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Shanti all right at this point in time need a motion to go into executive session motion approve items 2.1 through 2.3 whereas in nsj a10 4-12 last republic body to go into closed session during a public meeting whereas the Board of Education of issuing township has deemed it necessary to go in the closed session discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public whereas the regular meeting of the Board of Education when we can be following the end of the closed session at approximately 7:00 p.m. now therefore be it resolved the Board of Education will go into closed sessions the following reasons as outlined in nsj a 10-4 - 12 and that's items 2.2 through 2.3 do I have a motion mrs. NOLA make a motion motion by mr.
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Hall seconded by Miss undermine any questions or comments all right go to roll call please this is Barbara Giovanni yes this is Everhart yes mr. physic are oh yes mr. Caffyn yes this is null yes mr. Lanz Alana yes mr. Meighan yes mrs. Ryan yeah motion carries all right I'm gonna stop the recording mr.
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case are you okay let me know when we're off livestream one second okay for those listening we'll be back in in roughly approximately about a half an hour so just uh go grab a snack popcorn get your popcorn ready you welcome back to this edition of Evesham Township Board of Education we have just come out of executive session I apologize for our tardiness at this point in time if you could rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance [Music] all right first of all those who are here were watching us live stream thank you for your patience for waiting for us our executive session took a little longer than necessary so you know we we really do a very thankful than you are I'm gonna pretend that you were very patient so I appreciate that secondly those who you know I do this before every meeting just so you're aware of what's happening in case you are someone who's just signing in for the first time there's not watch this you're gonna see me looking away quite a bit I have the agenda on another computer screen it's just to help me out when you troll the meeting a little bit better all right we'll get to the public comment in in a moment and then I'll discuss how that all works for both the public comment for agenda items and then for anything else that you have okay so with that being said we are we don't have any presentations because it's just becoming fruitless to do that over over zoom we have nothing to present to to you or the public so we are going to move right into public comment for agenda items on this I'm going to read this to you real quick the rules and how this goes this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments at three minutes per person you're gonna see some some directions there on the screen the voluntarily give phone number for you to call a couple things to to understand about this this is Genda items only so what is only on the agenda number one also number two is that we can't really have a back and forth with you during this because this is like calling into a radio station so when you call us you're gonna have to turn your volume down you're gonna get some pretty nasty feedback in there so if you you know you want to voiced a concern or or or you know they anything that you would like to tell us this is a great time to do it about an agenda item but any typing back and forth is really difficult so just please be aware if you feel like you have questions that you do need an Supersport please don't hesitate to email dr. Blatchford you know any any concerns that you might have or course you know to us we can forward it to the appropriate people so alright mister case if you can set up a live stream for us I'd appreciate that set up the the callin or our mr.
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summers episode seven nights when we 770 will go to 719 sounds good and this of course anybody who's listening this will take a little while we're going to disappear physically you're not going to see us you're just going to see a screen pop up and we're going to wait to give you guys a time there to call and do what you need to do okay mr. summers you said 719 correct correct okay okay one more minute sounds good you seen him good movies anything good on Netflix I'll take that as a nap can't be heard I'm um I'm asking a question we cannot be heard right now I think we can be frame Janis refrain everybody knows you watch Tiger King it's alright avatar the last airbender man alright oh my god it's amazing Frank you're we good alright no it's alright man now you're good alright well that was fun alright we're gonna close the public discussion on agenda items only and we're going to move to item 6 which is the approval of the minutes I need a motion to approve item 6.1 through 6.4 motion by mr.
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brian do I have a second second by mr. Nolan any questions or comments to approve all the minutes all right let's go to a roll call please yes but abstain from a 6.3 the May 20th a regular in executive sessions okay yes mr. Carr yes but it's abstain from 6.3 as well okay mr. Canton yes this is null yes so as a Lada yes mr.
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Meighan yes this is Rian yeah motion carries okay at this point in time we're going to do what is called a consent agenda we're basically we're gonna lump in superintendents report an administrative items curriculum and instruction finance and operations and personnel and policy into into one voting block okay of course when this happens if any of the board members wish to vote no on something they could tell us the item number they wish to vote no long we can open up discussion for any any questions for the board members during that time so this this will just expediate the meeting for you and for us and get us closer to the next public portion of this to anybody it has any comments there all right so I need a motion to approve items 7.1 all the way through to item 11.3 Drive a motion for that motion by miss Ryan seconded by Miss Barbara Giovanni all right before we go in any questions or comments dr. Blanchard you have a superintendents report yes I do thank you tomorrow we have the evesham Township School District sound of music day it's absolutely a wonderful event and I hope you all listen in it follows about we had last Friday the virtual Art Show and that is still on the web page so please take a look the theme was Fantasia it has selective artwork from every school it's about 30 minutes long and it's well worth your time you'll be impressed with the quality of the art also under web pages our school health related closure preparedness plan for at-home digital online learning school districts are of course highly regulated by the Department of Ed and we have an excellent plan thanks to our director of curriculum the plan mirrors the type of instruction occurring in the classroom to the greatest extent possible taking into account the challenges and complexities make a company distant learning there are a variety of sections that are very impressive one is what if a student does and not have access or a device and there's a section on there where it explains that we loaned them devices and there are also some very cheap and actually free services that they can use also they have learning plans in elementary and secondary elementary and middle school and one section is very impressive is the expectations for teaching and learning it maps out exactly the way the instructions gone and I'm very proud of the plan thank you Segarra thank you dr.
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Blatchford there any other questions or comments pertaining to anything through 7 1 to 11 3 mr. Fitch can I have a quick question mr. boss glass for maybe you can clear this up I'm sorry for my ignorance can you explain what 918 is Kam a county educational service commission general service contract I can talk to that that's a basically an agreement for any services that we would need to be provided through Camden County special ed service commission similar to the bronze and County special ed service commission each most counties have and service commission and you can use services from any County you would like so we just approve their rates so in the future if we do need them it's all been approved most of the time who use Broughton County Special Services thank you I appreciate mr. zazic you're welcome - just a generalized question - any any of the common if you can answer this for me for where was it item 8.4 the adjustments in school calendar we we've we have a suite alerted or we have a system of alert for that particularly June 2nd that that's gonna be a school day and we have us we're gonna have that messenger or something let them know or excellent principals this afternoon and they were waiting til it was official tonight and then they are sending out a school messenger first thing in the morning awesome only because that one is so close anything official until it was board approved but they you know have been communicating that but not official so it'll be official in the morning it just allows us to have a full week of remote learning next week I I look I actually I I applaud the plan because obviously that was that was an election that was the election primary day and obviously that's not happening and I think it's it's better to get the kids out earlier on that I think it's June 16 I do applaud that decision and I was just making sure that people were aware but ever be able to where it was happen awesome I am very happy about that thank you very much any other questions or comments also make a note that our our policies that are being approved or the second reads from last from last month so just yours be be aware of that alright so in case you weren't sure yes was ever hard is this where I can say like congratulation to the retiree lutely congratulations the retirees and welcome to that second chapter I saw some interesting names there so uh good luck and enjoy thank you miss Everhart anybody else I was I just wanted to add about the Friday now moving forward and last week the the alcohol at the eyes on art because I miss eyes on heart so that was so wonderful and it was great to have the kids you know be able to see what their other classmates and peers are doing and I'm looking forward to tomorrow with the sounds of Evesham tomorrow I think it's a wonderful idea and then you know these are things that the kids are missing all the spring concerts that just be seeing in school so thank you for you know keeping these things and having them on a Friday is really great I'm and then next Friday will be do we have something for next Friday Read Across evesham it's your library medians specialist and we'll be announcing the one one book initiative kids will be announcing that through book trailers Oh saw that in the curriculum meeting minutes yeah Read Across evesham very excited to hear about the the summer reading interesting book selections loan committee got a chance to look at that don't spoil it I just I just want to say also I did see the eyes on art and fantastic it does is I can't find the word to say when you see what these children these students can do and I know it was limited because of and it can't be hung up in the municipal but hats off to the teachers to the students and also the music that played oh it was just wonderful enjoyed it yeah it was yep we shared it everywhere we could just so a lot of different people could see it cuz really remarkable a lot of you know all different kinds of mediums and a lot of time and effort probably went into that to set it up and had the background and have the kids play so cool singing really really meet thank you for that yep alright yes but for the addendum 10.10 I miss abstaining to for this hours from my daughter-in-law and also any of immediate supervisors okay every the whole thing all right this is Everhart yes mr.
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physic era yes mr. Kathy yes this is null yes mr. Lanz a lot yes mr. Regan yes accept item 1010 the attachment non-represented salaries that would be a No this is right yeah and congratulations so on not having to abstain anymore thank you thank you mr.
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Shetty all right we're gonna move on to committee reports are there any committees that wish to share any reports or anything that's happening all right okay we will we will move on move on there I know for some of these committees it can be I know a lot of you are trying to do the zoom thing so I applaud you for still trying to continue that and doing what you're doing old business I have no old business miss Ryan you have a business I know I have one of the things to say because I tried to get off me I just want to congratulate all like the PTA and PPO presidents they had just had their elections so it's gonna be a new batch of people coming in which is great and I think that they've done a great job that youth grade getting the signs out the fifth grade getting something signed out and just celebrating are all our students at once so thank you to all those parents and volunteers on the PTI in ppm - and good job Danny with the whole curriculum and the one fooling these are they're doing so yeah so thank you for that up them okay thank you miss Ryan all right I'm gonna move past committee reports and old business anybody have any new business that could bring up what was that is it a this was never he got a beeper is that just me that's my computer so okay I I was worried that maybe mine was melting down or something all right we're gonna pass by I'm gonna assume that beep was the passed by new business all right and that's going to take us into open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain the litigation student of personnel items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent well email the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments the three minutes per person games again same rules apply here well the phone number will be up it'll be in place of us you will see us they can hear us all right so just in case and then of course you call in like a radio you know we can hear you but back and forth is incredibly difficult to do or for you and for us so just you know relate to a comment or whether it's a constructive one or a critical one or whatever it may be all right if there's a question we'll do our best to answer it for you but you obviously we would have to wait on that all right um mr. summers when you are ready please let me know I miss what you said mr.
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summers say that again stick board and hear you you're breaking on mr. summers I've you tube open it's the the callin screens oh yeah actually the calling screen yeah mr. summers just let me know the time that you wish to go to I'm missing if there's a comment I I can't I can't hear it it's breaking up you [Music] hmm Frank I think I'm losing a man I didn't lose it all right we'll take a moment here until mr. summers comes back on because he's the one who helps us with this so we'll just let's take a moment you go ahead stick your name is for the board please okay carry 113 tree circle west tomorrow can you jersey good you can continue am I good to go give her good good hi board members first and foremost I wanted to thank everybody for all of their hard work recently getting the district up and running with our virtual learning he can throw a teacher and a character I think everybody's been doing an awesome job and I think the transition was quite smooth I was calling to Mister evening simply visit a request that I had originally made back in January I understand if they can't be given due to the context of the meeting but as a reminder at that time I refer to the word enforcement questioning the fact that a policy change he made to 81 times supportive the my request was that in community were helping residents of my affairs and have options you know their children after school employment so long as transportation was provided and I just wanted to call and check in and see if there's any progress we need for storage function types of use to test the process and then get right now the design of the school year when registration is happening teachers and administrators we're organizing for the upcoming Joe and I know that we do not know what September will look like but something pretty much said it will look very different than it has in the past and I think that that changes he has motivated me even more to flesh Judith each sighing heavily I suppose for me the importance of having family members learning and that's why I'm encouraging you to continue considering the revisions of policies for that family members mr.
