DCRSD SC Mtg August 25 2021

001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This evening, we're saddened to report the passing of two individuals who were part of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District family. Mr. James Sheldon from Dudley, Mass. passed July 25th. Mr. Sheldon was a bus driver for the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District for 13 years. In addition, Ms. Abisal Brassad was an early child educator in the district. Ms. Abisal Brassad was a graduate of Shepherd Hill. Not only was she part of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District family, both of her parents previously worked in the district. We are very sorry for her passing August 1st. A moment of silence. Okay. Approval of the minutes. I'm going to

002entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our special meeting of Monday, July 12th. Do I have a motion? So moved. A second. Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our regular meeting of Wednesday, July 14th. Do I have a motion? How about a second? Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the executive session on Wednesday, July 14th. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of regular meeting of Thursday, July 22nd. It's a special meeting. Okay. On C? That was the special. Right. But guess what? It said regular. On

003the agenda. I made the mistake. Thank you. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Any discussion on this special meeting? Okay. Seeing none, all in favor? I abstain. Okay. So we have six approved and one abstaining. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the executive session on Thursday, July 22nd. So moved. Do I have a second? Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Jamie, you're abstaining? Yes. Okay. Six approval, one abstaining. Okay. Approval of the warrant. And this evening, we did have quite a few warrants to be signed, and it's making their way. Yeah, thank you. Okay, now that brings us to Citizens Forum. And this evening, we have a lot of business to do. And I'm going to say 45 minutes and we'll see what happens then. And three minutes as

004usual for each speaker. And then I will read the policy. Citizens Forum agenda item. All regular special and emergency meetings of the school committee shall be open to the public. Executive sessions will be held only as prescribed by the statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The school committee encourages citizens of the district to attend its meetings so that the public may be come better acquainted with the operations and the programs of our local public schools. In addition, the committee would like the opportunity to hear public comments. Public comments is not a discussion, debate, or dialogue between citizens and the school committee. It is a citizen's opportunity to express an opinion on issues of school committee business. The committee may respond to a public comment by taking it under consideration when deliberating on an agenda item

005or referring an issue to the administration for the appropriate action or response. Action on any matter should not be expected during the meeting in which it is brought up. To ensure the ability of the school committee to conduct the district's business in an orderly manner, the following rules and procedures are adopted. All remarks will be addressed through the chair at the meeting. The presiding chair of the meeting shall establish the duration of Citizens Forum as an agenda item. Speakers will be allowed up to three minutes to present their material and must begin their comments by stating their full name and address. The presiding chair may permit extensions of this time limit. Time may not be shared between speakers. Topics for comments should be limited to those items within the school committee's scope of responsibility. Disruptive

006conduct and or remarks will not be allowed. If an individual continues to engage in disruptive conduct after warning, The presiding chair has the authority to terminate that individual's privilege of address and or order that individual to leave the meeting. If the individual does not leave, authorities may be called. If an individual has a complaint, resolution should first be sought at the school level with the school principal and or administrators, including, if necessary, the superintendent. Anonymous written comments will not be accepted during the Citizens Forum agenda item. Okay, so we'll start citizens forum and you can come right up to the table to speak. So who wants to come up for us? Stefan Sage, 41 Lincoln Point Road, Charlton, Massachusetts. I am 71 years old, approximately 60 some years ago. My parents who cared about me

007a whole lot made sure that I got a smallpox vaccination in my arm. I tried to find the marks today, but over the years I think it's kind of disappeared. Not only do they care a whole lot about me, but I think they also cared about the greater good of the United States and to some extent the entire world. And because of that kind of attitude from my parents, smallpox has been eliminated, eradicated from the United States. And I think there may have only been one or two other cases across the world. My parents also cared about me a whole lot to make sure that I swallowed sugar cubes that contained the Salk or Sabin vaccine so that I did not come down with polio. Today, polio is almost eradicated. Just very few cases around

008the world. I would hope that... the citizens, parents, the citizens of Charlton and Dudley would take that in mind that years ago we had a crisis and we took action and the action proved successful. The results that were published today on WBZ showing the vaccination rate of Charlton students aged 12 to 15 showed a 39%. vaccination of 16 to 19 year olds it was 61 percent in Dudley 12 to 15 year olds was 33 percent and from 16 to 19 year olds it was 37 percent I know the state has mandated the wearing of masks in schools during the first month and a half I believe or a month and or two months to the I guess maybe the end of October and I would hope The citizens of Charlton and Dudley would make the

009effort to bring the high school at least up to the 80% so that they can reevaluate whether they want to remove masks. Masks have proven scientifically. with a number of studies to be very effective of not only protecting yourself, but also protecting others. Numerous studies, scientific studies have shown that to be true. So I encourage our communities to work toward eradicating in our communities the results of increased numbers of individuals who are coming down with COVID. The fact that there are students coming into this building who we do not want to see have to close the building up because of an increase in COVID cases among students and teachers as this happened in Tennessee as soon as they opened about two weeks ago. I would really like to see our students able to attend classes

010inside the building for the entire year. Thank you. When we hear that little bell, that means that three minutes are over and you can just wind it up, okay? So you're aware that it's being timed. I said everybody has three minutes, and when you hear that little ring, you can still speak and just wind your conversation, okay? So who would like to come up next? Okay, Stephanie. My name is Stephanie Reed 10 Clark Road I'm here for something that's probably a lot different than what you're here for I am here tonight as a previous school committee member and a resident of the community that would like to keep our school district intact as a previous member I can honestly say that I did not choose Mr. Lamarche when he was hired because I did not

011feel like his focus was for the students. As time went on, it was more apparent, in my opinion, that this was the case. It pains me to see how he spoke to myself and my colleagues during past Zoom meetings. I had been reached out to. While on the zoom meetings about his how mr. Lamar was acting towards members of our board I have heard numerous comments about how he has treated some of our administrators and teachers I have respect for our district and all the employees I do not think that mr Lamar holds that same type of respect and that concerns me with keeping valuable teachers and staff Had I been involved his evaluation this year I would have said that Mr. Lamache does not fit within with our district's priorities I would have been

012looking at how to let Mr. Lamache go and I would have voted for his dismissal I have watched our superintendent crack the foundation that the DCRSD community has built on our district on The seven of you have the ability to fix what has happened to our district and to look for a new superintendent that is willing to do what is right for the DCR community students, teachers, and administrators. Thank you for your time. And then I also have a letter I would like to read on behalf of Mrs. Antassi, another former school committee member that could not be here because of prior commitments. Marian Tossie, 109 Freeman Road, Charlton, Mass. Dear Mrs. O'Coin and members of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District School Committee, I am writing you today to respectfully ask that this letter be

013publicly read and entered into the minutes of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Committee meeting of Wednesday, August 25, 2021. It is with great regret that I feel compelled to write this letter to my former colleagues as well as the newer members of the Dudley Charlton Regional School District School Committee. However, because of my years of service on this crucial committee, I am very well aware of the passion, hard work, perseverance, and teamwork required to do an excellent job as a school committee member, always with the focus on what is best for the students. This letter comes to you expressing significant concerns regarding the committee's and the district's abilities to be effective and successful under current leadership. The residents of the two towns of Dudley and Charlton voted for each school committee member to represent them

014and children and to speak up honestly on all issues pertaining to policy and budget. As such, representatives, members are often placed in very difficult positions on issues that are not enviable, including having to be very honest publicly when it comes to performance of the superintendent. The school committee owes the public, the staff, and especially the children in courageously providing reflective, direct, and honest feedback regarding the performance of current superintendent Mr. Lamarche. Very early in Mr. Lamarche's tenure at Dudley-Charlton Regional School District, it became apparent to me that Mr. Lamarche made seemingly unilateral decisions on issues that should have been made in consultative... sorry, in consultation with the school committee or counter to school committee directives in a specific situation. Not only did Mr. Lamache inappropriately reprimand an entire interview committee, which included school committee members,

015principals, and teachers, but also unilaterally altered the outcome of the committee decision. Those who reported to him were in no position to oppose their boss. There are other examples that can be discussed in which Mr. Lamache did not appropriately consult with others before acting. Further, his frequent and inappropriate disrespectfulness towards school committee members, administration, and staff does not go unnoticed. The district is built upon a solid foundation of mutual respect, trust, caring for students and employees, and teamwork. In the short time of Mr. Lamache's tenure as superintendent, this solid foundation quickly crumbled. It is very clear that based on... demeaning manner in which Mr. Lamache speaks to those he reports to and who writes his review the school committee there seems to be little doubt that if investigated further there would be ample examples of

016similar approach towards those who report to him is this a type of leadership example we want for our district or our children while Mr. Lamache interviewed adequately amongst the pool of superintendent candidates who were available at the time, I so often wish that we as a school committee had remained steadfast in retaining the services of our interim superintendent at the time as an alternative. This is a school district that we are all very proud of. worked very hard for and cared deeply about. If I were currently on the school committee I would recommend Mr. Lamache's termination as superintendent. At a minimum Mr. Lamache should be provided with honest constructive critique of his performance and specific actionable goals for immediate improvement. district and most importantly the students deserve an excellent leader who respects and values others

017and partners with administration and school committee he reports to toward great success I respectfully request that the school committee be very honest in assessing mr. Lamasch's performance provide and monitor measurable improvement goals and more importantly evaluate his overall suitability for Charlton Dudley Charlton Regional School District and the culture we have all worked so hard to build. Thank you for your consideration and for your continued service to the Dudley Charlton Regional School District and the town, respectfully, Mary Ann Tossey. I don't want to hear any interruptions in the audience. If I do, you're going to be removed. Who would be next? I think you were coming up for next. I'm Kate Berry and I live on H Putnam extension in Charlton. Sorry. I feel a little funny asking these questions now because I know that it's

018later on in the agenda to discuss the reopening and I haven't had an opportunity to look at all this, but I'll just ask them anyways. So if there's something that you need to answer later on when you're on. Yeah. So with regards to the reopening, I was informed that play areas were removed within the classroom last year in order to properly space desks. Is that still the case this year? Will there be any children having to face the wall during lunch due to distancing issues? What's being told to children? about masking and or vaccines i've heard conversations about um you know like you're a hero if you get vaccinated you're a hero if you wear a mask and i'm just curious what the influence is going to be coming from our educators to our children

019Situations like if my child offers to share a crayon with another or goes to give somebody a high-five or hug, how will that be mediated by the teachers? Where interactive play will not be allowed, how will kindergarteners learn problem-solving and conflict resolution skills? Last year we were told that this was happening through social stories only. Will there be any project-based learning where children will have to cooperatively work with others to complete something? Are you still limited to one class at a time on the playground? How often will my daughter get to play on the playground? Please speak about the plan regarding progressive discipline or exclusion as it relates to people who do not wear masks. What does this look like? If they must wear a mask, why do they also have to distance from one

020another? Are certain reported symptoms still requiring that children be sent home? For example, a headache. There are many reasons why one might have a headache or even a fever that are unrelated to COVID. Please speak about the test and stay protocol. The CDC does not recommend testing anyone who is asymptomatic. If I refuse to have my child tested, will they be marked absent? And if they stay home, how will this be handled? The irony of us all sitting here tonight, some strangers to one another, some with masks and some without, because the rules keep changing. And in just a few days, our children will all sit in classrooms, spaced farther apart than we are tonight, with masks on their faces. I understand. I understand that this is out of your hands now. Perhaps you are

021grateful the burden of this decision did not fall on you. I imagine it to be a difficult one. My feeling, however, is this. You should want it to be in your hands. You should want your local powers back to do what is right for our schools and our children based on our local data. Right now, they are in effect. Saying that you, the school committee, put in those chairs by our communities are not needed and cannot be trusted to make these decisions. All of the members of the board that voted to hand this authority over to Mr. Riley are from cities and towns in and around Boston. I would suggest to you the numbers in the city are high and that they made a terrible mistake by bringing that subjectivity to the table to aid

022their decision on this issue. When the data in the town of Charlton indicates that there have been two. positive cases in two weeks, neither of which were children. We simply cannot be judged like those other cities and towns. We are over 60% vaccinated and still being punished. What is the end game? Are we now afraid of every germ? How do we build immunity when everyone has a mask on their face? Selfishly, I thought that when this September came, my daughter would be entering kindergarten in a world that was one of the old normal. But here we are. I don't know how anyone feels that the evidence supports masking because everything that I have read shows that anything less than a properly worn N95, and even that is questionable, simply doesn't make a difference. My heart

023goes out to the families with children that have compromised immune systems. I don't pretend to know how any of them feel. I do. know that some want masks to protect their children and others do not want masks. also to protect their children they want them to strengthen their immune systems it is time for the district to get creative we simply cannot stand before you every year from august to may having these very divided conversations this virus clearly isn't going away so what are you going to do to get us back to where we once were and grant our children the right to a free and public education nothing about masks and social distancing suggests it is free to me masks are symbolic of fear they are symbolic of sitting down and keeping quiet not participating

024in the conversation. They are symbolic of keeping your distance. They are symbolic of this virus that has divided our country, our families, our right to visit grandparents and celebrate holidays. If we don't start moving forward a life free of masks soon, then when? For our youngest children, the ones least likely to get this and exhibit severe symptoms are on track to never be free from masks if you stand behind the recommendation that only when we reach 80% will those that are vaccinated be able to breathe freely again. You have until October 1st for your safe reopening. But after that, my child is done wearing a mask. Thank you. Who else? My name is Mike DeCarolis. I live at 32 Colicum Drive in Charlton. I'll be very brief. Just a couple statements. The first is, I

025don't want my kid or any of these kids to live by the mandates you set because of your fear and your ignorance. All of you. I'm going to say it to all of you here. That's not disruptive. That is not disruptive. That's not disruptive. That is not disruptive. You listen, ma'am. You listen. You listen. I didn't address anybody by name. I said you. That's right. And I can point to anybody I'd like. That's not against any rule to point at anybody. That's that's my only that's my only point on that that's my only point my only other point I'm gonna make on the last meeting we had regarding equity in your equity standards and everything Did you know that the governor of Oregon's? Definition of equity because you guys had a different one So I

026want to be sure we're on the same page because she's the governor of Oregon. She said that Proficiency standards for people of color. We're gonna be currently suspended Because you can't have people not keeping up with the rest of the population, learning and reading, mathematics. So that's their definition of equity. They're suspended proficiency level standards. So you guys cannot have the abolition of meritocracy and then criticize us for... complaining about the removal of meritocracy because we know what you guys think about what we all said at the last meeting. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. I'm out of here. Okay, no, listen, I don't mind. Listen to me or else I'm going to have anybody that interrupts removed. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had my sunglasses on. Okay, listen, it's being

027disrespectful. If I hear any more outbursts, the policeman will escort you out. What, speaking? For interrupting our meeting. You can't speak to anybody. What? Arrested for speaking. Okay, go ahead. Come on up. Listen. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Steve, where is the police? Let him escort him out. He's in the back. Okay, call him. You have the director. Come here. Wait a minute. We're at a meeting. We're at a meeting and you can have your time to speak. I'm going to take a recess and remove some of these people that are yelling out at our meeting. I do. Maybe just take a recess to calm everybody down. Okay. Listen, I'm taking a recess right now. Let's take a recess. Stay here a minute. Hey, Kathy, we're taking a recess right now. And maybe I

028can go and talk. I didn't realize I had to take this. You have to get up to show that we're not here. We're taking a recess. Took a recess when we got up. Now, Henry, you're all set. Are you Henry? No. Oh, Henry was next. Okay. Hello, Henry Weiland, 47 Bond Road. I'm an alumni of the Shepherd Hill class of 2021. And I came to the school committee meeting. I actually move into college tomorrow because I was planning to talk about equity, but I was a little taken aback by Mrs. Reed's comments on Mr. LaMarche. So I wanted to offer a student perspective and my personal experience with Mr. LaMarche. I don't think there's a better leader of DCRSD than there is in Mr. LaMarche. He was my advisor to the Dudley Charlton Leadership Council

029as I was president during my senior year. And during quarantine and COVID, everything, he was very busy. And he worked with me and he worked with a group of students to build a website for the middle schoolers to work on the transition to high school. And he was extremely helpful and always extremely respectful to every student and I know Mr. LaMarche also has an open door policy for every student that wants to speak with them on any issue so I can't speak for his conduct to the school committee members or administration but there's no other leader that should be leading DCRSD and there's no other leader that advocates for the students than there is in Mr. LaMarche thank you Timothy Paquette 310 Dudley Southbridge Road As the world looks on in horror at the absolute

030stunning failure by former Vice President Joe Biden in Afghanistan, I can't help but to notice that as the Taliban take power and complete control over the region, they seem to be doing so using tactics straight out of the Democrat Party playbook. One of the first things the Taliban did was confiscate the guns in order to render the people utterly defenseless against the genocide that is surely coming. Another thing the Taliban did was move to immediately reinstate BRCA mandates. Who knows? Maybe next the Taliban will require vaccine passports. But the last time I checked, this is not Afghanistan. This is America, a democracy. We voted in you, the school committee, to be our voice of we, the parents. Recently, it was voted on by the parents overwhelmingly to have a mask optional policy in place for

031this coming school year. We must stand up for our kids now before it's too late. If we don't and the masks go back on, they're never coming off. So do what we elected you to do and be our voice. Send this message back to Baker and Riley. We are the parents. We know what's best for our children. We get to decide, not you. We are the parents and we the parents decided. No mask mandates for Dudley-Charlton schools. Thank you. Good evening. I first want to take a moment to thank you all for your continued service to the district and to the children of our community. Oh, sorry. Colin Humphreys, 10 Lakeside Drive, Dudley, Massachusetts. So, what was I? I know you have been through a lot in the past year and a half, and I

