From the desk of Mary Beaudin, Landaff Select Board:

Landaff School Advisory Committee Minutes

June 3, 2025, Landaff Town Hall

Present: Dale Locke, Brenda Dodge, John Barth, Mary Beaudin, Jamie Jarvis,

Sam Natti, Deb Erb, Francie Kinney, Joe Wiggett

Public:  Molly Culver, Matt Culver, Paul Varcek, Jason Cartwright, Harry McGovern, Ben Peters, Travis Peters, Michelle Beaudin, Matt Copithorne, Toni Butterfield

Meeting called to order at 7:08 pm.

Dale Locke stepped down as chair.

Francie Kinney was elected chair.

Minutes from May 20 meeting were accepted.

Public Input: 

Paul Varcak- sought clarification from Toni Butterfield with numbers given versus the annual report.

Molly Culver- former Blue School students received several awards at the Lisbon awards assembly.

Jason Cartwright- Can we get data about awards?

Molly- will get the data

Toni Butterfield- contacted Benton, a town with a school board but no school. Their costs include tuition, services, summer school, OT, PT, School board expenses, SAU management costs, transportation, special education, and vocational transportation. Benton’s total expenses for FY25-26 are proposed to be $730,571. (Brenda received information from a board member that the numbers represent 21 students.)

If we use the same model for Landaff using our proposed figures for 25-26, Landaff’s total expenditures would be approximately $1,080,000. Additional funds would need to be added to this for maintenance of the building and grounds. Benton’s costs are approximately $225,000 less than Landaff’s costs.  Landaff serves 45 students K-12.

Toni said that she would have more specific numbers and include preschool revenues in the calculations for the next meeting.

The SAU portion cannot be predicted at this time since Lisbon is leaving the SAU. The SAU is seeing how they can pare down the office.

For the upcoming pre-school, 3 of the 5 Landaff students will receive special services.

Joe- Are there districts that charge a flat rate?

Not really, the sending town is always responsible for special education or other special services.

Lyman’s numbers are based on 80% enrollment, 20% equalized evaluation.

Jamie- What are the valuations for the different towns?

Lisbon and Lyman: $352 mil

Landaff: $138 mil

Matt- Student numbers at Lisbon breakdown from the SAU report:

Lyman 43

Lisbon 172

Bath 22

Landaff 21

Other 5

_________

263 total

Landaff has approximately 8 students homeschooling.

Discussion about what the constants (always a cost) are.

Option 3 includes all the costs with regionalization.

John- the regionalization option would mean Landaff would be giving up control in the area of special education. We have a special education coordinator, who is a case manager.

Sam- (At Lisbon) The staff members are case managers.  Parents are involved in their children’s IEPs.

Jamie- In regionalization, services get diluted.  The further the services get from home, the more diluted they are. 

Dale- could regionalization make education better?

Francie- it may be more consistent.  Education should not be person dependent but product dependent. (Molly will not be at the Blue School forever.)

We have to trust the board to hire the right people for the jobs.

Deb- questioned tuition numbers in the budget we were given. They should have been $10,000 higher.

John- most schools wanted to receive Landaff students. Profile wanted the students.

In having choice Landaff has leverage. (mentioned several times)

Matt- met with the Lisbon board chair at least 20 times.  The former superintendent was the one who recommended the tuition change to per pupil costs.

State laws could change and force regionalization.

Sam- student numbers are fairly stable. They are down 5 kids in the last couple of years.

The school board policy has a limited number of schools on it.  Other schools need board approval.

Matt Culver- There are tuition agreements with two towns. Agreements may be renegotiated. Lisbon is crazy to leave money on the table.

The history of the agreement was discussed.

Sam- we need to decide who has the choice. What do the taxpayers want?  Does the $200,000 difference (in cost) become justified because of quality?

Reminder that the number referenced above was Benton’s cost based on a lower number of students.

Public input/questions:

Toni- will have better figures including revenue for next time.

Jason- what is the break-even point? How many students do we need?

Michelle- for option #4:  Add more grades? Look at regionalizing a different way with Bath, Lisbon, Lyman, and Landaff.

Jason- could the school be better?  The Blue School teachers over the years have had different focuses and specialties. The school board chooses good people.

Think about the declining birth rate.

Based on cost, we shouldn’t take Lisbon out of the equation.

Joe- why aren’t all students choosing Lisbon?

John- next time we will continue to look at option 2 price.

Next meeting is June 17, 2025 at 7pm.

Meeting adjourned at 9:17 pm.