| 0:01:50 | Two positions restored | The superintendent's revised recommendations: “the physical education position at the the high school that was on the table for discussion that has been taken off the table with restructuring”, and likewise the alternative-education position. “Again, these are recommendations. You as a board make the final decision.” | POS |
| 0:05:15 | Student report | “Overall, 42% of our senior class has applied to college thus far.” Attendance is 91.06% against a goal of 93% (last year 89%). Bluff grades 1 and 2 averaged 15% growth in addition and 22% in subtraction. | |
| 0:07:32 | New technology director | The superintendent: “Nathan Levine is now the assistant director of business, finance and human resources”, and “Mr. Joshua malloy has been hired as the director of instructional technology”. | |
| 0:08:26 | The board's hardest lessons | Citing the New Hampshire School Boards Association, the superintendent tells members their decisions “must be made in the interests of the total school system, and not made solely for special groups or interests”. | |
| 0:10:19 | A threat at Stevens | A student created a threatening Wi-Fi network name; with the police, the matter was resolved by mid-morning on Friday the 13th and the student identified, but social media kept it going. The district will form a “business continuity team” to support a school and communicate with parents and the press. He recalls proposing a communications position in 2013: “Well, that wasn't supported”. | |
| 0:14:49 | Requests for presentations | Adrian asks for a broader technology presentation after the budget; the superintendent will add technology, the preschool program and the technical center to future agendas (0:21:43). | |
| 0:22:22 | Judy, Ward 2 | Her packet shows PE classes filled to about 81% of capacity: “As you can see, when I did the numbers out we were 81%.” She objects to extended-learning credit for outside activities and asks “that any further change to language about how a credit is obtained, would have some input from physical education”. | |
| 0:30:02 | Carolyn Hamilton, Ward 1 | A PE teacher recruited from Maine: “How do you get people to stay?” “You stop cutting teachers.” Of the plan to grant PE credit for sports: “I learned to be healthy from my physical education courses, not my sports.” She describes the unified basketball and track programs she built. | |
| 0:46:01 | Brian, student | Describes volunteering with special-education students and what the PE teacher's adaptive classes and unified sports mean to them: “These kids get something to look forward to every single day.” | |
| 0:51:49 | Barbara Richards, Ward 3 | An accounting instructor with more than 40 years in the district: “My concern is that once a program is let go from the Korean tech program, I don't see it ever coming back.” [career and tech]. The course carries Running Start dual credit with River Valley Community College. | |
| 1:01:05 | Kiara Knight, student | A unified track athlete: “I think that you really need to two teachers to fill that expectation.” | |
| 1:04:15 | Kyle Grant, student | Student council president: the PE teacher “makes all students feel important and needed” on the unified basketball team. | |
| 1:06:55 | Presiding member's thanks | “When you guys are here, you put a face to the change. You put a face to the money.” | |
| 1:10:39 | The board spreadsheet | LeClair: on January 7 the board “went through 69 ish pages of budget lines and have identified around 299 lines”; yellow marks proposed reductions, red marks questions, and she gathered written explanations from principals and department heads for each. | OBS |
| 1:19:01 | The board's goal | Irish: “the goal for the board standpoint was to affect things, not people, not programs”, and “to come as close as we can to zero tax increase even after warrants”. | |
| 1:21:14 | The size of the gap | The superintendent: with the two positions restored, “We now have a budget that about $1 million above this year's budget. Over three quarters of the budget is personnel.” and “You're not going to close that gap on supplies”. He warns that if the default budget comes in below the proposed budget the bargaining agreements are at risk. Irish: the board has identified about $890,000 and needs “roughly 970,000” for no tax increase. | OBS |
| 1:27:03 | Principals' funds and field trips | Each building's principals' fund rises because field-trip money moved there; O'Neill will bill trips back to schools at a per-hour and per-mile rate, with “a corresponding decrease in wages for field trips”. | |
| 1:32:34 | Repair versus new equipment | LeClair: the administration agreed to zero new-equipment lines but kept repair lines. Irish: “we're going to take our chances and hope that the laminate doesn't break” and “I'm a zero based budget guy.” The copier contract limits reductions to $1,000 a line. | |
