DCRSD SC Mtg June 23 2021

001good evening it's my pleasure to call to order the regular meeting of the dudley charlton regional school committee it is wednesday june 23rd 2021 per our computer it is 7 pm we are meeting for the first time in a year in person at the charlton middle school and the meeting is also being live streamed to our district vimeo site at this time we will rise for the play mr earl are we all set We're good. Thank you, Mr. Earl. We'll rise for the pledge. United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will have our traditional moment of silence as we begin another school committee meeting. Like our students, let us have a moment of silence after the pledge to

002pause and reflect. Thank you. Before we begin our business today, I want to take a moment to welcome back Mrs. Kathleen Carmagnani to our school committee table after a successful election in Dudley. Our first order of business this evening is reorganization of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School Committee. At this time, I will turn over the gavel to the superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hopefully I don't have to use the gavel, but I don't know you kind of are an unruly bunch of school committee members. So the way that I believe this should go is that we'll take a nomination, which will be in the form of a motion, and then I will ask the person who was nominated if they will accept that nomination, and I'll look for a second after that person accepts that

003nomination, and then we'll go from there. So are there any nominations for chair of the school committee? I'll nominate Pauline O'Connor. Pauline do you accept that nomination yes I do okay I'm looking for a second are there any other nominations for chair Kenny do you accept that nomination I do is there a second are there any other nominations okay with that said we have two nominations so we will start with the first nomination mrs. Pauline O'Coin is there any discussion or any comment Well, you do know me because I've been chair many times and I would like to bring this committee to work as a team because last year I don't think we were working as a team. So that's my first priority, being chair. Any further discussion on Pauline's, Ms. O'Coin's nomination, excuse me?

004Yes, Ms. Terry, did you? No. Any discussion on Kenny's? Excuse me, Mr. LaFerriere's. Sorry for the disrespect. Mr. LaFerriere's nomination for chair. Thank you, Mrs. Camignani. My goals for the school committee is to work on the summer workshop and have a time for us to discuss housekeeping matters, to improve our processes and our flow, and have an understanding of our role as school committee members and what our purpose is and what the administration's purpose is and staff and the public. So I think that we can have some more discussion on that and better. again work together to accomplish the goals and the vision and set up a vision for the school committee that the school committee feels is a vision for the district thank you for the question okay not having experience with two nominees

005for chair we'll do the best we can to get through this so we will take a I think at this point time we'll take a roll call vote for mrs. O'Coin to be chair of the school committee in the event that In the event that Ms. O'Coin wins a majority, we will also take a vote on Mr. LaFerriere to see if he takes a majority as well. Correct? And then we'll go from there. I would just say vote. It's usually just a hand vote. We'll take hand vote. It's usually just a hand vote. Okay. Any issues with a hand vote? Okay, for Mrs. O'Coin, Mrs. Cabala? Oh, you just want to take a hand vote? No, you just say vote. Okay, all those in favor of Mrs. O'Coin for chair, please? I have to document

006this. So that is four votes for. All those opposed? All those abstentions? I abstain. Okay. Those in favor of Mr. LaFerriere to be chair of the school committee, please raise your hand. All those who abstain? I mean, those who vote no. You can tell I'm not used to being your chair. All those that abstain for Mr. LaFerriere? Okay. So Mrs. O'Coin by a vote of four. to three versus Mr. LaFerriere becomes chair of the school committee for this coming year. Congratulations. Thank you so much for your confidence in me once again. And at this time, we are going to nominate vice chair, but I am going to step down as chair to nominate Jamie Terry as the vice chair, and the most senior member will be the chair for now. That's Catherine. Okay. Mrs. Terry

007has been nominated, but Mrs. O'Korn, do you accept the nomination? Yeah. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Mr. Bain is seconded for Jamie Terry. Any other nominations? The nomination will be closed. I'll ask for a vote for Jamie Terry for Vice Chair. All in favor? Of course. Yes. Don't you think you're worthy? Opposed? I think it was unanimous. Congratulations, Jamie. And I'll turn the chair back to Mrs. O'Coin. Okay. Next on the agenda is Secretary, and I believe that's Sandy? Yes. The Secretary. I make a notice we nominate Mrs. Sullivan for Secretary for the School Committee. Okay. Sandra, do you accept? Okay. Are there any other nominations? Yes, I second. Then we'll have a second. Okay. I'll second that. All right. Second the nomination. Yeah. Okay. And we'll take the vote. All in favor Congratulations

008Sandra Next assistant treasurer and that's usually mr. Mr. Lamar so do you accept it? I do. Okay Any other nominations? Okay, seeing none We'll take the vote all in favor. It's unanimous Congratulations Okay I'm going to entertain a motion to give the borrowing authorization to our finance director, Mr. Matthew. It's on Carol Bannerman. Oh. Yeah, Carol. The assistant treasurer. No, no, treasurer. Borrowing authorization. Okay. Oh, it's the treasurer. I'm sorry. I thought it was you. Okay. So it is Carol Barron that was a mistake on my part we used to it used to be the direct the finance director Okay So moved I second Okay So all in favor Motion carries it's unanimous and that that is the borrowing power and now we will go move to our school committees the subcommittee appointments and the

009first one on the agenda is budget and finance we usually have two or three members and who would like to volunteer for that okay Kathy and Kenny anybody else Okay, so we have our budget and finance Policy review who would like to volunteer for that? Okay, unless someone else wants it. Okay, Jordan And you guys I can take that gene wants to do it. Yeah, okay gene and Kathy Yeah, and you said you're giving up. I'll give it up because Jordan wants to keep it Yeah, so that I mean could have it this time. All right and the capital outlay and safety Okay, Jamie Anyone else was on it before but I can stay or not. Okay, there are other members that want to do it Anyone else would like to do it? Curriculum teaching

010and learning okay we have these three oh we have four okay let's see does anyone want to give it up because there's four I really okay so Kathy And Jean wanted to do it. Jordan, you're willing to give it up then? Yeah. Okay, thank you. And so Jamie, okay. School year calendar, I'd like to be on that because I was on that last year. And Jamie, you wanted to be on that? Anyone else? Okay, Kathy. And the executive session minutes, Kathy and I usually do that. And we can have a third. Jordan was before. Oh, okay. She was before. We never got to it. We never did it. We never got to it. Part two. Okay. And the negotiations for the Dudley Child and Teachers Association. I'd like to do that. Okay. Then the three

011of you. Yeah. Okay. So we've got Jamie, Kathy, and Kim. Thank you. Okay. So we're all set? All right. Next on the agenda is approval of the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to what? It wasn't listed, but what? Equity and committee. Oh, that's right. That isn't listed. No, see, that's where some of the confusion is. Equity committee was not a school committee. committee it wasn't a subcommittee of school committee we had asked if a member of school committee would like to sit on the equity committee but if you want to make a motion and formalize it or do something of that nature please so it's not right I understood that it's not a subcommittee of the school committee and so you you keep the members unless how do you choose the members every year you

012choose someone we've only had it for less than 12 months so you're going to keep the same number right now yes but okay and jordan is our representative from the school committee correct okay yep thank you jordan and uh thank you for explaining that so yeah yeah go ahead wondering one other thing if you don't mind um for the liaison to the cpac is that We used to have that. The CPAC bylaws have changed where school committee is no longer a representative member. It's the superintendent is your representative for the board of directors for the collaborative. There is no other entity that's a school committee driven or school committee supported. I was just wondering. No, that's good. That's a clarification because we always chose that too. There's only two collaboratives in the state that have

013a school committee board of directors versus superintendent board of directors. I was just asking for clarity. Right. And we used to have the treasurer down, but because the treasurer is getting... She's talking about CPAC, not the collaborative. No, I'm talking about CPAC. Not the collaborative. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, not the collaborative. Forget what I said. I was talking about collaborative. That's what I thought. SWAC and CPAC were in my head. I'm talking about what Lorinda knows, the special education parents advisory. Right. Yeah. I think we usually appoint someone. Yeah, we usually appoint someone. Right? Lorinda? We have in the past. We have it every year, but there have been years that we have. Kathy has been in the past. Well, should we do it this evening? It wasn't listed. I noticed when I looked at

014these that it was very shortened selections. Can I say that I feel like the parents of the CPAC have always... had the desire to have someone from the school committee be linked to CPAC, so I think it's a great idea to keep going. I make a motion to appoint Jean as the CPAC representative. Unless if she doesn't want to accept, we can discuss that later. Well, I can accept and remove my co-chair. So we don't even need a motion. I didn't know if we needed it. So Jean, you're going to do the CPAC. Yeah, and then I can email. Good. We're ready to update the webpage. Okay. Any others? Do you see any others that are missing from the agenda? I think that was it. Yeah. Okay, so we'll move right along to the the

015minutes I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our regular meeting of Wednesday, June 9th. So moved. Do I have a second? Okay, any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? All in favor? Sorry, I thought I had a discussion. Oh, okay. That's okay. We'll hold on and check it out. We may change our vote here. You weren't calling out my name. We're not used to it. No roll call. I know. The roll call keeps you awake. Good, Kenny. You can help me. Oh, stop. Jamie will help you next meeting. Do you want us to hold off? Take a vote later? I know what page it was on. Sorry. It was on page seven. It may sound petty to you, but I think it's important. The second paragraph, Dr. Ackerman said, if we do not

016go forward with CKLA, the district would jeopardize the $100,000 grant as one of the requirements. I don't think that that was confirmed. I think that that was a possibility that it could be jeopardized, but we did not have the knowledge if that was actually what would happen or not. What do you suggest? How do you suggest we amend that? I think instead of saying the district would jeopardize 100,000 the $100,000 granted it should say that the district may jeopardize the $100,000 grant because I don't think that we knew that that would actually happen Sounds good any objections to that I have a question while you're on that same page. Go ahead. You also, Jamie? Mm-hmm. Down further on the paragraph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5th one, it says about we would lose under $90,000.