032want to thank you for your continuing to serve. I have lived in the town of Dudley since I was only a year old and I attended the Dudley Charlton Regional School District schools from preschool to my graduation this past June. During this time I have gotten to know many great members of our DCRSD community and I am still grateful for the positive impact many of these individuals have had on my life. However, it would be naive of me to say that the state of things in our school is currently sufficient. Particularly at Shepherd Hill, many of my peers and myself found it to be at times a toxic environment. I overheard hateful and discriminatory terms being thrown around on a regular basis without much repercussion. I remember incidents of certain students being bullied on a

033regular basis, including on the basis of disability, race, religion or sexual orientation. I can recall times where my peers felt unwelcome in certain environments because students or in some cases teachers made them feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. This often led to mental health problems like depression or anxiety. I know of countless students who had sought to access our school support services and I just can't recall one telling me they were satisfied with the response. And I don't blame any individual person on that. I'm just saying from what my peers told me. All this while, at the same time, many of our school's curricula are outdated and fail to teach our students many valuable lessons necessary for growing up in the 21st century, in my opinion. Additionally, in contrast to when I was in elementary school, there

034was very little effort to combat bullying and discrimination. So my question is, why are we fighting the measures introduced to create a more equitable school environment and to make our students more aware of the world around them? Providing more education and student support is the key to creating a more welcoming school environment. So I don't understand how disbanding the Equity Committee with an undetermined relaunch date and limiting curricular reforms to middle school math is productive in any way towards achieving this goal. These are issues that impact all of us as a community and it is my hope that more measures will be taken to improve the school environment, especially at the high school level in the years to come. But to close out, I think in order to achieve this, it's going to take a

035community effort. And I know firsthand that the DCRSD is a community strong enough to accomplish that. Thank you. Hello, Caitlin Seaman, Sunset Drive in Dudley. Last year, citizens spoke out about their concerns regarding the events surrounding George Floyd and racial injustices and how these matters would be addressed in the DCRSD. How does the DCRSD plan on having teachers and staff speak to and engage with students about the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Afghanistan. I ask this because this district is the proud home of parents, caregivers, aunts, uncles, guardians, and others who have proudly served in the Marines, the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, who have children and grandchildren in our schools. What support will those students be given in the classroom, or will there be placating responses? Will those conversations be allowed and encouraged, or

036will they be shut down? How do you plan on navigating this and ensuring that comments and responses and any conversations do not irreparably harm or offend those students and their families? My point is this. Last year, whether you agree or not, your actions took a stance. That stance supported a mainstream narrative and a select demographic. What will your stance be on this demographic? You cannot cherry-pick current events that pave the way for other conversations that are hot-button topics. After a brief scroll of the Twitter account of the Shepherd Hill librarian, seeing and reading Dr. Ackerman's summer reading selection, And hearing multiple individuals report that students know they have to write papers with the leftist slant in order to receive a good grade, I'm wondering where the conservative students are left to share and express their

037opinions and thoughts without being shamed or polarized by members of this district. Good evening. My name is Carol Sureem, Downey Lane, Charlton, grandparent and stakeholder. While I look forward to tonight's agenda new business item B response to citizens forum I'm actually quite puzzled why this item is under new business as it pertains to questions from the school committee meetings dated June 23rd July 12th July 14th and hundreds of emails from parents grandparents stakeholders and citizens alike from June to the present with most not answered In all honesty, I would be surprised if this committee and administration does answer all of them. For two months now, we have received a few sincere responses from a few members. The majority of the responses have been cut and paste. The public has questioned the infractions, the missteps. the

038open meeting violations, the contradictory messages, emails, the continued breaking of rules, state rules, codes of ethics, as well as not following proper policy procedures, and even, even with these egregious actions, this public in the end just wanted two things. Truth and transparency in regards to how the children of this district We're going to go back to school in a safe manner and wanted to get a clear picture on what that picture looked like through following the community's data, common sense, science, curriculum lenses, as well as what seemed to be new ways of teaching and indoctrination of subject matters that a majority of parents were not on board with. Families in this district are tired of the merry-go-round and want to close this circus that is currently taking place in many avenues of this great district,

039including mandates, misinformation, closed-doors meetings, district website where it's a maze to find correct information. It should not be this hard for families of this district to get answers. Parts of this district is broken and sadly it does not have to be. In more times than I can count, many have come forward to speak in the citizens forum as we are tonight. Or they've emailed. They wanted to work with this district, with this school committee. We wanted to partner. We wanted to partner with all of you, but partnering takes trust and you have lost the public's trust on so many levels. When this occurs, guess what? Change must happen. Many of you have served on this committee for a long time. Some of you have used this elected position, and it's elected, I remind you all,

040to further your special interests, your political careers, your personal bias and ideologies. Those actions go against all rules, policies, code of ethics set forth by this school committee and the state. This elected position takes dedication and only one purpose. The purpose is to ensure that all students receive a good education and that there is oversight with the district's administration and teachers. While I would love to stand here and sit here today and say that you are not warned about the frustration from the public, I cannot and it is time to take action. The public has sat back far too long at the expense of their children's education and well-being to allow incompetency, disorganization, non-transparency, and indifference that not all but many of the members of this committee seems to find acceptable. We need leadership. We

041need someone postured to go up against the state, to go up against DESE, DESE to represent this district that's why you were elected right during the July 14th meeting I pressed upon you and I was transparent with all of you telling you that parents were seriously considering a recall some of you chose to ignore it was a sincere message let me tell you that with that being said Since the chair of this committee has purposely ignored the concerns the public has elected members of this committee breaking codes of ethic policy and procedure violations special interests and or benefits open meeting violations and can either not or will not address said committee members as that is part of your elected duty I Am making a public declaration and I'm asking the chair Pauline O'Coin resigned not

042only in the current position of chair but resigned from her elected position as school committee member. If the, I'm not done, if the chair refuses to resign a recall procedure will commence. We need a committee chair and a school committee that is not about changing the hearts and minds of children but rather protect, defend, and cherish their hearts and their minds. Anyone else? Jessica Wolfert, 19 Walker Road. I'm not a very good public speaker. I feel like we're complicit in... letting our children's freedoms be taken away. We're America. We're allowing freedom after freedom after freedom in our schools, in our workplace, in our states being taken away. Why did we have a survey if the survey wasn't going to be taken to the next step, which was stand up for us, just like they were

043saying at the state level, Charlie Baker. Every person should have the right to go ahead and have choice within the district that they live in. We shouldn't have to go online to K-12 to say, okay, if we want to put our kids in online learning, it should be still offered in the school district at the school that they're going to. If the parent doesn't want to vaccinate their children, that should be allowed. If the parent wants to go ahead and not have the mask on the child, that should be allowed. The more options that we have, the more freedom we have. Everything's being reined back in, and there's no freedom for the parent or the child. And why isn't online learning being allowed in the district this year? And why do we have to have

044our children wear masks inside during gym? There's not going to be an issue with that. I think that there's going to be an issue with that specific topic, and that's not right. Every parent should be allowed to parent their child and send their child to the district that they pay tax dollars in. I come from a multi-generational household. I wore a mask tonight out of respect for the rule of this building right now currently and out of respect for my mother. I don't necessarily believe in them. They cause a lot more harm than good in many ways. And we're going to be combating a lot of different illnesses as a result of this because every kid's personal hygiene habits are different. Every kid's needs are different. How every kid learns is different. So we're just

045opening up another can of worms. I respectfully ask you to stand up for us and go to the next step and say enough is enough. Everyone should have that freedom. We can do it and we can broaden our horizons. We're narrowing everything again and it's not right. And it's leaving parents, a lot of single parents without choices. It's leaving a lot of parents that aren't single without choices. There should be an option for online school. There should not be, okay, your child's mandated to take the vaccine. That shouldn't happen either. You're taking away choices. I know it's not here yet, but it's already here at a state level. If you're a state employee, you are mandated to take the vaccine. I don't know what it's like for the school district, but I'm a state employee

046and I have to take the vaccine. I've taken the vaccine. Once again, it was my choice. I took it way beforehand. Everybody should have that choice. Stop taking the freedoms away. please and start really standing up for us and saying enough is enough and If you're going to teach one kind of subject matter, teach both kinds so that there's both perspectives. If you want to teach leftist, fine, but teach the conservative too. You've got to teach both sides, not one side. And if my child chooses to go ahead and speak in class and speak respectfully, I would hope that the teacher wouldn't behave like you behave, Mrs. O'Coin, and tell my child to be quiet. Because I have a child who respectfully says what he has to say all the time, and then I have

047another child who doesn't say what he has to say because he's shy like I am. I'm all done. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Nicole Kucherov. I live on Flaxfield Road in Dudley. And I'm here because, well, a lot of the same reasons as everyone else, but my son is beginning preschool this fall. And by all means, he should never have to have a mask on his little four-year-old face. The DESE, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, website states, regarding its special meeting, August 24th that they and I quote voted to declare exhibit circumstances dot dot dot and dot dot dot require masks for school students aged five and above five and all staff note that they specifically say five and above Furthermore, the Department of Public Health's July 30th order

048states, the following persons are exempt from the face coverings requirement. And we're talking about the face coverings requirement in the entire state. Health, anything, hospitals, doctor's offices, early childhood education, which I do believe my son's preschool class classifies as an early childhood education classroom. I would be correct, right? and previously also exempt in the current August 24th meeting, exempt are children under five years old. So why is it that when I asked the principal of Mason Road Elementary if my preschooler would be required to be in a mask this Monday morning, she said yes. This is against the state order. The mask requirement for everyone is a horrible injustice against our children. In England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Netherlands, they have no masks on any of their students. And many other countries, including Israel and

049Canada, they do not have masks on their younger children. And we're not talking five, we're talking seven and ten respectively. Is there such a genetic difference between our children and theirs that ours must be muzzled while theirs may breathe freely and see each other's faces and expressions? Or is it simply that Americans love their children less? 66% of us know that this is wrong, and 70% of our teachers know too. In our family, as a biologist and a mathematician, we follow the actual science. Masks have in fact not been found effective in reducing spread of COVID. The one study that effectively compared masked to unmasked populations found them to be statistically ineffective, ranging from possibly increasing COVID by 25% to possibly decreasing it by 50%. In scientific analysis, this includes zero and is therefore not

050significant. Mask studies, which state they are effective, simply use correlations. As in, this summer, when the COVID, which we now know to be seasonal, kind of went down, we put on masks. And if these mask studies, which everyone loves to quote, are extended, as many people have extended them statistically and put out online, you can find them and read them, they no longer correlate. As in, when masks are worn in the fall and COVID increases, people remove those dates from the study. Furthermore, a German study found masks to have negative effects on children, including headaches, decrease in appetite, depression, sleep issues, and many more. Masks clearly are hard to wear correctly. You, adults, on this panel, have collectively touched your face, you just did it again, 66 times, at a minimum. And I'm not including

051the, like, six touches that are the up, down, over, over as four different ones. I've just included that as one. So when you take your N95 and you come it off and you put it back on, that was one. When you take yours and you pull it up and you pull it down, that was one. And that was 66 times. And you're adults. You're not four-year-olds. Do you know what my four-year-old does? He sucks on it. He coughs in it. He snots in it. Effectively, we're in a library for 15 minutes and he has a wet, dirty rag on his face. But he's safe, right? If you fail to stand up for your constituents, you can expect to be voted out by the 66% that so clearly expressed their views in your polls. You can

052hide behind the state guidance for K-12, but requiring preschoolers to mask is directly against their guidance. What will you do? Do you care about our children? Or is it time to unenroll our children and take them home, where they can be socially and emotionally as well as physically safe? Because we will. And your funding will drop with your enrollment. Thank you. Hello. Alyssa Hanson Stafford Street I will be quick I'm just kind of piggybacking off of that last one so I know that Jeff Riley Commissioner of the Board of Education and Secondary Ed called for implementation of mandatory masks K to 12 I'm sure regardless of which side you fall on that made your job easier we all understand that but since we voted for you every single one of you to stand up for

053us and to do the right thing for our kids I'm wondering if any one of you sitting here listening to me right now is willing to stand up to fight back for our children. To stand up to the Board of Education and Secondary Ed and see what our options are instead of conforming to their mandates. We can all have our opinions if children should be masked or not, but let's leave that up to the parents. Let's allow parents to have their children wear masks if they so feel obliged to do so. Allow teachers to wear masks if they wish to do so. For even though some kids are perfectly okay with masks, there are many that aren't. Speak to any of our school nurses and see the uptick of kids coming in with headaches and

054nausea or kids who have trouble hearing and can't read lips or kids that are in speech therapy and can't see mouths or kids who have bad asthma, terrible allergies or sinus problems and can't breathe. We're harming all of these children by not standing up to the Board of Education Secondary Ed. We're letting all of our kids down. In addition to that, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, specifically said cloth. face covers do not protect against covid jama the journal of american medical association said the people should only mask if they have specific respiratory symptoms so if you're actively sick and coughing in the who the world health organization specifically said no masks under five and from five to eleven mask at your discretion i just want to know as you all hear me right

055now who was willing to stand up for our children thank you Can you tell me the name of the last organization you just said? I just missed it. The who? The World Health Organization? Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Oops. I did the same thing. Okay. I just don't want to use up my time. My name is Paula Killian Clark, and I would like to go back to something that was discussed at prior meetings. So Mrs. O'Coin and Superintendent LaMarche and Dr. Ackerman, and I will provide printouts to this for you afterwards. And I'm going to start with just a very general quotation. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, critical race theory posits that race is a social construct and holds that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they

056function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequities between whites and non-whites, especially African Americans. Thus, the most fundamental teaching of critical race theory is that everywhere that there are disparate outcomes between racial groups, there is evidence of racism. In this context, I would like to address Dr. Ackerman's choice recommendation for our student summer reading list. For those of you who don't know, the book Dr. Ackerman added to the student summer reading list for this summer was stamped Racism, Anti-Racism, and You, written by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, both prominent proponents of critical race theory. Indeed, in the book, Reynolds and Kendi nakedly assert the most fundamental principle of critical race theory as unambiguous truth. And I will not say all of the page references, but I will send them to you. So

057here's one. So if they're not equal, and then in parentheses, all races in society, the only reason why can be racism. However, Reynolds and Kendi take things a step further by insisting that racism is not only present everywhere there is disparity, but everywhere period. There are no caveats. On page two of the book, our students are taught that race and more critical racism are everywhere. And I will say that that was all italicized. Racism is everywhere. Thus, Reynolds and Kendi's view, while closely related to critical race theory, are even more unpalatable and extreme. And if there are any doubts that Reynolds and Kendi really do mean to say that racism exists everywhere, some of the things they describe as racist include the movie Rocky, the Cosby Show, and heaven only knows that did not turn

058out well for anyone, prominent black civil rights advocate W.E.B. Dubois, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Reynolds and Kendi also accuse President Barack Obama of being what they call an assimilationist, a term they write as interchangeable with coward. That is a quote from the book. But these are not the only extreme ideas being taught to our students in the book, you added to the students' summer reading list, Dr. Ackerman. Reynolds and Kendi are also accused of being a assimilationist, a term they write as interchangeable with coward. Kendi flippantly write, the most addictive drug known to America is racism. Thus they imply racism is a bigger problem today in the United States than illicit drug use. According to the CDC, however, almost a million people have died from drug overdose in the past 20 years or so. Almost

059a million lives lost. But Reynolds and Kendi teach us racism is the greater problem. As someone who has lost both friends and family members to drug overdose, I find this idea not only obviously false but truly offensive. Dr. Ackerman, your summer reading book also teaches our students that they cannot be, quote, someone who truly loves unless they practice what the authors call anti-racism. The shining example of anti-racist ideals and practices cited by the books is the Black Lives Matter movement. Reynolds and Kendi call Black Lives Matter an anti-racist declaration of love. And in their closing statements, Reynolds and Kendi suggest, quote we should all follow the example set forth by the founding members of black lives matter the black lives matter movements own website published a formal list of demands earlier this year including for

060example that all police departments in the united states must be defunded in the aftermath of judge george floyd's death black lives matter inspired riots contributing to over a dozen deaths over ten thousand arrests and countless properties and businesses being looted and set aflame the damages resulting from these riots were by far the most costly in this nation's history for any civil disorder related series of events with associated insurance claims totaling billions of dollars. And I will, again, I will give you all of the information and where it was researched. But consequently, I must say this. In order for one of our school district students to become someone who truly loves, we're talking about, remember, changing their hearts and their minds, it would seem to be that he or she must begin supporting the defunding of

061our country's police department, violence, rioting, looting, and arson as acceptable forms of protest, as well as reparations for blacks. In truth, this is just one of the insidious messages being sent to all who read stamped racism, anti-racism in you. Now Mr. Lamache and Dr. Ackerman, during the school committee meeting of January 12th, you both repeatedly told all of us in attendance that critical race theory is not being taught to the district students. But this is a very insidious way of... sneaking it in there isn't it however evidence shows us it's already being taught to our students as a result of your sole contribution to the student summer reading list this year dr ackerman therefore dr ackerman you are directly responsible for this critical race theory being taught and even more radical ideas also being taught

