Goffstown School Board - March 16, 2026

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

Recording

have a red light. So good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome you all to Monday, March 16th to the Goffstown School Board meeting. If you would please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. And Mrs. Morin, if you would leave it. So since this is the first meeting after the election, we will be beginning this evening. I'd like to welcome our two new board members. So welcome to Dan and welcome to Adam. Both have been sworn in and Vanessa as well as a returning board member. All three have been sworn in. So they're all good to be seated at the table this evening.
We will begin with our first order of business will be the election of a chair.
So the way that this will work is I will ask for nominations for the position of chair.
There can be more than one and we are looking for a plurality of the votes.
So with that, I would open it up.
Are there any nominations for the position of chair?
What's a nominee, Mr. Talbot?
We have a nomination for Mr. Talbot.
Are there any other nominations for the position of chair besides Mr. Talbot?
I was ready.
Okay.
Since there is any other nominations?
nominations? So seeing none, this will be just, it's anyone who is in support of Jared
and we're just looking for a plurality. So all in favor of Mr. Talbot as the chair, please.
Hi.
Hi.
All right. I believe that is going to be everybody.
So we will congratulate you and hand it off to Mr. Talbot.
Thank you, Mr. Superintendent, and thank you everybody.
For next order of business is to have nominations for the vice chair, which is a vitally
important role, so I'll take any nominations for vice chair at this time.
Dominate Vanessa?
The chair recognizes the nomination of Vanessa as vice chair.
Are there any other?
Shane?
For vice chair.
Ginny nominates Shane for vice chair.
Any other nominations?
As Vanessa was nominated first, I'll ask for a plurality of votes of who would like Vanessa as the vice chair for this financial year.
All those raise your hand, please.
I see two raised hands.
Yes.
Thank you.
And then those that wish Shane, please raise your hand for the vice chair.
I see six.
So Shane, congratulations is vice chair.
Congrats to you.
Thank you.
With that being said, let's move on to our next order of business, which is the review of policy DCA.
This is something that we review once a year, and for the new members, I'll give you a moment to read about it.
But this is really our ethics policy statement that we abide by throughout the timeline.
So I will wait.
for a set amount of time for people to read it, review it, and then I will ask for
a reaffirmation of policy BCA in a moment.
You can bring as many cookies as you want, Chair.
In fact, you could add it to the policy if you want.
Good idea.
So with that being said, I am looking for a motion for the acceptance and reaffirmation of policy BCA, please.
I'll make a motion to...
a motion to affirm policy BCA, the Ethics Policy Statement.
First by Shane, seconded by Jack.
All those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Any?
Other members?
Okay.
Is that an aye or abstention?
An aye.
An aye.
Thank you.
Okay. Committee assignments.
So in our packets is our committee assignments.
So, again, for those of you that are new, looks like this sheet right here.
here. My ask of you is you can fill it out and give it to me end of day today, or if you wish to provide me your committee assignments that you'd like to volunteer for by Friday, I'd like to review them with Shane and some other members to make sure that we have our subcommittees filled. And then at our next meeting, we'll be looking to affirm our subcommittee assignments. So again, you can fill them out now or if you want to just email me by Friday, that's absolutely fine.
Chair.
Yes.
It's okay, Reda.
Thank you.
Thank you, Adam.
Just really to point out that if you are not familiar with all the subcommittees, this handout is also including your pathway.
So it'll give you an idea, especially on meeting days.
Some of the meetings are back-to-back-back, so good thing to look at when they choose on your committee.
Absolutely.
And if you are a returning member, just because you were on committees from last time, doesn't mean you need to be on committees this time.
We did lose two senior members that retired, so we will be looking to fill some of those.
leadership positions that are needed.
So again, if you want to make a change, it's absolutely okay.
And Jared, can I just add, when you're looking at the sheet next year for negotiations,
I would just remind the board that we will have negotiations with our support staff next year.
So GESS, our support staff union contract, will be up next year.
So we will be looking for members to participate in that.
Thank you, Superintendent.
Okay, we'll move on to the approval of the March 2nd meeting.
minutes. Not sure if people had an opportunity to see these. For our new members, again,
if you did watch the meeting or if you were present at the meeting, this is a vote for just
the accuracy of the minutes, not that we agree with the minutes. I'll make a motion to approve
the meeting minutes from March 2nd as presented. Motion by Shane. Second. Second by Ginny.
All those in favor of approval of the meeting minutes, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed.
abstained? We have three abstentions.
Thank you. That motion passes. With that, we'll go to committee reports, starting out with finance.
I know, oh, go ahead.
Chair, can I just back us up a little bit? I think we skipped over correspondence, good news, and public comment.
I didn't mark them off. Thank you.
Yeah. Can I just comment on this first, though? We had listed on our agenda to have a presentation from the middle school on a new proposed schedule this evening.
We did cancel that. There are a few things that we felt still needed to be tightened up a little bit.
So the C&E committee has heard the full presentation, and primarily the spoiler alert is that we're looking to move to a block schedule type model at the middle school, which will increase some of our instructional times, but it's not quite finished yet.
So we will bring that hopefully in two weeks, but we felt that there were a few things that we still needed to work on.
So I wanted to let you know on that.
