October 26, 2026
To: RSU 74 Board of Directors
From: Mark L. Campbell, Superintendent of Schools
Re: November 2026 Board Report
I am happy to report that the number of dangerous behavior reports for the past 3 weeks remains at 0. The approach requested by administration and taken with your blessing is a proactive approach versus a reactive approach to support these students who have times when they become dysregulated. Having adult support to process situations and work tasks that could be at times frustrating is helping. We are still trying to secure additional ed-tech support for a kindergartener in one of our buildings who needs one-on-one support. The adults we have assigned to these students, if they haven’t, will be required to do the Safety Care Training.
As requested at the last meeting, I did place a call to the school’s attorney regarding requirements for a person to be a Lead Staff member. He confirmed my prior research into Title 20-A that this position is not addressed in the State Statute. He also shared that it was not addressed in Chapter 125 of MDOE rules. I read through other MDOE Chapter rules to confirm it was not in many others as well. Meanwhile, I had a lengthy discussion with a classroom teacher in Anson regarding job responsibilities for this position and in the end by reassuring this staff member that they were not responsible for duties assigned to a building principal by Statute such as the suspension of a student helped this staff member in deciding whether or not to assist with this supportive role. You will note that we have two listed for Anson on this agenda. The stipend, which I did increase in the budget, will be split. We continue to search for another adult to assist with coverage at Solon.
In an effort to address insurance costs and school safety as raised by one of our Board members, Board leadership is recommending renaming our Buildings, Grounds, and Transportation sub-committee to Buildings, Grounds, Transportation, and Safety. This committee is scheduled to meet next on December 9. Is this acceptable by the full Board?
On October 21, I told the administrative team to run budget purchases past me as I continue to be concerned with the impact of staffing needs on our budget lines in both regular education lines and Special Education lines. As we enter late fall and with winter around the corner, heating oil prices are higher than anticipated. Chris is working with our supplier to keep prices down given the quantity we purchase. We were expecting electricity consumption at CHS and CCS to begin to drop once we the new lighting system was completely installed, however it did not. I called to check to see if the schools were on smart meters or read manually. I was thinking maybe it was supposed to be read but for whatever reason they were not read and projected numbers were used for September. It wasn’t the case. Both schools are on smart meters and while they sometimes still have to project, it wasn’t. As explained by the CMP representative, our invoice would have indicated a month that was projected by an asterisk in the monthly consumption table at the bottom of our invoices. I have received reports showing our daily kilowatt consumption. Now it is a matter of trying to figure out why. Some of the days in August for the September billing are easy to explain as in 2025 some of these days school was not in session. We started school basically a week early this year. More to come on this. Diesel and gas prices are also remaining high. I have asked Wendell to keep you updated on those lines.
All of you received the email informing us that we needed to address law enforcement in our schools. There was legislation that required the Attorney General’s office to generate a sample policy to be adopted within 3 months. We received this sample October 21. Our next Policy committee meeting will be November 18 which I will include the newly recommended policy for review. Our projected timeframe for a first and second reading will put us at January 6. Board Leadership was fine with this knowing that last fall the administrative team spent time developing protocols we would follow based on advice from the district’s law office on this matter. Basically, we have protocols in place that keep us in compliance with this law already.
A couple weeks ago, a committee interviewed 2 candidates for the Solon and Garret Schenck principal position. After completing the interviews, members felt taking additional time to see if more applications would come in might be beneficial. We have since received two additional applications. I will set another day for interviews if committee members feel these candidates might meet the needs of the position by what we take away from their applications.
Sub-Committee Meetings:
Restructure Committee met on October 21: The restructure committee met on October 21 to travel through the district in order to have a visual of the space available necessary to address the needs of that building. Starting at CCS, the potential addition of a Pre-K room in that building will result in the need to shuffle rooms around as the Pre-K room needs a bathroom and under ideal conditions having a bathroom in Kindergarten is a huge help. Kindergarten currently has a bathroom. The other classroom that has a bathroom is the 2nd grade so any plans for 2027-2028 that include Pre-K will result in 2nd grade being moved. CCS does currently have a small room to be used for a Motor Room where students can go if they need to burn off energy in order to return to class and be successful. Next stop was at Solon. The Board members saw that the principal’s office is currently being used for a Motor Room as no other space is available. The last stop was in Anson. Here members got to see the results of the work of maintenance and the Special Education Staff particularly Jamie Partridge in getting the rooms prepared for students in her program. At this point, Anson has the rooms needed.