062to this school district's children it would appear that the district excuse me, meaning the parents and grandparents and et cetera who are here, have been lied to. My name is Jared Manzi. I live on 166 Corbin Road. All right. I know I've seen it. Many of you, probably all of you, I know you guys don't go out in public wearing those things. So the charade that you're wearing them now is a little disrespectful because you didn't spend all summer long at your pool wearing a mask. Let's be clear. I mean, I'm a veteran of this country, the greatest country in the world. Well, for now it is, at least until you guys continue to just give it away. I'm just going to give you this piece of information. People wonder, how is it that we

063didn't do something? We didn't run away. We didn't hide. Well, things didn't happen at once. Things happened very slowly. So each time a new law came out or a new restriction, we said, well, just another thing. It will blow over. When we had to wear the yellow star to be outside, we started to worry. it to one hour, but I'm going to just adhere. One hour will be at 8.15, okay? Because we started at 7.15. Marsha Wagner, 27 Hickory Drive in Dudley. Colin, you mentioned equity training. Do you realize equity, inclusion are all tools of critical race theory? I, and to address the suggested reading, I had at the forum, I had given out a reading list and column, I wonder if you have read any of these books, Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson,

064New England Patriot Tight End. White guilt, Shelby Steele. Blackout, Candace Owens. America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Ben Carson, he experienced racism, but he didn't allow himself to be a victim, and he became a pediatric neurosurgeon. He separated twins. at the brain, Siamese twins at the brain. Did you know that? Here's another one, The Diversity Delusion by Heather MacDonald. All It Takes is Guts by Dr. Walter Williams. Discrimination and Disparity, Thomas Sowell. My Grandfather's Son, Justice Thomas. The Battle for the Soul of Islam, Judy Jasser. What does race have to do with it? Larry Elder. Project 21. Horace Cooper. These are all people of color who do not feel like victims. They pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Do you think that Helen Keller, Ben Carson said, oh, poor me, especially Helen Keller? She

065couldn't speak. She couldn't hear. She couldn't see. And look what she accomplished. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah. And the new reading program that was introduced, and it was introduced or accepted this year, and it didn't go through the usual chain of command. My question is, are we going to see all the ramifications of that program? Critical race theory is not a subject. It's interjected into subjects. Let's see. I have one more thing that I wanted to say. Oh, I have copies of that reading list, and I hope that I see some of these books on the next required reading. Like I said, most of the people are not white. They are successful people, and they don't see equity and critical race theory as part of the American agenda. Okay, no one else? All

066right. Then we'll end Citizens Forum. Okay, that brings us to communications. Mr. Lamarche? Madam Chair, I've had a number of communications and have been doing everything I can to try to respond to some of them. Some of them are statements and some of them are questions, and we're continuing to work through those as best we can. Members? Okay. That brings us up to superintendent's report. Ms. Sillimash. Madam Chair and the committee, I do have a couple of items to report on this evening. One is our district staff is prepared for five full days starting Wednesday, September 1st. 2021 for all grades 1 through 12 plus that's our 18 to 22 program is included in that and then on wednesday september 8 2021 for pre-k to k students this is an exciting uh this is exciting

067and as as a return to as much pre-covet schooling as we possibly can at this time it was our top priority this summer This was always our goal and you will see that many of our recommendations today provide an overwhelming pre-COVID experience for our students and staff. I look forward to presenting our recommendations later in the meeting. We are also very excited to see the Dudley-Chelton Regional School District staff return on Monday, August 30, 2021, to kick off the school year. I know our staff is very excited to rebound and move our district forward after last year. While we experienced several changes to opening and in-person learning last year, our schools and staff are prepared to make this... the best opening possible for all of our students under these circumstances and then on august 31st

0682021 we do have a professional development day for our staff and i was going to ask dr ackerman just to comment on that in in my report for you as a committee thank you mr lamarche on august 31st our elementary folks will be engaging in the onboarding of the ckla curriculum at the elementary level They'll be broken into two subgroups. The groups that went over the summer will have a chance to plan and align. And then the groups that didn't have a chance to attend over the summer will be provided with a full day of PD. At the middle and secondary level, we are going to focus in the morning on social emotional learning, returning to school, strategies, tips, things to look for. And then in the afternoon, there'll be conversations about curriculum and instruction

069alignment at the middle and secondary level. And our staff did get a copy of that PD schedule this afternoon. Thank you, doctor. I do want to reiterate a statement that I shared and continue to state. I shared it first on May 26, 2021 at a school committee meeting and throughout subsequent communications. We continue to hear chatter and requests of school districts to weigh in on the topic of requiring vaccinations for attendance to school for both staff and students. There are some districts who are looking to require such. I need to reiterate that I will not bring forward a recommendation to this school committee to require such. I strongly believe that the decision must come from the state or a federal agency. Of course, if the school committee decides differently, I will implement that decision. And

070I also believe in parental decision regarding vaccinations. As most of you are aware, Commissioner Riley was granted authority by the Board of Education to mandate masks for all public students, educators and staff through October 1st, 2021. Like last year, this mandate has exceptions for students who cannot wear a mask due to a medical condition or based on behavioral needs. Governor Charlie Baker stated that Massachusetts leads the nation in vaccination rates, but that we are seeing a recent rise in COVID-19 cases because we still need more people. to get vaccinated. He went on to state that this step, Commissioner Riley's mandate, will increase vaccinations among students and school staff to ensure that we have a safe school reopening. Education Secretary James Pizer reported that 65 percent of 12 to 15 year olds are vaccinated. I know

071that Mr. Sage reported on these numbers already, so I'm not going to repeat them given time. But I do want to share one number with you. I know it was reported earlier, but I have a different number. In 2020, last summer, we had one positive school-age student. In August, we have 11 current students that are positive in August. My next item, we had a very busy summer with more offerings than ever before for our Dudley-Chelton Regional School District students. Students had access to an extended school year program that was two weeks longer as was last summer. Students had access to summer camps at Shepherd Hill Regional High School and ramp up programs for a week at a time or more for some students. We were very lucky to have dedicated staff to provide in-person academic

072and social emotional learning opportunities for all students participating in a summer program given the exhaustion from the last school year. This evening I would also like to take the opportunity to reiterate our real and sincere responsibility to ensure school committee policies and the civil liberties of our students and staff are whole. We embrace our identity as a public school and must make certain that we welcome everyone free of bias and racism. Our collective work is to maintain unfettered access to every benefit for every student. who enters our school. To be clear, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or homelessness. For a point of contact and reference, you can reach out to any staff member, but as required by

073statute, here are the coordinators to ensure equity and access to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. The Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. The Equal Educational Opportunities Act coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. The Title IX of the Education Amendment Acts of 1972 Coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. The Mass General Law Chapter 76 Section 5 School Attendance Coordinator is Ms. Anne Marie Lafon. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Coordinator is the Director of Pupil Personnel Services. Hopefully we have a favorable vote this evening. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 Coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. American with Disabilities Act coordinator is the Director of Pupil Personnel Services and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistant Act coordinator is the Director of Pupil Personnel Services. Again, you should feel free

074to reach out to any Dudley-Chelton Regional School District staff member, educator, or administrator if you have concerns in any of those areas. And principals are also incredible resources and will help guide parents, caregivers, and staff to the right coordinator. The next item I want to talk about is I do want to touch upon CRT. In addition, I think it's important to share, given this opportunity, we haven't met for a while since last time we met, and I want to be clear, I do feel very sorry and exhausted from what occurred at the end of the last school year, and I am sorry for both parents, staff, and the school committee. Do I believe Dr. Akins was the right fit for our community? It's a half yes. In the summer of 2020, he was. It did

075become quite clear that he was not the right fit for Dudley-Charlton Regional School District moving forward. In the end, I take full responsibility as a superintendent and again apologize for where we ended up at the end of the last school year. I must again share that the Equity Committee disbanded at the end of the last school year. We have no timetable, charge, or mission to continue with the Equity Committee at this time. Our focus truly is on opening the school year and returning to a pre-COVID experience as much as we possibly can for staff, students, parents, caregivers, and our school committee. The next item to report on is we announced eight retirees at the end of the last school year. As you as parents and caregivers and school committee, everybody knows what the last year

076was about. It was exhausting and some people wanted a change. So as a result, we had a very fluid summer as it appears that there were additional hires and many retirees throughout public schools in the state of Massachusetts, in the Commonwealth and in Worcester County. As a result, this summer was filled with many changes to staff and lots of new hires. Public school employees had lots of choices opportunities of change but I am quite excited for our hiring class of 2021-2022 for this school year coming our principals worked extremely hard to find the right candidates and I would like to read our new hires at this time principal at Charlton Elementary School Jennifer Lilly kindergarten and first grade teacher of special education Charlton elementary school Susan Pucci and I apologize if anyone's in the audience

077that I mispronounce a name or a slight variation of it a point five our teacher Charlton elementary school Deborah Griffin a kindergarten teacher at Charlton elementary school Jennifer Doyen a school adjustment counselor Charlton elementary school Jennifer grant a special education coordinator for Charlton elementary school and heritage elementary school Tammy Miller A long-term sub for grade 6 ELA at Charlton Middle School, Mark Dillage. A school adjustment counselor for Charlton Middle School, Courtney Allen. A grade 7 science teacher at Charlton Middle School, Rebecca Gagnon. A paraprofessional at Charlton Middle School, Kaitlyn Holden. grade 8 special education teacher or teacher of special education in child middle schools Samantha I know Favreau I think she pronounces it different though yes Favreau I think she pronounces it different because I automatically go to Favreau and she's I told her to

078correct me every time I see her and I say it say it inappropriately a school adjustment counselor long-term sub at Charlton middle school Gina excuse me Gina DeLeo paraprofessional at Charlton Middle School Tony Sargent, a paraprofessional at Charlton Middle School Katie Lloyd-Ivanski, a paraprofessional at Charlton Middle School Chelsea Kemp, a reading teacher at Charlton Middle School Nicole Tolley, a school adjustment counselor at Dudley Middle School D'Lea Galloni, an administrative secretary for the district office special education coordinators Lori Burlach. A grade three teacher at Heritage Elementary School, Catherine M. Dunn. We have another Catherine Dunn at Shepherd Hill. Intensive Learning Center teacher of specialized instruction at Heritage Elementary School, Amanda Couture. A grade two teacher at Heritage Elementary School, Caitlin Say. I think it's Sa. Sa, yes. A EL teacher at Mason Road School, Sarah St.

079John. A nurse at Mason Road School, Kaylee Weibert. A paraprofessional at Mason Road School, Kim Ramsey. A Title I teacher at Mason Road School, Susan Pontbriand. A teacher of technology at Mason Road and Dudley Elementary School, Michelle Shorten. A physical education teacher at Mason Road and Dudley Elementary School, Jackson Davis. A special education coordinator for Mason Road School and Dudley Elementary School, Stacy Prosko. A biology teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Diane Macaruso-Karrigdon. A school adjustment counselor at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, James Brosnahan. A French teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Evan Persaud. A music band teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Bradley Sampson. And a history teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Michael Raposa. I have to be honest, there are still some more hires that are happening right

080now. We have a few more positions that I'm meeting with this year. I meet with all new employees coming into the district. But we will be ready for the start of the school in 2021. And Madam Chair, that concludes the Superintendent's Report at this time. Any questions for Mr. Lamarche? Okay. That brings us to new business. Opening 2021-2022 recommendations. Mr. Lamarche? Madam Chair, School Committee and the public, and there has been a copy over in the bookcase. I was passing them out earlier. This plan really came about... I thought it was going to be an easier plan to write coming into the school year. In many regards, it is because we are trying to return to as many pre-COVID situations as possible within our schools. I appreciate the questions and concerns that have come forward

081this evening. So this plan, what I would respectfully ask the school committee to do is to adopt this plan or vote for this plan and recommendations either in part and parcel or as a whole. As mentioned earlier tonight, the commissioner mandated masks in our school district. Please keep in mind that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is a regulatory agency, and they're our regulatory agency. So it is a requirement. We don't have a choice. I understand all of the messaging around advocating, but from a school district perspective and from a superintendent's perspective, it's a regulatory agency. Also, this plan is subject to change with additional state guidance as we receive feedback from staff, families, and the school committee during time. The document has an introduction. The Dudley-Charlton Regional School District is committed to a

082safe, positive, and productive school year. As noted in DESE guidance, all school districts and schools will be required to have in-person, full-time, five days a week this fall. The Dudley-Chopman Regional School District does not have an option for virtual or remote learning. There is the option of the Massachusetts Gateway or virtual school that you can find online. It used to be known as a Greenfield School that is accessible for families if they so choose. We look forward to all students returning five full days per week in all of our schools, and we are taking steps to promote a safe, positive, and productive learning environment. School starts on Wednesday. I've already talked about the start dates. We understand that the past 18 months of the pandemic have challenged every person of our school community in unique

083ways. The Dudley Child and Regional School District staff is ready and eager to engage with each student to meet their needs and accelerate their learning. We have developed a plan with a student-first mindset and a deep desire to maximize full days of schooling without interruptions in learning, which has always been our goal. Our recommendations are a summary of countless preparations that have and are being made to ensure a strong school year. We appreciate our family, staff, students, and community members for their input over the past 18 months. To get to this point in particular, I want to thank the over 1,200 people who responded to our return to school survey in early August. We also thank the school committee for their leadership over the past 18 months. Please note that all Dudley-Charlton Regional School District

084protocols and recommendations related to COVID-19 continue to be fluid, so guidance may change over time. We appreciate your flexibility, creativity, patience, and persistence as we work together. We recognize that not everyone will be happy with all the aspects, but please understand that the health, well-being, and safety of everyone who attends to school or work in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District is our priority. So there are layered mitigation strategies that we are putting in place, and these are the most critical part of that. One, monitoring symptoms. We continue to monitor symptoms of our students, those that are closely connected to COVID. So if there are individuals with a fever of 100 degrees, chills and shaking chills, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, new loss of taste or smell, muscle aches or body aches, we ask you

085to keep those individuals home and ask staff to stay home. And then there's a combination of minor symptoms in there as well, the cough, sore throat, nausea, headache, fatigue, nasal congestion. With those in combination of more than one, we are going to work with you as a family through the school nurses. There is still a requirement for quarantining protocols, which still will follow a five and seven testing after five. If there's no testing return after or tested negative at return after seven, there is a 10 day. There is no longer a 14 day requirement within the quarantine protocols. A lot of that is specific to symptomatic individuals, meaning the major symptoms that I talked about. Asymptomatic can opt into the test and stay program. It's an option. It requires parent consent. It's not a requirement.

086But a test and stay program means if you are considered a close contact and you're asymptomatic, you can test every day and stay in school, which is really important. And then another layer of mitigation, which is this is where we thought we would be stopping, is ensuring proper ventilation within our schools, which we've worked extremely hard on over the past year and 18 months. And then number four, as required by the state, is masking. Yes? What exactly? If you were considered a close contact to somebody who's positive. Okay, I'll try to explain it through my recommendations and stuff as we go through. Okay? First of all, you have to raise your hand through the chair. Okay? I didn't recognize you. I didn't see it. Okay? You have to be recognized by the chair. Are you

087answering that now or later? Yeah, you have to represent us. Thank you. I am. You are a representative, God damn it. Now represent us. I asked you a question. Answer it. Christ commanded us to love our neighbors. I'd be happy to if they would answer a freaking question. We ask for transparency, and when we ask a question, you tell us, well, we'll get around to that eventually. Hopefully you hear it. How about you answer the damn question? I asked Mr. Lamarche if he was answering it now or later. What does your contact tracing entail? How are you contact tracing our children? Answer the question, please. Thank you. We contact trace those that were considered within close contact. That's within three feet for 15 minutes, three feet or under within 15 minutes. And it works through

088the school nurse and the town health departments. And it's considered private. Can I clarify that? Yep. I'm sorry. I'm just going to clap through the chair. I'm just going to clarify that it's under three feet. And so if you're if we're sitting three feet apart, we're both wearing masks on and one of us test positive, then we are not close contacts because we're three feet or greater apart. If we were you asked, you asked. I'm sorry. Can I just address him for a second? I feel like you asked. I feel like that question was asked of us and we should be able to answer it. So I can give that back to you now, but I wanted to be clear about the three feet information. Our job is to understand where our students are at

089all times as much as we possibly can, and we do rely on lots of pieces of information regarding that. I'm going to call on someone, the tall gentleman. You're giving me ambiguous answers, and I would like you to be direct. Lots of things. You don't answer me by saying, oh, well, there's lots of ways. Yes, I'd like to hear them, please. That's why I'm here. Are you doing it through your department? Through the chair. ...hours in school responsibilities. We're not talking about after school. That's a reliance on the Board of Health. If they are connected to somebody who is positive COVID, yes, we are contact tracing them to the best of our ability. It's not any different than what we did last year. Again, they're assigned seats. They're in classrooms. It's under 15 minutes. So

090typically students don't spend 15 minutes in the hallway. During lunch we're looking in my recommendations here we have assigned seating all the way through grade 8 or designated seating for students and then we at the high school we have them sitting at desks in the cafeteria which is what it's in the recommendations and that's okay that's that's that's a step towards understanding contact tracing yes is it a hundred percent perfect So, you know, I work for the health department. I'm sure that, or if you don't, now you do. I don't work for this health department, but that's what my job is. And so this is, it is a complex thing to contact trace people. But it's... Sure, and that's a fair question. I just I would respect that we follow the procedures of kind of