And for correspondence, we don't have any this evening, but Mr. Talbot, if it's okay, I just didn't want to speak briefly to the vote.
come. So I'd like to thank the voters of Goffstown in New Boston. We had really great support
for both our budgets, as well as our other warrant articles, particularly including the teacher
contract here in Goffstown. So we're very appreciative. I'd like to extend our appreciation to the
voters of Goffstown and New Boston. We're very, very appreciative that the budget and the contract
was approved. Also other good news. I'd like to say thank you for those members of this board
that were actually working the polls as well as our
high school students that participated and gave directions during the whole time.
They were very valuable in that.
With that, moving on with the correspondence, we'll go to our student wrap.
All right. So last Friday was Free Money Friday here at Goffstown High School,
which is our local scholarship event that the school counselors, Ms. Bochman, the librarian,
and a representative from Granite Advancement on,
over 100 students, seniors attended where they were able to fill out the local scholarship,
which goes to about 20 different scholarships in the area, and they also had a few paper
scholarships that students could grab.
Spring sports start, or tryouts for spring sports start next week, and signups are available
in Power School. And then last but not least, speech and debate attended the youth and government
pre-legislative session this weekend, where senior Noah Babin is their youth governor elected,
and he gave a very powerful speech to the entire event.
And so I thought you did a good job with that.
Thank you.
And on to our teacher rep, please.
Also on March 13th, peer outreach held a youth risk behavior survey, data retreat at the high school,
where club members examined the current data on youth mental health and suicide risk to better understand those challenges facing their peers.
They're now working on ways to increase awareness, reduce stigma, and encourage students who may be struggling
to seek help. Their goal is simple and powerful to ensure that more students experiencing
suicidal thoughts connect with support before a crisis occurs.
Peer Outreach is also hosting the semi-same, sorry, semi-formal dance coming up.
That's my place, March 20th from 7 to 10, with the theme of A Night in New York.
Tickets will be sold electronically during the time.
that week helping to make the event accessible while continuing to build connection
and positive community among the students. Finally, we're celebrating arts and music in our schools
in the month of March. For the music department, that means a lot of performances, but additionally,
our Chaiam Music Honor Society members created a display in the theater lobby to commemorate
this year's Grammy Award winners. It also means extra performances. The first
week of March, the GHS Select Vocal Ensemble participated in the St. Anson's Choir
Spring Concert. This week, our annual music in the school's concert will be in the theater
on Wednesday, the 18th, at 7 p.m. And then next week, on the 25th, at 6 p.m., we'll collaborate
with the GHS chapter of the National Honor Arts Society and the GHS Creative Writing Club.
for our joint Honor Society induction.
And then we already talked to you about free money.
And then last last is that all of our juniors will be taking the SAT during the school day on March 25th.
The rest of our students will be working asynchronously at home.
So teachers will give them work ahead of time to be working on while they're home.
Any other good news?
Thank you. So over at Bartlett, to celebrate the Iditarod, they conclude their historical
fiction unit on the summer run, Bartlett classrooms participated in the Idita read. As students
finished books, their musher will advance along the Alaskan trail map in the gym. In each
class aims to complete 50 books, following fun prompts such as reading a book with a blue
cover, a science book, or a book about owls.
They also have a program that's soon coming to Barclick called Eyes on Owls,
or Owl Experts Mark and Marcia Wilson will introduce students to New Hampshire native owls,
including six live owls, will be up close.
So they're very excited about that.
They'll also be reading some informational text on owling to build background knowledge,
and after the presentation, students and staff are also going to dissect owl pellets.
Over at Glen Lake, right before the break, Mrs. Canona's
Mrs. Canonis turned Glenlake's weekly kindergarten motor group into the Winter Olympics.
Mrs. Canonis introduced what the Olympics is about and students participated in a variety of fun,
Olympics-inspired events, including scooter board sledding and a torch relay.
And over at Maple, the PFT has been running its second annual read-a-a-thon since Monday, March 2nd.
It has thus far been an enormous success.
As of last Friday, the Maple students have read a total of 129,327 minutes, and they've raised over $26,000.
Additionally, an amazing 61% of the students have signed up and practiced to participate outside of school.
So there's inside of school reading, but you can sign up to do extra, and they are.
And we're just incredibly proud of the support of the Maple Lab community.
that they've showed during this event.
So the read-a-thon will be finished.
Actually finished this afternoon.
So a special thank you to PFT for putting on such a great program.
Thank you, Wendy.
Any other accommodations for good news?
Yes.
I was just grateful to go to the MVMS March arts night last week,
and it was just phenomenal to see all the musicians at MVMS,
like awesome performances by the honors groups as well as duets and solos.
And it was a really nice.
evening.
Great. Thanks, Laura.
Any others?
I would also like to commend the voters for supporting public schools and our teachers and students in Glafs down.
I know probably it was a hard decision for some families, but thank you for making that decision.
I think it will be helpful to our students here to continue on learning and turning out to be good people.
So thank you for those choices that you made.
I would encourage everyone to go on YouTube and see Scott's last-tire
school with our people interview with Susan McLean if you want to see what the school system
does for our kids other than reading, writing, and arithmetic.
There's something to be learned there.
Any other items?
Okay.
We'll open up public comment.
Seeing none, we are now closing public comment.
That will move on to committee reports.
And Doug, I know that we didn't have.
enough, but you have a paper sheet.
Yeah, so we have a total manifest tonight in the amount of $4,116,728.
And 32 cents.
For payroll taxes and benefits, we have a total of $3,122,779, and 72.
Payroll, there were two payrolls during this time period,
and they totaled $1,451,332, and payroll, and payroll taxes were.
$430,867.
In special education, the amounts for vendors that were over $5,000 totaled $193,441.61.66.