017Wasn't it around $90,000? About how much we would lose if we canceled. But that wasn't confirmed either. Didn't you say it could be up to $90,000? The confirmed? guaranteed loss would have been 89 275 something like that so it's about 90 that that would have been that would have been the minimum threshold so to say at least it has to work under 90,000 that's the wrong word that would the minimum amount of loss had the had the permission been rescinded would have been the 30% restocking fee because the things that the items that already shipped So could you put up to ninety thousand? Could you put that well? It's pot again. It's not known what would happen if we sent it if we sent it all back We would have to go through a process

018To request a refund so we couldn't say with certainty what that cost would be It could be up to the entire. Up to $90,000. No, Dr. Ackerman is saying that it could have been the full price. We would have to appeal them to get any reimbursement, but to restock and to send it back would be $89,270. I remember the number $90,000 came up in the discussion last week. I just rounded it. It was just under. If you would like the exact figure, I could. What should we put in the minutes? Well, the I would say a minimum and I'll get the exact number but you can't change the minutes you said it was 90,000 but I think the minimum Corrections? Okay, seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries, it's unanimous. I'll entertain a motion to

019approve the minutes of the executive session of Wednesday, June 9th. So moved. Second. Okay, do I have any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries, it's unanimous. Okay approval of the warrant and the warrants approved now electronically and that we usually bring them here too they're in a yellow folder and people have signed them online. We're still going to do them electronically I think. Yes we are but he does bring them sometimes. If I may, Madam Chair. So going forward, since the committee's back in session, what I'd like to do is for the FY22 warrants, so anything dated July going forward, we'll bring those warrants to the committee for signatures. For the FY21 warrants, we'll continue with the current process. Oh, okay. If that works for the committee. That works. Can I ask a

020point of clarification? Sure. Is that for the summer or starting in the school year, since in the summer we only meet once a month? The signed warrants would still be for starting in July. I'd like to start the fiscal year clean. Okay, I just didn't know if you're going to need us to come into the building. We will absolutely need to have people come in to sign to release checks. And they still need four. So we'll go back to the former process before COVID. Right. Can I ask? Go ahead. We had actually put this into effect before COVID. And so I'm wondering why we're going to go back on it. Because it gives us the ability to review, ask questions and such before coming into the building. We'll still send them out. We'll still send

021out the electronic copies. Yeah, but we had put it in effect because of the fact that it was challenging with work schedules for us to get to the building during work hours to get it signed for you. And I think we were running into having a difficult time rushing someone over there to get the fourth signature. If the committee wants to continue to sign them electronically, that's perfectly fine as well. Okay. I would like to, if you want me to go on record with that. I agree with Jamie. So do I. I don't mind coming in either. So if you want to go in, sign it. But if you don't, you can sign it electronically. Everybody agree? Because usually you did bring the folders here. They'll still be brought to the meetings. And we usually

022have a yellow and a red one for the payroll. But I think we should do it electronically for those who want to. Okay, any objection? Okay, Citizens Forum. So this evening, before we have citizens coming forward, I'm going to read our policy, okay? Because I'm sure we'll have people coming forward to speak with us. Okay, policy, it's BEDH. 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 become better acquainted with the operations and the programs of our local public schools. In addition, the committee would like the opportunity to hear public comment.

023Public comment 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 or referring an issue. to the administration for 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

024their 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 scope of responsibility Disruptive conduct conduct and or remarks will not be allowed If an individual individuals continue to engage in disruptive conduct after a 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

025agenda item. Okay. So do we have any citizens that would like to come forward to speak with us? My name is Caitlin Seaman I live on Sunset Drive in Dudley I would just like to ask all school committee members to speak clearly multiple people that are here this evening cannot hear you and are not able to understand conversations that are being had so if you could please address the group it would be greatly appreciated Thank you do we have any other others I would like to come forward Good evening. My name is Daniel Bush My name is Daniel Bush Address is 122 City Depot Road at Charlton at the last meeting We were made aware that there was that there is no written process for evaluating curricula That is very concerning to not just myself,

026but a lot of other families within the district I would like to ask our school committee and administration today to put a halt to any curricula changes until there is a written and transparent process for reviewing, approving, and purchasing any curricula. We know to be successful, we must have buy-in in our curricula changes from teachers, administrators, the school committee, and the most important stakeholders, the parents. It is our children we are entrusting you with. Since COVID, there are more parents than ever paying attention to not just how their children are learning, but the content and quality of that content being covered. We hope you will utilize this interest to allow parents to be an active part of this process. We have high standards for what our children are learning, and we are glad to assist

027in making sure those standards are met. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else would like to address us? I can tell you that I probably am going to go a little longer than three minutes. I would just ask for the time. Thank you. Mr. LaMarche, Dr. Ackerman, members of the DCRSD School Committee, parents and residents, I'm happy to be here tonight to finally be able to participate. My hope is that this would have been a part of the process all along, but I truly feel that members of the school committee and the administration, that there were some things that were done while all of our attention as parents were focused on what was happening to our children during a pandemic. But you have our attention now. There's several topics I would touch on if I had

028more time, but I'll start with the one that concerns me the most, the formation of an equity committee. under the cover of darkness, frankly, and with the motto to change the hearts and minds. I am not sure I have ever been more disturbed by such a phrase. I cannot help but wonder, what is wrong with my child's heart and mind? What is it that you would like to change? With this new equity committee also came new curriculum, the hiring of a consultant, Dr. Sheldon Eakins, and now trainings to our educators. Members of the school committee, what I hope to point out to you tonight is the lack of transparency in this process and what the future holds with CRT in our school district. There are a number of times that our assistant superintendent contradicts himself,

029but I will just focus on my own experience. I emailed Dr. Ackerman on June 15th. Perhaps you recall the email as I cc'd each of you but never received a response. In his response on June 16th, he stated, and I quote, There are no plans to incorporate CRT into our curriculum. We are not using CRT in our curriculum now. In this same response, he also advised that Dr. Sheldon Eakins would have the fourth and final webinar with teachers on June 21st. And wouldn't you know, in that webinar, clear as day, a slide all about CRT. This is a copy. I have a copy of the slide with me if anyone wishes to see it. Dr. Ackerman, I know you refuse to call it CRT, but what you are unveiling to our staff is just that.

030As I said in my email, the consultant you hired is all about CRT. So if he is not sharing those teachings, then what exactly did he get $5,000 for? I would ask the school committee, are you familiar with the theory of CRT? Are you familiar with Dr. Eakins and his teachings? What was the process you followed to acquire him? Were there other consultants you could have selected? And if so, why him? Why a consultant at all, actually? Where is the review of our district that shows spending $5,000 on a consultant was necessary? Critical race theory is being opposed and banned in many states for good reason For those of you that don't know what CRT is I encourage you to do some research Honestly, this should have already happened if you are taking votes on

031such things like an equity committee changing curriculum Reading about dr. Egan's or a quick scroll through his Instagram page taught me more than I care to know About what he stands for and it truly gave me pause His quotes are riddled with anti-law enforcement and a sentiment of division, putting people into boxes based on their skin color and not their character. I wonder how exactly you concluded he was a good fit for our community, how our educators and our children would identify with him or his teachings. Or perhaps you concluded the opposite. As I said, your goal anyway is to change the hearts and minds. I know that you likely see the parents in this audience here tonight, and perhaps we have been labeled crazy, misinformed, and as though we were overreacting, but I would

032encourage you to take notes for this next piece. If what I tell you now rings true with your experience over the last year, then a red flag should go up. And if what I tell you now rings true for what is to come in the future, then I hope your eyes are open to the fact that this is a real agenda with serious implications for our children. In other school districts that have introduced CRT, it has happened in the following steps. A new superintendent or assistant superintendent is hired, someone from the outside. They head up a new group, something similar to Subcommittee for Teaching and Learning. Within months of this new leader coming to the district, an equity committee is formed, flying under the radar. This committee is tasked with doing some form of an

033equity audit to look at our curriculum They always conclude that a director of equity and inclusion needs to be hired before warrant These directors are paid in excess of a hundred thousand and arrive on scene with a plan to remake all curriculum and programs Intended to change the hearts and minds of children. Does this sound familiar? Dr. Ackerman, I know you're not from here and know little about this community, the demographic, and how we rally together when we need to, but hopefully you can see with the number of residents here this evening, we strongly oppose your plans for this district and the process by which you are attempting to implement them. You sent an email after what I assume was a large outcry from all of us. The subject line read, equity committee updates. if

034we had been receiving them all along to be clear we haven't the content of these meetings cannot be found in minutes on the school district website either we have all had enough of the attempts to make us think we have been informed when we haven't we have a group of 250 plus residents that grew in just over a week and continues to grow every day if you want equity then please start with the membership of your committee it should represent all sides and include members of this parent group here tonight Should our content concerns continue to be ignored and you all march on with this agenda I can tell you many of us will be leaving this district simply put our children deserve better I suggest okay that you meet personally make an appointment it'll

035be set up for you call the office to see Dr. Ackerman and the superintendent LaMarche okay thank you to speak with them So who would like to come up? They asked a question. Oh, I didn't hear the question. We can all go to the meeting. She's asking if all parents can go to this meeting. Yes, I know. But what do you think? Do you want it personally with each one? What do you think? Dr. Ackerman has been responding to everybody who's reached out to him. At this point is it better to meet with them individually? Wait a minute. Wait, let's hear from doctor with any folks that would like to speak. All together? I think it may be best, honestly, to do it in groups of people just for space reasons. But if there's anybody

036that would like to have a discussion, a full discussion, I know some folks here have reached out to me. I've got either phone calls with folks. I've got a couple of appointments lined up for Thursday and Friday. But if you reach out to me, I promise you I would take the time to meet with anyone who would like to. Okay. Now, reach out in small groups, and he's willing to meet with you, okay? For the space. How will we have the breadth of what is incredibly important for us to hear from the public as well and be able to form educated opinions based on what they're told and not told? I am as well open to having any and all folks that want to have this discussion to meet in whatever form folks think make

037the most sense. And Mr. Lamarche, you will meet with them together? Oh, absolutely. They may be for a forum at some point. Yeah. Kathy, do you want to speak? I'm just thinking that the call is there. I think we may need to have a forum. Oh, I'm sorry. I was saying that I think the call is there. I think that we could be having meeting after meeting, and I do agree with Jimmy. I think we need to be there because if we're making decisions, we need to know everyone. We need to know the totality of what's going on. Do you want to put on the next committee agenda? I think we might even need to have a special meeting. I think we should have a special meeting and have a forum and listen to everyone's

038concerns. One topic on the agenda would be that. Separate from our regular. Have a special meeting separate from our regular. And then we could hear their concerns. Understand that it could be more than just the people in this audience and that perhaps we need to have it at at Shepherd Hill in the auditorium and have a moderator available So that's what we'll do. We'll set up a time and have a forum and we can all be there special school committee meeting. Do you agree? So let's set it up now. Do you want to set a date? because we've got the people here and then you won't have to come up individually you'll have your you can say speak and give us your concerns so what do you think about a date Yes, we haven't set

039those up yet. We haven't set them up yet. But are they typically the, it's once a month, is it typically the second? It's usually the second or third. Depending on people's vacations. Okay, I'm just pulling up a calendar now. The second Wednesday is good for me. So the 14th, Wednesday I will be there too, but the 21st I will not be there. I'm the same as Jamie. Does that seem okay the 14th everybody how about everybody but that's the regular meeting or the special form no that's gonna be the special form It'll have to be the next week. It doesn't have to be a Wednesday. I would book the 14th for a regular July meeting. Monday the 12th sounds good to me. How about everybody else? Kathy? I think that would work can I ask

040if we through the chair like would it be possible to have our town moderator be there I just think that in order to make sure everyone's voices get get heard that that might be an appropriate action What do you think? I think that's good. And I would also like to say I think that we should work to have our National Honor Society students available for babysitting because it's parents in the district that want to be present. And we should make sure that there's not a challenge for them to get here because their children need to be watched. And I think that's a good idea for the moderator. If he would give us his services. and we're at Shepherd Hill so we'll have the Dudley town moderator I want to accommodate everybody I think seven is

041good how's seven I feel like you're not going to be able to get the little kids in bed if you do that if you do it at six you might have it what Kathy I mean Jamie what time do you I was saying six but okay? I don't know six is fine any easier for I'll go along I think honestly it's gonna like whether we go late anyway six or seven I think it could go it needs trying I'm thinking I think kids like I'm thinking of my kids too But I think seven o'clock is when people are home from work. They fed their kids. I'm trying to be mindful of you for that My vote is 7 o'clock. Okay, 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock. Monday the 12th. Wait until we get the date. July 12th.

