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Grantham 2023 Annual School Meeting

Added Mar 13, 2023 •

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Grantham 2023 Annual School Meeting

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good evening my name is Carl Hanson I'm the moderator of the Grantham School District this is the 2023 are the school board Brittany pie to introduce that the school board and the staff thank you welcome everybody so I am Brittany Tighe I am the chair of the Grantham School Board we have on Leslie Knope who is the vice chair of the school board here with us next is at Upson School Board member next to add is Denise Sullivan our school board secretary and then next to Denise is Nancy McKenzie also a member of the school board and then heading to my other direction next to me here we have doctors to be like at our superintendent we have Meredith Butler our business administrator Brenda Malloy our executive assistant to the SAU we have Kristen read our principal of GPS and we have Emily Owens who is our district clerk we also have Carl our moderator thank you I would like to draw your attention to page 15 of the school district annual report and there you will find the rules of the Grantham School District meeting these are the same rules that have been adopted by every meeting that I presided over and probably several meetings before that as well so they should be familiar to you and I am just by Fiat going to announce that those are the rules of this meeting so there's any objection to that you can try to overrule the moderator also before to get started I need to say that I will just take a minute to say thank you to this community both past and present for the opportunity serve as your school district moderator over the last 31 years I have a hard time saying that this read my last school district meeting it has been a privilege and I should also say a real joy for me to preside over these meetings and listen to all the people who are concerned and invested in our school and its future although there are sometimes very Divergent opinions about both important and unimportant things I've always just been to listen and not to agree or disagree I continue to wish Wrentham Village School the very best and we'll remember these years with fondness so with that we can move on to the warning and the agenda for tonight is there a motion with respect to Article 1 article okay there's a motion by Denise Sullivan second and at bespin seconded Article 1 is 2 here the town reports which are all contained in the annual report so unless there is further discussion I will ask those who are in favor of hearing the reports or seeing the reports would signify Shanghai and all those who were opposed the eyes have it and I showed a Claire the next item on the agenda is the main operating budget Article 2 is there a motion with respect to Article 2 okay Brittany pies move that TS Nancy thank you so ordinarily I will I will recognize the move in if you would like represent the the budget before we have discussion from the body yes the board would like to give a presentation to start our presentation I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you are community I'm for your support and your work with us over the course of the last year so what we do here is a school board would not be possible without the parents the Guardians the community as a whole the staff of BBS the staff of law Middle School and High School everyone who is here to support our students our children and our staff here at the school so to our parents and Guardians who communicate who collaborate to understand and support us who asked a question to participate we express our gratitude to our staff we who come every day to help not just teach but also Inspire our students we want to express our gratitude and also to the community as all we understand that we are so lucky to have your support not only with your time and your energy but also financially for what you give to this District we have seen an incredible outpouring of support from this community over the last few years that he just continue to help us grow stronger we also would like to thank the community and just show some of the points of Pride that we are able to look to to show how the support of his community has helped us to grow we're starting to see an increase destabilization of some of the things that have been really unstable for the last few years things like attendance Staffing all of those kinds of things are starting to come to the place that feels more predictable which is wonderful for our staff and our teachers and also our students we have also seen an incredible relationship that we already knew was here with the Grantham Community flourish in new ways hopefully it wasn't too dark as you came in for you to be able to see some of the evidence of that that's starting to actually come to life as part of our buildings and grounds project you can't see a lot of it because it's under the snow right now but there was an incredible amount of work done on the star Garden out front led by Danny Sullivan and the Grantham Garden Club operation with the Garden Club and the big one out there is our Pavilion so being able to look to the Pavilion and see that project start to really not just be a theoretical but really start to take shape and that Pavilion is an actual physical standing I meant to the collaboration between the district and the community we were able to thank Our Community Partners previously for their support of that but we also want to thank all of you now going to turn things over to Leslie what's a button to push okay I'm going to cover the the key drivers of our proposed budget for the community this is the first year that the collective bargaining agreement has taken effect so there are some increases there related she's a getting agreement that we negotiated with the Gea we have now returned to three buses versus for we could not find