MILAN

Minutes of School Board Meeting

Friday, January 14, 2005 at 8:00a.m.

Milan Village School, 11 Bridge Street, Milan, NH 03588-9702

Phone 603 466.3632 Fax 603.466.3870 Web http://schools.ncia.net/milanvs

Milan Members Present Andrew Mullins, School Board Chairman Jacqueline Quintal, School Board Member Patricia Shute, School Board Member

NEW PHOTO WILL GO HERE WHEN I LOCATE MY MISPLACED CAMERA CABLE! (Mal)

Others Present: Patrick Low, Superintendent, SAU-20 Malcolm Shute, Minute Taker Sarah Sarette, Principal, Milan Village School (present part time) Mike Fortier, Owner, Foreast LLC (present part time)

Call To Order

Andrew Mullins called the meeting to order at 8:45 a.m.

Bus Transportation Issues

The attendees discussed past relationships with Foreast LLC, present Bus Company, prior to the arrival of owner Mike Fortier. The main areas of discussion were as follows:

! Possible additional cost (at $12.50/hr.) for maintaining video cameras on buses.

! Lack of timeliness in delivering recorded tapes on a daily basis.

! Requiring all delivered tapes to be labeled with the bus number, driver's name and date.

! Need for a fourth camera.

! Items to add in next bus contract: health & safety issues.

! Find out how Gorham handles transportation.

! Procedure for denying bus boarding to misbehaving students: three-part NCR form, one part to building principal who will contact the parents by phone and also has the final say on denying boarding privileges, one to bus company and one to parents. A printed procedure for all to follow is needed. Sarah will also record all phone conversations with the bus company.

! Bus drivers still not signing in regularly at school.

! All behavior issues are PBIS related but Mike Fortier, who is a member of PBIS, rarely attends. .Foreast

Bus Company buses are also used to transport Milan students to Berlin junior high school and Berlin high school; however, bus incidents are not reported to SAU-20 officials and may go unpunished. This issue will be discussed at the upcoming joint Berlin & Milan school board meeting on Thursday, January 20th in Berlin.

! The NH statute reference for this is RSA-189, Transportation.

This first part of the meeting ended at 9:40 a.m.

Foreast LLC - Bus Company

Mr. Mike Fortier, owner of Foreast LLC, was complimented for safely transporting Milan students over the past several years. He addressed the following issues with the school board members:

! Video cameras he purchased are very unreliable and require much more maintenance than he

anticipated.

! Cameras were installed not only for monitoring student's behavior but for checking on his driver's integrity.

! Extreme cold weather in the North Country may be partly responsible for camera malfunctions.

! Radio on one of these buses is intermittent. He needs to wiggle it to get it to work.

! Responsibility for installing video tapes in the morning and removing them at night should be done by

the same person. Mike Fortier suggested that it be done by a trusted school employee. He estimated it

will take one person about 40-minutes per day to attend to the cameras on the four buses, morning and

afternoon.

! One person should also take care of cleaning the recording heads on the video recorders on a monthly

basis and perform limited troubleshooting and minor maintenance.

! David Goyette in Gorham will be contacted to see what kind of video equipment Gorham uses.

! Groveton uses a southern NH company called RSD Leasing to maintain their bus cameras.

! The four bus drivers have passed a total of 20 “pink slips” out this school year.

! Having telephone conversations recorded by Sarah Sarette is not a problem.

! If a bus driver is unable to reach any bus stops due to bad weather, the driver will attempt to contact

the parents of the affected students by cell phone.

! Estimates for servicing tapes varied from 60 hours for the 180 days of school to 220 hours.

! Patrick Low will give a new protocol regarding cameras on buses to Sarah Sarette on Monday.

! Consideration will be given to having a contractor handle all camera-related issues on the buses.

Mike Fortier left the meeting at 10:17 a.m.

AREA Agreements Missed State of NH Deadline

The date for submitting changes to AREA agreements and for receiving SPED funds this year was two to three weeks ago. A September 2005 agenda will be established for both of these items to be presented at a town meeting in February 2006.

School Addition Construction Performance Bond

According to John Garvey, SAU-20 attorney, the underwriters for this bond will not give 100% payout for this but may be willing to negotiate a partial settlement.

The meeting adjourned at 11:40 a.m.