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McKeon building together and again if you can't respond directly to the meeting I completely understand but if there's only way to receive this type of testing for another lesson sort of this happening I'd appreciate it very much thank you for your time frankly she hung up yes if yeah I can say that uh that the the reference that that mr songz making to to a policy that we were looking at reviewing was in the policy committee was was in the process of reviewing it we were still were strongly determined at this point I would say that um just to kind of gave a small update and I talked to history and teen about this as well as dr. Bradford it has been we haven't even get another policy meeting we don't have one yet to continue doing anything you need to do it's I'm not gonna lie it's been a little hectic around here the this this this this the Copa 19 thing is kind of put us all hands on deck so we've been a little off kilter than we normally have but you know the policy committee does not have a scheduled meeting coming up anytime soon but although we'll keep posted all right thank you go ahead do I call your own with the board please state your name and address hi Mindy Concord 25,000 table Avenue go ahead many on behalf of the evesham Township administrators Association I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome our colleagues my collages Michaels we look forward to working alongside you and Aziz and Sam's family duties a jagged elementary school please do not hesitate to reach out to any one of us and we look forward to meeting with person hopefully very soon board of education great to see everybody together and healthy and hopefully all inclusive and very soon thank you Thank You Mindy it's good to see everybody healthy okay 738 we'll give it another minute sure absolutely okay Joe you're on okay all right well thank you thank you for the public comments we do appreciate when you guys are here and you guys call in you know again it's it's a little different than standing in front of us you know it's hard for us to do this back and forth so we'll try our best always to reply to you I try to give you the best answer we can but you know apologize if somebody doesn't come off you know come off correctly all right at that point we are done public comment we're moving into board member announcements is any board never have any announcements look I uh the only thing I'll say is that we got a kind of another month of this left less than that few weeks left and you know before the school year ends we normally in about a week from now would be having our retirement dinner for our for retirees and I I was really looking forward to this one because I really wanted to give the speech was cold and I don't think she's listening now but but I really wanted to give that speech I do want to say though that you know I know that I know that you guys are all home and you know you you you we all have that vision of when we retire to be in our classroom turning to his lights off one final time and right now it feels like our classrooms are from like the apocalypse like the world had ended and time had just stopped but you know even though that we're not we may not get a chance to see each other and I might not get a chance to see many of you as I would do on that night IIIi do want to say from the bottom of my heart that I any of those who are retiring or listening I really appreciate everything that you have done for this district you have laid your heart and soul out for this district you have made us better all the time so I am sorry that we couldn't be there to celebrate you hopefully sometime in the future we'll be able to do that and all this stuff comes down but please please know that you earn this retirement and if we love you dearly and we wish you the best in your final weeks of doing what you expect a lifetime everybody else any other announcements I think we are going to move past executive session to because there is no executive session to - our favorite part which is turning the meeting does anybody motion to adjourn that's my girl in a second I understand one second our Avis barbecue taught me all in favor aye when's the next meeting cuz I keep screwing this up no no it's all right guys see on June 25th he safe [Music] you
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I good afternoon this is Mike Morris on the superintendent schools here in Amherst in Pelham and I want to thank everyone for coming on to our livestream I and appreciate your interest in our district and we're really excited to meet you and your children we were sad not to be able to do that this spring but we're looking forward in the fall to being able to do that in person and so the way we're gonna organize ourselves today is I'll do just a quick overview and you'll get to hear from all all the principals of the four elementary schools Crocker farm fort River Pelham and Wildwood will show you a virtual tour that we've made for all four schools we'll show you an example of that and give you the link and then we really want to spend most of the time with question and the answers I know it's particularly given what's going on there may be many questions for us and we want to spend most of our time in that question-and-answer place with you all but we appreciate your time we appreciate you coming in on a beautiful afternoon and spending some time with us in a virtual setting and we're really excited that you're joining our districts if they're wonderful places for children and you know I think you'll hear lots of that from our principals at about 4:30 ish will break off and for people who are interested in finding out more about Commandant days in that program you're welcome to stay on for that as well but again at this point I'm going to start with Derek Shea who's the principal at Crocker farm and he's going to share with you just a little bit about Crocker farm and and then we'll go through the schools see the tour and open about but here's Derek let me see you I've got a couple of minutes here it makes it so good news I guess maybe this is good news so I am currently going to go into my 24th year here working in the armor schools I'll go to my live in theater Crocker farm lived in town here for the 25 years my wife and I we have two children 17 year old who's going to be a senior in high school a 19 year old has just finished his first year at university I'll tell you a little bit quickly bit Crocker farm so because it's obviously a min and a half year and we'll talk soon I love croc farm I love being at Proctor farm I think it's a fabulous place because we have a very passionate and energetic team of teachers are I'm a fairly energetic sort of passionate person so something that we all share and the ranks in the school and we're a school I think we have a very nice school of us a nice picture windows we're a school I think with around 340 or so students each year we're a school we want to get better and want to improve every single year so again we have a committed group of teachers and a very center arm distributed leadership model where where there's a lot of responsibility for our teachers to help shape the future of praça farm so just a brief introduction thank you for coming today thank you very much Derek and going an F medical order we would then go to fort River and so I'm gonna introduce Diane Chamberlain who is the principal there so hey Diane thanks for me welcome welcome to the district if you're a new family to the district welcome to returning families happy to be here with you it's funny when we talk about introducing our schools we also will often feel a very repetitive because our while our schools have individual identities we have a lot of the same core values so I just wanted to share with you the four goals of our school improvement plan they are do a language education they are family community engagement improving our instructional practices and continuing the social-emotional development of our students and we have that kind of under one common theme about choosing love when you walk into for over school we try to make it as peaceful and safe a community for kids to be able to be their best learners and I concur with Derek that Amherst in general has very committed educators and committed leadership to improving our practices and being self reflective and also in a nod to current events continuing to examine our own practices and biases and implicit and explicit biases and making sure we're trying to provide an education that is socially just to better the improvement of our community in the larger world that's just a quick tidbit about Fort River Thank You Diane next we'll go over to Pelham and Pelham we actually have two people who are going to speak so what is these short Lissa Desjarlais who's done a wonderful job in her 10 years of Pelham and is departing and we're gonna bring in Lee who will be the principal and they're already connecting a lot to make that transition smooth so I'll get Lisa up good afternoon and welcome and coming to join us my name is Lisa Desjarlais I am the outgoing principal and we have Lee here who is the incoming principal so Lee and I have been working in collaboration we've only just begun the journey to help her to transition and acclimate to the Pelham school community I'll speak a little bit about my perspective as being part of the Pelham community for 10 years Pelham school is a welcoming inclusive environment and our staff members and communities feel very strongly and having a school culture and program in which student is supported and they get what they need the school is a it's smaller than other elementary schools there's only one class per grade level and and it really creates a family type of environment so that everyone gets to know each other and it it feels like it's a very close-knit community we have a very supportive PTO and my staff are as are all the other teachers in the districts very dedicated and hard-working focused on improving their practice including looking at providing equitable practices and really getting better at looking at areas in the curriculum to strengthen and a promote student engagement and incorporate technology so you know we are always happy to have newcomers come in about half the school in school choice we draw in students from around 14 other surrounding communities which provides for a much more diverse environment so that's what I'll say about Pelham school and I'll turn it over to Lee sure so I'll just share a little bit about myself so welcome everyone and for those of you who are new to the district or a new to pell-mell elementary school we are in it together so I am new to the district also and I'm new to the role of principal so I've been the assistant principal at Blanchard Memorial School in Acton Boxborough for the past two years and prior to that I was a first grade teacher and before that I was a fifth grade teacher so all of those experiences really shaped how I approached leadership and because I come from an early childhood background kindergarten is super important to me and in the way I support instructional practices in the school so how that shows up is really emphasizing early literacy support and lots of joy in learning and collaborative opportunities for children to come together build relationships explore the world and build all of the foundational skills that they'll carry with them through the rest of their lives so I love kindergarten I'm so excited to meet you and meet your children I know it's a really challenging time right now to be thinking about sending your children to school and you must have so many questions so what I can tell you is we will figure it out together and we are in it together so Lisa and I are working collaboratively with the staff to make the transition as smooth as possible and I'm really looking forward to working with you thank you so much Lee and Lisa and last but not least we'll have McAfee who's the principal at Wildwood school talk a little bit about Wow but it's hard to go last Nick I think because we do have a lot of similarities between our school populations but you know I think there are unique qualities and I'd love to hear your thoughts about wildlife thank you Mike yeah so I'll start with that because Diana also said that is so everything I'm about to say I would say is true for all the other schools as well as what they said is true for a while but we need to have equality's and we all love our school so starting there that I think from the principals assistant principals to all the staff is this great passion for our school communities and I wish I could see you and welcome you all and if there are any students out there who are listening I usually say when I welcome students typically students are thinking of two things one is my teacher going to be nice to will I make friends and that wild within all the schools we have teachers who care deeply about creating relationships that connect to each student and then we get to know each student who you are and we strive to have our schools be places where you could be who you are and where our students themselves will reach out to you and try to include you and try to make friends with you because we want our students to be active active participants in life active citizens in the world and understand how that would make the world a better place so to be leaders what we call leaders at their own learning and the second thing I'll say that's true for all the schools is we believe that there are many different kinds of intelligences and we help to integrate the Arts integrate different ways of expressing what you know at our schools so we look forward to seeing you in person and I'll end it with that thank you so much and something that I always talk about with kindergarten families is you know we think about its 2020 now these students are gonna graduate about 2033 and and so who knows what the world will look like by then but they're gonna show us the way and we're just so excited to get to meet them graduate high school I should say I think just one anecdote I want to share before I show the tour is just that shows a lot about our schools as a couple years ago at like in many communities there was an interest in starting a garden program in our schools and the teachers who primarily jumped at the chance to be involved we're our kindergarten teachers this is before we really had a set curriculum it was something we wanted to try and they did job that's a chance because they thought what a wonderful way to promote authentic learning in our and what you'll know now is it kindergarten through third grade we've expanded all the way up through third we have beautiful gardens next to all of our schools and it's not just Gardens for gardens Seco though I think there's a lot of value and virtue to that it's garden as integrated as part of the curriculum that we don't have kindergarten students doing worksheets all day and some people have as their kindergarten experience we have kindergarten students actively engaged and involved in learning that they're doing and and I think the garden is just soaked and it's a tangible reflection of the way we approach that whole child approach that's so important students have the aesthetic so they have physical education and art and music they learn some technology skills and as they get older they have more and more opportunities so I think many families when they're concerned about sending their child to preach from kinder preschool to kindergarten is that they'll lose the opportunity for outdoor play for experiential learning and for really a whole child approach and that's certainly consistent with our values and Amber's that we hold on to that we certainly care awful lot about academics and can answer questions about that but you also want to reflect these students are five years old and we want to understand developmentally what it means we want them to love learning and love school and that's a major focus across all of our schools so because we can't be in the school I'm going to share a link I'll do it in the chat feature and I'll try to share my screen so people can get a look we'll pick on Wildwood as our school to show but I want to do a little tutorial so all of our schools have three-dimensional or 180 degree pictures throughout the school because we know for many students and families having access to these kind of things when we can't Angelababy they're typically what in the spring would be helpful additionally there's narration so if you click on the gear box on any of our tours and click on turn narration on in this case is the rainbow doors from afar rainbow doors seem to say to all children families and staff come in this is a place of joy this is the colorful place it's a place where you'll get to express yourself and be who you are and not every picture has narration but if you go on turn that off apologize you can and you can literally see a walk through the rooms and through different spaces in the school as well as the narration and one of the reasons we really wanted these these tours to be there as we thought it was so important for families but particularly for young children to get a visual of what they're in you'll see kindergarten classrooms in each of the tours because we wanted to really have a way that young children could understand and take a look and see what their classrooms might look like so we wanted to share that with with all of you we hope it's a resource that you can use with your children to help with that understanding of where they're going and be a resource I want to thank all the principals who did that narration and our information systems teams who put that together we started thinking about you know walking around the school with an iPhone or an iPad but we we thought the interactive piece and the tactile piece of moving for five-year-olds was much more developmentally appropriate and be a lot more fun frankly for fabulous and Nick thank you for letting me use the Wildwood one as an example but all four of our schools are there at this point we'd like to talk for