Academic Committee met on October 21: Members of this committee were updated on the work started by teachers to validate that the curriculum identified by them as necessary to present to their students as the school makes every effort to provide exposure to the standards in the Maine Learning Results for ELA. At this point, only K-5 teachers have been asked to look at State assessment results (10/9/26). The goal was to look at strengths and weaknesses to determine why for each. In particular for weaknesses, if it is in our curriculum, what steps are necessary to address the weaknesses? The good news, the teachers K-5 did not find that the weaknesses were due to gaps in our curriculum. Teachers in grades 6-8 have not done this same exercise yet as on the workshop day, their time was spent being trained by a representative from the company our reading writing program was developed by. Beginning this fall, the 6-8 teachers have taken on the responsibility of improving student reading skills. Some of these teachers did not receive the training when we adopted this program 4 years ago because many were not teaching reading then. We will provide release time later this fall for 6-8 ELA teachers to do a similar activity as was asked of the K-5 teachers. The 9-12 teachers have requested to do a rewrite of the high school curriculum. The original document was created by teachers in isolation. The teachers felt that if given the time, they could develop a 9-12 curriculum document that ensures standards are being met asking students to continuously refine their skills so as they progress through high school their written work will provide evidence of greater sophistication.
I was asked in the Academic Committee meeting if there would be an opportunity for the Board to ask more questions on the student data presented at the last meeting. I am looking for guidance on what additional information the Board seeks and how best to bring that forth. By law we have to be careful of data we present that may identify individual or small groups of students. I would ask that we also be mindful that the graphs presented for Math and ELA had data points that identify individual teachers. Thoughts on what specific additional information you would like to have presented/shared? In regards to the assessment instrument itself, we received notification from the MDOE yesterday that the process for selecting a State assessment has resulted in the switching from NWEA to a company used previously by Maine to produce the State Science Assessment. Changing assessment systems will likely impact our abilities to use the data to determine necessary supports for students. Two reasons. First, if consistent with past practice when switching instruments, the data provided to us is a summative report the first year not giving details on how the number has been determined. It is their “practice year.” Second, even after they begin to release details, finding and being able to interpret the new numbers will likely take additional time.
The agendas for the Policy Committee and Collaboration Committee November 18 meetings will be handed out at the monthly meeting. Members of the Superintendent Evaluation Committee will find the agenda for our meeting next Wednesday in this packet. That meeting is in my conference room at 5 p.m. The restructure committee will meet at 4:30 p.m. on December 2 prior to the December Board meeting. This is the additional meeting needed because the time for our tour of the district consumed our entire last meeting. The agenda for that meeting will be sent out with the December packet.
Agenda:
Appointments:
Jackman Daigle has agreed to take the open Boys’ Basketball position at CCS. Jackman has done an excellent job of building good relationships with our students at CCS while maintaining appropriate boundaries.
Hollye Dunphy has agreed to take the Girls’ Basketball position at CCS. Hollye has been employed by RSU 74 for several years at CCS.
Jasmyn Wagg and Desireah Ladd to be Lead Staff at Anson Garret Schenck for the 2026-2027 school year. We had a meeting to discuss responsibilities of the position and how the workload might be shared. While we have a plan to begin, we agreed if need be, we could meet again to discuss things that may not be working as well as needed.
Resignations:
Carlos Pena has resigned his position as custodian at Carrabec High School.
Nominations:
Action Items:
6. This is the Policy that was tabled last month. The error that occurred resulting in this action by the Board is on me. I normally make notes on both the current and the MSMA recommended versions. In this case, I did not make notes on both and therefore did not give Linda the MSMA copy. This updated document has the paragraph as recommended by the Policy Committee that states Board members cannot speak for the Board unless specifically given that authority by the full Board.
7. This is the second reading for the Policies approved at the October meeting for first readings.
8. If Action Item 7 is approved and specifically Policy BE - School Board Meetings, Policy BEB on special board meetings is addressed in the new version of Policy BE.
9. The purpose of this executive session will be to review the tabulations of the evaluation numbers submitted last June for the 2025-2026 evaluation of the Superintendent.