November 3, 2025 

3:15-4:15 PM 

ADS: Media Tech Room 

In Attendance 

• Tessa Atkins, School Nurse – Abbot-Downing 
• Brittany Mahany – Beaver Meadow 
• Allison Davis – Broken Ground 
• Leslie Barry – Concord High School 
• Donna Reynolds – Central Office 
• Fern Seiden – Central Office 
• Melissa Witherspoon – Central Office 
• Elizabeth Boucher – Board of Education 

Absent 

• Stacey Lazzar – Abbot-Downing & Christa McAuliffe  
• Jenny Fennelly – Mill Brook  
• Sarah Williams – Mill Brook  
• Kristen Curren – Rundlett Middle School  
• Laura Anderson – Central Office  
• Bevan Tulk, Guardian/ Community Member 

Discussion 

• A motion was made and seconded to accept the minutes from the October 6th meeting.  

Review the Summary of the Policy for Sharing at Staff Meetings 

• Fern shared a Wellness Policy Quick Guide for Teachers with the group.  
• The plan is to have a link to this in the newsletter. 

Data on Free and Reduced Lunches 

• Donna gave an update on the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced price meals from October 2024 to October 2025. The percentage district wide was 29% for 2024 and 27% for 2025. All schools were down this year except for Broken Ground and Mill Brook.  

Update on November 1st SNAP benefits 

• Fern handed out a SNAP Food Pantry Flyer from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). There was a website address and a QR code for people to access food pantry locations.  
• Liz said this isn’t the most helpful communication to families.  
• Fern said she will have a calendar sheet made listing local resources.  

Signs of Hunger Teacher Handout 

• Fern passed out a handout Recognizing Signs of Hunger. 
• Allison said she’s not sure what she can do to address this while teaching. 
• Fern asked what she thought teachers could possibly do.  
• Allison said she doesn’t know if Central Office realizes how busy teachers are and she isn’t able to take on a role of social worker.  
• Allison also said that teachers are feeling very pressured right now with curriculum.  
• Fern asked if things were different, i.e. not feeling so much pressure, what could teachers do with this information.  
• Fern said we are talking about childhood hunger in general.  
• Liz asked what the district would do with this information.  
• Fern asked if it was a worthwhile handout.  
• Liz asked if school staff are aware of this issue.  
• Fern asked if we should just leave this handout in the teachers rooms.  
• Allison suggested putting this handout and the food pantry handout together.  
• Leslie suggested listing School Social Workers as contacts for this information and to put all this together in internal school notes in each school.  
• Fern said she will turn this over to Social Workers.  
• Leslie suggested adding the Wellness Policy Quick Guide for Teachers to the information above and include a link to the full policy.  

Other 

• Liz asked about the letter to families regarding parties and celebrations.  
• Fern said it’s now at the school level.  
• Leslie asked about the word Coordinator in the Quick Guide for Teachers.  
• There was a discussion about who the Coordinator should be.  
• Liz said she didn’t think the title was that crucial.  
• Leslie didn’t like it .  

• Decision was made to change to Representative.  
• Leslie suggested linking the Wellness Policy, agendas, notes, etc. all together.  
• Tessa said the links on the website don’t work.  

Discussion on Newsletter 

• Allison gave a summary of the newsletter goals.  
• Fern discussed how the book Onward, which she had distributed at the October meeting,  
• could be used for newsletter content.  
• Leslie shared her sample of the Canva newsletter.  

Submitted by Donna Reynolds 11/13/25