place for those we in concurrence
moving on and yes they use the second the back page of the first page so
we're saving paper are there any documented disaster recovery and
business continuity plans in place to address potential security
incidents say yes we do we have policies in place for this and the data
governance plan too and a data governance plan okay does the board have any
concerns about the integrity of the financial reporting process shakes the
heads of no does the board review comparative reports of estimated and
actual revenues and appropriations and expenditures I know we're received those
emails all the time
If yes, how often are those reports reviewed?
Every meeting?
Every meeting. How is the tone at the top communicated to employees?
Examples of ethics, values, behavior. Let me start this and saying we have policies in place.
We have a superintendent to implement those policies.
policies and any other additions we want to make to that.
We have an annual sit down with everybody at the beginning of the year, right,
Brian?
I would say the tone at the top, of course, is a specific, not how the superintendent necessarily does it.
That's my opinion on this question, though.
People have contrary to that, that's absolutely fine.
So we establish policies, we hire a superintendent, they implement our policies.
That's a tone at the top.
Yeah.
Okay, so Jared tells us what to do.
Oh.
I know.
Denise used to talk.
Oh, yeah.
I agree.
I know better.
Have any fraud risk assessments been completed?
No, they have not.
No, they have not.
How are fraud risks communicated to employees?
So they're communicated in person.
I meet weekly with the business office,
and we do talk about fraud quite a bit throughout each month.
And then we do talk about fraud.
We also work through emails and phone with other people who touch cash or have access to the accounts.
So whether they're at the school or in person as well.
For each board member, it's going to be the fun one.
Again, a lot of writing on my part.
Please provide the years of service in a brief description of their background.
I will go first.
My years of service is actually nine.
This is my ninth year.
My background is in project management.
Project management and academics at a university.
Okay.
Mr. Shane, years of service at the school board.
Listed 4.5, I think that's incorrect.
Five years.
Background.
Education.
Education.
School administration.
Okay.
Starting with seniority, Ms. Ginny.
I have listed 22 years of service at the school board.
I think longer.
It's 24 years because you're going to be coming up on your next election for next year, aren't you?
I would say...
24?
I would say plus.
I'm bowling.
My husband was trying to figure it out the other day.
We could break it down from the town reports.
If you really wanted to know, we could put a date on when you were first elected.
We'll start with 24 and then that a feed.
Okay, thank you.
And I'm a pediatric nurse, so my, that's my background.
Great.
Thank you.
And I've worked as a nurse in school, bringing kids to school that needed a nurse,
accompanying them, their own nurse, accompanying them.
Plus 24 years on the school board.
Plus 24 years.
That's a year of service.
Yeah, I feel like that covers it.
RETA, I think you.
you've worked work in 10 years here I think it's 13 yeah I think they've recycled some numbers here yeah
and my background is educational technology academic university
thank you that a Jack next up three years of service yeah two and a half I think is
right right next year's my time up that I'm a carpenter and a single dad life experience
sounds great
It's Vanessa Hayes.
This is my second year, but I'm just in it.
One, I don't know what I've been round down.
We'll put it in your second year, that's funny.
Insurance.
Can't agree on the universe.
Yeah.
Can't you?
Insurance and learning and development.
Last but certainly not least.
Laura.
Actually, Dan, you're enlisted here.
Look about that.
And out.
I'm going to look at the background.
Very small.
Very small.
There was a request that this will enlarge.
Oh, we're going to be putting in.
Don't work.
Okay.
So, next on the list.
Laura.
This is year two for me and background is nonprofit management and ministry.
Okay.
Dan.
Fifteen minutes I've been here.
Yep.
Well, maybe after tonight.
Get it up to half an hour.
And business management.
And general entertainer to the kids.
I would think.
Yeah, absolutely.
That on there.
And Adam.
Same time as him, obviously.
Yep.
Teacher, high school administrator.
Jack Checker.
Yes.
Very good.
I will transfer all the information over from this questionnaire.
I am currently signing it.
But before I do, I just want to take a vote of the board to allow me to sign this on our behalf.
Motion.
authorize the board chair to sign the Plots against Sanderson.
Audit question.
Second by.
Second.
Second by Jack.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
I am now signing this.
As Jared's signing, can I just add,
this may not be something that's all that exciting,
but I just want you to know how important this is.
This is your responsibility as a board to oversee
how we're processing, how we're handling taxpayer money.
This is something that it might
The administration takes very seriously, and we appreciate these checks and balances.
We appreciate the thoughtful review from the board, from the A&F committee,
that this is not something that I look at or we look at and say,
well, that's a waste of time.
This is very important, and this is time well spent, so thank you.
It's really important to make sure that we always are good stewards of the taxpayer money,
and that's something that we take very seriously.
I'd like to echo that.
that as well. So something that we talked about quite a bit in the business office is being welcoming,
because if there is a thought of fraud or if there's an error out there, we want people to contact us,
whether that be the board or whether that be a taxpayer or whether it be a teacher or whoever anybody doesn't.
A teacher, an administrative assistant, anyone who would ever suspect any kind of fraud anywhere throughout our organization,
we want them to come forward.
Yeah. Contact me, contact Mr. Taughton, Mrs. Kohler, any one of us.
any one of us that it's just obviously very important that we're always careful
with all of the taxpayer money.
Thank you very much for that team.
Moving on, we have a projected fund balance.
I turn this over to Doug.
Great, thank you.
Yeah, so we're kind of going in twos here with projected fund balance and contingency votes.
They go together a bit.
We spent a decent amount of time last meeting talking about over how the fund balance
is projected and what numbers we're looking at between revenue,
between revenue and expenditures and then adjustments that we need to make.
So now we're going to kind of go a little bit quicker this meeting, but definitely ask questions.
So we are projecting, and again, this is as of today.
It will change and it will be audited this summer and we'll have our final number then.
But we're projecting a fund balance of a little bit more than 1.4 million that would be unassigned.
Now, during the budget season, we had projected a fund balance
similar to this, and we said we would offset taxes by $1.35 million.
