September 25, 2026
To: RSU 74 Board of Directors
From: Mark L. Campbell, Superintendent of Schools
Re: October 2026 Board Report
I want to begin by sharing an update on our food program. Like other budget areas, the food service program is being hit by extreme price increases in the products we use in our school meals. For example an order for bagels has increased 33% in two years, peanut butter is up 9% in the same two year period. At Board level you have been asked to raise milk prices over the past two school years to cover our costs as our price has gone from $0.37 to $0.43 at 16% increase. Our USDA beef products, shredded cheese, canned fruit, and certain chicken products, normally free, are not in stock and won’t be before November so we are having to buy these supplies. Decrease in meals served of 5% is resulting in decreased reimbursement of 6% all the while salaries and insurance costs have risen 18% over the past two school years. For the 2025-2026 school year, the auditors report will show a loss of $44,584 in food service ($13,000 was to replace the steamer at CCS). I have asked Tammy Conners to review the age of our equipment and when the grants are released that permit us to acquire grant funding to replace kitchen equipment, we will be submitting in an effort to avoid high equipment costs like the steamer at CCS from being deducted out of our food service budget lines.
I indicated in one of my many emails to the full Board this month, I am coming to you at this meeting to ask for your support with permitting administration to hire additional educational technicians to support some of our students in the regular education program. We have had a few students who have not adjusted to school routines or the routines their teachers are expecting and become dysregulated often lashing out physically. To better ensure the safety of the other students in the classroom and their teachers, administration would like to provide additional adult coverage to assist certain students in remaining under control or assisting with removing them from a situation causing them to become dysregulated. We currently have 2 students with long-term substitutes covering them. We are likely to need a third. As I stated in my email, I have confirmed with Carla, funds do exist to support the addition of educational technician(s) through savings on replacement staff being lower on the pay scale then the individual they are replacing were.
We will be voting to accept the changes to the Emergency Management Plan for RSU 74 this month. I have explained the changes later in the portion of this report that speaks specifically to the action item pertaining to this plan. There is a piece that isn’t necessarily completed and hasn’t been. If a situation arises where a school has evacutated to their safety site and it is not possible to return to school, we need to identify what is termed a reunification site where parents may need to come to pick up their children. I reached out to MSAD 59 Superintendent, Ryan Arnold about working with us to potentially use each other's high school gymnasiums as possible sites. Both of our gyms have external access so that disruption to the other school’s day would be kept to a minimum. Both are large enough to house the other’s entire student population and both are located so the traffic in and out would also be minimum disruption. If there are no objections, I would like to sit with Superintendent Arnold to discuss what each of us vision this looking like. After that, we would sit with emergency services for the two school systems to share our plan and ask how they may be able to assist if these reunification sites were put in place. Besides myself, I would have Chris Roux sit in on these meetings.
I have asked Chris to give you an update on a couple projects that he has had to find funding for in his budget. Those are the seclusion room at Garret Schenck and the external contractors who assisted with the locating of and the repairing of the septic break at the HS as well as the cleaning of the remaining sludge that had built up in the pipe over the decade plus the issue has been there. Hopefully, Chris will also be able to provide a brief update on our building inspection for insurance purposes completed by a member of the MSMA staff.
To keep the Board informed on changes happening, I have included a couple documents. First, please find an updated Outdoor Skills and Leadership curriculum document. Mr. Baum agreed this summer to take over this popular class last spring. Secondly, you will find an updated job description for the lead person in Garret Schenck and Solon Elementary. The description used the word teacher. There are adults in these buildings who are not necessarily classroom teachers who are very capable of dealing with student behaviors. Secondly, given, this person may be called on to assist with a dysregulated student, a staff person who is appointed to this position will have to obtain and maintain Safety Care certification. Lastly, I did modify the years needed to have worked in a building before being considered to be the lead adult for the building from 3 years to 2 years.