about 15 minutes which was our goal keeping - about 15 for anyone on the livestream for all 37 of you thank you for joining two more things one is that we'd love to answer your questions so if you are there on the kind of lower right side where it says I think the plank says say something if you type in a question or a comment in that we'll be able to bring it up so everybody can see it and then principals can weigh in and and jump in also I know that there were families who weren't able to join us today this YouTube link that you're on will stay will stay active forever so if someone else is how I missed it I want to hear what people said you'll have that opportunity but I'll give it a second maybe since there aren't questions coming in some typical ones we get or you know a lot of times students are anxious about coming to kindergarten and making new friends Nik talked about that a little bit earlier and so I wonder if some of our principals might have some helpful advice of how to talk to young children about those kind of natural fears that they may not be in the same school as in class with their preschool friends and how parents can reassure parents guardians can reassure them see if anyone's willing to jump in on that one I'm gonna pick on Diane Thank You Diane sure oh we expect nerves from young ones and we expect the change to be something significant right they are coming from an environment they may be very comfortable with either in the home or in the preschool but we have experienced teachers that know how to ease those those transitional woes for students we develop routines and teach those routines directly we teach the expectations expectations of the school each one of us with care and with love knowing that they're 5 years old and we're gonna need a little while to get those routines ingrained in them so they can be their best selves our emphasis at the beginning is really making their social connections I know that all of the elementary principals feel really strongly that making sure the children feel safe before we start thinking about a lot of curriculum is really important so your job as families is just to get them good sleep get them as prepared as you can with just pep talks that it's all gonna be fine talk to them about the school bus if they're gonna ride the school bus talk to them about just listening to their teacher and being open to making new social connections we take care of the rest when they're with us and the hours of school being open and we're going to communicate with you as much as we possibly can about what things will look like but your job is just to try to be as positive as possible and if the students come home with any kind of situation that you're concerned about just making sure communicating with the teachers the teachers are very adept at making school feel like home in short order so again routines are really important confidence and partnering with this with the school is really kind of vital hopefully I've hit everything that's as a theory the job is ours either's need to help be in communication with us really so staying with that theme there's a couple questions that came in and I'll display them so one question is what can parents do throughout the summer to best prepare our our kids for school day and I know you touched on some things but I wonder if someone else has more information to add that's another common one that certainly comes up see who wants to jump in well I'll start and then look for someone else to jump in as well but I think for me and you know when many of us McCallum went through this at some point in the past some of us pretty recently speaking for myself and so I think the big thing and I'm gonna pick up where Diane piggy back on Diane's comment just making sure students you know your children feel confident and excited for school you know I think the thing that kind of if the question is a little more academically focused or if some folks are thinking about that reading books which I know many of you are already doing just continuing to foster that love of reading your job is not to teach your children to read that that's the school's job but fostering a love of reading really makes that teaching students to read or read more so much easier so I think that's one playing with numbers and this is about doing worksheets but just playing with numbers you know card games different ways that students can be interacting I think creatively I also think dramatic and imaginative play with your kids is one of the nicest things you can do and I think it's a nice transition from preschool where that is more readily part of the curriculum and it's certainly there in kindergarten but you know I think maintaining that youthfulness and that curiosity is really critical if we're able to I'm getting chats from some of the people on the line on our principals you know if we are able to allow students to go and see the school and check out the neighborhood that'd be a really nice thing as well and you know with the current situation well to see what the guidance is but we'll certainly be communicating throughout about that guidance see if there's anything else people want to hopefully I captured that one will children be able to meet their teacher before the school year starts so typically that would happen in in the spring and with the uncertainty of exactly how fall will look and there's a couple questions about that so I'll probably address that or generally we'd like to see how we can do that it may have to be in a virtual format you know may hopefully not but we're not quite sure we're waiting for some state guidance exactly what the being of a school year will look like but you know our goal would be to certainly have connections made and you know typically the way kindergarten starts and I'll actually turn over a Nick you can talk a little bit about typical years kindergarten orientation and I have no intern I have no inkling that this wouldn't happen this year but kindergarten starts in a very different way than grades 1 through 12 and so I'll turn it over to Nick who can speak to this more directly hi everyone yeah so we do have a structure in place and just the preface to I taught kindergarten for 20 years and in the district so also likely was a and it's my heart and I think all of us love going in the kindergarten but so what the district has is is which I would imagine whatever form school takes will continue is this visiting at small groups and so that happens you know during the beginning of the school so the other chokan go to school for the first year three days and then kindergartens come in and a small group to meet the teacher typically they show them the classroom and the different areas and that way it's a bit of an orientation and a soft start to school and then beyond that at the four in the first few days of first month of school really so much as just helping kids connect to the routines as Diane was talking about it making friends and connecting to each other Thank You Nick appreciate it so next question is just wondering what you know so far about how school work in the fall due to Cogan so actually there's a school committee meeting tomorrow night if you live in Amherst and you have kind of TV then it's on Channel 15 it also is a livestream link if you want watch it that way and I'll be presenting some information about some options it won't be making a recommendation deci which is our state governing board told me this morning that they're gonna make some share their explicit thoughts on it probably two or three weeks from now but at least if you want to get a flavor of the discussion you know I'll be making a rather lengthy I apologize much longer than today presentation tomorrow night you know price at 6:45 or 7 if the meeting starts at 6:30 but I think it's it there's a couple of the things that have to happen beforehand so you know what we know right now is what we have CDC guidance the Center for Disease Control has put out guidance that certainly would impact things like the number of students who could be in a classroom at a table given time and some of the structures of school there's nothing in the CDC guidance based on what we're seeing in Massachusetts right now in terms of numbers that would suggest that school would not occur in the fall you know and we're hoping that doesn't change for both for school but also you know for everyone in Massachusetts but in terms of models there are there will be have to be some kind of differences in terms of the models based on the guidance that received but from from the CDC as well as what we're gonna receive from deci so I wish I had more clarity trust me I really wish I had more clarity on that one right now but we're gonna tomorrow is our first public presentation of what we know what we don't know and what potential options there are for for all students in our districts starting next year so that's sort of where we are you know I think well better direction again Dessie guidance coming out and about two weeks from now and we'll start at that community conversation tomorrow night I think worthwhile to know that we're also going to be surveying families and those of you who are registered which I assume is everyone on this call and if not you can get in touch in the afterwards we'll receive those surveys and we want to gather the feedback from staff and caregivers so that we can take all that into account in all of our decisions making that we're gonna plan to make for the next school year seems like on that theme which makes sense given the world we're living in on June second here the current situation will the opportunities for kids to meet one another systematically playground times that's a really great question you know it makes me think of when we are sending out class lists or things like that in the summer if there's some way to ask for permission perhaps from families to share information so that at least some distance playdates can happen I know you know I've got a young kid and we've been able to try to have some distance playdates it's a little hard if you don't know the other child and but at least being in the same space as I think perhaps we can figure that out or perhaps virtually connect folks so a lot of our parent Guardian organizations order organize your books or misuse me not yearbooks directories each year and I think particularly for kindergarten that's great feedback they think about how to how to make perhaps make some of those connections and and by the way if Debbie who is our communication director put in the chat just when the information when the discussion is tomorrow night and how to access it I'm gonna have Derek and then Lisa jump in with some thoughts on this as well I do again so the one thing that I think maybe once also mention and so we'll talk a little bit I think about coming to school and you have your kindergarten teacher ordinarily and was here thinking about ordinarily you would also be in a classroom each kindergarten class has a teacher and also an assistant teacher and a numbers this ordinarily a teacher that qualified as a teacher but has chosen to become a professional because perhaps they're finally based but you you'll find that when you come to takaka farm well with Pelham forever your child is going to get to know a larger number of adults because we have many many people thankfully they're working on skills and there's a PE teachers music teacher our teachers are lots of different teachers that can become our secretary said please give very very tight with the kindergarten girl so the beautiful part is is that I think you know girls are gonna get tight with the teacher but in results and people like myself as the principal we get to know the names of every single student in our school and we get to know something about our students and their families so so there's this massive group of people who are gonna help sort of envelope people's lives and support you in any way we possibly can so other status until what backside there I think Derek was thinking exactly what I was in terms of for families to be aware of the supports that are in place for these young children that are coming into our schools for many of them they may not have had an earlier schooling experience and so the teachers are prepared to meet and work with a range of students that have may or may not have had previous experiences and so we have all all hands are on deck to support our youngest students and we want to make sure that they feel comfortable and we know how challenged it is challenging it is for families sometimes to leave their babies with us in a new environment and children are often crying and sometimes parents are leaving crying too but we are there and we ensure that children are happy we've even gone so far as sometimes to call Paras afterwards and say guess what they stop crying five minutes after you're left so we want to make sure that your child experiences as a successful entry into the programs and that you feel confident and comfortable with leaving them in our hands and we work really hard at establishing those relationships and building in those supports thank you Lisa I appreciate it I'm just seeing if there's other questions that come through I think one thing that I just want to share while we'll give people another couple minutes see if they have any questions is I wonder if one of the principal can just go through what a typical daily schedule looks like for a kindergartner and how that evolved over the course of the year because we know and when they come in they're coming in from a preschool environment and there's there's a really gradual release of kind of a more structured schedule our elementary schools to be clear don't have bells they don't go off right a lot of first-time parents to the district ask about that and it's a very flexible schedule I wonder if Nik and I ask you Mon cher Yoona speak a little bit about kindergarten schedule okay hi everybody sure I'd be happy to so again we and our schools we like to think of particularly for the first six weeks the first month or more as a time to help children become oriented there's a connection to the concerns to each other and understanding the routines of the classroom at the end of the tiring school so that's the real primary focus and we typically we believe in active learn in the school setting there's a welcoming time and so that the kindergarten teachers to this wonderful job of just welcoming students come whether they're comin off the bus or appearances driven them and guiding them in forward into the classroom and with the wonderful about kindergarten is singing that sense of empowerment as they settle into that full members of the school community before after a welcoming time and those choices that are typically layer at center they gather together for a morning meeting that also introduces things like calendars or ways to greet each other in songs and then after that there would be literacy centers and kids are introduced to the foundation of literacy and learning and developing the love of books and writing and things like that and then after that just the very important snack time where kids have time to socialize and eat and we are committed to taking kids outside and experiencing beautiful nature that's surrounding them like Mike said it defines the Farm to School program and then in terms of coming in there's a transition from outside time and we teach math through exploration and all our kindergarten teachers have been trained in this approach in terms of thinking deeply about math but through play and through games and I would say that each of our schools there's also a project-based approach to kindergarten whether that's around themes connected to the real world and to literacy in the and math as well and I left out of course lunch which is super important is and every kindergarten classroom goes to specials each day and so we have art music PE library and Technology Thank You Nick I appreciate it one that we're hearing a lot or at least people have a lot of different thoughts on this one so I'll just we do lab barring a vaccine we have very serious reservations about sending our kid to school this fall heartbreaking as that would be can you speak to those concerns again I mean I'll take that one on so what I'd say and you'll hear this if you tune in tomorrow night is consistently this district has taken more stringent measures then even have been recommended by the state as it relates to safety in general but particularly this spring we closed school for the given the pandemic before deci and for the state suggested we do we do that we extended it further that once they did finally slow us down and we've been very very cautious quite honestly cause more cautious than some people would prefer about people being in buildings there are districts and I'm not here to criticize them but there are districts that have been made decisions about you know having people back in buildings even if you get belongings and we've been on the opposite end of that and so what I can share with with anyone who's on the call is that if we do work on a plan to come back it's going to be incredibly safe we're gonna follow our CDC guidance we'll see what deci says but we trust our public health guidance and we'll take all the measures that we know are needed to be able to follow and we'll follow those stringently I think we have one of the advantages is that we have a grant we've received it for five years but it started this this year thank goodness and we have a nurse leader who is in her own community one of the head nurses who's on the frontlines of this and she also works with us works with the nurses but also has access to incredible public health information and that's guiding us every step the way so I certainly can't make decisions for families and I completely understand being a parent of young kids myself I completely understand that concern and all I can share is that we will not make would not take steps that are against the guidance received from the public health experts we we don't just follow them we're going beyond them and how we're approaching