chicago heights construction subprime contractor wide tech company inc initiated a lawsuit against chicago heights construction in the circuit court of cook county case number 18-11-5106 seeking damages for breach of contract and or enforcement of mechanics lien bond claims lastly according to our legal counsel petrarca gleason boyle and izzo the district has previously been involved in extensive disputes with chicago heights construction company and is as well within the board's discretion that chicago heights construction company is not a responsible bidder therefore it is the recommendation of healy bender patented being architects and the administration of the school district that chicago heights construction be deemed as not responsible for bid award for the 2022 renovation work at coretta scott king magnet school thank you ken thank you there any board members have any questions okay roll call mrs walters aye brown is an eye mr swallows hi dr hall mrs galworth aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries number five can i get a motion to accept and approve the base bid of five million seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars for a total contract amount of five thousand or five million seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars from r.l sohol general contractor of plainfield illinois for the 2022 renovation work at carotis scott king magnet school moved second any questions for ken okay roll call mrs galbraith right brownish and i doctor hall aye mr swanless hi mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries can i get a motion for the determination of the lowest bidder chicago heights construction company on project number 9-1521-74 the 2022 renovation work on balmoral elementary school as not responsible for bid award okay can't go ahead moved you moved say any second okay ken is this the same it's the same uh the same reasons that i stated earlier so i'm not going to go through all of those reasons and that i will just say that it is the recommendation of healing bender pen and being architects and the school district administration that chicago heights construction be deemed as not responsible for bid award for the 2022 renovation work at belmore elementary school okay thank you any questions for ken okay roll call please brown it's an eye dr hall all right switching up a little bit vice versa in a roof mrs galbraith hi mr sowalis aye mrs walters aye president albert aye motion carries number seven can i have a motion to accept and approve the base bid of six million two hundred fifty thousand from r.l sohol general contractor of plainfield illinois for the 2022 renovation work at balmoral elementary school any questions okay roll call brown is an eye mr swalish aye mrs walters aye mrs galbraith aye dr hall aye vice president rule aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up human resources can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approved certified certified staff leave of absence return from leap of absence reassignment intent to retire and resignation and educational support staff employment leave of absence resignation intent to retire and dismissal moved second any questions or comments personnel report okay roll call please dr hall hi brown brownish and i mrs galbraith hi mr sawalis aye mrs walters aye vice president ruth aye president albright aye okay making progress here uh next step is old business any old business um i'm not sure if this would fall under an old business or new business but there's some concern about the condition of the girls softball fields and i guess their first game is this week and i just i haven't personally checked them out but this parent was very concerned that the fields were not in playing condition at this time or the best playing condition at this time so i can i can have it checked out okay i can talk to keith and uh we can have it checked out okay okay thank you okay um i have an item uh i know we talked about this a little uh before the amacar flareup but um would it be the boards i guess i'm asking for the board's consensus to discontinue our practice of having email public comment come in so i'd like to get your thoughts my only thought is i think it gives someone an avenue that may work nights the chance to speak to voice their opinion if they can't make a meeting i just think it gives the public another opportunity to voice a public comment if what if they work second shift or third shift they're just not going to have a chance to get in here i agree i totally agree also i just think it gives them the opportunity to have their voice heard they may not want to come publicly they may be shy they may don't know whatever i just think that it it's not causing us any problems correct i mean it's not a burden on anybody it's it's not like it's taking somebody away from their regular job correct my thought is it would encourage people to come here if they want to have public comment to be more engaged so i get that but i also think we always have to remember about other people's lifestyles and i think bill's right there's people working odd hours different things trying to to get their family through what still is a tough time so i would like to see us keep it any other thoughts okay we'll keep it for now did maybe i had one thing under old business that's all right ken i was wondering if you had any updates on the work order like anything going on you know i i did put all of them we listed them under extras in board book and all that stuff so okay i didn't see that yeah okay so all of that is and i apologize we should have mentioned where we put that terry we did put that under extras am i right yeah the extras and the notifications that you get i put a note in there that it could be found there but that's kind of at the bottom of the screen so it is there that's fine i'll take a look at it yeah so take a look if you have any questions feel free to ask i'm going to do that you know every month i'll do that so i ended it i ended the report the end of february so it just kind of matches with the end of the month okay so then uh going forward i'll just do that at the end of each month and i do it for the entire fiscal year then all right thank you yeah okay uh any other old business any new business oh i think i might have an old business just for ken i can see you can you give us an update on where we stand with the dome and sixth grade project demolition yeah i would i would say we're um well i haven't seen the last report i think i would say we're probably about eighty percent done right now yeah they're down to that they got most of the foundation out the one thing we're still looking at is uh they still have to do some evacu uh uh take outside i don't remember it was evacuated or something uh the dirt for the uh oil tank so what we're actually doing is they're doing some borings to see how far the oil has seeped out which will be able to give us a price done on what we need to take out of there and that so we're still working on that area i have seen that most of the foundations in concrete are out of there now yeah so that's all out of there it looks like um so it looks like uh they started taking up a lot of the tennis court asphalt that was sitting there too so they're doing that so once that occurs then the next step is going to be to grade everything out the parking lot that is on sagamon here and the driveway in parking lot is stained that's not going anywhere right now so that is all staying there that was not part of the plan right now if we do any future use of that then we'll take care of that at that time so you know their goal is to be done by august i think they're going to be done by june or so they'll be done a couple months in advance the other thing i will share with the board i just got from them um the numbers on local contractors and i think their goal was to use 25 and they were just a little bit over 25 i'm going to put this in my fyi the actual numbers from a minority standpoint also their goal was 50 and i think they hit 29 points something percent about 30 percent but they shared those that information with me and also the money that was spent in those areas also so i'll put that in my fyi for the board also thank you just kind of on that note as far as the grading you see they're looking to be finished like in june time frame i think i think so okay are they going to see they look the seed or i'm not sure if they're sheeting or if they're going to put a uh like a hydro yeah but you know like you see the they lay out the straw thank you the straw thing i'm not sure i can find that out for you okay just them being finished in june in the hot summer so you may want to consider it holding off until yeah yeah i don't know when they're actually starting the grading okay just take that into consideration you'll be back there and it's not like we're going to have water hoses out yeah right okay any other new business okay we don't have a need for a second closed session can i get a motion to adjourn all in favor say aye aye all opposed we are adjourned
and i've worked at the university of massachusetts dartmouth as a student affairs professional moreover the naacp has served the new bedford dartmouth and greater bristol county since december 10 of 1917.
and this is kind of what i just said um this is sort of the timeline teacher staff i mean voter staff survey feasibility in april these are kind of broad numbers survey results um bring a resolution to the board in may to take action the board would take action to get on the ballot that would have to be in june or july of this year that's when the cutoff is it's actually in the first week of august is the cutoff and then you'd have election day in november of 2022 and you'd be able to issue the first bonds in early 2023 and i have one more slide i want to show you because it's something i think that is important to realize that even if you have these bonds even if everything i said you do okay it does take a while to put these projects into place and here's an example that i wanted to show you this is the duration the typical duration of a housing bond after the bond is passed the gray the gray are the soft costs those are getting the permits making sure the feasibility study is done all of the different pieces of the puzzle you can see here we from one through [Music] really five retained design team due diligence entitlement development approval construction documents construction permits and it's not until you get about a year out that you're actually able to start construction on this and then the money goes very fast that's the blue but it does take anywhere from two to two and a half years um to put these projects together after you get the plan in place that's after you get the plan in place so to go back to where i originally started if you're going to go down the road to teach your staff housing voter approval of bonds and you go down that 2022 you could conceivably have your project in place at the beginning of 2025.
okay so can we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented with the exception of 2.10 to be voted on independently have a motion jennifer in a second for margaret all in favor that's diana are you still with us thank you all right thank you all right that would be passed okay item 2.10 uh come on up we're we're here to hear a little braggin yeah bring your kids bring your kids with you too i knew they were hanging around for that they had to listen to everything so every year we um i tell the kids when we prepare for state that if they place the top ten we're going to go to nationals and this year we placed eighth in the state and it's the number one 3a school in the state of arizona so it's pretty good and this year nationals is in memphis tennessee and we're trying to get approval so we can travel it's kind of late we're trying to finish some fundraising and money raising but we want to go to nashville or excuse me memphis tennessee um for five days we'll go wednesday it's a travel day our thursday will be like a cultural appreciation day then friday saturday sunday will be the actual tournament nationals and then monday will travel back so does this include more than their age group who knows just high school nationals but do they compete against all ages in high school or are they according to no yeah it's super nationals happens every four years in nashville because the national united chess federation is based in um close to nashville but they bid on it every other year and this year the memphis did one so cool it's not very far away are you excited oh i'm very excited would you would any of your kids like to say anything i'm excited for them yeah i think this is super cool so we've already raised i'm sorry we've raised a ton of money already like all the chess team each of us who are going i've already raised 400 or more even and so the money's covered we just need the approval for it wow and this guy right here he's a vegan and if we go to memphis tennessee he said he would eat meat at a smokehouse there so we're going to make them one of the things was their first round it stayed they didn't do well so i said look guys what it's going to take and i said you know i don't eat meat so if we win we get to go to memphis i'll have some memphis style barbecue so that was that was part of the bathroom i love it okay now it hardly seems like a penalty yeah that doesn't sound like no it doesn't seem like a penalty i just want to say that everybody on our team has worked really hard and gotten better at chess like chris even and some other kids who had never like played chess before or only a little bit have gotten tremendously better at chess and we've just had a lot of fun uh so memphis would be a really cool place to go to uh for that can you introduce all these guys okay this is um trevor this is um marshall that's chris we have two seniors um james goza and alan yeomans and james on the um golf team so he's not here tonight and then alan is banned so he's not here but both those guys the last two years with the kova there's been no travel so it's kind of like they're you know capstone for their chess career here at the high school so and they did they work really really hard it was it was a tough year and they um we started off kind of struggling and then we finished strong so it's pretty nice well i'm proud of you i've been bragging to those that will listen to me i think it's pretty pretty sweet that you get to go do this great great experience thank you any other questions or comments no i think all right we need to bring this up to a vote we have a motion to accept item 2.10 and our travel arrangement says have a motion have a second all in favor aye aye congratulations all right well thank you so much really appreciate it thank you glad you're here send the message back somebody put it on facebook or something all right item next item on our agenda is for the board to vote on the presentation of the mcgraw-hill [Music] curriculum that we're about to purchase any comments from the board any questions or any concerns about that let's just continue it's a continuation of the presentation we just get to vote on it under the business no i think it was very well presented hours and hours a lot of work i'm excited because it uh it brings a standard that will be carried from one grade to the next all the way from k through 12.
the naacp has been here for over 100 years for over 100 years we have been present vigilant and advocating for justice some deem our organization as an outsider group but martin luther king made it very clear anyone who lives in the united states can never be considered an outsider in august of 2019 the naacp and two other dartmouth residents met with members of the school committee during the summer recess and asked them to hold a public hearing on the mascot a vote the next month denied that request only one school committee member still serving voted for such a hearing and she has now become the target of vicious personal attacks similar to myself two weeks ago in this very building you heard from various native and indigenous members about the harmful impact of the dartmouth indian and similar symbols people like don blake souza a mashpee elder brian berhard whedon mastery chairman shauna newcomb of mashpee megan running dear paige upper cassette brad lopes of the aquina and john lupier president the board of directors of north american indian center of boston heard the pain the harm that logos and mascots have done to indigenous people tonight members of the naacp and supporting organizations we stand as allies friends comrades and truth tellers of those individuals who bravely spoke against the mascot two weeks ago i want to be perfectly clear our goal tonight is twofold similar to our friends across the way we seek for the dartmouth school committee to implement a robust school curriculum for k-12 that will introduce indigenous history culture and contributions as well as provide for programs that will address the current context of indigenous nations so it's very clear to me that we actually agree so it'll be simple to come to some conclusion on that second we call for the select board of dartmouth to create a task force that will address the erasure of indigenous contributions here in dartmouth it was clear hearing from the elders of the aquino two weeks ago that the real issue here is erasure our goal tonight by asking the school committee to retire the mascot is not to erase the enormous contributions of the aquina nor any other tribe in the wampanoag nation but to call for all native communities to be heard valued and honored colonial conquest genocide slavery land theft and the indian schools were all used to try to erase indigenous people from this land but they are still here like the equina who lived ten thousand years ago on the island of nope or today martha's vineyard many new england tribes were forcibly relocated and ended up in exile to become people of a diaspora for this reason dartmouth must consider the views of all indigenous people of southeast massachusetts the equinox are a single tribe of the nation but all tribes and nations of the wapanoik should be involved in the determination of the mascot's fate and building curriculum on this area's original people just as members of the wampanoag ended up in dartmouth and st david's island in barbados other tribes with roots as deep as mr carney's should have their views respected and heard we are disappointed that this issue will end with the referendum two weeks from today constitutional guarantees like the bill of rights were written so that the majority as it sometimes does will not oppress a minority this like human rights is a moral issue and should never be settled by a vote but it was considered dartmouth's residents and the naacp who launched this effort to reconsider the mascot this occurred in the context of a wider reevaluation of the misuse of native american imagery preceding us was a state resolution to change the flag and seal and state legislation to ban indigenous mascots we are all part of thousands of national and state efforts focused on addressing festering racial injustices that has been the work of the naacp since 1909 and our work is far from done we must continue with racial progress and oppose those who wish to stop it you will hear from people who disagree with us but it's very simple we are here because injustice is here it is important to know there are that there are almost one dozen massachusetts tribes and native rights organizations who are opposed to the mascot you will hear from people who have a battle cry of defend dartmouth our cry is simple defend people you will hear from people that say retired the mascot is about erasing history i can assure you it is not the solution is education and working with indigenous communities for forward progress and mutual prosperity a robust curriculum and a devoted and dedicated task force of town people and indigenous voices can make that happen the art of history is long but i promise you it been towards justice my people would know this wise observation has always been true the dartmouth mascot may survive a referendum and even a school committee vote but inevitably it will be replaced america is moving forward it is changing and change is inevitable thank you i will now call on elizabeth murphy for the remainder of my time thank you not scary we're good my name is elizabeth cavanaugh murphy i'm a dartmouth resident graduate of dartmouth high school and dartmouth college and the parent of two current high school students the results of the march 8th meeting were clear we do need to focus on education about local indigenous contemporary cultures and their unique histories native americans from across this region have urged us to educate ourselves to understand the harm we cause those with strong ties to dartmouth requested a focus on education to avoid erasure of their people and their culture we must do both this is the only way forward i fully support robust k to 12 curriculum additions in native american studies i believe an official town in tribal community collaboration could be a strong resource please prioritize both public school educators must teach and advocate on behalf of all students not just the loudest harshest voices in the room that is not an easy task but it is