February 25, 2025
To: RSU #74 Board of Directors
From: Mark Campbell
Re: March Board Report
Finally…temperatures are above freezing and with no wind! Like our students, I enjoy the warming weather. Weekends will be spent out snowshoeing as I go from maple tree to maple tree tapping. The smell of sugar will soon fill the air in my sugar house!
March will allow your administration to look at the total budget to bring forward for your review in April. We will not have our final increase for health insurance for employees until just before you will be asked to vote on the total budget package. As well, your administrators began creating the professional development plan for the 2025-2026 school year. Our work on Wednesday, February 26 included reviewing the Strategic Plan for the District and a survey we asked the staff to complete two years ago on the 9 Characteristics of High Performing Schools. At the end of our session, we modified our survey to be distributed to staff that will help determine our professional learning plan for all staff who work directly with students.
Sub-committee meetings:
The Policy Committee reviewed 4 policies this month and will be sending three of these policies for full Board review after minor changes. As well, the committee is sending forth a recommended form that should be completed when parents/community members have concerns with resources found in the library and or being used in a course. The committee did not make any changes to Policy IHBG - Home Schooling as it still matched recommended wording from Maine School Management. The three with minor changes that now need to undergo a full Board review and two votes include Policy IHBGA- Homeschooling - Participation in School Programs, Policy IHCDA - Post-Secondary Enrollment Options, and Policy IJJ - Instructional and Library-Media Materials Selection. The new form that matches Policy IJJ is Policy IJJ -E Public Complaint About the Curriculum or Instructional Materials/Challenge of Instructional Materials. This is the recommended form from Maine School Management.
The Buildings and Grounds committee finished reviewing the needed work/repair lists for the district and asked Director of Operations, Chris Roux to budget for the replacement of carpets in both Solon Elementary and Garret Schenck School. The carpets are extremely worn and stretched creating unsafe conditions as the carpets have rolls/folds increasing the likelihood of staff and students to trip. The replacement flooring will either be tile or vinyl planking. The ideal new floor covering will not only be safer but also be easier to clean on a daily basis. As well the Director of Operations was asked to continue to explore options for installing a security system district wide that includes updated camera systems and swipe card entry systems. If that moves forward it will likely be a separate budget line.
The last committee meeting was a meeting of the finance committee. Building budgets were shared as well as the budgets for Special Education, Buildings, Grounds, and transportation. Special Education currently shows a $400,000 increase for out-of-district instructional programs. By the time the committee meets again, the Negotiation team will have met with the support staff. While data for salary increases are readily available for staff covered by the Agreement for teachers, the total salary lines are dependent on the new salaries negotiated for the support staff. A reminder that legislation passed last year requires that educational technicians minimum salary be $18.31 per hour and for all others covered under this agreement at $16.85 per hour. FInal budget for 20225-2026 will be voted on at the April monthly meeting.
Agenda:
Appointments - The appointments are to fill spring coaching positions. Hard to believe but we are just a couple weeks from spring tryouts! I have asked Bruce to introduce any new coaches in his report.
Resignations - As heard at the last meeting, Peter submitted his resignation letter last month. I wish to thank him for stepping in three years ago and for all the work he has done to make Carrabec High School a better place.
Appointments: None but I will let you know that I am transferring Raymond Cloutier from custodial to maintenance per recommendation from Chris Roux who oversees both areas.
Action Items:
Item 6: Each year the Board needs to vote not to participate in the after school nutrition program. A part of the overall nutrition program, this portion would run in the red even if we had after school programs. Our participation numbers were too low to support the amount needed for the salary portion of the program. In the years we had formal afterschool programs, we were able to afford those and food for the students through federal relief programs during the years following COVID.
Item 7: These policies are up for their second reading vote. We did not make any changes to these at our February meeting other than a few additional grammatical corrections.
Item 8 - Policy IHBGA - Homeschooling Participation in School Programs reflects changes that puts our wording in line with recommended wording from MSMA. Wording recommended to be added under section VIII, or any other State mandated testing as the MEA refers to ELA and Math in NWEA but students in grades 5, 8, and 11 must complete a Science assessment as well and is authored by a different company. As well, I believe in section X item C, the staff at the high school to review a student's compiled evidence of course work would be better done by teachers assigned to the content areas.
Item 9 - Policy IHCDA - Post Secondary Enrollment Options the recommended change from the committee include that not only permission be received from guidance counselor but that it be part of the long-term planning for graduation from CHS as well as post-secondary plans.
Item 10 - Policy IJJ - Instructional and Library-Media Materials Selection, the committee is recommending wording that connects the updating of materials to the curriculum review cycle versus putting the conditions solely on the age of the resource.
Item 11 - As I shared in the body of my letter above, the document policy IJJ-E was not a form but rather a paragraph on what to do. The recommended form that follows this crossed out paragraph comes from MSMA and would be more helpful to have filled out if there ever was an objection to material in curriculum resources or the libraries in the district.
Item 12 - Attached to the agenda is a write up completed by Scott Hall on the two quotes we received based on the RFP submitted in early January. We have been fortunate that the machines we have had for seven years have held up nicely allowing us to get an additional two years beyond our 5 year contract signed in 2017. We are not recommending the low bid as the low bid does not replace some of the equipment that our current provider and recommending provider does in their bid. Although the bid does include maintenance and parts, time down is frustrating and with older equipment, downtimes are likely to increase. As well, if we are able to work beyond the 5-year period, Kyocera has proven to be reliable and reasonable by holding copy prices constant with the current contract. Administration’s recommendation is Kyocera for 5 years.
Item 13 - Asking for Board approval of the 2025-2026 school year calendar. This is the draft sent to area superintendents, the director of SCTC, and theCarrabec Education Association. As of the writing of this report, we do have two days in conflict but as we did this current year, we allowed our students to have their day off in November and asked them to go their day in December (during the current school year we went back after the New Year two days later than SCTC). SAD 54 has it in their bargained agreement with teachers to have no students the week of Thanksgiving and to hold parent teacher conferences then. Although SCTC did not take attendance, we did have students go in January as I personally drove a van to New Portland to bring a student down to catch the bus. The SCTC committee meets Thursday, February 27 to vote on a final calendar for their programs, so if necessary to avoid breaking the Statute on a maximum of 5 days in conflict, I will bring updates to the proposed calendar to our meeting.