So if we deduct that $1.35 million, which we had already communicated to the taxpayers of Goughstown,
that we could offset taxes, then we're at a fund balance of a little over $100,000.
So last time we talked that fund balance was a little right around $40,000.
So we do expect it to kind of keep going up a little bit.
as some of the encumbrances, so money that we expect to pay, that we realize we don't need to pay it
or people put in requisitions, which became purchase orders, and they thought they were going to spend,
say, $500, and they only ended up needing to spend $440. It gets closed.
That $60 then comes back to fund balance as well.
So we are right around that $100,000. And again, this is as of today, so when Wendy let me know
that she was able to wheel and deal down to $310,000, you can see that they,
that's on this page as well.
So any questions on fund balance before we switch to contingency?
All right, so contingency.
So that's where the taxpayers of Gossown have allowed us to hold 5%.
So again, the main goals of that 5% contingency is for unexpected cost.
So New Boston is experiencing something right now with our septic system.
So that is going to be a larger hit that you wouldn't necessarily budget for.
It also allows us.
to keep the tax rate where we projected it to be too. So the board has two times to vote
on contingency. One will be tonight, and then the next will be at either the August or September
meeting, and that's after the audited numbers. So what I am recommending, which is the same
thing the board did last year, is just to keep the contingency the same as we go into auditing
and then kind of have that more lasting vote.
after the audit. So currently we have that contingency of a little over 1.7 million.
So if we kept it the same, it's almost as a placeholder, and we can keep it the same with offsetting taxes
to what we communicated to the taxpayers as well. So again, this can change in August or September
once you look at it again. But the auditors are looking for a motion tonight to either kind
to keep it the same. Or you can increase it by a little bit. Again, it maxes out
that 1.755 million because that's 5% of what the taxpayers put towards education
between both local as well as statewide property tax.
So I'm sure there might be road bus conversation or questions about this.
So we are looking for basically a vote for how much we want to hold in our
contingency fund next year.
As a really a placeholder because you'll have the final, the first vote.
The first vote.
So we've
always try to keep at that 5% historically. And again, this is dedicated by RSA.
We have up to 5% we can hold from our unreserved fund balance for the next year for any contingency
or sorry. Yeah, for any contingency items that occur. What questions do we have for Doug,
if any, any comments that we have? Yeah.
Just want to express the
I think a need for us to keep it as high as we are allowed to, especially considering
we have the funds now, because in the end, the taxpayers pay for whatever it is anyway,
and having that contingency funds allow us to smooth out those costs as opposed to one-time hits.
Other comments?
I would agree with Dan's assessment. That's a really good way to say it. I think that I would also
share with the board. We haven't gotten to my superintendent's report yet, and I'm not going
to get into a lot about legislation.
but there are a couple of bills pending that pertain to this contingency vote.
So in all likelihood, I would certainly at this point recommend retaining the 1.7, as we, as Doug is recommending,
but there is a good likelihood that the statute will be changed from the ability to retain 5%
back to being able to retain 2.5%.
So I think that there seems to be an effort to shrink that number down.
So the board may recall.
that when the contingency fund was first originally created,
it was at the 2.5% amount, and then a couple of years later,
they increased it up to five.
So it's in all likelihood, I think a preliminary vote on this is what I would call it,
because I think that there are things happening legislatively,
as well as end of the year close out before the auditors do their work,
and that we will revisit this.
So at this point, I would recommend retaining the full 5%
but just recognize that there might be a statutory change that we would contend with as it pertains to this.
I'd just like to point out that that we're just under the 5% with the number that Doug put on this, I believe, is what it's saying.
1,731,000 because our next year's budget increases by that amount, it could go up that $24,600 change.
but I think we'd be comfortable at leaving it at the 173-296.
1731.2.0. Okay. Yes, sorry. It's okay. Numbers. Just numbers.
Yep, just numbers.
Okay. But.
So the proposal is, or the recommendation from the business administrator is for the,
what Jack said, the 1.731, or is it the 1.755?
It's a, it's the keep it the same. Right now as a placeholder.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's the recommendation, but again, we can always go with what we think is best.
And you can always have another bite at this apple after the audit is completed.
And we're actually very fortunate, so I would just quickly add that the fact that you'll have audited numbers
to be able to make a determination in September is a really good thing, because most school district
will not have their audits complete by September, but we will.
I know historically the contingency fund is used for those, from a project management standpoint,
the unknown unknowns or the unknown unknowns those things that we just can't plan
and there's an emergency that we have to have those funds we don't use this for
funding other items for moving around this is something that we hold only for
those risks that materialize during the school year that's what we can
consistently use this fund for if we use it at all if not we always give it back to the
taxpayers that we have currently that the town the school district has one CRF
capital reserve fund. A lot of different towns have a capital reserve fund for, say,
special education, for computers. So they have multiple things where they, if there was a hit that
happened during the year that was unexpected, they could go to their capital reserve funds
and kind of pull money out of that, where ours is only for, which could be a hit, which is,
you know, building type of related as well. So we have the one, and then we kind of have this for
other unexpected things.
So that, Ginny?
I thought you had to make a comment. I'm sorry.
Oh, no.
So who would like to make a motion with a number associated with it to make a motion with a number associated with it to hold on the contingency fund?
Jack?
I'll make a motion that we hold the contingency fund as stipulated on the sheet, has presented,
of $1,731,296, keeping us just on.
under our 5%.
Okay, motion by Jack.
Seconded by. Adam.
Any further questions or comments?
All those in favor of holding this contingency for the next fiscal year,
signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Say nay.
Any abstentions?
Very unanimous.
Thank you.
Computer lease agreement.
Is our next item?
Great.
Thank you.
So as we went into this budget, thank you to the taxpayers, because one thing that we look
to do was bump up.
up our funding for IT.
And we did that for leases of computers.
So this current year, we leased teacher devices and paraprofessional devices.
And then next year, we're starting another lease, and it's a lease to own for student devices.
We thought, because what has been happening with technology, with TV, sometimes the prices
have gone down, actually, in recent years, or stayed the same.