the job upholding dartmouth public schools mission of quality learning for all is a lovely aspiration and we must work for it to become a reality we must honor and respect the dartmouth logo mr andrews and his culture we must also reduce further harm and misguided forced pride even with stronger guidelines and some restrictions on the use of the image individual students and alumni and townspeople can always wear that logo with pride but doing show should always be a personal choice never a condition of team membership please as educational leaders think of the child who may be shrinking in their seat in the corner of the classroom the child whose parents don't have the loudest voices who haven't lived here for generations who may themselves feel intimidated and alienated we may not know this child or any student's full story but they are all worthy of love respect and inclusive educational experience in this town please be a voice of reason and a voice of compassion for that child in the corner and for all dartmouth students thank you thank you um dr hall you have approximately four to five minutes left are you finished if i have five minute loud i'd like to call one more speaker giving equal time you may okay i appreciate that and pops ms fox please introduce yourself in your town of residence and you have approximately four minutes left i'm ann fox a resident of the town of dartmouth and i'm also a member of the naacp recently i came across the writings of the reverend william apes he was the a pequot indian he was adopted by the mashpee wampanoag in 1833 so that he could legally help aim the amos and attaquin families regain their tribal lands and their right to call their own clergy in barnstaple county these families were leaders of the mashpee at that time and perhaps these families still exist you would be surprised to read how non-indian whites used indian forest land as if it were their own and they did it in full view of tribe members in fact they would chop down the trees and cut up the wood and then they would start loading that wood onto their wagons the wampanoags would then go unload that's what they had to do and that that would continue until one of them was tired two weeks ago i listened to the eloquent statements of native american leaders at this committee's meeting i was deeply impressed at the pride they have in reclaiming who they are after generations of others making believe that they were no longer a people and were instead the first inhabitants of this very land upon which we all now stand and i heard too the statement of the aquino wampanoag who spoke in favor of keeping dartmouth high school's mascot but we must hear the voices of all of these people and we must feel it too it is my hope that in this 21st century we will recognize the subtle ways that racism and prejudice continue even in seemingly innocuous use of a mascot instead i advise we choose another mascot and name and name and retire this one maybe we could choose something like the dartmouth dragons how about that we should retire this mascot the current one into a wonderful school curriculum such as the town of mashbi has created and then the mascot becomes part of our history it is time to do this it is overdue to do this thank you we'll now open it up for public comment and i'd like to remind our audience members of our rules um please state your name in your town of residence before you speak we have timers you will have approximately two minutes we will alternate between microphones so please queue up right so we're not having open microphones and waiting at two minutes that's just a signal to wrap it up i will remind you at three minutes to go ahead and finish your thoughts so that should help you give you cues um so we're going to start with this microphone over here that's my left audience right please go ahead sir hello my name is clyde andrews graduate 1974 designer of the reiteration of this logo image not a mascot as it is used today me myself this was done through my heart way back 48 years ago everybody keeps calling it a mascot it is not it's an image and a logo with pride spirits and homage and everybody keeps calling it a logo it is not it's not a mess it's a logo it's not a mascot we don't have anybody running around with it it's in pristine places people look up to her and when i went to school where it's now the john quinn middle school all i said was the logo the image and pride and that's all i have to say i like to see it stay it was 40 years ago when i did that reiteration of that design and it stayed here for 48 years almost half a century thank you thank you mr andrews to our next microphone over here hello my name is alyssa lopes um i am a member of the mashfi wampanoag tribe i am also an educator and i am also the director of communications for a non-profit in new bedford i don't have a lot to say but what i will say tonight is ann fox said racism exists in subtle ways and to hear people right people that i see as elders okay even if they're not tribal members they are elders say that they're going to throw up when dr lasalle is speaking is how racism exists in subtle ways i think it's time for everyone in this room to accept that racism does exist also katapatash thank you to everyone who is speaking on the side of eliminating something that's very hurtful thank you we'll go to the microphone over here next our next speaker [Applause] 50-year resident mr can you please restate your name sorry the microphone wasn't on [Music] maybe it's just a little too short for you gerard coate i'm a 50-year resident of dartmouth and imagine if you will if you're driving around dartmouth you've never been here before and you see a picture of a native american warrior on people's lawns and you might ask yourself what is going on in this town and what do you think and what would a young child think of a warrior symbol is that what native americans are really known for uh warriors that's how they've been portrayed in popular culture when the net when the colonists came here to settle it was native americans that made him help them survive the first winter during the next 70 50 years two wars were found were forced in this area to take away their land to take away their culture they could only be residents if they accepted a new culture this it is time for us to recognize that where we stand and what our past is in this area less than about a mile from here there were native american refugees hundreds of them taken away and sold in slavery during a war that took away their land it is time for us to recognize that this symbol is not what native americans were all about they had a civilization they had a culture and where we stand when we walked into this building there should have been a sign that said this was native american land and in front of the town hall we could put up a statue of a native american family rather than a warrior corn would be a better sign better logo than than a at a brave and it's time for us to recognize this it's instead of talking about how it's always been it's not it's time we move on and to recognize with humility that we need to see the world in a different and more realistic way thank you uh to our microphone over here um hello my name is bronte masuko and i'm a junior here at dartmouth high school as well as being a student and a resident of dartmouth i'm the secretary of the naacp youth council of de bedford and an active member of the multicultural club here at the school i am not native american and i don't claim to speak for anyone except as a representative of the youth council and a student of this very school i was in class in this building from 7 30 to 203 today and had tennis practice on the courts outside this afternoon i have for three years participated on two varsity sports teams being referred to by the moniker dartmouth indians to reiterate i am not native american nor am i indian in a zoom meeting the multicultural club participated in i heard from other schools in massachusetts and listened to players on their own sports teams of indigenous descent speak on the deep hurt and offense they felt playing a team called as ours was as a member of two of these teams i could not help but to feel deeply ashamed of this damage we could have caused and continue to cause moving forward as a student of this school this logo is damaging thank you this microphone here hello my name is shirley dong i'm a dartmouth resident i'm also working at umass dartmouth as a professor of computer and science now as an immigrant i know very little about history in this area but when i say this logo and the effort trying to replace it cancel it i did some research one of the arguments for eliminate using of this logo is because the study the use of native american mascot has harmful impact on native american youth now i read those papers and all those research is on native american moscow not logo as you have heard enough tonight this is not a moscow moscow is something supposed to bring good luck to its processors and this is not as a researcher i have to be very clear every research results has to be limited to the area it could be up applied if you take a research result apply to something else that is wrong so with this particular logo there is no study to show this logo actually have harmful impact on dartmouth's native american use that does not exist also as immigrants i would like to tell you what happened in china about cultural evolution break old stuff they removed history for people's life you can read history in books but that's totally different than you live it in your life thank you uh this microphone here hi um good evening my name is david ahrens i've lived in dartmouth for 30 years so i guess that makes me an outsider i'm a member of the nacp and both my kids went to dartmouth schools on march 8th a number of native speakers put two untruths to rest that native people don't mind white people misusing their culture and that it somehow honors them we heard those speakers refute both of those excuses loud and clear um and to disagree with my friends on the other side um there were plenty of native american tribes who sent letters to the to the school committee on the 8th and read their statements on the mascot or opposing the mascot into the record so to maintain that that there is no other native opposition to the mascot is simply false for many uh for many dartmouth for many the dartmouth indian seems harmless enough we've all lived so long in a culture saturated with cigar store indians lawn jockeys and racially biased systems that many of us just accept it but many americans are starting to acknowledge the racial problems that have been swept under the rug for far too long even those who want to keep sweeping understand this there's one more excuse that retiring the mascot somehow erases native americans people who have lived here continuously for 10 000 years have survived colonial conquest genocide and slavery without the help of sports logos we heard from many of them on march 8th when the indian replaced the harpoon as the school symbol did it erase the history of whaling of course not so erasure is a strange argument we don't honor or value native americans by stamping an indian head on a coffee mug a key chain or a sweatshirt and we shouldn't try to speak for native people as the high school student manual does when it says this is what indians represent instead we should be teaching kids about native cultures past and present improving diversity in curriculum and staff a staff by the way which is 98.4 white a school committee which is by the way 100 white and actually honoring native americans by i don't know making october 12th indigenous people's day the dartmouth indian is a relic of an age when white people could freely insult speak for and define others without consequence those days are over sooner or later this symbol will be history the question is on what side of history will dartmouth be thank you this microphone over here hi um my name is hannah bortis i am a dartmouth resident i have kids at quinn right now a fourth grader and a second grader i grew up in fairhaven and went to new bedford high um and i i mostly wanted to talk about education because so far the only education my kids have gotten about the indigenous history here is in third grade my daughter did a little bit in social studies about the settlers coming and how they lived and how the wampanoag lived at the time and that was pretty much it and i would love to see i know a lot of people are talking about a school curriculum i'd also love to see markers around town that honor the people who once lived here because that is there's just absolutely nothing and so i can understand why a lot of people are afraid that erasing the logo will erase the history because there really isn't any other history here so i'm a huge advocate for that also um i went up to boston for college and then i worked in publishing so i'm a writer and an editor and then after that i worked at the boston public schools as an ela teacher and right now i'm working as a substitute teacher in this area um i want to talk about language and how language matters and a lot of people are saying that the word indian is okay because it's used by the bureau of indian affairs and it's generally recognized as the word that people use and different tribes use as they communicate with each other and so it's kind of a catch-all term because there are so many different tribes and it would be really hard for everyone to keep them all straight in their heads so yeah indian works as a term but we have to remember that that came from the fact that somebody landed here and thought he was landing somewhere else so called everybody here indians and the bureau of indian affairs was started as the committee on indian i think it was like the committee on indian issues or maybe the committee on indian affairs in because the settlers here were trying to figure out what to do with these people it was never used as a bridge of understanding and right now it's used still it's called the bureau of indian affairs but the naacp is still called the naacp and we don't call black people colored people it's it these things change these things have to change and adapt to new understandings that we have you know and just because the bureau of indian affairs uses it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do kendrick lamar uses the n-word but i'm not gonna tell him to stop and i'm also not gonna it doesn't mean that it's okay for me to say it so language matters and we have to respect the impact that it has on people uh microphone over here please my name's gretchen baker smith i'm a town meeting member dartmouth high graduate the mother of three alum i am a member of the naacp and a supporter of the mass indigenous legislative agenda calling for the passage of statewide bills to establish indigenous people's day to teach native cultures and history and public schools to protect native heritage and to ban school native mascots all of the native speakers at the march 8th forum expressed deep concern for the culturally racial of indigenous peoples i lift up dr hall's call for the select board to create a task force composed of town people and natives to the dartmouth tribal homeland area to discuss concrete ways of addressing this issue there was also unity among the native speakers on the need for significantly deeper integration of indigenous history past and present into dartmouth's curriculum they emphasize that this must be created and implemented in full collaboration with native leaders and educators i urge the school committee to step into this essential long overdue work without delay we must reckon with a native narrative history told exclusively from a white european male perspective that omits much of the oppression instituted for white game as well as the accomplishments and continued presence of indigenous peoples if there is any cultural erasure that needs to happen it is the culture of holding on to that version of history i do not agree with the defend dartmouth opinions or tactics but i have respect for their organizing and fundraising i urge them to continue campaigning against native erasure by putting up lawn signs and holding rallies that push for a robust curriculum and for a right relationship with all local indigenous tribes so that the town is not using a symbol that many indigenous peoples find harmful and offensive to do that thank you this microphone please my name is mary askalin i've been a resident of dartmouth for 33 years i have two sons that graduated from dartmouth high in 2005. i always found the logo of the dartmouth indian a very i looked at it more with pride and i think it it teaches um well it should symbolize and represent and be stressed to the uh all the high school students not just the sports athletics but that this is a sign of strength bravery and determination that is very fine qualities that the wampanoag indian has has possession of the the white man most of us the indians have suffered so much under us from nantucket throughout this area and through new england their lands have been taken unjustly throughout the country same thing the indians need a voice which they are getting but i feel that this symbol for our town shows that we we stand up for them the other thing is and i'm glad this has all come out yes we do need a curriculum we need curriculum for native studies for wampanoag and there are many tribes and a lot of these tribes are under confederations like the iroquois the wampanoag and they have several tribes under them i think it would be a wonderful thing i always have that not just in dartmouth schools but all over the country that we have native studies thank you over here thank you dr dickens my name is keith murphy i'm a dartmouth resident a lifelong resident my wife elizabeth spoke earlier i've been thinking a lot about what does defend dartmouth mean what are we defending dartmouth from i think defending dartmouth is about defending dartmouth from change think about this made me reflect on my children's experience growing up in town how that changed from my own experience when i grew up we commonly used the term indian instead of native american even tonight in talking about the indian logo we are seeing that the majority of people are using the term native american in not indian i went to ghibli school i had a t-shirt with a caricature of an indian on it my kids went to jabello school they had a t-shirt with a wolf on it we all felt pride in our shirt i used to love when my dad took me to football games in hearing the pa announcer say indians first down and during big drives the band would play the indian war song while the crowd did the tomahawk chop i remember the cheerleaders used to sell foam tomahawks when i took my kids to games we no longer do those type of derogatory gestures or performances however the pa announcer does still say indians first down i wonder though does he say indian all the time or does he use the term native american as we continue to change how we use the logo i have a few ideas i'd like to share if you decide to keep dating a mascot please consider formal guidelines at the high school for how the indian logo should be used i talked to mr gifford today mrs gifford today dr gifford and there are currently no guidelines dictating how the athletic teams should be using the logo i believe we should have clear guidelines make sure it's appropriate i think we should consider recognizing indigenous people day like the city of cambridge does i also think we should be read tribal land statements at the beginning of all school activities all of these activities would go a long way to celebrate our american history our native american history i have one more section my final thought is that this debate has gotten way out of hand as a comment as a community we are engaged in what the author anna ripley calls high conflict high conflict happens when debate and disagreements leads to us versus them thinking over time when we are in high complex high conflict situations we increasingly inflate the virtue of our own beliefs while diminishing the beliefs of those we disagree with one common way of posing this cycle is to use an external neutral mediator to help both sides discuss and to come to common agreement i encourage the school committee and the school department to consider using an outside mediator to help us resolve this issue within the town if we move if we are to move forward we need to cool down the situation and see each other as community members and not people we need to be defended against thank you [Applause] uh my name is roger duarte i am a dartmouth resident and former middle school massachusetts educator good evening i purchased my forever home here in dartmouth three and a half years ago so as a fairly new resident i have no nostalgia to fall back upon i am a lifelong resident of the area with the exception of my military service time and it seems to me that this situation is hardly worth mentioning when you put it up against other problems we face in the town keeping the drinking water clean maintaining the roads bettering the children's education and getting businesses to occupy derelict properties yet here we are discussing whether or not we will continue to accept a drawing made by a wampanoag high school student in 1974.