a horse driver for this year and we change the bus routes to make us work we have and I will are destined following slides we have proposed a shared position with Plainfield and Cornish for a director of curriculum instruction and assessment we have proposed to put in a new phone system for Grand Village School this will provide increased an efficiency related to that the wiring of the current existing system and also the provider for the existing system we are proposing additional required funding Steven contracted Services related to special education and other related services such as hearing and vision and then notably the tuition for our students in Lebanon middle and high schools is currently at a very low level play some years buffets in Gray play some years decreases this year it's quite level so the director the director of the CIA the instruction and assessment director position that we propose to share with Plainfield and Cornish this is a notably a position that we wouldn't be able to afford on our own neither would Plainfield or Cornish because students from Grand from Plainfield and Cornish move on to Lebanon for high school this gives us the opportunity to have better continuity within our school and within those other districts went as we send the kids on to the middle and high school in Lebanon this position will provide technical support for the principal and the teachers in all Cricket Loom instruction and assessment while leveraging shared resources within those other districts other teachers other administrators it will help us streamline professional development and provide a larger collection of data. strategies for growth do you'll see as we move into the details in one of the line items there's the total cost for this position is $132,350 which is salary plus benefits portion of This Is 50 2940 based on our size and in Plainfield in Cornish would contribute 60% so we would get back into our coffers if you will 79410 we wanted to be really clear about the the impact there and hand it over to add thank you so with the financial overview really what we want to show here is what our current year operating budget is what and what we're proposing for 23 and 24 I'm currently we're just a little over 10.2 million our proposed operating budget for 23 and 24 is just shy of 10.8 million that represents an overall increase of five hundred ninety $260 if you look at just the general fund budget this year we're currently at total / 10.1 for next year we are looking at being about 10.5 that represents an increase 429000 and change and overall that's about a 4.25% increase in factor in the revenue we're going to get from Plainfield and Cornish for the c i CIA position peanuts out to about a 3.47% increase year-over-year for our general signs stomach of a breakdown of these major cost increases that are the cost increases that we're seeing in 2324 really most of these are mandatory expenses that the district needs to find special education contractor related services are up just over 194,000 contractual increases in benefits for a collectively bargain CBI is up about a hundred and forty two thousand or so just under and then bonded principal payments of $56,000 for Sky 57,000 are included 2324 operating budget items that we've sort of identified as discretionary items that are also included in the 23 and 24 budget a little over $17,700 for a new phone system this is to provide a replacement of a phone system that is well past its time and will provide more information to First Responders on location of calls that better coming from the school and then director of CIA which you know that the net increase that were showing here is just shy 53000 how to sort of translates into the anticipate tax revenue on the western side of the screen you'll see what our tax rates are for 22 and 23 and what we're proposing for 23 and 24 it is interesting to look at that about 40% of the overall increase in the tax rate is coming from changes with the swept or Melissa this is something that we talked a little bit about last year as well that there was a reprieve from the state as part of the pandemic that is obviously got so we are we're picking up the tab as well so it does come up to about a dollar and a half or dollar $0.05 per thousand and if you look at the local tax impact you're really looking at an increase of about $65 or $1,000 of assessment value and then just for comparison purposes the median value for home prices as of January 23 is just over for dinner 10000 and I will pass it back to dr. Leggett I just wanted to quickly go over the tax rate impact with some revenues especially Grantham went through our evaluation and then we also had a dip in taxes last year because of sweat and because we are able to have a little bit larger Surplus due to using you know as her funds or pandemic related issues so I just did a four-year history so 2020 was 1565 and this is adjusted for the revaluation so that we can compare apples to apples 20 21 and 22 we saw lower tax rate because largely because of just pandemic related issues 1352 to 1394 and then this year we're up again to again and adjusted $14.86 which is actually still lower than where we were in 2020 everything that I've worked on was looking at a compound annual growth rate for Upper Valley Schools so everybody can see where Grantham is and is not growing in terms of budget this is per pupil spending history for all of the Upper Valley Schools from the year 1617 to current Grantham is highlighted in here and you can see that we are at .3% which is the lowest area compound annual growth rate of all the Upper Valley schools in terms of people spending so obviously some of that is the fat that we've had some increases and enrollment but the other side of that equation is that we've been able to increase enrollment without increasing costs so as we're all here it would like the community to know how much we value your support through these transition times with our students when