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okay so we're live so this is mike morris um superintendent of schools here for the amherst palm regional school district thank you for joining us uh we really appreciate uh this opportunity to have a town hall and to present a little bit and mostly to do question and answer and gather feedback uh from the community and uh basically what's going to happen here in a second we'll do introductions but the chair of the regional school committee will lead a presentation a brief one about a priorities document that was presented on tuesday night at the region at the joint school committee meeting um and then really that should by about 5 15 we should be into question and answer and we have a nice team of people here who can respond to different questions myself included and we just ask that people be respectful and follow typical norms of behavior in terms of asking questions we really appreciate we had a session on the elementary schools this morning and we had fantastic questions and really great dialogue the way you put questions in if this is your first time on a live stream on youtube is on the right side of your screen you should see i think it says say something or it has a blank screen and you can type your question in there uh and we'll try to respond as best we can we a large number of questions in the afternoon session we got to most but not all but we did collect them and we can address them over time and again the majority of the this meeting is intended to be interactive and to gather your feedback thoughts questions and ideas so with that i'll uh actually uh then sarah she can introduce herself we can just go in order and then we'll get going with the presentation all right thanks good evening everyone i'm sarah hall chair of the pelham school committee hello everyone i'm tiffany thibodeau a middle school math teacher hi i'm allison mcdonald i'm from emerson i am the chair of the amherst school committee and the amherst pelham regional school committee when we go down like it's the brady bunch and we'll go to simon hi simon lutz i'm the social studies department head at the high school and a long time social studies teacher hi i'm peter dunling i'm vice chair of the amherst school committee and a member of the emerson palm regional school committee hi i'm margaret stancer i'm a member of the pelham school committee and also the vice chair of the regional school committee good evening everybody my name is joe consolino i'm the nurse manager for the school district thanks everyone so i'm going to turn it over to miss mcdonald uh chair mcdonald uh who's going to other school members may jump in but going to facilitate a description of the priorities document that was discussed on tuesday night at school committee okay i'm sharing my screen is that uh nope large enough okay uh so welcome everybody um for those that uh watched our meeting or watched the recording of our meeting um from tuesday evening this will be familiar this is a draft of um what we both hear a framework for planning but it's it's really sort of a guiding principles document um for our school committees to um share and help guide uh dr morris and the district in developing our plans for returning to school amid this health crisis in the fall um we discussed at length and i will call attention to the very big red letters at the top that this is a draft this is not carved in stone um we are continuing to discuss that we want to hear from you all today and we will be continuing to discuss this on on tuesday of next week at our next joint meeting um we've also prepared this in the context of a best-case scenario in terms of our uh regional public health guidance this is not necessarily as as we talked about on tuesday when we're not in the situation that we are hearing about from other parts of the country such as florida and texas um and so all of this is really predicated on what is our current health situation in our region not necessarily what's happening in the the you know far far away states but right here um what we started with um is is really our three overall goals um and number one of these is to protect staff and student safety our second goal is to maximize in-person learning time while maintaining six feet of physical distance and third to invest in and deliver the highest quality distance learning experience possible with regard to the staff and student safety we know that this is the conditions are are changing and will continue to change throughout the school year so number one in terms of staff and student safety we want to make sure that we're contin we're tracking weighing and continuing monitoring the available public health guidance to protect the safety of our students and staff we are going to be looking to the guidance from centers for disease control or the cdc and as dr morris earlier talked in our earlier town hall today we're looking primarily to the guidance that we received from cdc back in may and not any potential revisions that might be coming out soon we're also looking at guidance from american academy of pediatrics our state department of public health as well as our local and regional public health officials we'll plan our district plans for reopening will be informed by the guidance from the state department of land monetary and secondary education um and particularly with regard to their requirement that we submit three plans um for uh for schools the reopening plan will be designed as much as possible with requirements that at least six foot physical distance is maintained between all individuals that all staff and students in grades 2 through 12 as well as younger grades of feasible wear facial coverings as much as possible and that all staff and students will engage in frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing we also want to ensure that the district plans district plans will provide accommodations for students and staff who have underlying medical conditions with regard to distance learning sorry in-person learning um the first two bullet bullet items um pertain to sort of time in school with in-person learning and i will say that all of these um this isn't necessarily an either or these are the principles for in you know in the case of a hybrid learning plan the in-person learning and the distance learning are both are both true right um so with regard to elementary students including those in the common nantes program in amherst we want to ensure that we're providing in-person learning um and this is a discussion point that we're still having with the school committee whether it's four to five days per week or 80 to 100 of school days and a particular um note for our secondary schools that middle school and high school students are provided in person learning at least again this is the discussion point whether it's two days per week or 40 percent of school time um also for our special education english language learner students and others that require in specialized interventions we want to provide as much in-person learning time as possible we want to ensure that we have opportunities for outdoor learning and we want to ensure that our hybrid and in-person learning approaches include plans for transitions to fully distance learning when our health conditions in our local area necessitate either school closure or other disruptions to in-person learning we also want to ensure that staff and teachers are provided the support in both time and training to adapt to the requirements of in-person physically distanced learning environments with regard to distance learning we as our committees have talked about wanting this to be greatly improved from the emergency remote learning that we implemented in spring 2020 and should ensure consistency across instructional approaches within schools employ instructional models that are well suited for distance learning environment offer appropriate levels of challenge for every student and incorporate both synchronous and asynchronous approaches our models for distance learning should be developed for all grades in preparation for potential disruptions to hybrid or in-person learning plans should be created to support and train staff students and families in the instructional tools and technologies that we'll be using for distance learning districts and districts should ensure that all students have devices and access to internet to support engagement with distance learning and the teachers and staff will be provided support in time and professional development to adapt to distance learning instructional models so that is um again our draft document and um hope to hear some discussion and questions about these this evening okay dr morris do you want me to get straight into the questions yes that would be great all right so the first question is um on the high school for the floor plan um the performing arts wing uh not being included the question is will there still be performing arts classes next year at high school so we are receiving some guidance from the state as well as other authorities about that there are some um particularly around singing and some instruments that are doing them in person would we would have a hard time pulling that off with the public health guidance we have um the also the performing arts wing we'd have a hard time using for other spaces like other classes like the auditorium is huge it wouldn't really be an appropriate place so we are looking through uh the guidance that we receive from the state and from federal and state public health authorities but performing arts ends up being an area that it's um it butts up against or hits up against public health guidance in many many ways so that is one of the more complex uh areas to try to figure out how to do given the guidance that we've received so some areas i think we're the destiny the state is coming out with their guidance the next week or two uh but i have meetings with them weekly and there's a lot of concerns you may have seen even the national news about chorus and singing and what that does in terms of transmission rates so it is going to be a challenge for in-person education to include some of those performing art areas in a distance manner okay um there are some related questions about extracurricular activities in general so sports and performing arts and then also other electives so gym art orchestra choir so can you speak to that please yeah so where uh the miaa which is the mass i don't know the acronym i'll mess it up but they're the state organization that uh is in charge of sports is working again i know i got a survey from them this week they're working with the state and public health authorities about what to do about athletics and some of the extracurricular activities so we're looking for guidance so i don't have real clear information i will say that this week the governor came out not so much for fall but for summer with what is considered a contact sport and it included soccer and football and field hockey i believe and and other sports so again no decision made for fall but we'll hopefully get guidance in the next next week or two about some of those areas thanks do you anticipate having to eliminate some course options academic course options yeah so i think uh we're still looking at what to do with that and and some courses may be able to be taught in a virtual context that cannot be taught in a in person context and vice versa um so i know our high school team this multiple high school teams working on it actually this week they're looking at what schedule might work uh for high school and they're also looking at uh what courses could be taught in person versus would need to be virtual so we there's actually four groups working on that and one group is specific to the electives so a lot of the teachers are meeting with the administration at the high school and i got to sit on one of those meetings and people are doing really deep thinking good work about what we can pull off and how do we maintain the level of course offerings that's one of the hallmarks of our high school next question is can we have a plan flexible enough to allow more in-person time three to five days a week if conditions in massachusetts continue to improve i'll let the school committee weigh in on that i think um i mean i'm happy to keep talking but i wondered if anyone here wants to uh mention that actually hold on i'm sorry um simon wanted to jump in uh simon lutz and just talk a little bit about instructional strategies in a distance learning environment that came up um so i don't mean can we hold on that question and come back i'm sorry um there's simon hi yeah uh a a question popped up about um instructional strategies that could be used in a in a classroom environment that requires you know six foot distance physical distance between teachers students and you know and students themselves so this is an area that i'm i'm really concerned about when we go back and you know creates a lot of sort of anxiety um i know in my own sense of of good teaching and what best practices look like in a classroom um i think we're going to have to be really inventive um and maybe lean on the distance learning in this case because um all the things i think that make a classroom environment really engaging really dynamic a lot of those if not most of those tools are not necessarily going to be in our tool belt the kinds of um you know get kids in small groups to put their heads together to solve problems uh working with kids one-on-one where you're standing sort of right next to them and helping them work through really difficult questions the kinds of things that require you to close physical space are not going to be available to us as teachers so i think it really speaks to the need to a make sure our distance learning plan is really strong but b how do we bring technology into the classroom that can also help close some of that physical space so i'm really looking forward and hopefully we can get some really strong professional development that both helps us think through how do we create that same kind of dynamism in the classroom in in a distance learning model i think that's really critical to have that as uh available to everyone and then also if and when we do return to the classroom we also have uh you know built our capacity our skill in closing physical distance through technology because i'm afraid there's going to be a lot of leaning on really sort of stiff traditional teacher center modes of instruction with all the safety requirements of the six foot limit and masks and you can't see folks faces so i know that's a it's certainly an area that's causing teachers a lot of stress and anxiety and concern at the moment great thank you simon appreciate it um so peter sorry to interrupt you okay um so just on the question of could we ever get to three to five days so i mean i think the committee in general in previous meetings has been pretty clear that we want to make sure that anything that we do is is um responding to the changing pandemic status and so that could be responding to a worsening status in which we need to go all or or or near all fully remote but it could also be responding to a positive status i mean we're in a much different state of understanding the science than we were four months ago when this all when this all hit so it's not inconceivable that four months from now we could be in an improved state you know that that being said we do have some pretty hard obstacles to overcome at the region to get there our transportation definitely does not uh handle more than 50-ish percent of students uh at the six foot distance uh and neither would our our buildings more than 50-60 percent so you know it would i can't imagine a situation where we're at three to five days a week uh without that six-foot distance that we've been so resolute about uh changing um and and that changing in the consensus scientific opinion okay thanks uh the next question is about how in this district our response will be different from things in the boston area and just noting that hampshire county reality is very different in this state than even hampden county jill do you want to speak a little bit to that um um response in regards to i think what i think what i took away from the the commoner question is this that our the infection rate locally is um much lower than the boston area of massachusetts including i think in this area we peaked a lot um later than the boston area and it there it could be due to a number of factors which i will never know and the state will probably never know um but we go by the guidance of what dph gives us and the local board of health um for any of the regulations that we need to put in place for going forward um and i'm waiting we are waiting for a lot of those recommendations to come down from department of ed and in conjunction with um department of public health for any of the um you know the health related protocols and that kind of stuff so that's that's more to come i've asked for it numerous times from the state level on certain protocols that we need to put in place for the fall and i've kept kept being told that it's it's coming it's coming it's coming so yeah but we i we follow what dph guides us um and it's no different than you know how boston handles things it's just we we peaked a lot later and our you know our case count is is at a different rate than in a in a closer knit city than uh you know like boston compared to you know amherst and that kind of stuff thanks um have we considered the use of modular buildings for the high school we have a little bit um this as not is not a surprise modular buildings um are being pulled for lots of reasons these days they're also quite expensive um and they create some some space and some facilities challenges around access to water um you know and we can maybe manage that with some sanitizer so we have but you know we're what we found is that we're not if if we're maintaining a six foot distancing we're not one or two classrooms away from being able to pull off everybody in uh if we had a couple more modules we would need so many modulars that it's sort of hard to imagine how that would really move the needle much for us in terms of increasing the access of students to school will testing be required and the uh questioner points out that some students are not practicing social distancing now so joe do you want to speak to the density guidelines around um wellness checks and all that so the current guidance initially was thought that we were going to be doing temperature checks for every student coming in the building but that's actually um not the current guidance from dph and desi because there's so many false positives and false negatives going forward there's a range of thermometers that we could use um and through interviewing um just through this pandemic not everybody actually experiences a fever with this virus so we're we're going to go based on symptoms and do some type of symptom checker um which you'll actually rely on the parents um of these students to attest that they are well enough to be in school along with staff um and you know you know go from there um and you know we will not be doing any type of you know physical screening you know we will keep keep eyes on kids as they walk in the building and if they seem symptomatic then they will go right to the nurse's office for an evaluation but um that's again we're waiting for that specific guidance from from the state so and then i do see another question about status of ppe um we took a proactive approach in our district to secure the majority of the ppe requirements that deci had put out um probably about a month ago to get about 90 of what the state is requiring and we already have that physically in house in the district right now so we're waiting on a few things but most of what's required is already physically in amherst as we speak okay i'm going to skip ahead a little bit because there's some related sort of specific health questions about options for people who may be vulnerable to covet or may have a family member who is yeah and so um you know it just was on a conference call with desi today um and they were really clear that students will have the opportunity you know in that situation to not attend school and the school districts are still responsible uh for um educating them including if they have special needs or um english language learner 504 plan et cetera we also have surveyed staff and are working on that front as well so i um we'll have more to share on that probably in the next week or two uh because all this is sort of fast moving