this and that may mean a slower roll out of of all the things that we like to think about school but we don't take chances of Public Health and what we're feverishly working as we speak frankly on is what are models of school where we can have students in school and have safeguards and have it still feel as much as possible like school for young children so our team has been working really in the last month I would say in last couple weeks in particular about what would that look like I'm not getting ahead of muffed itself to say that you know if you look at the CDC guidance it's going to mean there's fewer students in the classroom and the distancing and and we're looking at our school buildings and how do we make sure that the ventilation systems and all those are at working at the highest level and that may mean some summer where it will mean some summer work on our buildings and you know during normal times you know these concerns weren't so acute but certainly in this period we're taking incredibly seriously and we'll only open school if we feel like we can meet those stringent guidelines received from CDC and others in ways that we feel comfortable with and that's meant sometimes pushing back frankly on what politicians and other folks have wanted us to do or asked us to do but then they this particular district we take it incredibly seriously so that's it can't really answer your question or comment because in every you'll hear this throughout your whole experiences and Amber's and Palin public school family we we can do what we can do and do to support you all and as parents your as parents caregivers I should say your your child's first teacher and we really want to give you the tools that you can make the best decisions that you think are in the best interest of your child and and that's what work on and that's what we'll do we'll have a lot more information again tomorrow evening about some of those though go in probably more detailed and then it'll be it'll be a long presentation about CDC guidelines and how we're thinking about them and how we feel like we can meet them and what the potential implications are so sorry for the long-winded response but I think it's a very real question on the minds of many families and I wanted to be thorough in my response as much as I can be before I finished my presentation probably right before you know meetings at 6:55 or 6:30 tomorrow night so we're still working on it and still getting more guidance from public health folks and we'll work on it from there but one of the things that we've done this spring and that's by the way I mean the collectively do base Moreland so our communication director principals all of us have been incredibly thorough about communication throughout so that was one of the things we did a survey of families for do another one a couple weeks and one of the things the question was asked you're getting enough information from from leadership and that was one of the strongest responses on the survey in terms of feeling like they had accurate information the communication flow was it was a two-way communication flow and they knew what we were doing as we were doing it when we closed school they knew what the plan was as the plan evolved because our state shifted what we they asked us to do in terms of distance learning we were able to communicate that thoroughly about that and if you go to our website and there's a Kovach 19 page and it kind of details especially on the early days how many communications were going home and what they were it's kind of oddly enough of a bit of an oral history over the last two months but certainly that's a public information and and we're happy for you to take a look at it and and share feedback with us that's going to be critically important to CDC is an external group and we also want to know what families feel like they need to make themselves feel comfortable it's always hard you know having done it twice well has six years drop in your kindergarten off is not the easiest thing without a pandemic and so with the additional health risks and health concerns that are going on we certainly understand and acknowledge that and we want to make sure you feel comfortable and confident with our decisions and that they're gonna work as best as best as possible for you given the situation other comments or questions before we transition to talking about common odd days so I don't see any so we're gonna transition a second we're going to I'll give all the principal's just a quick chance to say goodbye and a goodbye message but what's gonna happen after they do that is Diane Chamberlain is príncipe for River Katie Richardson who's yellow language coordinator myself we're gonna stay on we're gonna talk a bit about coming on T's which is our dual language Spanish English program and no one has to stay certainly but if you're interested in finding out more we'll do a brief presentation and again question any answers but thank you all for being on so I'll let mr.
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sure uh mr grippo here miss helen here mr white here uh mr chairman you have a quorum excellent um we will uh dispense with the pledge for this meeting if that's okay with everyone all right cool um well i guess we can go in order then um oh uh mr solomon is there any public comment for this meeting not at this point all right great um so we'll begin with uh 9130 okay that has the is um let's see do i need to share my screen or uh jeff can you show me yeah i can do it i think you have the master copy anyway right so this is 9130 committees everything in black is the same but there was a desire months ago to really provide definitions for each committee so that's what you see in the blue down below the modifications okay it's a four page document so uh you know i don't know if anybody has a specific item they would like me to stop at this is for a third reading so we've been through it twice already right did we make any changes from the last i mean did we make changes last time i don't waiting for some information maybe it's i don't remember so i don't see so all the blue is actually things that we've already seen before so okay right got it i wasn't at this meeting the last the policy meeting last time i forget i was double booked for something and marlene did it so i think there's one thing that i just wanted to bring up and that's under um personnel committee responsibilities which is on page three looks like um if i recall um there have been times where there have been job descriptions for administrative staff like when i guess when when the assistant superintendent came up there may have been other times as well where um at some point the board had to approve those types of job descriptions and jeff i was wondering if you could just sort of expand as to where the source of the job descriptions come from and historically uh should did the personnel committee um approve of them before going to the full board or or how does that process normally work that's a good question because it it is in board policy my job description vins and marlene's the so the superintendent ceo and um uh assistant superintendent are all in policy uh yeah so i i think it's a good question whether that's um a decision of the policy committee or personnel or if it's something that they work on collaboratively yeah because i wasn't sure where yeah where the uh descriptions actually came from if it was codified in policy or if it was a culmination of like you state law and hr like kind of put stuff all together and then you know send it to us to look at or i i wasn't sure what should be if it needed to be clarified because i figured that would be a good time to do it if we had to yeah the um i'm just curious about when the last time 1996 we revised yeah may 1996 was the last time like the superintendent job description was reviewed assistant superintendent was uh well that was when we were looking at the um [Music] the contingency planning we took we made a modification to assistant superintendent and chief operating officer if you remember right but we didn't really go into their job descriptions uh that much it was minor tweaks that was april 2020 um all right uh tim i know you had a question so go ahead yeah yeah thank you adam um a little bit more broadly than just the assistant superintendents does the so i'm just putting on my council my old council cap and i know i'm not there anymore but we would generally the council would generally vote on a job description the personnel committee would vote on a job description and i'm just wondering how is the description how is like what's the job description of a teacher per se is it codified in state law and then that's just known and it doesn't deviate from that because the assistant superintendents i know because we changed from assistant superintendent for greg and then made vin the ceo even though the roles are similar it was the board i think that made those changes so is it like all the jobs in your world or maybe teachers are are specific but then like facilities is something that the board votes on i don't know i'm just kidding yeah the board only addresses uh the job descriptions for the three executive leadership positions um a job description actually could even have union implications um when it's not negotiated with union because i could be construed as a change in working conditions so we have um relatively broad discretion in our job descriptions for teachers and we keep them pretty uh limited in scope um and we work as as things evolve uh you know as needs evolve we kind of address them as they come up but same with you know secretaries are a little bit more rigid in terms of job descriptions maintenance staff has a job description but we don't we are constantly kind of tweaking those things and we don't run them all past the board really it's those three executive leadership positions okay and is that basically just by default that's the way it's been done or is that state law or i'm just curious that state law um it's the way it's been done and the descriptions have been working for us in terms of individual employees uh below the executive level and administrators but uh yeah it's not state law okay i guess the the thing that goes through my mind is um i think it would be valuable for basically everything that goes to the full board to run through a committee first and so if the if the board's going to be voting on something i'd like the um i'd like one of the committees to take it up and so what i was actually talking about as a tweak to this and i consider relatively just a tweak um just for each of the committees to have a catch-all that says not necessarily limited to you know these items because i could foresee a situation in which something like so in if you look at these four specific items none of them really touch the assistant superintendent and rather than getting into a discussion about should it be policy or personnel just leave it open-ended so they so there's no impression that it's limited to these things and it could be something else just well i i don't know if i could get some clarification on that so the are we speaking are you talking about specific to job descriptions and in the personnel role or are you speaking more broadly to all of the different committees and anything that's going before the full board should have already been vetted by a committee both of those things really all right the the si the latter of which is um i i can think of situations where maybe that didn't happen or doesn't necessarily need to no it doesn't necessarily need to i just don't want to be in a situation where it's well it's not listed among its its you know responsibilities really shouldn't be discussing it when i just think it should be a little bit more open-ended it's like a job my guess is many of your job descriptions yeah and something that then says and other responsibilities as required yeah absolutely that that makes sense that none of these i don't think are meant to be an exclusive and fully exhaustive list okay um that it's meant to provide some guidance so let's take a look at the from the top i'll share again and sorry if i missed it no no let's take a look i'm not saying i don't know that it says that and so let's take a look at it and see you know i just want to double check and see if we were to add something that you know this is not an exhaustive list um and could be subject to modification oops um yeah let's so here are the standing committees and it just kind of outlines what the standing committees do no committee shall have the power other than to recommend uh so you know there isn't something in here that says that this the list of uh responsibilities highlights the you know the the committee work and is not fully exhausted we could put a statement to that effect in there that's what the members want to do catherine you had a comment yeah um can you scroll up jeff a little bit pass it to the maybe the beginning of yeah so yeah no go down sorry after the list of standing committees because you could do like sir says curriculum committee responsibilities yeah um you know you could say that the yeah before that that the responsibilities of each of the committees shall include but not be limited to right the following you know what i mean it's that's a pretty easy fix my only comment is and i totally appreciate what tim saying and and i think it's a good idea but if the purpose of this description was to get us you know kind of a real road map as to what these committees are doing yeah you know you are introducing a little bit of lucy goosiness which is fine because we didn't have this much before right so um exclusive of each commit of the responsibilities of each committee or the functions of each one provides highlights of for responsibilities of each committee and or not geez i have something and i'm the keyboard spacing is slightly different oh that's really annoying okay and then if you take out responses and then after curriculum committee you could take out the word responsibilities because it sort of should be for all right yeah carol you want to grab the responsibilities on each one thanks is that in line with what you were thinking tim yeah yeah i mean that makes sense adam oh my only question would be if these are not intended to be exclusive or exhaustive then doesn't that mean that someone finally has to would have to make it make a decision as to where something would be included would that fault the chairman or where where would uh yeah i think it falls based on what's said you know up here oops i'm sorry again new keyboard oh nice picture yeah i have no idea where that is but it's beautiful let's see what am i trying to get to here yeah [Music] um i just i could also foresee situations where you have two where makes sense in two different committees to have a discussion each of them to take it up separately but for different parts almost everything touches budget so if there's a personnel or a policy oftentimes so budget or finance committee may want to discuss it i don't mean to i don't want to create overkill or anything here it's just to you know that you want i want things to before it gets to the full board i do think uh items should be vetted by committee well i mean the superintendent's job description is a an example that you brought up it's indicated in our policy but certainly you know personnel it would be something that would make sense there too you know in the actual draft of the policy for the um personnel committee right in 91 30 it it does um it talks about the process of the hiring of the superintendent uh lead the process of evaluation of the superintendent so you know could you argue that that's where the job description work should go or should that go in the policy committee you know yeah that i mean that's not something i'm trying to discuss that's not really the intent it was just more broadly speaking like job descriptions yeah historically what has it been you explained that so yeah okay so uh with that one little change then i think uh well i don't know if it's little but it i think i guess it serves as a a release valve i suppose right a catch-all right okay disclaimer yeah uh all right any other comments on uh 9130 yeah one other for me okay um with regard to policy i don't i don't know if uh this would uh under policy it mentions monitor implementation of board of ed policy i'm just wondering if uh it seems to me like a lot of uh a lot of our stuff falls under uh state statute so even add that just monitor board policy and the related state statute aspects um okay so that probably indicates monitor implementation of board of education policy i think that is a generic phrase which would be inclusive of compliance with state law because his state law changes policy changes so we're kind of monitoring that it's we could really get into the weeds on all of these if we wanted to yeah that's fine it would we um what we discussed before we're basically avoiding the weeds and i prefer that yeah yeah 95 percent of the time we're we're making a change here in policy it's because state law changed right reason so yeah so the monitoring yeah yeah yeah we'll yeah we'll leave that can i can i also just say one other thing that um my experience on the board has been that there really hasn't been a problem really figuring out which which committee should be um you know looking at a particular issue or whether it's you know i i just wouldn't want to get too rigid about how this all worked because i think it works pretty well already you know and um i think it is up to the chair to kind of you know maybe control or monitor how things are being handled but um i don't feel like we haven't been able to figure it out to date so i just i don't know if that gives you any comfort tim um but no i mean i'm sure i'm sure it can all work out i just i i was thinking about the like i mentioned before and a lot of job descriptions it just has a catch all at the bottom and any other responsibilities that you know right right right yep okay um any further comment on 9130 all right great um so we will move on to 93 21.