Key amongst that was Durham School Services, $85,959,000 for in-and-out-of-dict transportation,
St. Charles School for $18,046 for out-of-district services.
For general expenses, we had a total amount of...
of $662,8766.95.
For SAU-19, Goffstown paid $190,097 for their assessment,
or their share of the cost of SAU-19.
Gotthown Truck Center was paid $179,336 for transportation.
Manchester School District, $100,263233 for transportation.
For semester one for MST, Dead River Company, $696,996 for propane, average source, $41,043 for electricity.
And for food service, we had one vendor over $5,000, and that is performance food service for $18,963.
With that, I'll accept a motion to accept this manifest as presented.
Motion by Jack. Second by RETA. All those in favor of accepting the manifest, say aye.
Aye.
Opposed. Say nay.
Absensions. Motion passes.
Okay, the MS-22.
Great, thanks.
So, MS-22 is another form that goes to the DRA, the Department of Revenue and Administration.
So as we move throughout the budget process, I'm on the DRA portal, and I'm putting specific information that they're asking for.
each year. So before the MS-22, we put in the MS-27, which was what was presented
to voters to be voted on. And then after the vote comes back in, I go to the financial
articles, and I mark off what passed and what didn't pass. And then what the DRA does is they
start the beginning of the MS-22. So that column that says appropriations as voted, that's
coming from the information that I put in before. And you can see that it's a
attached to certain articles. So then part of what we do on the MS-22 is that we divide it out
between elementary, middle, and high school. If you go to the second page of the MS-22 on the
bottom, the key thing for this is, again, any warrant articles that had financial impact that got
voted in, that's the total amount of appropriations for what the district will be able to spend
next year, starting July 1st, and then going through June 30th.
can see that the voters voted for $60,797,768. That includes funds for our food
service, which is, you know, self-sufficient, as well as our grants fund, which, again, we only
spend the revenue that comes in as well. So that what we're really looking to do is make sure
that what the voters voted on is being represented in the MS-22, and you can see that the total
voted appropriations matches what the voters approved that day. So next fiscal year,
we cannot spend more than that amount unless we have a public hearing. And again, there'd only
be specific reasons why we'd have a public hearing. That would be if we wanted to spend from our
CRF fund or if we wanted to spend from the 5% contingency fund. Other than that, where this
now goes as a base number that would eventually lead to the tax rate setting in the
fall, because we have this number, and then we subtract out our revenue, and then we look
for the new town valuation. So we're not at tax rating setting yet, but this is one of the
first numbers that will eventually be used in the fall when the DRA sets our tax rate as
well. So this is something that as board members, you would sign. So definitely, if you have
any questions before we sign, I would ask that I'm available now.
for Mr. Cotton. No questions? Any comments from Mr. Totten on this? See, it's making its way
around, so we will do that. Behind those business. So it's the same sheet, just twice. If you don't mind
just signing it twice, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. I'll remind everyone to be very
careful about where your name is. Make sure you sign next to your name. It's this close.
I've signed on the wrong line. So be careful. And then Doug, I know that we have another item,
but you just want to give kind of a brief overview and say that we'll be going to non-public on this.
So during non-public today, we're going to talk about the special education transportation
contract, so which expires at the end of this year. So we'd be looking to enter contract
for hopefully multiple years starting July 1st.
Thank you. Moving on to Budget Committee, I believe there will be a meeting for the Budget
Committee in the April timeframe. They are not having anything in the March time frame. So
hopefully we will have a member of this.
board ready to attend the budget meeting moving on to C&E chair
recognized Ginny I see any as C&E as Brian stated our our information
will come out to you next meeting with the report on Mountain Views new
scheduling and our next meeting is April 13th 2026 7 p.m.
the SAU and we'll be discussing student and family handbook review and that will
be for our April approval thank you Ginny the chair recognizes as a
RETA oh actually before then I just wanted to add on that we also had a very
extensive presentation about IT and I'm not sure if that comes to this board would
it be okay if I jump in yes absolutely at our last meeting like Rhna mentioned we had a
extensive presentation on IT what we had discussed at the meeting is
waiting until our new board members are at the table and what I'm going to do
is I'm going to send the whole presentation to the entire board and that
presentation not only goes over staffing but goes over future projects that
we're working on as well as usage for a lot of our technology tools that we're
using in the district so that will also be part of the next board meeting
minutes. One of the things though, if I may, that we did highlight was we talked a lot at the end of our meeting about the life expectancy of our current smart boards. So a number of them are coming to beyond end of life and we've been having some problems with some of our smart boards. Our smart boards are in CIP, but one of the things that we're working on right now is we just created a survey to go out to our professional staff to ask them
about what features are important for them.
And the reason being is some of our subjects,
it's very important, especially at the elementary level,
to have that touch screen capability.
But for others, especially at the high school level,
we may not need smart boards.
We might need large screen TVs where teachers can use
their laptop and use the screen sharing feature
to be able to put slide decks and things like that up on the board.
And there is a significant
cost difference between those. So in trying to be proactive to come up with, okay, where are we going to be cost-wise as we start looking at CIP, we're getting that information from staff now. So that survey right now sits with the principals because we want to make sure we're getting feedback from them before we send it out from the staff. But I did want to let this the entire board know that that was a pretty significant conversation that we had at our last C&E.
Ginny also mentioned the handbooks.
So again, I wanted to make sure that we had our new board members at the table.