And the same thing has been kind of happening with technology with computers.
So going into the budget,
In August, we thought that the prices for the computers would be roughly the same as
what we had just purchased them for, which was about mid-800s.
Then what happened was that we have a boom for AI and those centers that are being built,
and they are grabbing a lot of the internal components.
And so what any company is doing is, well, if I could sell a more expensive AI type of component
into the AI, I'm going to produce that instead of producing something for a mid to lower level
type of computer.
So computers have gone up quite a bit due to that as well as due to the tariffs.
So now as we look at the same computer, no difference, instead of being like mid-800s, we are
now getting quotes over 1,200.
So when we looked to buy 350 computers last year and we were able to bump up our budget
to do that, that is only getting us about 270.
computers now. As we know, we're not one-to-one. We're not, you know, kind of moving towards one-to-one,
but we've been trying to kind of move towards, for example, at the middle school, one computer cart
per team. So instead of trying to have to communicate between multiple teams or between, you know,
different areas of the middle school, they can just communicate with their peers that they work with
within that team, which has been much more beneficial to them. So we're trying to get to things that make sense
for each of the buildings.
So what we're looking to do today is to get a motion for the lease of computers and then
also talk about possibly purchasing computers.
So the motion for the lease, it's actually going to be a little bit more than the amount of money
that we have in the budget.
So the budget is about $115,000.
But to get to buy computers in the amounts that would go into cards, say $25 or $30,000, we're
we wouldn't want to kind of have most of them that go into carts and then have one cart
that had like four or five computers less.
So with talking with ANF last meeting that we had, we talked about kind of bumping it up
to the next cart amount.
So to do that, we are about almost $6,000 short.
So we're looking, though, to get a motion to authorize a lease to own.
So again, it's a three-year lease and of payments of $121,000.
roughly per year for three years and then we would own those 270 computers.
So that's kind of one step tonight.
We need that authorization because it is a lease.
So any lease also goes through our attorneys where they have to write a letter as well
and they'd be looking for a motion from the board as far as authorizing us to enter into a multi-year lease.
So we are almost up to the budget for that.
If the board would be willing, we'd also look to purchase, outright purchase of computers.
Because again, we are short of what we need in order to kind of move forward the right way with technology.
So and the 350 isn't where we need to be either.
So that's where we brought the budget up to because we talked about multiple years of bringing the budget up to a spot,
which would be better to sustain newer equipment for both students' staff
and then the background equipment that is running all in this equipment as well and keeping everything safe.
So that would leave those 80 computers to purchase, 30 of them which would go to one cart to the middle school,
and 50 of them would be split up into two carts for the high school,
and that is about $97,000, $98,000.
So that would be a purchase out of $1,000.
this year's fund if the board was willing to do that.
So Stephen is here, too.
His whole day, his whole world is around computers, so please add on to what I forgot, what I missed.
Yeah, short version is supply chain for technology now is worse than it was during COVID.
Computer memory and computer storage is almost impossible to get.
And technology prices are going up on the monthly basis.
We saw a 5% increase on the devices.
first hit the entire U.S. That 5% is hitting the rest of the global market about now,
as I said the beginning of June was when it was hit everyone else. And we're going to be seeing
another one sometime in the U.S. market in July, early August. The laptops that we're talking
about last year when I purchased them for New Boston School District, same model, they were $839
apiece. The quote, after the
May price increase, they were $1,234 a piece.
Same piece of equipment, almost $400 price increase over 12 months.
So just that right there, we have two choices.
We either get less computers, or we have to do the lease with what we have in the budget,
which is around $121,000 a year, and then make up the difference, which is what we're
asking for. We want to make sure that I think the board knows that we are woefully,
inadequately, we don't have enough good high-quality computers. We need to make sure that we have
enough devices for teaching and learning to be happening. Remember, all of our assessments
happen on computers. So, I mean, can you believe 839 to 1234 in one year? 400 bucks
for the same laptop? So far. So far. And Stephen's anticipating another increase in July.
So what we're looking to do is get locked in before that next price increase happens.
So I think it's important to kind of reemphasize that we're not looking for more computers than what we
went to the budget for. So we're looking for the same amount of computers. If you ask even how many
cards at the high school need to be replaced, he would say 12. So that's a number, but that's a number
that we're going to kind of keep bumping up to as we kind of go through the budget process
because we didn't want to make a huge bump up at any one year. So we're comfortable
bumping up to that number. It just becomes harder getting to that number if we're now going
to be decreased by about 80 computers from what we projected we'd be able to buy going into this
year. And we're not key, it's not like we're keeping the computers for three years and we cycle
them out. The bulk of my inventory for laptops at the moment, there are 600 and five
laptops that will be six plus years old in service for the start of next school year.
What we're finding is laptops really don't hold up for six years really well. The elementary school
where I have the low-end Chromebooks that we purchased during COVID and sent home and they spent
a year at home and they came back, most of those, the batteries are swelling and the units are failing.
The high school, the Dell latitudes that we bought with SOR1 money, the plastic is becoming brittle with
and the screen, the hinge assemblies are stamping, and the screens are falling off.
So we have a pretty good stash in all of my tech offices for those DELs, which we cycled out almost
50 of them in last summer, and we've already burned through the 50 that we had just to try to keep
the fleet alive. And both buildings, the high school and the middle school don't have full
complements of carts at this point because I don't have enough working devices to fill them.
And as a teacher, I can tell you there's always a wait.
My accounting classes typically have a computer cart every day.
I let the library know when my accounting kids aren't going to need that cart.
But there's always a wait list.
Teachers don't always get a cart when they need it for what they're going to do.
Jack.
I was on the Technology Committee. You all know that we're in a severe deficit.
I'm ready to make a motion or two motions if you'd like me to.
Just move it along.
You know, I'm not afraid.
I would like to make a motion to authorize the business administrator to execute a lease program for the 270 laptops
had a cost of $123,000 a year.
A year.
Four.
Three years?
Three years.
Motion by Jack, seconded by.
Second.
