October 29, 2025
To: RSU Board of Directors
From: Mark L. Campbell, Superintendent of Schools
Re: November 2025 Board Report
I have spent a significant amount of time in the buildings assessing the level of disruption in each of the buildings, particularly the classrooms with our youngest students. I commend the administrators and teachers for their efforts to try different strategies to help students adjust to the normal routines of being in school. Some of their plans that have been developed and implemented are having a positive impact. Again, a huge thank you to the staff who come in daily with the positive feeling that that day will be the day they see the success of their efforts with other students. As early as the second week of school a pattern was developing in the lower end of CCS in one of our classrooms. I have watched this room carefully and have engaged in conversation with the experienced teacher in this room. I have an agenda item below requesting additional support for this teacher with the potential to be able to provide other K-5 staff with additional support too. Geoff is in support of this.
Policy met to engage in discussions on ten Policies on October 15th. Those discussions included the following policies: Policy JK Student Discipline; Policy JKF Disciplinary Removal of Students; Disciplinary Removal of Students Procedure; JLCB Immunization of Students; Policy JLCC Communicable/Infectious Diseases; Policy JLDBG Reintegration of Juveniles from Correctional Facilities; Policy JRA Student Education Records and Information; JRA-R Student Education Records and Information Procedure; JRA-E Notification of Rights Under FERPA; and Policy EBBD Temperature Standards for Schools. The agenda was lengthy because most of these still contained the recommended wording form MSMA. I have addressed individual policies where the committee made changes in the agenda notes below. Another topic addressed in this meeting was the time for these sub-committee meetings. As a result, I will be handing out an updated sub-committee meeting schedule with the adjusted times at our meeting on November 5.
The Academic Committee met as well on the 15th of October. Our discussions included whether to put student preparedness for 4-year college entrance ahead of State testing results. Last spring this committee asked that I push for our high school to offer a course in Physics alternating with Honors Chemistry as the current course load for our high school teacher permits one or the other of the classes. I have requested a meeting with the teacher and Mr. Dostie to discuss this and other options beyond the alternating years idea to help meet this need. Other topics for our meeting included the district goals to continue documenting our curriculum in Science, Social Studies, VPA, and Health and Physical Education. While additional discussions included academic expectations, the committee was also informed about the need to build a local assessment system to measure student achievement in writing.
I was asked by the Chair for data on student retention for the 2024-2025 school year. I can report we had one student who was retained in the lower grades. The decision to retain was done with consultation with the family. Although I wasn’t asked for this, I will offer that at the high school level while students earned enough credits to move onto the next grade level the following number are the year failures by content area:
Mathematics 10
Science 9
Social Studies 10
Visual Arts 1
Shop 2
Health and Fitness 6
English 8
JMG 5
Outdoor Skills 1
Finally, today I will share that I was recruited to sub at CCS in the kitchen which had as many positives as responsibilities. Thankfully my responsibilities were not stressful and the good news I was able to greet every student K-8 with a smile and a packet of gold fish! There were quite a few questions about why I was there!!
Agenda:
Appointments:
The appointments are staff who have held these positions in prior year(s). You have already approved David Pepin to be the varsity boys coach. We are in the process of finding and interviewing candidates for the boys JV at the high school.
Resignations:
Amy Cates - Special Education Teacher grade 6-8.
Nominations:
None
Action Items:
Item 6: This is the second reading for the policies that were voted on in October. Other than additional grammatical changes noted in the October meeting, these policies have not been modified since your initial vote.
Item 7: Policy JLDGB Reintegration of Juveniles from Correctional Facilities: The change in this policy was minor in the sense one word was added. The original wording had the superintendent reports being submitted to the Department of Corrections. Based on my experience as a high school principal, it was my responsibility to attend these meetings as I was the one who best knew the student(s). I did confer with my superintendent prior to these meetings and would expect the same from our principal(s). I was also responsible for the communication pieces with the Department of Corrections. By putting the word designee after superintendent in item 1, the principal can be asked to do this. Again, the principal should have better insight to the student’s progress so direct communication from the principal would be best.
Item 8: Policy JK Student Discipline: The committee felt the wording from the MSMA sample policy that incorporated Statute changes around student discipline and restraint and seclusion needed to be added to our policy.