you know for instance i mentioned this morning we got our special ed guidance this morning right as the show was starting so i got i read the executive summary and then you know the elementary show started so uh we um we uh you know the short story is no one will be forced to go to school um and that we are responsible you know for virtual education needs the same at the high school level 990 hours and the curriculum standards uh will need to be met in a different way in the spring where this the time on learning requirements were nodding were not consistent with how they typically are uh we had reduced standards uh that that was that were happening that's not true for next year so for students and regardless of the situation why they're in a virtual environment whether it's choice or health needs they will need to have full access to the curriculum next question is about in-person instruction can you speak about the in-person instructional strategies that can be used when students must be separated by at least six feet without any shared materials and with a teacher six feet away so i'm wondering if tiffany and uh simon not that they're i want to really i appreciate their uh presence uh on this i'm not at all uh saying that they have all the answers but one of the reasons we invited them to come in is because they're knowledgeable and i know they're two excellent educators done a lot of thinking about this um but not that they've actually done this so i want to really caution uh my introduction but i don't know if tiffany or simon if you have um some thoughts that you want to share sure um i felt like um simon really captured it a lot when he um spoke earlier um but i think that's one of the the questions that teachers right now are sort of thinking about um with our administrators and we're trying to figure out um how to make a really robust um a distance learning really um curriculum that can also be used in the classroom um and noticing that when we went to the emergency closure and the spring that the thing that was missing was that interaction of with students um and being able to sort of answer questions one-on-one so we really do have to get creative about how to be able to do that within a classroom and really relying on technology and maybe a little bit more than we would have in the during a normal school year um as we try to support students and simon i don't know if there's anything more you want to add to that yeah i think um i saw another sort of related question about um just the challenge that teachers are going to face in trying to have sort of multiple courses of study all going at the same time right we can imagine there's two cohorts of students that are going to come in front of you during the week so you're going to have to manage those two programs kids are going to be it looks like the proposal says 60 of the time so the majority of their time will be distance so you're going to have a distance learning program that you're going to have to manage for them despite the fact that 80 of your time will be classroom time if the kids are you know only have 20 percent of their time is is or 40 of their time is classroom time so there's that that disproportion that's going to need to be managed and then there's going to be this cohort of kids that you know for for good reasons can't be in or in the school building so they're going to be full-time distance learning so i think it really points to the need so that we don't leave anybody behind to have a really really strong i think our our focus needs to be on building and while i think we did some some things well in the spring building on and improving our distance learning model um so that you know given the majority of kids time is going to be distance um there's going to be some kids that are never in the school building um and that i think the in-class time is going to be about sort of enhancing hopefully the the distance learning platform that's put in place but there is a lot of work to be done um in really strengthening that distance learning platform and building on on the successes that we have in that we had in the spring but also recognizing the real deficiencies that were there as well that i know i felt as a teacher you know there's about 15 you know thousand things i would do differently now that uh you know i've done it once and could go back and make different choices but i'd really like to to sort of stress to administrators in the school committee how important it is going to be to put together a really robust strong meaningful distance learning program that takes you know that both trains the teachers but that also you know leverages the expertise that we have in in the middle of the high school thank you and this next one is actually a bit related um in terms of distance learning and having something more robust is will there be training offered to teachers for remote learning and is there a commitment to synchronous learning um so i can take that one on um so the short answer is yes the expectation that i received uh from desi is very clear that when we talk about 990 hours that it's it is synchronous that it's direct instruction so how that works we're all trying to think about and you know i know some places have trying to say you know can you have synchronous you can can you have virtual teachers and in-person teachers and they're actually not teaching the same thing so you know the example simon used before that no one's having to do both because there's only there's only so much one person can do right so in the example simon used where teachers in teaching students live four days a week they can't also be in charge of the virtual piece um so i've seen some creative things some coming from other states of how to share that workload with virtual teachers and in-person teachers and it provides a little more choice too because you'll need teachers to do both you'll need teachers who want to be in the school and then and teachers who either because of health reasons or other reasons and are going to be teaching virtually but i think the synchronous piece is something that is really clear that that needs to happen next year in different ways than what we did in an emergency and i think one of the things i've said at school committee multiple times is there's a really difference between emergency uh vert distance learning and virtual education and we were in an emergency in march right we closed before the state closed we closed for two weeks then it grew then it grew and we didn't really know when it was going to end and that's a really uh different um different piece um than how we would approach the distance part in the fall next one is a specific question with gene jones's resignation what is the plan for leadership next year yep so uh the short story is that in the next week or two we'll be sharing more of that um and we are working you know we're very fortunate to have an incredibly strong leadership team in terms of mickey gramaci and talib sadiq at the high school um and we'll be announcing that uh well before um principal jones departure in two weeks or two weeks from tomorrow um so be on the lookout we'll communicate that as soon as we can and uh we'll we'll we'll do that um i actually didn't answer the second part of the prior question ms hall so let me go back to it because some of it was about training but but also the pieces and one of the reasons we're trying to continue uh our work um on these is that we really need to figure out what the model is going to be so we can provide the the right training so even you know where simon was talking before about you know teacher teaching in school two days a week how's that work we have to actually know what our model is and then know who's doing what and then we can provide the training and i think the challenge for uh all of us and i mean just in this district collectively is um this is not an this is there's no playbook for this this situation right if there is no one's found it right and and so uh we're going as fast as we can but not we don't want to go faster than um and not take into account all the feedback and that's why we're having sessions like today yeah um all right i'm going to jump ahead of you because i think that answered a few questions about specifics that we just don't know the model yet and so we can't really answer questions about specific schedule changes but there is a question about communication with parents how will parents be notified of students are completing assignments and attending remote sessions under the remote learning plan so um you know it's not something that necessarily we have i can't answer really clearly but uh actually simon can so i'll let him do that um yeah more knowledge yeah we have i think we've had we had some success with this um in the spring at least at the high school um you know one of the the key ways at least in in tracking parents being able to track whether or not um distance learning assignments were being completed was through the use of of the power school grade book um we you know devised a pretty simple and we were in in a credit no credit situation but a pretty simple set of symbols that allowed us parents to check in with the grade book and see if an assignment was either completed or missing or you know in some state of incomplete and we were posting assignments uh inclusion of assignments weekly so there was a sort of easy online way to track at least completion of assignments given that synchronous learning wasn't required there wasn't a sort of attendance pieces being kept but i could imagine that that would be a pretty simple procedure too to set up some sort of attendance system um and then lastly i know that um at least teachers in my department worked really hard to try to communicate with families when when students were we're not present we're not completing assignments and we're not checking in um and to communicate directly with families when that wasn't taking place so i think you know i think we have some we have some pretty solid systems in place we can certainly strengthen them um as we move to something that's more robust online but i think we've got a good place to start and build on absolutely thank you simon and i i feel like um at the middle school we were we didn't use power school um during the spring semester um trying to figure out the right balance between um being at the middle school age um and what type of communication we wanted to provide to them so it's been mostly uh feedback to assignments that were completed and emails home to families and also trying to balance the amount of communication that also went home to families so that uh we're not bombarding you with with way too much information from all of the many different classes that students take uh but i do imagine that in this new distance learning model that the power school power school would be the primary way that we would be communicating with families about what students have turned in and what's been graded or assessed in that way in addition to general means of communication like emails that families and teachers tend to use and if i could add just very briefly and less articulately than simon and tiffany um you know if we are in whatever version of distance or virtual next year there will be grades there will be attendance taken in a formal way we took attendance more to identify who wasn't there i got very clear direction on that on the last few conference calls with desi uh the curriculum standards will be taught um in the in for instance the middle school until the very very end of or maybe three quarters of the way through this spring the director from deci was to review prior taught content that will not be the case uh in in the fall for anyone involved in distance learning so i do think you know the systems that people are more familiar with will be a better fit next year because it'll look much more similar to the typical school year even at the high school there was uh you know desi's guidance last year was about half a day's worth of work that will not be the guidance that we receive again the 990 hours i have no indication actually a pretty strong indication that won't change um you know whether it's in person or in distance or in hybrid next year so i think that'll really look more similar to families and i think to staff as well i know you know i'm not going to put tiffany on the spot but i heard from many middle school teachers last year it was only so long at a middle school level you can re-teach prior talk concepts and tiffany teaches math so she's i talked to her about it i don't know how she did it she did it but uh at some point you got to do more than just review and so um i think that was because of the crisis situation and certainly the pandemic isn't gone but we're now we we know more than we did then i think simon spoke to this earlier and um so i do think it would be really significant for significantly different just in that domain as well in terms of the expectation the mandatory attendance the grades and and the full range of the curriculum being taught again and no matter which model in person fully virtual or a hybrid model that's that would be the responsibility um i i want to add to that just as one comment ms hall related um you know room for catch up for those students who are not successfully engaged in distance learning and that there's gonna need to be a lot of that um you know and i wasn't and in privy i should have said that slightly differently i think the expectation is that standards will be taught we know that there was learning loss this spring um just based on a whole range of factors based on individual factors based on situational factors and so uh i i don't think we can start day one as if nothing happened i wasn't trying to suggest that but i think the piece is there's no uh sort of gating mechanism there where the way there was in the spring of you know don't teach new concepts you know that that's not um going to be a gate or a hurdle that anyone has to jump over in the fall okay um the next there's a couple uh that we sort of have touched on but this was a little more specific are there options for families or staff who have a reason to not return will there be choices for them yeah so um we surveyed on the staff side we surveyed staff of anyone who has a condition we use the cdc guidance again the original one as mrs mcdonald suggested we don't know what's coming out but the one that seems perhaps issued with less political pressure i'll put it that way and staff members who will have that will make a determination uh we had some of those conversations actually just this week with human resources and we'll be getting back in touch with people in the next couple days it's a little unclear what documentation may be needed but anyone who fits those categories absolutely will be given an alternate assignment um you know and in this case likely a virtual assignment for that and for students the same way you know students will my understanding from the stages will have a full range of options whether they have a health condition or not um and so we need to provide virtual for that um for those students and again you know this is all a moving target i heard information about this i had a conference call from 11 to 11 45 this morning before this other one and i think one of the things that's really hard is it's it's july 9th and and this is not a faulting the state but everything continues to evolve over time so i'd love to have all the answers to all these questions um and so um you know and i see a comment if any people didn't fill out that survey please shoot me an email if you're a staff member and and didn't get that or we're away or whatever um but i think i'll turn it back to you ms hall okay thanks um so there's a specific question about students with a 504 plan in place of how they will be supported so uh you know this document and i'm not all the way through it that i received from desi earlier today about students with special needs which is both those with ieps as well as 504 plans all those plans need to be followed whether the students are in person or in virtual so as i got it at 11 o'clock today i'm not as informed to answer directly but you know i did hear that today very clearly that ieps and 504s will need to be followed there may need to be some adjustments based on a virtual environment if that's either what a student chooses or if based on a hybrid or live model but the students needs need to be met there was another question about students in pip program more intensive needs the one thing i can say is that in the desi document that they are the highest priority students to have in-person learning according to desi i'll say personally i really agree with that those are students who are less likely to have full range of the curriculum in a virtual context exactly how we implement that i think is is remains to be seen but from desi's point of view and the even on the draft document from the school committee there's a lot of mention of that that there are some students who virtual education is a better fit for and for some students that's a much harder fit we do have ppe that's designed particularly for students for adults working with students with more intensive special needs including isolation gowns um k95 can 95 mass joe can go over if there's more questions on that but [Music] but yes absolutely um and um so i just want to acknowledge that question seem related to the 504 so sorry to get ahead of you sarah no no no that's okay um so yeah there were some questions about masks about what is the mass requirement and then the question of you know keeping kids in them all day if that is the requirement so i'll turn to jill for that so the current guidance from dusty that we have right now is anyone that's in grade 2 and up will be required to wear a mask during the school day um we don't we don't have a specific plan vision as to how that's going to look we do know that there's incorporated in that guidance that there will be mass breaks kids will be going outside there'll be various times where kids will be able to take the mask off um and give their face a break um and a chance to breathe um there will be some kids that fall into the guidance where they are not required to wear a mask based on either a medical condition or a physical condition that prevents them from putting it on appropriately or being able to take it off safely and the same thing goes with staff too we will be asking families to provide masks or a facial covering for all students and for staff and we have ordered a supply of extras in case those need to be replaced during the school day and the grades that are kindergarten first under second grade those are recommended and that was addressed in the earlier um earlier town hall but um they got we're going by the guidance um and we're gonna and enforce it as much as we can um and hopefully that you know the kids will be able to comply with it we do have um we are looking at options for um some of the students that are um hearing impaired and their classmates so we're looking at alternative mask options for those children um and the staff that work with those kids as well too okay thank you jill and before we go to you simon um there is another mask-related question uh why did the district buy a hundred thousand masks um yes they thought that we were providing masks what type did we buy and how we approach kids who can't find or afford them so the formula the calculation that i went through with um superintendent morris is the department of ed they sent out guidance as to purchase specific number of masks per student per week um masks per staff member per week and then there it trickled down based on the position that you um played in the school district whether it's a nursing role um you know a supportive staff member and so based on those figures we actually scaled down the number of masks of traditional surgical masks for the adults um down by one per person per week and upped it for this for the students um department of ed wanted one per student per week and we upped it to two per student per week um and that's the the number that we ended up coming up with with the total number of students in district and staff and district so we have a supply of regular surgical masks adult size and pediatric size for our younger students can 95 masks those will be issued to anyone that works in departments of nursing special education that are involved with students with more higher intensive needs our some of our transportation staff and some of our custodial staff and then we have face shields and