You're actually going to get the handbooks from me tomorrow so that you have plenty of time to read through them with the changes.
There is like a front page that goes over the changes that were in it.
There's not many significant changes, but I do want to mention that per policy, the AI in DeepFake policy was added to all of the handbooks in its entirety.
So I will be looking for approval for those at the next
meetings, so I'll make sure I get it to you in plenty of time to be able to read through those.
Thank you, Jared. Thank you, Wendy. Okay, moving on to P&C, is it RETA or is it Laura?
It is me for now until we have our organizational meeting and then it'll maybe
somebody new. So we had an abbreviated meeting tonight, but we filled it up with
lots of activity as you know from our last
meeting we presented the new board member communication packet that went out
love to hear feedback from our new board members this is something new
that we hadn't done in the past and it's trying to to educate the new board
members before they come to their first meeting so you don't need to do it right
now but if you want to share any feedback to me or Fedetka and you're also on that
committee. The other thing that that we had worked on was the description of the board officers. So this is above and beyond the policies. This actually talks about what the chair and vice chair are responsible for. So we sent out a draft at our last meeting. We'd like to finalize that. So if any of you have any feedback on what's in that, please let us know and we'll update that and kind of finalize it. It's a work in progress.
So at any time we can decide to add to it.
But we would like to get approval at our next meeting so we can close that book.
We also talked a little bit about volunteer appreciation week. We've got some great ideas.
This is April 19th through the 25th, so we'll be looking to get more information about the volunteers in our schools so we can share that out to the community.
And lastly, we didn't go into great depth, but we're starting to think about the board retreat that will happen in June.
So if any of you have thoughts or ideas around that, feel free to share with any of us.
We haven't formalized anything, but if you have any ideas about what you'd like to see happen, let us soon.
Our next meeting is April 1st.
Any questions or statements for C&E?
If not, we'll move on to policy.
All right, so policy met last Monday, and there was a lot going on, but you will see that coming up in new business and a little bit old business as well.
Policy will be meeting again on April 13th, at 530th at the SAU. The big one that we're still kind of waiting on is the advertising policy.
So that's still in process. Scott did tell me tonight that he has
received first draft back from the attorney who we wanted to have someone
else look at it so we're still going through the process with that one so I think
that that one could be ready to go by retreat time so any questions or statements
for policy we'll be talking about it again later the SEU board meeting is
scheduled for April 15th for those new members that is actually at the
SEU building which is on school street so we'll be there at
6 o'clock is the start time for that and then the joint area committee
Jack was still waiting for June 10th to come up I said I could make the meeting
I don't know how others responded but I will have a meeting on June 10th
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you Jack moving on to the superintendent report
thank you mr. Talbot a few things for the board I wanted to let you know we've had
some error messages from power school it was important to share that we've
had a 500 error code we don't really know what that is but a lot of parents have
gotten it so we have a ticket out to power schools so they're aware of it we're not
entirely sure what the issue is but we're working to resolve that with them I
wanted to let board members know and new board members you'll be signed up to
receive information from the New Hampshire School Board's Association so
that should be communication that you start to receive in the next couple of
weeks the New Hampshire School Boards Association is a wealth of resource for
school boards and for school districts so there are about a hundred bills that
are still being tracked right now through this legislative session the
crossover period is about to happen that's when bills from the House go to the
Senate bills from the Senate go to the House so there are about a hundred that
still pertain to public schools so they they run the gamut of all kinds of topics
if any board members are interested in any of that legislative advocacy work there's
a lot to be done there so I would let that just linger I wanted to let you know
food services audit happening today and tomorrow so we've had two folks
from the education department they have come down and they were with us today
had a meeting with them and then they went and observed lunch today at
Bartlett and they're observing breakfast tomorrow at Bartlett so part of this
cyclical cycle from the state so we were happy to welcome them and again we're
very fortunate that we have Megan Bizarro who is an incredible food
services director so I wanted to let you know
that there are now three school districts that don't have full decay
Goffstown Hampstead and Timberlane New Boston passed it and Londonderry
passed it so there are now three school districts in the state if there are
more I don't know what they are so as of as far as I know it's just those three
so Goffstown is in a very small pool at this point so just wanted you to be
aware of that and my last piece we had the opportunity to
me briefly with our two new board members and do our local new board member
orientation but I also wanted to let you know that the New Hampshire School
Boards Association is offering the same on April 7th and April 9th so with
that I would be happy to pause and ask if there any questions for me for Mrs.
Kohler for Mr. Totten and I would definitely include Brady McCann if there are any
general questions for Brady McCann he's ready as well it looks right I just
wanted to emphasize the the value of the
Hampshire School Board Association these web they're mostly webinars
at this point in time but because we're members we're able to sign up for these on
our own and they're free they also have recording so if you can't make a session
but the topics are really great especially when they're doing the
legislative debriefing about what's happening it helps you to understand what
those are all about so I encourage you to look at the emails that come in and
sign up for you can do this yourself you just sign up you as long as
you use your SAU email address they'll they'll recognize it and if you've had any
issues just contact mrs. Moran we communicate with the school boards
association we'll make sure that we always give them new new school board members
contact information so you guys should get as soon as they've updated their their
lists question about the full-day kindergarten yeah my understanding of
that was related to not having an ability to eat the kids like not having a proper
lunchroom is that in Goffstown yeah yeah so that's just the beginning of it so in
Goffstown I would anticipate that we need 10 classrooms okay so right now we only
have we have eight sections of kindergarten if we went full-time I would
anticipate adding at least two sections because that's the equivalent of what
families that choose to send their children privately so when we look at our numbers
between kindergarten and first grade it's about two additional sections we only
have four physical spaces so if we are going to add full-day kindergarten we're
looking at about the need of about 10 classrooms total and that's in addition to
a cafeteria that's in addition to a gymnasium type space we don't have a
library so there are a number of limitations of the Glen Lake property however
when that property was built it was built with the
possibility of being added on to that was what was conceptualized at that
time it's unlikely that there will ever be a mandate for full-day
kindergarten I don't foresee that happening right now kindergarten is not
required the age of compulsory attendance in school does not start until a child is
six years old so it's not till a child goes to first grade that they actually
are required to go by law kindergarten is not required so
I don't know, Dan.