Second.
Second.
A further conversation about this particular motion
or the least purchase.
And the numbers that were said by Jack, those are accurate for the number of computers for the price?
It's 270 units.
Yeah, and it's, yeah, it's more of the price not to exceed that 120% percent.
One hundred thousand twenty.
Okay.
A proper motion by Jack, seconded by Dad.
A for the conversation.
All those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Aye.
The opposed.
The abstentions.
Very unanimous.
Jack, you have a second motion?
I have a second motion.
A second motion, acknowledging that our need for technology is great
and to keep our kids on par with other places to do a one-time purchase of
of 80 computers. That would be at a cost of $97,000 for which we would use
the $106,000. That was the balance of the that we just went through.
It would still leave us about $9,000 there and that usually increases as the balance of the
year gets accounted for.
gets accounted for.
Motion by Jack, seconded by.
Second.
Second.
Again, I just want to confirm, is it 98 or 97K, up to 98 or 97K?
Whatever you give us, we will stand by.
I think it was not about 98,000.
It was 37 and, okay, yeah.
All right.
Friendly amendments.
I'm not going to argue with them.
It's up to 98K.
Up to 98K.
For the computers.
Thank you.
Motion by Jack, seconded by Dan.
Any further questions or comments?
And the comment would be that that would create one cart per mountain view of 30 computers and
225 carts for the high school.
Okay.
All those in favor of the motion for 80 total computers at 90, up to 98K, signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Aye.
We opposed.
Any abstentions.
Very unanimous.
Summer procurement commodity prices.
Doug.
Yeah.
spot for electricity. We have electricity through mid-November of 2028, and that's less than
10 cents per kilowatt hour. So that is great. With propane, we are also at a very good spot where
we're at $1.45 per gallon through June of 2028. So typically we would kind of look to go get
another year of propane. We're not going to get propane for, as of right now, less than $1.45 per gallon.
But I still wouldn't mind a motion just in case something drastically changes.
in order to kind of waive the sealed bid process in policy DJB, which has happened in the
past two.
We work with Dead River.
If we did not have a good price from Dead River, we're a point where we would just kind of wait.
I don't see us moving forward with procuring any more propane just because $1.45 per gallon,
we're not going to beat that right now.
But who knows what's going to happen in the next several months.
And if we can beat it and extend it for another year, we can.
than we'd like myself or the operations manager would like that opportunity.
What's the policy that we'd actually have to wait for you said BJB?
DJB.
DJB.
Yeah.
Thank you, Doug.
Any conversation?
Jack?
We're going to do these all as a unit, that one and the other six?
I would just do one motion.
For all six?
For all six, right.
For all commodity prices?
It's.
So, yeah.
Yeah, it depends on if you, so the other one that I'm asking for to remove the sealed bit process is paper.
So paper were only through June of this year.
Last year, W.B. Mason honored their year before amount that they had, too.
So they won.
We went out to about four companies.
They had the lowest, and they did not go up in price.
So we would need to go out to multiple companies again, but waive the sealed bid process for paper and for propane.
So it sounds like Jackie.
I do it for the two.
Paper and propane.
Yeah, do it for paper and propane and then we'll do the rest.
That was the second.
Yeah.
Okay.
So your motion is?
It is.
Turnbull of the seal bid process for
for propane pricing and paper pricing.
So to waive policy D.J.B.
To waive policy, D.JB.
To extend the
those commodity prices if we're able to.
Oh, that sounds very nice.
Okay.
So motion by Jack, seconded by.
Seconded by Dan.
Okay, any further questions or comments?
Okay.
All those in favor of this proposal to waive the policy if we can get an extension for these numbers,
signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
Best you name?
unanimously and then Jack you have for before other items for the to blanket the
authorizations for the superintendent and the business administrators to do business
why we are not in session yeah so that's the next thing on the agenda policy BFD
right yeah I do know if there's other commodities that we know no no sorry no so
okay so moving on the agenda to policy BFD for authorization sounds like
Jack you are already making that I'm making that motion so motion to
continue policy BFD as described seconded by RETA oh sorry
red is armed by RETA by RETA by RETA okay so that's to continue policy BFD
before our next board meeting conducting business all those in favor signify by
saying aye aye any opposed we are unanimous okay moving on for committee
reports budget committee nothing new since last month I guess there's
still a meeting that's going to be scheduled joint with the select board in August
but I haven't seen a date yet thank you Vanessa C&E you heard about our last
meeting tonight I mean however are much longer but we like to give you a little
synopsis of what's going on so the board
knows really has an idea of what we're talking about and our next meeting
will be June 8th at 7 p.m. at the SAU thank you we actually don't have a we
won't be reconvening until September so I apologize that's a miss print okay
Ginny approves the September
yeah it sounds wonderful great
PNC.
Yes.
PNC met this evening.
We're working on a number of projects.
I do want to just report out that national night out, which we have participated in for the last couple of years will be happening on August 4th.
That's a Tuesday.
And we look for volunteers to be at the table.
This is a really great event.
It's a family event.
have been very much oriented to the children, but the parents are there,
and it's great opportunity to meet and talk with families.
And there's usually something to entice the children to come to the table as well.
So I just wanted to get that date out there for you to put on your calendars.
We'll be reaching out maybe at the retreat to see if anyone's available.
Tough time, first week of August, vacations.
But if we get two to three people, Jack and Janine,
and I were there last year. It really is a lot of fun. So for you around, so I know.
August 4th?
August 4th.
The other thing I wanted to let you know is we do, I'm going to pass these around.
We worked on the communication plan as promised.
And this is, we're not going to go over this this evening, but I wanted to get it,
or the whole team wants to get it into your hand so you can take a look at it.
can take a look at it prior to the retreat.
We're not going to be going through this line by line at the retreat,
but we are going to be looking for feedback and focus on some themes that we highlighted on the
second page.
And if you would like to add a fifth item, we talked a lot about how to engage the public.