eye protection and there's a whole list but the the huge number was based on the calculation and the formulation that department that gave us thanks all right go ahead simon thanks um so you know the issue of of masks and and ppe um you know i just want to give voice to a concern that you know i'm hearing from a lot of a lot of teachers around this issue and especially around sort of getting kids and teenagers at early adolescence and later adolescence to sort of comply with this um and how potentially stressful and time-consuming that might be um you know i think wearing masks and staying apart from their friends and sort of going against every fiber of being when it comes to to adolescence um and i i worry and i know others worry that school might just become this sort of constant battle to and to enforce you know ppe and wass wearing and six foot physical distancing so you know i saw some other questions about you know what can folks do to support teachers you know i think we are going to have to build if we do go back to the classroom we're going to have to build a really really strong culture of personal safety um and that could that there's a role for the classroom teacher in that but it is a wider wider um challenge that buildings in the district in i'm not just secondary at elementary level too are really going to have to to confront and support from home um you know and parents uh in in in making that consistent and effective is going to be essential element of it but i do really want to um part of this is figuring out distance learning um part of this is also figuring out how do we create a culture of a school a culture in the school that that really embraces the safety of everyone and these measures um when we know that it's gonna be really hard for teenagers to do this yeah and i'll jump in and i agree with everything simon said and you know certainly i saw a question about disciplinary consequences and that is the feedback i'm getting from from the department is that it'd be like any other article of closing that's required to be on during the school day um and we have consequences when students don't follow those regulations and that the same would apply for masks you know and there is some acknowledgement that mass breaks do need to happen um and you know throughout the day for both for staff and students but the expectation would be in uh with administrative support for teachers so it's not all on the classroom teacher as simon indicated i fully agree and endorse everything simon said okay great so there are a bunch of questions up there about if someone at the school tests positive if a student or a teacher does or someone in someone's home what will be the process for notifying others and then will there be any contact tracing protocol so that is to be determined um again i'm waiting for guidance from deci and department of public health um on the exact steps that we need to take on um the wording of notification um there there will be a plan in place um and it will all depend on how well this six foot of physical distance is maintained and who we can identify as a potential potentially have been exposed to the virus um and how that all trickles down um if say for instance if somebody um if somebody's family member tests positive um it would be on the onus of that family to notify the school district that there's a positive case in their house and that would probably come through my office or through um the amherst health department so that we can notify the the appropriate parties um in the school building um and there would probably be a general notification and it's going to come from the guidance that jesse is going to give us as to the steps to take um and it will also be guided from how the health department and am responses to hold to handle all that kind of stuff um they will do most of the contact tracing if it's an amherst resident um and i will help you know give them any of the information that they need but you know that's that whole plan i've asked for from the state level and they said it's it's coming it's coming so i wish i had the answer now but i don't great okay a question came up on mcas will that be a requirement that is not a local decision so um that's a state level decision that we don't have clarity on to date okay um all right uh will school lunch be provided and will there be any assistance for food at home during the school year so school lunch will be provided we're not using the cafeterias and i know the high school has already developed sort of a plan for how that would go it would be lunches would be had in classroom spaces not um in the class in the cafeteria because again we don't want cohorts of students um congregating together outside the the kind of courses that they're in and beyond that we don't have plans yet because we have to sort of figure out what the model is um this question also came up this morning about the use the potential use of umass buildings could we just address that at this one sure so uh you know we're in constant communication with umass on a whole range of factors uh including last night and this morning and um it's it's not um um i'm not going to make it umass i mean just college and universities decisions um may necessitate that or may create open space but the idea is that they the the ones even that are opening are preventing outsiders from coming on campus uh and much in the same way that we wouldn't have visitors in our buildings next year they're in the same same boat as well so it doesn't look like a really super viable strategy to have some of our students over on a campus when they're trying to keep their campus only to campus personnel um and then another question on space can you talk about the use of the tents and what those are for yeah so we do want our two tents um to go behind the school you know to school the size of the high school and one for the middle school at the middle school you know it's a smaller school so the idea is that teachers could rotate through who choose to uh and and be teaching outside the 30 by 30 sim it's actually slightly larger than the typical spaces at the middle school and high school and so it does provide more opportunities for outdoor outdoor education okay great um and then there's a few questions about you know the whole like the hybrid model and doing in person and distance and how can how can one human do basically two full jobs yeah and i agree with those concerns and i think that's really where we have to get a sense of what the model is and what our staffing model is and who's working virtually and who's working in person so that we can actually put that in place i mean i'll be the first to say i don't think it's a reasonable model you know it's sort of what simon started with i'm gonna go if it's okay to piggyback off your comment a half an hour ago or so um you know if someone's teaching in person even if it's two two groups two days a week that person can't have other responsibilities teach virtually just doesn't work right so we will need a cadre of people who are teaching online and um and then if people are teaching in person they can't have dual responsibilities to do that and so that's where we have to be really creative in our models and i think there's really some some tension in that about um students who students who also want to be in the building and students who want to receive distance learning um you know and i my hope i guess is that we can match those up reasonably well the students who do feel like there's a benefit to some in person uh you know have that opportunity and students who feel like they want to have families who want to have all virtual they'll have that opportunity as well but you know i think in the next couple weeks we'll be talking about that i'll be talking about that at the school committee level you know i don't want to put any of you in that you may not talk about it i don't know that's your choice but i'll be bringing up some different things and you know the high school scheduling group for instance and the similar ones starting at the middle school they're looking at different models that might uh contribute or create some conditions by which that's a little more possible especially for the in-school part because we were you know currently at both schools we have a what's called a seven drop one schedule which means students take seven courses and six meet every day and one drops that's not a viable schedule particularly at the high school level with a number of electives from a public health perspective we can't do that i'm going to be first to say like that's not an option it's off the table so we are looking at other models that uh would have fewer transitions for students and faculty during the day and um and that's we're still in in process on that right um there's some questions about how much of the curriculum can be covered in a year and will it be you know regardless of the model will the full curriculum be covered yeah that's that's going to be the expectation is that where students are receiving 990 hours of instructional content um and exactly what that looks like and how that goes is the challenge that we have to work on and then there's questions about i mean understanding that a lot of this can't be answered about you know what would a typical in-person day look like how would students at the school be set up would they be in cohorts and stay together what would that scheduling be like will it start later and earlier um will the same classes be taught so a lot of questions just on like a typical day of in-person learning if we do that yeah so that's again the schedule we're looking for in general uh what people would notice as a difference is they'd be in fewer cohorts over the course of the day both at the middle school and high school there certainly are implications for that at both levels um at the middle school with the team model it's a little easier to imagine how that might work because students there there's a little more capacity at the middle school level for a cohort to stay together at the high school there is no team model and with the range of electives that's again why you know a full schedule change would would need to occur to make it um based on all the guidance we're getting from all the sources that miss mcdonald said at the beginning um and um so so again i think it would look like you know simon described physically in classes how students would look and maybe i'll bring up that image in a second of how desks could be arranged at a secondary level but i think practically you would have fewer inner actions with different groups again to reduce based on the public health guidance that we've received this next question i think is more for school committee members is there a date by which parents can expect to receive a definitive district educational plan for fall 2020.
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hi this is Mike Morris I'm the superintendent of schools here in Amherst and I want to thank everyone for joining us today we've got a nice crowd of about a hundred forty people online I think some others will probably join as we go but I really want to thank you too coming to this elementary Town Hall today we know this is an incredibly difficult time in all sorts of ways and today I'm here with the chairs and vice chairs of three school committees that employ me and so I'll introduce them in a second as well as Jill constantly know who is our nurse leader here in in all three districts and we feel like that's critical to have Jill on because we know that there would be some health and safety questions that she's best able to answer the goal today is that the school committee will present a draft priorities document that they talked about in a school committee meeting on Tuesday of this week two days ago and and the goal is to gather feedback the one of the ways to gather feedback is certainly the email the school committee at school committee that are upset or gormie at Morris M at our doric for today's purposes there is a chat feature on YouTube you see on the right you please you can type in comments questions we'll be able to display some of them on the screen we'll try to do our best to see how many we can get through before one o'clock but the comments we can see in the questions again we'll post the relevant person but it is intended to be an interactive town-hall I think by 12:15 or so we should be done talking and presenting that's our goal so we have 45 minutes to hear from the community answer questions I think you know we'll just ask that while you use the chat feature the same kind of respectful dialogue that we would have you know at school committees or in conversations we would encourage you to use we know this is a strong emotional topic for many people and that's fine we would just ask steering away from things that identify individuals in your commentary I think with that I just want to thank school members and Jill for being on this call I want to remind folks that there's a similar call at the secondary level that's scheduled tonight for this afternoon for five o'clock this one's going to focus much more on the elementary pre-k to six level and I think I'll turn it over to chairs McDonald in Hall trying to unmute myself so that we this is posted as an open meeting so at this point I'm going to go to order the meeting of the regional immerse Berlin Regional School Committee and I'll call to order the meeting of the immersed school committee and I'll call to order the meeting of the appellant School Committee miss McDonald in miss Hall would you like me to bring up the priorities document at this point okay yes please had it no I want to make sure the right one I apologize there we go there we go and so I'm gonna actually make it larger so that it's more visible so people won't be able to see us for a little bit but I think for people's viewing the benefit of their viewing I'm gonna make that larger so this with Thomas hall or any other school team members can talk through that but I just wanted to increase the size some people could see it a bit better great thank you um hopefully we're it's clear but um so I'll talk through this document um I won't read everything but it this is available in on our website and if it's not there already it will be very soon so that will talk through some of the high points and I um for those that watched our school committee meeting on Tuesday evening where we did talk about this document as our three committees um you're familiar with some of the framing of this we pulled this together and and offer this document we will be continuing to talk about it on Tuesday of next week as as guidance to help dr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
t26 for staff and have already received such a warm welcome so thank you everyone just a little bit about me I am entering my 16th year in education and the past five years I've spent traveling the state as an MT SS which stands for multi-tiered system of supports trainer and I've worked alongside over 50 districts in Kansas and improving outcomes for students my past experiences are in special education elementary education instructional coaching and district leadership as well I am also married to my awesome husband Heath who is the executive director of student support services for Wichita Public Schools I have three boys Abram who is going to be in seventh grade Gideon who is going to be in sixth grade and Roman who is going to be in fourth grade as a family we love sports and being active we enjoy going to the movies I'm spending time with our extended family and really enjoy traveling which unfortunately hasn't happened as much as we want it to lately I also wanted to share that I grew up in a small town in southeast Kansas of about 1,200 people and we were the Indians I feel like I have been brought full circle in my life and I am so thrilled to be an Indian again so if you see me out and about in Clearwater please come introduce yourself if you'd like to email me you can contact me at sea piney at USD 2/6 Borg and look forward to meeting everyone take care thanks Casey I'm excited to have Casey on board and she's a wealth of knowledge about teaching and learning and she's gonna do great things for the community and schools of Clearwater as I mentioned want to talk to you just a little bit about our planning process getting ready for school this fall obviously it's different than we've ever done before none of us have been here before and I would say none of us have all the answers we actually have more questions and answers so on July 9th this Thursday the Kansas State Department of Education is scheduled to release guidance to superintendent attendance this will be a draft document of their guidance about how we can have school everything from how we use the buses how we do launch hallways instruction just lots of guidance I've heard it's up to 900 pages long now so we will dig through that as an administrative team and then also as a planning team as we move forward the following week July 16th that documents scheduled to be approved and released to the public so we want to get that out to everybody as soon as possible and we don't expect you to go through all 900 pages but we want it to be available to anyone who might like to look at it the evening of the 16th our navigating change planning team for clear water will start meeting virtually on site small groups lots of different ways but and spend a couple weeks really digging into that guidance as well as the guidance from Sedgwick County Health Department who I will also be meeting with and our goal during those 2 weeks is to figure out what fits best for clear water how can we have school in the most normal way possible while keeping everybody safe our top priority is the overall health and well-being of our students staff and community but we also have a dedication to instruction and academic achievement so we are going to work to balance both of those things as we go the goal is that by August 4th that plan will be released to the community at that time we'll ask parents to complete a second survey I should have mentioned the first survey which will go out July 10th we need some information parents just about what you're thinking so we can plan more appropriately to be ready in August as I mentioned August 4th the plan will go out we'll also at that time release another survey that will ask for more detailed information from parents once you've had an opportunity to review the plan about what school is going to look like in Clearwater starting August 18th we hope then then we want to know what you're thinking again so we can plan appropriately for that the one thing we do know as I mentioned we don't have all the answers and once the other thing we know is when we do get a plan it will likely change so appreciate your patience your grace and understanding as we move forward this through this I do also welcome your your comments phone calls we want to make sure that your voice is heard and your concerns are addressed and these are challenging times ahead but I do believe that we will come together and be stronger because of it we're going to do great things for the kids of this school district and this community and and that's our goal and if we work together I know we can achieve great things I look forward to meeting each of you and hopefully someday shaking hands and sitting around in the group and and can't wait to to go watch a sporting event and to see the community come together again so with that I'm going to sign off for today I hope to do more of these video updates my name is Chris Cooper my email is CC oper at USD 264 org reach out anytime I look forward to having conversations with you you
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father of a graduate thanks now comes easy part Jeff just right in tuition checks oh yeah yeah it's looking forward to that I'll be great great see what happens to him folks I have 60 so unless anyone has a reason why I shouldn't I'm gonna start the meeting Ernie ready we're ready okay I'd like to call this meeting to order due to the color of emergency and order for the Board of Education to conduct its business this board meeting is being held by a live video conference and streamed live to bond the district website at www.911.gov entering following information into the web browser your computer or mobile device MVC and there it is the long-awaited meeting ID and password upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the Board of Education will the secretary please call the roll this is chuh here this is Mark mrs. gwass mr.