091being able to communicate so that we can get you the answers that you need tonight. I need them to my kids go to the sister too. If there's something just different here than the districts that I work in, I need to know them too, but I think that. The outside of school answer is the local health department is still responsible for that contact tracing. And so if I tested positive, the local health department should still call me in Charlton and ask me where I've been and who I've been in contact with for 15 minutes or longer in a closer than three feet setting. That's how that contact tracing works. During the school day, it has been in the past year that you work with the school nurses and the teachers of the student that test

092positive or the faculty member that tests positive, and then you find out who they've been in close contact with. through the assigned seating where they are in the class. I can appreciate what you're asking. And so that's why it's a difficult concept. If you're talking about a high school student, the school nurses are going to have to have conversations there, yes. If you're talking about a kindergartner, there's a seat that they're assigned to. Does that help answer your question? I mean, I'm doing the best I can with a really difficult topic. These are our kids, you know? They're my kids, too. 74%. We're in fully vaccinated people. Fully vaccinated, that's at the beginning of this new variant. 74% were fully vaccinated. So don't you think it's irresponsible to suggest that people continue to get vaccinated

093when more of the vaccinated are the ones who are spreading the new variants? And the new variants are worse than the original? Don't you think that makes it irresponsible? And if you say no to that question, then I think maybe you should absolutely resign. Because you're clearly not using your head, if that's what you think. So I think we should get back to the plan and happily answer your questions that are direct to the plan. This gentleman wants to speak. There's one person I'm going to call on, the gentleman in the corner. He wanted to speak. Does he still want to speak he was gonna come up It's just everything that the United States government set up in 1974 and the ERISA Act is failing. Because now we're asking somebody, are you vaccinated? It's none

094of your business. So, I mean, those are HIPAA laws. Whenever you go to a dentist, whenever you go to a physician, what do you sign? Think about it. So, I mean, I don't need to get involved. But the reality is, I mean, it's not you, and it's not them, and it's not me. It's just the United States versus itself. certain laws and then they just been violated because like now you're gonna what are you gonna know my blood pressure thank you thank you um okay no we we're not gonna answer any more questions we have to go on we i think you just continue okay we're going to everybody put their hands down mr lamar is going to speak we're continuing with this recommendation go ahead we will let that through i just want to

095know one thing what's the contingency just pointed out that last year it was two people from the district of children's home over and now it's up to 11. what's the contingency plan if everybody goes back everybody's masked and then the numbers start to go up are you going to go to school down again why did the children have going back and forth back and forth i know there's that now that's creating more anxiety there's no stability in all districts What's the contingency plan? Are you going to close the schools down again? Are all the suns you're going to allow in the in-person virtual learning? What's the contingency plan if it gets real bad? Because you ought to know when it's like two to three months if it's going to increase within the schools or if

096it's going to be okay. Does anybody have a contingency plan? What are you going to do for our kids? Full in-person learning, going back and forth, quarantine and not quarantine. That's not full in-person learning. That's still inconsistent. At least when you have a choice, or the freedom of choice, or you offer the choice within the school district, not by unrolling your child and enrolling your child somewhere else in an online school, but within the district, at least when the parents had that choice, who chose to take that choice, they could provide the consistency within their household for their child. Steve, do you have an answer to your question? I just want to make an email later on. Jessica Wolford at Yahoo.com. What's the contingency plan, please? Thank you for the question. Thank you for the

097question. The contingency plan would be to add other mitigating factors. So, for example, right now, if I could get through the recommendations, where we're going to have lunch is we would normally have lunch without masks on. If there is some variant or transmission going on, we would try to add maybe some mitigating factor to say we need to spread the students out a little bit more during the unmasked. time or something like that. That's the contingency. I don't think anybody in this room at this table wants to go back to hybrid learning, half days here, full days there. So there is no developed plan for that. days of learning. That's my belief. Our strongest goal is to have all students in school five full days a week in every way we possibly can. So our

098recommendations, our recommendations to take a layered approach to health and safety to increase the likelihood of all students and staff being physically present in school every day. That's paramount. That's the goal. Mask for all staff and students while in school buildings starting August 30, 2021. This will be revisited no later than October 1, 2021, and we will follow DESE and mask DPH requirements. I know that it was commented earlier about five years and younger. The school committee can choose to change this and say no masks for under five, but in the document that I shared with all of the community today and all of the school committee and everybody else, it does say that it's still highly recommended for children under five. It does say that in that document. All school bus students must wear

099masks while riding school buses. This is a federal requirement. And to be clear, also on the buses, there is no quarantining for a positive student on a bus as long as the windows are open and there's ventilation happening in the school. That is a big change for this year to keep our students in school five-fold days a week. As previously stated, there are exceptions to wearing of masks and will be during lunch and during mass breaks. masks are not required outside. So for the questions around recess, there is no limitation on that. There's no limitation in a playground. There's no limitation on wearing masks outside. But I also want to reiterate that if a parent or a student chooses to wear a mask outside, meaning a parent wants them to do that, then they will

100have that ability and we will support them. articles that get on the outside of the mask. There are some severe health issues with germs on the outside of the mask that the children can be and will be exposed and more likely will get a hold of. Is this district supplying extra masks because you're telling them they can take them on and off, they're going to be touching them like we've been here an hour and 40 minutes and all of you have touched them over 200 times between that and you in the audience. What are you going to do about students? that especially younger students that you're telling them they can take them off, they can put them back on, they're going to drop on the floor, we got kids in hygiene, be real. The germs

101on the outside, I'm so concerned about their health and wellness. The germs on the outside, what is this district doing regarding that? And I'm reading this, and while you talk about the masks and where they have to wear them, and the mandates and all that, there's no proactiveness at all mentioned. about the filth on the outside of the mask and especially with elementary students there's nothing in here about that through through the chair our students were all required to wear masks all the way until the end of school last year our teachers are and staff are well adept at working with their students and we always supply masks if needed within our schools and if there are concerns about students becoming sick because of a mask please contact the school and the school nurse they

102are well adept at the work that they do The mandate from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is while indoors. We're all accountable for that. But again, our... Is there any way to work around that for indoor gym class? Again, I don't want to shortchange our staff. Our staff is well adept, as our students had to wear masks all last year, and they are very caring about their students and monitor their well-being while they're in their custody. I'm going to take one more question and then continue, Mr. Lamar. The girl with the hand up in the corner. Great question, and I'll get to that when I get to that bullet. Okay. Why can't we reject all of this? Why can't we say no? Why? We're only going to be at 50% forever in that

103middle school because they can't get vaccines. Are the numbers at least being... We don't want this for our kids. We voted no. Your voice, reject this, obey, no. Thank you. Okay, that's a good question. All right. We'll answer that. You've had that answer. It's on the last page of this presentation. So let's all listen now because he's going to go through this. Okay, go ahead. Okay, continued recommendations of proper ventilation, the use of HEPA filtration in identified school areas and open windows will continue. Lunchrooms will be assigned a designated seating for pre-K through 8. This will be with staff in student selection process as well. Lunchroom at Shepherd Hill will use student desks. So hopefully that answered your question about that. That's why it's designated, not assigned. So if students want to sit next to

104their peers or friends, we're going to work with that through this. But what's important for us is to know where people are sitting. That's the only goal around all of that. Lunchrooms at Shepherd Hill will use student desks because it would be very difficult to have some type of assigned or designated seating because of the number of lunches. And the students have varied lunches and not in the same lunch each and every day. We will return to the use of student lockers. We will continue the use of student water bottles. Students can bring in drinks. BN Chorus Theater Arts indoors will apply as much physical distancing as feasible, which is a big change from last year. Athletics will follow MIAA guidelines, which right now the guidelines are for indoor sports to wear masks. All DCRSD

105extracurricular and co-curricular activities will return and just follow the recommendations that are put forth. Champions, which is our new Dudley Child and Regional School, do before and after care. We'll follow all recommendations. Staying home when sick will continue to be critical. Contact tracing will continue when there is a possible exposure to COVID-19 and quarantine as per DESE and district protocols. I'm sorry? I'm sorry. Field trips will return after we open school and we'll follow all recommendations. That's a T. I would respectfully ask you to work with the nurse. Obviously the goal isn't that he misses a lot of school. And our teachers, again, after last year, are well adept at all kinds of varied learning models, and they would be responsible for ensuring that your child receives the proper education. And right now, no more

106questions. We're going through this. At the end, if there's a few questions, I will call on them. Go through everything. We'll never get through it. Teachers will continue to ensure student participation in healthy practices like hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes. We will participate in the DESE mass DPH COVID-19 testing offered in schools through stay and test, as I already mentioned, rapid testing for symptomatic individuals in school so we can test them right away and have some results. But all of that requires a parent, guardian, or caregiver consent to do so. Wait a minute. I said let him go through it, then we'll ask the questions. Keep going. One of the things we're moving away from is pool testing, which we started last year. There didn't seem to be a lot of interest. If

107there is more interest in that, we would bring that back, but right now we're staying away from pool testing because we're trying to keep this to the individual. We thought that that was important. maintain established cleaning procedures that are already in place, use of other personal protective equipment. If a symptomatic individual is identified during the school day in a classroom, the remaining students will relocate for a short period of time and the classroom will be disinfected. We are going to continue to limit visits to visitors to school buildings and promoting video conference opportunities for family engagement and we are moving forward with volunteers being welcomed back into our schools this year and we do encourage all eligible people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine because it's an encouragement. It's just an encouragement. This is what I

108need. So we have somebody over here asked a question. We haven't even been able to ask questions. Any of us as school committee members haven't even been able to ask questions of this that's been proposed to us tonight either. It's very difficult for me to hear both of you at the same time. I believe I have been. There hasn't been once that I've tried to, so. We're listening to this read. There's a question over here on the floor. The question I have regarding the testing. There has been recent information that has gone out through the public, through all of the media, regarding the swab testing. I don't know if anyone is medically fit to even answer this question. And when I say fit, meaning educated. So there's a lot of controversy with the, ouch, I

109couldn't do it anyway, sticking the thing up half the nose or however it's done. I would faint. I'd probably need an anesthetic to even do it. However, is that the type of testing the nurse would do? And or would it be, which is also a little bit difficult, but a little bit easier than that, is the... So, you know, will you let, if a parent consents to it. Will you, does the student and or parent, depending on the age of the student, have the ability to determine which test? Have a choice. Have a choice. That's a good question. Go ahead. Just to reiterate again, it is a parent consent. We wouldn't test anyone without a parent consent. I want to be clear about that. I realize that. I want to be clear about that. But

110I can see where you would have a choice because I myself would like a choice. Maybe some like she said. Do not want the one that's actually just been coming out. Right now the testing kits that we have are swabbed. But right now the testing kits we have are swabbed, but we are also looking into with the state for the saliva test. Okay, because of the suction company and the companies are out of China and I have the label number and it says that. So that would be a concern for some parents. Understood. Thank you. There's two types. I'm just wondering if you happen to know if the swab test, there's, you know, going through the struggle of having my son have to take one, that there's one that's very ridiculous, and then there's one

111that's just a slight. Do we know which one it is? The only testing we've ever done in our schools, including last year, is the light swab. Circle around four times in the nostril on both sides. It's not something that goes up the nostril or into the nasal canal or something of that nature. And it's a 15-minute, other than pool testing, it's a 15-minute rapid test. Okay, the gentleman with his hand up there. Thank you. So I'm on the page three last bullet, encourage all eligible people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. But I go back to page, sorry, I'm going forward. We haven't gotten there yet, but social emotional learning. Our students need to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. I'd like to understand how my children are going to get bullied into receiving a vaccine

112that they're not interested in. The use of the last bullet is a recommendation. It's an encouragement. It's not something we're acting on. We're not requiring it. As I said, I'm not bringing any recommendation to this committee to have it required. It's simply an encouragement because... I just want to understand, what does encouragement to my two children look and sound like? Hey, son, you're encouraged to brush your teeth tonight before you go to bed. I do that just about every night. I want to know what the administration and the teachers and the staff are going to do. What does encouragement look and sound like? I frankly don't want my kids encouraged to do that. I'd like to be able to have conversations around our dinner table about important medical and health decisions. And I'm not in

113favor of anybody in the school district encouraging them. I just want to understand what it looks like now. Encouragement is part of this opening plan. It is not part of anything else that we're doing. It's not part of what we're asking our administrators to do, our nurses to do, our teachers to do. make sure that like i understand what their points are and definitely you might get into a class and people start talking about it can we just make sure that on the first days we talk to our teachers about not asking about vaccination status that that is a hipaa violation and we should quiet that down in the classroom i would take that bullet out of there yeah take that bullet completely out i accept the recommendation we'll remove that bullet I don't think

114the audience heard you. Can you say it again? We're going to take the bullet out that says the encouragement. Okay? Because I don't agree with that either. I don't think it should be there. Thank you. More than just consent, is a parent going to be there with their child when they have to get tested? I wouldn't be comfortable with my five-year-old undergoing a nose swab. I think that's a good question. I think the parents should have the choice. Again, I would respectfully ask you to work with the school nurse before you give any consent and work out a plan first. Well, if she calls you, you're going to say to her, I'd like to come, if you consent. Excuse me, you have to give consent before it's even considered. No one's going to call you

115and say, I'd like to test your child. No one's going to do that. Well, she wants to know. She wants to be there. I can see that Steve because she wants to if you do give consent you if you want to be there I think she should ask that question first before I give consent can I be with my child having the test if you if you do want this your child to get the test right yeah as I just stated I recommend that you speak with the school nurse first before you give any consent to work out a plan to make Through the chair, it's my recommendation that we participate in this. It's not my recommendation that you take the test. It's a recommendation that we participate in offering testing. whose recommendation is is

116all well i know what what the point is she's saying she doesn't want to call the nurse and start arguing the point with the nurse we should have a procedure is it a parent can the parent come for the test with their child that's simple as that is it verbal no it's an online consent that it requires you it requires you to go online and set it up. All I'm asking... I think what he's saying is the consent is set up in the beginning of September, correct? The consent can happen any time. All I'm asking is if you have questions about any of this testing, in this whole plan we consulted with our nurse leaders, we consulted with the Board of Health. If you have any questions about testing at all... before you don't sign

117any consent at all is what I'm saying, and speak with the school nurse who would have a better understanding and work out a plan with you. If you want to be there, the school nurse will accommodate you with that. That's all I'm trying to say is communicate with the school nurses in the nurse's office, with the nurse. No, not by yourself, with the nurse. Correct. No. Being a parent that had to deal with my child having to do two contact tracings and having to be out of school for 16 days, like... I just want to make sure, like, if I give consent, which honestly I would, but I want to make sure that I'm going to be called before a test is given on the day of. So I want to make sure in protocols

118that even if I've given consent up in September, that if something happens in April, I'm called before my child is tested. Because it may be that I want to, depending on my child, one would want me there and one would not. Again, I feel bad because we... kind of short-change phys ed teachers. They're going to monitor. Our nurses are excellent. They did a marvelous job last year. They're professionals. And one of the reasons why they were successful is because they communicated with families. And so, yes, they're going to communicate with you. They're not just going to go do their own thing. This is very sensitive stuff. And why they were very successful school nurses last year is because some may argue they overcommunicated, but they communicated directly to people. But I understand what the audience

119is saying. They want that choice if they did give a consent. And they want to be there with their child, and I don't blame you. Because if I had little kids, I'd want to be there with my child. They want to make sure that that child's not going to get tested We should have something written to that. I completely empathize and understand having children myself, but there's people on the other side of that that don't want to give consent and don't want to be there. And so, you know, again, that's why I'm asking, you know, for anyone to contact our nurses and work out a plan with the nurse. Our nurses are excellent. They will follow through with the plan. very much aware of whatever policy or recommendation this is. So when that time comes,

120oh, I didn't know that there was a consent form. Oh, did you send the consent form? I don't know. Well, we heard it at a school committee meeting. Right. do not assume you can give the task. There's checks and balances. It seems like there's too many cracks and steps and balances. We are a mistake. Could in fact happen, especially with a younger child. Did your mommy say you can have a test? Oh, I can have a test. Stuff like that can happen. It's not. We went through this last year. It's not. We have a COVID coordinator in place as well who's organized all of this. We rely on our databases. We rely on consent. We don't rely on a young child to tell us yes or no on a test. We don't rely. on that

121in our school system we don't the administration who's who is recommending this to us tonight which this is where our chance for the school committee to ask questions is too I think we can spell that out in a bullet to say rapid testing for symptomatic individuals will entail a call to parents b discussion with parents about testing i mean you might call me and i might have said yes that i'd let you do this and then i might say you know what i'd rather pick my kid up and take him to a doctor to get tested so i don't think that's a wrong thing to i I don't disagree with you, but this was an option that was provided to parents if they wanted to take it. Because say your child, you asked a question,

122I'll give you the answer. Say a child is symptomatic but with allergy symptoms and somebody here said that their child has allergy symptoms. You might say that you'd consent to letting them have a rapid test in school so that if they test negative, they can go back to class and not have their education interrupted. You asked a question, I tried to give you an answer. And it should, because the parent will have an understanding. I go along with have it written down. Not wait for your child to be in this predicament and then the nurse is going to not, maybe not, no. It's an option to keep the kids in school. Through the chair. I want to take full responsibility for these recommendations. Call them Steve LaMarche's plan. Call them Steve LaMarche's recommendations. Whatever you

123want to do. I'm comfortable with that, and I welcome that. And I will certainly add that clarity to this. And this will be, this is the first time school committee is processing this for a vote of support or not. And then once that is, it will be sent out to all parents. And I will add, as recommended, I will add that clarity regarding, again, the bullet was that we're going to participate in it, but it requires your consent. And I will put some language in there that the nurse must contact the parent if consent is given. the nurse must contact the parent each and every time but again they do that so but I will spell it out it's only if you give consent if your child's name is not on our list for consent

