The OCSU EMS board met on March 31st to organize the board, appoint new board members to open seats, and discuss questions that has arose at the annual meeting, and discuss the plan for starting a school inside the district for kids who need more extra help.
In the matter of organizing the school board happened at the meeting Neil Urie was re-elected to be chair of the board, Megan Valley was elected to be clerk, Kalli Lefebvre was re-elected to be vice chair. The SU Board Representatives stayed the same as the previous years. Tiffany Ovitt, Sarah Elliott, and Angelique Thomas were placed into the committee to negotiate with the teacher union for the next year. A decision was made to have the board meetings be half at LR and half at different schools in the district, which would mean that every school in the district would get one.
Discussion happened on where the agendas should be posted for future meetings currently they are posted at libraries, schools, town halls, Facebook, the OCSU website, and are supposedly sent to The Chronicle. The Chronicle shall stay the Newspaper of Record for the board, although the only things published there are the agenda for the annual meeting and job postings.
The committees of personal and budget stayed with the same personal. The Long Term Facilities Planning Committee added Sarah Elliott, and the finance committee added Tiffany Ovitt.
There was a question from the audience of how the board and admin has changed its communication with staff so that it was more uniform consistent, and factual after a survey was conducted in 2023, revealed that between 12-14% of the staff in the district felt that was an issue. The board and superintendent didn’t know about this survey off the top of their heads or remember if any changes had been made. The reason given for this was that the survey was done by HR, and there had been two new HR coordinators since then.
Some discussion happened as to how the annual report contained errors on the warning and how the signature page was correct but the warning contained several errors notably in the actual amount that was in the budget. Superintendent Penny Chamberlin said that she hopes that the warning will be put out two weeks before the deadline so that proofreading can be done before the annual report goes to the presses.
Jeff Coburn did a presentation on the upgrading the sound system in the MPR, which is where the meeting took place, so that board meetings go smoother. He is the technology liaison for the district. There is several options that all three boards( LRUEMS, LRUHS, OCSU) will have to consider as they will be splitting the bill. There were several options for this upgrade that include a mobile system, a fixed system and then an option that is very comprehensive and would involve changing the entire system in the MPR, an upgrade to the cafeteria system and a mobile system. It has been very hard for members of the public to hear in person. The matter is compounded online where any conversation is almost impossible to hear, especially when the meetings don’t happen in the MPR. This topic will be talked about at the next carousel(OCSU) meeting as the upgrades would be able to be used by everyone.
The board needed to agree on how to pay for a Truex-Cullins contract, new doors for Orleans, as they were in disrepair after being in use since the school was built and needed to be replaced. Facilities director Jason Rowell requested that although he had already ordered the new doors, which are around $30,000, and put the PO under the maintenance budget, but he requested the board allow it to come out of the capitol reserve fund. Jason also detailed an upgrade that will be done to Barton’s electrical system so that breakers stop being tripped during the summer. All these expenses were moved to be taken out of the capital reserve fund.
In regards to the open Barton seat. Jessica Torrins is the only candidate that wished to be appointed for the Barton seat that was open. She is from Florida and is a lawyer, she also has several kids in the Barton School. She was appointed unanimously.
The open Orleans seat had a little more contentious race. Samantha Johnson is an Orleans resident who has five children and has lived in Orleans her whole life. She thinks she could bring her local experience and her knowledge of what the community thinks. Matt Lapham also was in contention, he has 15 years of teaching experience and wants to be helpful to the district.
The superintendent gave a report on how and when things will be resolved for the sister school plan and how that will work with the state house’s plan to consolidate the state, people that move into the district, and other changes that may happen with staffing.
Sandra Young gave a presentation for student support services. There is many issues with how students that have needs are not get. They are currently spending 1,000,000 on tution, and 200,000 on transportation for students that need to be in alternative day schools. The program would start with 8 kids who are on wait lists or are in an alternative program that would only be in K-5. They would be able to use the Orleans Federated Church which has up to 3 classrooms. The cost for the first year woulf be 46599o which would be almost 400k in savings. Savings over 4 years could be 1.5 million for just K-5. Turning points costs 72 k a year, Cornerstone is 90k and the New School is 140k.
The board moved to invite the superintendent into their executive session which started at approximately 8:00 PM.