| 1:37:14 | Equipment already cut | The superintendent: the administration had already cut about $125,000 of new equipment, and the budget “still has an increase of over $900,000” (1:37:41). After 20 minutes on Bluff lines: “we've been talking about 6 or $7000. We've got a $900,000 issue here.” (1:45:42). | OBS |
| 1:46:32 | Cost of the restored positions | The two positions add about $117,000 and 17 cents on the tax rate (1:48:02). The superintendent: “you have February 1st two weeks, and then you've got deliberative session February 8th”. | POS |
| 1:49:58 | Athletics packet | Sprague credits the participation data he asked for. Beaupre: bowling and swimming bring in athletes who play no other sport; swimmers rose from four to 11. Gate revenue is collected only for football and basketball; about 65 to 70% of athletes play more than one sport (1:58:26). | |
| 2:00:35 | Trainer, lights and fields | The athletic trainer is a contracted position paid through an outside provider. O'Neill: “$10,500 of that goes towards the lights to light the fields, to play the night games”, at “$105 an hour”, paid to the city; about $15,000 pays a city worker to maintain the fields. | |
| 2:07:10 | Business program at the technical center | Barry: the full-time business teaching position, vacant this year, would be removed while part-time accounting continues; enrollment “it's about eight right now”. Adrian: the position is $91,000; O'Neill: it was budgeted in 2016-17 though unfilled. Later: “It's a three three position right now in the budget.” [one-third] (2:41:18). | |
| 2:14:31 | Accommodations and summer school | An $8,000 line moved from adult education; $20,000 for Odyssey licenses; new money for a full credit-recovery summer school with district teachers rather than outside tutors. | |
| 2:17:47 | Alternative-program stipends | Barry: the two stipends of about $6,000 each are not tied to restructuring but recognize the work the program teacher and discipline monitor already do. The special-education alternative program has nine students, capped at 12. | |
| 2:21:37 | Data circuits | Irish: “Over a thousand bucks a month for data for one building. Something's not making sense to me.” O'Neill: bandwidth for online testing rose and the contract went out to bid; Malloy: a request for proposals is coming, and the district gets 75% back through E-rate (2:25:45). | |
| 2:29:22 | Postage and printing | Records sent to new schools, certified special-education notices and paper report cards drive postage; the middle-school printing line was cut by $3,000. | |
| 2:35:05 | Updated totals | O'Neill: the board's further cuts saved another $24,000, and with the two positions back “now we're at an increase of 92,000 553”; asked again, 92,553 over the current budget. | OBS |
| 2:36:26 | Phone-system warrant article | The security article funds phone and intercom upgrades at the middle school and technical center. Malloy: enhanced 911 tells police where in a building a call comes from. LeClair: in this building “there is no phone in this room where you can call out”. Barry describes medical situations where a teacher could not call the office (2:41:42). | |
| 2:44:25 | Another members' session | Irish proposes the members meet again “just like we did on a Saturday. Just us.” O'Neill: “we will have to adopt the budget next week”. Adrian: “since I guess we have to make it public notice”; Sprague: “We have to make sure it gets warned.” | OBS |
| 2:47:44 | What changed tonight | Irish: Owls and PE are back and the middle-school athletic director stays. The superintendent corrects him: the line still shows a $25,000 reduction because that person “will be ripped” [RIF'd] and a teacher takes over the duties (2:48:10). | |
| 2:49:59 | Why staff leave | Irish: “there is definitely that sense that every year there could be a new restructure” and “I firmly believe what I heard tonight is part of that answer”. Sprague asks for a department capacity study next fall; the superintendent: “almost 30 classes at Stevens High School, ten or fewer students”. | |
| 2:55:04 | Resignation letter | Ferland's email: “I intend to finish out the budget process and retain my seat until the next school board election. So we do not need to lose time in filling the seat temporarily.” Counsel advised accepting a written resignation effective at the end of the budget process so the seat “can be included in the upcoming election”; filing runs “from the 25th of January to the 3rd of February”. | POS |
| 2:56:50 | Letting the voters decide | Irish: “The voters should absolutely fill this position.” The clerk: the seat “has to be listed as a one year position” and positions open next Wednesday; “So the election is always the second Tuesday of March.” | POS |
| 3:04:13 | Closing | The superintendent: the board must decide whether to accept about 30 cent or aim for zero; Irish: “I think it's safe to say collectively our goal is zero.” The superintendent: “Then you have several hundred thousand dollars to reduce to make zero tax impact.” | OBS |