124it will not even be broached I'm sorry, through the chair. So this is just an option, and the option is there so that children can get back to the classroom as quickly as possible. That's why this was developed. You have an absolute right as a parent, just like I do, to say you want to take your sick child or your child who has allergies back out and handle it in whatever way you see fit. That's not being taken away from you. option for a rapid test that could allow that child to get back to class faster if it wasn't covid my family i think today i don't know my job to bring my kids right i'm sorry no it i think it makes it easier for the parent that wants their child tested in school

125yes it makes it easier for them you have somebody recently and it's an option go ahead Right through the chair that's changed considerably. There are things in there for vaccination. The quarantine would look different. That's why we're doing participating in this testing program to help ease that as well. Students to me would only receive a zero if they never if they didn't complete the work that is required of them. They wouldn't receive a zero just because they weren't in school at that point in time. And then they would have the teachers, again, are well adept at working with students who are absent from school for a period of time. And, you know, what started near the end of the year was testing after day five. And that was a very effective way of looking at

126it. So if people don't want to participate in any school offered DESE, DPH, stay in test program or anything of that nature, if a PCR is taken after day five, then the student can return after day seven. That inevitably is right around the. A weekend is involved in there, so we're envisioning if we calculate it out, the largest extent of time that a student would miss would be five days. Obviously, the goal is not to quarantine. I mean, the goal is not to have positive cases, and that's where I hope we go. was bad enough to disrupt everybody in my house, disrupt their education, disrupt everything. And to piggyback on that, why can't the teachers then live stream classes? I think they should have been doing that last year. Because you left a whole bunch

127of kids that felt completely alienated and felt like they weren't even in touch. with some of their teachers fast enough that they could have live streamed classes. They could have been, even if they weren't there physically, they could have been there. So those are some of my concerns. Okay, if I could first address the migraine, I apologize if the nurse didn't work with you to get a note from the doctor to say she has periodic migraines and it's not, that's part of the protocols, it's always been part of the protocols. So that should have been understood and there should have been some communication with the school nurse around that so that she didn't have to go out and get tests each and every time she had a migraine. As far as live streaming, our teachers

128have moved... Clearly in that direction. It's not a hundred percent right now, but some of that stuff again That's why I talked about last year was really an incredible experience by our staff and we have many teachers that are moving in that direction Is it a hundred percent right now? It's not but we're still moving in that direction for livestream connections for our students Thank you i know you're usually sick it's like you the same amount of time you're sick is the same amount of time you're uh given to make them work so i think the school community should uh adhere to that kind of if you're quarantined this many days you should be given this good suggestion so you know a couple weeks ago we took a survey i think close to 70 percent

129said we did not want you guys are supposed to represent us be our voice why can't you tell baker and riley to go pound sand this is not what we're doing we're doing it our way this is our school why cannot why can't you why why can't you tell him no i want to know why is it repercussions are we getting you're not going to get paid or we're not going to get funding like why can't we say no that's all i want to know did the actual school have in you know now that you're on that subject the schools actually have any input with the board of education to put forth against Riley's recommendation did each district or each school superintendent give a recommendation and if so what was this school committee and Mr.

130LaMarche what was your recommendation There was not a global all call for recommendations. They were representative groups that participated and that included medical professionals as well beyond the school system. So they did not ask any school superintendent their input because obviously data would be different for every school. They did not. And you're okay with that? So you're asking questions before we've been given the chance to really ask questions and one of my questions is what happens on October 1st because I feel like This was provided to us. We did not have an option. Local health was not asked to answer your question. Local health departments were not asked their opinions. At first, we were driven to look at local data, which I can tell you I looked at extensively in our area, and I don't

131think that it supported that we needed this. However, we were not asked our opinion, and we were not asked our opinion as a school, and this was provided to us. I feel your frustration. I hear it tonight. But October 1st, that's my question, I guess, to the superintendent. And if he doesn't know what to ask up to DESE, what happens on October 1st? I read that too, but I don't know that that was a mandate. I don't think that it was said as a mandate because the commissioner was only given the authority to make a decision until October 1st, and then he would have to go back to the Board of Education in Massachusetts in order to look for further authority. I read that too. I read that too. We don't know that, though. Most

132likely, he's in regional school district. I request that I'm able to have some input for my data for my particular community. Would you do that? The easy answer is yes, and I just wanted to add a clarity. The commission was given authority not until October 1st. It's for the school year at this point in time. get through the rest of the meeting. Now we're going to have to get through the rest of the meeting and you know a lot of this can be wait a minute. Well let us get to it. Let's get to it. Okay we're going to have Mr. Lamont. It's written here that he's trying to get to it. Yeah but I'll tell you another thing you know what else is helpful? You have Everybody has to go to the state house

133and pick it. It can't be only just the school committee. Because now you're saying it's our fault, but we have to listen to the Department of Education. It would be a violation. We'll pay the fine. Okay, let's... That's why we came here. We came from Webster back into Dudley so that she could come to this district and not go to Webster schools. Because we believe in that. Everybody up here is giving everybody here a reason not to leave. You're saying we have no choice. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Because like I just said, and like I posted on my Facebook page, Rosa Parks didn't get into the history book because she bent over and said, okay, master. Because she stood up and said, no. And that's what we're doing. No, you're not masking our

134kids. No. Very simple. Okay. All right. What is the consequence? What would be the consequence? And it's a hypothetical, I know. What would be the consequence if this district... Have some kahunas and said no. What would be the consequences to the district if we did not, if we violated this mandate? I'm just curious. I'm not aware what that would be. Okay. I'm not taking any more questions. We're going to have to go through. Mr. Lamarche. So that concludes the recommendations. Does the school committee have any questions about those recommendations? I do have jotted down already. Now, does the school committee have any questions? It's our turn. Go ahead. One of the questions that I have a question and I'd like to be able to ask it. One of the questions that Ms. Berry had asked

135was about play areas in the classroom. So I want to make sure that we can address that because I don't necessarily see it here. Again, it was tough to list everything other than the fact that we're trying to go back to as much pre-COVID experience as possible. So physical distancing is not part of our classroom. So all the classrooms are set up the way they were pre-COVID. Does that mean that our children could be seated less than three feet apart? Absolutely. There's no requirement for them to do that. Right. Again, there's no requirement to do that. We're trying to get back to as much pre-COVID experience as possible. Let's be quiet. We're conducting a meeting. Go ahead, Mr. Amir. Okay. All right. Do you want us to vote? Any more questions? These are the recommendations.

136We have to vote on this opening plan. Any questions? Go ahead. On the, Mr. Lamache may be able to answer this, on the masks, as far as the lunch and mask breaks, are there also times for hand washing? As far as because that might alleviate some people's concerns about the masks? Without question, that's why we, without question, that's why we, teachers are still going to ensure participation in healthy practices like hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes. But do you have questions? Yes. We're going with the school? Yes. Lydia, your question. So, Ms. Sulaimash, my question is the way that this is written says that we will follow DESE and MassDPH requirements, and it sounds like you and Mrs. Carmignani heard differently than I did regarding the blanket approval for Commissioner Riley to make this

137decision. I heard in order to move it forward, I heard it on a Massachusetts Department of Public Health. call this week on Tuesday that in order for Commissioner Riley to move forward with any recommendations past October 1st, it would need to go back to that Board of Education. Are you telling me that's not the case? I heard that's all I'm saying. I'm not I'm not here to confirm every step in procedure for Commissioner Riley. So that impacts my I don't know if you can still hear me. I don't know. I don't have the echo anymore. I'm going to look it up for you. OK, because it impacts my ability to vote on this because I I felt October 1st was one month into the school year. And even though I did not believe our data

138supported it. I'm not comfortable saying that I'm willing to move forward with this for the entire year. Can I read what they voted on? Okay. So they moved that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, in accordance with the general law, Chapter 69, Section 1B, and consistent with 603 CMR 27.08.1, determines that exigent circumstances exist that adversely affect the ability of students to attend classes in a safe environment unless additional health and safety measures are put in place, and authorized the commissioner to require masks for public school students. age five and above and staff in all grades through at least October 1st, 2021. So I agree with you. I think we need to get clarity on that. Because it says at least. Madam Chair, I'd be happy, and Mrs. Terry, I'd be happy to remove,

139revisit it no later than October 1st, and remove from that point forward. Audience, I'm having a really hard time hearing, and if we're going to make votes, you really want to make sure that we know what we're voting for. I'll just take one more question, and please. I'm sorry, can you ask Mr. Lamarche to repeat it, because I didn't hear what he said. Through the Chair and Mrs. Terry, I would be more than happy in the recommendations to remove after October 1st, 2021, and just have this will be revisited no later than October 1st, 2021, as was listed in what Mrs. Carbonari just read. And we should get clarification over it, because that is ambiguous. We don't know if it's beyond that. Can I ask another question? It's a can of worms. But seeing that

140the guidance specifically stated five and above, and we're saying that we will follow the DSE and MA DPH requirements, are the DPH requirements five and above? So DPH and DESE have made their requirements together so that I haven't, I guess I haven't looked at it to see, but I, if you're asking if under four would not have to, I'm sorry, under five would not have to wear a mask, I support you. Go ahead. I just wanted, I just read, can everybody hear me? Yeah, I just read the, Mr. Lamache sent out the... Notice today to the community. It's in our emails too. We got it. The last paragraph, page two. I'm going to read that. After October 1st, 2021, if a school demonstrates a vaccination rate of 80% or more of students and staff in

141the school, then vaccinated individuals in that school would no longer be subject to the DESE mask requirement. DESE will provide additional information to districts in the coming weeks in preparation for the October 1st. date, including how to demonstrate the 80% vaccination rate threshold. So I'm just wanting to put that out there that we're going to get more information between now and then. And I think it's inappropriate for us to be guessing because they're telling us they're going to send us more information. I understand. I'm just telling you what Desi said. I'm not trying to, you know, I'm just giving you the facts. This was emailed out. So you all should have it as community members. We need to decide on the preschool issue for students age five and below and we need to train a

142thought oh And I think I would ask the superintendent when you go into superintendent meetings with the with the Commissioner if you could ask him about the ability to split the middle school because I think our middle schools are kind of tiered by floors and So it would be possible to almost Split them up because it's it is hard when you have that you have a certain population that maybe and the certain population that can't be I'm whoa can I can I just say Carol I don't want to be called name called I am not I'm not calling you I am hold on wait segregation time out I am trying to think of options so that segregation is never okay I'm I'm I will go ahead so does the committee have to vote on the

143recommendation tonight to either accept it or not accept it yes well the superintendent is asking us to vote on it tonight but we we the superintendent is asking us to vote on it tonight but we'll see if we are sure sure okay does the committee have to entertain a motion to tell the state decision makers that we don't want to follow the mask mandate here in our district If anyone makes a motion, anybody can make any motion. I highly encourage anybody with the courage to do it. One more. Wait. You know, I totally lost control. And I'll tell you, we're going to have to take a recess because, first of all, we can't hear. We're trying to conduct our business meeting to make an educated vote. Okay? We have to ask questions. We've just seen

144this this evening. So we can't hear anything because people are just yelling out. And I don't want it now because... You can't do that. I will eventually call on you, but we want to have our meeting. I will take one more. The gentleman again. Which one here? I think he... Go ahead. You know what? It's poorly because you should have had whoever is a state representative. You should have been sitting here, and he should have been beaten up. Not you guys, but him. Because he's the one that goes... that talks to Charlie Bacon. So I kind of like, I mean, for me it's kind of like, okay, somebody's attacking, somebody's defending. That's the way the United States has. I mean, they have people that are state reps. They should be here representing you and us.

145And I think that's the mistake that we have. Thank you. Now we're going to conduct a... Excuse me. Wait. Excuse me. I've got the floor. Mrs. Kaminyani mentioned about the free school. I think we should address that issue. Okay. Mrs. Kaminyani made a comment about having to be under five, would not have to wear a mask. I think we should discuss that and stay on that topic. That's what we're discussing right now. And now we're going to stop discussing, and I'm not taking any more questions, and please, no outbursts, because we can't hear. We're trying to help everyone and trying... to get to make a right decision catherine kathy coming on you've got the floor uh first of all i will certainly ask that question about splitting the schools and all of that just just

146to get the information on it uh number one uh number two um again the reason why there was a mask recommendation for all students is because it is highly record strongly the word is it is strongly recommended for students younger than five and the new guidance that just came out today but if school committee does choose five and under, which I am okay with. I will certainly support that and will implement that. That's what you're concerned, Kathy? No more? I said no more. It's not a question if he has a very late birthday. If you start the year without a mask and then people, as of his birthday, you now have to wear a mask, right? How are you? How does that get in? That's a good question. Madam Chair, again, the guidance says five

147and older. That's what the guidance, that's, excuse me, the mandate. The mandate says five and older, period. It doesn't differentiate. It doesn't offer an off-ramp for somebody who turns five during their preschool years. The mandate says five or older. That's the requirement by the commissioner. So then he would require to wear a mask? If I, through the chair, if I could be, if I could be, if I. Through the chair, if I could be frank, my goal and my wish is that we do not wear masks all year. So if yes, right now, as of today's rules and today's mandate, yes. The answer to that is yes. I don't know when your son's birthday is, but if it's in February and we're no longer wearing masks, then it's not an issue. So I just, December,

148it's no longer an issue. But right now, this is the requirement that we were handed down. Okay? Thank you. Our committee now wants to speak. It's less of something new, but I just wanted to add because I've been following this through Tracy Novick as well. But she said yesterday that noting the order on masks, it does not expire in October. And it is incorrect to say that those who are vaccinated may choose not to wear a mask starting in October. We just don't have the information yet. So it sounds like there's just a lot of different cooks in the kitchen right now. And it may be advantageous to kind of wait until we have clarity. That's it, Madam Chair. Again, so far the edits I have are to remove the part after October 1st, 2021,

149which states we will follow Destiny and MassDPH requirements to remove that because we need more information before October 1st. But we will, as an administration and the school committee, have to visit this no later than October 1st as to what's next. Removing the last bullet. And then adding in clarity about if you do participate in DESE, MAS, DPH, COVID-19 testing offered, if you give consent, that a plan will be worked out with the school nurse to include parent participation when the student is tested. Do I have the edits correct? And then the only other one was a suggestion about masks for all staff and students while in school buildings, with the exception of those younger than five. Any other questions here by our committee? Go ahead, Jane. So I think it's imperative to know what

150the, I'll use the words that we used here tonight, contingency plan is. I feel like that's part of, this needs to be part of this recommendation to understand if somebody is quarantined and what their quarantine time will look like. I don't know how we can do that tonight, but I feel like. So through the chair. the health context i would ask everyone to go to the dcr dc rsd covid dashboard it has all of that information which is lengthy and very hard to present and understand but it has all that information as to what that would look like i'll do that but i also think we need to somehow mention that or like reference it in these recommendations additionally Since we're talking only until October 1st and I'm hearing people in the audience speak about

151gym and masks and it's something that I was highly concerned about at the end of the year last year with the heat in the classrooms and there was a child that became ill because of that. I'm wondering if we can somehow state that outdoor gym will occur as long as the weather is. allowing it I mean maybe that's good practice but if we're trying to put everything in writing so that there's nothing that falls to the cracks that's another suggestion that I have um it's again I don't want to cut our phys ed teachers short that's what they do and that's what they've done and I agree with you but I don't think it's a wrong thing to put it in there um I wanted to go back through some of the questions that were

152asked tonight because I thought some of them were good um if somebody else has a question you can come back to me I'm sorry did you need to go Mrs. Cabana no okay right now we're discussing the recommendations page and then we're going to go through the next we're doing each page separately so that's my question the recommended to me the approval is you can approve the whole plan but they really the the crux of the school committee approvals recommendations and then the handbook student handbook changes on face masks Which is the last page. Because I have questions for later on in the presentation, so I didn't know if you wanted to continue with the presentation before I ask questions. You say that volunteers are welcomed, but later on you say visitors should not come

153into the building. Isn't that kind of contradictory? There's a difference between volunteers and visitors. Yeah, volunteers would typically have a schedule as to which they're coming in, so we know that. That's the whole point is to try to make sure that we know when people are coming in and out of the schools to start the school year. This is, again, to start the school year. So we see visitors and volunteers as two different categories. When you put down volunteers, you should put down must follow all the protocol so they don't think they can just walk in like the old days. They'll have to wear masks. They'll have to do the usual, but I think you should spell that out. Okay. about preschool yet sorry are we gonna put under five i i put it as

154i put it as an edit right now but the school committee can decide so i pulled up the website and the covid site and maybe i was not clear with what I meant. I didn't mean what are the quarantine protocols because I know them. I meant what's going to happen to that student who's quarantined and their schooling and their education and how's that going to look because I feel like that is really important to know and make sure that it looks the same across the district and for each student. Through the chair that's what I would say is covered under social emotional learning on page four. Students will work towards independence and self-management skills while also having the opportunity to monitor progress on their skills with the teacher. Students will practice a growth mindset, collaborating

155with their teachers and peers and set goals. Maybe it's not as specific as you're asking for, but again, our teachers are, I don't want to shortchange our teachers. They are well adept now and understand the practices that we've gone through with quarantine. Are they all 100% perfect? I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is that they will work closely with their students through any quarantine that they're involved in to make sure that they are not missing teaching and learning. Okay, I'm just going to throw a scenario here because I think that this is something that happened to people last year and it's really difficult and I don't even mean in our district. I just know this is something that happened. If I test positive in my house and my kids are close contacts because