In all likelihood, I've optimistically shared over the years that I don't think
Goffstown is going to get full-day kindergarten, and that's my optimistic view.
Very optimistic.
Yeah.
New Boston, it passed overwhelmingly, so New Boston had a lot of support, but New Boston is so much
smaller.
Sure.
And for New Boston, the math made sense.
I think especially with no building aid, we would have.
have to build all of these buildings and there's no building aid at the state.
So the entire building expense would come on the town.
Whereas before the state would kick in building aid and there's little to no building aid right now.
There's still some building aid, but it's a very different process than it used to be.
You have to put in for it a number of years before you might even be eligible for the funding.
So you actually have to apply for it before you even necessarily had a
bond vote in your community.
So, yeah, it's too bad.
You know, full-day kindergarten is something that is important to families, and I think
it's good for kids, but I don't want to give any Goss Town families false hope that
there's going to be full-day kindergarten anywhere in the near future, because I just don't think
that that that's going to be possible, unfortunately.
Fair.
Okay.
Thank you.
What other questions do we have to the superintendent?
We'll move on under.
business. We do have some Q&A policies that do not require action other than questions
to Shane in the policy group and some statement. So Shane, I'll turn it over to you for the
three items of a three plus one. Sure. So before we do that, I just want to explain to the
new board members kind of how the policy process works. I'm sure you guys have watched a meeting
so you probably are fairly familiar with it, but the policy starts on the policy subcommittee
and then it comes to the board for first read. And then basically it gives you a couple weeks
to look it over and develop some questions for it. After that, at the next board meeting,
we have what we call the Q&A section where we are tonight on the old business. So this is
where, again, the new members might not have had a lot of time to look through these, but this is
where if there's things of the policy, you have questions about, or if you have ideas about it,
that's where you want to bring it up. And then it would lay over again until the next meeting,
and then we would look to approve that. So we do have three Q&A policies tonight, so we can
entertain questions on those. And then we do have three new policies up per first read,
so again, no action there. And then we have a number of policies that are up for deletion based on
review by the SAU, and we went through them as the policy committee last Monday. And the majority of
them are rooted in RSAs, and so therefore we didn't think that a policy was necessary because it's
already a statute. And some of them are like one-liners, things like that. Our policy manual is
quite hefty. So, you know, anything we can do to kind of get to a more manageable
sizes is good. So with that said, let's start with the Q&A policies. Does anyone have any questions,
comments about any reason? Rebecca. With this, the policy, J.I.J on student protests and
demonstrations and strikes. So it looks like this is a brand new policy that we didn't have, and we
may have adopted this from some another school district. Is there any, I don't know.
This is, I know this is an issue that may come up and it is, do we have other policies similar
to this or what was the thinking around, around this? I'm assuming that we needed to put it in
place because we may have had incidents where students were not that locked out.
Or you saw the news. There were some area of high schools that did have students that walked out.
And then in situations like that, you know, how do we respond? And so I think the thinking around
that was we need to have a policy to kind of figure out how building administration, the district
as a whole, is supposed to respond to that. So that, and yes, this was adopted from a different district,
who I believe did have some form of a walkout.
So I can't speak to if we've had any student walkouts here.
Yeah, so I would just, in general, share that we have not had the student walkouts.
In the past, we have, over the couple of years that we've had things that have come up,
we've done them after school. There's been a number of ways that we've worked with student groups to be able to do this.
I believe, Mrs. Kohler, this policy might have come from Mr. Prezone.
It did.
It did.
So I think, share.
this was at the policy meeting that Wendy covered for me, so I wasn't there.
But I did speak to Mr. Grzone.
So when we've had incidences like this in the past, Mr. Grzone's thinking was if this policy would just make it really clear.
So we have always administered things the way that we have, and if kids are leaving class, they're skipping class,
they're going to be disciplined for it.
There are rules.
So we have, in general, reacted to those things.
Tim thought it would be better to have a policy that just stated it more clearly.
So that's why this is before you.
Because this is an optional policy.
And as you just heard from Shane, in general, we don't tend to support the optional policies.
But we thought this one was important.
Greta, go ahead.
Yeah, just a follow-up.
Did we look at any other policies or just this one that Mr. Grisone brought?
It was just this particular one.
We only discussed kind of like less in front of year right here.
Right.
Okay.
And I'm just curious because I haven't thought about this, and I haven't looked at anyone else's,
and I'm wondering to what extent are policies at other schools similar or not.
Yeah.
So do you have any suggestions for changes?
I don't because I haven't looked at them, but I was just curious how we came to this set of policies.
It sounds like, you know, maybe schools.
are starting to put them in place, but I don't know what the pros and cons are of them.
I have no additional feedback.