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Shea say good bye coming today I just I'll see this quickly so I mentioned earlier I know it's difficult times there's a lot going on in the world a lot of complex stuff happening in the world well as appearing again of a 17 year old in nineteen year old I remember starting with my kids in kindergarten like it was yesterday right so when the blink of an eye it goes so rapidly I hope you're all enjoying the moment yeah time with your four five year old whatever works thank you Thank You Derek okay and now go to Pelham sorry got the drink there Leah skipped up Gran's not going anywhere so she's she stayed on the call so sorry about that lovely to see your cat behind you Lisa this is the the way this is the way the world these days so ok suddenly if you wanted to say anything before people before you departed hello I just want to say thank you as well for attending today and you know it's unfortunate I wish we could see you all because it's hard not having that face-to-face in-person connection but I can see you're there in the chat and and that's great that you were able to make time in your day to join us I do want to say that I am up at the school three days a week and aside from that I'm accessible by email and by phone Lee will also be around and available for any questions and I will be working with Lee to help her with the transition for kindergarten and in explain to the whole process and what we do to ensure that things go seamlessly so if you have any questions feel free to call the school the number is three six two 1101 that's my direct line and if you leave a message I will be sure to get back to you and I'll leave it for Lee to say something else but goodbye great thank you Lisa so I would just say to the Pelham families who are on today communication went out from me yesterday with some information about some virtual community forums in the next few weeks so I'm hoping that you're able to join those we can talk a little bit more about kindergarten or any questions that you have and again I'll just reiterate how excited I am to be joining the district and the community at Pelham and to get to know you and your children thank you so much Lee take it easy and good luck with your transition your life transition government happy - happy to have you on the team so Thank You Lee and mr.
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i'll throw that up on the screen now this one um is really kind of a small tweak where we indicated the secretary shall supervise uh notification of board meetings um meaning the secretary of the board not executive secretary so that was a that was really the significant change i remember if you recall i think even maybe at the first reading and maybe carol could clarify this for me but i want to say there was stuff about now that was a different one i was thinking about like remember the one with the tapes and they need to be kept at certain places no but this one said that the secretary was responsible for making the notification right the secretary right right posting of minutes and things like that yep i think we made that modification the first read yes um are there any uh is there any further comment on this one no sir okay tim just making sure i'm good okay uh okay um well that's all we have on this agenda um can i have a motion to or are there any motions for these uh two policies is there anything that says shall i make a motion well i need the i need the numbers again okay sure 91 30 and 93 21 91 okay um and carol will put in the titles thereof so i move that uh i think that we're moving policy 91-30 and policy 93-21 to the full board for a third reading second third and final third and final middle yeah third and final reading yes is there a second sec second okay is there any further discussion all in favor good question yeah oh what unanimous no public comments either no further public comment uh any new business i guess or anything like that a new business oh um oh yeah i don't know i always have to ask rtc tim's always the last one i know i can imagine somehow i'm not surprised uh yeah i don't so i don't know i'm thinking this is probably policy um hiring policy uh not to discuss tonight well i don't think we need to discuss it tonight i guess i was just curious about um uh our policy on uh background checks and we could discuss it at a later date but i just wanted to mention it as something too well we have a policy on yeah and it was revised last year as we went through if you guys you know that were here last year working on a lot of this uh the if you recall the fingerprinting commission um that one i was on yeah that all got resolved and we worked out a a policy so you know what uh maybe tomorrow carol forward you guys everything that we have on background and policy yeah that one was wasn't that like two years in the making because it was okay because we what happened is our state law didn't um didn't follow federal law and so the fbi was threatening connecticut to no longer do back background checks and so eventually we changed the state law and i changed our policy all right yeah okay i remember that and then so and that's the one where it's uh there's a huge a backlog or the background check doesn't follow the teacher or it does or yeah they take months so we hire somebody contingent upon a successful background check um because if we waited for the background check it could be five months which is a little unnerving obviously you know depending on the role of the teacher and what level of or coach or whoever and what level of uh supervision they have but you know they did put in a new the state put in a new practice i don't know carol two three years ago where if you know you're you're hiring somebody you have to send a form to their previous employer to confirm that they didn't have a verified dcf issue because that will typically come back faster than even a background check well but the um the uh time on certain districts can be really lengthy so but we'll send you everything on that tomorrow okay thank you yeah all right is there any other uh new business no all right seeing seeing none uh looks like uh can i have a motion yesterday oh oh okay that's emotion in that motion i've done that before i've made a motion to adjourn and someone wanted to speak and then everyone went judge earned and then after so uh okay so we have a motion to adjourn and we have a second yes all in favor all right the eyes have
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yappi okay everybody hi yeah so I can't wait to meet you all in person and greet you and your children and typically we have a an event where we would also welcome you and whether we do that virtually or not so just be a more a smaller eventually we could see you and you could ask us questions please feel free to reach out to me at the fe n @ AR PS Oro org and also you can get a flavor wildwood in any of the schools by checking out our websites and some of the online resources that we've created during this time of distance learning so once again welcome and I can't wait to see you and meet you in person thank you so much so at this point we're gonna transition to talking about coming on dis I'll do a sort of a short spheal spheal excuse me and then I'll turn it over to Diane and Katy actually I'll get them on now so and they can share some pieces so this is the first year that we've had our common aunties program it's a dual language program and we've been talking about it it was multiple iterations so I've been in the district I should have said this is the end of my 19th year and the district I started in as elementary teacher at Fort River actually 5th and 6th grade that was a principal at Crocker farm and then it was did some curriculum work at central office but I've been here a while and so this was sort of the third iteration of those 19 years when dual language programming was talked about and fortunately we're able to do it and it really has multiple goals and so there's certainly academic goals and can you go over some of the research and diane about that but also the cultural goals are equally important and it's been a wonderful success for students this year and so we are looking you know I think to the conversation earlier we don't quite know what our models going to be next year but we are committed to comandante's we found it to be incredibly successful program for our students and our families and we will be working in common on taste of the model that school occurs in in the fall again we don't exactly know the model but it's the the commitment is there regardless this point I'll turn it over to Katie and to Diane and Katie did you want me to pull up slides or do you want to speak to them what would you be charged sure let's go ahead and set okay I will set them up give me one minute introduce yourself Katie for that because you haven't been on well I'm getting a month hi everyone I'm Kate yeah well I'm dual language coordinator happy to talk with you all tonight we're really excited that we're gonna be going into our second year of the coming on taste program and we look forward to welcoming a new class so we're just gonna share a little information this the general information and then answer any questions that come up for you I feel like I could talk a really long time about this because there's so many details and you know things that are exciting about it and and seeing how it's grown even in the first year but you know we'll try to give you the short overview so as as dr.
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Morris stated the goals really of a dual language program are always bilingualism by literacy and cultural competence and academic achievement right so there's really maintaining that high level of achievement for all students but doing it across two languages so that gives a really great opportunity for our students that could be English learners that could be Spanish learners or could be bilingual students so this is kind of the gist right is that this is a really unique program it's an additive model where we're looking for building true bilingualism and by literacy across the the grade span so we have a commitment from the district to continue adding a grade level each year and going through sixth grade and then hopefully long term we'll be looking at moving it up from there we know it does take a significant amount of time to develop that real bilingualism and by literacy but we know that the outcomes are awesome in terms of academic achievement and reading and the goal of really being in a global community and having the skills to move forward in that way so this is just a little bit about our mission which dovetails really nicely with the school vision at Fort river that were working really hard to celebrate and integrate the cultures of all of our students and to build our students to their fullest potential Dyanne feel free to jump in with any time great great so this is again real short version of how it works children spend half their day working with one teacher and half their day working with the other teacher the we really try to adhere to a 50/50 model so that we're getting the same amount of exposure to both languages and building capacity there let's see yep so children will learn each subject in both languages so our model for kindergarten this year was the literacy pieces the reading and writing happens through and integrated either social studies or science unit and if you can follow the it's hard to explain it's easier to look at this piece but we basically had Spanish taught science first and then the next unit was a social studies unit so the two languages were kind of switching back and forth in terms of the science and social studies so that the students are exposed to the language of both content areas and then of course reading language arts is taught in both languages and math is worked across both languages as well you see and we have been providing transportation across the district for families who are coming from the other school zones we'll see how that fits into all of the details as we move forward but it is a fort River based program with the possibility for students from other areas of the district to join so here's just a couple questions as to you know what how you would think about is this a good fit so do you already speak Spanish or are you interested in in having a bilingual you know schooling experience for your kids and it that like I said can go both ways it's about developing those positive cultural attitudes and things like you know you have to stretch a little because not all of our families who are working with students in this program are bilingual themselves so you have to be ready to give that stretch and help support them in the ways you can knowing that you know you may be just an English speaker or just a Spanish speaker I think that's let's say yeah homework in the second language not that we give much homework especially in the early grades really we just want kids reading but so we provide tools to help with that Katie I'll jump in here cuz I know we've just discovered this kind of got reiterated recently is that as English speaking families we are now if you're in this program you're now put in the place of what all English Learner families have experienced that they don't have the fluency in the language to necessarily be able to help their child acquire that language and that has to be a discomfort that you're able to sit in and we're going to try to help you the best we can on how to bridge between English and Spanish but it's the the experience of the English language learner that you and your family will experience in a way that you have it in previously previously great yeah so it's a unique experience have everybody is a language learner in this context and we try to think of everyone at Fort River as a language learner yep even in English we say you know academic language isn't anybody's first language so we're always focused on that and how to make language accessible and this is just an additional piece of that so there's a couple links we can share this presentation if folks want to be able to access the enrollment policy and the family compact kind of gives what we're hoping families will agree to and have an awareness of when they do enroll their children in the dual language program so that gives a little more detail and kind of the trajectory of bilingualism committing to having kids in the program for the whole duration things like that so we can share that information and let's say we'll go to the chat and see what folks are asking how does the wait list for out of district case students work okay so the wait list and all of the lottery has been postponed because our enrollment has been slower and you know we're waiting til we're in a good place to figure out whether the numbers can say exactly as planned and where enrollment is I don't know if dr.