042And then I'll tell you. Come on. I can't hear you. Quick question. Okay. Can we just make sure that we put an end to any progression in the CRT, whether it's you or Dr. Eckerman from now until that is, we have that meeting? that we put a moratorium on any programs or any consultants or any teachers meetings or anything that's going to happen between now and that month. Can we stop that? We have no summer activities scheduled at this point. It's not about the kids. Like we talked about before, in one of your statements, you said that you had this consultant come in and talk to your teachers and not directly to the students. Yes. But the students are taught by their teachers. They're taught by you bringing somebody in to teach the teachers how

043to teach our kids, not bringing them to an auditorium and have this guy teach them. So I want to put an end to whatever those meetings are until we all decide. Well, there are no professional. There are no professional. There are no meetings between now and July 12th. Yeah. Okay. It's not planned now, but let's not plan one until we have this meeting. No. Trust me. It's summer for us, too. We're not planning. We're only planning meetings out there. So there are no meetings between now and July 12th. But there were meetings that we didn't know about. My name is Patrick McLeod I live at 33 L Stevens Road Bring in consultants and talking to our teachers about how they educate our students, but in emails It was said nobody would taught our kids that

044stuff But you bring in a consultant to teach the teachers how to teach You don't bring in a consultant to teach our kids, so I want to know Definitively that this is going to stop Until we all have a reasonable discussion about what we want. What is best for our kids you guys are all up here because You you're here because of us because of our children. I just want to make sure that that's clear that Before this meeting there's no other activities going on No other teacher conferences or consultants that are coming in. There isn't summer vacation Yeah, there isn't right now, but we're not now and then let's not plan something Because you obviously plan something without us knowing So don't do it in the future until you speak to the parents, the

045children that support this school, the parents that support this school. That's all I'm asking. Okay. So everyone satisfied July 12th at Shepherd Hill? At 7. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. in the auditorium? We're going to have it in the auditorium? 7 p.m. It will be posted because it's an official meeting Good evening. My name is Carla Cohen and I live in 49 Daniels Road in Tarleton Do you guys have a backup date for that meeting if in case Shepherd Hill is not you know, like available or that's a good point The school committee takes precedence over everything from my perspective. So it's going to be July 12th? Yes. At 7 p.m. Is it going to be live streamed for the parents who are not going to be able to be there? That's a good question. I

046think we could do it. Yeah, we can do it. We live stream school committee meetings, yes. And for the parents are not able to be that day. I know through a covet you guys were able to read emails or letters that were sent to you. So would that be the case for that day? Madam Chair, can I interject? District policy BH indicates that letters aren't going to be read into the record. We will receive them and acknowledge them, but they're not read into the record because we have business to attend to. So anybody can write a letter to the school committee, and all school committee members will receive it, but that's it. That's our policy. That's our policy. I understand, but during COVID, I watched. several meetings where you guys read emails or concerns from

047parents. We just did this. This is a new policy. We revised it. In April. Wait a minute. Wait. Let me tell you about the policies. We have a policy committee, and we're always revising the policies. So that was not done because of anything. Kathy is on it. I was on it. You were on it, and Jordan's on it. And it is revised because a lot of things are outdated. So that was not done for any reason that you're talking about right now. And we do have business and long emails we can't be reading. It's going to take all night if you get five of them. Kenny, do you have anything to interject because you're on the policy? You were on it. I was on it with Mrs. Cabala and Jordan. Anything? We just started with

048the letter B. We're going through all the policies. And they happen to be the B alphabetically. They come in the beginning. And we figured they should be updated because we have people coming to the meeting. When we had Zoom, before Zoom, we would be lucky if we had five people in the audience. When Zoom started up, more people were going 100, 150, 100. So we thought we should update these policies to reflect what should be being done. So that's why we did letter B. We wanted to subvert it, because we wanted to be available to the people. We wanted to know how the policy should be written and updated, because some hadn't been updated. This happened, I think, since 2013, I think it was. Some of them quite out of date. So that's why we

049did that. Jamie. To the question on the floor here. This is a forum that we're talking about and not a school committee meeting. Right. And I think it's appropriate that if there's 250 parents that have questions. Right. They should have a way to submit questions ahead of time so that appropriate data can be put together to be given back. I agree. but so i i don't know that i think coming to the meeting and reading it will get an answer on the floor i think if questions are can be put together ahead of time and we need to have a forum that they can submit their questions to um i think then i think that would be useful to move forward at the forum thank you go ahead you can come back the fact that

050they submitted a written statement and then learned just tonight that it could not be read into the record. So if you would allow someone else in the audience on their behalf, they cannot be present for the work. I'll make that exception. Thank you. Through the chair, just to clarify, the policy indicates that we- I'm sorry. The policy indicates that also that we're not going to read letters into the record, but folks are more than welcome to come sit and read their letter in person themselves. We're not saying that can't happen. But we're not going to read them on behalf of the person writing it. We'd respectfully ask that they come, have a seat, state your name and address, and then read your letter. That's all in the policy. Yes, but she asked now, she wants

051to read the letter on behalf of someone else. And I said yes. I understand. All right, anybody else? Go ahead. Madam Chair, just in between. Just for point of clarity, I know Mrs. Terry called it a forum, but we call it a special school committee meeting. I just think we need to clarify what it's actually going to be. Either a special school committee meeting in a forum or one or the other. It just needs to be clarified. And through the chair, if I could comment on that. I was thinking of that question when Mrs. Terry brought that up. I think that's what's lost a little bit here because people were talking about minutes and open meeting law and all that. Well, the equity committee is not. public session as far as our legal meetings. I'm

052not trying to pacify, I'm just explaining the difference where this is a district formed committee that the district formed. And so those regulations as far as minutes of those meetings, it doesn't fall under open meeting law. And so if we have a formal school committee meeting where it's posted as Mrs. Caballa said, that is a formal legal meeting. I just wanted to separate the two. Whether we call it a forum or a school committee meeting, I don't know, that's up to the school committee. Go ahead, Jamie. Well, then it shouldn't be a school committee meeting. Yes, it should be, but it should be a forum. Otherwise, we're going to have to go by our policies, and then they won't be that open. We can't. But if we, through the chair, we don't need to post

053it. I mean, we can advertise it. No, no, but if we have a forum, if we're not deliberating, then it's not a meeting. It's only a meeting. So the seven people there, that's a meeting. But if we're not talking, if we're just there to watch, it's not a meeting. That's my understanding. Well, we'll have to get a legal ruling on that. I understand. Kathy. I just want to understand. I think it's important for us to understand and for the public to understand. What is it going to look like? Because I think that it could, like, I don't want it to be like a firing squad. Like, I don't, it needs to be productive. Right. And it needs to be a productive conversation among all parties so that we can understand. And it can't be hostile.

054It has to be productive. Right. So I'm just trying to figure out, like, we need to have some structure and we need to make sure it's arranged. And I don't know if we. Well, with our moderator. If we have the moderator? I don't know. Hopefully. We don't know if that person's available. Wait. She's here first and then you'll get your chance. I'm wondering if we have some people from the school committee and maybe some people from the public together to kind of figure out how to run this meeting. It depends because if it's a school committee meeting it falls under school committee rules. Right, rules. So I don't know, but I do think we need to figure it out and give people the exact method of how it's going to happen. Yeah, I think we

055should have a little group together with Dr. Ackerman, with Mr. Lamache, and figure it out, and with some of the public so we can have, as you said. peaceful conversation we don't want it hostile because otherwise you're not going to get anything done so I'm just sorry Pauline are you saying that you want to have a smaller group subset to get together to figure out how to go have this forum okay and that we would have met one or two members from this group as well as one of two members from us because we do want the forum with everybody absolutely I just want to be clear I would prefer to have everybody including school committee members including members of the public that has questions put them in question form and I appreciate the way

056everybody has voiced their opinions in the emails that they have sent to us I believe me I appreciate people getting involved it's not easy to do as we volunteer members know and I am glad there are people in there we have children in this district many of us as well same age as your children. And anyway, I think it would make sense, ask the questions ahead of time, give a rough date for a deadline for those questions to come in so that answers can be provided. at this forum. That's a good idea. It doesn't mean that there can't be questions asked for clarification or more information needed or opinions driven given at the night of the forum, but I think it at least will give information back out to everybody. I think that's a good

057idea. I definitely think we can make sure of both. I agree. I don't think you're far from what I was thinking either. And I think it's good. My only comment was the posting piece, legal meeting. That was my only clarification. vote madam chair I just want to point out I'm going to disagree with mr. Laferriere I think the public wants to hear from school committee so I would respectfully ask the school not to set it up in such a way that you can't speak so I would just contradict that so I just think that there's you should set up this forum so that everyone has an opportunity to speak good point but set it up as a forum right well but it would be illegal he's saying post it as a school committee meeting so

058then it's televised it's just like this well we have to post it as a school committee meeting if you post it as the agenda item is the forum then everyone can speak that's it that's the only item that was a point of clarity that I was trying to look from the beginning And I think that would be very advantageous to have questions ahead of time so you know you're going to get the answers to them. But we're not going to stop people in the audience from speaking if they have a question that they didn't put in. So, hi. Hello. My name is Paula Killian Clark. I live at 65 Airport Road in Dudley. I am a former teacher within this district of 40 years at Bay Path and I loved my job I did not

059count down my days till retirement so I have a couple of questions Mr. LaFerriere you addressed one of them while I was sitting here Much has been made in the emails that have gone back and forth about the openness of the process followed by the Equity Committee and tonight I just want to be sure that I understand that you are telling us that the Equity Committee is an advisory committee and on that committee Ms. Willow-Evans is the representative of the school committee. Do I have that correct? Yes, you do. Then I would like to ask the school committee to please take under consideration or the policy committee to please take under consideration that when you are Having a member of your committee bringing back advice and information from another committee to you that though there

060would be minutes that would be provided from that group because one of the problems I see here is that people don't know exactly what is going on and when people don't know exactly what is going on there is uncomfortableness and I don't think that is something that we want to foster. So in view of the fact that we have not had any minutes of school committee reports other than a very general sentence or two, I would like to request that we have some minutes from this ad hoc committee, if that's the correct term, or this advisory committee and that they become part of the meeting and that they would be made available to the public. And I just want to interject that Dr. Ackerman, anytime the Equity Committee has had a meeting. He reported it

061at our school committee meeting But the what I'm seeing when I go back and look at those meetings the meeting notes and I did go back and look through the meetings is I'm seeing a very general one or two line You know that you're making good progress. It was a productive discussion and I for one would like to know more than that, please summaries from going back to last July or August going all the way through the most recent report in the end of this month beginning of June that are available and for folks to have that they are in if you watch previous school committee meetings those those minutes those reports have been have been read okay I I just I find them very general and lacking in specificity and I'd like to have

062more specific details. Also, before my time is up, I would like to reiterate. As a grandparent and as a long-time teacher and a person who has been involved in writing curriculum and implementing curriculum and being an active member of the teachers union at my school, I am very concerned about this verbiage, changing the hearts and minds of students. What specifically is it that needs to be changed? And what are these changed hearts and minds going to look like? Now several of the ladies and gentlemen sitting here before me have given due and diligent service for years on this committee and I would like you to think about what it is that you have seen about the students in Dudley Charlton that makes you think that their hearts and minds are of concern to you personally

063because I believe that is a parent's concern primarily. It is a teacher's concern too because you can't teach if you're not concerned about the hearts and minds. But I don't necessarily think it is our job or your job to be changing students' hearts and minds. I think you put things in front of them and you let students come up with their own conclusions and guide that discussion intelligently. But it is not up to you or any governing body or to a teacher in the classroom. A teacher is not doing a good job if they're imprinting their politics and their heart and minds on the students. And I think I would just leave it at that this evening, and I hope to see you all on the 12th. Thank you for listening. Hi, everyone. My name

064is Shawna Peel, and I live at Family Circle Drive in Charlton, Massachusetts. I have two things, just to touch base on Paula. I'm not a public speaker and I'm a very emotional person. So I teach my children to be kind and love no matter who you are and who you choose to love and what you look like. And I would hope as a community we would just find faith that us parents are doing the best we can with our children and we're trying to bring them up the best they can and love and be kind and respectful. And then, my second, I would like to know how the committee, the equity committee, was formed and how members were chosen. I'm looking at our equity committee website and there are no notes on it or anything.