i'm sorry 2026. so it'll be 23 and 24 and then the beginning of 26. if you wait until the november 24 that's out there quite a ways it's 2028 before you really realistically have a chance of having that housing in place so that's why i think people are moving quickly to try to put these in place because that is just such a long period of time to put it together it's very hard to simply say push the button and start these projects up there's just a tremendous amount of permitting and design and working with cities and figuring out the financings to put in place but as jefferson has shown you and soledad and now many of the other districts around the state it's doable but you have to really think about the timing and the planning if you're going to do it with general obligation bonds which i believe and i know these are the only projects that are getting done right now as far as i understand you're going to do that with voters i would strongly urge you to attempt to get on that 2022 november 2022 ballot and once you get the funding you've got the land you've got plenty of land once you get the funding and the land then you're ready to go [Music] all right so you just threw a wrench into our work plan here i'm just kidding i know i was listening to you when you were saying that oh maybe they should do those two meetings or months so i'm assuming that we can work on a parallel track as a committee to continue to explore other possibilities while until we reach that to that point of no return which is what we have to file but because at the same time we have to continue to to do the surveys and all that front stuff um in terms of um from your previous experience the cost of those surveys would be something where we'd um if we go down that route to just even explore is it a significant amount to where yeah uh let me tell you how that works um we we use i mean we've you can go out and you can hire a firm uh to do um uh voter surveys and they're great they're really they don't wanna in any way just diminish their work they're excellent firms they tend to be very expensive now i think they're very expensive they probably don't but um you know they're in the range of you know 45 to 55 000 for a good survey and they're excellent um we've taken a different path we think that we don't need quite that level of sophistication for the school bond surveys they would disagree with me i'm sure um we bring those in-house and then subcontract with firms to go out and do the data collection they tend to come in at the 15 000 plus range that's for the voter survey the staff survey is super cheap i think i think that's 5 000 plus um that's done through surveymonkey we draft it we send it out through the superintendent um the the response on that is overwhelmingly quick um you know we run it only for a week it all comes in we analyze it and give it to you [Music] having to do a survey i think it would be good to have i don't think it's critical in your case i mean you've had excellent excellent support and you're not increasing in this example that i'm giving you you're not increasing the amount of bonds that have already been approved by the voters so you're going to the voters and saying we're not going to increase the amount of bonds you've already approved we're going to use these funds to provide teacher staff housing at below market rents it's hard to see how that doesn't fare well in your district now having the data would be great but i think that is a uh i think there would be strong support in your district that's my instinct staff survey yeah could be great to have but um so you just know all right so uh at this point before i open it up to uh members of the committee let me go ahead and open up and take public comment at this point i'll say do we have a public comment uh hello board president at this time i'm looking through the list and there is no request uh for public comment all right all right i'll go to a member of the committee any questions comments thoughts on what's been presented to the task force uh see i think sharon you you went first so i'll call it sharon i i have a question i heard that you say that we have the land does that um the land that you're talking about is that where an existing school is right now that would be that would be the most logical place and i was probably a little glib when i said you have the land you have a you have a number of sites that um are possible and that would obviously be up to the board uh to decide whether that's the route they wanted to go but that is the way it has typically it is typically being done there be a surplus property because of a site that is either no longer in use or is planned to be no longer in use and then you would build on that site okay thank you thank you justin thank you i just want to make sure i mean because a lot of this is way over my head as far as the bond information so i just want to make sure that i have it right what you're saying we would be going to the voters for basically is to get their permission to repurpose what they've already voted for in the past is that right that is correct thank you that is absolutely correct all right further questions from members of the task force any of your staff i was just going to say um you know i'm thinking that one of the first conversations is really deciding right which direction we want to go in of the now or later because uh i think doug was right you know if we say november of this year then we may want to have more meetings from here till you know then um it'll direct us in that whatever direction we want to go in if that's the direction we want to go in yeah and i would suggest that we not i guess given the information we've been provided i'm assuming that we're not going to be the traditional task force or committee that creates one massive recommendation at the end but rather we could be communicating with the um with the board by sending recommendations as we deem it appropriate after each meeting um and i know that's probably unorthodox but given the information we've been given i'm assuming that that may be one of the uh ways in which we can proceed by saying all right we received this information um here you know obviously the minutes will reflect that and here's a course of action that has been recommended if we're interested in having x outcome um so any comments from members of the committee with regard to that do i have any sort of is there anybody opposed to that to that strategy at the end of the day the board would have to make the decision so dr bauer looks like you're going to have to place an item on the agenda to uh accept uh updates from the committee and possible recommendations on on the um on the upcoming uh agendas after our committee meeting or our task force meetings and so we'll go ahead and proceed with a possible discussion shortly any clarification yeah yes i just need to be very clear so the item on the i understand the the item on the board agenda and this is um for information about the about what each you know every time somebody comes to this task force and presents for the consider or to be informed yeah basically to serve as a mechanism through which we can inform the body like for example the timeline that we've been given but if we don't take action soon then we're gonna we missed the opportunity we'd have to go and wait till 2024.
and i've always felt like kids want to own their book yeah and i think that's important we've gone through the era of everything online teachers preparing their lessons from what they can gather online i mean now teachers have books and kids have books and they correlate together just easier for subs that come in too oh yeah i just think it's going to be great in regard to that so if there's any other further comment or questions from the board we have people here to answer those questions you have no i think it's a great year to be doing this all right after covert and everything good then uh did everybody hear that diana said it was a culmination culmination accumulation of a lot of work thank you mr pico i see you shaking his head and he's always correct in my english but there's a reason that appreciate that okay so can we have a motion to accept the purchase as presented of the mcgraw-hill curriculum for the next six years i have a motion for margaret second from jennifer all in favor aye aye aye okay that would be passed unanimously okay uh dr wright would you like to explain item 3.1 yes we have i don't believe mr lloyd is here tonight but we're seeking approval to hire a bus driver this is a replacement position how many positions do we need to fill as bus drivers i denise denise by the end of the year we will need to we will need three drivers for three different routes mr lloyd will come to us at a great time he'll i hope to have him on a route by the middle of april and very excited to have him with us i have reached out in my pool of drivers and i have a couple that is looks like it's going to come to us they're going to move here with with the opportunity to help us with our other two rounds so i'm hoping that that will be covered by the beginning of next year so uh with this edition you will need an additional three two more yes two more great thank you denise appreciate that so we have a motion to accept the hire of um who is it uh jeff lloyd as a in the transportation department the motion out of his second second margaret all in favor the eye all right thank you diane okay item 3.2 recommendation to approve the junior leadership jla after school program for the elementary school dr wright you want to talk about that or you want to defer to mr pico mister we we've done i just want to add we've done this for years yeah mr pico has the details of how to get past it on on the hill the jla vicki solomon asked if she should be here to present i told her i'd do it if that was okay jla is a great program they target about 20 students and we pay for that out of a federal grant those students are targeted they're taught leadership they're taught challenging skills i know i've been to a couple of their events and they're really neat it engages their parents it engages their skills it engages their their thinking skills in regards to problem solving relationships with one another and this year there is also an element to social distancing and mental awareness and what we would call sel social emotional learning and so i'm excited about that piece of the jla and what they bring to the community and to the school district jla was new to me when i came to blue ridge unified and as i've gotten involved with that and watched that program flourish under the shimmers over the elementary school who just do a phenomenal job they're the ones who really deserve the credit they gather those kids together they target those kids they bring them in bring their parents in if you ever have an opportunity to come to one of their closing ceremonies it's really a treat to watch to watch those kids do all the activities that they that they've learned through their their program will the shimls continue in this so far yes okay great any questions from the board or comments we have a motion then a motion from jennifer a second second secretary all in favor aye aye thank you that also passed okay recommendation to approve the renewal lease agreement with the church dr wright and uh maybe ron do you guys want to both talk about this no we got uh i'm sorry we have i missed one the three point three oh three point three sorry ron three point um i put a check mark on it and i didn't mean to recommendation to approve the district's e rate for 2022.
we live in a free society and that comes with a gift of rights but it requires responsibility as well every individual has personal values and morals that they base their decisions upon and i am no different what we are looking at is whether or not we will as some have already said erase history as young as it is it is history because some people believe that erasing things is the answer to social problems i am not one of those people and to be honest is this really a problem or is it the product of some who are offended by something and therefore trying to eliminate it i've seen and heard it said that this issue is not about woke culturalism i vehemently disagree it is all about it if we're all to try and eliminate everything that offends us we would never have the time to live our lives let alone accomplish anything or have the time left over to fight for things that truly matter to the community i caution everyone against allying themselves to those with agenda to prove change can be good but not if it's being done for the sake of itself equity has replaced equality diversity has overshadowed inclusiveness and we only have ourselves to blame as a society when we have allowed thinking that requires everyone to be special we are all unique individuals but none of us is any better than the other reject agendas disagree with progressive thought and reclaim the power to reshape the narrative that is what i will do because i am not willing to add another feather to the cap that rests on the altar of wokism thank you for your time and attention uh this microphone over here good evening my name is uh ricardo rosa i work in dartmouth i sleep in new bedford and i like to first of all begin and there's a reason why i sleep in new bedford by the way but i'd like to first of all begin by thanking dr jenkins for her comments at the very beginning it was the really beautiful way to set up a democratic sort of atmosphere and democracy sometimes gets loud so i also appreciate you know a lot of what's going on in this room i'm going to speak to you as an outsider and uh as a person who came here in 2011 and had the choice to live in dartmouth i chose not to live in dartmouth because i didn't really feel that it was a welcoming place and i look around this room and i'm sure that some of you all probably don't feel that you feel that it's very welcoming but that's just it you know communities are really not good at being honest with themselves about themselves so um i like to begin uh you know by saying that um you know i didn't choose dartmouth because i you know i recall i rented an apartment in new bedford and i decided to take my family to round hill beach i believe it's called and you know the way that i was turned away the words that were used the affect really suggested to me that this is not really a welcoming place and so i decided to buy a home in new bedford and not dartmouth because of it and um you know my perception of dartmouth changed it changed in june 2020 as i was driving around and saw a whole lot of folks especially young folks taking to the streets and protesting the killing of george floyd and it's to those folks that i want to speak today you know so i'm going to look into the camera i'd like to speak to the folks at home you know speaking to a lot of people what i'm hearing is that look this is not my place i'm not going to say anything i'm on the right side of justice i know what to do but i'm not going to do anything because it's not my place because the akina tribe the akina nation is saying that they're for it and i want to just express a little something about this word called cultural relevant relativism right and it's this notion that because you're not in the culture it's not your place to say anything even though you know better right if i were to pull 40k virgins into this room today mk verde and if i were to ask them about you know their perceptions of colonialism some of them would say that colonialism was a good thing for kaver others would say that it was horrific right as a kaverian i can tell you that the greatest respect that you can show my culture is to understand both sides dr rosa please please wrap it up and to take a position on the side of justice right i just want to say that you know i don't support this logo the fact that you all are just having this conversation in dartmouth to me is mind-boggling because we're not talking about dartmouth only dartmouth doesn't exist as if it's sealed off from you know wider history you know wider issues confronting this country uh so it's something i think you know the fact that dr rosa please finish your stop i will finish thank you one second the fact that we don't have a curriculum today that represents native people the way it should in a town that you say is honoring native americans that in itself is just mind-boggling you know you should think about that i'll stop there thank you thank you here please thank you my name is george marcotte i live in dartmouth and i am the chairperson of the defend dartmouth so i'm very proud of what we're trying to do here and i'd just like to ask did any one of you when you ran for school and i'm not an educator i'm not a member of the naacp i'm just a voter i'm a taxpayer in this town i don't have all the academia that everybody's throwing around and all the naacp but did any one of you run when you ran and we're going to be voted for in this town a school committee is i'm going to change the the logo the symbol of this town did anyone run on that did you say that's what i'm going to do that's going to be my number one cause silence i didn't think so there's so much going on with our kids with kovi right now and we're sitting here right now you're dividing miss jenkins has divided the school committee mr nunes mr oliver are in favor of the logo miss wait miss jenkins no and miss amaral is in the middle so ms zaro we have a solution here at defend dartmouth and that's called a referendum and when april 5th comes we're going to hand you a majority you then can take that majority and look at miss jenkins and say you know what i'm going to vote with the townspeople miss wait miss jenkins you'll have an opportunity if you'd like to change your decision and i love what mr hall said today i can't thank you enough for what you said that would be dr hall dr hall excuse me and i have to thank you you said you were disappointed in the referendum you're disappointed that we get to vote for that you're disappointed in democracy you also said mr marcotte i would ask you to address your comments to the school committee and not to other members of the audience okay fine we shouldn't vote for such things so here we are you've divided the tribes miss jenkins you brought you cherry-picked tribes from louisiana maine somebody from hanover all to just to meet your point of view where we have the wampanoag quina here that want it and you're looking at at other tribes this isn't a racist thing this has nothing to do with racism you'd like to just throw racism and everything you had a diversity in some a diversity subcommittee diversity inclusion is when everyone's invited to par to the party and everyone's asked to dance we didn't get that chance they're not part of the subcommittee who got it you're you're excluding instead of including the wampanoag are very willing to help out and to be a part and maybe a better spot and i'll leave you with this and this is what really really really gets me the hypocrisy in this room the hypocrisy i have a picture right here on my phone i can show you where you're standing with your arm around the corsair for those who don't know what the corsair is the corsair is the mascot symbol of umass dartmouth the corsair is a barbary pirate who sailed the seas from two and uh basically the from 2000 no excuse me um eight 1600s to the 1800s and they did what all pirates did they stole they looted they were enslaved trade right and they also call their women wenches that's what a barbary pirate that's what of course three minutes please complete yourself okay i will some people went to four minutes so that's what a corsair is a corsair is a barbary pirate who is in the slave trade and call the women wenches i don't see anyone here miss jenkins or anyone of yours that are offended by that but you're offended by a warrior that is a indigenous person and this in this town that everybody is in favor for including the andrews that did it so i just ask you in a common sense thing it's not a racist issue this is just common sense our kids have enough problems with cover 19 and everything that has gone on that's what you should be focusing on and defend dartmouth is here to stay you're going to get a majority you can do what you want if you want to vote against the majority of the people defend dartmouth will be here when it comes time for you to run for reelection or remind everybody what ended up happening thank you this microphone here please good evening everybody uh my name is doug roscoe i live in dartmouth uh a couple speakers ago someone talked about all the difficult problems we have to in town drinking water and so forth and we have difficult national problems like you know the war in ukraine and inflation and this issue to me is a simple one because it's about how do you treat other people with care and respect that's it and if in my personal dealings with people i do something that is offensive and people tell me it's offensive i don't do it anymore i stop doing it i try not to offend people and i don't have to defend all people to offend some people offending some people is bad if you offend some people we shouldn't offend them and we shouldn't do that as a community with our public policy in the same way we wouldn't do that as an individual with each other i brought some statements from tribes and native american organizations that have talked about how offensive and harmful this is to them they've expressed this they expressed it at march 8th at the forum but if you missed that let me quote some of them this is a statement from the mashpee wampanoag tribe matthew wankenhub tribe calls for a prohibition on all native american sport team mascots nicknames logos in massachusetts public schools harmful to native american youth increases stereotypes constitutes offensive mockery of our people and an appropriation of our culture similar statement from the chappaquiddick tribe of the wampanoag nation called for prohibition on all native american sport team mascots nicknames logos similar statement herring pond wampanoag tribe symbols and imagery such symbols and imagery are deeply offensive racist and harmful to the well-being of indigenous people and especially to our native youth pocasset wampanoag tribe same pro support prohibiting the use of native american mascots by public schools in the commonwealth massachusetts poncapog tribal council strongly supports legislation that explicitly prohibits all native american sport teams mascots nicknames logos it is both prejudicial and damaging when people who are not native american utilize our identities names images cultural practices for their own purposes uh national congress of american indians is the oldest largest and most representative national organization national indian education association this has been 50 years that native americans have been telling us to stop using native american imagery and symbolism in our public schools in our sports teams they're offended and it's harmful to them and i don't think we should do it and i think that's important for us to do but i think it's also important for us to recognize that history and so i would like to propose that we have a display case in the hallway that explains the history of the relationship between dartmouth high school and native americans in this area it acknowledges the land our high school sits on and acknowledges the history of the adoption of the of the indian logo i think it should acknowledge mr clyde andrews and his attempt to make that logo more honorable and respectful and i hope it ends with a panel about how we voted as a town to retire the logo in 2022 over here good evening my name is patricia dewart and i have been a resident of dartmouth for 68 years i am a graduate of document schools i've also done public speaking in dartmouth on many topics however this one is dear to my heart i have family in the match b wampanox who do not object to this logo it is not a mascot and i've heard that repeatedly referred to tonight it is a logo week that was developed with a lot of respect and a lot of love that all of us have had over the years in having it in our yearbooks and on our shirt i take issue with a lady whom i read in the favor that said she had gone to cumberland farms with her grandchild and a couple of students were dressed as indians totally inappropriate and was screaming and hooping and hollering and she had a reply to them my reply is the grandmother would have been their parents didn't teach them any better that comes first from the home that kind of behavior you don't do that in public and you don't intimidate other types of people be you black white or indian or any other culture that comes from the home it also comes from our educators i went to umass dartmouth i was met mixed in with lots of cultures and i have respect for all of those people i've had many people that were students at massachusetts maritime academy that stayed in my home and taught me the culture of other countries of other colors of skin we need to look at this at what it is it is a logo that we have been proud of since 1974.