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so i'll i'll start and i i can see that uh mr dumbling is is raring to jump in as well but um uh we were asked this this morning and um we don't have a definite update um but it is going to be as soon as as possible um we are continuing to discuss our priorities the school committee priorities at our meeting next week um and hopefully finalize those to help guide the the district in finalizing models um and then the following week on the i think that's the 21st is when um we are planning to hear from uh from dr morris in the district about what those instructional models learning models will look like for the fall um there's still i would say a lot of um gray because we there's still some key pieces of information that we're missing from from deci um not least of which is transportation guidance um so it's tough to say a definitive commit to a definitive date today until we know when we're going to have all that information but we're moving as quickly as possible so that we can begin the hard work so that you the district and the educators can begin the hard work of preparing for whatever that model is as well as any training and and support that is needed to be ready to go um when we come back to school so i'll also look if mr demilling or miss stance or miss hall would like to add anything i i think that's very well put um i i would be disappointed in our committees if if we couldn't get this done by the the week of the 21st of july um and it's and it's really for the reason you mentioned you know what this is such a seismic change to learning that that our teachers need the training and ramp up time in order to deliver this effectively like we do not want to set our teachers up to fail and we don't want to set our students up to fail and we're right as of tonight we're we're about eight weeks or less away from the start of school and we still it's been frustrating for the school committee to be frank that we're missing still multiple key people of guidance from the state which is why we are way ahead of the curve compared to other communities in massachusetts that being said i feel like we're already late uh and so um you know i i feel like this the sooner the better that we the school committee can finalize its framework then the sooner the district can finalize its model and then people will actually know what the final details all these excellent questions that we can't answer because all these details are in place you know will be there so you know i i also would want to add to that um you know you're one of your comments miss mcdonald the very beginning this framework is a draft it doesn't have to be settled very quickly but it is a draft this is a very active conversation uh you know for my own part i'm not settled on all the details in this draft and we still continue to get really thoughtful input and feedback from teachers parents members of the public across all ranges of this um so i would say keep that coming it's drinking from the fire hose but it's exact exactly what we need right now okay this was touched on a little bit but there do seem to be a number of specific questions about um just recording classes in real time installation of cameras um so can you just talk about that specifically please yeah so i can so it does create challenges i saw some of those uh comments as well any video that includes a student whether their voice or their image is a student record so any time that's recorded you need permission to share that with others the way our middle school and high school teachers teach is not that they stand in front of the room and talk for 50 some odd minutes right it's interactive and so recording lessons that involve students being in the room does create some student privacy issues that are quite challenging to overcome because if one student says they're not willing to have that shared then then it doesn't work so that is one of their the real challenges of recording live classes where there are students in the room for use is that it um you know that yeah it creates a private legal privacy challenge and that's a difficult one to overcome there's some questions about flexibility and timing so when would families need to opt in or out of in-person learning if that's what happens and is there the ability to change that choice at some point so this is a really important question that i know is driving a lot of uh my colleagues um we've spent a lot of time thinking about this because if you want to plan for one model and you're going to have some students in distance some students in person there's changes and we're really focused on the cdc guidelines for space at some point you can't make that change very easily i mean moving to remote probably is an easier change to moving in person so we may have um i don't this isn't all mapped out but it's uh we may have a thicker bar to start virtual and come back into a live class than going the other way uh because we we can't create new sections and uh you know the public health piece is huge i mean i saw some comments before i just want to and i know it's 5 58 so running out of time but you know one of the other pieces that uh rubber roy clark our uh facilities director is working on is and i spoke about this at the earlier one so i'll try to be briefer is that we want to increase ventilation so any rooms that don't have windows will not be used so with the middle school there's a significant number of classrooms that don't have windows those are those will not be used for students they may be teacher offices or one teacher uses it but they won't be used as multi-person spaces i think the second variable is that typically we use the ashrae standards that balance ventilation and airflow with energy efficiency based on again nationally accepted standards and we're really gonna have to shift that to increase the velocity of the use of unit events as well as when they start when they turn off each day and so we are looking actively at how to do that which spaces have the best air flow and highlighting those spaces and so i do think it's a really critical piece to consider for all of us when we think about health and safety we talked about mass and outdoor spaces but we also have to really focus on how do we improve the ventilation of indoor spaces and and what indoor spaces are we saying we won't use in the middle school unfortunately from a space perspective has a significant number of spaces maybe it's worth just briefly if i can pull it up sharing that screen of the middle school map if you don't mind miss mcdonald and miss hall just to show how many how it impacts things is that okay with you um so let me see if i can do this quickly and if i can't then there we are um so you can see and let me make it larger you can see on the map for that middle school you know these are exterior spaces to do windows this room c4a actually does have a window it doesn't look like it on this kind of very simple map but you've got all these full-size classrooms and the interior of the building they don't have windows and when we've looked at it and talked to the amherst health department as well as rupert as well as jill we've opted not to use those spaces in the fall so i think we are looking both at indoor spaces and outdoor spaces and all those pieces around the health and safety of our faculty and students i know we're getting close there are a few more that i think we can get to is that okay with folks if we just do a couple more okay um one of them was around communication with families who have children with ieps or other special needs will there be more direct communication with those families yes and we've been trying to have surveys and other tools for now i think as we develop an articulated plan we will and dr brady works with cpac which is a wonderful organization the special ed parent advisory council i think mr demling is one of the school committee reps to that and you know like even the special ed guidance today the moment it came out forwarded to the cpac president so uh you know i can't communicate that to dr brady into cpac and think about how to do that differently but there will be a lot more individual communication as we actually develop a specific plan for people's consideration okay great um there were questions about um confirming staff and student access to all the technology they need for remote learning yeah so um you know thanks to our incredible pgos uh we were able to um you know and actually the secondary level we had a one-to-one program so chromebooks wasn't the challenge but it was hot mobile hotspots so we did purchase mobile hotspots and deliver them to all students and families we did individual reach outs phone calls and emails uh who requested them and so we'll need to continue and keep at that because our student body changes over the summer and over the course of the year and we did collect significant amount this year because they do need to be updated so some students are using them for summer school programs and we'll need to get them and update them but um it is something that we've recognized as a challenge in our survey data uh the vast majority of staff who responded uh indicated that they um [Music] had what they needed and we're following up with those a relatively small percentage who needed support and we do have some folks who who live in a space where even a mobile hotspot you know there are towns with no wi-fi access and no cell service and that's a harder not to crack for staff and we will have to try to do individual problem solving around that if they're working in a virtual environment okay um this question came out this morning as well the use of other spaces in the community that are available yeah so we have looked at other spaces in the community one of our challenges any space we use would require an administrator and a nurse to be on site and so the spaces we've looked at really didn't increase our classroom load significantly like it'd be like four classes in this space or three classes in that space so as we've looked we haven't been able to identify a space that has a critical mass of classroom spaces enough where we could justify it both financially and otherwise okay and then this question i'm curious about is there no such thing as snow days anymore that's actually an interesting topic and that we are actively talking about um at an administrative level and uh i'd like to see if we can shift that not just so i sleep later in the winter in the mornings but um i think that there'd be good reason in in even in a hybrid model to think really differently uh about what snow days are and how do we provide education differently so it's something we're actively thinking about deci require ended this year the kind of blizzard bag model that some districts were using i'll be honest in the past i was really down on blizzard bags particularly from an access point of certain students and how quickly we could transition them to online education we're in a little different world now so we are looking for guidance about the flexibility to do that and i'll just say you know not speaking for the school committee for myself i'm really open to that idea i think it makes a whole lot of sense and it provides us some flexibility that even if we are an in-person model at this point we have worked out a lot of those virtual the barriers to virtual education in different way than i could say a year ago so more soon on that that will require a state flexibility and we don't have that the blizzard bag is just basically a way it was the informal term that districts used for when it was a snow day that students did online learning or other learning activities to count to their 180 days of school all right and then i think maybe one to to end on that's come up a few times is how will we adjust to new information changing information about the science behind the virus and then information that is released or then gets adjusted yeah so i can i can respond to that so uh i will just say in the last week i've been on conference calls or individual phone conversations with doctors at bay state medical center with mass general the doctors were advising some folks at the state um i got an email today from someone at umass who's a specialist in airborne things because that's certainly a a focus and i think you know all that's really been critical so while we are talking about cdc guidance in terms of spacing there's nothing that i've read that convinces me that the school committee should change its tune in terms of sticking with six feet i know there's some people who disagree with that and we've read some documents but the individual compensations i'm having uh and i know others are having routinely uh you know jill has regular conference calls with the department of public health at the state so as the situation evolves i want people to know we are talking about the cdc guidelines because i think that's the best thing that we have at the moment but we're getting active information from the major teaching hospitals in massachusetts the department of public health and local experts including at umass down the road so it's um you know we are staying up with that and we're keeping up with it uh you know i know there's some comments i'm not going to just ref i'll just reference where to find it so we do get incredibly useful feedback from students about what does and doesn't work for them for distance learning i want to plug and if sasha is able to find it maybe can put the link on here our fall 2020 we have a specific website it has all the information it has the raw data from every survey that we've offered for students for families from staff members it also has a compilation and some analysis that's been completed in slide decks that were presented to the school committee so in terms of one-stop shopping i just really recommend that you have this site bookmarked and and that you're able to take advantage of that because there is an incredible amount of information that's on there and i'll put it on here as a comment and we'll continue to update it on a daily basis every time we do a survey our commitment is we're going to share it transparently with the community and i think particularly we have an amherst college intern who's fabulous and he did a lot of deep analysis of trends because when you look at the surveys you'll see some of the results are about 140 pages long and some people love that tiffany love looking at numbers and analyzing them and i love that i have a wonderful amherst college intern who can do some of that and and put together summaries of both qualitative and quantitative data um so you know that link is on there on the chat and so you know please take advantage of that one um uh as we go and i'll turn it back to ms hall or miss mcdonald okay thank you so yeah we're we are a little past time i sincerely apologize if i missed or kind of mischaracterized a question we are trying to we're saving these questions trying to incorporate them in our conversations in the future and maybe have a document that we can share to make sure all of your questions do get answered um so i will turn it back over to chair mcdonald thank you um and i was going down that we the same question was um asked uh in the in the earlier afternoon session um so we will be incorporating all of the comments and questions that we've been hearing in these in these two town halls in our discussions on tuesday and all future conversations um and i we also received a request to create an faq page um which we can absolutely do with and within that site that um dr morris and sasha shared in the chat so um i i will also second or plus two that um recommendation to bookmark that website because there is a lot of really great information there and as we progress through the rest of the summer more information will be there as well that will be your your best source um so thank you everybody and um uh please remember to um email us at any time school committee at arps.org um for a public comment for our meetings or just um in between we also have a phone line and where we're taking voice messages which are guaranteed to be coming to come in clear no blurriness whatsoever when when um during our meetings um and that uh phone number is included on all our agendas as well as um several of us have it on our facebook page i'm sorry allison just another note is if people if you know people who were hoping to be on this call and got you know uh it was a nice day out and that sucked them away lost track of time or uh you know we're tied up you know this same youtube link that everyone's watching uh it automatically records and all the information this whole show including you can see the live chat and everything is available so please feel free to share this if you found it helpful um or if there was points that you felt like someone else would benefit from seeing please do share that link out and it'll be up indefinitely and we all thank you for viewing we had a good audience about 200 people um so thank you all for hanging on thanks for tiffany and simon for spending an hour and 10 minutes of their summer i know they're thinking about this stuff a lot but thank you for doing that and jalen and the school committee members as well thanks everybody