065Is it possible to put the notes from the different, like even if it's just the summaries? From the updates? Sure. Yeah, because I think that would certainly help people. It wasn't just a line? I don't know that anyone's taken exact minutes because it's not an official formal meeting. Maybe it should go that way. Well. But he had good summaries. Okay. Yeah. I think if we could have going backwards, let's make sure we put the summaries up. Right. My name is Alyssa Hansen. I live on Stafford Street in Charlton, and I'm actually piggybacking off of this last comment. So I speak for myself as many other concerned parents, caregivers, teachers, coaches, educators, all in the community. We would like very specific information on the equity committee. So specifically, why exactly was it started? What specific statistics

066proved that it needed to be created? What groups are included in this committee? Okay, we would like to understand that it's not part of the school committee But it has a direct effect on an influence on the school committee including but not limited to looking over the curriculum and introducing new councils such as dr. Ekins We'd like to know if parents can join for a more diverse population within this equity committee. Can they be voted in? Can minutes I know we just assess this be shared publicly so all parents Educators and the like can see them from past and future We would like them to be shared publicly not just thrown into the school committee Which I know we just talked about and again the school committee is allowing their influence. So it should be

067public It shouldn't be behind closed doors Thank you Good evening Derek Donahue 5 Misty Meadow Lane I believe this evening anybody that's home on Vimeo or Zoom is not eligible to call in correct correct I would ask that we waive that for the forum correct it's correct they can't call in they even a forum what I want to waive it for the forum well we'll have to decide the committee will have to decide that I can't just say we'll wait for the forum. We'll have to vote on that. But I think there are going to be parents and children at home that should be able to call in and voice their opinions. I'm not going to mimic because everybody said excellent things and I agree with all of them. However, I think on that website,

068chances are you've got a slide deck that came from these different symposiums and discussions and I think those slides should be posted as well. Why do we before some before she speaks why don't we decide do we want to wave and have them call in We were told last session that we voted for the ability to have a school committee member call in to be at a meeting but I thought it was Like Steve, but you have to come in person if you want to speak right and they'd have to come to the forum I think don't you think so? So my opinion is I just think that would be very challenging to try to navigate. I'm not opposed to hearing from every person in this community. I just think it would be challenging to

069navigate, which is why I think it's even more critical to get the questions from people ahead of time. Right. And that's why I tried, Mr. Donahue, I don't know who you went back to, but that's why I try to say I think we need to have a way for children to be able to get the questions ahead of time. No, no, for children to be able to be watched on site. just like at town meeting they do sometimes i don't know if they do that in dudley but they do that in charlton where there's a way that people can be watched you know the the national i'm saying it all messed up but the national honor society students come here to watch the students in the library while we're in the auditorium or whatever i

070have little kids too it would be how i would have to do it i think it would be difficult to navigate um calling in If they can get their questions ahead of time, and then we have the forum for whoever can come, I don't think we should waive it. How would the others think? Kenny. Through the chair. So I agree and I agree with Mrs. Terry. I think navigating that with the public being there and having the phone, how are we going to navigate that, one. And two, if the questions are there ahead of time, people can send them in and get the answers that they're looking for. And then the third thing, if we're going to have it recorded, the tape will be there. People can go on Vimeo and watch the recording just

071like a school committee meeting. So that's also another alternative for people to see the meeting. They can watch it from home live or watch the recording. I just wanted to put that out there. I think we all agree that we should have them calling in. We shouldn't waive our policy on that. It's also not going to be a one and done. This is going to be the beginning of a conversation that leads down a more complete formation of a... an ad hoc who said that an ad hoc group an advisory group or whatever so i think this is baseline questions answered and then where do we go from here wait i have let let this follow up question okay you know when they had the meeting about the fire and police department in charlton they

072allowed people to submit questions through zoom so if that were an option people at home could still participate I don't mind that, but I think if we do that, then we need to have somebody dedicated sitting there with a computer in front of them that can ask a question. I'm not for it, so I don't know. Anybody else? I'm not opposed to it. I'm not against it. I'm just curious. I'm not opposed to it, and I don't mind sitting with it as long as it comes in its question form. I don't mind asking them. I would say that a school committee member should not be the people that are moderating the forum on Zoom. Agreed. Because I've moderated forums before, and we're going to need to keep our focus on the issues at hand. Okay.

073So we could have a separate moderator, but we need to keep our focus. There. The layout of how the forum will go, there's a dedicated chapter from like 740 to like 750. You can submit questions specifically from home. to the forum and then close it after that point. So it's an ongoing thing through the night where people are just firing questions off from their house. We're going to have to figure my suggestion is that We certainly take we're gonna have the form we certainly can send out You know can we get questions at a time and the other thing that I've seen work well in meetings to whether it's a town meeting or not is somebody Text somebody else or email somebody else a question that whoever's at the meeting can get up and ask

074the question As well, so you don't have that intermediate piece. I've seen that happen in every meeting So somebody can text somebody a friend or whatever and say hey, can you ask this question? Or I don't have clarity on exactly. What was the response there? I've seen that work very effectively in meetings There is no service in this building, but there is service at Shepparton regional high school It may be spotty at times, but there is better service there Well Marsha, where Marsha Wagner 27 Hickory Drive in Dudley I had a long thing to talk about but I think I'll save it for the forum but what I wanted to say on following up on hearts and minds I attended a school music concert at Dudley middle school, I guess it was, a couple years

075ago, and there was an accomplished violinist. And after she finished, there was spontaneous applause like we had never seen, and the girl was of color. So I asked my granddaughter about it, and she said, oh yeah, Joy. And I said, do you see any evidence of racism in school? She said, we see her color like we see a blonde and a brunette and a redhead, and that's it. And I said, well, is that just your group? Does she, you know, experience discrimination? And she said, not that I see. So I just can't understand why we signed up to this anti-racist resolution. Our communities are not racist. Our committees are not racist. I'm sure if you had the highest qualified candidate to hire and staff. It wouldn't matter their color. You would hire them. And so,

076again, I don't know why we ever signed on to this resolution. Good evening. My name is David Smolsky. I live at 189 Center Depot Road. And I'm going to just respond to some of the things I've heard tonight, but I've also prepared a statement. I think it's a great idea to have this forum coming up. I think it's going to be a good way to have a lot of people participate. I agree with the idea of submitting questions in advance, trying to have an effective meeting. I will say I participated in a survey, a couple surveys, I think it was, for the COVID return to school. I asked no fewer than 20 questions, and I had zero that I felt were answered until I actually made an appointment with Dr. Ackerman. We had a good

077half-hour conversation. I thank you for that. But if you're going to do it, you've got to do it right. If you're going to ask for input, you've got to be prepared to provide answers. So I just wanted to get that out as a response to what I've heard tonight. A lot of it I agree with. So now the prepared statement. From what I've gathered, our school district's administration has been forthcoming about reinstituting the equity committee. And it was announced last summer. It's been a topic in multiple school committee meetings. So if you do the research, I find that it's on the up and up. Now, the content of those meetings, we don't know. On the flip side, I think when many parents and caregivers have tried to get educated on the equity committee's approach, there

078have been a lot of questions and a level of dissatisfaction with the information that's been offered. To bring this up a level, critical race theory is a hot topic these days. You could probably go on the internet, pick your browser of choice, and find a dozen different definitions for it. And you can gather information and opinions that are either strongly for it or against it, depending on how it's defined or, unfortunately, even politics. One definition that I came across mentions that race is a socially constructed category. used to oppress and exploit people of color, and that critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the US are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and non-whites, especially African Americans. Personally, I appreciate

079related context from Dr. Carol Swain. Some of you might be familiar with Dr. Swain, a former professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities. She mentioned something along the lines that the demonization of people because of skin color is discriminatory. I interpret that to mean that discrimination is not a good thing. In contrast, when I read the writer Ibram Kendi, he says that the defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity, or inequity. And I cannot help but scratch my head because if I remember right, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination, period. So when it comes to critical race theory locally, people want to know if our school district is doing it or not doing it. Sorry, I dropped my paper. My understanding is the district administration stance is that critical race theory is

080not being introduced or taught to teachers and students. With that in mind, I think some parents are concerned with the district's choice on who the equity committee has partnered with. A quick internet search shows that Dr. Sheldon Eakins of Leading Equity Center says it's time to annihilate racial injustice in schools. I imagine most people in the room would agree that there's no room for racial injustice in our schools. Critical race theory is also mentioned repeatedly in related posts and content along with the hashtag critical race theory. So you can find that information in his content. So when parents hear that we're not doing critical race theory, but we also hear that a student group has been partnering with the Leading Equity Center, to create a critical friends group. I think the word critical is what

081stands out to people. In closing, I think we all need to come together more than seeking out things to further divide us. I don't know what everyone's religious beliefs are, but I do know we've done a good job chasing God out of the school system. I wonder what would happen if we remembered to go back to some basics like loving our neighbor as ourselves. If we did that, where would we be? Thank you. Okay before we close anyone else would like to come up Megan Chan I'm from 23 Old Worcester Road Extension and my question was in the beginning we started talking about the equity committee and I know you guys were joking around like So you're in charge of the equity committee you're in control of it because it's a school district item But

082the school committee doesn't have any control over it. How do we change that? What do we need to do to switch that so the school committee has more of a say in the equity committee? Who is in charge of this? So if it is Mr. Lamar, that's fine, but we're not happy with what we're seeing right now. So how do we get that out of that control and into your control because we all voted for you? We trust you more than the school district, especially right now. So what can we do to get that out of that control and put it back in the hands of the people that we voted for? That's a good question. We'll answer it at a later date. Okay. Thank you. Alyssa Hansen, Stafford Street. Just one more quick question

083in regards to the equity committee. I would like to go on the record asking when the next equity committee meeting is and ask on the form if we can have that be an open meeting. Where any citizens can attend is that something we can do right now? There is no scheduled next equity committee meeting. Can it be posted when it gets determined and have it be an open meeting? If I could be honest with you I'd prefer to look at the form and work on the form and see what that leads to the next step There is no scheduled equity second or next equity committee meeting which I appreciate and we all Appreciate the forum coming up I just want to not have this loss in the cracks and I know citizens would like to

084attend the forum as well as the equity committee meetings and I'm sure there will be one in the future so I don't want to lose sight of that and have that be public and have citizens be able to be in attendance I'm not confident that there will be an equity committee there may be some other as Mrs. Terry said some other committee termed and whatever that is of course Thank you So Okay come forward You have to come forward. Hi, Mrs. Dono. Hi. How are you? Hi. It's been a long time. I know. I was at South Wall the other day. Hi. Just a quick question regarding this whole process and the forum. Is it possible that Dr. Eakins, the consultant, could be present at that? so that we can understand what he has presented

085to the teachers as far as the curriculum, if there's a curriculum, or what he looks toward having them do within that classroom. And then the other part of that is, Dr. Ackerman, if you could possibly speak at the forum regarding the health programs that we have. also character education and looking at that current information what additional information will the consultant provide to the teachers? We completed our contract with the consultant so if we were to invite him back in it would be a cost to the district to do that I would recommend not to do that but I certainly appreciate the feedback. I was just asking, you know, if it's possible, is there anyone who sat in on those that could present some of that information? Our entire district sat in on all of those.