And we can talk more about that at the retreat.
as a retreat. So hang on to these, bring them with you to the retreat. If you have
any comments, notes, suggestions. This is the communication plan for staff in schools,
but it also applies to us and we're using it as a vehicle to think about communication
in general. Not now, but into the, not just now, but into the future.
So we're really looking forward to hearing more about that.
from all of you.
And then lastly, the retreat agenda.
We're still working with Brian.
I think we're pretty much firmed up the agenda.
We anticipate using the first half of the meeting for other business that we call it retreating
topics.
So these are topics that will really lend themselves to us to think about, you know, what the other
topics that will kind of.
at the retreat. So there will be food in between the first section and our organized plan for the second half. And Vanessa will be working on some details for that second half and we'll have the agenda out to everybody.
I think that's it. Is there any other topics I miss?
Do you have an next meeting schedule?
We do.
We do not.
Just the retreat.
And then the first August meeting will meet prior to that.
So August.
We have a schedule somewhere.
I think it's the 24.
I think it's the 24.
Yeah.
August 24.
And I do want to say that this committee, which includes Kate Murb of New Boston, has really been working
trying to pull pieces together and focus.
on, you know, communications and planning moving forward for the entire board.
So it's been a lot of fun.
We hope to bring it forward for the retreat and see what there is that we want to tackle.
Thank you, right out.
That's it.
Policy change.
All right.
So policy met, a couple weeks ago now.
We have some first free policies.
coming to you. Since I have all your attention at this moment, if we go to our first
three policies and under new business, I just want everyone to cross off EDB as we
tabled that at the subcommittee level. So just cross off EDB. We won't, you won't have that.
We won't be talking about that just yet. And then I believe policies meeting next Monday.
I have six eight to five 30.
So we will meet next Monday, which is the 8th of June at 5.30 at the SAU office.
Thank you, Shane.
We're going to the superintendent report.
Thank you.
So I'm going to truncate this down just given how late it is, and I would just let everybody know that you do have a full compliment of non-public tonight.
So just a few things.
I wanted to welcome Belinda Sianci.
So if you didn't have the chance to meet Belinda before the meeting, Belinda is replacing Mrs. Morin.
So she's our new executive assistant at the SAU, and we're so pleased to welcome Belinda to the table.
So that's number one.
Number two, legislatively, there's a lot going on.
So all of us are kind of drinking from the same fire hose right now.
So if you've paid attention, the committees of conference are going on.
There's a lot of horse trading going on.
It has looked to us like some of the big topics such as EFAs might be done for the year.
But I think until the final gavel falls, you just never quite know what's potentially on the table.
So I mentioned a couple of the things regarding
SAUs. There's a whole number of bills that are still pending. So we'll have to wait
and see what happens with some of these. We are up for our re-accreditation visit next year
through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. And one of the pieces that that includes
is extensive surveys of teachers, families, and students as part of that data gathering
throughout the year through the NAAS&C process. I wanted to let you know because we suspect the surveys will
be non-academic in nature. So if there are questions that are non-academic questions,
that it becomes a non-academic survey. And we're trying to evaluate what those questions
are going to be because, as we know, we would need to have parental permission to do every
single academic survey. So we're not entirely sure. I do anticipate that there will be more
to come on this topic. But I wanted to let you know that we're evaluating those surveys.
Mrs. McCann and Mrs. Kohler and I have met, we're talking and looking at what some of those questions are to make a final determination if we need to do parental permissions for those or not.
I suspect we will.
I wanted to let you know that, hooray, the elevator here at Goughstone High School is fixed, thankfully.
This was a good example, though, that we can replace things proactively, but sometimes things break.
And when you have old stuff, it's hard to get parts.
So it was lucky for her.
us that this did not impact students or staff members directly and we would have been
able to move classes around, but it is fixed, but when you have old equipment, this is
sometimes something that happens. So I appreciate everyone's patience, but that is taken
care of. And that was all I had. I won't go into anything else. I'd be happy to pause there
and ask if there any questions for myself, Mrs. Kohler, Mr. Taught, and we're happy to answer
any questions, but it is pretty late, so I won't go into anything else at this point.
Thank you.
Okay. And then we will move on.
Going in old business, we have some second read policies.
I'll turn the mic over to Shane to go through the second read.
All right.
So we have the Q and A at our last meeting.
So these would actually be up for adoption tonight.
Correct.
So the first one we have is KHB, which is the advertising.
and sponsorship policy that we've been kicking around for, who knows how long now.
A year.
Yeah, at least a year.
Any questions on this one?
You know, questions and comments for policy, KHB.
Just as a comment, I'll make, I know that I've had some meetings with some of our booster clubs
as it relates to KHB to say, a booster clubs, this is coming along.
This doesn't necessarily affect you, but it gives them.
of groundwork to do some of their work that they need or can do for soliciting donations,
knowing that, you know, they do need the appropriate authorization from the school board to use
Goffstown, district memorabilia, and things like that.
So I know I met with, you know, the wrestling club, I met with the football club to let them
know, but again, this is any club or anything, not necessarily sports, but even non-exports
that have the ability to do this fundraising as well.
and they will have the contract that is part of this to be able to use for receiving those monies
for any kind of promotions that they want to try to entice and get funding for.
With that, Shane, I will hopefully get a motion from you to move this one forward.
I'll make a motion to approve of policy, KHB, advertising, sponsorship, recognition in schools.
As presented.
Second.
Motion by Shane.
Seconded by Adam.
questions or comments on this.
Seeing none, all of those in favor adopting this policy, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
Passes unanimously.
All right. The next one is JFABB, which is the foreign exchange student policy that we talked
about a little bit at our last meeting, and the major change here was reducing the number to three
annual approvals for foreign exchange students.
Shane, we motion to adopt that policy?
All right.
Make a motion to adopt policy, JFAB for an exchange students as presented.
Second by Adam.
Any questions or comments about this policy?
Yes, Reda.
I don't know who places students in the schools.
They may not be watching this evening.
I did see an advertisement for recruiting families to host students.
I think it might be a nice curse.
to let them know that if we know who the organizations are, to let them know that
it has been reduced to three because they may make some assumptions and get families
involved and find out there's less.