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Morris and the district in pulling together the plans and models for how we're going to go back to school in the fall in this document it assumes a best-case scenario in terms of our local health situation as those as many of those who are keeping track at home there are multiple phases both within the CDC guidance and our steps and stages and this assumes that were we're you know at least at that step two and then also with there are phases and steps and requirements from from deci in terms of having three plans so this is assuming that best-case scenario and clearly things as you'll see when we go through this document things can and will change and this document is not intended to be carved in stone but to outline sort of how we how we will adjust and where we're going to be looking for guidance as we adjust throughout the year so first and foremost our overall goals and we have three number one to protect staff and students safety number two to maximize internet print person learning time web maintaining six feet of physical distance and number three invest in and deliver the highest quality distance learning experience possible and there was we had lots of discussion about this with the School Committee on on Tuesday so they're there you know this this is as you know as noted a draft document and what part of what we want to hear from the community today is sort of reactions to some of these principles so in within staff and student safety what we're looking at here is prioritizing Public Health guidance and we list a few of those here namely the Centers of Disease Control American Academy of Pediatrics the state and our local public health officials as sort of informing our decision making process and approaches for back-to-school we're going to be informed by the guidance from the deci part of which requires us to submit three separate plans for for opening school our reopening plan is designed as much as possible to maintain that six feet of physical distance as much as possible between individuals that all staff and students will wear facial coverings as much as possible for grace two to twelve and where possible with 4k through first grade and that staff and students will engage in frequent hand-washing and hand sanitizing and sort of predicated on that as also providing the equipment and the tools to be able to do that and we want to provide accommodations for students and staff with underlying medical conditions with in-person learning and one of the things that we as a school committee that we're discussing is how we wanted to talk about these first two bullet points the first one being that we want to prioritize can l a-- mentor e students including the comandante's program in amherst for in-person learning as much as possible whether that's four to five days per week or eighty eighty to one hundred percent of school in school learning time that's that's the that's you know that definition this is that detail is to be discussed but really prioritizing getting elementary students and back to Infernus and learning and the middle school and high school students provided in-person learning at least two days per week or forty least forty percent of school days maximizing the time for special IDI education and English language learners or AOL students provided as much in person learning time as possible providing outdoor learning opportunity space than feasible and requiring hybrid sorry distance learning plans as backup for both the in-person and hydrating approaches knowing that conditions will change or can change and closures or other disruptions to impersonating me arise and key in in in presenting is providing support for staff and teachers both in time as well as training to adapt to the requirements of this in person physically distance learning environment with regard to distance learning and this would apply both for full-time in distance learning so so again if we if a school closure is is warranted or for those hybrid learning approaches that the distance learning will be greatly improved from what we had in the spring which we is was the emergency remote learning and that we have implemented in the spring so here we outlined and that we want to ensure consistency across instructional risk within schools employ instructional models that are well-suited for distance learning environment offer appropriate levels of challenge for every student and incorporate both synchronous and asynchronous approaches we want ensure that distance learning models are developed for all grades again to prepare for potential disruptions to in-person learning plans will be created support and trained staff students and families with the instructional tools and technologies districts were ensure that students have devices and access to Internet to support their engagement with distance learning and teachers and staff will be provided the support in both time and professional development to adapt to distance learning instructional models so I apologize I did tend to read more everything here I think and I don't ask my fellow committee members on the call if I left any important details out that we were discussing on Tuesday evening that you'd like to add I'm not hearing any okay there we are thank you so I think at this point we if there's anything any of the other committee members want to say in general and please you can jump in otherwise ahead of schedule miss McDonald so well done we can open it up for comments we've a couple they were more just reminders that this is focused on the elementary school level at five o'clock there'll be a similar session about the secondary level there was a question about the document that was just went over by mr.
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Huong this lacks yeah this is Reese here mr. Simmons Peter Thank You mr. Winston here president Becker we have a quorum to salute the flag mrs. boss has just arrived here thank you worth the wait I pledge allegiance to the corner of the United States of America and to the one nation under God with liberty and justice for all like me I was enacted and short the right of the public to have advance notice and to attend meetings of public bodies in accordance with the provisions of this act these funds report of educationist cause notice of this meeting to be published at the Board of Education offices written notice is also provided to the Sentinel in York star-ledger Levin Luzon Tribune and the municipal clerk can be sponsored all board of education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotaped for later broadcasts individuals who speak at the board's public meeting should be aware of these videotaping rules good evenings I'm taken several shoutouts and thank-yous we had four in-person graduations this week Monday and Tuesday on our football field and in alert they were Colonials dignity night alerted me and so hot [Music] wila Vicki we are losing it's mrs.
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McDonald and the link was posted of where that is in the packet on Tuesday night it'll also be on our fall 2020 planning site by the end of the day but I think at this point we just want to open it up to see if there are questions comments that anyone who's on this dream would have for the committee me for myself from miss Kahn Cellino about thinking about fall planning so we'll give it a second for people to weigh in I saw one has come in about busing and transportation I think I'll take I'll start with that one we did an analysis that was presented we did analysis based on kind of three scenarios that was presented on Tuesday night at the for the elementary schools one was our current practice is to transport every student the second is actually our school committee policy which we we exceed right now I was going to say don't follow but that sounds worse so I think we exceed the school committee policy which is that transportation is provided for elementary students who live greater than 1.5 miles the bus stop would be 1.5 miles or greater from school and that would reduce the number of students who take the bus and the last scenario would be the legal limit which is two miles from the school we also did survey families earlier this year about about 30 some odd percent of elementary families who responded said they would transport their children and and another 27 percent said they would likely transport their children I was just on a conference called this today with the state we still don't have guidance from the state on exactly how many students can participate or would be able to ride a bus from their guidance so transportation is a variable that is a little undetermined right now but we are doing our legwork to know what the variables are as we receive that information I know if there's anything that the committees would want to share in addition okay and Mike yep I would just say to people that they can see the information about bussing if they go and look at the minutes from or the agenda from the Tuesday night school committee meeting I guess I also add that we are still awaiting guidance from the state on transportation hopefully that will be this month and so that that may affect what we are able to offer as well but we are proceeding ahead with with the timeline that we feel we have to go on now before we get that state guidance okay thank you we have a number of questions that come in so next one is how a consistency of expectations cost crass chorim's grades in schools be ensured I'm all unsure if this is referring to if we're in a distance learning model or an in-class person model but I'll answer both so certainly you know one place I would recommend people going and maybe Sasha can get the link up is our fall 2020 planning site because one of the things that we did this spring is we had teams of staff work on guiding principles and I think last Tuesday night we presented also some feedback about distance learning and I think the general agreement of all parties we interviewed we also surveyed middle school and high school students we have a whole lot of data and the thing one of the things that fully aligns on is that we need to be much more clear if we're in a distance learning environment about the expectations and to work much more as grade levels and not necessarily even just as schools but across great cross schools and almost grade level bands to make sure that there's a consistency of expectations I think there was full acknowledgment that what would happen in the spring in terms of distance learning would not be repeated if we are in a distance learning environment or if students or families choose to be in a distance learning environment this fall and so we are developing plans but the guiding principles I think do more justice than my words could at them my words good at the moment about how that might be approached we have a number of comments I'm going to keep just going in order I think as I see them so are there any upgrades and I'm just reading these just for access points I know we're just playing them as well any upgrades being made to the physical spaces HVAC and alpha air filtration is something I'm specifically concerned about the answer is yes so at Wildwood and Fort River in particular I'll speak to those two and then I'll speak to all four of our elementary schools across the two districts so at those schools the quads are turning into halfsies or something we'll have a better name for them at some point which I don't have the visual up and ready but if you think of the quads as being one large space stuff divided into fours essentially this sets up those that big space subdivide into twos with much more solid walls going between those two spaces so it doesn't share air circulation and flow that way each of those halfsies would have two near vents windows on both sides for cross ventilation and the big difference from ventilation point of view is currently there is one vent out from all the quads it all goes as feet if you've been in more of a wild or if you think the bathrooms in the back of the quad area there's one venting out for all those and this is splitting it to this event for each room so it's not mixing air at all of the schools will exceed or meet ASHRAE standards which is the kind of governing body of that by essentially running the air at higher velocity and four more hours each day so ASHRAE typically recommends more balanced approach in terms of how you're doing that as compared to energy efficiency and this is not a typical time and so we know that we'll have increased cost for doing that and it's what's being recommended what we'll do additionally at the elementary level the principals are working on schedules very much following a model from Finland where there might be 45 minutes or so of academic time and then 10 minutes of outside time so every hour on the 85% of days there's not or 90% days there's not torrential rain that students would be getting outside routinely additionally we're not using any classrooms for its students that don't have windows for additional ventilation capacity finally for all of our schools right the thing I mentioned about you know running you know vents and ventilators more often and all those that's that's that includes for crock our farm as well as for Pelham as well and then the last thing sorry I keep on saying last thing there's also going to be fewer bodies and spaces right so if you think of the typical quad at given time there might be 80 70 80 students if there's four if they're all filled with classroom that's a lot of bodies breathing air and and all going to one vent and that also has an influence on ventilation and air filtration as well so Jill I don't know if I missed anything that you wanted to share or if I hit the points perhaps not as well stated as you would if I realize I should have turned to you but I realized it too late no that's okay no you you hit the points pretty good I'm not an HVAC technician or specialist by any means and Rupert Roy Clark who was our facilities director he's done a excellent job on getting all those upgrades and you know in place and we are taking the the measures that were supposed to to you know get the physical spaces ready and utilizing spaces that have windows so we can have you know fresh air flowing in and out of those classrooms and we're looking at not using any of the classrooms that don't have windows to avoid those you know those situations but yeah there's there's been a lot of changes done to some of the elementary buildings that only enhances the physical spaces that the kids will be in in the fall so we have a number of comments so I'm just gonna keep on rolling with them and anyone can jump in what is happening with the comandante's program will it be a lottery soon yeah there's going to be communication might have happened last night actually if not it's happening today for miss Richardson we spoke yesterday afternoon we are planning on having a lottery I think at this point with the uncertainty of what school looks like I think we are being cautious that we're doing a lottery because families you know need to have that information our transportation department needs to have that information I think if we were for instance in a more virtual environment it's hard to imagine that being successful for incoming kindergarteners the nature of that program is their reliance on oral communication and that's more challenging to pull off with five-year-olds in a virtual environment so we are moving forward the lottery once our model is settled on which we hope happens the next next this month I'll say early August then we'll be able to confirm that but we want to we want to go forward the lottery because we know exam want to know that information and I think that's I don't know if there's anyone else who wants to jump in on that or I'm seeing shaking heads through a plan for students who live with people who are high risk for the more severe forms of Koba 19 were they be able to opt in to entirely remote learning the quick answer is yes as we develop our models we will be planning for that and we got clarity on that actually just in the last hour from a Jessie conference call I was in that that families will have the option and so we may can homeschool or receive virtual education and and what that virtual education is the state is working with local districts potentially on some platforms that might be helpful some districts may choose to use their own staff and so we will be working on that as we go and look at the map of classrooms layout they have second graders have three classroom and kindergartens have two this is typical how does this allow for increased space between students so what you'd see in terms of the layout and there was last night it was right before the map started or Tuesday night I should say there was a map of what classrooms would look like and typically our classrooms for young students use tables and students are very close to one another in the models and layouts for any of our schools the desks would be laid out six feet apart and so that would be the increased space between students is really spacing students out it's removing most objects in the school in the room that are not desk students teachers and teacher desk as well as student materials so that's a good visual I wasn't running through these questions might be able to pull it up but it's it's on our website it's on the fall 2020 website encourage people to look there at that yep yep so that's that's exactly it Alexandra so if you if we had 16 student first of all but most of the time our elementary schools I think Pelham has one classroom that were actually not planning to use that's that small 750 feet all of the other classrooms at elementary school are well over 800 feet and and so the maximum is 16 students you know Clark from really looking at 15 because of some of the built-ins even though the classrooms are over 900 square feet the built-in cabinetry makes it not fit so that's why we looked at each different room individually not as just a square footage but it's really that we wouldn't spread students out in a typical classroom environment using the whole space and in this environment we would how would this impact van service for students required again we're still waiting for deci information on transportation so I don't have good clarity specifically on that one yet and they're meeting with doctors like at MGH and trying to figure out what's the best approach as it relates to transportation but we are just thinking of us is I think it's a good point I should continue to say buses or vans for transportation thank you for that so the state guidance is and in this document was kids are required to mara mass as possible as starting in grade 2 what our expectations for the younger grades I can start on that but Jill maybe give me a break for a talking break you want to answer that one instead of me sure so right now the recommendation from D pH and Department of Education is that students in grades two and older will be required to wear masks or facial coverings if they're able to in school and the kids and the younger grades it's recommended so we wouldn't we're going to be encouraging students and those younger grades if they're if it's possible for them to wear a facial covering or a mask in school when they're not able to