Item 9: Policy EBBD Temperature Standards for Schools: This is a new policy due to recent legislation out of Augusta. The wording comes from MSMA. The temperature ranges were chosen by administration. This does not mean that we will necessarily close school as soon as we hit the minimum and maximum, it means we will assess the situation to determine what steps the district needs/can take to address the comfort level of the students and staff. For example during my tenure here, we had temperatures that made our buildings uncomfortable especially for those that did not have stand alone room air conditioners but we sought and received water donations from Poland Springs. With constant checking in to be sure everyone was kept hydrated, we kept school in session. At the high school we had a situation where the heating system (both pellets and oil) were down in the morning. We determined that we could remain in session for that building given the age group and that our service provider was on the scene promptly and had assessed the downtime to be less than an hour.
Item 10: Policy JRA - E - Notification of Rights under FERPA: Three changes in this document. The first eliminates wording that reflects that the Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing may do what RSU 74 may do. It was concluded that this had to be an oversight in wording from previous reviews. The second is wording that eliminates information that can be collected/shared under the current policy that is not considered directory information. The third is wording that reflects changes to Statute that requires public schools to submit directory information to all branches of the US Military. This section notifies that parents can opt out of this requirement.
Item 11: This action item is asking the Board to adjust prices for our meal and milk prices. These prices reflect increases in our costs for milk and produce for the meals that are prepared by our staff. These prices do give us a little breathing room for continued increases but increases that are not too far from our actual costs. For example our most recent price for white milk is roughly $0.42 and for chocolate milk it is just over $0.43. The same for meals as breakfast and lunches according to a recent report filed, the actual cost for breakfast is roughly $1.70 and lunches cost us roughly $5.68. A reminder that students receive a free breakfast and lunch daily, but we do have students who buy additional meals and milks and we must charge for these requests.
Item 12: This item will permit the Board to engage in a discussion on the agreement document developed by administration that will be utilized to allow the Town of Anson to use the Carrabec Community School as a shelter if necessary. The document was created from a sample document currently in place in Skowhegan and was recommended by Somerset County Emergency Management. I presented the document to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, October 28. The document keeps the use of the building in sync with your policies. The document requires the Town to carry us on their insurance, which they fully understood and accepted. The document ensures the financial obligations for the use can be recouped. This portion of the document drew questions from the Anson selectmen. The wording indicates RSU 74 will seek reimbursement from the Town for the actual costs for the time the building is in use as a shelter. The Town is seeking a deeper understanding of what those numbers may be as well as what we might charge for a fixed daily cost. I believe this needs to be carefully reviewed by our Board in our meeting next week. I do not have either sets of numbers at the time of the creation of my Board report but will ask Chris to prepare to the best of his abilities these numbers for our meeting.
Item 13: Allison Marcoux is our JMG teacher and as she did last year, she is willing to offer this program to our employees with a 20% discount and to our students free of charge while requesting the RSU 74 Board to waive the building use fee. She charges $5 per participant per session for others.
Item 14: As I described in my opening comments one would expect by now that energy levels and behaviors would take awhile to be impacted by the routines teachers work to establish but at the end of the quarter you would expect to see a difference. At CCS, the energy levels in two rooms that I have observed remain high making it very challenging to engage students academically. If you remember we hired a regular ed-tech staff for each of the K-5 buildings to support teachers to address initial concerns. At this time, the ed-tech we hired for CCS has had to remain in one room as the need is great. This staff member spent a significant amount of their daily time in this classroom last year as well but now this group of students has moved to the next grade and the need moved with the students. I give this teacher credit as she has been trying multiple approaches to structure her lessons and continues to do so but additional support would be beneficial. While the need is great in this second classroom, this person will be available to support other rooms throughout the day as well. Over time as teachers are able to collect data and try different interventions, some of these students may qualify for Special Education services so this new staff member may need to be transferred to that cost center but at this time I am recommending based on my own observations, requesting support of this additional staff member. The estimated cost for an ed-tech 1 through the balance of the current school year is under $35,000 for salary and benefits which exists in the Regular Education line in our 2025-2026 budget.
Item 15: Executive session to review the evaluation data collected for the superintendent.
Item 16: Executive session to update the Board on pending legal matters.