learning didn't look like traditional as a board we always look at our students holistically we focus on their social emotional and physical well-being as much as their academics and I'm thank you to the Jeep vs staff I'm making this a phenomenal school for kids in every way they've given up so much time creativity and so much more than that we just can't say enough thanks for keeping our kids safe and in the best possible environment this next slide represents our five year trend of enrollment and I'm not sure how good the colors are for you folks but the blue on the left of each of figures is Grantham Village School Red is Lebanon Middle School the green is Lebanon High School and the purple is our total enrollment so you can see from 2018 the 2023 we still have a very steady or increasing populations Kristen read the last figure I had was from the board meeting I think we were at 277 do you know what are enrollment is now the two 75-77 includes preschool these numbers the numbers that you're looking at don't include the so that's our enrollment we can go to the next slide thank you and as a means of academic assessment we still have standardized testing to show how our students are doing and again this is only one means of measurement of their growth it doesn't Factor Anything in other than their active academic and performance but you can see how on these figures Grantham is to the left of each group red and the Orange is New Hampshire overall performance and this is the English language arts performance and our children are Achieva quite well in their proficiency do we have date yes we did I'm sorry you can see how there is a dip down in the covid-19. But it is holding and improving significantly we always have to remember that that was non-traditional learning kids did not have the same access that they have now and I'm sure we're going to continue seeing Improvement the mathematics performance again the same Grantham is to the left the state of New Hampshire in the orange quite well in Grantham science also 2018 to 2022 our students are performing extremely well in our state and we're so very proud of them and despite changing learning circumstances they continue to do their best in and shine well thank you Article 2 is on the floor are there any questions or comments regarding an article to please step to the mic and identify yourself before speaking thank you is it should be lit green high and Betsy so fish from Grantham and thank you for the presentation I appreciate it lots of great information and I can tell how much you all care about the school in the students and that's wonderful to see a question for dr. legget about the comparison to cabg or see a deer or whatever it was that low percentage for Grantham is that for all of the years on that chart or was that just for the last 2 years that comparison from one year to the previous year thank you sure so when you're looking at a cagr that compound in growth rates so it's a those four years are actually at 1617 so it's more than that if it gets 5 years of growth overall so that number looks at that whole growth history over time thank you may I ask another sure oh yes I'm at 17 Highwood way in Grantham my other question is I know many students across the country are struggling with learning because everything is done on computers rather than having text books and papers for students to work with and looking through the problems and looking up the answers and so forth how are we doing that in Grantham please thank you it's it's a combination of everything so I think what our teachers are very well-versed in is when technology is appropriate for so there are times when it's appropriate and there are times where books are better than ever or paper or manipulatives or writing things out or discussions so there's no one that answer are we not we all know we had to move to Knology pick out a choice at one point but now that things are stabilizing we're back to really choosing the instructional method that's the best way for kids to learn thank you are there any questions or comments regarding Article 2 yes Ann Sullivan 642 Old Farms Road the director Siri it is the mic on I'm not sure if I'll get close Concord to but should be better at it the CIA is that going to be a grandma weight was subcontracted to Cornish in Plainfield good most are there other questions or comments regarding Article 2 it seems like you're ready for a vote I've been asked to point out that the rules require that if you're going to be voting you can't be seated on the bleachers well if you can we have to move to the center I'm sorry right only those who non-voters should be sitting on the edge of the ends of the bleachers okay very good so article one is on the floor with completed discussion of that and I'm going to ask for all those who are in favor of adopting article Article 2 as written please signify by saying I and all those who not in favor of adopting it please please signify by saying no okay so I declare that the eyes have it it is not unanimous but very nearly and we're ready to move on to what's March's Article 4 on the warrant Army and as a superintendent I missed the one two three that's my fault but it is I copied and pasted because it was article for last year it's article 3 before we get into that there is another warning for the school district meeting next week when you'll be voting to elect the officers of the school district the board the moderator Etc the clerk and that will take place at town meeting a week from today so be aware of that it is to transact any other business to come before the annual meeting is there a motion with respect to article 3 so move is there a second second okay is there any other business to come before the meeting and I'm going to jump in line here I know that the board has some things to do this is a gavel that was presented to me by Janice Howard who is since deceased it was a gavel that was made by his father Henry Howard who I believe was the