in the event that the that the board itself wants to move in this particular direction i'm not saying we have to but i would like to make sure that the board is aware that there are timelines that have to be met if the desire is to move in 2022 november 2022 um so so we can keep the border prizes because if we wait till september hey uh you know the deadline was uh back in august unfortunately we can't because we have this beautifully published report that uh doesn't really work anymore i was just wondering um [Music] how does that task you know if this is something that the task force will say we feel comfortable because i know there's been a lot of information tonight and i'm gonna be very honest with you it took me about twice right for mr burdell to share with me to kind of oh okay got it right because it's new it's it's very it's new it's something that is just being shared right and i get the timeline i totally understand but i i'm wondering if it's uh you know unless maybe everybody got it and everybody it's okay with it and there's no questions and we're ready to do that i'm just trying to allow for a little bit of more questions more information do we need anything you know another session not too far from now it doesn't need you know to your point maybe kind of what that trustee herrera said maybe we need another meeting just to kind of if there are questions if there's i don't know i'm just trying to yeah i know i i completely agree and so my point was uh i just wanted to make sure before we left to be that we provided a mechanism to which we can inform the board on a regular basis given the timelines and stuff that sort um the committee the task force is going to have to deliberate as to what it is that we want to do um and so that we'll continue that discussion here amongst the task force uh dale you had you yeah i think i think it would be helpful for the for the committee to know the way these projects um work when i say these projects i mean the bonding and the going to the voters they work incrementally and there's not an immediate decision where the board or the committee says ah this is what we need to be doing right now let's flip the switch there is a slow process that works you up to that date when the board finally passes the resolution i'll grant you that resolution is coming at you somewhat quickly but finally passes the resolution to get onto the ballot um in november of 22 for example if at that time the board decides this just isn't for us we're not going to pass this resolution um all right so then you've paid for the survey that's pretty much it there are no other costs there are no other obligations everybody says okay fine then we'll try it again later or we don't have time or we don't think this is the right time or things have changed that's just the way it works then again now you have to wait from let's say it's july to november to find out whether the voters will pass it if it doesn't pass well you're no worse off you can still be talking about the other methodologies of doing this but until that bond is passed by the voters there's nothing to do there's no work on that project to begin then when the voters pass it then it is up to the board to say okay now we have authority from the voters to proceed with us and now we are going to issue the first series of bonds and actually begin the process the process of spending money i should say all the rest of this is sort of prep to get you to that stage with a lot of off ramps as you're going around along thanks for that yeah i know a lot of stuff came at us deadlines and stuff of that sort so um maybe we could take a hybrid approach rather than going for option one option two we agreed to have uh an additional meeting uh later on in uh an additional meeting beyond the one meeting that we bring to earlier on uh so that we can bring in more speakers get more information as to possible other options there might be and at the same time work to inform the board of that of this possibility is that something that uh the task force would be interested in in doing uh we're not we're not committing to multiple meetings for a six month period but maybe this month uh call for another meeting in about two weeks so that we can get more information and be able to digest everything we've been given it's quite a bit yeah i think that's important i'm also thinking um dr brower mentioned in regards to the placeholder on the agenda i agree and i think that we should put it in just just to leave it as information and um voting or possible vote or whatever the wording is just to have that on there because i'm also thinking if we go in the direction you know of having it on the ballot in november 22 um you know the resolution is right around the corner in may that has to be passed so there's some things that we need to recommend soon like in april so that the resolution can get passed in in may right or depending on how we do it because i'm also not interested in not just coordinating additional task force meeting but coordinating or having additional special board meetings which i mean it has been and i don't know if that's gonna change but as a board member you know with a 13 year old daughter it's it's been pretty hard so i know um i mean i'm committed to seeing this through in whatever way we all agree in but i just want to make sure i voiced that but i'm in agreement and needing another time this month so we are at um on the 22nd um is there a willingness to meet sometime in the first week of april seeing some nods other members of the committee yeah all right uh it looks like we have support for a meeting in the first week of april so that we can take time to uh you know really take all this in because it's quite angry it's a lot and um and then we can still have if if we follow the course of giving updates to the to the board that could still take place dr barr i just wanted to remind you for president that we have a special board meeting on the thursday the 7th to select a legal bond council so the days on that week would be monday or tuesday and so i'm just kind of giving it because since you know this is an important conversation so that's one i wanted to share that with the task force the other if i may i think that proceeding with um a survey it's a great idea especially for the staff um because i think that regardless of the pathway that the board chooses to go i think it's an important piece of information that you can base decisions based on on what the staff feels in terms of need and you have the numbers right instead of my gut feeling or i think i think that and that's just my humble opinion i'm suggesting that to the task force to consider because regardless of how this happens i think that's an important piece of information especially from the staff dr bauer i have tuesday april 5th at as a special board meeting at six o'clock um you're right i have the opening of my daughter's play on april 7th that's why i'm like oh no my heart started yeah and and i apologize you're right because i had it as a tentative and then i have the fifth okay so sorry about that it's okay so maybe monday he's on the fifth and then yeah i mean we have the monday on the fourth i don't bet i know jocelyn how's wednesday that's the sixth uh jocelyn you haven't had anything yeah i mean i was just gonna say mondays i am absolutely can't do it but it is there a reason is wednesday available for anybody yeah can we meet earlier i can't do wednesday i have a standing meeting the first wednesday of every month um we can meet earlier we can move it around um is there a time that works on wednesday as long as i'm finished by my meeting starts at six so if it's earlier than that i'm good to go all right maybe a little more we'll uh make sure that there's uh clear times that we have stopped by um yeah four does 430 work is that enough time 4 30 so we're saying april 6 at 4 30 for our next meeting yeah and we'll we'll have to move efficiently okay thank you mr mr president yep uh let me just let me just add and i'm not trying to convince anything if know there's been a lot of information if for any reason uh you also want me to come back to that meeting on the sixth and run through this again i'm happy to do it it's a lot of information to digest you may have questions at that time i'd be happy to give a quick not to push out anybody else that's coming in give them plenty of room you want me ask me questions um have a have another go at it just let the superintendent know i will do thank you for making yourself available thank you uh we'll take you up on that um all right so thank you all for your flexibility and your willingness to uh look further into this and it's a lot it's been uh asked of you and so we'll uh proceed with that meeting um all right uh further discussion for members of the of the committee with regard to this item all right so our next steps are going to be to coordinate that meeting so we all can take a look at the presentation that's been provided and then we'll go ahead and in the meantime make sure that the rest of the board knows about this uh formally and receives an update to see what the interest is from the board as well uh and you know you'll you'll be able to see it publicly in the form of discussion that'll take place there so that'll be very important to see if the willingness is there to move in this particular direction or what the sentiment is so um thank you all for that uh anything that i have left out dr bauer do you have any reminders nope uh jocelyn i was just curious um in order to move ahead with the survey of the staff does that need to go to the board first um yeah let's let's discuss that and uh determine if what the recommendation is uh with regard to the uh survey so what is the will of this committee with regard to moving forward with the survey i'm i'll i'll make some quick comments i know that this the accounting the reason i mentioned the measuring money from the county uh was because they're already working on some teacher housing up in mountain view with some of that measuring money or some sort of money that you use to maybe measure it i have to go back and look and so i believe that the survey would be beneficial whether we moved through the general obligation bond wrap or we proceed we proceed to go and shake down the county for 27.5 million dollars to help us provide housing for uh teachers which will be in line with the goals of measuring um as well as our our staff from all of our staff so that's my two cents with regard to the survey um thoughts from others uh sharon did you have a comment yeah i definitely think the survey should go out at least i mean the community is one thing but definitely the staff yeah i i agree with you i think that it should be whether you go with the county measure or unbox measure bonds or whichever way it works i think it's it's good information to have always on um on the pr on a big project this is a big project so i think it's really critical to have that survey my opinion only thanks other comments remember the committee uh dr barry you had your hand i just wanted to clarify and i'm sorry you know it's it's it's a little late uh i just wanted to you know i wonder did you mention that we needed to con to bring it to the board before carrying the survey and the reason i'm asking is because the board already knows about the task force and i think this is something um that the board already knows we're discussing this right and it's not a decision that is being made or a recommendation is just gathering information for the board you know because that's something that will be presented to the board so i'm wondering if we can just conduct the survey of the staff because i agree with dale a survey monkey it's very easy for us to issue to the staff and that will give us kind of solid ground for example how many teachers are interested versus how many classified staff you know things like that would be interesting to know justly but even at that though isn't there some um cost involved if for the third monkey for the staff survey monkey dale mentioned that it would be about five thousand dollars so i just don't know what the policy is on whether that would need to be board approved i do yeah i was gonna on that line i assume and i'm not trying to be presumptuous but i assume that there is some um maximum limit that can be approved without board action if that falls with within that 5 000 plus amount then we could go forward virtually immediately voter survey at that amount i i don't know and i don't mean again to try to put words into the ceo's mouth but i'm betting that that would need staff board approval but i think the staff survey could be done pretty quickly all right um so what what is well i'll go ahead and take it up now what is the will of the uh of the body with regards to survey i've seen uh support and so if if you don't have objections then um we can go and provide direction to the superintendent to move forward the survey and then we'll inform the board uh cover dale how soon do we need to conduct the survey for the community i have tried to lay out a timeline that would allow the district to take all of the necessary actions without requiring a special board meeting to the point of one of the board members um because i know i just know how how difficult those are um if that were the case then we would be able to i'm pulling up a calendar we would be into the survey in may that would be the best time results back to the board in june action in july that would be the using your current board meeting dates yeah i'm just thinking since we already have a special board meeting set up for april 5th i mean is it possible that we can read that contract to that board meeting for board to approve so we can start the survey itself or we have the regular board means we can attach it to correct as part of a report and then the action would be uh consider and authorize the survey if the board so chooses yeah let's go that route to make sure that we cross uh what is across our eyes and our team i'm just kidding and i like that because it's keeping them updated as to our movement yeah yeah let's proceed with that route i don't think it's you know i'm not having a deadline coming down them i mean not sorry yeah all right cool um all right so you have your uh direction from the committee look forward to seeing that item on the agenda and uh the board as a whole can go and consider the the serving with regard to the next steps uh is there interest from this body to have uh somebody from the county come over and provide a brief presentation on measuring funds some of the work that they're doing in mountain view to see if there's any possibility of pulling down some of their bond money for our for our needs here in normal yes no i'm seeing nodding yeses so i'm taking that as a yes so it's captured on video you guys know that yes i'm not getting any verbals so i'll go off of that so um i'll reach out and uh determine thank you very much and uh find uh find out who they keep the point person is that could come over and uh provide us some information uh with regard to projects uh for future greetings i know this one's going to be we're already going to be considering something heavy so we could look at measure a for future meetings i'd like to bring in some speakers to talk about their experience rather than just having a conversation at sidebar at the california school board association delegate assembly with another board member about their experience i would like to have them come over and if possible bring their uh district staff to talk about how it is that they that their teacher housing functions at their district what their experience has been uh so that we can have more formal uh feedback or experience from from them from uh districts that already have teacher housing teacher staff housing uh so if i'm if i don't hear any sort of opposition then we'll proceed with that as some of the next uh presenters that will be coming towards uh to the task force uh dr bauer quick question what was the district that is using missouri to do teacher housing they're doing something in mountain view i have to i'm that's why i'm going to reach out to them so you can get more clarity thank you all right um any other action we need to take beyond the direction we've already provided to the superintendent over it looks like you have no all right all right everyone while we've taken public comment on this particular item uh so we will go ahead and proceed with the bouncing agenda which is to go ahead and schedule our next meeting uh rather than hash it out right here can we toss it to dr bauer so that she can go ahead and work with us oh i think we talked about it we haven't and i just want to repeat for everybody's and correct me if i'm wrong i have april 6 at 4 30 p.m yep yes that's correct all right um so if there's no other action to take um then we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 7 11.
dr wright yes sir and i failed to mention that uh mr neal's out sick tonight he's been not feeling well for a few days chris is going to handle the presentation i have chris's presentation here if you'd like to follow along chris doogie is also part of the technology program he understands this presentation and so he's going to present tonight thank you chris thank you guys for having me so mr neilsick so i'm going to present our key rate for our school year 22 23. uh so we have three items that we're going for for the first one is the quarter mountain campus network infrastructure um we're going to do a full replacement project the equipment there was originally installed in 2013 so it's nine years old now we're looking at getting one new router 18 48 quart switches and eight ups power supplies and their battery backup okay so this power so that we can go shut things down properly the total project cost before the 80 e-rate discount is four thousand 124 hundred seventy dollars and sixty four cents the actual district cost though is twenty four thousand eight hundred and thirty four dollars and fifty three cents this is a second part of a project that was approved last year the first part was for the main campus doing the whole reboot of there and that was approved by the board on march 16th 2021.