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Morris if you want to say anything else about that yeah so I mean I think just to be when I think out of district means different things to different people so I want to make we're being clear and responding so I'm a zooming but I could be wrong that at a district and that question is referring to non Fort river district but there's two sort of added districts one is out of district which is not in the Fort River catchment area or enrollment zone and then there's a school choice program that we have for students who don't live in Amherst and so those are two different things I want to but I think Katie described accurately the process for students who don't live in the Fort River area I think once we know what our model is for fall we will be doing a lottery I suppose we could have pulled the lottery but it just didn't feel quite right until we knew what the model was and knew what our numbers are going to be so I think sometime the next month I'm optimistic that we're able to do that and and then it works like a waitlist and that we offer it and sometimes families have expressed an interest and then you know we have families who change their mind we had that last year in the first year and I imagine we'll have it again but when we do the lottery everyone knows where they are on the waitlist so that if people are aware they're there first in the waitlist could be that a family just moves away because something about parents employment whatever reason then will go down that waitlist there is a we try to maintain a 50/50 balance as best we can of students with a Spanish language background and students who are more English dominate or have an English language background and that's based on the research of what's the benefit for the program the language about language models both in English and Spanish in the program and so there that also affects how the wait lists work and how the lottery works but I wonder if maybe on that slides I can put the enrollment policy as a link so that people could access it directly instead of the slides they couldn't because of the way it was but I grate that up there I hope you just quickly say the sort of order of how the enrollment works so there's Spanish speaker seats that are held which is up to half of the program and so that would be first two Spanish speakers in the four rivers own and then two Spanish speakers that are in the wild wooden and cracker farm zones and then from there we go to English speakers in the fort River zone and then English speakers in the wider district so that's kind of the order of of the lottery group as we work through the registration process and when we go this one next night you see them I'm missing one about but let me do this so like I'll give this to Katie and Diane and then I can fund Emily there's one related up above for sure Mike so yeah so I'll jump in Katie and fill out the areas for me too so it tends to be the data shows us that students acquire language I made a very rapid rate bilingually and the neuro plasticity of the brain grows phenomenally when kids are being taught in two languages so that said students do tend to acquire the skill of reading in both languages at a little bit different pace than if you were just learning one language at a time but data also tells us by about third grade it all evens out so at the end of kindergarten your child might be reading at what we call a level D in English where if they if they were being taught in both languages and perhaps your child is a really strong reader and may have been at level F but because they're learning two different languages we look at those those assessment scores together and if they're making the years progress by putting those scores together then they're right on and our kids have shown the data this year has been phenomenal that the kids are really acquiring the language at the pace that we want them to so math tends to come along right along because math is a little bit more of a universal language but the acquisition of reading skills will potentially be slower than if you were learning just a monolingual path but like I said that evens out and all the data testing formalized testing says that actually long-term benefits are advancing if you're just advancing beyond the modeling path hope I said that well alright it's not please a put a chat in and we'll get we'll get deeper into it and I think this is the one I missed earlier I apologize so I'll just say when we'll Fort River kids find out if they're in the program if we choose it as a preference I think we the only thing that is borrowing us from doing that actually right now is we don't actually know how many students what our models going to be so that's the only thing I think once we get clear on our model that'll be the first step figuring out how many students and how many foreign River students who express in preference and then we'll do the lottery and go from there but you know throughout you know miss Richardson and others and Prime Minister Torres will be communicating with all families so people are aware of where the process is and we apologize that it's not quite as smooth as you know if we drew up this policy last year we made to some adaptations work with the School Committee on that based on feedback we heard from families and the school committee's feedback and it was actually right about to be approved if I remember Katie and then our meetings started getting canceled so we did you know get this approved this spring and a virtual meeting but you know we're having to adapt given the situation so we apologize and for for everyone for the staff in particular they'd love to have the lists up and running and be reaching out and we had lots of plans for summer that we're adjusting for for incoming kindergarten students in coming out days so the thing that I can commit you is that we'll continue to communicate frequently so you know where we are in the process on that point I can say we're thinking about we've been really lucky to have some grant funds to support building our bilingual programs and so we're hoping to have some opportunities for incoming families you know nothing major because it's not age-appropriate but just you know some periodic meetings some opportunities to start engaging in Spanish to meet the teachers things like that over the summer so once we know you know a little bit more we will be reaching out with some opportunities to connect sure got a couple more comments in there so thank you so much this is where we're hoping for that who is more two-way so this is great so will you enlarge class size in first grade if this year needs to be smaller for kovat allow new entries for first grade I think until we know the model it's really hard to answer those very reasonable and good questions and that's sort of holding us up unfortunately on this I think frankly the CDC guidance is not going to allow for larger class room sizes but I think you know I understand the question to be perhaps grade level or cohort sizes and as the models get developed and again we'll be presenting some of those options and letting you know when we're supposed to receive guidance from Dessie in coming weeks tomorrow night and that'll allow us to start making decisions along those dimensions but right now we're having a hard time making definitive statements on it because we don't want to make them until we really know what exactly what the school models look like next year Kati Diane anything you want to add her I think in general it would be definitely a big shift in our plan to allow any new entries in first grade or at any grade level other than kindergarten unless they're a newcomer Spanish speaker coming into the district we're really focusing on having students come in in kindergarten because everything's so uncertain you know we probably can't say that set in stone but our understanding from other districts that have been doing this a long time is really to start them every one in kindergarten and to move that group through and going to the there's a question about sibling preference so the policy has approved is that siblings do get priority within their group so if you have a sibling say in let's say English speaker from Fort River then you would be top of that list right or if you're in a speaker zone for cracker farm you'd be top of that group does that make sense so there's that's one question um yeah thank you for the rest they're more comments and Maria Lucia is on here so I'm just gonna give her a shout-out for in her other with her other hats and I think she's on the Gulf with but we are really and maybe it is worth saying and Katie and I and you can jump in we're incredibly fortunate that we have a partnership with UMass they support us both in terms of professional development they give us professional guidance they're connected staff are connected to Ma Bay which is the multi-state Association of bilingual education got it finally right it used to be Massachusetts now it throws me off that they're multi-state but they the the big game in town in New England so that we're consistently improving the program we're really pleased with the first year how it went like Diane and Katie said and we are dedicated to continuous improvement was said in the earlier conversation and so we're we you know eight a program you know we had folks come in and assess how we're doing make recommendations for the future and you know so I think we're really really lucky that we're not on that island which there are many of these programs in Massachusetts particularly the western part of Massachusetts growing so we have some nice partners now Holyoke and Springfield's planning on building out a program but having some professional expertise incredible and professional expertise and guidance has been so reassuring for a program that hasn't happened in our district before so not in the same way it is now so thank you Mary Louise say with your other hat on one of the other questions that kept coming up last year is who's going to teach the program so I would just like to put a plug in that we're really proud that our founding teachers are returning we've got a great staff I've really committed folks and as we grow the program we were actually able to secure the first grade teacher for next year know as the kindergarten cohort so it's kind of moving along with them our kindergarten teacher will stay but we had an intervention teacher that we hired that will be moving into first grade so again the kindergarten teachers already have a really strong relationship with one another are working very well with one another and have founded the program and are moving into the year - it's great so I saw there was a question that came up of I emailed just to me but just want to note that someone has a question of whether their registration went through or not certainly junior torres would be the person to contact it's T I can put her or maybe Debby can if she's on the live stream put her email address in so if there's any questions about making sure it went through I'm one of those people - I always want like the return receipt and all that kind of stuff so I get it but she'd be the person just to send a quick line to you and check in to make sure that what got submitted went through it's very unusual because Skinner go and registration is usually this having done it a sort of momentous parent event where you go in and even the registry you're just filling out paperwork mules metaphorically significant more significant and doing electronically is not quite the same thing so I'll put her email in the chat and certainly please be in touch with her and she's wonderful and wonderfully responsive if there's any questions about that it should also put Mildred Martinez actually in as well I would email both of them were or our current situation both of them have been involved in that process and it actually probably Mildred is the first right Judy rose more for school choice but let me just make sure I have Mildred's email right yes I do and so I apologize but there you go there's Mildred email and so if you want to check in about how that's with her she's the Registrar for the elementary schools performing had that job and times looking funny for all of us so I forgot that about that transition for a second but I would just send an email to Mildred and she'll have that information are there questions for any of us well I think before I do some closing things I'll give Katie and Diane an opportunity if there's anything else you'd like to share no I mean I think really we're just excited to talk with you more when we have more specifics we can share and you know I hope that soon as has dr.