Do you know if we typically work with one or I know there's a couple that are out there?
Well, so we want to make sure that we're open to any entities that would like to bring in foreign
exchange students and we don't want just one organization to monopolize that.
So we can certainly do that.
I think that sometimes there's kind of an assumption that this particular organization gets
all the seats and that's not the case.
So we are happy to do that.
Yeah, to all of the organizations just so they know that there's a change.
Definitely.
Wendy, would you, as you're making your notes, would you let Melissa know for that?
Thank you.
Is it my notes?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any further questions or comments?
Okay.
We have a motion to adopt JFABB as proposed.
All those in favor of them.
signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed say nay?
Any abstentions?
We are unanimous.
Thank you.
So now we're going to get into CBB, CBF, CHD, DBB.
So these are all policies that we are looking to remove,
with the exception of, according to my notes,
DEA, we wanted to update the review date on that policy.
So DEA would be to update the remove date, but as far as I remember and recall,
the rest of us were on board with deleting the other policies that are listed.
tonight. So let's start with the easy one and go with DEA then. Perfect.
So I'll make a motion to update the review date for policy DEA revenues from local tax sources.
Second.
Second by Adam.
Trying to make the end is not easy. Sounds great.
Any further questions or comments?
Just updating the review date.
It's not signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
We are unanimous.
update the review date for DEA.
All right.
And so I don't know if anyone had any second thoughts on deleting the other policies, CBB, CBF, CHC,
DBB, DBF, DB, DB, DB, DB, DB, DB, DG, DG, DJF, or DG.
Chair, accepts that the removal of these policies as proposed by Shane, seconded by Adam.
Thank you.
Thank you.
for all those policies that are listed.
So that's removing those policies we just...
Correct.
Who is my second?
Adam is your second.
Keep it consistent.
Any further questions, comments.
If not, motion to remove these policies as itemized, signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
These policies are formally removed.
Okay.
Thank you all.
Let's move to new business.
So, with that being said, Steve, I see you in the crowd.
Mr. Morgia.
So if I can cue him up a little bit, Stephen was here to talk about a couple of different things.
So Stephen knows under New Business B, those items are being waived.
So we have moved that discussion of technology project to the retreat.
So he's not going to talk about that tonight.
We already took care of the lease and the additional computer purchase.
So Stephen is going to give a very short data governance update.
High-level overview summary of the key details of the changes only for the data governance plan.
Mr. Borgett.
Good news.
His computer is done.
I'm going to skip us to page three on the updates so they know what it is.
They know they have to do it.
Yep.
So let's just get into the changes.
So changes are actually really short.
The folks at home, the full data evidence is on the website.
Navigate to any school.
Go to the department's menu.
Pick technology.
You get this page, which I have up on the screen.
which is in your packet shown on page 3.
The data governance plan is listed under regulatory compliance.
As part of data governance, we also have to have an inventory of all the apps that we have.
And that's under the software applications and digital tools.
Digital Tools is the parent-friendly guide of all the major apps and what they do in the grade brackets they're assigned to.
And the list of the hundreds of apps that we have are all listed under software.
application software.
All right.
So let me talk about the changes for data governance.
They're actually relatively small.
The vast majority of the changes in data governance actually apply to Appendix Q.
Yes.
More alphabet soup.
But effectively, Appendix Q is new appendix focusing on the criteria for software applications
for use on desktop and mobile devices.
When we rolled out our new laptops last summer,
and we work to meet the NIST standards and the CIS controls for cybersecurity.
There's a lot of guidance around what we should be deploying and the criteria for validating software to make sure that it is safe for use.
Appendix Q basically just focuses on defining criteria, not on the data privacy side, but on the technical side,
to make sure that the software is safe and validating.
to use. So it talks about checking, if you're downloading from, you know, we can download
from the website, we can use vendor provided media, but it also talks about random person
shown up the flash drive saying, I need the software installed. If I can't validate that the software
is safe, then it doesn't get rolled out. That's effectively Appendix Q, which is in a short version
of the slide, slides five, six, and six.
seven, so we'll just expedite it that way.
The rest of the changes for data governance, as you're all aware, we get a website overhaul in the fall,
so all the links for all the policies have changed.
So the rest of the data governance changes, we're going through and fixing all the hyperlinks.
That is pretty much the extent of data governance plan changes.
The current plan is up on the website.
It's 52 pages.
all the appendices. Without Appendix Q?
With Appendix Q.
Oh, with that. Because it does not, statute says we have to notify the board annually, does not require
board approval for the changes. So the new policy for, has already been posting.
It's already including Appendix Q.
So you aren't looking for any motions on this?
Nope.
It's just the annual review of the data, data governance, the changes, any questions?
for Steve?
About cybersecurity or data evidence?
Yes, change.
Steve.
So we're going to be going over to the retreat?
That's what we've got to move to the retreat.
Can we all just keep this?
So we have to reprint this for the retreat?
Or do we want to have to roll back?
We're giving back.
We read some.
Fine by me?
You want to send them over here?
We'll take them.
I started writing on mine because I know I'm going to read it.
I'll be ready for the retreat.
Just write it on it.
We'll give it back to you.
You know what?
I actually have black and I copied with that.
If you would like to hold on to those.
we'll forget to bring them.
We will not bring them.
We'll have black and white.
Black and white.
I like your style. Don't get me wrong, but I like being prepared for discussions.
Okay.
Anything else for Steve at this point then?
Thank you, Stephen.
I don't know.
I feel someone's going to ask one better question than that.
He stayed so long.
I mean, I can't, but he doesn't need the questions.
He's good.
It was the shortest ever.
the MOA that we'll be having with the GESS.
We're actually doing that in non-public today.
We will do that in non-public this evening.
So that is item C.
We are expecting a vote to be in public after that conversation, though.
We would definitely expect to have a vote after the discussion
regarding the memorandum of agreement with GESS, correct.
Okay.
Just for the minutes.
Yep.
Okay, moving on to first read policies.