Yeah, I think just to reiterate kind of what Brian said, and I guess I said it to a little bit,
but it just helps building administration, you know, because I've seen this stuff on social media,
like, how can these kids are out there and how come the assistant principal standing out there with them?
like it has a whole thing, right, where it lays out and hear like the staff member
could be assigned to supervise, you know what I mean?
And so it makes things clear for the building administrators.
Great.
Thank you.
Sure.
Shane, on that same policy, I'm looking at the title, Student Protests, Demonstrations, and I think that's supposed to be strikes.
Yeah.
Maybe my, I mean, a quick glasses on.
Wait, what is it?
You got a test out of there.
Oh, mine is a lot.
Mine says stakes, yeah.
Mine's the strikes.
Okay.
Congratulations, if you all pass the time.
All failed the test every meeting.
We have a hidden word.
Every meeting.
Well, that's not fair if we have two different examples of not.
I didn't say it was easy, change.
How do I know Redo's coffee is not different?
Just like in school.
Everyone gets a different testing.
It's true.
It's true.
It's differentiated.
So that's J-I-J.
If anyone else has any questions or comments about J-I-J.
And if not, then we have J-F-A-A, which is in relation to the admission of resident students.
And then we have J.I.H and J.I.H.R., which are student searches on their property,
which, if you'll remember, the big piece with that was the addition of the metal detector ones.
You are adding or proposing we could add metal detector ones.
It's added in this policy.
It's included.
It was not in the policy, and it's now in the policy.
Shane, just looking at J.I.H., I know that it looks like under line three,
Whenever a student freely involuntary consents to a search, consent obtained through threats or coercion is not considered to be freely and voluntarily given.
When I look at J-I-H-R, Section C, administrative discretion will be used when issuing appropriate discipline consequences based on all circumstantial evidence of the situation of the 10-day suspension.
Should the administrator reasonably suspect the student is any way to a threat.
However, that's after it says if the student,
the student refuses to allow their person to be searched.
Is that considered coercion to say, well, if you don't let me search you, I could give you a 10-day suspension?
That's a good question.
I do know that districts handle this differently.
And I do know that some places will say, okay, if the student didn't consent to a search, then they'll get the penalty of what we believe they have done.
So that's a good question.
Yeah, it's kind of modeled on the question.
concept of if you refuse a breathalyzer test, we're going to assume that you have been
under the influence of something. That's essentially what we were going for. So for
example, if you can refuse a search and get three-day suspension, but if I catch you
with something illegal, you get 10 days, well, of course they're going to refuse the search,
right? That's what we were trying to mitigate. Driving is a privilege. Is going to
school a privilege or something that we're compelled to do for our students?
going to school is
it is a privilege.
It's a right.
It's also a privilege.
I think it's both.
And we have certainly a code of conduct that we have to ensure to keep the building safe.
I don't disagree.
I wonder if it's not complementary to have the regulation and the policy.
I just, I like the idea of, you know, we're innocent until proven guilty.
You know, if there's suspicion, that's great.
Maybe under three.
whenever students really, you know, says if they don't give consent, a parent or a guardian would be contacted or something along those lines.
I just like the idea of the parent being in the loop about their student being searched unless there's...
That's actually not a bad idea because I do know that in many cases, if the student says no, the parent will be called.
And sometimes the parent will come down and say, let's go.
Or sometimes you have the opposite.
So, I mean...
I can understand if there's imminent danger, absolutely agree with it.
But if it's not imminent, I think we can take the pause to say, okay, let's try to go to the parent or guardian to let them know what's going on with their child or their ward.
That's just my opinion on that.
I'd like to kind of see something like that.
Does anyone else have thoughts?
As a follow-up, under responsibility of school employees after the search on page 2 there, I was thinking the same thing.
like, I feel like parent contact should be a required element.
You know, if the search, you have reason.
suspicion to search a student, nothing comes of it.
There's no discipline or anything.
Kid goes back to class.
I think the parent should be informed as a general practice.
Regardless, so I don't know if that necessarily...
I've seen it in policies in other districts before,
whether that's practice policy, putting it out there.
Go with Jack.
Go ahead, Jack.
I would say that if you're going down in that rabbit hole, a minor kick and set 10
it's got to be the parent.
So I would just mention when I was the principal of Red Mountain View,
anytime that we had to do a search, whether it was a backpack, a lock, or anything,
we always called the parents, regardless if we found something or not, that contact was made.
So that was part of our building practice anyways.
I know this has done a conversation, but regardless if we found something or not, we always contact the parent.
After the search.
After the search. Yeah.
Yes.
So that's, I think, where my concern is, if they're a minor, I think we should be contact.
them prior to the search unless there's an imminent danger associated with it.
That would need to get taken care of right away.
That might be just my opinion on this, though.
It's a devil's advocate, right?
Well, that's kind of following the current standing law that we have with police and DUI
or walking down the street.
You know, you can refuse things.
And if, I just like to have the parents in the loop, especially if it's a minor,
and that way we're protected as well.
So to that end, if we, we,
added on J-I-H-R-1 on page two under responsibilities of school employees after
a search, if I added D, contact parents or guardians?
I think that makes sense.
Does that cover it?
For me, I'd say before.
It has to be before.
You actually do a search.
I mean, if you're, quote, unquote, detaining the students so that they can't move so that you can't
move so that you can contact the parent or bring them into the office, get authorization to do
a search, I think that's appropriate, unless there is some
circumstances. Do they have an expectation of privacy in this sense?