i take issue as an individual and someone that was brought up in this town that everybody suddenly someone took offense with the indian why we never took offense to it before these last two years why not it to me as an older resident it does it just does not work right with me and people need to think about this you folks at school committee members and i will close with this need to put more effort into teaching civics again in the house school i couldn't graduate without civics we don't teach it anymore is that why some of our kids don't know which president is rich which one was attempted assassination which one was an order they don't know there's a lot of the kids we asked they don't even know a lot of other things that was part of civics and history that now is being dislocated we need to teach them how to behave we need to look at suicide as one of the previous speakers as someone who has sat with parents whose families have committed suicide i know that grief and those people those kids that are in our heights please wrap up those kids that are in our high school now need to have you to back them down with some courses some workshop some speakers to talk about the issues there with our youth today worry about today and where we're going don't worry about the past it has survived all these years thank you this microphone over here please evening my name is jamie jacquard resident of dartmouth we had three children in the dartmouth school systems and currently two have graduated first i just want to recognize that most often public servants who are volunteering their time and have elected to a board like this don't get to choose the issues that come up within the community after they've been elected so i recognize that the contributions that you folks have made and are dealing with the times as they are and the issues that come up i think we all can agree that a school logo matters in the same way that words matter but they both can be either supportive or harmful and as mr roscoe had mentioned i think that we now know the fact that there is harm that's being inflicted and going forward that's on us to own that responsibility so if we choose to keep this logo which i think is a very bad idea then we own that shame and that horror and that um the harm that we're doing to other people that's on us that's not on somebody from you know 30 years ago how hurtful something can be really is expressed by those who are being represented at best we have conflicting information on how the native tribes in our region feel about this at worst we see people who are deeply offended by this even if the community is not representing this logo in a disparaging way it can still be seen as harmful i learned more about this logo through these discussions the articles written by jack spelling and the stories by the local tribal members learning that after the king phillips war that all the remaining tribal members were rounded up and then sold into slavery in the west indies is a painful reminder that we tend to gloss over in the unpopular sections of our own history rather than learning from that to me my pride is in our community and that comes from the name of our community which is dartmouth our public schools that attend um gain that in that same way and the reputations of those programs that they're participating in whether that's sports or in music when our indoor percussion goes out on tour they're representing dartmouth they're not going in as the dartmouth indian team they're going into the dartmouth high school indoor percussion team the same goes for our marching band when they're being when they're marching in florida or in that stadium they're not the indian marching band they're the dartmouth marching band that is our source of our pride i think this process has brought to light that while people may support the use of the indian logo that there are others who are deeply offended by it there's many cultural references that have not aged well over time and that have since been retired as a community we can find a new logo that does not offend people while at the same time including more stories honest stories of our own history and all of our people i wholeheartedly agree that we need to do a lot more around education we've had 50 years given the opportunity to include that education whether that's in monuments around town or in our educational programs and it's high time to do that and to retire this logo microphone over here please good evening my name is shelly scott and my family and i have been proud residents of dartmouth for the past 15 years our oldest has graduated dartmouth high school our middle child is in ninth grade here and our youngest is in dartmouth middle school i actually grew up living in many states throughout the northeast my father moved around to find work and each sibling in my family was born in a different state i feel like it was no mistake that i was the one born in massachusetts toby hospital in wareham to be exact i've always felt that massachusetts was my home dartmouth especially has so much to offer town beach the bucket crepo field quinn school we have met so many people as part of sports teams through theater our neighbors and most recently color guard the dartmouth folks we interact with have been great helping us find our way around town for example knowing how important it is to show up to town hall early on the morning of dartmouth town camp sign ups those lines right okay uh we appreciate you our neighbors and we have made great memories together i'm here tonight to talk about the dartmouth indian this issue is polarizing but what i see on both sides are people i appreciate care about and respect i hear loud and clear the many voices of the indigenous tribes including the wampanoag piccasset aquina mashbi and more stating that using the image of a native person as a logo causes harm harm to indigenous children self-worth harm to all children in perpetuating stereotypes and one-dimensional views of very sophisticated and multi-dimensional human beings harm in the ways that some people express their spirit and love for dartmouth teams in whoops to mimic a native war cry wearing war paint and the use of feathers a sacred honor to mark significant acts of bravery i also hear clearly my sisters and brothers who advocate with the chant defend dartmouth save the indian i believe that your cry is one of good intent you intend to honor the native peoples of our land to preserve the history that includes the use of the dartmouth indian in the many positive memories that you have of the mighty mighty indians chanted at games and elsewhere as a form of school pride it also moves me that the kearney family spoke of the steps taken to empathize with our native peoples when the original mascot was redesigned to reflect our regional tribes more accurately i believe that this action their empathy was intended to honor our native peoples by depicting a more accurate visage of our native people it is the same empathetic spirit that i appeal to now in all of my neighbors who wish to defend dartmouth by defending our children from the harm the dartmouth indian is causing the intent may have been good but the effect is clearly harm numerous studies have shown us that unequivocally please wrap up okay so what's next what do we do now have you ever heard the saying when you know better do better there was a time when my children would not have been able to attend the same school as their white friends due to their biracial heritage a time when my husband would have only been valued as three-fifth as a human being as our nation grew we began to know better and through many painful struggles we began to do better there is such love in this place especially for our children it unites us the dartmouth i believe in takes the difficult step of moving past our current state never erasing it but growing together to do better friends and neighbors we know we now know better let us have both the character and the courage to do better our children deserve alaska and our children are watching thank you thank you this microphone here mr tattlebum thank you everybody my name is dave tattlebaum long time resident dhs class of 1970.
the next item that we're going to report is our direct internet pack access so we're up for renewal on this we only had one competitive quote for this this is through sparklight currently are we're paying 3450 a month for 700 megabytes per second down as our internets our new costs under the negotiations are one thousand six hundred fifty eight dollars a month for uh one thousand megabytes down that's forty three thousand seven hundred seventy six dollars for three years uh the actual district cost for that will be 331.60 a month that's a 43 speed increase with a 52 saving for the previous cost the last item is going to be the ethernet private line this is our direct connection that connects the main campus with the porter mountain campus so that we can transfer information back quickly between the two campuses we only had one competitive quote for this as well the current cost before our 80 e rate discount is 1282.50 at two gigs the new cost will be one thousand one hundred ninety nine dollars still at two gigs and that comes out to be seventy two thousand two hundred ninety eight dollars for three years the actual district cost is going to be 239.80 per location so since we have two locations that's going to come out to be 479.60 a month total and that's a 6.5 savings from the previous cost and that's our three items you guys have any questions i think that's pretty good yeah actually i did a great job and got us a lot of discounts this year yeah that uh how do you negotiate these yeah i would love to negotiate some numbers like that for myself is this going to be adequate i mean with the the uh upgrade to the porter mountain campus is that just a patch or will that be adequate to carry us beyond the next couple years so this is all an upgrade so this is all new equipment coming in new switches so it's going to allow more connectivity and faster speeds throughout the district okay throughout the building sorry when does this start if we okay that once we get approved and everything goes through we'll have to work with sentinel get a project rate unfortunately given the climate that we're in it's hard to get equipment so it might take a minute but we won't know until we get it all approved and we start the actual project okay thank you any questions diana do you have a question no thank you all right so can we have a motion thank you chris appreciate that unless you have anything else you'd like to share thank you much um we have a motion to accept item 3.3 in regard to the e rate for 2022.
i am a current member of the dartmouth select board my comments are my own i don't represent the select board although i do intend to convey the same message to my select board colleagues initially i was against keeping the indian logo feeling that any logo mascot or characterization of native americans was the dark was derogatory and disrespectful the cover of my 1970 dhs yearbook was a disgusting depiction which until a few years ago i had conveniently erased from my memory i'm naive and desensitized i must have been protesting against the foreign vietnam war but unable unwilling to face the tragedy of this insulting caricature here at home enter the bright light of positivity respect and historical perspective of our proud 1.0 tribal members as my long time friend clyde andrews has said his logo was a dignified depiction of a proud people yes keep the logo but it must must be accompanied by a mandatory curriculum created monitored by a committee compromised comprised of faculty administration and tribal members and parents if we had done this 20 and 30 and 40 years ago we wouldn't be here today it's a damn shame and we can't look back we need to look forward how exciting it would be and respectful to start our younger students on a path to learn honor and truly respect the equina and the incredible history of our town and how about signs plaques and monuments spread over town at significant historical sites certainly to include our beloved dartmouth memorial stadium it would make coach flintz proud without this educational component this logo is really no better or worse than any others all over the state and country this is not about defending dartmouth what is this a war zone there aren't enough wars and conflict in this country in this world what does defend mean it's not about keeping the logo just because we've had it for so long this is not a line in the sand are you with me or against me we've had enough of that over the last four or five years that it's it's that is disgusting to me as well let's learn from the tribal members from the tribal member from ashby a member of the school committee in that town who helped create an educational program they are so proud of the idea there is of course their logo was gone we can keep ours but not without our commitment to also educate or how about the tribal member who spoke for man couldn't you just feel his pain isolating the town with no respect for his history why wouldn't he want us to dump our logo this is about going all the way to honor our tribe educate our kids to feel so proud of our town and doing this in the most respectful and yes loving way to embrace our 350-year history please wrap up with all our tribes warts and all to probably say to our kids and grandkids we have finally bestowed the honor and respect so deserving to our proud indigenous drives thank you over here hi um my name is lee mcgregor um i came here i'm a dartmouth resident i grew up in dartmouth went to dartmouth high graduated in 1992.
the motion is second all second all in favor aye all right okay thank you diana that's approved now 3.4 recommendation to approve the renewal lease agreement with the church dr wright do you want to speak or ron would you like to speak first absolutely first of all i just uh thank you for allowing us to be here i represent just one of 11 men that lead our church brian is one of them and some of the others are represented here we just want to reiterate that our number one goal since our partnership in 2010 has been has been to be a blessing to the church or to the school district so we've worked very hard in all of this time to to understand that we've been here to be a blessing and so we really hope and pray that that has been evident it's it's been a pleasure throughout the years even over this last year as dr wright had mentioned last time of course like many houses of worship we've done many memorial services and weddings and community events at our church here on campus but also on top of that um continuing to partner with the school when it comes to dances and junior high events and different things just as in the security training that we had yesterday over at our place and so continues to be be an honor we took what you said at the last meeting and we put some things down on paper and i hope you guys have had a chance to read what we came up with i'm going to just summarize it really quick before i take any questions from you guys we hope that you guys will find this satisfactory we wanted to do a 20 increase on our rent just right away but because our but we're already in our budget year we're asking that we could split that over two years so do 10 this year and 10 next year on our rent and the 10 next year of course would be including the cost of the living increases on top of that we would like to take the utilities and increase it by 20 this year and then do cost of living increases moving forward on that and so that's a quick summary be happy to take any questions uh or any yeah any questions question comment the term was five years right yes okay and the term we're asking for is five years because like we discussed at the last meeting that is helpful for us as we plan into the future what uh what scale will the uh cost of living come from what study what survey social security administration okay facts and figures and we just pulled from that chart and that's what's actually referenced in the lease questions did did you have any problems during cobit like other churches still about financing and lack of people and i mean it doesn't seem to me to be as bad up here as it seems to be in other places that actually lost churches that they closed we have so we've seen a decline in attendance and thankfully our people have been faithful in giving because you know sometimes they quit coming they quit giving too yeah so yeah we're planning on that not happening are you back to your regular membership as far as our regular services yeah good numbers are still creeping back up so i'm just going to ask a couple questions and i know that you know the answers and you've already presented it but we i want to make sure that there's clarification just so you know that we know and we know that you know so the first question that i get a lot is um smoking on campus and no smoking in the parking lot not necessarily the building so so what we so just give you a heads up on that there have been things that come up and dr wright lets me know right away um we have a great working relationship and i think he would attest to this we work super hard to address any concern whether it's a banner that's up or you know cigarettes in the parking lot has been a big one we've we've had extra signage put up and we have our security i guess you would call it on sundays just reminding people that that there is no smoking on campus and we've also alerted our janitorial team to be out there to be picking things up if there is anything left out there one point that was made to me and i will remind everybody that there are a line of cars there and we have seen people who are picking up kids for some reason i'm not a smoker but for some reason smokers think that that's not littering and we have had some of that where people are there to pick up students and they are putting out there not saying that's all of it right i'm sure we take some of it but we've been working hard and that's true with anything we we just want to know about it and then we'll work our hardest to to fix those things right we always see people in cars passing through smoking right and i think that that's what we just needed to know is what you're doing to ensure that that's not happening because of course whoever gets blamed is definitely is usually the person that might not be participating in the act yeah right and then the next question that a lot of people ask is in regards to signage and i think that you've already addressed that but can you explain how you're handling the signage on the road yeah um anything specific um people keep asking if like when it's appropriate to have signs up and when it's appropriate not to have something okay and so just so you know any time we go to do something extra like a sign on a fence or even the use of the back property we go through the regular channels of of requesting those things and so i worked closely with mr aikens and we asked for approval dyno timelines in the past have gotten sensitive like you know we want we need to let our people know about an easter service and of course we want it out there a month and a half in advance that doesn't always work we're negotiable on that we just deal with it as they come up we were told that we could put the ones up down by the as you pull out of the theater just with service times um but i would say again our goal is to we don't want to offend anybody and so our our goal is to always put up signage and pull them back down to respect everybody's religion that may be coming through here you know on campus throughout the week and so anytime that comes to my attention i'm super sensitive to that because the last thing that we want to do is to uh put people off in any way especially our community that we live here right awesome um one question that wasn't addressed but just a question that i have in general because you're here um are you making a good one i'll have brian yeah are you holding um like a a bible study or are you able to do that on cam um with your kids during school times for high school students um we could coordinate a release time if that was the board's objective you could have a release time we presently don't don't have a really time doing that we did it for a year i think that was just pre-covered and yeah pre-covered and then we didn't pick it up past that but um is your question are we having that or can we or both oh okay um and that would be up to our lead team to bring it back to propose that we could do that again and and which the church did they came to us for approval and the board approved the release time and we had it and so yeah absolutely i just want to add too that i'm the one that always calls ron when we get the complaints about the smoking and there were times where and it's sad because they're little kids and there's parents with rolled up one to smoking throwing a cigarette out that's it wasn't their membership however when it has been ron's been clear about look you're putting our lease at risk there's no alcohol on campus there's no tobacco there's no vaping and they just do a really good job of monitoring that so i'm confident that this team's doing their part and when mistakes are made they're they're not slow to react i think a lot of parents consider their car off limits like they're not out of their car doing it so it's okay right transparency is battle that but we understand what's at stake and we we fight that perfect i think that you've been more than flexible in making the changes to the lease agreement and i think it's awesome i'd like to mention too that that corner of the campus without you guys there would just look awful probably even though we keep it up on the outside there's nothing to replace somebody in a building because if there's no one in it it's going to look abandoned no matter what you do to the outside and it's a real credit to our like i mentioned a janitorial team we have a lot of volunteers that really take care of the inside of that thing so if and when the time ever comes that we are not there we will be handing over something that i know you guys will be proud of yeah it's a spectacular space i i wanted to add too if i might that the outside wouldn't look good because they painted the house it was that weird orange baby diaper orange or something and they painted it for so it is being well maintained and if we ever have any problems i would also add that they have effort around security making sure the envelope is locked and closed and they participate in all of our drills so one thing reverend we are going to do is is involve your team within an assessment of our pa systems to make sure everyone can hear everywhere including our necog friends all of our special education head start preschool and your facility and the fab lab we've got a gap there that we need to fill and what's one of the things we identified when asus came recently and by the way we did use the church's facility we appreciate that for another three hours and so it is i wanted to add that it's a great partnership for our school from my perspective and we do have uh we do have also because we're in the same building we have an integration with the even the alert systems and so pops up on all of our staff phones and things like that when something like that comes up but we work hard to keep keep the doors locked and all that cool that's good well a lot of your people are parents too or grandparents of kids here yeah and i love that aspect actually when you think about whole whole holistic view of everybody is we work with the same families that you guys work with in our church and in our schools and so in a lot of ways we have the same mission to see people do well any questions comments thank you appreciate that i know last month was a little bit awkward when we you know and hate that but i think we we have now uh proved that we're not really subsidizing the church as some people in the community might say with public funds so we appreciate what has been done and how you guys renegotiated i think we're all comfortable with that now thank you very much so we need a uh a motion to accept item 3.4 the lease as presented to us from the church i move that we do that looking forward to the release agreement yes that we approve the lease as presented for the next five years yes okay got a second all in favor say aye aye aye we're saying i for your benefit today everybody else is going looking at me