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Marr said we're all really anxious to know what the models will be and be able to start planning so certainly the question about how are we thinking about keeping the 50/50 model we are of course but we've you know I have a zillion different scenarios going through my head of what's that look like great and and we don't know where we're gonna land yet so we will be in touch but certainly just reach out as you have questions we're happy to you know engage with with you at any point as you're thinking mister the only other thing I want to say is if your child's not in the program it doesn't mean they're not connected to multiculturalism and they're definitely connected to the program just by being at another kindergartner but also because we've tried to infuse multi-language multilingualism and multiculturalism throughout the building so it's not it's not a loss model it's a it's a gain model no matter where you are for sure and I'll just tell a little anecdote that I think is worth mentioning so earlier this fall's early I'm gonna say it was October day and I'll probably remember we had a visit from the Massachusetts School Building Authority so we're in the pipeline for potentially a future either or building project and so these are mostly architects engineers and they're coming to look at the school from a technical site and so you know they do like to look into classrooms and in our application we mentioned that we had to do a language class program because it has implications for likely and we might build it and and so we this group of and I'm not trying to stereotype but folks who really care deeply about education but they're not they're not educators they really want to support children and teachers to have wonderful schools and so the last thing they do is they take a tour and you know mostly we're going down into the boiler room and places that frankly I'm no use and then don't really know what's happening and the last thing they'll do in their whole tour is they want to see classrooms and said you know where would you like to go and they were you know these folks who the whole time very businesslike very professional we're just like can we please go to see the Dual Language Program never seen one before we want to see it and so of course we took them there and they really wanted to see the Spanish in particular most of the people actually all the people from MSB on the tour work no one identified as being spanish-speaking and they were so blown away walking into a kindergarten room in the second month of a dual language room with the engagement and how much students were already starting to speak and clearly understanding the language but also understanding what they were doing and the teachers ability to communicate in a language that half the students had no exposure to prior to six weeks before which is incredible and so that image stays with me because I think it does feel a little bit like magic because if you put a bunch of US adults in that setting we would have a hard time acquiring that second language in the same rate and pace that young students do but they are wonderfully like sponges in terms of both engagement but also about their learning and it's it's been incredible to see over the course of the year the progress that our students have made and so certainly this is a parental decision we hope people are interested in the program I think there's last year we had a long wait list and we were not able to get to every nearly half of the wait list folks who wanted to participate and I think if if this year taught us anything it's that we want to continue to expand program and hence our commitment to even in this awkward time where we don't have everything clear we're fully committed to the program continuing and thriving in the future so that's where we are with with comandante's if there are questions perhaps Katie you could put your email on the chat as well because it comes up with a link on the YouTube that people can directly clink she's she's the coordinator program certainly get in touch with me or Diane as well but we really appreciate you being on the call and oh yeah Katie has another good idea which I just noticed one of the things that we'll see if we can pull up I'm not sure we can get it up that quickly but we did a window into Arps episode which is kind of like a monthly or a little more show similar to this just it's in person in Amherst media or public access channel it tapes it and we interviewed a staff member but also a parent who spoke about the program and they could they did it much more justice than we did today they were wonderful so we'll see if we can get that up we may end this call but I'll put in the chat probably two minutes from now if I'm able to pull it up unless there's anything Kitty or Diane want to say to give me time to pull it I just thought it would be a great way to hear more I think hearing from parents it's a great way for folks that are coming into the program to be thinking about it and and learning Marshall oh my got it all right let's see if I encourage you not to let your monolingualism limit your potential in this program I'm a story at Brenda and though we are all trying to learn along the way and it's okay if you don't know Spanish and your kids can learn it anyway and so that last link is the it's about 25 minutes but again I think it gets into a lot more detail than we did today and shows you both the staff and the teacher the staff the teacher role but also the parent role and what they're experiencing as well so again please thank you for staying on for an extended call on a Sunday afternoon we hope you go outside and enjoy your kids and enjoy this time of year and continue to engage with us ask us questions and we'll do the same the other way around so thank you all thank you thank you
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the tuesday june 2nd 2020 electronic meeting of the ann arbor planning commission this meeting is in accordance with the executive order from the governor to affect social dissenting and mitigate the spread of covid19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are any technical issues public comment will be available via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-853-5247 this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 18 t or i'm sorry yeah 18t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn and we'll begin the meeting this evening with the roll call commissioner woods here commissioner briggs here commissioner mills commissioner milstein here commissioner gabe randall commissioner ackerman here commissioner sovay here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here we have a quorum thank you do we have any introductions this evening we have one um joining us later we will have cynthia redinger a transportation engineer for the city both of our petitions this evening had some traffic related questions and so she's available to address any questions that may come up great thank you um do i have a commissioner that will move the agenda move by commissioner break seconded by commissioner woods um any discussion or changes to the agenda see no one all those in favor please say aye hi host is approved um before us this evening we have the may 19th 2020 uh meeting minutes that we received uh momentarily ago um yeah if you and i would just say they were provided quite late if you haven't had a chance to review them it's perfectly okay to postpone consideration of those to the following meeting all right do i have a commissioner that will move uh the minutes moved by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner gibrandal do we have any discussion on the meeting minutes commissioner briggs i just i only got a chance to skim like the first page so i'm not sure would you like to move i'll move to postpone if others are in the same place than i am i'll second that second by commissioner abrams any discussion on the postponement all those in favor please say aye to postpone hi oppose all right postponed um [Music] moving on to reports from city administration city council planning manager planning commission officer committees and we will begin with our city council representative uh commissioner ackerman thank you mr chair um city council met last night and a few updates uh relevance to this body that i'd like to share with you um the first was with respect to our ongoing initiatives to close sidewalk gaps um traditionally the city has funded uh building sidewalks where there aren't any today by assessing property owners on which the the sidewalk gap exists um you know there there are issues with that they are general social good it puts you know a significant burden on that exact location um and so to explore other funding mechanisms city council asked staff to develop a potential ballot language for a sidewalk gap millage so in addition to renewing our street bridge and sidewalk millage that we've traditionally had in november of 2020 for five years we would also consider an additional 0.2 millage for install the installation of sidewalk that doesn't exist today um the exact language of that of the the ballot initiative would be it is what we've asked staff to develop and they'll get back to us in july with a few options for our consideration um so big thanks to staff for their proactive work it's been a topic of conversation at the city council table for some time but it's just kind of languished as an idea until they brought this back so very grateful for for them moving the ball forward um additionally city council did adopt the 820 carbon neutrality plan last night this is a seven strategy living document meaning that it's not signed and sealed last night it's going to change and evolve as we learn more about the latest science the latest technology and changes in federal state regulation and funding as well as our partnership with dta will evolve certainly as well over the next 10 years um just as a preview these seven strategies include powering our electric grid with 100 renewable energy switching our appliances and vehicles from gasoline diesel propane and natural gas to electric significantly improving the energy efficiency in our homes businesses schools places of warship recreational sites and government facilities reducing the miles we travel in our vehicles by at least 50 which includes some land use and zoning changes changing the way we use reuse and dispose of materials enhancing the resilience of our people and our place and a general catch-all strategy that captures miscellaneous actions that don't filter into one of the other cities so very exciting step forward a huge development for our new office of sustainability and innovation led by dr missy stoltz who will be fully funded in her budget this coming year to start making headway on this uh very progressive in my marketplace um the final item i wanted to share with you is that city council did approve a resolution to close downtown streets in consultation with the business associations to allow outdoor dining at our local restaurants in our downtown so soon we'll be releasing more detailed plans which i'm sure you'll be able to read about in the media and i encourage folks to come out and support local businesses who have been hurting pretty bad over these last few months of course practicing the safety precautions that you need to keep you and your family safe thank you um mr leonard do you work for us um just following up on um uh commissioner ackerman's report from city council the transportation team has been doing great work in that regard i wanted to share with you and the public healthy streets program information it's a website available at the city at a2gov.org healthy streets this has a lot of information about how the city is approaching this additionally there's a public input tool that provides information for where you can submit information about your interest in in a particular geography or type of response for healthy streets so some great resources apart from that the working session scheduled for next week will be as a bit of a a bit of a uh hodgepodge um in addition to the a20 uh document that commissioner ackerman just referenced i'm going to invite dr missy stoltz or in her team to provide a brief overview of what that document says to get you start to thinking about how it may or may not relate to land use policy going forward i'm also going to invite in deb um one of our one of mine one of your favorites who runs our capital improvements program um to give you a snapshot of where that process is sort of mid-stream um if you have any questions about what's happening i know typically you only see that sort of leading up to adoption so this is an opportunity for a checkpoint and then in addition to healthy streets i'm going to invite plant transportation planner eli cooper to talk about the healthy streets initiative a little bit more detail as well as the status of the city's update to the transportation plan and that's all i have i'm sorry mr winter uh also planning commission reviewed some cosmetic changes to the udc that clarifies distinctions between what is requested in site plans and area plans if you recall city council passed that first reading and hopefully that will move forward at second reading as well great thank you any planning commission officers and committees any reports this evening okay let's see noah uh we'll move on to audience participation um this is an opportunity for persons to speak corrupt about an issue that is not listed in the public hearings on this agenda so this is you can speak to the planning commission about anything other than the valhalla and the liberty project uh to comment on such other matters other than valhalla and the liberty project please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 926-3370-3308 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we meet we may hear you clearly please see your name and address at the beginning of your comments so this is the time for anybody to speak about any subject other than the two petitions that we have before us this this evening so you are able to speak about anything other than valhalla and the liberty project mr leonard do we have any yes a caller with phone number ending with five zero zero you have three minutes to address the planning commission i'm sorry i pushed the wrong button i wanted to talk about blah blah blah okay sorry no there'll be another opportunity for that i'll call back sorry no other indication of speakers okay thank you um all right moving on to public hearings for next business meeting mr leonard yes we have uh uh three primary agenda items um one is uh the return of 2800 jackson road uh it's a site plan for two hotels uh the petitioner has followed up on some of the requests to reevaluate the interaction with the right-of-way and some landscaping for those landscaping changes then we have two new items appearing on your agenda one is the proposed site plan for city council for a home to hotel this is a proposal to demolish an existing building and construct a four-story hotel with 115 rooms on a 2.6 acre parcel located at 361 west eisenhower parkway it will include 115 car parking lot and two driveways that access onto signature boulevard then we also have a item for a series of rezonings the city has had submitted earlier last year a set of proposed annexations of properties from scio township pittsfield township and ann arbor township while about 100 of those properties were submitted only about only 26 of those were approved by the state um so those are all from scio township we are proposing to rezone those properties um so bear with me they uh the properties in question are 560 570 allison drive 404 barber avenue for 10 barber avenue 25 70 25 76 25 82 30 and 30 to 14 dexter road 2510 miller road 410 parkwood street and 2565 and 2850 valley drive all these properties are proposed to be zoned from township to r1c single family dwelling then 3428 porter and 147 167 175 225 235 255 363 367 and 371 south wagner road as well as 153 west over 2 2 1 westover and 260 westover are being proposed to are proposed for rezoning from township to r1d single family zone thank you for letting me get through thank you mr leonard and commissioner woods you have your hand up yes um so mr leonard it sounded like a lot of things were not approved is that correct and yes can you give us a sense of what happens with those properties at this point sure at this point they still remain in the adjacent townships i think jeff khan from our team is working with folks from public services on sort of what the next steps of that process are for those properties if there's any sort of subsequent appeal or further dialogue with the state regarding that but but the short answer for the interim is if that decision just stands then those properties would remain in the townships and then we would reconsider them with any future annexation petitions either if the city re-initiated some different capacity or if the property owners themselves elected to annex so in this case the property owners themselves were not requesting it correct the city was initiating these annexations okay thank you you're welcome thank you all right moving on on our in our agenda to item nine e unfinished business valhalla ann arbor site plan annexation and rezoning for city council approval our procedural evening uh will be a presentation from the petitioners for them to speak and present their project for up to 10 minutes it will then be followed up by a staff report for mr kowalski followed by a public hearing and then discussion and just give me a moment we have quite a few project representatives that i am going to add to the meeting hello uh we're just loading it up so one quick second uh while we put all the petitioners or yeah all the petitioners and representatives so we will be getting started momentarily um i think so just give me a moment i'm trying to uh get the presentation pulled up here for us sounds good i don't see our traffic engineer coming up nor do i see our civil engineer coming up todd's there there he is there's julie you all right are we ready to go mr liner i am are you ready to go mr moore yep all right um all right we will begin with our presentation mr moore take it away you have 10 minutes uh along with your team to address the planning commission this evening uh mr leonard cut me off at six minutes so that uh bradstreet our planner can have the time after that i think i can fit everything and we'll see um i'm brad moore with jay bradley moore and associates architects i'm here on behalf of the hala project team i have with me tonight representatives of the development group as well as my co-architects for the project hlr architects