Act packs closed. So, I'm sorry, Wendy, go ahead.
Could I just mention, just again, having done this for a number of years, when we're doing a search,
it's because we think that there is something eminent. We're looking at drugs, we're looking at alcohol,
we're looking at weapons. So in some cases, taking a moment to call a parent,
and I'm not saying I don't want parents informed,
absolutely do. I also don't want to make, I don't want to have everybody else wait because
if word gets around, then a student has told an administrator that they said somebody had
something on the boss as an example. That time is incredibly precious to be able to get to
that student, to be able to do that search. So I would just worry if we can't get to a parent right
away, that is important time that's taken through. We don't just do searches for
a phone. That's not what we're doing a search for. It's drugs, alcohol, and weapons more than
likely. I agree. Shane, go ahead. Yeah, so I just want to want to tie the hands of our
administrators because, like what Wendy said, I know if something comes up, a vape, weapon, etc., you're not
even waiting for the kid to come down. You're going to get the kid with their belongings and stuff.
You know what I mean? So if I'm, you know, someone's taking that time to call a parent first,
that kid can dump it, get rid of it, give it to the next kid.
So it does create an issue as far as kind of the immediacy of the issue.
And we can't reach the area, right?
Go ahead, Jeff.
Not searching them, like bringing them down with their stuff to the office would not be searching them, right?
You could claim it was detaining them, but you sort of have that ability as an administrator.
Sort of.
Right.
So then your contact is just for the consent.
of the search. But hopefully, drugs and alcohol, I would, as much as I don't want to see them,
right if they're not an imminent threat, unless the person's ingesting them right in front
of you, which obviously then you wouldn't have to search them. And then if it was a weapon,
it would be in front of you where hopefully you could put an end to that while you were trying
to contact the parent. And I will say it was one of the funniest phone calls I ever got from
Todd the Valley when they call me about having to search my daughter and I saved that message to this day.
Just a point about the imminent part you're asking the administrators to be to make a subjective decision as to what's an imminent threat in the moment.
And I feel like it's putting more on us on them than the necessary because if they can search and then reach out to the parents.
So a hundred years ago I used to work for marshals when I would catch teenagers stealing things and I'd have to sit them down.
and call their parents and wait for them to come get them, but there were occasionally two, three hours where the parents wouldn't answer the phone, that ended with the police.
So I think you're much better off just dealing with the situation in the moment and then obviously requiring reaching out to the parents right after whether or not they found something, right?
But if you say to the administrators, hey, it has to be an imminent threat, you're going to hear something, I'm going to hear something different and you're going to hear a third thing, right?
So as to what imminent from a threat perspective, because, you know, to Jack's point about, did they just and just and just
drugs, well, maybe that kid swallowed them, right?
You don't get caught, but he took too many.
Now that's going to be a problem, but they're not imminently going to get hurt somebody else,
and it just turns in too much of a vague place.
I know there's several different scenarios on things that we can think of.
I just look at the golden rule of reasonable articulable suspicion,
or it's a detainment, not necessarily beyond a cursory search of an individual.
The school is a member of the state.
That is the state.
policy that they have with the police.
I just get concerned with situations like this.
That's my concern.
I agree that we should have that we should be contacting
the parents, and if you want to part
that move that as afterwards.
But when we put this policy
into action, I hope
that an administrator doesn't say, you're going to let me
search you or you're going to get a 10-Dispension.
If that happens, that's a problem,
in my opinion.
Because that is coercive.
Yeah, and that is not
at all what has
or would happen.
What if we added,
so on the bottom of page
one, if I added conducting
the search, if I add E
the regulation, on the reg.
Yep, on the reg, at the bottom of page
one, if I added E, school
administration will make every effort
to contact a parent prior to
the search, prior to a search
if possible.
And then
on the next page,
responsibilities of
school employees after a search,
adding D and saying
school administration will contact
a parent or guardian after a search
has been conducted.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Knowing that I won't make a motion for that change,
who would like to make that motion?
Jack? I'll make
a motion that we make that change
as presented. Thank you, Jack.
Any second? Second? Second. Second by Adam.
All of us in favor of the change? Say aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
Appentions. We are unanimous.
other questions, statements
about the three policies that we've reviewed.
Well, those will be coming back at our next
meeting for approval.
With that, we'll move on to
new business. New Business A,
first three policies. No board action is
taken, but the chair recognizes Shane to review
these policies. Thank you so much.
So we have KE, which is
relative to the public complaints and public complaints
about school personnel. We have BEDG,
which is relative to meeting minutes.
And then we have E.H. and E.H.R.,
which is access to school district records.
which is a little bit of a lengthy one.
So again, with these three,
you guys need to kind of review them.
You have questions, comments, anything you think
needs to parse that a little bit.
Bring that back at our next full meeting.
And then beneath that, starting with A.E,
those are the optional policies that you have in front of me.
So again, I would urge you all to just look through them.
If there's anything that you think is
crucially vital that we need to
keep in policy,
please bring that to our attention at the next meeting.
Although, like I said, there's a lot of them
that are rooted in RSAs, so
that kind of helps those ones out,
but there are some that aren't. So
if some of those look like
anyone thinks they should be kept in our policy
manual, then let us know, we can talk about it.
Go ahead, Rhada.
Yeah, just a quick question.
So are the ones
that you're recommending
to be removed?
Are they noted on the actual
policy? Yeah, do you
get this stack here?
It says optional policies with RSA's address.