last Dairy Farmer operating a real dairy farm in in Grantham New Hampshire I would like to present this to the school board entrust your give to the next school dance moderator and so I'm going to give that to Brittany pie so is there any other big you should come before the meeting yes the board has several thank-yous and recognitions that we would like to share with the Community Dean Wilson, who has been wanting to step up and take on the role of student School Board school board about insight into the experience Grantham students as they move into Lebanon Middle School and High School something that the board Phelps was valuable input that was previously missing right about some of the challenges that she has faced covet but also very positive about her experience moving from Grantham into Lebanon and so we wish to thank Ellen and wish her the best of luck with her future Adventures we can't wait to see where she goes and what she does and Ellen does I have a couple more board meetings that she will hopefully be attending and so the board will recognize her additionally when her time on the board is completed by publicly and we wanted to take this opportunity to recognize what significant she has made and stepping into that role as a student takes a lot of courage and a lot of insight Knack yes the board would also like to take the opportunity to thank Carl so you didn't think you were going to get out of here without us having a few things to say so like Santa or the Easter Bunny Carl visit the once a year he brings us rules and motions instead of presents but we will take them he oversees voice votes raised hands and ballots he has babysit ballot boxes well beyond the time limits meeting needed to go just to make sure that every vote could be counted he has helped Shepherd forward much of what you see around you whether it be the people or the physical space from contracts to construction and none of what we have here would have been possible without are leading the way at these meetings so it's going to be a very big sweater vest for someone to fell and Grantham will greatly miss you Carl so I would like to call for a probably not very legal very non-binary being highly unusual Voice vote so all those in favor that's all of you who would like to express our gratitude for Carl's unwavering steady guidance over several decades please say I I Brenda do you want to say anything I told Brenda she also had to recognize car in 2007 when I was a write-in for school district clerk and he convinced me take the job so that was 15 years of doing that and we finally found somebody else to take the position so that was great working with Carl has been wonderful it's been once a year but it's just he's so calm and he's so even-keeled is just awesome so I joined the rest of the community and wishing you and Pam all the best in your next adventure to Wisconsin the cheese steak there was a brief consideration of giving you that at the beginning of the meeting so I was wondering where to get one of these but okay okay thank you thank you so much thank you we do have another recognition tonight as some of you may already I know this is the last meeting for our board chair Brittany pie and I'm going to have a little short and sweet statement many thanks to our school board chair Brittany pie for her six or seven it's between six and seven of years of service to the Grantham School District it has been an honor to work alongside her seeing with every situation the easy ones to those seemingly impossible how she approached them all with equal commitment to the kids families employees and taxpayers are gray I looked around for a quote today and the one that really jumped out at me was Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali says the service that you pay to others is the rent that you pay for your room here on Earth in those turn Brittany has paid her rent may be paid off on mortgage maybe has a conservation right in perpetuity for life on behalf of everyone whose voice you've heard and advocated for thank you very much for your service and best of all a card from the GPS kids very rude thank you thank you all I am not going to make a speech I'm just going to say one thing so I my mom was an educator and when I became a parent and she got the unique opportunity of being a parent watching your child become a parent and think about school and think about Futures she told me that kids don't just go to a school their families go with them and so what that means is that the family bring whatever resources skills talents they have with them to the school's so when you think about where your child is going to go you have to think about what will you bring that school and that means that for those of public school is the answer we bring everything that we have to that school as well so that means our for some of us that means our financial support for some of us that means our time for some of us that means our passions with some of us that means we become substitutes and so I think I just want to take a moment to recognize that for me that meant for 6 years it's been serving on the school board and so I know in my future there will be a different way that I can change get to the school and Chris and I will say publicly in front of these people and I've already told my family that I'll sign up to substitute so so I want to just encourage everyone here to think about what it is that each of us bring to the school and what we bring every time we choose to send our kids to public school which I think is an Incredible Gift and value and really shows some of the strength of this community so thank you all do at this point I would entertain a motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn is there a second second that is a non-debatable motion and I will ask those who are in favor please signify by saying I and those opposed we say no we stand adjourned thank you all very much

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