cross-eyed raising their hands why are we doing this twice okay uh next item on the agenda is uh 3.6 a superintendent's report dr wright will turn the time over to you oh i'm i'm doing it again sorry sorry 3.5 yes sir dr wright we'll let you discuss that too yes a sole source provider is needed if you exceed ten thousand dollars inside a fiscal year you have to provide rest in that rationale you can do it you just have to provide the rationale our rationale is simple we've been working with jesus v hermosa for almost seven years he is without a doubt the foremost expert working with schools and children on preparing for threats and active suitor events and it was he's been working with us would be to bring another less qualified group in would do a tremendous disservice to our staff and students and the safety that we have trying to build and so it would be it would be a big mistake to do that so i'm asking permission for the board to name this crisis reality training who is also the sole owner of that is mr jesus v hermosa to be a sole source provider brenda is there anything else i need to add to that move okay thank you any questions from anybody on the board okay we'll vote for out of the three point four all right we got a motion thanks diana we got a second all in favor say aye aye i'll also pass unanimously okay i think i can count to 3.6 safely now without missing anything thank you dr wright so as a part of the general board update uh obviously we've been focusing on the last two and a half days on safety and security our our students are some of the few that get the training that is provided and it's it's top notch it's not a once and done type of thing we're always looking at our processes procedures we're updating them we've made a lot of progress over the last five years there's still some gaps we have to address one is the sound system we're going to be working to have it evaluated and then press the sfb to make those replacements because it's a safety need and we're going to go through the process to identify those needs and then we will uh we'll work to that end to get it approved on april 8th i'll be meeting with uh so the sfb director the state school facilities board director will come in and i'm going to take him on a tour along with jb of our elementary school campus to talk about the flooring issues we have the roofing issues we have in the waterproofing issues that we have as well we're very close to getting that project to prove it would be a lengthy expensive project but i'm confident with with some support we'll be able to get that done so that the full press is still on with that we have had a chance to reschedule we're going to reschedule that bid in order to make sure that you know we're following along in all the protocols and processes through the state and we remain committed to getting as many funds as much as we can much support as we can from the state we've had success we'll keep after it the next is this is that we're operating in a very uncertain environment and one of the things one of the many things that i'm proud of is that all every move we made have made we make it with a great deal of fiscal responsibility and we want to make sure that whatever we're doing is sustainable right now we're in a very uncertain time proposition 208 was recently struck down that would mean 4.5 million dollars to the district uh proposition 8 is dead it's gone now there likely be something else in the next year here and a half to take its place in some way shape or form and while we hope that that's going to happen i can't budget on hopes and brenda and i go through every line item when you increase salaries you increase your fixed cost a fixed expense does not move and the only way to do that is lay off people and so one of the some of the feedback that i've had over the teachers over the years we'd rather have smaller classes among anything we'd love to have higher salaries and smaller classes but if you got to choose try to keep our classes small if you remember we hired three over at the elementary last year in positions teaching positions we're declining enrollment we're not growing our adm is around sixteen sixty that's the number we're funded on that's less unless every year you cannot continue to increase your expenses and do that in a responsible way it'll catch up now do we have a lot of essay funds we do but those funds are one-time funds we're going to spread those over a 36-month plan and so what we're doing right now and what we're proposing is to look for and send out the email this afternoon look for another way to provide and re for especially for our teachers let's take the segments of employees our s our classified staff have been getting significant increases on a percentage basis because of mandated increases and so the problem that we have with that is we have some people that were making seven or eight dollars now that are now making 12 and a person that was making 1250 is still making 12.50 but they've been here longer that's salary compression or wage compression we're not in a position to fix that right now with 208 passing or something like that we could be on our teacher salary side we provided a significant pass through what we had a one-time payment in proposition 301 pay if you remember the state enhanced that bucket significantly one year we passed all of those dollars on to the teacher between the 301 and the retention it was about 6800 bucks if i remember right this year we do not know but what we're trying to evaluate we don't have that information for the board right now because we don't know what our 301 allotment is yet and we can't make plans in advance of the data that's irresponsible but we will become to the board we should be prepared by april board meeting to have those allocations and we could propose another teacher you call it what you wanted stipend a retention bonus for the upcoming school year but it won't approach 6 800 but i'm not prepared to recommend percentages of increases for teachers without the funding to support it long term otherwise we're up to we could give hey we can give a 5 this year and then next year we might be looking at a you know a 25 layoff that doesn't make sense to me i don't think that's responsible we have through the years demonstrated we want to compensate our teachers fairly and if the board remembers that state said well we'll pass a 20 percent increase and if you recall 120 percent it was 16 by the time it landed but we gave the teachers 20 percent two reasons one we felt it was the right thing to do we had the budget capacity at the time secondly we did not want to erode trust and so we're doing all we can to get our teachers as much as we can in a way that's responsible i will say too that and it is true that we have enhanced the compensation for teachers above any other category that's the market and that's condition teachers are hard to find they're hard to retain good teachers are one of the most important things you can do for student success and the board knows that and i certainly know that as do my staff it's our intention to do the most we can but i'm just i would not propose a salary increase and create more fixed costs it's already 80 percent of our of our bills are about salary and benefits correct 80 or 82 percent and that's as you know that number baked in it just doesn't move the only way to do it lay off people we don't want to do that we're working to create some at least some certainty frankly give us self give ourselves some time for the state to get together i'm not counting on the legislature to do the right thing that's why we're hustling with sfb to get every dollar we can so we're not taking out a capital we're taking more money out of capital every year moving it into maintenance and operation we have created like i said 24 to 36 months of certainty and a coveted calendar that's that's not too bad i'm hopeful and optimistic that there will be another form of 208 that will be made either through uh it'll either surface through another initiative and it'll be on the ballot or maybe the state will pass in full assault i doubt it but i think it will come but it's going to be at least a couple years do you disagree with the timing on that brenda okay even if it were passed in november we're not going to see that in the upcoming school year and so uh the other thing i want to point out is inflation is about 7.98 in arizona the state gives us 2 we're taking a 6 cut still in resources our wages are going to go up categorically we've had to enhance over the years bus pay just to find our drivers to keep our drivers the board just approved and it was a modest stipend but it was it was good faith and it was appreciated for those that stay we'll pay them a stipend at the end of the year and so we're doing the best we can with very limited resources but i want to make it clear it's not a any type of commentary on the value of our teachers i mean i hope i've demonstrated over the years we have a couple in the audience tonight that we care about them they're important to us and we want to do what we can to properly compensate them but we can't do it in a way that's unsustainable or irresponsible and so that's it board have any questions on on that issue or that that topic before i go there and some people not our staff but public doesn't understand the monies that can be doesn't understand the monies that can be spent and where they can be spent i think we've done a pretty good job of educating the staff and us but that's where the problem lies and i will recognize this this inflation is hurting everybody but it hurts people the most at the lower end and at the middle of the of our economy that's who it hurts the most and if for a single teacher it's already tight and now inflation's kicking in i mean we feel that we're working hard to try to even expand our our teacher housing offerings i met with a person from the town and a developer trying to figure out how we can come up with more teacher housing more affordable and provide more opportunities for teachers we already have to retain them it's becoming more and more difficult so i wanted to make sure that was out there i also want to report to the board that there's not going to be a health insurance increase that the district will obtain any increase which is a two percent we're not going to pass that on to the employee all of our employees that are high deductible program which is all but i think seven will not have an increase in insurance insurance is increasing everywhere seven to ten percent as high as fifteen percent what we are not in a position to do is to continue with a with seven people on the ppo side it's a very rich plan the administrator that working that's working that we help that administers our plan is no longer subsidizing it we can't afford to subsidize it either and so people that are in the ppo it will be cost prohibitive chances are they'll either drop the coverage altogether or they'll migrate over to the high deductible plan we're increasing our contribution from twelve hundred to two thousand that's an eight hundred dollar and it's that's a one-time deal we'll evaluate it next year but it's not a fixed cost it's a variable cost that we evaluate every year so we're trying to give back what we can and we know i mean just honestly with inflation as it is with the price of gas and food and everything else we won't be able to keep pace with it and funding is not reflecting that either so it's it's never been more important to just be very careful with what we're trying to do are there any questions on either the health care increase or any of those comments and talking about something that no one ever wants to talk about is the override correct so we are going to be in our last year it's already out it's already out so we don't have any additional funds nope that that went from uh an allocation every year down to about five about 58 and we used that money for a lot of our salary increases we did subsidizing that now we're using sr3 sr2 and we're spreading those allocations out over about a 36 month period and is there talk about going out for another one or is it not a wise decision at this time my feeling is i think they're going to be very very difficult to pass i think 2024 be a very contentious election and when when there's a lot of contention people tend to say no to everything and so i think it's becoming more and more difficult and that's always the legislation you can pass bonds and overrides well they only pass it about statewide and it's normally in low socioeconomic areas where they do pass that's that's not going to happen up here taxes tax rates up here have gone sky high i don't know if you noticed in your own tax tickets there's a lot of increase in taxes in pinetop lakeside and also in competing school districts but uh it's crazy crazy and it's not all the school that's getting the result of that taxes that tax increase the fire district gets a lot the northland pioneer college gets a lot and i would have to say they get more than we do when it comes down to educational which is tough and we should be in the bulk of that we're getting smaller every year which means there's fewer resources and the folks that are moving in second homes retirement homes families aren't moving in it is uh so as i said before we're going to get smaller i would imagine we'll probably be a two-way school within three to five years and probably somewhere stable and about that that area based on the size of the community and the trajectory of the decline in enrollment yeah affordability in pine top lakeside is tough for for families affordable income i mean affordable homes in pine top's lakeside is tough to tough to find the city is talking about some affordable housing going into the wagonal area which would be in the district which would be manufactured homes i think that would probably help us but that's a small thing compared to where the whole district lies demographics thank you if there are no further questions that topic may go to the next move on the the free and reduced lunch program we were at 64 pre pandemic that number is is higher but we have to find the folks we only have about excuse me about 29 39 percent of our kids register right now because it's been free for everybody and that's not happening next year the federal government's shutting those funds down so we're making a concerted effort to get everybody to register for that if they're even on the border go ahead and register for us so we'll have a campaign now to the end of the year and then again next year we have to do it all over again but our allocations for title one which is substantial i'd say approaches a million dollars the concentration of students that are participating free and reduce it matters and so we have other programs too and some students that are living in middle class the lower middle they might be able to qualify for free act or there's other options that they have and oh yes our e-rate funding that we just saved a couple hundred thousand in is also based on our free and reduced uh program our sr3 allocation was based uh quite a bit on that allocation as well so it's important we understand that we're working hard on our tax credit program they're down tax credits have been sort of trailing down but like the test scores they just dropped off the planet during covet and they really haven't come back we're working at it we're trying to do the best we can but that is a funding source that is uh that's becoming a little more difficult to secure i've already talked about the sfb and i will establish with board permission um we'll get this next and and actually in april for uh convene a group to convene in may and perhaps june folks that are interested in wanting to review what are the current practices for sex ed in the appropriate age groups and what we're doing is it sixth grade through twelve or fifth grade through sixth grade this is a national nationwide it's a big topic because some districts are talking uh bringing in sex ed to kindergartners preschool primary age we we haven't done that we won't do it that's not part of what we're doing what we will do share what we have been and it's the board's prerogative to say we're not doing it at all um this year because there were some questions and worry about it we haven't done it and we won't do it without permission next year our hope is to have a consensus and come back to the board in july in advance of school start and say this is the program we've been doing and either we want to complete with this or we want to go in a different direction we'll i will listen to the committee's feedback and try to get consensus and then come to the board with a recommendation before the start of the new school year no later than august normally it doesn't start for a few months after that either and uh are there any questions within that effort all right well that concludes my report thank you all right next item on the agenda is a call to the public and let me just go over the the parameters for that the public is invited to make comments to or request of the governing board regarding items that are not listed at this time elsewhere on the agenda those wishing to address the board are asked to submit a request to address the governing board form available from the secretary that'd be mary ford to the governing board members of the board may not discuss items not on the agenda therefore action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter or scheduling the matter for further consideration and discussion at a later date the operating rules of the public are as follows individual time limit is three minutes per person and time cannot be seated to another individual so if there's anybody that would like to address the board it's a great time now to do that um nobody's submitted that we have one down here yeah can we get you to sign in um we'd like to maybe we can do that in retrospect if you'll give us your name one graduated last year and then i have one in high school and one in elementary school [Music] we've discussed their days things of that nature what is going on and anything that's concerning them or anything like that we personally don't watch certain news networks things like that at home for certain reasons and my daughter was telling me that there was a few teachers that were putting on say cnn i personally don't care for cnn and i don't want my children to be affected by it for multiple reasons one being that the network has had multiple problems and i can list them out with the people that they employ being involved in a lot of sex crimes and things like that especially against children you know pornography zoom there's some zoom meetings that were on that one exposed himself to the entire world the network never fired him to suspend him and then brought him back on i would think that a network that is sponsoring that kind of activity and allowing it to continue to happen and the numbers um i could go on and on at the sexual assault cases and the current investigations on child sex pornography and things of the employees that work at that network is highly concerning that we're allowing it to go through our schools and on top of that the journalism that's coming out is seeming to be a little more one-sided and not the investigative journalism that i think that our students and our future leaders should be able to be following that kind of example i think it should be left up to their own minds to make their own decisions and thanks and and to do the full-on investigation without one side either way giving their their push i guess you would say to what they believe that they should be believing themselves i think it's a i just don't think that the the what they're putting out there is suitable for our children so that's my comment my concern so thank you thank you i think we'll probably let some of the principals handle that and uh maybe if you have some concerns you direct directly talk to them but we'll have everybody look into that if that's all right with you dr wright yes and i can respond so what i'll say is what i've learned with the teachers they use a balance i don't know which classroom is but most of them we use fox cnn msn bbc a little bit of everything knowing that some people have a political bent and they don't like it and so uh i get i'll talk to the principal and see are we having people just show one network i think you can look at any network there's been a lot of bad misbehavior i mean that's hollywood and that's what the news has become sort of hollywood but i've noted your concern i will visit with are you a high school student miss i'll visit with your i have my element my elementary and junior high here tonight i'll talk to them i'll talk to mr webb when he gets back and i'll talk to mr crane tonight thank you for your concerns sexual misconduct yeah yeah like i think fox news has had the same thing i think emma all of them have had it i think so i'd say taking that out aside i think it the point that you've made that i that resonates with me we need a balance and so if it's skewed to one channel all the time i don't think that's balance i haven't seen that but i haven't been in classrooms like my principals have so what i'll do is i'll be glad with the board's permission i'll visit with my principals and report back next next board meeting is that fair okay thank you thank you very much thank you thank you for coming yeah thank you took courage to do that okay good all right anyone else good evening thank you so much and i didn't get one either because i came in a little late so i apologize thank you so much for allowing me to speak i appreciate you guys um last time i came and you guys did the easy merit and went through that beautiful presentation so thank you so much i just again want to clarify you guys said um i'll take third grade because that was the last thing so in third grade in elementary math your results if i'm correct was 31 in 2019 and in 2021 it comes 27.
the three-season athlete wore all the uniforms with the dartmouth indian logo i came here tonight not really intending to speak i have i guess i'm what you'd say one of the quieter kids in the back of the classroom i've been watching this debate play out um and i think a few things have really resonated with me tonight um i agree with a lot of what has been said on both sides having grown up in dartmouth um having chosen to move back to dartmouth to raise my family i do feel as though i had a lot of pride wearing the jerseys that i did i think that we all intended to wear the logo um with pride and and i think that for the most part we did i do remember there were some inappropriate chants i remember headdresses at certain events i remember the you know chops and cries i don't believe any of that was meant out of disrespect i think as we've grown we've learned more and those things have fallen away i moved away i went to college i lived away i remember wearing sweatshirts and having uncomfortable conversations with people who were not from dartmouth and having my perspective widen i think that it's important for us to understand that we all are living here whether we've grown up here and chosen to come back whether we grew up here and stayed here and have extended family here whether we've come to the area because jobs have brought us here or we just wanted a change of pace and came back came to dartmouth because we didn't want to be in a big city i think it's important to understand that we all have some shared values just by the fact that we live here in dartmouth um i sense some fear a lot of fear by those who want to hold on to our logo in reading different things in the papers and reading different posts by friends of mine that i'm still pleased with that went to dartmouth high were worried about change what i would like to say though is we need to prepare our children to not just live in dartmouth we may feel that this is uniquely a dartmouth issue but hopefully we are preparing children to go out into a wider world that has different perspective and has people that may be offended by this logo and so that is why my hope is that we do revisit this and we retain dartmouth pride but we do not retain the logo thank you this microphone over here good evening my name is joanne avila i want to thank the committee for allowing public comment on this issue i know that hearing dissenting views is not always the pleasure of the chairman but thus our voices will be heard tonight i'm a graduate of dartmouth high school class of 1996.
