From the desk of Mary Beaudin, Landaff Select Board:
August 12, 2025
Landaff Town Hall
Present: Brenda Dodge, John Barth, Mary Beaudin, Dale Locke, Deb Erb, Francie Kinney, Joe Wiggett, Sam Natti, Jamie Jarvis
Public: Ben Peters, Travis Peters, Molly Culver, Matt Culver, Harry McGovern, Michelle Beaudin.
Meeting called to order at 7:02 pm.
Public Input:
Harry: If we are considering option 3, who owns the real estate? If we joined the cooperative, all buildings would have shared expenses. If we proceed with that choice we should hire a building inspector to find out what issues we’d be facing down the road.
John Barth asked Sam if Lisbon hires a firm to evaluate the building. Sam wasn’t sure.
Dale Locke: We should do the same with SAU buildings.
Minutes from the last meeting were approved.
Meeting was spent reexamining what makes quality of education and how to communicate the findings equitably.
Sam shared notes from a principal’s retreat that he and Molly had attended that day.
Items included looking at:
- Demographics (income, family status, gender, medical, racial, employment, home school, lunch status, ESL)
- Academic work
- Standardized tests (SAT, SAS, AP placement, Dibels benchmark scores, MAP)
- Attendance
- Informal feedback
- Individual Education Plans
- Multi-tiered Systems
- Graduation rates
- Portrait of a graduate competencies
- Career and Technical Educational opportunities
- Career and college readiness
- Success in Schools behavior stats
Surveys were discussed for taxpayers, parents, and students.
Jamie: Much of this data is available from the state. How do the data points filter down? Every school handles things differently.
Molly: They discussed increasing parental involvement, using the ClassDoJo, a communication and classroom management application.
John: We should use these tools to define quality and find out what works and what does not.
Mary: Quality means that a school recognizes its deficiencies and figures out ways to improve in those areas.
Dale: What is done with the data? Schools must find methods that promote a quality education.
Sam: We realized low scores for writing, so we used that information to do more writing across the curriculum.
Jamie: Choice gives people the opportunity to pick a school that suits their needs.
Sam: Our job (the committee’s) is to present our findings with numbers to the taxpayer.
Jamie: We will use the data that we have.
John: If we use the same data points across the board, we have the opportunity to explain any changes.
Public input:
Matt Culver: The DOE offers comprehensive reports, such as meeting the standard for highly qualified teachers.
Harry: We can see what each place has to offer. We have one chance to educate our students. Why would we take away people’s choice?
Ben Peters: We need to clearly set out what the cost of having that choice is.
John: Option 1 is the only one with definitive numbers. The other options are estimates based on past averages.
Next meeting will be spent creating an Amazon-style product comparison chart, comparing the different schools.
Next meetings: August 26, September 9, and September 23.
Meeting adjourned at 8:42 pm.
The Landaff Ledger 