maintain the six-foot physical distance between classmates and staff and it'll be you know to the best of our ability and teachers abilities we know that there will be students that fit under the criteria of the you know not being able to wear a mask but you know if they have a medical condition that they don't tolerate it or you know another condition where they're not able to they fit into a criteria where they're not able to physically put on or take off a mask they would not be required to wear one in school so we have a boatload of PPE already on site and we will have some backups we will be asking families to provide masks or facial coverings they're students but we will have backups if you know one has forgotten or we need to replace one during the school day and I want to say you know that is a conversation the school committee has had so what what miss Constantino said is accurate and I know there were some committee members who wanted to come back to the conversation about kindergarteners first graders and in the little state language is strongly encouraged and so I think the more feedback that people have and and I know there's some feedback on that in the comments that I see that's really helpful for the committee and myself to see and it's helpful today and also just remind folks about school committee at Arps org and and Morris M @rf State Oregon that that's something that I know is or I believe is something that committee will want to return to particularly because we've heard I've heard a lot about the kindergarten first grade question and and face coverings I'm gonna use face coverings set of masks because I think there's some thinking about different face coverings for K and one that may be more tolerable for young students thank you for the kind comet Halley and you know for Crocker farm and there's this is true in Pelham as well we built our models on a hundred percent of students for turning I see there's a question later on will we survey parents about students returning and the question that's absolutely we wanted to get a baseline so you know I think what's likely to happen is less than 100 percent of students will return I think that's highly likely and so we will have to redo the space pieces and so we put the grade five six combo and there's also a one-two combo both at Crocker and a Pelham I believe that's assuming a hundred percent of students return we have to do that because until a student says I'm not returning I want all virtual we have to account for those students being in the school setting the reality I think will look different on the ground you know even our survey indicated in terms of definitely unlikely I guess was 86 or 87 percent returning so we may not have to do the combined classrooms but we wanted to give the school committee in the community and honest read of if all students returned these are the choices that we'd have to make because of space and staffing I think it's highly likely that again that number will drop and we may not have to do that getting to the specifics of the question is we've had a long history in the district not as much in recent years of having combined classes marks meadow had for instance virgin elementary school that no longer is open on the UMass campus had compliant classes very frequently Crocker pharmacy had combined classes and when I was there we had one and the interesting thing right now is you know grade level curriculum standards feel a little awkward because we know they don't really make as much sense as they did in a typical environment so it is try to think about that if we did go forward we'd be asking families at first if they were interested in being both fifth and sixth grade families we've heard from I've heard from a number of families who either feel like maybe another year a little softer landing spot would be better because this spring has been very difficult for a whole host of reasons other students felt like they got ahead and they're really willing to push forward and can handle a higher level so we would be engaging families and staff about what that model specifically looked like and what we presented on choosing it was simply if all students respond if all students returned what would it look like from a space perspective and that's where we are well kindergarten to walk so no we would provide transportation for K to six students when we wouldn't differentiate between them and and I think in terms of other districts like you know across the across the river Northampton they've already voted a transportation policy you know I think the expectation is that families would support their children or communities would support their children through carpooling to getting to school you know I will follow up more with Northampton other thinking on that but we're a little unique in terms of a different providers transportation for all of its students that's as the outlier it's not the norm as it is so we could talk to other districts that have long-standing policies that reduce the number of buses or students on buses and we can find out more we tend to have a pretty expensive transportation model because we do provide that service for every single student who wants it and we'd have to weigh in my opinion almost before the committee we'd have to weigh can we reduce it less than a mile and a half so for closer if families are willing to drive their students and get that hit the right spot on those I think we can we won't I don't think we'd have to go to two miles from our analysis because we know many families will drive their students to school under their own choice the innovative opportunities to main interest in person building instruction that we've not yet explored other buildings besides schools distance learning is devastating to working families we have the challenges any building we open that's not a school would have to have an administrator and a school nurse so anytime we expand our number of buildings we're talking about a significant expense unbudgeted expense in a year that we have a lot of them and our financial picture got worse this year not better we cut over a million dollars from our between Amherst and region all three budgets pretty much had a zero percent increase so that's our challenge we did explore it one of the challenges in the community is there's a lot of buildings that maybe can get three or four classrooms in but from an economy of scale perspective they don't really shift the larger dynamic and open three or four classrooms hire another nurse and hire another administrator leads to some real challenges for us so if people have ideas you know Maura seminars or please email me me email the School Committee we have explored town owned buildings and some other buildings but you know we found it challenging to have an accessible building for staff and students that would have an enough classroom space is that it would make a larger difference and really I guess the the quicker way to answer it is we're not really seeing at the elementary level with the exception of Parker farm perhaps we space is not the barrier for us you know all students at Pelham all students at forever all students at Wildwood could fit if we can staff those buildings and Crocker farm you know we you know at the school remember a school remember let on Tuesday night brought up you know mobile space you know mobile classrooms or different things that we can explore but space is not the barrier for us at the elementary level I'm sorry I hope I'm leaving time for leaving space for school team members who want to jump in to be able to jump in I feel like I'm doing more talking than like so I think this one was answered but absolutely there'll be an options of families who don't want to send their children to school at all we're developing what that'll look like but but that's absolutely true and for those students of yeah English language learner needs or special needs those needs will be needs to be attended to just as if they were in school as well this is a good one for miss console you know how you keep mass on younger children and Katie - that's a good question and I don't have the miracle answer to that it's the guidance we have right now is that it'll be recommended for those kids to wear a facial covering in school and it'll just it were we will have to wait and see on how the kids tolerate them we're we're gonna do our best to keep our kid the kids you know six feet distance apart and what studies have shown is that when you if you can maintain a physical distance of six feet apart from somebody then facial covering is technically not required for so quote-unquote protection so we're gonna we're gonna try to encourage it as much as much as possible for these younger kids but it's one of those things we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there yeah and I think so I was in touch with some public health folks outside the district as well as some local physicians who offered to help with that and provide videos I think at an important point also is that in the guidance we received it talks about mass breaks that we don't expect students to keep especially our younger students but all students and staff to keep masks on 100% of the day you know and some of those might happen when their students are in outside spaces and distance things a little easier for that matter but I you know I want to be realistic if we set unrealistic expectations we're doomed to be disappointed in that that we want students to be wearing masks all students all staff and that all the public health experts say people do need mask breaks from time to time and you know working out how to schedule them we do have some folks both volunteers from our community who are involved in public health or our physicians who have offered to help us with what that looks like I think I've answered some of the ones I'm gonna skip because I'm pleased I think it is because people may not have heard of people coming in late now may not have heard sort of that your your responsive question earlier in the broadcast about the the outside breaks that are being regularly scheduled because I think that also gets at the question about how do you help children hold up you know keep masks on for a great period and sort of ties into mass breaks as well yeah so so the model we're looking at the elementary model is something that Finland does in a regular basis not they did a pre pandemic not during pandemic times which is that students get outside every hour that there might be 45 minutes 50 minutes of instruction and the students go outside regularly for 10 or 15-minute breaks and so that also might be the time where logically people kids students get mass breaks and it's much much easier to sort of think of how that would work outside you know I just just having been to playgrounds my own kids recently you kind of get a flow of how that works and seeing other students props to the town for a murse for Graaf park it's really neat courage ever with young kids because people on this call probably young kids to go there and it's busy so you know for me personally you know I did want my you know to wear a mask and have children and you recognize when you're a playground there are logical ways that people can have brakes and even in terms of the guidance we've received from the Department of Public Health and Jill could talk about I think I'll probably go down to more questions unless this this pops up again is just really it's about distance and duration that you know you want to think about six feet but you know you get to higher risk the longer the duration so thinking of kind of more routine mass breaks even inside that are shorter in duration seem consistent with the public health guidance we're receiving but yo I mean if there's more questions we can go but I just there's other questions on different topics so you know we have been in touch with UMass House in touch with them as recently as yesterday it's I'll just say it's complicated right there's a lot of the college and universities and I'm not gonna speak to you mass in general are teaching remotely or mostly remotely some of them are making their classroom space their office available for faculty to use for some of that remote lecture also some of the thinking is if they're trying to cordon off their campuses to the outside world you know we are the outside world and so that also creates some dilemmas for ecology universities about if they don't want to open their space what does that mean so we are in touch with UMass regularly and we will continue to explore that but again at the elementary level space is not our concern again Crocker farm a little bit but primarily space is not our confirm it our concern and a Crocker farm if the numbers go down from full attendance - which is what we had to present for - less than full attendance we may be able to get all students at Crocker farm if we can we can figure out the staffing as well so since this is not going to this is going to work based on rotating kids or remote learning teaching be a part of the schedule for the rest of the week I think right now it's an open question I'm not gonna speak for the school committee but you know they presented trying to get elementary students and as often as possible and regularly I think the secondary level there was a larger focus on a rotation in terms of the school committee document you know I mean Ellison or anyone on any of the elementary school coming in on that Peter yeah I would just say that so the the document is currently drafted asks for a goal of 80 to 100 percent time on site for her K to 6 that being said we haven't looked at we haven't discussed at the school committee level yet the what the exact start and end time of the day would be and and then if that doesn't cover the full start and end time that we're typically used to would we would we then need to supplement with some remote learning dr.
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Becker now we are losing your connections Rosen on screen and your connection is is unstable just want to make you aware is it any better now you're free you're still freezing out Vicki hey do you know what I want to say one of you is it anything no okay Victor's you know what I miss respect I wanted to be doing good yes it's the audio is just scattered so what miss Becker wanted to express was these for graduation ceremonies would not have been possible without a lot of support not only among the high school community the Board of Education all the parents who agreed to come out and sit in the hot Sun to watch their children graduate but we want to acknowledge Miller rental who on a very short notice put together the the staging and the all the stage equipment for our graduates to walk across and and had that set up for us ready to go for the Monday morning graduation so many thanks to them they have been a district partner for many years and again just sincere appreciation the East Brunswick Educational Foundation who supported this event by providing the audio and the live stream capability that allowed extended families to connect with graduation on that special moment in these very very unspecial times so thank you to both of them and their many other people to thank but we wanted to take a moment tonight to acknowledge those two groups of people so mrs.
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marks I don't know if you could speak to that what initial thoughts are or planning is in terms of start and end time for 4k sexy yeah so we are looking about shifting the start time back perhaps not the end time but I think one of the things that we realize is that and the guidance we received this relates to a number of the other cause comments are I was scrolling down so I was listening mostly but I was also scrolling in the length of comments is large so which is good that's what we wanted so you know we are thinking of starting school later in the morning to give teachers more time for training we're also thinking of thinking that first week in school in particular of having shorter days for students so that both students and staff can get acclimated under a new environment get build up tolerance for mask-wearing and also perhaps some so have some virtual education in the morning there are some things that are really hard to imagine happening in school next year and we expect guidance from the state on this but some of some of the instrumental music for instance will be really hard to to do based on the guidance we've received up especially certain instruments so we are looking at you know what how can we make some hybrid approaches even with even if students are in for quote unquote a full week because we don't imagine a full week being the typical length day five days a week even in the best of kovat circumstances did that capture Peter where you were headed I hope yeah I just want to clarify that so the comment mentions two days on two days off that's not a scheduled that we talked about it at K to six the the goal at least in the draft document so far is was eighty a hundred percent on on site as much as possible and that the the implementation details of what those start/end times are are still are still in process yep so another question how are the blowers heating air circulation work in each building so I spoke about that a little bit earlier but the short story and I'm not an HVAC specialist Rupert spoke about this a couple school committee meetings ago and maybe you can get that link up to anyone who's curious but essentially is that typically what's recommended as we balanced ventilation in terms of heating blowers air circulation to balance how quick how often the room turns over all of its air with energy efficiency and that's what's recommended to us and what would plan would be for next year is to shift that balance to less on the energy efficiency side to increase the number of times a day the full air sir air circulates and turns over additionally we're going to encourage at the depending on the weather and the right moments for windows to be open in buildings and that those are the two strategies in terms of the Equis Singh the velocity of the air coming out which turns it over more often and starting it longer before the school day and running it after the school day will be it I think also getting to mr.