086I'm sorry? Our entire district sat in for professional development with Dr. Aikens. Okay. I don't think so, but I will circle back to it. But I don't think so. Those were on a different platform called GoToWebinar, and I do not believe they were recorded. Are there slides? Are there slides? Are there slides? There may be. There may be. Let me, yeah, I can look into that. I think what I'm seeing here is that. parents, grandparents, all of us are wondering, you know, where is this going? When you don't have the knowledge, you don't have that security and power. So I think it's important for them if they understand. We've got one over here, too. Mosquitoes in our school. Oh, my goodness. It's important for everyone. I think once they have that understanding of What we're

087trying to do with this program. I don't know what you want to call it at this point That people will feel better they want to know you know these are their kids my grandkids, right that whatever is being presented is of a quality nature and safe Okay, that's it okay, so Yeah, how are we going to get these questions that we're going to have to tell Hi my name is Shannon Murray I'm from 10 Lori Lane in Charlton thank you for taking the time to listen tonight I just want to make something clear to everyone here as well as you because I feel like everything is getting past the buck to the equity committee you know I've worked with Dr. Ackerman this year personally and you know we've had you know good meetings and conversations

088but you know I think as a parent going through some of the school committee meeting minutes like the buck doesn't start or stop with equity committee i'm just going to read something from your june 23rd meeting last year for the anti-racism resolution that was voted on by the school committee meeting this is the last line on this resolution and i personally found this very disturbing when i was told that BLM and critical race theory was not being put into our school systems, was not being something that we were looking at. And this came from June 2020's meeting that the school committee held. We must ensure our own school culture and that of every district in the Commonwealth is anti-racist that acknowledges that all lives cannot matter until black lives matter. So that to me stuck

089out to say. Okay, so school committee is looking at Black Lives Matter a year ago. Here we are and the transparency has been unclear. We've gotten different feedback, different pyramids from you, Dr. Eggerman, have got different emails coming back and forth. But I just want to be very clear that the buck doesn't stop with the Equity Committee, because this is a resolution that all of the school committee voted on last year that talks about Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter capitalized on George Floyd's death, and all of that money that they got out of that didn't go to help anybody improve their lives. So this is something that was being supported by our school committee last year. So I just want to make sure accountability is held with all of you as well as that

090committee. because that's where it starts and stops. You guys are the school committee. We elect you to take care of our children and to put the district in the curriculum that we need that will follow through and help them grow as kind human beings. But when this is going through as a resolution over a year ago, we're being told the opposite now with all of the stuff that's gone on this past year. People need to be held accountable. Like, so there's a lot of talk up here and I hear a lot where it's pushing it over to the equity committee, but I hope everyone in this room, and I know a lot of people have read these meeting minutes and all the meeting minutes from the past year and they're aware of this, the accountability

091doesn't just sit there. Thank you. Joellen's Astro 10 Denfield Road in Charlton and I have a little different question I'm wondering how much time is going to be taken out of our school day to teach these concepts to our children and my concern with that is that we've just denied our children a year of good solid education and until And I think that until every child is proficient in math and reading and science, then academics should be the focus of this district. Because we know education is the best equalizer ever. If you can teach every child in the best possible way that you can academically, I think that that would make this a very successful district. And I don't think that as a former teacher, there are a lot of extra minutes in any teacher's

092day. to add other ideas rather than academics. Thank you. Hi Kelly Zella 50 Partridge Hill Road it's odd to be on the side of the table my my good friend John Perra always used to insist that I should run for this committee and I know you all do wonderful things I did choose to run with the PTO and meet some of the families and work with the teachers in this district I did that for many many years I've put in hundreds of volunteer hours if not thousands in this town for our children I run my own small home daycare. I'm very familiar with children and families in this town. My mother is a retired second grade teacher. She put in her time. I am a product of Dudley Charlton and I am proud to be

093one. So thank you for all the people who have served for so long and done the wonderful things that you've done. But we're at a breaking point. We've reached a fine line. We need to come together for solutions. and bring people to the table who maybe we haven't considered I missed the beginning of this meeting so I don't know but an important piece that I found in our community is our teachers so I guess my question is where is their voice in some of these things that are coming through we know as educators that they are the ones that make the impressions they are the ones that are molding small children and creating products of our community which I am very proud and would like to continue to be proud of I would appreciate if

094before your next meeting or this forum which I'm told is July 12th that perhaps I know the teachers are on break but perhaps some of them could be reached out to survey voice clearly anonymous I don't believe anybody needs to necessarily unless they want to put their their face with a statement I feel that might be a discomfort for them but I do believe that they should have a side and a voice of what's going on with the curriculum and what they're being asked to be teaching our children and what direction they feel we should be going when I heard that this is a possibility that's coming through I understand that there are things and policies and things that people don't know that school committee has to deal with unless you're paying attention to every

095single meeting and going back and looking it's a hard job I understand that but I think we really need to make sure at the end of the day our teachers can sleep at night our parents can sleep at night and you can sleep at night knowing that we have come together under the same umbrella to build unity to love everyone to follow the golden rule because that's what I was taught as a child in the school that was important we didn't see color we didn't see it's not like that as a kid ask a child in our system again I don't I think I did miss some good conversations or pieces from some parents but I feel like if this is an important time and a direction that we're going so I would like to

096make sure that we're going in the right direction for everybody involved in Dudley Charlton community and knowing so many of them I feel like they should absolutely be a part of the conversation going forward as I can tell it's certainly important for that thank you Anyone else? Christine Doust 111 Ramshorn Road right here in Charlton so I'm gonna fly off the cuff here because I don't have anything prepared so it won't be quite eloquent as everyone else eloquent my question is you know kind of piggybacking on the What brought us to the point where we needed to form this equity committee? What data, statistics, what brought that here? Because I think where we are right now, I think we really need to focus on our kids' mental well-being and our kids' mental health. They've just

097been locked up for the last year, year and a half, away from their friends and family and missing out on education. So there's this gap of time that they've lost not only socially but academically that I think that we need to really focus our efforts and time on that. and not something that might be mainstream popular in whatever media or whatever it needs to happen. I think our kids' mental well-being and their education should be top priority, and then everything else really should kind of land on parents as a whole. So I guess my question is, what brought us to the point where that, the Equity Committee, and the CRT, which clearly is a hot topic, kind of took precedence over that? over our kids Just filling that gap in for them and really helping

098them out. Anyone else? Okay, so a forum is July 12th Okay, go ahead First first and foremost, thank you guys for your public service. I really want to point that out I know you guys are up here taking a lot of fire I'm sorry. My name is Bob Carlson. I live in Laurel Lane and Dudley I sat back here. I don't come to a lot of these meetings, so I'm not going to speak as nicely as the other folks here. But I noticed that you guys took everything to vote, right? Who sits in what chair? Who heads up what committee? And I thought, wow, that's a really good way to do things, right? Creates order. I think what we have going on, we're at a pivotal point in time where... We need order more now

099than ever. But I think when we go back and look at the voting process, we trust that you guys are going to make the right decision for our kids. And, you know, I don't know how the curriculum is picked. Again, I'm new to this, but now that I have a daughter in school, I'm very actively involved like most of these other parents. My question is, if everything is done by vote, Why can't we vote on what curriculum is taught to our students, our kids? If that's something that we vote for who's going to be where, who's going to be in what position, I think you guys dig up what curriculums you think are going to be best and bring them to the table and allow us to vote to what our kids are going to

100learn. I think that would be the best way to solve all the issues that are at hand right now. I don't see much racism within our communities. My daughter plays soccer, both town as well as club teams. There's many ethnicities on these teams, and all I see is kids having fun together. And I think what we're doing now is we're planting seeds in their mind that people are different, but we don't need to do that. They'll figure it out for themselves. I just ask that you take that into consideration. That's all. Okay, I'm going to remind you the forum will be on July 12th, 7 o'clock at Shepherd Hill in the auditorium. And you can email all your questions, anybody that has questions, and we hopefully can get to all of them. Should they be

101emailed to Dr. Ackerman? Yes. Email them to Dr. Ackerman. We're going to send out a survey. Okay. We're soliciting questions. All right. Can I just double check? Because we said that we were going to have to help us with the forum makeup. Do we have that representative? Well we can choose that representative How many do you think we should have I think at least one from Dudley one from Charlton right Okay and you're from Dudley Okay and then one from Charlton okay All these questions that people are in, will those be available for everybody else to just click on and get the questions to understand what is out there, what other people are asking? Through a previous, we've tried, with all respect to Mr. Smolsky, sorry if I mispronounced it. Okay, we tried to if

102there were similar questions We tried to boil them down to one question instead of asking the same question over and over again But we do present all of the questions that are asked to us and we try to do dr Ackerman has done a wonderful job of doing this all year long with any surveys that we sent out We try to do the best we can but that doesn't eliminate somebody being able to get up and ask a question if they didn't hear their specific Question, so we will try to have like questions come together in an organized way to be organized So we will attempt to do all that but everyone get all the questions that were boiling down and trying to present. We will record, obviously, this meeting, the forum on the 12th

103as well. Thank you, Mr. Donahue. Now, Kathy, you're going to be part of that subgroup. Do you want to? It sounded like you did. That's fine. But let's do it quick. Yeah. This week? Yeah, this week. Who else? Anyone else on the committee want to work with Kathy? And Kathy will get the moderator because that was good. Ms. Peel and Ms. Seaman, do you have time this week to work with the subgroup? Okay. Tomorrow, Friday? Tomorrow morning? Yeah. We have an admin meeting, but I'll excuse Dr. Ackerman, and I'll try to run the admin meeting without you, Dr. Ackerman, if that's okay. We don't have to worry about driving anywhere? We can always know we can make a motion at that meeting The little girl here yeah, yeah figure that out get you know all