does that mean 31 of the total of the grade how many students because it didn't say how many students you know took the test the azmeritor am whatever you would like to call it um so is that a 31 percent i think it's a 31 of those that are proficient not thirty one percent of all the kids thirty one percent of the test takers were proficient so is there a a more in depth that we could get absolutely arizona state board of education has everything you want where we need to go just to double check and make sure again what to me i just think as a taxpayer you're talking about money right we fund the school this is private i'm sorry not private public private school public school so i've helped funding this school and to me i would just love to get a little bit more in depth what's the actual percentage like if you guys do another presentation that you would say okay our third grade in 2019 had an eighty percent rate on their math scores to me that would be a little bit more detailed right and i know you're saying i can go to easy i get that yeah but i was just saying i still appreciate it i think the numbers would be a little bit to me helpful of even certain parents in the community so um i appreciate everything thank you again for taking your time and doing that so i appreciate your time thank you good thank you that also takes courage to do that had similar questions myself but yeah um any other comments anybody else like to address the board if so going once going twice gone all right so we need a motion to adjourn the meeting i have a motion for margaret oh yeah thank you i was waiting for that and then i forgot these guys keep me going right legally thank you next governing board announcements is item number five on the agenda governing board meeting will be held tuesday april 19th at 5 pm and may 12th at 5 pm in this location nobody needs to change that all right thank you appreciate that i didn't turn the page okay now can we have a motion to adjourn i have a motion from jennifer thank you secretary margaret all in favor say aye aye thank you
my children attend this school system as well my family has deep roots in this town i stand here tonight in support of our indian logo and i stand with the aquino wampanoag tribe and support them in their efforts to preserve their history i am baffled by the fact that the school committee as well as the equity and diversity committee with the majority of its members in education didn't even consider korean an educational program for our students regarding the tribe's history contributions and the significance of our logo instead your efforts have been focused on railing against this tribe who've repeatedly asked that they not be erased from our history it's sad that a group of educators have stooped this low and that the members of the school committee have sat by watching and allowing all this to happen all of you should be ashamed of yourselves i ask that both the equity and diversity committee as well as the school committee develop an educational program that should become part of our curriculum this is the least that these committees can do to show respect to the tribe which has been lacking i want to caution all the voters in the town of dartmouth and want to remind you that this is a non-binding ballot question don't be fooled and think the results of this ballot question will be honored back in the summer of 2000 the school committee sent out a survey to dartmouth parents asking them what learning environment they wanted for their children for the 2021 school year in person hybrid or remote i'm sure many of you remember receiving that survey i filled it out myself over 70 percent of those who completed the survey wanted in-person learning what did the chairman and the members of this committee do toss those results in the trash and vote for full remote learning so please don't think that the chairman will honor the will of the people she believes that all who support this logo are racist she laughs at all of us who came out tonight who support this logo and the tribe again i want to point out the inaction of the committee members who haven't even spoke out publicly to condemn her on her tweets that are public by the way which you won't be able to find because she has since erased them along with the tweet that massless people are idiots i want to remind i'm sorry finally remember if we keep electing the same people to this school committee will never have our voices heard let's make this year the year that we change the landscape because if we don't who knows what we're going to face next please wrap up no problem please vote yes to defend the logo on april 5th and please vote for a change on this school committee microphone over here please i'd like to i'd like to um just do a time check here we have about 20 minutes left which i believe will be just about everyone who's in line um so i'll have this have you over here sorry please state your name and share your thoughts thank you my name is michael matos a dartmouth resident and parent of three children in the school system um i don't have any prepared remarks i just wanted to get up and express my my opinions on this thank you for the forum to do that um i think my takeaway tonight is you know there's two ways to really look at it and i think we've gotten pretty deep um we've gone for a deep dive in a lot of different cultural issues tonight uh that that are within dartmouth and nationally and everything um but the the forum is about whether we keep the logo or not the the the warrior logo the indian logo and my personal opinion on it is i haven't heard anything that in my opinion from what i heard from you know mr pereira mr ferreira ventura or mr carney that would insinuate anything uh that that the history that the way it was developed in 1974 by mr andrews with the intent of it to have any sort of sort of derogatory or racist intent and if if i felt that way i wouldn't agree with keeping it but my personal opinion is that as other folks have said there's a lot of issues we should be talking about i feel this is a little unnecessary in that regard i think that the logo shows strength and it's been a symbol of unity for a lot of folks in this town and in this region and for this state i mean our flag massasoit i think indian culture massachusetts is important and i think that personally when i see an image of an indian i feel proud that whether it be massachusetts whether it be dartmouth or whatever i feel pride by that and so because of that i support keeping the logo and i hope that on april 5th if the voters of this community also support that i hope the school committee will honor their wishes thank you thank you uh over here please my name is lance martin i've been a town resident for 55 years when i listen to young people say how they offended by the logo and and the things that it's that it's done to their emotion i want to tell you what the logo did for me when i got my first uniform from this high school i was honored i trained harder i tried to be the best that i could be and i left this school with the greatest opportunity that anyone in the school had ever received i am the first recipient of a full scholarship to play football at a division one level i attain thank you i attended the university of syracuse in 1977 and 1978 i was a high school all-american i represented that logo to the best of my ability i did it with nothing more than pride straight gratitude for what this school did for me what the logo did for me and my inspiration and as far as the ownership of the logo mr andrews had drawn that that emblem in 1974 through the fruits of his labor no man owns the fruits of the labor of any other man so he is in complete ownership whatever the destination is of that logo should be determined by him and clyde i respected your fruits of labor so much that in 1977 in the junior olympic championships i placed and your inspiration gave me the inspiration thank you very much thank you uh this microphone here please my name is kevin kercher i'm a dartmouth resident with three kids in the school system two here at the high school and uh i was in a conversation we had a wide-ranging dinner conversation the other night and we were talking about russia we were talking about the new u.n climate report we were talking about this mascot issue and one of my kids said to me you know the older i get the more i realize you can't really count on adults to do the right thing and that really upset me you know i was stunned at first and then i thought about it and i thought you know we have lined up a lot of examples of how that's the case and so the question i think tonight for this what is the right thing in terms of this logo and i think the first thing i would say is to talk about it civilly to listen to each other and to really consider the full complexities of what on one level is this very simple issue on one another level is a very difficult issue and i think the idea that we should not be having this conversation right now at all is really misguided and i think and also the idea that this conversation is not possible along with the complex lots of other complexities going on the school system i think is wrong and so one thing i want to say is thank you to all the members of the school board and especially the dr gifford who have gone through the toughest two years that any school board has ever faced and dealt with enormously complex difficult issues in a lot of different ways and done it i know each of you has done it as well as you possibly could so i want to thank you for that i want to thank you for facilitating this conversation tonight i think one of the things that i'm hearing tonight is that for the most part this is there actually is room for common ground on this and everybody here tonight says agrees on one thing that we need to be respectful about the native american heritage in this town and i think the question is how to do that how to best do that and you know we heard stories of some of the ways in which the the mascot was treated previously and how that has evolved and i know you know someone was saying oh we would not put it on a field but we're putting it on the helmets and i think it's really important to know that for a lot of folks that that distinction is not good enough is that okay to have it on a helmet not have it on the field there are a lot of kids in the school system that don't want to wear it on their uniforms that don't want to get their pictures taken in front of it when they get when they graduate last year every student had their official diploma picture was influenced please wrap up a step in a repeat logo background without that on it and so i just think number one is that it's a really important issue that we do need to deal with uh the the national congress of american indians has said specifically they they don't want to use native americans or indians as logo mascots they want to get rid of it they've asked us to do that and and i think that we as a community can handle having this discussion in a civil way and finding a good common ground answer on it and ideally having a mascot that's just unique to us and unifying thanks all right so we have three final speakers for this evening we'll go here and there and there clicker please hi my name is natalie murphy and i'm a freshman here at dartmouth high as a new high school student i have not noticed many students who want to talk about this issue i don't know if that's because they don't want to fight or if they just don't have opinions on it but i know that kids have been forced to prove our resilience over and over again in the last two years we have missed out on so much we are exhausted the pandemic is getting better but the world we are inheriting is still a total mess everyone seems to know that teenagers are struggling with mental health more than ever all of this fighting doesn't help us we have enough insecurity about what we wear and who we might offend with our opinions and our identities so please help us teach us set some limits help us wear uniforms that don't make us worry we've offended our opponents i think we have proved that kids can adapt we want to learn and be respectful to everyone in dartmouth and where we travel representing our town please help us find a way to respect the symbol that honors mr andrews his family and his people without inadvertently forcing us to alienate others please be our educational and our moral leaders the adults are the adults dartmouth students need to be able to rely on this is not a popularity contest let's not pretend it is we are counting on you to speak up for us thank you over here please uh hello my name is jacob lancaster i am a junior at dartmouth high school and i am a current athlete in football and baseball when i show up to practice and i put on the indian with that logo or it brings pride it brings strength i think it symbolizes the native americans the wampanoag tribe in general um i think that there is like no greater pride than putting on that jersey and going to play for it and as somebody said earlier it is not a mascot it is a logo it symbolizes it's not something that people dance around in it they don't step on it i think it's very well um very well like kept it's not disrespected in any way and when i have it on the helmet i think it doesn't like make it worse it makes you like strong as you could say it makes you have pride to be a dartmouth indian and yeah that's all i had to say thank you very much all right our last speaker of the evening my my name is connor murphy i'm a junior at dartmouth high school my sister and both of my parents have also spoken my i'm a lifelong resident of dartmouth my parents are and my grandfather is and many people have spoken today about how the indian mascot they believe is solely a town issue and that if the tribe that if native americans around the town believe believe that they do not find a fence with it that it can only be viewed from the town's perspective but as mr rosa has said and many others have reiterated this issue does not only work with the town it is involved all over the nation there are so many similar situations where this has come up and been dealt with much better than it has here and many issues have been dealt with in this the indian mascot does not properly represent the native american people those who believe that there's pride built it's based off of a warrior stereotype of the native americans and that is not valid for for all of those people you cannot just have a whole town find pride off of one stereotype like that and the other issue that the other side will find with this is just the battle against change in the community and the battle against the woke mob as they call it and this just is not a valid argument against the other against their opposing side against this side it is just because something changes and just because something evolves with new thought with more enlightened thinking does not make it bad it does not make it the enemy and it's not a sign of weakness or craziness it's just new information and people being able to finally speak out that have been silenced and that have been just the minority for so long that they were silenced over time and now they've been now just because these thoughts have resurfaced and become louder does not mean that they are new it does not mean that they have negatively affected the community that's all thank you well i think it's appropriate that we finish with three students um i'd like to thank it's good to hear from our students i'd like to thank the members of the community for um coming and sharing their opinions this evening um is there any other matters the committee has not we have not covered i have a motion by mr nunes to adjourn do i have a second second i have a second by miss wait is there any further discussion on this issue hearing none all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you everyone thank you everybody thank you [Music] so [Music] you
thank you for joining us for our three o'clock p.m hearing committee on education before we can be members i'd like to make an announcement aloha everyone thank you for joining us thank you anya for coming i've spoken with interim superintendent hayashi and his team and i believe that the intention behind house bill 2125 is and always has been the enhanced protection of our school community and staff and provide an avenue to address the ongoing and despicable treatment of school personnel who have received threats of bodily harm as well as threats to their family and children however it is clear that this intent has become increasingly muddled and has resulted in a fracturing in the relationship between the doe and our special education families and our community because of the controversy conversations i've had and the clear voice from the special ed community i plan to defer this measure today or anya i want to thank interim superintendent hiyashi for his continued willingness to listen to the needs of the special education community and i look forward to finding a collaborative way forward for those who are here in person and on zoom and have signed up to testify you're welcome to still provide your testimony when i call on your name you are welcome to simply stand on your testimony in support for opposition when i call on you thank you very much madam chair i just want to i just want to thank you very much for um deferring the measure for being very responsive to the phone calls to the emails that we have gotten and and this is just a good example sometimes where good intentions turn out differently or or is unintended consequences and this happens to be one of them and for us to recognize that for you to recognize that and to not put all of the people here in the situation of being uncertain um thank you very much for your recommendations yeah you know and i stood you to this whole thing but this is one reason why i love working with higher ed and uh education because they really really do their job they really really do and it's a privilege and honor to to work with these ladies and and youtube part of the committee but i i just i just i just love it seriously because they really do their job thank you thank you sir yeah i was going to stand up involved [Laughter] welcome to the senate committee on education today is wednesday march 23rd 3 305 pm agenda in room 229 this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you will find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislature's website this zoom meeting and youtube live stream event will include this three o'clock pm agenda for the committee on education in the unlikely event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on friday march 25th 2022 at 3 o'clock p.m and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for people participating remotely please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to justify when i call your name unmute yourself and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner thank you and again for those of you who are just joining us the first item on our agenda is house bill 2125 relating to official school business and we are deferring this bill today which means it's dead means it's muckied i did yes okay however i know that there are there are many of you actually there are 252 testimonies mostly in opposition maybe there were four or five in support um so thank you uh members of our community for for uh speaking out appreciate that and again uh since you are here and if you want to testify i have signed up to testify i will call your names anyway and we will start with interim superintendent keith ayashi uh deputy superintendent feliciano bassami is here to speak on his behalf aloha committee um i'm feliciano bassami deputy superintendent for the hawaii department of education thank you for having um having me um and i just want to thank the senators for the serious consideration they've given to the bill and i understand the reasoning behind that it was never the department's intention to limit the advocacy of parents for their students and for their children however it is a serious concern of ours that our employees are experiencing harassment and name-calling and and threatening behaviors um in the course of doing their job and that is not necessarily the way that we want to operate so thank you for the consideration and we hope that this conversation continues in a way that is productive to making sure that everyone is safe thank you thank you and i think uh just for further clarification uh many of you may have remembered the headlines and what was in the paper a few months ago about a principal and her children who were being threatened with phone calls vulgar language and threatened with bodily harm etc and that was a thrust that started this bill just to just to let you guys know it was never intended to stop parents from being advocates for their students their children next to testify um howie amsterdam good afternoon um chairman kidani and vice chair kim members of the commission and my friends and neighbors aloha i'm here representing the mamaloa foundation um kanakama oli jew and educator i'm also an educator also i would i would ask to remember our people in the ukraine been waving signs and to remember them in prayer and help they need our aloha and help at the present time in regards to looking at this situation uh upon initial observation uh it looks reasonable and acceptable but on close um review of the um bill hb2125 hd2 um in looking at it in terms of educational principles rights and also um uh uh different uh values and accountability um i don't accept and support uh this bill i think the person who would accept it probably would be vladimir uh putin thank you for your testimony your time is up i'm sorry it's open already yes did you hear the bill i thought we have three minutes no i said one minute oh i just came in oh okay we have one minute thank you for your testimony oh okay well you have it so you can read it mahalo next we testify catherine in opposition is catherine here if not cynthia bartlett cynthia please thank you for the opportunity i i'm actually representing two organizations should i just convince that right now yes we have one minute okay um on hawaii autism foundation was very concerned because we we do have shared values with the doe which is safety and communication with the teachers is our top priority so um this bill actually we felt would intimidate and and set fear in some of our some of our parents because they advocate and uh so that was our concern there um we found that um parents who advocate are already doing a lot of emails and voicemails and it was it was pointed out that those could be termed as harassing or interfering with the school so that's what our big concern was and then as far as representing moms for liberty um we're just a new chapter here in hawaii and uh we're always defending parent rights at all levels of government so thank you thank you cynthia next to testify okay sarita thank you all right so um you know with this bill um when you're looking at i read um hayashi's testimony and thank you first of all for killing this bill um so you know one of