We had 3 sub-committee meetings:
Buildings, Grounds, and Transportation on September 16: Chris reported most of the work done this summer was cosmetic work including painting of a number of rooms and hallways in all schools, replacement of ceiling tiles in Anson and Solon, and painting of lines in parking lots. He also reported that the lighting project work at CCS and CHS were completed in the timeframe necessary that our refund through Efficiency Maine remained at the maximum allowed. We are still waiting for Solon to be done. Lastly, Chris reviewed the priority list created as part of the 10-year improvement plan to begin planning for the 2027-2028 budget. Wendelll then gave an update on the bus fleet. After reviewing the age and mileage of the current fleet, Wendell recommended a change in the 10-year plan that asked for only 1 bus in the coming budget year to 2 buses during the 2027-2028 budget. Wendall then explained that after the September meeting when the Board did not object to classifying the van purchase as qualifying for an exempt to the bidding process due to the urgency of the acquisition that he had reached out to Hight’s in Madison and they had a van that does address our needs and was willing to give us a discounted price. He then asked that two of the 15 passenger vans that do not meet safety standards for transporting students be repurposed. One to be used by maintenance to be able to respond to roadside emergencies or be used versus personal vehicles when there is need to drop a bus off at O’Connors for repairs. The second one would become a third maintenance vehicle for times the crew need to be headed in 3 different directions. The third would be put out to bid versus trading it in. The committee asked Wendall to update the full Board on this plan as it has changed since the September Board meeting.
Restructure Committee on September 16: The restructure committee met to hear what the needs will be for additional classroom space beginning in the 2027-2028 school year. Next school year, we must address the needs of 3 -year old students currently serviced by Childhood Developmental Services. A central location, such as CCS for this space would make the most sense. We also have had waiting lists for our 4-year old program. I signed 10 transfer agreements for Pre-K students to transfer from RSU 74 to neighboring districts, some because of the lack of space in Anson.
Policy Committee met on September 23: I will go into specific details on individual policies worked on in the Agenda portion as you will be asked to support first readings of several policies.
The agendas for the Academic Committee and Restructure Committee will be handed out at the monthly meeting but please be aware, I switched the times of these meetings. Restructure is planning site visits. The Restructure Committee is meeting at 4 pm and the Academic Committee has been changed to 6 p.m. Thank you in advance for making necessary adjustments in your personal calendars.
Agenda:
Appointments:
Candy LeBeau has agreed to take on the responsibility of the CCS yearbook advisor. This is a position she has held previously.
Alicia Bedard has agreed to take full responsibility of overseeing the district’s obligations outlined under the McKenney Vento Act. She and a colleague worked together last year to do this.
Cally Chick is being recommended for the lead staff position at Solon Elementary. In the short period she has been here, she has demonstrated she is able to assist with student behaviors as well as communicating with parents.
Dee Ladd is being recommended for the lead staff person at Garret Schenck. Dee is a long time employee in Anson and has been working in the role this fall.
Resignations:
Amy McDaniel as the principal for Garret Schenck and Solon Elementary effective immediately on September 17, 2026.
Nominations:
The education technicians we are recommending all come with early childhood experiences. Ms. Folco has worked as a BHP for a private company. Mrs. Frith has been subbing in our schools at this age level. Ms. Eufusia has been a Pre-K teacher for 22 years and would like to get back into a school setting to support young children. Ms. O’Brien-Spaulding has most recently been working as a BHP for a private company.
Lacey Frost, has applied for and been offered the position she held previously. Her colleagues and the students who she has worked with are very happy to have Lacey return to be part of their teams.
Action Items:
6. As discussed at the September meeting, we are looking to purchase a van to help offset taking the three 12 passenger vans off the road last spring due to the fact they do not meet national safety standards. Wendell worked with Hight’s to get the price of a van from roughly $42,000 to just over $39,000. Carla worked with Androscoggin Savings to get us a lease/purchase agreement for 5 years. The payment for this year of $8,800 will need to be found in the transportation lines. The plan is then to pay the balance off after July 1 by including the balance within the 2027-2028 budget.
7. The document is available for review by coming in to see Linda. You will find that we have updated the wording around lock-ins, lock-outs, and lock-down to reflect the protocols of ALICE. The actions for staff and students of lock-ins and lock-outs have not changed. We do expect that when one is called the message provides an understanding of why the steps are being taken. Lock-Down protocols match the training done on ALICE. Another step taken in this update is to put position names within each of the emergency scenarios and to have a table of who is in those positions so if a person changes, then only one page needs to be adjusted in the future. As part of this process, Chris and I looked at the website for the Maine Emergency Management Agency where the handbook we have was originally pulled from. Between now and next fall, a committee really needs to be pulled together to compare our current handbook with the sample online to see if their document has additional information that we should be incorporating in ours as well. The newer School Emergency Plan available on the MEMA website has 50% more pages.