156they aren't able to be vaccinated or because I choose not to vaccinate them and so they're home and they serve out their quarantine for lack of a better way to say it and then somebody else in my household test positive. close to their end of their quarantine, and then they quarantine again. And you can see the cycle here. I have five people in my family. And so it can be six weeks long that somebody, say it's my second grader, is in a position where they're in a quarantine. I love our teachers. Believe me, that's why I ran for this spot, because I love our teachers and I wanted to continue to help improve the district. But I... I don't think that's even possible for our teachers to figure out six weeks of time that a

157child is not in the classroom. That's why I ask it so pointedly. Through the chair, I appreciate it. And yes, I am aware of those scenarios. They're critical and important, don't get me wrong. But we had a low incidence of that with our 3,800 students that we educate each and every day. But we will work with every one of them. They are typically students in multiple grades. They're not all out of the same grade or same teacher. And our teachers will work extensively to ensure that the students have access to teaching and learning this school year. Sorry, through the chair, to answer that. I was one of those families this past school year where I was quarantined for over a month with my four children in three different schools, two in sub-separates. And I'd have

158to say that every single teacher did their best to reach out. The principals reached out, and they also were very open about having as much time that my family needed to move forward. and have homework collected, get packets, emails, and they opened up Google for us. Could we look at the possi- Can we kind of study this and look at the possibility of using any ESSER funds to maybe have a COVID tutor that would be able to kind of connect with students that are out and help them through their academics? Do we have any funding left in the ESSER grant? The easy answer is yes. We'll certainly study this and look at this, but right now we're starting five full days and we don't have this situation going on. If we find that we need

159it. Absolutely. That's a good idea. Any other questions? I'm sorry, can I? Go ahead. So I just want to point to clarity. If I go back to page two under the quarantining protocols five and seven, so I just want to be clear on this because I know it from another district that I work in, but I want to make sure I understand it correctly for this district. A symptomatic student that becomes symptomatic while they're in school during the day, like the woman whose child has migraines, like my daughter has, something like that that happens during the school day, that family has the option. to do that rapid test in school if that's what they choose to do and then if they test negative that child could go back to school to their classroom is that

160correct not for symptomatic according to the protocols symptomatic students will also be required to have a pcr test after that as well so then let me clarify symptomatic being major symptoms okay so let me clarify that i meant minor symptoms so if it's again the headache that i talked about and my daughter went down and had a test because she has migraines and she had a headache and she had a test and she was negative she could go back to class correct and the other thing is again open communication with the school nurse that this is something that is a um a medical i don't want to call it a condition a medical experience that your child goes through and and that's well documented with the teachers as i think that you have maybe have

161seen and i know i've seen is that the protocols quarantining are have a lot more flexibility in them this particularly compared to last year, and we're going to try to push the envelope and exercise those as best we possibly can to keep kids in school. Okay. And if a child has a migraine, that's pretty bad as far as, like you said, your child. How can she go back to class with a bad headache? Well, that's a, I mean, we have a mitigating strategy, so we have our own protocol for that. But I wanted to, and that would be something that we'd have to work out specific, but I wanted to be very clear about that. And then the asymptomatic test and stay, that's if. my child was exposed to a positive case at school but

162was not symptomatic they have that op i have that option as a parent to choose to do this test and stay program and that's every day that they come in for five days they go to the nurse's office they have this test if they are not symptomatic and they test negative again they could go to their their classroom and learn that is correct they have to be considered a close contact as you indicated earlier under three feet for 15 minutes thank you i wanted to just make sure that was clear any other questions so is that and it maybe it's different in my district so i'm reading and it says you have the option you have you're released on date like you have to do seven days and you're released on day eight if you

163then do the test and stay right yeah that's for me the major symptoms oh for no symptoms okay sorry new loss of taste and muscle aches and body aches all right i see you have you okay sorry about that Mr. Lamache, question. This is going to be a difficult question, but we have to ask these questions. Last year, there was a situation where a building or two had to be shut down due to situation of spread. If that was to occur this year, we don't have remote or hybrid options, what would happen as far as the student learning time and making up those days? Can you kind of overview that a little bit if this were to happen? I'm not saying we all hope it doesn't, but I think we need to know that. Through

164the chair to be clear we only had one school last year in the entire school year that had to shut down for a period of time and we would revert to online learning we would revert to remote learning for that particular school if that scenario happened. Thank you Mr. Lodge. So that is allowed to do that per the guidance to convert to remote learning in that situation? Through the chair to be clear the guidance doesn't address every nuance. possible. We have to do contingency planning and planning for that. We have experience now with that and that would be part of our plan. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? I would just say, definitely, I hadn't looked at it until the night, but the COVID dashboard is more than just a dashboard. It definitely, it has

165all the talk about the symptoms consistent with COVID-19, and it talks about tier one symptoms versus tier two. And if you only have one tier two, you're fine to go into school. So I think that that is really something we need to press our parents and families to look at. Thank you. Yes, our COVID coordinator, Ms. Ann Marie DeMorris, has worked extensively, and she's been updating it with all of the new guidance that keeps getting pumped out of DESE over the past couple of weeks. Those are the recommendations. I haven't heard any other edits at this point. So any other questions from the committee? Sorry, I have one more question. Would it make this cleaner to have a recommendation? without the statements about masks and have that as a separate recommendation so that it isn't

166part of this document. And so if anything changes with that moving forward, it doesn't change everything on this document or is that not really, I don't know, pertinent? Oh, sure. I don't know. I don't know that it's a, to me, it kind of feels like a difference without a distinction because it's all recommendations which are all subject to change. So to me, it's not even if the masking changes October 1st, we wouldn't recommend, we may not recommend any other changes or changes may be required for all of these at the same time. So I don't know, you know, the exact purpose for separating it out from the recommendations to get school opened next Wednesday. And there's one gentleman, I think you wanted to speak, but I never had seen your hand. The gentleman there, do

167you want to speak to us? oh okay because i saw you i saw you walk out because you didn't think i but i didn't see your hand there you wanted to ask the question say that again what's going to happen to my boys when they show up to school oh yeah did we did we adjust that again it's the last page but if you want me to go into the last page i could yes he'll go into the last page it's on this go ahead Okay, so I'm recommending the school committee the following change for student handbooks. It's regarding face masks. The Dudley Child and Regional School District, it's the last page of the document. The Dudley Child and Regional School District is committed to standards and procedures to assure the safety of students and

168staff. We must provide a safe learning and working environment for students and staff. Therefore, in accordance with any mandate that comes from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the school committee, or any other governing agency, the following requirements are in place until further notice. If mandated, a face mask that covers the nose and mouth must be worn by students and all. and by all other individuals in school buildings and on school transportation with the exception of meals being outside and indoor mass breaks this includes all indoor school sponsored activities students and staff shall wear masks at all times except for the following students may remove masks for eating when outside and during indoor mass breaks documented medical reasons with consultation of the school nurse and special behavioral individual needs as determined by building principal

169or an administrator Students can lower their mask to drink water at their desk or seat. Personal water bottles are permitted. Face masks can be disposable or reusable and will need to fully cover the nose and mouth and secure under the chin. Fit snugly but comfortably against the side of the face and be secure with ties or ear loops. If there are violations, all efforts will be made to work with the student and his or her family. If students are in violation of this requirement or accompanying administrative procedures, number one or first bullet, the student will be provided a mask. Number two, the student will meet with the building principal or designee to try to rectify the situation. Parents and guardians will be notified. The building principal will consult with the parent and guardian to work

170together as a team to rectify the situation. Students may be reassigned to an alternative location while continuing to work through the situation. For ongoing noncompliance, students will be deemed not ready to attend school and will be dismissed to the parent or guardian. As a last step disciplinary action will be at the discretion of the building principal administrator and on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the list of discipline guidelines and the code of conduct in the Dudley child regional school district handbook and I just want to end this by saying Because the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education our regulatory agency Requires us as a school district to do this. I am respectfully asking You as adults to not put the adults in the school in this predicament and put a child between two sets

171of adults. Our staff will be required to have their students wear masks. That's what our staff will be required to do. saying number one what is what would be the outcome of me as a district but to not do that we've also put forth to put on a motion and the chairman agreed that that motion could be put in you needed to impact it that we do not want to follow that you took you took a survey close to 70 said no okay so you have that information you already know what the majority wants So you're putting this forth that's going to be in a handbook that's going to be used all year long when this body, rightfully so, is saying, we don't accept it, we reject it. And we're asking, if you are here

172representing as an elected official, elected by the people, for the people, for the children, why are you not even... talking about that piece to it, about, hey, you know what? We agree. We don't want this virus down. We don't want this virus down. What are alternatives? You're not even talking about alternatives. You're just automatically assuming we have to comply. I hate the word comply. I hate it because it means socialism. It means communism. We're in a free America, and I don't see any of you even talking about that piece to it. We're just going to go right to recommendations, vote on them. and see what happens with the carrot dangling that says October 1st. That is not acceptable. We're pleading with you. Why is not one of you saying, you know what, I'm not really

173for this. This is wrong. Wrong for our children. Why aren't you, Mr. LaMarche, asking those questions as the superintendent of this district? Why are you, chairman, not asking? Why? I don't understand that. Why are you so willing to comply? Why? See, I don't want to answer because I don't want to get into an argument. No, I don't want an argument. No, but I mean, you wouldn't probably like my opinion on masks. So we'd have to debate. But wait a minute, Mr. Clark. I'm calling on someone. Mr. Clark wants to speak. Madam Chairman, if I may, skipping to page five of the food services. things we plan based on what we know. Does the school continue the practice of using bottled water for cooking for foods due to the water supply? Could you be more specific

174as to what the issue is with the water supply? I can answer that. Our water in Dudley, we're not supposed to be drinking the water from Dudley because of that PF, whatever that is. The PF? I believe the state standard is 20, and I was speaking to a member of the Water Commission just a short time ago, and he said that we're testing at 15 in Dudley. But they haven't announced that yet, have they? I don't know. I haven't seen anything about it. If he were still here, he could make that announcement this evening. That's what we did. One of the other questions is, as far as the water supply, is there a lack of supply? Is that part of the issue, or is it just the PFAS? It's just that we were told not

175to. We stopped doing it in the spring because of that notice we got. We never got a notice that it was clean. We never got an update. There's a homeowner. I never got it. If notice is provided and it indicates that the water is safe by state standards, then that would be stricken? Right. I know that you also, you know, encouraging the hand washing, obviously there's going to be a lot more usage. in terms of the water and hopefully the supply was not an issue and so it's going to be no not the case it's just that we haven't officially been told that he might be right but we haven't got the official notice all right well let's hope the official notice is short hopefully yeah sure thank you could we add as needed so

176that we don't have to re-vote on number three instead yeah are you guys oh if needed we have this needed okay yeah thanks I'll answer your question from my personal perspective. I was I felt we were asked to look at the local data to make this recommendation tonight prior to the commissioner coming in and making a different decision. I looked at the local data. my children went to camp this summer and didn't wear masks when they went to camp this summer i don't don't feel that this is warranted in our communities right now but i don't think this works the same way as is i hear this body saying i think we need to have a plan to move forward and open our school and we have this time between now and october 1st to

177make our voices heard if we so choose to do so and i think that's the way that it should be moved forward we still need to open our doors next week we need to comply with a mandate that's been given to us through jesse whether i agree or you agree or we all agree i think that we have a month of time to continue to look at our data and that doesn't mean to not say anything to anybody i don't say that i'm not saying to you that i won't do that i'm saying right now i think this is what's before us so that my kids can go back to school on wednesday it's not my personal it's not my personal belief okay stop I'm not going to argue the point. Let's keep going, Steve.

178I understand that that's for her, but I know you're not asking me, but we need to move forward with this agenda. Okay, let me answer. I'll answer. I'll answer. No, I'm going to tell you why I think the child right now should wear a mask. I'm going by science. And I think, yes. And I, okay, what makes you think you're right? Now, there's two sides. You know that, Carol. Carol? Okay. I'm saying I'm going with the pediatricians that say that right now the kids should be wearing a mask. Now, she said she's going to check the data. I'm going to listen to that. I'm going to listen to that. I'm not arguing anymore. Mr. Popowski, have her removed, please. Have her removed. I'm not answering you. as well as the code of ethics with the

179state clearly states, and I listed all those violations that this committee has already committed in the July 14th meeting. And the fair question is, one of the things is a personal bias or special interest. You are sitting as an elected official, and you can shake your heads all you want and rub them because I'm ignoring you and I'm sorry. It's a fair question to say. When sometimes when you are, or I would say 100% of the time, when you are in a position of leadership and posture and an elected official, you know that your personal bias has got to be put to the side because you're there representing a community. Now, you have to understand, unfortunately, you stuck your foot where it shouldn't have been because you said you wouldn't like my opinion. So naturally,

180you set off an alarm buzzer to this. Body right here to anyone that's watching it now. Oh, wait a minute. This chairman has a personal opinion maybe her personal bias is Clearly compete So, so here's the thing We have made informed decisions on this board. We may not agree on every aspect of what's going on, but we have business to conduct. And right now, everybody yelling at us is not allowing us to conduct our business. We have to get through the rest of this agenda. And this is only the first part of our agenda. So if you have other follow-up questions that you want to ask each individual person on this board about how they feel, and they don't feel like they want to tell you tonight, we don't need to make that vote right

181here tonight that's we need to move forward with the rest of this agenda i appreciate should we take a recess and just okay um We're going to take a recess right now. Kenny, what? Kenny. We're going to take a... Catherine. Through the chair. I make a motion that we adjourn. I make a motion that we adjourn. Because we're trying to have a business meeting. We're trying to have a meeting. What are we going to do? I'm going to take a vote. I've got a motion on the floor in a second. You can't adjourn. Well, I wanted to take a recess and walk out for a while. Are you going to back? We're not going to sit here and argue. We need a police officer to take a vote. He won't do anything, this police officer.

182Excuse me, there's a motion on the floor and we need to conduct business here tonight. We have far more important things to keep going down than continue to have everybody yell at us. I'm not saying that this topic is not important. Please let me finish my statement. Please. This is an important conversation, but yelling at us is not getting us anywhere. We need to be able to conduct business because school is opening on Wednesday. I have listened to you very patiently. We have to conduct our business. I hear what you're saying. We have to go through the rest of our agenda. We have a motion on the floor. I would like to take a recess when everybody walks into another room. We have a motion on the floor. Okay, we have a motion on the

183floor that we either are going to take back or we're going to adjourn. And then we will have to have a special meeting to do our business meeting and to finish up. So are we going to vote for it? Let's vote. Are we adjourning right now? Well, I have a discussion. We have things here that have to be decided. Okay, you're going to vote against it. Discussion. Discussion. There's no debate. There's no debate to adjourn. Okay. Kathy? No. No. No. No. No. Yes. Yes. Okay. Motion is defeated. Okay. I would respectfully ask we take a five-minute recess. Yes. No, no, no. Meeting back to order. i'm going to make an announcement and we're sticking with it and um is our policeman here there i am not i am not taking any more questions i want

184this place perfectly quiet and if one person says anything i'm ordering the policeman and i'm going to just stop the meeting and you're going to be escorted out I am not taking any more questions. We can't hear anything. We can't conduct our meeting. And that's what we're going to do for the rest of the night. Does everyone understand? And the policeman is here. I will just stop the meeting if somebody just any outburst. Okay, we're going to start again. Steve you were on the recommendations and we're going to finish this. Yes, madam chair. I just finished the student handbooks recommendation for face masks and the language to be adopted for the handbooks because of the mandate by the state and it's only and again this is I know it's being placed in the handbooks but

185this is only during the mandate. I make a recommendation that if if the bullets are actually a sequence that they should be numbered. Anyone else? I meant the bottom ones. Yeah, thank you. I just, thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Steve? No, so Madam Chair, I'm respectfully asking the school committee to vote to adopt the student handbook face masks language as well as the recommendations to open up schools next Wednesday. to get school off the ground okay i'm going to entertain a motion to adopt uh mr lamarche's uh opening school plan and the recommendations that he set forward to us excuse me with edits that was with that it what's the edits that we put in he has the notes on them and we do do i have a motion to adopt second discussion

186any more discussion I'm sorry. I just want to go on record to say that this is only through October 1st regarding the masks. Any other discussion? Okay. Go ahead, Jean. So, Ms. LaMarche, for the face masks, I do remember that part of the DESE mandate was that for those that, for whatever behavioral reason or whatnot, that may not be able to wear a face mask, they could have a face shield. Are we allowing that? We are certainly allowing face shields, but we're not requiring it. Any other questions? Okay. All in favor of the recommendations to adopt? Okay. Motion carries. It's unanimous. Madam Chair, the same with the student handbooks. Was that all part of the same motion? I must admit, maybe I missed it. It was. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. All right. That brings

187us to B on the agenda. Responses to Citizens Forum. Dr. Ackerman? sorry about that thank you madam chair Many community members are at different points in the information cycle regarding the DRR, excuse me, DCRSD Equity Committee and the meetings held the special forums this past June and July. Please know that I cannot speak for all individuals and or associations and that the below references questions and concerns from previous meetings and forums. If certain groups or individuals have or had a social media feed, I respectfully ask our community to contact those individuals or groups directly. If there are follow-up questions for individuals and or groups, please reach out to these folks directly, as they are best positioned to answer specific questions. The original Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Equity Committee formed several years ago as a result