104the pros and cons of what you think is going to happen Through the committee we have okay All set? Yes. Just so I can restate so I'm clear, Ms. Seaman, Ms. Peel, Ms. Carminati, Jean, and myself, 10 o'clock tomorrow? I heard 11. Can I hear 11? Let's make it early. Is it okay? 10? 10. Whatever works for you, I can... Does that work for you, Jean? I can move a couple of things. Okay. Thank you. So 10 a.m.? Are you good with 10 a.m., Ms. Peel? Okay, everyone's all set. Can we go on to the next item now? After this little group gets together, they'll send out the information. have you been receiving my emails updates right again if you've been getting the updates that I send out I don't think so Madam Chair I

105will put a link on our posting but we would ask all of you to share it with your neighbors and everybody else share scheduling Okay, everyone satisfied? Thank you all. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go on to our next agenda item, and that's communications. What? You want to take a recess? No. You want a recess? Let's keep going. I don't, let's just keep going. Oh, you want a recess? Okay. They want a recess. Go ahead. That's up to you. Okay. We'll take five minutes, okay? We're going to take a recess. What a night. Okay, next item on the agenda is communications. and uh mr lamarche do you have any first yes madam chair i do have one communication um i came into work on monday morning and it's i received this note that says

106uh superintendent lamarche administrative staff and school board uh school committee you did a wonderful job navigating our district during a pandemic thank you for your hard work and commitment to our children have a wonderful summer um and what it was is the women's club of dudley uh bloomed us so i'd like to share with you that they Really? It was, it was very nice. I wanted to share that with the committee. They were right out in front of the other, right by the clock out in front of that door right there. I did take one picture if you'd like I'd share it with you. But it was very nice. So that's the correspondence I have for the committee this evening. And our members, anyone have communications? I have. I got these as chair. There was

107three thank you cards here from staff, Mrs. Pastore, Mrs. Stockis, and Mrs., I guess it's Dolores. That must be the lunch lady. Yes. I can't read the writing. But there's three thank you cards. I'll pass them around the table thanking us for the retirement gifts. So I'll pass these around for people to read. But that's all I have for communications. Okay. Anyone else? I have one about the ventilation system and I referred it to Mr. Matthews. He's going to speak about it under his report. Okay. Right? Okay. All right. Anyone else? Okay, and the school committee did get two, one from Kevin McCarthy and one from Carol Sue Rem, if I'm pronouncing her name correctly. And they wanted it read into the record, and I will just read the little excerpt from our policy. The

108school committee will not read a communication into the record on behalf of an individual or group. The school committee instead supports public participation under policy BEDH, Citizens Forum Agenda Item. So that takes care of the communications that the committee got from those two. And that brings us to superintendent's report. Mr. Lamache. Madam Chair and school committee, I do have a number of items to report on this evening. One is that we are back. We're back as a full committee. We're back around the table together. That's certainly an exciting time. I know we have some bumps and things to transcend, but we will do that as a group. but it's great to be back. It's great to actually have people in the audience. Tonight was probably a little more of an audience than we're used to

109as a group, but nonetheless, it's great to have people involved with the school committee. Well, I'm going to read some of my report. While we made it to the end of the school year, this year will remain unimaginable with low points and high points, but I must say that our staff, students, families, in their transition to summer, is certainly celebrated as a high point for the Dudley Child Reunion School District and for the communities of Dudley-Charlton. I think that there were a lot of student events that happened near the end of the school year that really reflected upon as close to pre-pandemic as possible. And I know that I saw lots of students really enjoy themselves socially with the last couple of days of school. As we have all year, we continue to receive information

110from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. I also continue to receive questions about the start of the next school year and what will that look like. I completely understand the desire to know now what will happen in nine weeks, but it would be misguided for me to predict what the state of our fairs will look like that far out. What I will share is that all of our planning is a safe return to pre-COVID schooling. No mask requirements, no social distancing, no testing. But any one of these could change as we get close to the start of school next year, not because of us, because of the guidelines and guidance from our state agencies. As we learn and read any of the new state agency guidance over the summer, we will be sure to

111share it out as soon as we receive it, as we have done all year. I do want to reiterate a statement that was shared at the May 26th school committee meeting. We continue to hear chatter and requests of school districts to weigh in on the topics of requiring vaccinations for return to school next year. In listening to my colleagues, there are some districts who are looking for legal opinions to determine such, if they can require such, because they want to require such. I need to reiterate that I will not bring forward a recommendation to this school committee as the superintendent of the Delhi-Chop Regional School District. I strongly believe that the decision must come from a state or federal agency, not from me. Of course, if the school committee decides differently, I will implement that

112decision. And to add clarity, I am not an anti-vaxxer, as our family is either vaccinated or getting vaccinated as our youngest just turned 12 years old. But I want to reiterate, I will not be bringing a recommendation forward for such. This also leads me to summer programming and true to our school year we received numerous communications in the last fluttering of communications in the last couple of days about mask wearing during summer programming. We've received contradictory information so I'll read directly from the last DESE guidance that came to us. For summer programs masking indoors and maintaining other health and safety guidance is not required but is encouraged. The Dusty Summer Guidance is in alignment with state guidance encouraging unvaccinated individuals to continue to mask. The DPH Mask Advisory advises unvaccinated residents to continue to wear

113masks in indoor settings and when they can't, socially distance. So therefore, we are in a position where we are not, we are following that guidance. We are not going to require masking of our students and staff. If they are unvaccinated, we are certainly encouraging them. And I want to reiterate, as I did in a form of communication, if someone chooses to wear a mask, they have that right and they will have 100% of our support to do so. And I will leave it up to school committee for a change in that, but that is our recommendation for summer programming based off of the DESE guidance at this time. This evening I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate our real and sincere responsibility, going on to another topic, excuse me, responsibility to ensure school

114committee policies and 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. Our collective work is to maintain unfettered access to every benefit for every student who enters our school. To be clear, the Dudley-Charlton 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 content, excuse me, for a point of contact and reference, you can reach out to any, bless you, you can reach out to any staff member, but as required by statute, here are the coordinators to ensure equity and access in the Dudley-Children Regional School District. Our Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. Our Equal Educational

115Opportunities Act Coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. Our Title IX of Education Amendments Act of 1972 Coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. Our Mass General Law Chapter 76 Section 5 School Attendance Coordinator is Ms. Ann Marie Lafon. Our Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Coordinator is Ms. Lorinda Allen. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 Coordinator is Dr. Brian Ackerman. American with Disabilities Act coordinator is Miss Lorinda Allen. McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistant Act coordinator is Miss Lorinda Allen. Again, you should feel free to reach out to any Dudley Child and Regional School District staff member, educator, or administrator, and principals are and will continue to be incredible resources and will help guide parents, caregivers, and staff to the right coordinator if needed. On to the next topic. At the last school committee meeting, sorry

116for a couple of my typos that I'm noticing now. We recognize two incredible principals who are on the next chapter of their life's book. This evening I would like to recognize the dedicated educators who will be doing the same. We certainly appreciate all of their efforts to make this year the best it could be given the circumstances. So I would like to recognize Ms. Ellen Roach from Heritage Elementary School, Ms. Nancy Eisner from Heritage Elementary School. Ms. Sarah Sanborn from Charlton Elementary School, Mr. Kevin Foley from Charlton Middle School, Ms. Gloria Gould from Mason Road School, Ms. Deborah Richards from Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Ms. Deborah Sullivan from Charlton Middle School, and Ms. Kathleen Dowd-Murphy from Charlton Middle School. We wish them all the best summer and new adventures in the future. I have

117just a couple of other points of information that I think are important. One is NEASC. We did receive a letter for NEASC for the bicentennial. Is that how you say it? to Dicennial maybe can you say what NEASC is NEASC is the New England Association of School Accreditation did I say that right I think so well I just wanted to know what it was they accredited our high school okay it is a requirement for a decennial I think it's decennial review that was to be scheduled in 2026 it was moved out a year because of COVID so the decennial review will be in 2027 now The district received a received a project lead the way distinction our Shepherd Hill Regional High School I thought that was a great recognition of the work that's being done

118and our educators at Shepherd Hill Regional High School and we look forward to continue to work with project lead the way moving forward. I also wanted to report that this week the Board of Education had passed some new CVTE, which is Career and Vocational Technical Education regulations for admission of students. I want to preface this by saying that we have a great relationship with Bay Path, so this is really an impact to us and our relationship with Bay Path, but I thought it would be important just to at least share some of these regulatory changes that came forward for admission to. vocational technical education schools the plan number one includes a deliberate and specific strategies to promote equal educational opportunities and attract enroll and retain a student population that when compared to students in similar

119grades and sending districts has a comparable academic and demographic profile that is new language within the regulations that came forward The other thing with the admissions policy, the district, Bay Path will have to work on their admissions policy, which I think they already have one in place. And again, I'm prefacing this by saying we have a great work relationship. This is not specific to us as a district. It's across our state. But the criteria now includes that a student's record of excused absences from school or minor behavior or disciplinary infractions cannot be used in the admissions process when admitting students. behavior of infraction is something that is not suspension or expulsion. And that all has to be in place by October 1st of next year. So I just wanted to update you on those new

120regulations that came out I think yesterday or the day before, just so that you were aware. And we'll continue to work with Kyle Brennan, the superintendent for Bay Path. And we quote he and I spoke today and we have open lines of communication and a collaborative approach to things. So again, it's not an issue with Bay Path for us, but it's just it's we are a member of the Bay Path regional system and there are I think 11 districts, nine, 11. I think it's 11. I think there are 11 districts involved, so this could impact one or two of those. I'm not sure, but it's something we'll continue to work with and be a member and a partner of. And that concludes the superintendent's report this evening. Thank you, Mr. Lamar. Any questions I do

121have a question on your the listing of all your your title six coordinator your educational Opportunities act coordinator and so on do we have those listed on the website for parents to know who they are I just couldn't find them Okay, I just didn't know where they are. We send them out every year so and district information any other questions they may be i just don't know where they are any other questions okay we're going to new business reporter the director of finance and operation director matthew Thank you very much. In terms of donations this evening, the district has received a donation of $3,000 from the Dudley Charlton Educational Fund to assist with the implementation of the summer math academies at the middle schools. I recommend acceptance of this donation. I'll entertain a motion to

122accept the $3,000 donation. So moved. Second. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you. Next up are the French River Educational Collaborative bids. As the committee is aware, but some others may not be, the district is a member of the French River Educational Collaborative, FREC, and we utilize them for bids for everything from copy paper to oil to athletics and food service. This evening we have our school supplies bid, our copy paper bid, our computer supplies bid, our custodial supplies bid, our athletics bid, our frozen foods bid, our non-food bid items such as paper plates and those sorts of things for the food service program, and bread and rolls. All of those bids were posted on the school committee. shared page. I don't know if there are any questions regarding any

123specific bids there. Any questions on any of the bids? Can we take them all together if there are no questions? If the committee chooses to, I see no issue with that. Okay, because you have everything attached and we did look at it. Any questions on any of the bids? I need a motion to approve the bids from the French River Education Collaborative. Okay, do I have a second? Second. Discussion? Any discussion? Seeing none all in favor motion carries. It's unanimous Thank you. Next up On my memo was a note about our district treasurer In shorts Since being appointed to position in fall of 2019, Ms. Carol Barron has been working very diligently to get the district in line from the treasurer's office perspective. As a result of- The appointment between our long-serving treasurer miss Melinda