Again, I will turn it over to Shane for first read.
All right. So we have the first three policies. So obviously there's not a lot to do with these tonight except to read them. And if you have questions, mark those down. That way we can address them at our next meeting. Like I said, the only thing that stuck out to me was that we did not look at EDB yet. That was tabled at subcommittee. And I can tell you that the recommendation from the subcommittee was to keep EBCF and keep ECAC.
So the subcommittee did recommend keeping those and updating the review dates.
Other than that, that batch down there that starts with...
What's the second one you want, Keith?
Keep was EBCF and E-C-A-C-A-C. And then E-D-B should be crossed.
Shane, can I just add one thing? I just wanted to highlight to board members that B-E-D-B, which is agenda preparation and dissemination,
that includes the consent agenda.
we'll bring us back to our discussion at your retreat last year, and that has now made it through the policy process.
So that consent agenda piece is new.
So I would ask you to pay particular attention as we go through these policies.
Thank you.
Will we be talking about it at the retreat, or do these will...
Yeah, what wasn't planning to? I think it's in the policy evaluation stage now, so it wasn't planning to.
Okay.
And so we'll look at these first reads in August?
Yeah, so you won't be taking a vote on these until in September.
Okay.
Yeah, right.
So, yes.
So next meeting will be your Q&A.
Yeah.
Right?
And then September 14th, expect a vote.
And then in September, I would expect there would be a vote.
So plenty of time to look these over.
Yep.
Plenty time.
Do not pack them away.
If you want the paper, keep this packet.
Because you're going to go through these for the next three meetings.
Please.
Okay.
Thank you for that.
So, our last item for new business is to discuss
our Goughtown School Board meeting schedule.
Hurrah.
So these are, again, this is a draft.
This is our ability to
Update, change, discuss.
Item to note are our first meeting that would be taking place is August 24th
because our first day of school is what day?
The 31st.
31?
Wendy, that's on right?
I believe that's true.
Yep.
So it's Labor Day is late this year.
It's the 7th of September.
And then immediately following that is a statewide primary.
So I actually had a number of kids that emailed me and said,
Mr. Boki, why can't we start after Labor Day?
And I said, well, Labor Day is really late this year,
and we have a primary that's happening the day after Labor Day.
So a little tricky all around, tough year to start.
I tend to be a believer in the after Labor Day start, but not when it's this late.
Not when it's this late.
So that would screw up that peruca.
Yes, it would.
So if I could just got a few things, Mr.
Talbot. So we scheduled one meeting in August, one meeting in September.
That beginning of September kind of messed up the schedule a little bit because that first meeting
is a holiday, or that first, the seventh is a holiday.
We've got our budget sessions anticipated in October.
And in November, we had two meetings.
I wanted to highlight that I have a conflict on November 16th, so Mrs. Kohler will be here on my behalf.
Two meetings in December.
Two meetings in January.
I listed the second one as if needed.
because if you look down below, we will have deliberative session the following week after that January 25th meeting.
And then we kept two meetings for the remainder of the year, and we tentatively already booked your retreat date.
So take a look at this.
And we also wanted to make sure this year we had a couple of conflicts to make sure that we had GTB coverage.
So I think we covered all of them.
It's always a work in progress.
So if anybody sees anything that we didn't.
pick up on, let us know.
Brian, would you want
teacher reps and student
reps at the August 24th?
We would love
to have you.
I won't have good news.
It would be up to you.
Obviously, there's a lot going on at the start of school.
But you're
always a value add, and we appreciate
you being here.
Just for the new members, Adam and Dan,
the budget sessions, we say
start at six. We do have a regularly scheduled, condensed school board meeting for those days,
but then we do break into line item review.
So it would be, you know, reviewing kind of the presentation to start out with, but those
deliberative or those budget sessions are a line item by line item review, and we do have a regular
school board meeting for those as well, just as an FYI to you.
Okay.
Any questions?
Because we're going to be looking for an adoption of this schedule at this meeting tonight.
You can always change.
it.
Adopt it.
You can always change.
Go ahead.
Yeah. And one of the things I've noticed over the last couple of years when we have a meeting,
you know, if needed, or if we skip a meeting, I find that it tends to make the next meeting
really, really long, and it throws off all the subcommittees.
So just, I like the idea of just having it on schedule we're going to meet in that.
And if we cancel it, because there's really nothing to talk about, then we'll do that.
But it's thrown us off for the last few years, just as far as, like, the length of the meeting and trying to rush through some of the things.
But this one looks good.
This one looks here.
There's only one date that's...
We are planning to meet on the 25th.
Yeah, no.
I'm saying I like it.
It's a little more concerned.
consistent, the dates aren't all moved around, and so I appreciate it.
I love a long meeting.
Me too.
Well, we're working on one tonight.
Just for you.
You guys can hang out after, too, though.
So I will accept a motion to adopt this schedule as presented.
By RETA?
Second.
Second by Vanessa.
Any further questions, comments?
Okay.
All those in favor of the schedule, signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions?
We are unanimous.
Okay.
Staffing.
So, everyone should have a copy of the staffing sheet.
So a couple of notifications only, no action required of the board.
I'm happy to invite a student teacher to work with Mrs. Mahoney.
I don't know Anna, but she's very lucky to be working with Eileen Mahoney, who is just an incredible
teacher and an incredible human being.
teacher assignment change, Nicole Ponty, NVMS, to district.
This is an ELL position, so sometimes the positions might move between being allocated out of school
and being a district position based on need.
Nicole Ponty is a new hire for us, but she's actually someone who was previously an ELL teacher
for us many years ago, so we're excited to welcome her back.
For your approvals this evening, we have a whole complement of co-curricular, non-curricular, non-neutral.
sports nominations, particularly focused on the Performing Arts Department here at
Goffstown High School.
I'll accept a motion for a co-curricular non-sports nominations for 2627.
So moved.
Motion by Vanessa, seconded by?
Seconded by? Seconded by Laura.
All those in favor of these individuals signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Abstensions? Pass unanimous.