188of a DESE audit. This was standard practice across the state. I do not know all the original members of the Equity Committee. The Equity Committee was reformed in July of 2020. This committee was composed of Dudley Charlton administrators, teachers, a Dudley Charlton Regional School District School Committee member, and multiple DCRSD parents. The intent of this committee was to follow through on a specifically articulated goal in our district strategic plan. There is no money provided to school districts for implementing an Equity Committee. Although it should be noted that failure to have an equity committee may put our or any district at a disadvantage when applying for specific state or federal grant funds. I encourage those that would like to learn more about the specific goals articulated in the strategic plan to visit our website as the

189document is posted there. I must reiterate, now that the goal has been met, the DCRSD Equity Committee is on an indefinite pause. If and when the Equity Committee is reformed, very clear and very public information will be provided prior to a restart. A goal of our committee was to provide our staff with the tools entering the 2020-2021 school year. to address questions and concerns regarding the larger societal events of last summer. To that end, the Equity Committee met with two potential providers for this work, Dr. Sheldon Akins from the Leading Equity Center and Kate Chauvinitz and Allison Akant from Diversity EDU in August of 2020. The committee agreed that Dr. Aikens was the best fit for this work. We had four sessions with Dr. Aikens during the course of last year. This work focused upon

190how to navigate or, if uncomfortable, not navigate questions regarding bias in the events of last summer. Dr. Aikens provided open dialogue type workshops for all staff members. If there were staff members that needed to attend mandated other training specific to their work on that day, they did not have to attend the session with Dr. Akins. There were no additional requirements of staff as a result of this work, nor did Dr. Akins provide any material to our staff. It is important to note that no curriculum including the adoption of CKLA, was changed, altered, or adopted as a result of working with Dr. Akins. Additionally, there were no changes to our health curriculum. There were no changes to our student handbooks, nor does the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District currently, or have any plans to, teach either intersectionality

191or critical race theory. A small group of students from Shepherd Hill on a voluntary basis met with Darlene Reyes from the Leading Equity Center in June of 2021. The purpose of these meetings was to have conversations from the lens of high school students about issues taking place in high schools across the country, such as the debate regarding transgender student participation in sports programs. As we have concluded our contractual obligations, there are no plans to continue with Dr. Aikens, Darlene Reyes, or the leading equity center going forward. Our Dudley-Charlton Regional School District team strives to have 100% satisfaction with any professional development offering. It is truly disappointing when we do not reach that mark. Our work with the Equity Committee did not satisfy all groups this past year. As reflective practitioners, we will continue to learn

192from our experiences as these experiences will help form our future offerings. A few folks have inquired regarding my recommendation of the book, Stamped, for consideration on the high school reading list. I did this because I believe firmly in reading a variety of texts and ideas. High school students should, in my opinion, be exposed to opinions that both validate and challenge their belief systems. We become better students and better people when we deeply consider multiple perspectives. Intellectual growth is best fostered when individuals think beyond their own experiences. As for the 2021 school year, the district has sought out educators and administrators to serve on the District Professional Development Committee. This committee will meet multiple times this year, starting in September. For parents interested in learning more about any and all curricular areas, please sign up for

193a school council, as this is the best way to be a part of this work. Members of the school council will have the option to offer input to the PD committee. For those new to the district, each school has a council that advisers the leadership team. Look to your building principal for more information regarding the formation of this committee. To help provide clarity regarding any curriculum changes and or adoption, the policy subcommittee of the school committee is currently evaluating multiple proposals for this work. By having a clearly articulated policy, we will avoid confusion regarding the curriculum adoption process. There were additional questions regarding how to access student support services if needed. We do have school psychologists and student adjustment counselors in all of our schools. Each of these professionals works a full school day and

194are available to support students and families. To learn more about how to access these supports, please contact your school or schools of interest directly. This is especially important if someone suspects bullying of any kind. Bullying is simply not tolerated in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. Reporting suspected bullying early is important. If you or someone in your household may be a victim of bullying, please contact your student's school immediately. I want to thank the community and the committee and everyone for their time and feedback regarding these important issues. Thank you. You didn't hear me. You were out. No. I said I am not answering any questions anymore. If there's an outburst, I'm stopping the meeting, and you're going to be escorted out. You were out of the room, so you didn't hear me at the very

195beginning. Don't say anything. Okay. Any questions by our committee? No? Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ackerman. Sorry. Go ahead. I just wanted to address all the questions from citizens form. I believe that it did. I went through the set of, there were multiple groups of questions taken from the transcripts. So between the slide deck and then the follow-up subsequent questions, I believe that they've captured everything. The one caveat I do have to say, there were some questions that were directed to specific people, organizations, bodies about social media feeds, emails, and other things. I just respectfully ask anyone that has specific questions for people. um about regarding a media feed a podcast an association i just think it is best to go to the source and i would feel uncomfortable speaking for for other individuals are questions

196by the committee members I'll just say this. We obviously have the night is late. So there was the social emotional questions, learning questions were asked of us. They were going to go through our principles. We may table that tonight. We're going to consider that. There was information requested about anti-bullying prevention. There's a link on our website for anybody that has interest in that. Trying to just look through them quite quickly. Somebody specifically asked if the Critical Friends group is on pause. That was part of what Dr. Ackerman said is part of the pause. I'm not sure the Critical Friends group, it's not a Critical Friends group anyways. That's a different name for it. It was a group that was started by students, and I'm not sure their work as a Better Hill, because they're talking

197about a better hill, I'm not sure that's on pause. But a Critical Friends group is on pause because somehow they were mashed together in some way. So in and I just for point of clarity through the chair Dr. Ackerman was asked to answer questions that were not answered That's why he reviewed the transcripts. He reviewed everything else So he wasn't it wasn't he wasn't put forward to answer every question that question were answered at some of these forums and stuff So he did the he did the best he could to try to encapsulate all those that weren't asked and I do support again if there were questions about the NEA about the school committee about individual members about individual organization that's not really myself or dr. Ackerman's response to those because we're not we don't

198represent those groups so other people who represent those would be certainly available to answer those questions any other questions for dr. Ackerman everybody good okay we're gonna go on update curriculum subcommittee for teaching and learning we'll take a vote on tabling it I think we have to think about it and call to table it yeah all right we'll table that and Jamie what are you gonna what did you say I'm sorry given the hour and that we're trying to get through the rest of the business I'd like to make a motion I guess you said we didn't have to but Okay, well I'd like to request then that we table the social-emotional learning for the presentations from the principal's Madam Chair and the School Committee, as you saw in your packet, there was a request

199from a DCTA member. Ms. Anna Hill, grade 6 ELA geography teacher at Charlton Middle School, has requested an unpaid leave for one year under DCTA's collective bargaining agreement. Article 15, extended leave of absence subject to Jay, and Jay specifically states other leaves of absence without pay may be granted by the School Committee. Okay. entertain a motion to approve the request for the unpaid leave of absence for the Dudley Child and Teachers Association contract? So moved. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Unpaid leaves of absences, don't they need to be requested by a certain date? And I understand that this person did not know that by that date, but do we need to say that we're going to go outside of the policy? through the chair no this is just a very generic nebulous item j that allows

200for requests approved by school committee it doesn't have a timeline or anything else it's just one sentence thank you for the clarification any other questions i'm going to abstain in this vote because i think personnel matters shouldn't be discussed in public so that's my just to let the people know thank you any other discussion okay seeing none i'll take a vote all in favor opposed abstaining Okay, so we have five in favor, two abstain. Motion carries. Report of the Director of Finance and Operations, Director Matthews. Thank you very much. I'd ask the committee to... vote to approve a new two-year contract for our special education out of district transportation. We've had this contract with Vanpool for the past three years, as well as the in-district. This has led to cost avoidance from our previous provider

201to the tune of over half a million dollars in that time. Extending this by two years will allow all three contracts, the in-district, special education out of district special education and regular transportation contracts to be up at the same time and knowing that that's coming up in two years we can spend the appropriate lead time to research how best to look at putting this out to bid so i asked school committee to accept this contract for the next two years i need a motion so moved Discussion? Through the chair. Mr. Matthew, I agree with this, but I guess just so I can better understand, the hope is maybe you could put it out to bid as a joint effort to possibly have some cost saving to the district. If all the contracts are expiring at

202the same time, then it makes sense to take a look at the bidding process for special education. Talk to other districts that have gone through that process. Right now, we're limited with providers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we will be in two years. Absolutely, and I think that makes sense. If any time we can have some cost-saving measures, it's a good thing. So, thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? motion carries it's the unanimous thank you very much um school committee in the uh effort of saving some time can read the update on the disposal of the surplus materials and the director of public facilities uh just a quick note about champions um with the hurricane the uh state inspections were delayed until next week at this point in time uh

203with that said it certainly does not look like we'll be able to start on September 1st, which was always the ultimate hope. The advertised start date has been September 13th, while Champions has had some... challenges with filling all of the open slots. They've had a couple of people that have committed and then backed out. We're still poised at this point in time to possibly begin on September 13th, but that is not guaranteed. It all depends. The state will be out next week to do their inspections. Hopefully the licenses will be issued immediately afterwards. But Champions does need to have a full roster of employees before we can start the programs public out there. Through the chair. Mr. Matthew, I just want to let you know that I've heard a lot of feedback from parents that

204they really appreciate the effort that was put forth for this program. Mr. Matthew, the delay, I totally understand it happens. The Champions is notifying parents of the delay, or is it a joint effort? They'll be in touch probably next week after the state comes out, and we have a better expectation of when the program will actually get off the ground. But my communication with their person tonight was September 13th was still realistic where we are today Okay, you did all three, right? And the director of facilities? No, we're going to table that as well. That's something that we can read. Yeah, again, it's just information to the committee on our area. Okay, we table that. Update student handbooks, principals? through the chair madam chair so because of the because of the timing the principals are

205here and available but they were just because the school committee is has had these available they just wanted to know if there were questions specific to to this to to the principals as you can see there are some minor changes in some buildings and then there are some some other changes but this none of these handbook changes have anything to do with what was originally passed by school committee about masks Hi everybody. Everyone knows who I am now? If there are any questions, I can go over it, but a lot of them are minor, changing of words, getting rid of MP3 players because I don't think any of our students even know what those are, and updating that language. Some updating of the library media center the goals of the library media center Our past

206system Last year we went to a QR code that was way way successful So we want to keep that so we change the language in the handbook to reflect that Student dress code is something that every high school in the land It's like the third rail. Am I correct Kathy? So the last three years we've had My school council debate this. We've had numerous student groups involved in having their voice in what it was. In this actual student dress code attire, new language came primarily from students over the last three years. I'm sure we'll look at it again throughout the year and next year, but I'm really comfortable with the language that the students came up with. Our school council approved it. Our teachers reviewed it, and we're looking to give that a shot. Electronic

207devices is just updating the language, getting MP3 players out of there. And really looking at cell phones can be used if it's allowed in class as a tool, as an educational tool, like it's used everywhere else in the world. We eliminated some things in terms of... hats and hoods because it's addressed in the dress code. And then we added in here a new addition. We've never had language about IDs. Every student gets an ID. But last year, during our PASS system, they really did a great job at showing their IDs. We offered lanyards for our kids. So we're going to ease into this in terms of some schools require them to wear it all the time. If they want to, they can wear it. We'll give them a lanyard that can do that. If they

208don't, they can have it in their pocket. Really, the requirement is... on their person. So when they go to the bathroom they can leave it, they can go in, as well as the various other things that are on there. Athletics, attendance, senior privilege, study halls, detention, all those type of things. So we've never officially had language in there. So we just want to add that, see how it goes throughout the year. It'll probably be morphed again, which is okay. That's pretty much it. I was just going to say, I knew what you were going to say. This is grammatical, but I did have a question. Should we put in the fee for the ID or do you want to leave that out there? It doesn't have the fee for the ID. If they lose their

209ID, is that a fee? I really didn't want to do that. We'll look at it this year and see if any people lose it. We can always do another one in the office. So if it becomes a pattern, we'll look at it next year. I'm not going to charge kids at this point. If it becomes a pattern, we'll look at it. My next question is, this may not be here, but we suspended the parking lot fee last year. have we reinstituted what have we done about that we did reinstitute it this year i just wanted to know because we just suspended because there won't be any issues or disruption if there are later on in the year we'll look at it okay right now there's no disruption every senior has the ability to get it

210and then it goes to a junior lottery after labor day i noticed that the elementary schools have gone to from parent guardian to parent parent caregiver are we doing that throughout the district In the handbook? In the handbook. We can look at that. I mean, I think we always kind of use that language anyways in all my communication as parent and caregiver. But we can go back. That's an easy one. Yeah. Thanks. Any other questions for Mr. Chaplin? So seeing we did the Shepherd Hill, we'll take a vote on that handbook right now, okay? So I'll entertain a motion to approve the proposed changes of the Shepherd Hill Regional High School handbook. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion? No. Madam Chair and School Committee, I just wanted to compliment Principal

211Chaplin on the way he laid out these changes by talking about the original, the thinking there, whatever the groups did, and then what the rewording looked like. As he indicated, handbooks can be detailed and tricky, but I just really appreciate it's the first time I've seen this over my years, but I really appreciate how he laid out his changes in the handbook. Thank you, Mr. Chaplin. Any discussion before we take a vote? Seeing none, all in favor? Okay, motion carries. It's unanimous. So then we have the elementary school handbook changes. We've got this before, but are there any questions for the elementary principal? No? Okay, so we'll take a vote to accept the elementary school handbook. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? motion carries it's unanimous and

212then the dudley middle school changes i think this is for both dudley and charleston it is i i'm sorry it is for both i i should have just said middle schools and we looked at those and so is there a motion to accept the changes okay who's got the second we'll do it in discussion Who said second? Okay. Discussion? Kathy? It's really minutiae, but if we're going to go with parent-caregiver, should we try to be consistent throughout? So when we add parent conference dates, should they be parent-caregiver conference dates so that we're being... Yeah, this, through the chair, if I may. Go ahead. You know, there are some details that we didn't get to this summer around handbooks and stuff like that. So you just brought up a great example. To me, they shouldn't be

213parent conferences. They should be teacher conferences because you're actually meeting with a teacher. So there are some details that we didn't get to, but as much as we possibly can change things to caregiver, we'll certainly do that, yes. Any other discussion? Can I just understand from the principal's what the parent notification law dash health curriculum page 54 is Sure, thanks for having us up Chris Darcheski principal Dudley middle school The parent notification law requires that parents be informed of topics in health ed such as sexual education and allows for an opt-out per Mass General Law. That notification always goes out through the health educators, but it has never been published in our handbook. So in order to comply with the regulation around that notification, we're including it in the handbook so notification is up front

214and not lost in the backpack express, if you will. you i appreciate that i just wanted you're welcome thanks any other questions okay we'll take a vote first uh i didn't have we don't have a motion on the floor so i need a motion we did we do to accept both okay and uh good it was kathy you made the motion no you can't even oh okay kenny and second okay any more discussion okay seeing none all in favor Motion carries. It's unanimous. Handbooks are approved. Update policy subcommittee. I'll just be very quick. We had a meeting scheduled for last Friday, but by and am of posting, the link was not on the posting. I didn't find that out until after the meeting had ended. It was only about a 20-minute meeting. So I was

215in consultation with the superintendent. We avoided that whole meeting. There were no minutes. The agenda will be published, the exact same agenda, with a link. Will be a published for our next meeting which will be a Thursday September 16th at 9 o'clock. We will be video conferencing So it's as if that ever happened was mistaken our pot in it and to make it correct. We've been only the whole morning And I just want to acknowledge I did get an email, but when I read it, it was after the meeting was only like 20 minutes long. And so I called the main office right away when I read my message, but the meeting was already over, and that's how we found out that there was a mistake. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. Recommendation to appoint the next

216director of pupil personnel services. Madam Chair and School Committee, I'm very excited to make this recommendation this evening. As previously shared with you, Ms. Lorinda Allen departed from the role of Director of Pupil Personnel Services. Ms. Allen was an outstanding member of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District for almost 30 years, and we can't thank her enough for her dedication and rise to the role of an effective leader within our district. We wish her the best with her new position outside of our district, and I know we will be in contact to share and collaborate, which included today already. I must also recognize Miss Judy Powell, who is the student service coordinator for Shepherd Hill Regional High School, who has stepped up right now as the acting administrator while we were searching for the next permanent

217director of pupil personnel services. I have enjoyed working with Miss Powell and appreciate her dedication to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. So with Ms. Lorinda Allen departing, we established a search group to find the next director of pupil personnel services in the Dudley-Children Regional School District. I would like to publicly thank the members of the search group. CPAC co-chair Sam Bittar, school committee representative Gene Costello, Sheppano Regional High School teacher Lisa Fitton, Child and Middle School teacher Amanda Jeringi, School Adjustment Counsel Sarah Coddington, Student Services Coordinator Heather Harriman, Principal Jennifer Desto, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Dr. Brian Ackerman, and Director... Finance and Operations Richard Matthew. We had 10 quality applicants in the search group narrowed to three semi-finalists. After completing lengthy interviews, the search group deliberated and unanimously recommended to move Mr. Robert

218Bergeron forward. Mr. Bergeron then had a follow-up meeting with Central Office administrators, and again, he was unanimously endorsed. Therefore, it is my distinct pleasure to recommend Mr. Robert Bergeron as the next Director of Pupil Personnel Services pending final contract negotiations and a favorable vote by you as a school committee this evening. Mr. Bergeron presented extremely well throughout the process. I believe Mr. Bergeron is to be the right candidate to assume the role as a valued member of the district leadership team. The search group fully and unequivocally endorsed this recommendation to you as the school committee. Mr. Bergeron is currently serving in the position of Student Service Director for the Quaybog Regional School District. Mr. Bergeron's extensive experience includes roles as a teacher of special education, special education coordinator, and district administrator. Mr. Bergeron's background in

219special education will be instrumental as he leads his department. Mr. Bergeron has experience as a track and field coach as well, a NEASC accreditation team member, staff trainer, and an MCAS coordinator. Mr. Bergeron has been recognized as a teacher of the year at one point and one of ten nationally recognized educators. Mr. Bergeron's references indicate that he is a collaborator, positive influence, and a problem solver. In his current position, Mr. Bergeron demonstrated leadership through a recent tiered focus monitoring review, circuit breaker audit, and an education stability review. I again recommend Mr. Robert Bergeron to be the next Director of Pupil Personnel Services for the Dudley Child and Regional School District, pending final contract negotiations and your favorable vote this evening. I know I also included his resume in your packet as well. Do I have

220a motion of approval of the recommendation set up by Mr. Lamache? Do I have a second? Second. Discussion? Any discussion? Kathy? I have some discussion. I assume that references were checked? Correct. And looking at the resume, I have concerns of the choppiness of the resume in that he only spent two years at his last position, you know, and worried about was there something going on that made him want to leave? Like, I just don't. It makes me uneasy. I'm a little uneasy with this candidacy, but I wasn't in the interview team. So are we providing are we going into a three-year contract with this person? We had originally set aside some money for a temporary interim. Did you ever get to that point? When you're going to have an interim of like 15 to 20?

