Wiscasset School Department will look at whether the planned spot at Wiscasset Middle High School for two new basketball hoops is the best place for them. Resident Chet Grover raised concerns to the school committee Nov. 12 when Principal Sarah Hubert said the grant-funded hoops will replace the portable ones in the parking lot above the softball field.

Grover said when kids play basketball there after hours, balls get bounced off cars or end up in the baseball field and the kids “don’t go pick them up.” 

After-hours supervision is up to the parents, Hubert responded. And during school hours, she said, “When it comes to recess time, that's the best place because we (can) see them in that basketball/parking lot area as well as the kids who are on the track.”

In all the time the portable hoops have been there, a year-plus, she has heard no concerns, Hubert said. 

Hoops were previously on a side of the building “where big trucks were coming through to deliver fuel or food. And so, we moved them to the parking lot above the softball field because there's no traffic (allowed) through there during the day,” she explained.

As a result of the discussion, the safety committee will walk the area with Hubert and Facilities and Transportation Director John Merry. "And then we'll go from there," School Committee Chair Tracey Whitney said.

Also Nov. 12, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kim Andersson told the committee, for $5,000, the department can buy Yondr pouches to magnetically lock students' cell phones in, and bases to demagnetize, or unlock, the pouches at day's end. That cost includes training the company would provide, Andersson said. From school departments in Bath and Camden, she has heard "only good things" about the Yondr program, she said.

She will get the committee more information toward a possible December vote. Members said the cell phone policy would need review, since high schoolers can currently use their phones at non-educational times. 

While on the topic, meeting participants discussed enforcement. Andersson said the cell phone rules are not being consistently enforced. And Hubert noted times WMHS has contacted parents to come pick up a student's phone and they did not.

"There has to be a big enough penalty to dissuade (a student)" from breaking the rules, member Doug Merrill said.

The student handbook spells out consequences for first and subsequent violations, Vice Chair Jonathan Barnes said. Barnes wondered what good it would do to add more restrictions if the current ones aren't being enforced. Or if they are being enforced, then that needs to be documented, to justify getting the Yondr pouches, he said.

The committee sent back to the policy committee a proposed update to the student dress code. "I think there's several things struck out that should not be ...," including skirt length guidance and a ban on exposed nipples, said Barnes.

Andersson said the would-be changes came from Maine School Management Association and lawyers. “Not at our school,” and she did not know where, but there have been instances where students believed their body type was being judged, she said.

Whitney suggested to instead “address that concern, right out there” in the policy, with a statement along the lines of, “The following dress code guidelines are not in any way a judgment of individual style or body types.” She and other members and Andersson agreed the proposed policy should go back to the policy committee.

In other action, the school committee let Andersson start talking with Head Start and the town about a possible collaboration on early childcare; accepted the Shaw Challenge Pilot Youth Mental Health Initiative with MaineHealth on the condition the committee gets to see and approve the programming; and accepted with regret Wiscasset Elementary School educational technician Tiffany Puterbaugh's resignation.