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Becker are you back I think she she's not showing on screen give her a moment she's reconnecting okay so we'll just give her a moment and I while she's doing that she would have passed it to me anyway I just wanted to provide a couple of quick updates for the community I didn't have a superintendence per se reports to say tonight but I wanted to acknowledge mr. mark vondre and students from the high school he put together to participate in the plan competition bias congratulations to them they took third place against some highly ranked schools so congratulations on that and continued commitment to our students in the district and that was a summer activity that actually occurred at the some time earlier in June I also wanted to acknowledge the Bears baseball team who is going to compete in a bracket competition involving 222 teams so congratulations to Kenny and all the all the players they are bracket style competition which will give our 12 seniors an opportunity for one last chance to play together and they are participate in the Lincroft bracket and they got the third seed and they will compete against manna squad at hue Brothers Academy on Tuesday July 14th at 5:30 p.m.
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Demming something he prompted in me having a shorter school day while stood in schools in session allows her much more disinfecting in the afternoon and in the mornings to be able to do cleaning you know we have other we have a zero sum of custodians right we have the same custodians we have so if we give them more time to clean that actually helps with that and actually one of the biggest things and this is kind of it sounds surprising but I've been told this by many people including public health folks is by reducing the quantity of stuff in rooms it actually has a huge positive impact on air circulation blowers and heating so when you look at Barron in classrooms not only they easier to clean they actually greatly improve air circulation and air flow and so I want to thank the teachers publicly we ask people that identify their classrooms this spring and people did a fantastic job of doing that and continuing to do that it's going to be in everyone's health the health best interest of everyone's health other questions about substitutes situation actually most of our subs respectfully keep our you know average age is lower of our subs than of our day and I asked they day off staff and so we are working on what the substitute situation looks like and we have two staff for that some of our schools have permanent subs and that's a really effective strategy around that so it is something we're still working and looking for state guidance on same way--with I've got a lot of questions about student teachers are we taking student teachers might they be good subs because they will have all the protocols down and we're still considering whether that's a good idea a bad idea we've been in touch with the public health folks on that topic as well and we'll keep on working at it yeah so I mean the short answer to the question that I'm sorry didn't read it have you determined the relative amount of online learning that will occur in the synchronous methods you described what I'd say is that the conference call I got on we're gonna be on pretty much the same hourly requirements that were always on next year of 900 hours at the elementary level so the synchronous learning is going to have to mirror what would happen if students were in school where there's you know whatever it works out to half hours of daily instruction some of that maybe some asynchronous but the majority would have to be synchronous so I think for people who are making a decision about that or concern that you know there may be health implications for their family we have to cover all the standards and our time on learning will be the same in school or out of school for next year yes I mean I'm just trying to skip around four different ones here's one I don't have an answer to but I think when I got on this chat the special ed guidance came out from deci so I've been hanging out with this chat and not on that document so I don't have an answer to this one but I know that dr.
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and one final thing yesterday afternoon we released a survey to the families of east brunswick you'll get a sense of some critical information we need from you to plan our return to school in September for the 2021 school year and I do want to acknowledge that we posted a link to the survey it's a Google link and I'm aware that's been shared around maybe on Facebook sites another other social media we realized that other people outside the district can complete the survey we hope that people will the survey and acknowledge it as active parent or guardian of currently registered students in East Brunswick the information we receive from this survey is going to guide some decisions we're going to make and we will probably be sending out future surveys by our more secure site so we can control the number of responses and be able to quality control that we didn't need this information quickly which was the reason for the Google survey and we did have to open it so parents could could with multiple times because we want information for each of the children in their family so I want to express appreciation to the community the response was very quick I believe we're approaching nearly 5,000 responses as of tonight so thank you all for taking a few minutes to do that if you haven't done so already please go in and complete the survey by Monday I believe that is the more instead of 14th is that correct double check 13 and so we will and then we'll be building our plan and as I stated in my message new to the community approximately but one month before the opening of school we'll be sharing our our tentative plan with the community and with the township and getting feedback on this so thank you very much my okay now can you guys hear me okay dr.
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Brady our service director is anxiously reading that document right now trying to figure out exactly what that works how that will work home based care is a little complicated for us for a whole host of reasons so this is a different environment so I wanted to highlight the question as being a good one unfortunately I don't have a clear answer what I would say is if there's one-on-one in the child's IEP we would have to cover that if not in the home environment certainly in a virtual environment learned about space also capacity to subdivide spaces we'd like to see outdoor learning yeah so I would just add to that that we we have purchased a tent they're shipping within a week so we'll have them well on time for the school year because we know in some days outdoor learning could happen anywhere in some days you really want 30 by 30 10 Cobra which would fit all students that's about the size of the average a little larger than some of our elementary classrooms I would say the subdivided space is at Wildwood they're already in work so I know some people have peeked in the windows I don't want to encourage to put me on the site but having been in one of those spaces it's gigantic they're 1,900 square feet it about triples the size about two and three-quarters time the size of the usable space in our quads and I think that people will be wanting to be in them if they're in buildings next year because if their spaciousness and they have true cross ventilation I'm not trying to convince anyone but having been in one that would be my perspective so the the question is more or less if you calculated space for teachers all of the spaces have been calculated for teachers the state recommended six feet across and we've calculated it at least seven if not eight feet across for the space for teachers so beyond where they were elementors have enough planning time to meet both in-person and digital learning simultaneously we're looking you know more at models where elementary teachers are either doing in-person or digital not both simultaneously add to that you know one of the themes expressed in past school committee meetings is that you know we have an amazing amazing staff and teachers this is our greatest resource but you know they're they're only human and they only have so many hours in the day and so with funding being what it is you know we don't want to set teachers or students up to fail and so well well it's it was nice the state asked us to produce three different models and how would we would accommodate in staff every single possible way to implement implement that across the spectrum of remote or in person it's it's it's a bit of a cognitive dissonance ask I think to ask one teacher to prepare to do both simultaneously and to be able to pivot all the time between the two miles so that's you know we haven't voted yet it's still in process but the School Committee has has expressed similar sentiment to what you just described that you know we want to you want to set up if we can do that by allowing them to make imprints and learning as it can be in making other teachers making remote learning as effective as it can be greatly improved from the spring then that's that's how we'd like to do it Mike I would just say I was looking at the guiding principles that the team for the elementary schools put together and one of the things I noted as they talked about all working together across the breadth of the school of the grade and that perhaps there would be people who could do one thing versus another and it wouldn't be they would be thinking more broadly in terms of all the schools rather than just each individual schools thank you so I do believe the school day likely would be shorter than normal I think we spoke about that I'm just I know I'm up to comments that were given at 12:18 so I'm trying to my best to sort through ones that I've been answered you know here's one about siblings we would try to do our best with coordinating siblings you know our hope is that school students at the elementary level would go to school everywhere my hope I should say is that students would go to school every day but but we've heard that concern and we'd have to work that out from a transportation perspective you know in terms of maintaining six foot distance II the advice we've gotten from our state in public health as well as CDC is that students would say in their cohorts and specials another thing would come into the classroom instead of students going to other spaces and that's really why we want to have a movement break again at best-case-scenario outside which can occur from most days on a very routine basis because we know movement is critical for all students but particularly for elementary students I'm going to let me talk to sort about synchronous before you know in terms of before and after school options this is this one really hits at trying to keep cohorts together in our school all day so we are actively engaging with our after school before school providers but this is where the health guidance and support for families are really bouncing up or you know banging into one another so you know I think in our buildings it's hard for us to imagine for the cleaning and disinfecting that our custodial and maintenance crew have to do that we'll be have students in buildings for the length of time that we have now right now we have students our earliest UDON's get there between 7:00 and 7:30 for before school Karen stay till 5:30 I can say that we would not have students at school for that length of time next year with all the health concerns and all the cleaning that we need to have so good another good question had cafeteria moving room our so all the spaces that were selected for instructional rooms at all schools had windows and you know vents and blowers for all the reasons that were mentioned before and I think again D densifying is what folks more knowledge with me tell me it's just incredibly critical and so having been in all these spaces there's a lot of there's a lot of room in those spaces and they all have windows as well as ventilation systems so here's a good one you know the state out just on this conference call I think in the next week they're gonna put out guidance around if a staff member students test positive and Quarantine this is one of the reasons the School Committee and maybe one of you could comment about the six feet versus three feet I don't know if Peters nodding his head analysis I don't know if you want to comment a bit on that particular aspect and maybe also asked for help from mr.
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velinski did you get home my thank yous I gave to Miller rental and EBE F and you're welcome to give any others you want um did you mention my highness and my quinella I did not that's for you to do I thank them personally but you can do it again okay on behalf of the board and the entire community Matt Hannes you are a rock star every year you you manage to give us a graduation that is precise and dignified and representative of this district and this year you you put a lot of heart into it and it was just wonderful and like Noah your face was on this graduation from the Sun did I initiate the new upgrade or when did I send the trade back what sorry we had someone that had unmuted themselves new people are determined that I am NOT going to get through these thank-yous so therefore I'm done thank youing i think we had all the high points however there is no good of the cause of the board tonight so I wanted to know if at this time any other board members had anything that they wanted to say about graduation or anything else seeing none shall go to the total calls for the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the following meeting ID and password your browser of your computer in order to be recognized use the chat feature select zoom meeting post then enter and send your name to the host you'll be recognized to speak when your name is called the Board of Education recognizes the value of coming public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves the board shall provide a period for public comment on every meeting and participants are limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to speak to the board tonight or any anybody in the queue no no one has asked to speak okay sing none I closed comic portion we have a need to go into a closed session whereas the Board of Education must discuss some orders which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting the Board of Education intends to discuss matters as follows those items in tonight's agenda believe the closed session is estimated to be 90 minutes against public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken and I please send out a motion to go into closed session so those nobody will second by Suzanna is there any discussion all those in favor come on up same motion carries when closed session good night thank you for joining us stay safe board members please log out and login to the closed session you
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Council II know as well and that one of the one of the things that we've talked about in the school committee meetings is the the rationale between six feet and sort of the guidance from deci which says six feet as close as possible minimum three feet these are the understanding that that it's it that it can be challenging particularly with younger kids to to have 100% compliance to guidance such as staying six feet away from each other and that if we aim for six feet of distance that it gives us that wiggle room for whenst when students are aiming for to be closer together that we're still pretty presenting a safe space for that that still meets sort of those minimum requirements and the other the other thought and and this is I'm going to maybe ask lino to comment about the this the quarantine eing and and sort of if you know when one student becomes infected and how many who who will need to be quarantined until we have that that testing data because I think that was also really um helpful data point for us to have in the school committee shorts so to follow up on that what's been happening with this virus and how to identify people that need to go under quarantine after somebody becomes symptomatic or test positive is the close contact definition is anybody who's been within a six-foot distance of a positive or symptomatic person for a duration of longer than 10 to 15 minutes and that can be spaced out throughout the entire day so if we are able to get the kids to you know stay spaced apart for at least 6 feet or and even if they're within 6 feet for only a minute or two that doesn't that doesn't qualify them as being a close contact if somebody doesn't have testing positive so we I was on a conference call with DPH last week and dr.