221If we couldn't find a successful candidate, we were going to seek an interim. Okay, so you never had to do the interim. No, never had to do that because the committee was, again, very thrilled that we had strong candidates, experienced candidates, and recommended Mr. Bob Bergeron for the position. And I will put my faith into the committee. And, Gene, you were the school committee member that was on that committee, right? Yes. Okay. So any other discussion before we take the vote? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Jean, do you have anything to add being the committee member that was part of it? No, I really don't other than the fact that he was very student-centered. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Opposed? Kathy, abstaining? I abstain. Okay. So six in favor, one abstaining. okay that

222brings us yeah that brings us up to the superintendent's evaluation this evening and uh this evening uh each member did get a um evaluation form the end of cycle evaluation report that was revised in 2017 and after Each member did their evaluation. I put them all together and got the average of the seven members. And I will give you all the scores. I will read the goals. I'll give you the scores, and then I'll leave it up to the members. If they want to add anything, they can. So this is the way I'm going to start. I'm gonna go by our evaluation form and the first thing on the evaluation form was step one assess performance on superintendent goals and before I go any further I'll give you the choices it was exceeded met significant

223progress some progress did not meet Okay, and this part of it is going to have the same rating. So the goal for standard one is instructional leadership. Establish methods and methodologies to identify individual student achievement and progress as a result of the various models of learning implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. And he did meet that goal. The average was met. That was the score. Goal for standard two, and that's management and operations. and Mr. LaMarche's goal, establish Dudley-Charlton Regional School District organizational leadership to navigate and implement a high quality comprehensive learning program to all students during the COVID-19 pandemic. And again, the rating is he met that goal. Standard 3 is not applicable because the school committee at that time only required, and they did take a vote, that Mr. Lamarche was going to do

224only three goals instead of four because it was so late in the year that we decided to evaluate. And I will just say Mr. Lamarche is the only one that is being evaluated this school year. Okay, last school year. So that you didn't have a goal for. And then goals for standard four, professional culture. Advocate for a district-wide culture that embraces equity for all students, staff, and community members. And the average was significant progress on that one. Now we have the overall rating for standard one. And the categories are exemplary, proficient, needs improvement, unsatisfactory. So. The education leader promotes the learning and growth of all students and the success of all staff by cultivating a shared vision that makes powerful teaching and learning the central focus of schooling. And Mr. Lamarche got proficient on that.

225And now we go to standard two, the overall rating for standard two, and that's management and operations. The education leader promotes learning and growth of all students and the access of all staff by ensuring a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment using resources to implement appropriate curriculum, staffing, and scheduling. And Mr. Lamaschka, proficient again. That's the average of the seven school committees. and standard three again uh family and community engagement that was non-applicable but mr lamarche did write something on it he didn't have a goal and this is the um this is the overall rating for that goal so i'll i'll tell tell you i'm i'm not counting that but there were uh five members that did uh give him a rating. But we had said about the goal that he wasn't required to do

226this, and this is the overall. So there's no mark there. And then the last is step three. We rate the overall performance, and Ms. Salamashka proficient on that. So now it's open to the committee members so they can state whatever they'd like and who wants to Does anyone have anything to add? We have all our narratives in here I'm just wondering if next to our name on our narrative if it should be what we what we put down Whether we choose proficient needs improvement Because I was under the assumption that you were putting a collective narrative and not individual narratives on this. No, we never did that. We never did that. I was under the same impression as Mrs. Kemp. Ever since we've been on the committee and we've been using this form, Anne Marie

227just gives one, and I don't see it here, or did she? Did she give it to everyone that she has? your comments and you can you can just offer them now if you want to say anything but it's not a collective we never did that and i never said that either okay um we've evaluated sometime in a narrative form but we didn't use this everybody had a narrative form and we we read it but on this everybody's comments are their own you know i'm just wondering if It should also include what the person voted, whether they voted proficient, they voted needs improvement, whatever they voted, or exemplary. These forms, you can just go to the office because these are public record. Sure, that's fine. And if you want to see who voted what, it's public

228record. Okay? But anybody can add anything now. Jean? Sorry, I did have that type of question too, which is why I had requested Sandy to help me pull previous ones and no one in the past what like five five six years had ever put Their you know proficient within their narration like that You know, we've been using this since we've been using this with But we can choose not to use this We adopted to use this, but we can choose not to and do a narrative if we wanted to. I just had a misunderstanding. I thought that when you did, I thought you were doing a collective narrative, like an overall narrative. So I just misunderstood. Jamie. Just for clarity for the public, I think that at our last meeting there was a discussion as

229to whether Mrs. Reed would work with Mrs. Costello. And as far as I know, that was not something that happened. Is that correct, Mrs. Costello? My understanding is that since she is no longer a school committee member, that no, she wouldn't be doing an evaluation, but as a private citizen, she could send an email or speak as she did today. We did get a legal... I just wanted to be clear to the public that that didn't happen. Anyone want to... Okay. Then I'll go to the next item that's on the agenda. And that is the superintendent's contract. And I know I have that little excerpt. Do you have it, Mr. Lamar, in your contract? I don't. I can pull it up. Well, Sam, put that. There's all these papers on it. Okay, good. Wait a

230minute. Sam, you must be able to pull it up. Here, I'll let you. because we're going to take a vote but i did want to read exactly what is in the contract so that's that's what you look for right there except the dates obviously because yeah Okay, the last is that we're going to have to take a vote. And you remember at a previous meeting that we extended the date. The date in the contract was June 30th, but we extended it until August 31st. And what is in Mr. Lamarche's contract says the committee, on or before. August 31st. We changed it. It was June 30th. Shall notify the superintendent in writing as to whether or not it wishes to commence negotiations for a successor agreement. Failure of the committee to give such notice shall be

231considered the same as a notice by the committee that it does not wish to commence negotiations. For a successor agreement in such an event, this agreement shall terminate in here in before provided on August 31st. No, I'm sorry. June 30th, 2022. And as of such a date, the superintendent's employment shall terminate. So right now, and we're not going into negotiations, but we're going to. have to take a vote on whether we want to commence with negotiations with Mr. Lamache for another contract. Okay? So do I have a motion to that effect? Motion. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? No discussion? No, I'm fine. Kathy? Okay. This is a very difficult conversation and a very difficult decision. I think we need

232to remember that we are in charge of a $54 million budget, and we need to think about that. And you all know I'm an administrator, and when we go through and we look at nonprofessional teachers in their first three years, and we have to make the decision if we're going to keep them or not keep them, we ask ourselves, Are we in love with this person? Do we want to invest in this person? It is a million dollar investment plus when we give a teacher a professional status. When we look at this contract coming up, this is a half a million dollar contract because it's a three-year contract. You can't go with a one-year contract. It is a three-year contract minimum. And I don't know that I'm in love. And I apologize for saying that.

233I just think that there has been some steps that have happened that I think are, we need a different direction. And, you know, we've heard from our former school committee members. There were complaints from them about professionalism, about unilateral decision-making. I've seen the unilateral decision-making with our reading program. We've heard from our teachers that they don't see him in buildings. We need an instructional leader, and our students deserve that. Our teachers deserve that. We've had lots of teachers leaving our district for other districts. We have always valued ourselves on a caring culture in our buildings. We need to get back there. We need to have teachers feel that they are part of something bigger. And they need to feel that. And they need to believe it. And I think that we need to make a

234change. And I'm sorry. I value you as a person. I just don't think that this is the right path for our district. Anyone else? Jamie. I reiterate every single thing that Mrs. Carminiani just said. Anyone else? Go ahead, Kathy. This is very hard to say, but this is what we're elected to do. We have heard from our students, you know, at the community forum that, and we've heard from other areas that bullying is an issue in our district, that we should have a zero tolerance policy. How do we say that and move forward when we've had complaints that he's yelled at us at meetings? And we've talked about this, and I've been very honest with you about that. I just think that we need to have, we need to hold ourselves to a very high

235standard. And that's where we should go. Well, I'll just say I was torn also. And then when I read the goals and also from the rating tonight, it was proficient in everything, which seems a contradiction from what we've been saying or some of them saying. I think we have to take into account this couldn't have been a worse year. And I think in one of my comments, I'll read my comment. I had a couple of them. Mr. Lamarche has had a difficult start to his superintendency. Before he even completed his first year, our students were learning remotely. No one was prepared for this. However, Mr. Lamarche and his team worked feverishly to set up a schedule for the fall of 2020 to make the most of the situation, always keeping in mind the safety of

236everyone. Decisions were made that did not please everyone. However, they were not made in a vacuum. Input was from many, many sources and from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Mistakes were made, plans were changed, and Mr. Lamarche and the district carried on. Hopefully, better days are ahead in the coming school year, and Mr. Lamarche will be able to focus his energy on, quote, a shared vision that makes powerful teachers and learning the central focus of schooling. I also said on the equity part. Let me see if I can find it. In line with the district's strategic plan and to address the concerns expressed by some members of the community about events happening in the country, an equity committee was formed. While the intent was honorable, problems developed with the perception of the work

237and the goals of the committee. A better effort must be made to ensure that all members of the district are on the same page and understand the goals of the district to attain success for all students. So I feel, even though I've had disagreements with Mr. Lamarche, I've spoken to him about, and he has improved. I went up and actually spoke to him sometimes, and I was concerned about his demeanor. And I have seen a big change in his demeanor since I spoke. That was like February, maybe March. Because I did not like the way we were being spoken to at times. And I think he's made a concerted effort to make it better. I think at this stage, it's a terrible year for anybody. No matter how good you were, you always did something

238wrong for somebody. So I think I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe when things settle down and we get back to normal, things will turn around for the better. And I, too, have spoken to Mr. Lamarche, and I do reiterate everything Catherine has said. And, in fact, we both went in together, and we've noticed changes. That would mean anyone else. I mostly just want to say about when I worked on my evaluation of Superintendent LaMarche, I could only look at what I've experienced firsthand as a member of the committee. And from what it sounds like, there were some personnel issues and interactions, and it sounds as though he has made a genuine attempt to improve. And while I absolutely understand everything that you're all saying, and I'm sorry that

239the interactions you've had with Superintendent LaMarche were less than stellar. grateful to hear that he at least made some work towards that. I maybe it's my naivete. Maybe it's just because I haven't been here as long as other members, but I've never had that type of interaction with Superintendent Lamarche. So you're absolutely valid in what you're saying. And I'm sorry that you had to endure that. But I've heard it a few times tonight, but I don't know of any examples and I don't have any firsthand. and no one's really brought them to me and i've never as far as i know like our interactions have always been entirely professional so i just wanted to add that i i guess i'm not seeing what everyone is saying through the chair so um i agree with mrs

240caballo's comment that the evaluation came out all proficient so it is counter productive to not renew the contract in my view because the evaluation shows all proficient on the average by the committee. I also think we as a school committee need to recognize that we own some issues with the poll and valuation process. This whole year we moved the goalposts, we kept moving it for good reason and I... was part of that. I voted and I was chair last year. So again, I take responsibility for that, but I think the goals were not. we didn't we didn't set clear expectation on the goals I mean it's tonight's evaluation shows that he earned proficient according to everybody's input but I think we we as a school committee and I've said this before and Mrs. O'Coin and

241I have talked about we need to be very crystal clear going forward for accountability the public expects that and I expect that that's our duty to to hold the superintendent accountable for the district and so So I feel that we can do a better job as a school committee setting goals for the next school year and really being very crystal clear, perhaps getting some support from MASC to go through it again because I think we could all use the refresher. I speak only for myself as far as process. So I think that... acknowledging some of the errors that we made as a team, I'm not blaming anyone, is our first step. And I think it's unfair because we made all these changes to... keep like I said keep moving the goalpost and We were always

242constantly changing and I and this year again what mrs. Cabala and mrs. O'Coin said the year was horrible For everyone the schools the parents students it was just a nightmare year And I feel bad that we're at this point and I'm hoping we can move forward With a better year, so that's just my opinion on Where we're at today i just want to make a couple of points here um the review is not aligned although it is happening on the same meeting night tonight the review is not what should dictate necessarily the only thing that should dictate what happens with contract expectations and so i know they're happening in alignment but they're they're not synonymous and that's not one leads to the other um that's one clarification i guess i would like to just make

243and then um just kind of hearing your perspective and your point of view mrs cavallo about you would like to provide the benefit of the doubt um we many of us have experienced um the the hardships and difficulties that Mrs. Carminiani spoke of many of us at this table many of us on previous school committee members have experienced those challenges in communication and our children deserve better than the benefit of the doubt we need to have a leader in this district that is in our schools and I'll read just a portion of one of my comments Delhi Charlton has a long-standing strong school-wide culture. This is one reason so many seek to raise their children in our district. There is a well-established commitment to high standards displayed by our district. This must be recognized and

244modeled by the superintendent. At times, Mr. LaMarche does not step in and address conflict productively when it may arise. Additionally, at times, Mr. LaMarche does not employ a non-confrontational approach to disagreement. So I just feel like those points, I felt the need to say, we owe it to the students and the staff that we love in this district to hear them with what's been brought before us. Through the chair. I concur with Kenny, but you know, and how when you take our averages, he's proficient and then to turn around, it just seems that cross purposes. We all understand that we're all human. We all have flaws. It was a very difficult time to go into starting as this new superintendent for the district with COVID as the context, but Superintendent LaMarche has kept to high

245standards and high expectations with the education of our students in the district and we can easily move forward in forming new goals that would work on those needs improvements more for that personnel culture shift and And working with others in the way that, you know, you've already talked to him in the past about and that he has already made growth and attempts to change for that. Anyone else before we take the vote? Okay. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries, five to two. Okay. Next meeting date? I just said thank you. Oh, okay. Next meeting date, school committee meeting, September 8th, 7 o'clock. And it will be in the Shepherd Hill Regional High School Library, again. Budget and finance subcommittee to be determined. No one has made a date on that yet. Okay. Policy review subcommittee,

246Friday, September. Thursday okay policy review subcommittee Thursday September 16 and that'll be by video conference also so the budget and finance one can I make a request the next time the budget I'm sorry the policy subcommittee I'm sorry were you on to policy subcommittee yeah yeah okay the next time you meet would you discuss If there's a policy out there that we could bring forth about when we all receive a communication in an email form, how each of us would know somebody responds or doesn't respond. And I'm not even sure how to say that well, but there was an individual in this community that brought forth, Jamie, you responded to me, thank you, but how does anybody else on the committee know that you responded to me? And so if there was a policy in

247place that the chairman of a... You know, if it was a policy subcommittee question, that the chairman of that committee would answer that question or take that email, you know, I don't know. I just think that that's worthy of review. Yeah, through the chair. We did, in March, we worked on a policy around communications that if a member received it, they would send it out to the rest of the committee. But I think we could probably come up with some different language around that, understanding your point this evening. And sometimes the chair can't speak for the whole committee. So that's when, if you don't see it, reply to all because different people have different views. Sure, I understand that, but it was a worthy question. Yeah, and it is. It is. So. So. We did

248the policy review. Curriculum subcommittee for teaching and learning, that's to be determined. And that'll be by video conferencing. And capital outlay and safety subcommittee, Friday, September 17th, video conference. Future agenda items, Dudley-Chatham Regional School District, professional development, September. Then the DCLC, September. FY 22, September, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Strategic Plan Progress Report, October, School Improvement Plans, November, School Committee Workshop, and Kenny said that'll be to be determined. Figure out a time to do it. Everybody saw my email. Okay, I'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn. Sorry, Madam Chair, we also have to add revisit reopening recommendations to the agenda as well in September. Any others? Any other additions? They are alternating, but because we had the forum in Dudley, we switched it to Charlton, so that's why we're here tonight. But it's always

249the first meeting, which is the second Wednesday of the month. It's always at Shepherd Hill. And then the other one is at Childhood. But that's why there's two in a row out. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay. Second. All in favor? Motion carries. We're adjourned.