Teacher resignations, please.
Next one, we have two teacher resignations. We wish them the best.
And with mixed a motion.
to accept these resignations as presented.
So moved.
By Vanessa.
Seconded by.
Seconded by Laura.
Discussions.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
So moved.
You name it.
Next one, we have a teacher retirement.
Congratulations.
And thank you to Spencer Galloway,
who I believe Spencer's been with us
about 17 years.
So wishing him the best, and we will
miss him.
Motion to accept the
retirement as
presented. So moved.
By Vanessa. Seconded by Ginny. I saw her hand up.
All those in favor,
signify by saying aye.
Aye. Opposed?
Abstensions. We are
unanimous. Nominations.
Mrs. Kohler has been busy hiring
people, so here is the first one.
Nomination for next year for health
teacher. Welcome to Courtney
Malinger. Questions or
comments?
Motion to accept this teacher nomination
made by
Rhett.
Oh, man.
Seconded by Vanessa.
Red of the street, second.
All those in favor,
signify by saying aye.
Aye.
The centers,
abstentions,
we are unanimous.
Nominations.
So the next group,
I'm very pleased.
S-L-A is speech-language assistant.
So this is good news.
I'm happy to nominate
two speech-language assistants,
one for Glen Lake and one for Mountain View.
Awesome.
Okay.
Ginny just made that motion to accept the nominations.
Seconded by RETA.
All those in favor of SLA nominations signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstentions.
We are unanimous.
Oh, my goodness.
That was Jenny.
Okay.
And second on RETA?
Yes.
Thank you.
No problem.
Administrators.
And my last one.
So planned retirements for three principles
leaving this year. So I told you this was going to happen.
This year, we've got two principals retiring, including New Boston and Mr. McBride.
Next year, I've got three.
So very happy for Kathy Stoyle, Suzanne Pishka, and Jessica
and Jessica Milligan, who have all given a lot of years of their lives to the Goffstown School District.
And we appreciate all three of them, and we'll miss all of them very much.
I also appreciate that I ask them because they are clear and they're planning.
for next year to do their resignations a full year ahead of time.
So I did want the board to be aware that the three of them will be with us next year, but this
is effective June 30th of 27.
And this allows us to continue our session planning, to talk about leadership changes, and
to continue to do the important work of staffing our administrative positions.
Before we get into motions for this one, particularly Brian,
what is the process to replace a principal at both the elementary and the middle schools?
I know what they are, but could you please explain it to the public?
Sure.
So the process could look different at different schools and at different levels for different reasons.
So it would range from after positions have been posted and have been evaluated, the board would have
have the ability to do nominations. The board would have the ability to do full committee
searches or anything in between. So with these three, if you look down below on the staffing
sheet, there are a couple of things listed under other. So two things that were that have been
moved to the retreat agenda. So the second and third ones down below under other have been
moved to the retreat. So one of those will include principal succession planning. So we have
had extensive conversations about these planned anticipated retirements, but we will
continue that conversation at the board retreat in two weeks.
Any questions or comments about this before we accept any kind of proposal?
And I should also add that Harold the dog who goes with Mrs. Stoyle also submitted a letter
of retirement. Complete with a paw print.
I didn't put him on the sheet. I didn't put him on the sheet, but there was also a second request for Harold, the dog.
Doesn't surprise me.
And if you don't know Harold, Harold is in a wheelchair. He is a dog that has mobility challenges, and he's a pretty special little guy.
So he's earned his retirement. He's earned it.
Okay. I will entertain a motion to accept the administration resignations as of June 30th, 2027.
With extreme mixed emotions for this one.
Motion by Dan, seconded by Ginny.
Sure, we should have tables.
With much more than.
Yeah.
Extreme mixed motions.
Key on emphasis on extreme.
Any questions or comments about this?
Ginny.
Do we have any bells that are being handed out this year?
I was just going to bring that up with the retirement.
In the past.
us the school board members had presented the retirement bells, and I think it was a little nebulous about whether this was going to continue or not continue. But it's not, I think the bells are from the board. So it was always nice if a board member came and presented.
So they have been ordered. I don't know what the schedule is in terms of giving them out. So I will find out about that. Mr. Galloway just notified us kind of late.
So he, we wouldn't, we have not ordered a bell for him, but he's a good dude.
He won't mind.
Yeah.
And he was late.
So, you know, we weren't able to order it, so we'll get him one as well.
And if I can just say, it's a really nice event to go there.
More than anything, it's nice to hear what all of their peers have to say about them.
But it is presented on behalf of the board.
So if anyone's available and interested, it's usually during the day right now.
after school. So I have a
properly formatted motion to accept these
administrative resignations with a second. So all those
in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
Any abstentions? We are
unanimous. And
Mr. Talbot, if I can just add in terms
of transparency, there are a couple of things that we
will be discussing in non-public tonight,
not the least of which is a new position
requested under the G-E-S-S
contract, and we will be having a
discussion about that in non-public this evening.
And a vote will be made on
after that discussion. Correct.
Okay.
Any other items
can come before the board?
Top three things.
Yes. Okay.
What I have,
and again, this is up
open for discussion, bus
routes, the new reading program,
and the contingency fund.
I would just reframe it as the
starting end times.
Okay.
Actually, I had a slash start
and end times.
Because the Buster is a bigger car.
Yeah, that might be a bigger
can of worms.
They will hear both.
Is everybody okay
with the other two?
The reading program
and the discussion
around the contingency fund?
Yes.
I did have
our new school board
student rep on, but we didn't
there's not anything to point
people to. It was a very brief
introduction, so
she'll have her chance
next year.
Maybe we give her August.
I said she was a present.
Okay, so that's our top three things.
Any other items to come before the board?
Okay, we're
first going to go into non-public under
91A311
subsection
A for the smithel promotion or compensation
of any public employee
or this one of such employee.
Motion by Shane,
seconded by Jeff.
Motion by Shane, seconded by
Jeff.
And we will do
roll call.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes, we are now in non-public and we will be heading downstairs.
Thank you, GTV.