124Ernst Fornia in spring of 2019 And the treasurer that was appointed in in May and subsequently resigned in August there were gaps created in both fiscal years Miss Barron has been working as we have found out as we've been meeting to finalize some some things well above and beyond the time allotted which is basically one day per week eight hours per week for for her salary as a result of the additional time invested by Ms. Barron out of dedication to the district I'm respectfully and humbly requesting the school committee consider an additional one time Payment to miss Barron of $1,000 for it per invested time above and beyond her current compensation I entertain a motion to approve that one-time payment to our district treasurer of $1,000 Okay discussion I'm wondering where we're taking that payment

125from It'll just come from the salary group at the district office We're not able to put that under a grant as it was, is it COVID related? No, this has nothing to do with COVID. Everybody's done the above and beyond. It started back in 2019, but the gap is not invited. So that's before COVID. Do we have enough funds in that? Like we're not going to overextend ourselves? No, I am comfortable recommending this level of expenditure. Any other questions? I wanted to say, as tradition, I think the school committee should send a letter of thanks as well to Ms. Barron, too, for all the work. I know we're doing this motion, but that would be good, too. Right. Okay, will do. Anyone else? Okay, seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you

126very much for your support in that particular area. Two other things. Last thing on my memo here is the community eligibility provision program. And Mr. Greenberg is actually up next on the agenda, and he can touch on it if I make any errors, issues, or omissions in here. But as previously announced, for the upcoming school year 2021-22, the federal government will maintain the free lunch program for all students that was in place for this year. However, we still have to certify the schools and district as see for the community eligibility provision and it turns out that in Dudley the when combined Mason Road Dudley Elementary Dudley Middle School and the collaborative actually are collectively over the 40% mark for a CEP so if indeed those numbers hold because we've been told this preliminarily before but

127if indeed these numbers hold it would mean an additional two years of free lunch at least at the three Dudley schools in the collaborative I'll defer to Mr. Greenberg on that if he could bring it up during his report And then the last thing, as Mrs. Kabala indicated, she did send me an email with some questions on Heritage HVAC, specifically about the auditorium and the library. As I recall, the issue or how we've addressed Heritage has been to put on what I'll refer to as a medium-term band-aid. It's nothing that's going to go away tomorrow, but it hasn't completely solved all of the issues. do some investigation about the use of the auditorium and library going forward for next year. I think given the size of the library, we should be... comfortable to use it

128with the addition of air purifiers in that space. However, in the auditorium, I don't want to say whether or not I think we can do that, given the volume of space there. So we'll reach back out to our consultants, and hopefully we can turn around a director of public facilities rather quickly, bring them on board. address this issue before school starts so I'll be I'll make a note to update the committee in either July or August on that I received a call concerned because they thought that the whole building was fixed and they found out they could have the permission to use the auditorium for a little retirement party they had to go into the auditorium they needed permission of staff to have their party but that's what it was brought to light and then

129they found out also the library is not basically usable so the question was will be fixed over the summer because they thought the whole building was fixed and I said I didn't know so that's why I wrote to Mr. Matthew yep yep so we'll certainly take a look at that that would be the goal that we have both spaces available for the start of school but again I think the library is an easier fix than the auditorium at least the fourth graders use the auditorium at the end of the school year so I had a conversation with my own son about being in there so I'm not sure if it was well known that it wasn't usable. I don't think it was. Again usable to maximum capacity. Maximum it wasn't max as far as far

130different than having a couple of people in there. That's fine It makes me feel better to have that conversation But and I have also been told that having the door open and that has a door. I don't know security wise It's okay, but having the door open does bring a strong amount of ventilation into that building. Absolutely. So yeah, I think our strategies are gonna go away For air movement near ventilation as mr. Matthew said in we shared in the beginning heritage has a unique your handling system And so our fixes were not to redo the entire system because that would have been millions of dollars. My other question, I'm not going to address it. The question was asked since we put all that money into fixing the HVAC. We still have ADF purifiers at

131Heritage. Can those be replaced so they don't have to keep doing the filters because it's expensive? No, no, that is the strategy. That is the key to keeping Heritage healthy. That's what I think should address that question that came up. Could you explain that to the general public? Sure. Again, you know, with the lack of outside air exchanges in the original design of Heritage, the introduction of the air purifiers and the ionization process is what is treating the air there. So we're able to use the recirculated air because it's being cleaned appropriately. How often do the filters have to be replaced and how much do they cost? I'm not sure of the cost, but I think those models were once a year for replacement. What did they think that it cost? They didn't know, but

132they thought if the HVAC was fixed, why are the filters still being used? And that's why I asked the question. Yeah, and it's not fixed. Go ahead. Through the chair. Again, the HVAC system was fixed to a certain degree. It wasn't redone completely. And keep in mind, opening windows is a solution as well. This was when you had to close the windows for weather because it was too cold out or whatever. We needed the air purification system in there too. So there's more than one layer to it, but everything has to work together to make it work. But that's why she asked the questions. I wanted to get up here. Okay, those are my questions. Thank you. That's all I have. Go ahead. Mr. Matthew, just a question on the lunch program. I know it

133was previously announced about the federal government's going to pick it up for next year. Do we have any indication of if that's going to become permanent? I don't have one again director Greenberg is going to be speaking on the agenda right after me so perhaps he has some insight great but I'm not sure that we can count on a free lunch forever but we might be able to for a couple of years a couple of years yeah just be I know that's a dream of Mrs. O'Kane that she wants forever and ever so thank you thank you we're getting there a couple years worth That's all I had for this evening Thank you Mr. Matthew so next on the agenda is summer meal program food service director Greenberg This year for summer meals we were

134able to partner with Spencer East Brookfield School District and Webster School District to help cover our students and families the Spencer East Brookfield program had started this Tuesday started this Tuesday we sent out an email a few weeks ago with a link from mrs. Pulver who is the food service director there as well the option is to pick up on Tuesdays from 11 to 12 at the Charlton chip in we have gotten buy-in from miss Darlene Rollins who is the operations at the Charlton Chip Inn. We are also going to work with her to try to get her mission out to the community as well because families can take advantage of the Charlton Chip Inn when days that they're open. With dispensaries Brookfield it is a weekly order form that has to be filled out

135they can pick it up either at East Brookfield Elementary, Knox Trail Middle School or the Charlton. Chippin, the Spencer East Brookfield locations, they can be picked up five days a week, but they only come out to Charlton on Tuesdays. For the other side, for Webster, their program is an open site, which means there is no forms to fill out. You just show up during operational hours, and they will provide you meals. That program starts July 6th and runs through August 5th. The pickup locations are Park Ave Elementary and Webster Middle School. I don't have actual operational times. I'm waiting for my counterpart to send me those. So once I get that information, I will send it out to the district. So that's where we're at with summer meals. It's free. In regards to CEP, as

136I overheard the conversation, currently right now the average with the Dudley schools, we are over the 40% threshold as we combine them. However, the USDA and the federal government has extended the waiver for universal meals for next year as well. As to your question, is this going to be permanent, it has passed in a form in the House of Representatives. However, it has stalled in the Senate. I think DESE believes that this is a dry run to see if it can just keep getting extended year by year. But the School Nutrition Association as well as DESE are hoping that it will get passed. So it's hopeful fingers crossed. I mean there is there is a lot of momentum in this movement if you will and You know no one the positive statistics of feeding kids

137breakfast and lunch and having a good square meal Studies have shown that learning goes up and attentive goes up and attendance goes up. So I think that it's a good investment and It just has to find a few more supporters at the federal level. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Greenberg? So there's no drop-off in Dudley then? If we do get approved, there will be no drop-off for two years, yes. I'm talking about the summer program. You mean pick up? Pick up. I mean they drop off the food and the kids can pick it up. If I do live in Dudley. So you can go to Webster, you can go to Charlton, you can go to Spencer East Brookfield. But there's none in Dudley. There's none in Dudley. The food share in Dudley at the

138Calvary Church, which I didn't know had a food share, they ceased their operation. We were working with Project Bread to identify a site that we could have in Dudley. However, there was none. What did we do last summer? Last summer we served out of the high school during... That's what I thought. I saw that up there. So you're not doing that this summer? No, we are not doing that this summer. Why is that? Financially, it would not be financially prudent to do that. With the dropping, we looked at the statistics on who was picking up, who signed up for the meals, how many did we actually get to distribute. It wasn't really a financial... We weren't gonna make money. We were gonna lose money on the program. We also have a lot of equipment to

139take care of as well this summer. We have had a lot of equipment go down that has been original to the buildings. So eating a loss of operations during the summertime when we have to spend a lot of money to repair a lot of equipment is not good. That's why I reached out to Spencer East Brookfield and... Project Bread and the Charlton Chip Inn and my counterpart at Webster to help the surrounding areas. So a kid can go to any of those? Any one of them, yep. Anywhere you live, you can go to any of those places? Yes, and there's a map on the Project Bread website that was included in the original email, and I will be updating that information that there are open sites throughout Massachusetts, summer camps, churches, food pantries where it

140is open. You don't have to sign up. You can just punch in an address on the map, where do I live, 50 miles, 20 miles, whatever is comfortable. Just show up. There will be no questions asked. That's just on Tuesdays. Is that Tuesday was chips that was chipping correct, but they can go to the other days you go to Webster Yeah, so every day there's someplace. Yes. Okay. That's good. Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead I just had a question Matt I work at a different high school and I know we had an issue that when we were fully open we are finding that our high schoolers are not utilizing the free meals and therefore we had to let go some of our staff because we weren't you know because you don't get if they're not

141going to get a free meal you don't get the reimbursement for that meal. Correct they have to take the meal. Right so how are we doing that? How are we doing as a district on that? So we're actually doing very well with the district when the school did open up we did have a drop-off with the seniors and juniors at the high school we found out that they were just like Not for me. We did a little bit better job of advertising what the food is marketing the food using word-of-mouth We also have great participation at our elementary schools at our middle schools Which helped carry any shortcoming from the seniors and juniors not taking the meals which was an unexpected bonus going forward But as we kind of go up like as the kids

142progress through the school district we have noticing that the counts are increasing at schools. So at Dudley Middle, two years ago, let's say we were averaging 200 for breakfast. Now we're averaging 240 and then the middle school is starting to see a little uptick as well in the underclassmen if you will I guess the sixth graders so the fifth graders at Dudley middle school We've seen participation counts rise from the last three years and in the elementary schools Is it just I mean I just I open their bags and I just see bags of things So with the bags of things it's about food waste. It's about What's quickest because we don't have a lot of space. I mean when the the schools were built, this plan of packaging and storing items was definitely not

143thought of. I mean, why shouldn't it? No one knew this was going to come. We tried to do things that were going to be to the best of our ability, efficiently and economically. We are working on another way to get rid of all the bags, but we do have to make sure that all the components of the breakfast and the lunch were taken to make sure that we got credit if we were audited. Final question, I'm sorry. When there's a change, like we usually get, I mean, in Dudley, we get a monthly, here's your lunches for the month. When there's a change to that schedule, is that something that's immediately on your website? No. A lot of the times the changes are done that day due to this year, we had a lot of vendor