and other members of the development team including our civil engineer todd pascoe with atwell our planner brad straiter eric with catalyst partners our energy consultant who can speak to the sustainability aspects of our project especially as compared to single family uses our traffic consultant julie kroll and others bob lamkin is here tonight representing hlr bob and i graduated together from the u of m architectural college here and one of our last co-projects you may remember is 615 south main so we look forward to reprising our success uh we've all worked very diligently um for nearly a year now um to craft the proposal that's uh for you now um i'm gonna have to move quickly to cover a lot of ground so uh i apologize for the brevity but i had the time i have this is a quick location map showing where the project is in the southwest quadrant of the city it is highlighted with the red dashes it is located north of briarwood and south of the big house next this is uh the next slide is a quick aerial view uh contemporary uh shot recently this shows the site um as it lays near bush's market across the street and surrounded by the u of m golf course on three sides next slide this shows some historic context for the site this is just after world war ii about 1947 when land development patterns were starting to change in the south side of town from the traditional agricultural uses you can see some of the farmland is being carved up into single-family lots both west and south of the u of m golf course next this shows the 17 existing parcels uh all but two of which are in pittsfield township this project will result in the voluntary annexation of these parcels that be no quote-unquote forced annexations most of these are unwell and septic the next slide um i want to speak to the fact that um the about a decade ago um the city council uh created a new zoning district called r4e this classification was intended to accommodate additional density within the city while fostering more sustainable forms of development um they didn't re-zone any land when they created this new zoning district it was anticipated that land already zoned otherwise would be rezoned or land that was annexed into the city would carry this new zoning the they set forth in their creation of this selling district some significant criteria to make parcels eligible for this r4e zoning including they had to be on a significant transit corridor into the city that had a bus service route i had to have access to public lands school shops and services all while having a low impact on adjacent property and we believe that now hala project meets all of these criteria uh this map before you describes some of the uh services in shops in the area as well as development patterns in the area brad strata will speak more at length about this particular slide next this shows the site relative to the 5 15 and 30 minute walking radius as well as to the designated bike routes through the city it's an eminently walkable site services right across the street a 15-minute walk puts you to the u of m stadium and 22 minutes by the way it takes is what it takes to get to washington dairy by my stride next slide this shows the site's proximity to the parks that are on the southwest side of ann arbor there are plenty of public lands available to people within walkable distance go ahead to the next slide this shows the slight proximity to the city's bus system there are two bus lines that go right past the system which connected via several other stops to all the other routes available in the city next and this slide shows that this the university bus service is also in a walkable distance just down at stadium boulevard so you could connect to the university bus service as well next this slide shows in blue the new pedestrian access we're providing to connect the site both to the intersection at scio church road and down to ann arbor saline road and also to the sidewalk along the old main street spur we have two entrances to the building uh to the project rather one is off the old main street spur to the south uh west corner and the other is on the curve or the bend along uh that transition on main street there that's a right in and right out only designation and then on the north side of the site there's an emergency access only connection for the fire department next the uh this is an overlay from matwell that shows uh the significance about a minute brad yep that shows the significant landmark trees we organized the site to try to preserve the landmark trees that had a score of 25 or higher and that's that that's what drove where we put the larger buildings so we could sneak the smaller buildings in between the trees the townhouse buildings are snuck in between the trees the parking is largely tucked underneath this buildings we use the site topography to that advantage the next series of slides are a variety of 3d perspectives we can just click through these pretty quickly brett we can come back to them as the planning commissioners desire they show the the project in its context with the surrounding golf course and the uses in the area like the bushes shopping center across the street uh also shows the elements of the buildings including exterior patios canopies outdoor courtyards the large building also has an interior courtyard and we can discuss these at length if the commissioners have an interest these are there's a very similar palette of materials to the yard these are the townhouse buildings the smaller buildings set in amongst the landmark trees we included a large play structure for recreation outside the buildings keep going this is a picture of the outside of the yard our last collaboration that bob uh lampkin and hlr and i did for those of you some of you are probably still on the planet commission back then it's not that old our project i didn't know if you'd had a chance to see the interior courtyard shots so i included some of the interior courtyard shots to give you uh guys an idea of the level of amenities provided to the residents on the interior courtyards which you never see on the exterior renderings because they're exterior renderings now i'd like brad straighter to speak about the planning concepts that he wrote a letter to you guys about we're not able to hear you nope still i can't hear you brad would you like to try calling into the phone number yeah i'll do that oh we heard you we just heard you okay great sorry hopefully that doesn't eat into my time um i'll try to go quick again bradstreeter mksk and i was brought on by the development team after we got the initial staff report to look at the implications of the master plan and future land use map and as brett can tell you i have over 30 years of experience in master planning and zoning including some work in ann arbor i actually did the pittsfield township master plan years ago just have a few key points to make and summarize the letter that i prepared one is that this is a unique situation because the properties are being annexed from pittsfield into the city of ann arbor so it's not really a rezoning so back when the master plan was done the south area plan in 1990 it had specific recommendations for a number of the properties in the south area but not this one so this one was shown as single family in the master plan because that's what it was for decades in pittsfield with the anticipation that when the property owners came in for annexation that the city would look at the appropriate zoning so that's where we are now so when the city designated the site for single family it was not really based on analysis like was done for 12 specific sub areas but just because that was the existing land use what the expectation when the property owners come in then you would look at appropriate zoning when you look at this property it really doesn't have the characteristics of the other high quality single family neighborhoods in the city it doesn't have parks it doesn't have sidewalks the cul-de-sac length needed would be over 900 feet and the city standard is 600 and so forth so it's really not set up for single family in the city of ann arbor and also single-family along this corridor is inconsistent i believe with many of the policies in the city's various planning documents so when a future land use map is outdated in this case it was 30 years ago in 1990 that the future land use was looked at here what are the factors the planning commission should consider and i do a lot of training for the michigan association of planning and mml and the factors we say are looking at land use needs land use trends in the area the appropriate location and so forth and just hitting a couple key points there is obviously a need for more housing and housing choices and this type of housing in the city of ann arbor if you look at this map other zoning decisions over the years based on the south area plan did not follow the future land use recommendation most of the decisions allowed multiple family as is being requested here this is a good site for multiple families as brad moore went through we're on a a route for transit we're close to the u of m transit system we're on a high volume roadway we're surrounded primarily by the golf course there's no adjacent single family and so forth so this really fits the criteria for good multiple family in the city of ann arbor and the conditions being offered as part of this conditional rezoning for the green roof and the solar and the ev charging stations and all those different elements also help um we film makes a compelling argument that this is very consistent with the city's overall planning documents so in summary we feel this is a really good location for this type of housing that this type of housing is needed it's consistent with the development trends in the area and it meets many of the goals and principles that have been in the various documents of the city council and the planning commission with that appreciate your time if you have questions as we go on i'd be happy to answer them thank you um at this time i'd like to welcome mr kowalski for a staff report um mr kwalski may want to just unmute yourself okay thank you good evening everyone um i'll kind of be brief and a summary of what we have through our recommendations and the individual actions that you'll see here tonight um as you know there's three separate petitions associated with this project the annexation um a zoning as well as a site plan a conditional zoning i should say um so really as far as the annexation i mean staff does support the annexation it is within our um ultimate city boundaries it's within the township annotation agreements um so in consistent with city policy of accepting property when it is offered voluntarily for annexation we do support the annexation of the property um as far as the zoning as you know staff did not support the r4e zoning for this site um staff is recommending kind of a placeholder and r1d zoning um when property is annexed into the city you do need to assign a zoning district to that that um those properties now it does not preclude a higher density zoning in the future of going over that and r1d right now would be consistent with land use recommendation as well as uh the existing properties in the area right now i believe there's four or five single family homes left on those properties um those properties would be consistent with an r1d zoning they're actually a little bit larger r1d is a 5 000 square foot lot minimum um those the two properties there one is zoned r1a and i believe the other one is zoned r1 cr1b um so that for the zoning-wise staff would be recommending an r1d zoning uh site plan as you know again in in coordination with the art conditional r40 zoning staff did not support the site plan at this time we have worked extensively with the petitioner from the time of submittal to add green features such as vegetated roofs the solar panels as well as elimination of some of the extra impervious surface around the site uh the fire access drive that was mentioned previously along the north side of the proposal previously did have parking alongside that as well staff did urgition to remove that and they did so that access drive now is solely for a fire um and not and fire and non-motorized uh access um in addition to that um looking through the notes right now regarding the the nx annexations we did cover that so really again in summary although we have worked with the petitioner and looking at the land use recommendation for as in conjunction with the other master plans that we have as part of the city while the land use recommendation however originally on this site to date to the original master plan of 1990 it has been reaffirmed um with the current master plan and and is still valid for that site um so in conclusion now staff would recommend approval the annexation um in r1d zoning um and does not recommend approval of the site plan at this time thank you mr kowalski um at this time i would like to open up the public hearing on this item this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed annexation rezoning and or site plan for this fall hall of petition public comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 926-3370-3308 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television and background sounds let me hear you clearly please see your name and address at the beginning of your comments poller with phone number ending with two nine nine you have three minutes to share your comments with the planning commission great thank you uh appreciate this opportunity to speak i'm michael o'keefe at 105 golfing lane uh so i just want to comment that i'm not against development in my uh neighborhood we have been in this house for about 20 years and have been involved in providing feedback and support for other uh developments that have gone on and i find it's really been enough positive for the area as we've seen growth over the years but i am very concerned over this particular project and it's not the first time i and others have raised concerns i was reviewing documents online regarding valhalla glenn and i looked over the summary of citizen participation meeting last year i was surprised that while it's described as a summary of comments and questions it didn't include any of the comments raised about the density of the project it really was just a summary of the questions people's people asked i read through the petitioner's latest rebuttal to the planning commission's concerns and and as they say it may be that the future land use map is outdated or has not always been followed and exceptions have been allowed for other multi-family or residential units but really none of those developments comes close to approaching the density that this one proposes with now 454 units for such a small footprint i was hard to learn that the planning commission recommends around 80 to 90 units which i support as is the hologram is very out of whack really with everything else in the area it is much closer to what you'd expect to see for density downtown while the traffic studies said there are no issues i'm just having a hard time seeing how there won't be issues at such an odd little intersection with the entryway so close to scio church and main street but the number of cars that would accompany this this density of a project and the requirements of traffic being right turned in and right turnout only i support development for valhalla area i think it's needed i welcome higher density than what's there than just single residencies um and i really welcome further discussion on this as a neighbor but i really hope the planning commission votes down this development as currently designed thanks for my time thank you is there anyone else who wishes to address the planning commission in regards to this item if so please press star nine to raise your hand caller with phone number ending in zero nine four you have three minutes to address the planning commission on the valhalla application i thank you um you might like to know too that um the the meeting number that's posted on screen is not what i was able to use to get through to speak to the council um it says on the screen that it ends in three eight one two and what i actually had to do was something somebody emailed me the the correct id which ends in o eight i don't know if that helps anybody else or allows anybody else to speak but just to let you know about that thank you so generally speaking so short version is i am on the other side of the golf course or on the other side of the driving range i've been an owner here for 17 years i've been the association president here for probably 16 years and one of the things that i think as an association we're concerned about is just the firstly the aesthetics of what is proposed how that would match with what is and we have 48 units here as of the moment and i think the idea of the 484 ish that's being proposed it it seems wrong basically that when i think of the other project that's that's been mentioned the other projects that i see like that around town i like them i don't dislike them as a matter of fact but i think that sort of thing in this location is aesthetically a little bit strange is the short way of putting that a secondary concern that i have just off the top of my head is parking that as is as a moment um we already have a shortage of parking here that it is a constant battle frankly especially when students are in town and and that generally speaking students tend to take a few more spaces than uh per per unit um than just a single family actually per unit and so parking actually is at a premium at the moment and i can't imagine that getting better if a 400 plus unit place is put in very close by that right now our overflow actually goes in that direction and as is the the yeah the parking is already strained here so um the way it is structured at the moment i appreciate the fact i just heard that the the current recommendation is voting against that and i guess i'm glad to hear that so appreciate your time thank you very much thank you who was that oh did somebody caller ending with phone number ending ending with one zero seven you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi um my name is eaton holland and um i live in 111 golf u lane which is adjacent to um the u of m property and just across proposed area of development i want i want you to understand that i do support developing the parcel it's really been a need of improvement for a long long time and a new development there would be most welcome i do not support the developer's request for the high density zoning i do support the r1d zoning that was recommended by the planning commission that would limit the number of units to 84.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above