the things that is a big concern for me is that i didn't see any testimony from the board of direct board of education they didn't say anything and then the doe just remember that the doe isn't a law enforcement so how do how is that way out and who's going to pay for this bill and then more so if we want the parents involvement to get involved penalizing the students and the parents is and it's hard because i do understand where she comes from however you know our kids if if our school continues to allow our children to swear at the teachers um that's something also that i have a big concern about a little respecting for that so i am against the bill and i just really want to thank you for that thank you thank you very much caleb next to testify janelle nicole scanlan janelle nicole scanlon if not patrick minville this is who i'm speaking for today this is my son connor he's 19 years old he attends castle high school he's in a self-contained autism class again as many people have stated i'm opposed to this bill because the state of hawaii already has adequate laws in place for harassment um if teachers or people within the deal we are feeling like they're being threatened in any way shape or form they should be contacting the police it's a policing matter um it was also pointed out the amount of data submitted was really insufficient and really unst and substantiated uh the bill also went against and violates the idea which is federal law i'm going based on what i've been presented as as a parent okay so i'm assuming that i've been instructed correctly but in my opinion personally the proposed legislation appeared to be a gross overreach by the department of education in an attempt to act as judge and jury by blocking accountability not only to the students they're employed to educate protect and serve but the parents that support and advocate for the students and also all citizens of the state of hawaii thank you patrick susan duffy i'll just stand on my written testimony thank you susan next rosie rowe chair i'd like to stand on my uh testimony thank you rosie in opposition next to testify mary beth kikumuru mary beth in opposition next to testify tala lupe lele did i say that right [Music] okay she's testifying in opposition margaret majia maja also in opposition arthur no last name arthur do you want to be arthur i'm in opposition to peace i don't know will the ethics commission allow us to take it no i'm serious they won't even let us take it i think you should share it with the people here though you can slide it down to kurt i know he'll lead it i just wanted to say thank you even though we're in opposition we thank god for people like you who are the leaders of this great state of hawaii for thinking about the people and the children i'm so grateful this day that that the wisdom and the spirit of the people of families mothers and fathers and children spoke clearly regards to what you said when you said the bill was deferred i just want to say thank you to all of you thank you so much thank you next michelle in addition to my written testimony i would like to state that i am in strong opposition of this bill based on our experiences fed parents we struggled for several years with doe representatives to obtain the services that our daughter anya was entitled to under idea and many times the doe representatives contested and made it very difficult for my husband and i to obtain these services for anya on more than one occasion dewey representatives insinuated or blamed myself my husband and anya for the difficulties and behavior that they were encountering at school based on this experience and the testimony provided by russell suzuki during the house judiciary committee hearing on february 24 2022 which specifically singled out sped parents we are extremely concerned that doe representatives will continue to try and suppress sped parents and children and abuse any authority granted to them if this bill passes my husband and i and anya thank you for deferring this measure thank you michelle thank you anya just so that you know the last time that they visited us anya was put to work and doing uh shredding recycling thank you anya yes i know she wants to sign up for session staff i know that thank you next to testify joseph yoshimura in opposition jim hochsberg all right thank you a minute is super short i have a seven page legal analysis of the bill that i would really that i submitted as my testimony that i'd really like you to read but there are a couple of points really quick tolerance is a two-way street the parents need to feel respected so that they respect the schools and in my testimony i cite to uh secretary riley policy that was put together when president clinton was president about what the doe was supposed to do and it was total collaboration with families giving families info they need to participate in decision making please read that and also there's some legal analysis of the basically the law for 100 years has been parents are primarily in charge of the educational upbringing of their kids and so pushing parents out of the process for fear of being arrested is like so counterproductive so thank you for deferring this thank you jim and again that was not the intention of the bill but thank you guys very much appreciate it next to testify cynthia bartlett oh did you testify already yeah signed up twice okay thank you in opposition sharon martin in opposition stanley scanlan in opposition tiana wilbur thank you chair for the opportunity and for allowing me in here um so i have strongly passionately opposed hp 2125 um it's already been mentioned that uh parent involvement is a key to a child's curriculum and success academically um i've been actually my son has been denied to go to school since january by his principal and i had a phone call this morning that is relative to this um it that call ended with me verbalizing just asking concerning questions and when my son can return um and he said that he cannot and as i was asking other questions and his attendance and him not being marked absent he said you know what i'm not going to take your harassment and abuse so where who is the judgment in bills like this because now if he says he goes and files a complaint saying that i'm harassing and abusing him then now i'm and right now i'm the only parent for my child for my children um i also just passionately i say passionately want to be an advocate for the children because if we aren't the advocates for them then who who is if there is something happening in school right so i i did lose a son nine years ago tomorrow is his anniversary so it's very passionately adamant for me to use my voice for my children thank you tiana thank you very much sure i'd like to stand on my testimony but thank you and the committee for deferring this bill i appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to the collaboration with the school and rebuilding safety for the for the teachers as well as the parent school relationship which i think is so important in this matter i thank you for allowing me to continue to be the voice for our daughter who's 18 with autism and non-speaking and allowing me to be her voice as you are allowing other special needs parents to do as well thank you very much william lawson in opposition naomi grossman in opposition margaret colvin with comments martha here uh senator this is susan rocco speaking up for martha dinan can you hear me i can hear you susan are you testifying are you on the list to testify also i i am the staff person to martha and so i am just uh saying that okay this is the special education advisory council that's really proceed thank you very much for your consideration today and siac would be happy to work with the department on language that really gets it what their true purpose was this was so muddied up that it it jeopardized family school partnerships for all families so thank you from siac thank you susan and hariuchi deputy attorney general good afternoon chair kidani vice chair kim and members i'll stand on the department's testimony providing comments regarding section two and i'll send uh stay online if there are any questions thank you thank you ann reynolden tirado in opposition yes good afternoon chair good afternoon everyone i stand on my written testimony opposing hb 2125 house version 2 and my mahalo my mahalo senator kirani and the rest of the senate education committee for the decision to defer hb 2125 aloha thank you shigemi okada you're on me she gave me i can't hear you thank you good afternoon edie chan members and i strongly oppose house bill 2125 if this bill is passed censorship of parents and guardians will become inevitable as they speak up as advocates for their children it will become it discourage and even prohibit parents from expressing their concerns and their [Music] freedom of fear of being charged with a misdemeanor my question is who will adjudicate intent to harass annoy or alarm an educational worker when someone considers another's action just knowing that it is or her perception is subjective simply labeling them as harassment and treating them as demeanor is revelation as constitution first amendment the supreme court requires a government to provide substantial justification for the interference with their right to free speech so hb 2125 as it currently reads suppresses and takes away the voices of parents and advocating for their children violating the first amendment instead of such legislation please use thank you shigemi your minute is up but in case you didn't hear the announcement and opening we are deferring this measure that means this measure is dead thank you rita kama kimura thank you i am pleased that this bill has been deferred do keep in do keep in mind shoots do keep in mind that parents are responsible for their children educators are entrusted with the child's care and education note we are talking about taxpayer-funded education the idea that they as members of the board of education or teachers don't want to hear from parents when they are concerned upset or even irate is part of the job sadly it's part of life we are aware that there is an existing law in place that addresses this hrs7 11-1106 and that is what should be looked at and used the concern with this bill as it is written is an insult to parents and concerned citizens this puts in place a path to threaten parents with censorship should they speak up and when concerned when concerned or wanting answers when that once that happens i cringe to think what else this might lead to out of respect for parents and citizens of the state i give thanks that this bill has been deferred thank you thank you rita next to testify susan piccola davis you hear me yes oh thank you good afternoon and yes i'm another one that's pleased to hear the um the outcome of this 21 whatever you want to call it however i do wanted to uh support that hawaii revised statute 711-1106 has this covered already and to try and create a bill that's separate in order to protect education workers is going could could if this had gone through set a precedent for other government government workers to have their names listed or their job titles i understand that there may have been a misconception of what the intent was however if you do go back and watch the youtube video of the february 24th and 25th committee on judiciary and hawaiian affairs and you listen carefully thank you susan your time is up next to testify lara pahiapo aloha and and i'm happy to hear about the outcome so far but i just um i sent in a written testimony which i hope you all read because there's no time to read all of it uh so i i was a parent i'm a parent of a son with special needs who is not anymore in the system but um i had a situation where i endured where my son endured quite a bit of abuse from a situation that occurred at school which i had no long knowledge about um so i proceeded to pull up to school one day and found that three staff members were trying to put him in my car knees bleeding unconscious and i and and i was shaking all over and yes i may have found harassment harassing when i yelled what's going on what's going on i screamed out get me an ambulance what are you guys doing and then they told me just move your car and i said i'm not moving my car i was shaking all over and i yeah i yelled out i'm not moving i'm gonna sit with my son but these things happen imagine if it was happening to your child how you might react and i endured years of trying to get through the settlement um just to get help for him and others that they would not have to ever go through that thank you linda elento in opposition linda hello yes this is linda elento can you hear me i can i hope you're parked and not driving linda i am parked thank you very much okay aloha thank you very much for deferring this measure i did want to share the measure interferes with an individual civil rights including individuals with disabilities who may have communication deficits or behavior needs due to disability this bill could put students against teachers and parents against school schools i lost all sense of confidence in the interim superintendent showing concern of the safety of employees when his risk manager last testified at the house hearing that parents of special education students were the reason for this bill a school system however can improve its communication with students and families and the public and give them the time of day as well as clear procedures and policies now finish with the school can open the door to communication and fairly investigate administratively or through the hawaii civil rights commission but not make an accusation of harassment as any form of crime thank you very much for the opportunity we appreciate what you're doing for us mahalo thank you linda um i want to go back i think now there's two uh people who are now on zoom that i called earlier naomi grossman are you there naomi margaret cobin margaret covent are you there okay i guess they're still not on there hello i can't see you are you who who's speaking is this margaret or naomi um this is naomi i'll do it i understand there's only one minute is that correct that's correct please proceed thank you just real quickly um i was almost arrested so i want to share what happened uh i went to us to the school with a parent and um this uh school apparently held the iep meeting without letting the parent know so she asked and they reschedule it excellent we get there and the principle starts by saying okay here's the reading test results are you okay with it can we move on and we don't know what to say so we said we'll follow your lead i said stop no talking i'm at either the parent answers or no one answers and so he said but we're here together as one voice and he said and he continued on to what's called the pleb then we said the two questions was do you agree can we move on that's two questions we said we're taking your lead stop i'm calling security he called security assistance thank you naomi sorry your time is up margaret colvin margaret coven yes please proceed you have a minute one minute dr coven has given it to naomi grossman so i was i'm sorry i'm sorry okay she she was about to be arrested um and the clues were called and came um i'd like to say that i'm opposed to the bill the laws that are on books are certainly adequate to cover these situations i sympathize with all government workers right now about their fears and their anxieties because of the lack of civility in the community for different groups dealing with each other however this particular bill since it only deals with the doe and it primarily will impact families who are covered under idea singles them out and potentially criminalizes them while no other groups in our entire society are being impacted in the same way in our community thank you for your testimony margaret so margaret and naomi you came on late in case you didn't hear the announcement we are planning to defer this bill that means this bill is dead thank you for your testimony next to testify jerry sugano yes aloha cherokee vice chair mercado kim and members of the senate education committee my name is jerry sugano and i have two amazing children with special needs i just wanted to stay on the line and thank you chair kidani for listening to the parental concerns and for deferring this bill today the safety of our state's educational workers is a serious concern and it's something we should continue to fight for mahalo thank you jerry we have a few other testifiers who signed up steve hope steve hulk here henry vincent i can't read this writing henry sorry i get my notes on my phone but i wanted to say mahalo 44 in this bill i do have i do represent humanity and my family and friends and my children i do have 10 children and i had three of them in a educational field where they had ieps and sometimes it is frustrating to um to hear what this bill is writing and we do have you know the teachers and volunteers and educational have already have uh protected under certain harassment issues but as when it comes to the curriculum we should as parents be able to be voice and say this is not what we want for our children but i'm glad that this bill has been deferred and thank you very much for hearing our voices thank you thank you for your testimony members that concludes the uh testifier signed i guess not okay are these on zoom or in person okay cheryl for you cheryl i'm not sure julianne yes i don't have your name here but please come forward oh hello [Music] for deferring this bill it means so much to us i have a son with autism and he has he's 22 now so he's finished the doe and i prided myself on having a great relationship with our principals and our teachers but there were times in our history where we had difficulties some severe difficulties and had to work things out and i just um i'm so glad that this bill has been deferred because if if we want to work on on teachers safety we should just focus on including families into the decision-making process i think that we need to decentralize the system i think that families need to be on school boards we need an elected school board and we need to have maybe community regional areas you know where families get to get to help the administration decide on what best practices should be implemented for our kids oh thank you can i get you to please write your name down your information we used to have elected school boards and the voters decided to have appointed school board members so um is that it for the testifiers i called it but i will call it again thank you hello thank you for uh deferring this bill so what i do is um sometimes you know parents they they get put in situations at school and the the kids are getting discriminated on and segregated on i personally go to the school and administer the rights for these kids because all kids still have civil rights we didn't lose that just over these mandates so this bill would create a way to incriminate someone like me who's just standing up to voice this for the children and so i'm glad you guys deferred it and if you guys could just stay away from all the bills like this that would be great so that we could focus on the real problems instead of running around in the weeds thank you thank you i just want to thank you thank you your committee my name is and i'm opposed to hb uh 25 what is it 21 25 and any other bill similar to it which means the senate bill 3093 attached to it's a companion bill these bills uh as someone mentioned they violate a person's first amendment rights and they actually gag and hulk thai parents um and rescind obviously any kind of uh any kind of uh nurturing responsibility that is specifically and solemnly just appearance we can't go giving these these different responsibilities to other people they solely belong to the parent okay and i just want to say that children have the right to be cared for by their parents in a loving home and no one else no one else tops the parents responsibility they are a their thank you please conclude children i will the children of our heavenly father and they are the fruit of the womb and they are to be cherished within the family thank you thank you okay i believe that is all of our testifiers members are there any questions okay is that the only bill on the agenda uh yeah okay thank you all for uh joining us for on this bill and if anybody would like a manapua [Music] this meeting is adjourned can you pick that up calling to order the committee on education this is wednesday march 23rd 3 o'clock agenda for decision making on the following measures house bill 1941 hd1 relating to education requires the department of education to establish grant programs to provide funds for the planning and implementation of community schools through a two-year pilot program uh did we have any okay sorry yes so for house bill 1941 the recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments we will replace all references to sustainable community schools with community schools amend the definition section to include definitions for eligible school school leadership teams and pillars of community schools and to clarify the definition of applicant we will amend to streamline and clarify the application requirements and process for the community school grant programs clarifying streamlining the reporting requirements inserting maximum maximum dollar amounts for the grants clarify the term of the pilot program and the grants clarifying the submission content and timing requirements for community school plans replacing all references to request for proposal with application process replacing all references to operational grant with implementation grant clarifying grant implementation requirements and program evaluation criteria we will insert a blank appropriation to the department of education for the purposes of funding the grants also inserting a repeal date of june 30th 2027 and there are some technical and non-substantive amendments questions members so recommendation of the chair is to pass house bill 1941 with amendments chair votes share votes eye on hospital 1941 with amendments vice chair votes eye senator de la cruz please excuse senator kanu senator favela four eyes one excuse recommendations adopted thank you for house bill recommendation is to pass with amendments the amendments are technical and non-substantive in nature um password amendments hb 1942 chair votes i any member president voting in the negative any members voting with reservations hearing none four members present one excuse recommendations adopted thank you members needing suggestions you
is before we start tonight's meeting i invite you to participate and pledge allegiance as you said i pledge of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with literacy and justice and with that we start this meeting at 6 31 um do i have any modifications to the agenda no no modifications okay with that um do i have a recognition of visitors or comments from the audience of anything not already on the agenda does it look like it okay we do not have any presentation we do not have any discussion but we do have the approval of public session units from march 3rd 2022.