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Katie Brown came on she's one of the members of the advisory panel for the state and she reiterated the fact with the six-foot rule is it will eliminate a lot of this identification of people that need to go under a quarantine for 14 days if we can maintain that six-foot as much as possible and it would it'll make the contact tracing go a lot smoother and it'll be a lot less people that are involved with the whole process so it's and there's guidance I've asked for a guidance from the state everybody has that there's a whole group of nurse leaders that are looking for it and they said it's to come so we're waiting for it from them yep and so I left that other question up I apologize so I'm just recognizing the time and I tried to find some themes of questions so there was a lot of there's some comments and questions about washing hands and and you know Jill is working right now on protocols but certainly all the protocols that are being recommended house have students washing hands on upon entry upon exit and multiple times throughout the day classrooms that don't have sinks would have sanitizer stations already or sanitizer I know what they're called but um sanitizer station installed in them for ready use right now and I know people are anxious and and I am too right what happens but right now Massachusetts numbers are very low other states in our country are incredibly high and it's hard to know what'll happen I think people may not have caught the beginning but I want to share that other people on this call share that if the numbers get to the point we read to close school in person we need to close school in person at this point our numbers fortunately both locally in terms of Hampshire and Franklin County as well as across the state you know we're one of four states that experts are saying has it we're in reasonably good shape right now that could change we've seen that change in their states and that's why we're developing multiple plans that we have to make a plan moving forward and in the guiding principles document the draft excuse me the priorities document school committee had that may shift all remote if this situation changes I've seen another number of comments about that there's a lot on bathrooms all the public guidance public health guidance is that atoms are cleaned routinely through the day they're not after each use that's true for places like grocery stores other places that businesses that are open there's increasing levels and Jill you could speak says if you like but of confidence that we want to clean them routinely and I think that's important but there's no guidance I've ever seen or receive that it's after every single use based on the risk factors have been established and so that's sort of where we are with bathrooms and just recognize again as 12:55 so I'm scrolling a bit to look for common themes there's a number of Joe do you want to talk a little bit about duration versus distance because there's a number of questions around that I think we sort of addressed it but I wonder if you could speak to that like if students get up to wash their hands they may be closer than six feet to other students on their way and just some thought you have on that sure so that comes down to the risk of exposure for either a student to student or student to staff member and it's it has to be a prolonged exposure and so the state keeps pushing this ten to fifteen minute time frame and there's varying sources out there that have you know this time of ten to fifteen minutes within three to six feet and so just a brief interaction of you know one student getting up from their desk and going over to the sink to wash their hands is not a potential to expose you know all the four or five students that they make walk in front of if the student happens to you know is not wearing a facial covering and they happen to cough or sneeze and you know that rural classmates then yeah there's the potential for exposure but the there there has to be you know you have to be face to face with somebody for you know within this certain distance for a prolonged period of time to have an actual you know risk of exposure to this virus and it escalates when there's coughing sneezing you know escalating a you know increasing voice volume shouting that kind of stuff that all increases the chance of risk for exposure to the virus yep thank you so I saw a couple comments I want to address one is about there's potentially new CDC guidance coming out and I'm just gonna speak for myself it's in a wacky week for this topic nationally and what I would say is two things one is that I'm committed I'm not gonna speak for anyone but myself I'm committed to following the CDC guidelines that were released before if there's political pressure new CDC guidelines come out I'm not suede right now that we would I would recommend any changes from the guidelines that were expressed I think it's frankly it's compromised some of people's confidence and organizations when CDC has guidelines and and perhaps it at least appears there's political pressure being placed so again I'm not asking anyone else to make that comment I just wanted to make it myself that you know when in our planning we're going with the original guidelines that we received there's a question about cost of all different models it's hard to figure out we know that we have students that will have needs we will not be addressed in a virtual education model so that's a hard one to itemize or to put into place but you know I think that's one end of it and the other end of it is is hard to predict so what we're doing right now is trying to keep tracking and accounting knowing that we plan to have some in-person education next year and we might be in a virtual environment and that makes it very very difficult to budget but we're doing our best with that there was a question about special ed and how would kind of one-on-ones or para educators work and I think something that I'm looking forward to reading the guidance that again came in at today from the state but in our current thinking if some students may have more in person or in class supports than they typically would and some students may have may who are included less may have different supports that may be more out of the classroom and specialized programs based on individual student need because you know the IEP is that were written we're written for a covert era and so we are engaging staff members on a case-by-case basis and trying to think through our students have that there's a couple questions about staff members being in buildings we have not really nearly opened up but if staff members want to be in buildings they certainly can be in touch with me and we have loosened those opportunities we do have I know there are districts including Holyoke so pretty close to now that did open summer school programming we're looking at hoping that a little bit later in the summer as the guidance has come on for that so just hold true you're in the same room as all children all day six feet no bass so I think no one's suspecting that there's no Massey mat the primary grades we're talking about strongly encourage and comfort that we may have seen that I may have seen that after it got answered we are trying to limit the number of people who are going across buildings things like that and the number of exposure that folks would have for instance Elementary specialists teachers typically a wild hood for instance II would typically see 21 classes a week they see every class every week we'd be moving to a model where they stay with the same set of classes for weeks on end again because we were concerned about staff safety as well as student safety up on that there are recommendations right now from the state is not that students are temperature checked on the weight of the building and if some states have recommended that but the short story and Joel you can jump in if you like is that you know those tests are about 75% effective and that's not all that helpful in terms of high temperature like just the temperature reading itself and you think about different weather patterns and gentleman have I spoke about you take of weather take the temperature of a student who is waiting at a bus stop for in 20-degree weather it may not be an accurate reading of that again it's one o'clock now so we can go in a little bit more but I do want to be cautious about time and this is not the only way to get in touch with us the length of day won't change if there's more breaks throughout the day we again try to look to a later start and similar end time and thank you I saw some nice comments I appreciate those and I'm sure everyone else on doesn't like all it's hard to scroll as much as I would like to six feet is measured from the center of a desk what is the effective distance between it depends on the length of the desk and we have different sized s our elementary school so for that question I can't answer it depends on that yeah the pp you order and secure Jill we can certainly if you send that this question about the PPE ordered and that list if you could send that to Sasha Figueroa she can put it on the return to school website when will it be decided what plan we will move forward with I'm going to turn to the School Committee on that one and I'll leave it with you all i le answer sort of from my perspective what we we are going to after this week Stenhouse we're on Tuesday the three committees will be convening again to review review but we heard the questions and and continue discussing and hopefully my perspective hopefully vote on the priorities that we've that we've outlined and been discussing we will be meeting again on the 21st the following Tuesday hearing from the district more details about specificity around the models we haven't defined yet whether we will be voting at that meeting or whether it will be a discussion with a subsequent vote at a later meeting I anticipate that it will be pretty concrete by by that point so that all of our teachers and staff and administration can really begin the hard work to get ready for school at the end of the summer I don't know if the other chairs or vice chairs would like to add their perspective to that yeah so I mean the only thing I would add obviously all of those dates are consistent and everything but just that we recognized how challenging this is that people are really anxious about the timeframe teachers with time to prepare and Families just trying to figure out what their life is going to look like in September so kind of the short answer is really as soon as possible but given constraints in terms of time for planning and putting together these different models it will still take a few more weeks yeah oh I'm sorry I mean I echo those previous comments and say you know that there's a real urgency I think it's been expressed at school committee to to identify this not just for parent and student communication and anxiety but you know staff need to be able to understand what the model is implement the details train and then be able to implement implement it effectively and you know like there's less than eight weeks to do that at this point and so so there's there's that urgency there that being said even though this is for a change of this magnitude this is happening really fast it's still a really active decision process I mean I can just speak for myself that my mind isn't completely made up and every day I see long thoughtful sincere messages of feedback from parents and teachers that the change and evolve my thinking on this so you know we're detailed to this level because we have to because of the schedule but it's it's still really dynamic and so I would really encourage everybody to continue to send your input to school committee at our sorg and more a seminar start org and continue to be engaged like like all the people I've been today yeah I saw a couple more it's 104 so I think we are going to close up pretty quick so the four I want to address one is staff training so absolutely and I think for in-person schooling you know I am working on different schedules and different models depending what the School Committee decides of how to move forward where we would want to have extra days of training at least one that can guarantee if not more at the being this school year for that and again starting the school year with with gradual entry for students and staff so that some of the trainings for staff and some of the trainings for students staff there was a comment about could teachers never be closer than six feet to students and I think Jill sort of answered that before the idea is that changes won't be stationed you know that close but it's not that there has to be a six-foot bubble at every moment of every day we know that we couldn't do school that way so I think Jill addressed that earlier but I just saw that and I want to address it really important one I'm parent educators absolutely and one of the differences if you watch last night's meeting and and and or if you didn't just one of the things that one of the deci models had in it was you know I'm trying to think how to maybe I'll actually show the slide I think that's going to be better so I'm sorry to take the time and I know we're running late but I think I can do this much better if I show it if I can figure out how to do that there we go and let's eliminate us so it's larger and so one of the things that you'll notice on here is the left is what deci you know to get all the seats and there's a copy and paste and you know first of all it's you can see it's only six feet here we're talking generally about eight feet gap between a teacher area also in the deci slide you have you have desks right up against that on the side it really carves out one area whereas in the model that we'd be proposing there spaces for multiple adults either for co-teachers para educators we didn't want to set up a dynamic that didn't allow for multiple adults including talented para educators translators etc to be in rooms and so one of the reasons I recommend in the School Committee has fully endorsed not going to a 3 feet model that would be this tight because it's not just about the one teacher and I think that's a really important point and I just wanted to sort of honor that and it didn't feel good not saying that another one is cleaning and disinfecting I know it talked about it slow earlier but that's really why we're looking at we're reducing the length of the school day so we are gonna need to have more custodial staff working during the day for bathrooms all those are their areas and we're gonna need more time in the morning to be able to to do that to do both the cleaning and disinfecting wellness checks what's being recommended for us by the state on wellness checks is is really talking and almost have like a contract with families and staff around that and the nurses will be certainly at into that but not doing the the temperature checks on there and oh there was one other one a good point by Betsy you know for our staff who work the nature of their work is to be closer than six feet some of the PPE that Jill has ordered is for specific staff who do that that includes isolation gowns higher quality masks that would be like hospital grade or medical grade masks goggles things like that because we know that there are teachers power educators absolutely everyone that Betsy Todd recommend or mentioned that do need to do within six feet and they do need the different PPE you know kind of it's the similar type of PPE that you would see at a doctor's office and and we need to protect our staff and our students and that's why we purchased those pieces of equipment 1:08 I think that's probably what we can get through on this call again School Committee at Arps org or Morris M a tarp stock committee org please continue to send emails contact us public comment you know all that's on our school committee agendas I don't know if there's anything ooh there's one I have to answer about preschool on Dec so sorry Lindsay asks a really good one that keeps happening this is the last one Lindsay wins no more after this one but you know so there is this discussion about eec versus deci guidance and what I heard today is that Public preschools in kated in that are connected to pre-k to 12 public school districts will follow the deci guidance and so we actually have a meeting we had a meeting I wasn't in it because I was in the deci conference called whose it meeting today with some of our folks trying to work through where is the difference is what's the same because we do want to think about preschool it is unique for all sorts of reasons but the age of students and Amherst it's a fully integrated program with roughly half the students having disabilities and they're young kids they're not going to sit at desks right it's it's really a different environment and so we are working on that and have more on that soon it's not that we have not included it at school community dialogue because it's not important it's just that the guidance continues to come out later for preschools so great question I apologize it's not for lack of attention that we haven't been talking about I have been talking about as much it's actually just the information I got that information literally yesterday was confirmed this morning around which guidelines to follow so that's where we'll end it I'll just leave anyone on the this call if they want to offer some final thoughts as well I think I've seen several questions about will we make these questions and the written questions available in any responses and just thinking out loud here is capturing all of these and then weaving in responses into our discussion and our meeting on Tuesday rather than sort of publishing a question a individual question and the answer is we can take all of these questions and sort of weave them into our discussions so that hopefully by the end of that meeting most of these questions will be answered as much as we can I also want to note if no one else wants to jump in that this this live stream is accessible at the same link your ad so if someone didn't see this and they want to view it if they go to the same link you're on it'll be up indefinitely so people can watch this if they weren't able to make the noontime if you want to share the link to others if you feel like there was critical information shared or not shared whatever you like this is automatically records and you know we appreciate the 236 of you that are still on this live stream and hung on for 71 minutes we appreciate that and we hope we'll keep we'll keep at it and we hope you enjoy the rest of your day
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
you can see the flag under the United States of America and it's your very public for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty okay sorry we have been any additions to the agenda whoa you're not yes you're doing oh sorry any other this okay is there any old business no we just adjourn it there's no further business for the 2019 2020 Board of Education I declare it adjourned call the first meeting organizational meeting for the 2020 2021 or an education meeting now are there any additions [Music] we just they do it in the grave they do it in gravy on the batch that we really nicely know Maryann blanket we started it we have to go the afterburn a B it's one by one now no just it's just one the very left one VG of promotion to improve everything all managers each other I make a motion Jupiter agenda I just paid through Gigi yes okay any discussion with that James okay [Music] we can't see it yeah I'm showing you option to vote Selina hi Mike dony I was your past sexier concerns of us DG 44 patrons we have two people on the agendas tonight so mrs.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
are we back on Dominic yet wagon I said I'm not i we sell technology I don't know it you know I there's a salesperson who called about like an iPad issue and I was like I don't know anything about this so it says you're streaming live on YouTube yeah you're live now so we are up to section 15 resolve the BAM report of Education approves the resolutions is outlined in approved of HIV a school we have fifteen point two and fifteen point three can I get a motion motion motion Michelle second second second mr. Bell mr. Stein is gonna get a roll call vote please sorry yes mr. bell yes mr. Muhsin yes miss Martinez yes miss Morris yes steve is yes mr. Zaman oh yes serve a little air yeah was the fazio 15.2 uh twenty 20-16 I have to abstain from and the rest are re s okay we're up to second sixteen resolve the BAM record of Education the approval of resolution under middle and elementary schools we have sixteen point two can I get a motion ocean don't you Michelle can I get a second second second mrs.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we're missing Camila and it'll told me that he expressed that he wasn't gonna be able to make this meeting okay so we're just missing Camila um it's 6:30 - do you want to get started let me text her and see okay [Applause] all right she hasn't responded so I say what Spartan if she comes she just comes she's ready all right if she goes right now I see here we go okay so gonna call a meeting to order better read the open public meeting statement the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with provision of this act the board of education policy 0 1 6 2 the Board of Education of the borough bamberg has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at the bamberg High School and mailed or faxed to the courier news bounce our clerk south Bam record of Education and any person who is requested individual notice and paid the required fee at this time when everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above