You're welcome.
It's a pretty big stack.
So, yeah, so those are just
to take a peek. And
if you have questions about anything
or something's crucial that we keep, let us know
and we'll live in chat.
Any further questions for Shane on these
policies?
Is K.E. A.E.
a brand new policy?
No. No.
Okay, it doesn't have anything
struck out.
Okay.
KE and KE.E.E.
It was combined. So, KE
has existed for a long time. We took two
policies and essentially
combined them together, so it looks like
it's a new policy, but it's not.
Right.
Further questions for Shane.
If not, we will move on
to staffing. Okay, on the staffing
sheet. Notification only
is for a leave of absence.
For your approval this
evening, the same leave of absence
you'll see is up
above for the remainder of the
year, we're looking for your approval
from May
18th through the end of the year for that
first individual, and I'll do these in batches.
I'll make a motion to approve
the leave of absence for
the, I guess
I'll just say the leave of absence as presented.
Motion by Shane. Second by Jimmy.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed?
Absensions. Unamis.
So next up, we have a
resignation from our special
education facilitator at
Maple Lab, Bridget Perry.
So we'd like to
wish Bridget well, and
that's for your approval, the
resignation.
If we like her enough, can we decline?
I'll make a motion
to approve the resignation as presented.
By Vanessa. Second.
Second by Dan. All those in favor
say aye. Aye. Opposed.
Absentions. Pass unanimously.
So we have
two resignations for teachers
that'll be moving on, so we wish them well.
thank them for their service.
I'll make a motion to approve the teacher
resignations as presented.
Motion by Vanessa, second by Ginny.
Father of favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed.
Abstensions.
Re-ananimous again.
So these next batch
of nominations, one
is for the teacher to replace
Mr. DeRocher, who moved into
the curriculum coordinator role.
So we'd like to welcome
those two teachers.
And actually, Caitlin has been
with us at Glen Lake,
but she's moving into full-time.
I'll make a motion to approve those nominations
as presented.
Motion by Vanessa.
Second.
Second. Hi.
Adam. All those in favor
say aye. Aye.
Opposed. Abstensions.
We're unanimous.
And the last batch, please don't make me read all these names,
is the big batch
batch of spring sports.
And I would just point out because we have a couple
of new board members. You'll notice
when the names appear in the left, if there's
a little lowercase N
in parentheses, that's indicating that
is a new person or a new role for
that person. So that just shows
you that on this first list
there are only three ends.
So these are all returning
coaches for us.
And same story on the back. There's, I think,
one person who's a new
person. Chair, recognized. Ginny.
Brian, do we have
all spring sports covered?
I believe so.
Have we heard any that are vacant
at this point? They just filled the baseball
at Mountain View and I think that was the last
one. So I think we're all set. I think we're
good, Judy. And we have A and B?
I don't see A and B on here.
We joke for softball and baseball because we
only have one field with no lights.
So we've never had an A
and a B team for baseball or softball. There's
only ever been one team at the middle school.
Thank you for the questions.
I'll accept the motion.
We'll make a motion to approve all sports
nominations as presented.
I haven't asked that.
second-ended by Laura. All those in favor
say aye. Aye. Opposed?
Extensions.
Very unanimous.
Yes.
Yes.
Teacher and I are
eyeballing each other and they are voting along with
the board. And so what I'm saying is unanimous,
they are in the approval.
Okay.
Unless they really want to be
called out separately.
Thank you, Ms. Warren.
Okay.
Moving on
to
the notifications approvals.
Other superintendent request to waive a
policy. That will be a non-public. That will be a
non-public discussion, so I will be requesting
the board to waive policy
I-M-A-B, but we'll
talk about that a little more in non-public.
With that, let's move on to the top three
things, which Chair of Manas-Retta.
Yeah.
Pardon?
I have the new board members
in the new chair and vice chair
at separate items, but
they all happen about the same
the same time,
so it's just going to put that at one,
which leaves me too shy
in three things.
So anyone has any
any recommendations.
Maybe talking about that
we're going to be reviewing the
student family handbook at our next meeting.
That might be a good one for people
to just say that we're going to be tuning
into that meeting, maybe.
I agree with that.
Not a lot of discussion,
no, on.
Video clipped.
I know.
It's going to be a
be a great minute.
But at least we'll put it on parents' radars
that they're, they'll be
discussed.
And maybe that same thing
for the new scheduling.
Do we want to, or is that too early
because we're not up yet?
Are we going to be presenting the
Mountain View scheduling
before the next meeting?
At the next meeting.
It's okay, so we should wait until then.
Honestly, I would wait until they do the
presentation. Okay.
Yes, Trim.
It wouldn't be our most
hearty third thing,
but
do we want to talk
about spring sports are starting
up, and we have a number of
volunteer coaches and returning coaches
that we're glad to have.
Dryouts.
Yeah.
I mean, I think there's always
and it just occurred to me.
I may have had a third thing,
but I think that's good.
So the other one was thanking the public
for support of the schools.
Oh.
Yeah.
That's a good one.
Yeah, do that.
They can read about the sports on the board
outside of high school.
So, essentially, our three things all happen.
Like within the first 15th.
Thank you.
Any other business
that you come before the board
that was not on the agenda from any board members?
With that, we will be going into non-public.
We're only going to be going under C.
So we'll be going under RSA-9-1-A-3-I-I-C.
So moved.
That's Shane.
Second.
Second by Vanessa.
We will start over with Laura.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
We are now in non-public.