8. Enclosed you will find a write-up requesting an overnight trip for Youth in Government. This is an annual trip for this high school group where students become involved in an activity based weekend where they learn about how the government works.
9. As I shared in one of my emails this month, Amy McDaniel submitted a verbal resignation on September 17. The next day I received an email from her as well stating that she was resigning effective immediately. The position has been advertised. While the selection process is completed, we need someone to step in on an interim basis. Jean has agreed to do this for us. I would ask for your support in naming Jean Butler as the interim principal for Anson and Solon effective immediately. I also want to thank Rachel Merrill for stepping in to provide coverage of these two buildings since September 17.
10. Although we are asking you later to adopt a policy around job descriptions, I am submitting a job description for a Middle/High School Strength, Conditioning and Nutrition Coach. While we have a job description that covers Coaches in general, for safety reasons, I would ask for the Board’s support in approving a separate description for this position. The need for understanding the connections between strength, conditioning and nutrition will provide the needed learning environment to help ensure students are not hurt from lack of understanding of these connections.
11. If the district wishes to put the purchase of a bus in the 2027-2028 year budget, we need to seek permission from the State in order to get reimbursement the following year. This permission seeking needs to be completed prior to the third week of November. Administration is requesting permission to seek approval from the State for the purchase of 2 buses. Even if approved, this does not obligate the district to actually purchase 2 buses.
12. This would be a new policy for RSU 74. This clearly spells out for the superintendent when he/she must seek Board approval of job descriptions. It also gives the superintendent the authority to modify existing job descriptions to address the changing needs of the district.
13. The Policy Committee is recommending the deletion of the old wording and incorporating the wording from MSMA as it reflects the changing of the wording in the State Statute on AED in public schools.
14. The Policy Committe is recommending changes to our existing policy on Child Abuse or neglect reporting, prevention and education based on changes to State Statute on mandatory reporting of school personnel. Section 1A, there is an addition to the definition of child abuse or neglect the committee has put in our policy. Section 2 and Section 3, the committee is recommending a complete swap of the wording from ours to the new wording from MSMA. The section titles Interviews of Child and School Personnel needs to be numbered correctly. Section 6, second paragraph, the wording in the sample is stronger and is being recommended. Section 8, the training is now required by law to be done every 2 years not 4. Lastly, in section 9, under education, 9B, 9C, and 9D all are being recommended to include the phrase Age-appropriate education. We currently do not have in our policy book JLF-E, the form to document a report that is mentioned in Section 3C. I would recommend leaving it in this policy. We will take this form up at the next Policy committee meeting to make it formal, but it is a document that contains our expectations for documenting our legal obligation to report per statute.
15. The committee is recommending that we replace the wording in our current version with the recommended wording from MSMA with the addition to their version the words “in consultation with the Board Chair,” last paragraph when the superintendent is concluding there is the potential for significant legal expenditure. This is something I do anyways and now ensures future superintendents will be required to keep the Board Chair informed on costs of cases. The committee is recommending the removal of naming the firm to be used by the district as it would hamper the district being able to swap firms if desired.
16. The committee recommended adding in the list of responsibilities an item A that says “Will use a school issued email account to conduct business pertaining to the school board.” Which means the other 3 need to be relabeled accordingly. Lastly, the committee is recommending the addition of the paragraph around the authority to speak for the Board only when designated by the Board to do so.
17. The Policy Committee recommended deleting much of the wording in the old policy and adopting the wording from MSMA that combines all different types of meetings conducted by the Board into one policy. The third paragraph of the old version has been added to the new version under Regular Meetings. This will require a vote of ⅔ from the Board to continue a meeting beyond 9 p.m.
18. I am asking for authorization to bring forth candidate(s) to fill needed regular education technician position(s). Your vote will authorize additional ed-tech positions under regular instruction. Our goal here is to support student(s) who are not under the Special Education umbrella but would benefit from the adult support in making good choices. Again, by having the direct support, we are more apt to be able to keep a student from becoming dysregulated and be able to more quickly intervene when they do lessening the likelihood of other students or staff members being hurt.