144shortages. Our deliveries were late due to COVID drivers, suppliers shut down. shrank their offering, if you will, their catalog of goods. Equipment was failing left and right, so it was send it out to the principal so at least the kids know what they're going to be eating. Is that a perfect system? Definitely not. But with everything that was going on, we felt that if the kids knew what they were getting and they just didn't walk in and be like, oh, spaghetti and meatballs, and they saw chicken tenders, they weren't going to be. Oh man, I really wanted the spaghetti and meatballs. So we tried to at least let the building principals know what was going on. That's great. I would say, like, if you had any way of letting parents know that the night before,

145it would be great. I know that you might not, just because with picky eaters, it's hard to come home very hungry. I have two boys who don't eat much other than macaroni and cheese, chicken patty, and, like, french fries. So I totally understand. Now, I'm disappointed, though, there isn't a place in Dudley for the parents to come and pick up the food. Oh. That's disappointing. Sorry, you you just thought it wasn't profitable Not that I say it wasn't profitable. It just wasn't economically We're spending a lot of money to replace four freezers The Charlton L box has to be pulled out everything like that. We just don't have the support to survive that as well as for the summertime and the April vacation weeks. We did notice that a drop in participation was happening it's

146kind of hard to just Do it and then shut it down because we're having a lack of participation when we have other school districts that are willing to help Now how is that? The lack of participation in Dudley. How did that compare to? Childhood its overall district. It's overall the district Project bread could not find the site in Dudley because the food pantry at the Calvary Church I don't know the name of the Calvary Church. They stopped their thing. So we did not have a site to work with I have a question just about the Chippin's where is that again remind me that is located at the Charlton Town Hall in the behind the building so if you go around there's a senior center and then the farthest door is the Charlton Chip in and

147that is that was that every day or just Tuesday just Tuesday yeah yeah I was just saying that Dudley the closest one might be that location That's all I can say. That's all I can say. You know, fuck kids. But anyway, Mr. Sandoval. Through the Chair, Mr. Greenberg was put on a mission to really work and try to formalize a program for this particular summer because we are getting back to pre-COVID times and all of that and trying to meet the demands of everyone. So he was working closely with these organizations. And it is unfortunate that there isn't one in Dudley, but the chip-in one, they do have it on their website at childfoodpantry.org. They do ask you to sign up, and you can sign up for any of the locations with the exception of

148Webster. And as soon as we get that information, Mr. Greenberg is going to send it out to everybody. resend it out to everybody so that they're aware of it there was a question earlier which I you you may have forgotten in your presentation thank you is you know where is Charlton Public Schools in the qualification for CEP in the future Charlton Public Schools are approximately 8% below the line so unfortunately Charlton is not close And that is, so to clarify the CEP program, it has to be direct certification or SNAP. It is not income applications. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Greenberg. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Okay. 2021-2022 school year calendar, Mr. Lamache and Dr. Ackerman. Madam Chair, thank you and the committee. I'll start off and then I'll turn it over to Dr.

149Ackerman for one of the adjustments here. First, I want to talk about the details in the calendar and how much information is in here. And, you know, you make one change, you forget another change, and I really appreciate the eyes of Mrs. Kabbalah on several occasions pointing out my mistakes, which is okay. I welcome that. but one of the one of the reasons why this calendar is coming forward is because we did listen to the last presentation around ckla and opening up the school year and so what we are recommending is we originally had a professional development day scheduled for the 24th of september we're recommending moving that to the 31st as we proposed and moving the start date back for all students uh till the first and for pre-k and k to the 8th

150but the other thing that was also added to this calendar this doesn't change the last day as it was previously in here but we did add juneteenth which is now monday the 20th which delays if we have snow days it would delay the closing of school till the 22nd of the month of June but again one of the main the drivers for bringing this recommendation draft forward for an adjustment is because of the feedback we received to start our school year regarding CKLA moving forward so I'll turn it over to Dr. Ackerman to add more information regarding that so over the summer we're offering two-day trainings on the 17th and 18th and then again on the 24th and 25th Those are voluntary trainings. Staff will be compensated for those. As of right now, we have

15141 staff members that have signed up, so it's right around 50% participation. That link is going to remain open so that people can sign up as they see fit. Additionally, there will be periodic reminders, but wait until after the Independence Day holiday for that. So the strategy around moving the September 24th day to August 31st is that everybody gets the same training and everybody, every faculty member is ready to go when students enter the building on September 1st. And they will have been starting at the same starting line. Just through the chair, the clarity purposes. So basically the calendar compared to the previous calendar that school committee approved, we're moving the day of the whole year by one day. So students would. would move to the end of the year would be moved to one

152day correct no we're starting a day later but we're taking the 24th of september which was an in-service day and no day for students and moving that to the 31st so it doesn't change the number of days or the ending yeah no what i mean is yeah so we're moving where students will start a day later than the original calendar that we approved i just wanted the public to know we're moving the start date by one day correct yeah that's all thank you any other school committee members first I have a question. Is there a reason why we have to move the first day of pre-K and K a day later, or could we keep them starting on the 7th? The main reason is because we did work with the associations, is because of the

153screening that has to take place to start the school year. I never thought of that, Kathy. Any other questions from the school community first? No? Okay. Audience? Come up so we can hear. no we know you it's called core knowledge language arts and it's going to be for K to 4 teachers any teacher that teaches reading will be this will be their instructional materials for reading and writing for next year So I know for the elementary folks there's going to be a very strong emphasis on CKLA We're working to and we will be working over the next months over the summer to put together the rest of the offerings for staff Any other questions Okay, so we'll vote on the new dates for the calendar, okay? I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion that

154we approve the revised 2021-2022 school calendar as presented. Second. Discussion? Any more discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay, next on the agenda, Mr. Lamarche, superintendents evaluation. I did not request for this to be on the agenda. Oh, okay. Jean did, right? You asked for this item. Oh, I did. Not to put you on the spot. Sorry. I wish there was a reminder because I have been really focused on my grandmother's death. And I totally did forget about this. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted as a reminders for us moving forward to ensure that we have Set goals dates times and place to so that we were all on the same page and that the Superintendent is aware as well of what we're expecting to actually just Sorry, I'm kind

155of put on the spot. I should have known that. I'm sorry, Jane. It's okay. But it's something that we should really be thinking about moving forward because I think it was missed greatly last year with COVID and recognizing those things. And I think it's good if we have a system in place and we can read through it. And I'm through the chair. This will be my first go-around with it as well. And my understanding is there's a state. form process that we follow and I'm sure I know what the form is and that's what I'm going to get for everyone from this Silla Marsh I've got a farm at home that the state requires and it will have everything on it the goals the indicators he's got he had on his superintendents report you're going

156to come up the next time with his He already chose the indicators and the evidence. Thank you so much. And so then we'll be able to evaluate once we see the evidence. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions on that? I'm sorry, because he did tell me on the agenda it was yours and I had forgotten. No, that's okay. I forgot it was yours. No problem. Okay, so that brings us up to the superintendent's contract. So I'm going to read what's in the contract and I'm going to read the motion and we'll see if we have a motion. Okay, so in the contract, two terms, section C, the committee on or before June 30th, 2021 shall notify the superintendent in writing. as to whether or not it wishes to commence negotiations for a successor agreement. Failure

157of the committee to give such notice shall be considered the same as notice by the committee that it does not wish to commence negotiation for a successor agreement. In such event, this agreement shall terminate. As herein before provided on June 30th, 2022, and as of such date, the superintendent's employment shall terminate. Now, before we start discussion, I'm going to read the motion, and if we got a motion, we'll have a second, then we'll do the discussion. I'll entertain a motion that the school committee shall notify Superintendent Lamarche in writing. before June 30th, 2021 for the purpose of commencing negotiations for a successor agreement. So do I have a motion for any motion? So that means. So moved. Okay, so moved. Do I have a second? I'll make a second for discussion. Okay. Okay. So any

158discussion? Well, I'll just do it. Okay. Kathy, you want to start first? Do you need a motion? No, Kenny. Oh, no, go ahead. I'm good. Thank you. Okay. I looked over the contract, and we've missed a vote on a lot of the deadlines. There was a deadline for June 1st when the superintendent was supposed to tell us in writing he wanted to negotiate. There's another. That was, I think, two-something. On five in the contract, we're supposed to negotiate, but we're supposed to have the evaluation done before June 3rd. So all the dates are kind of mixed up this year. there's been a lot of the no one's involved that's just the whole school year has been like that so i would like to amend that motion and change the date from june 30th 2021 to

159august 30th by august 31st 2021 so we will have the evaluation in front of us before we decide i think we're doing it backwards if we do it the other way so i would like to amend that motion through the well that's on the floor i don't want to i don't want to i just have a border on that sure i think you can that would be amending his contract my next point was if He has to agree to it. If he agrees to it, I think we can do it. Oh, okay. Has that been sought out through our attorney? Say that again, Kathy? Did we discuss that with our attorney? I didn't. I didn't know it was going to happen. I didn't know it was going to happen. No, I didn't. Well, the question

160is, we're in violation of the contract already because we were not notified in writing by June 1st and we did not evaluate by June 30th. But some of it's our fault. I'll just give an opinion. I'm just saying the contract has been violated, if you want to call it that. If the superintendent is agreeable, I think we can have like a gentleman's agreement kind of. That's my opinion. I'll just throw in my opinion. It's like a memo of understanding if we change something in the contract. I think it's legal if we both agree that's only my interpretation so I think the amendment could be if Mr. LaMarche agrees to it but I didn't do anything I didn't get a legal ruling because I didn't know this was going to happen and don't we shouldn't we

161add a because this seems like negotiations about this particular item shouldn't we be an executive session I'm just throwing it out there Anything to do with the superintendent was supposed to do in public? No, I'm talking about we're trying to change the contract now, so that becomes negotiations. That's my view on it. So by law, negotiations, when we're in that state, we need to be in executive session. What? Mr. Lamarche, what do you think? I'm okay with the amendment. He's okay with the amendment, so there's no need really to go into executive session. I second your amendment. Thank you. Okay, so we have a second on the amendment and and we're just voting on the amendment then we go back to the The regular motion on the floor and now it's amended we take a

162vote on it So now right now we're just taking a vote on the amendment. Okay any discussion on this first? Go ahead No, I'm done. I just wanted to change the date to August Co-serve with legal counsel before we get to do 30 Well, I think once Jamie we fall if we vote for it tomorrow I can call Cause go and check it out If both parties agree, I'm not sure what is in conflict. No. That requires an attorney to say there's no conflict. It's like a memo of understanding. That's how I view it right now. Because he agrees to it and we agree to it. But we have to vote to agree to it. But he agreed to it. I think this is a good move because I think that we owe it to

163Superintendent LaMarche to be able to hear his evaluation and be able to see his evidence and really look at that before we vote on whether or not to go into contract negotiations. Otherwise it's backwards. Yeah, absolutely. You can negotiate before you even know what the evaluation is. Right. So that's why I think we should change the date. Okay. Any other questions? Any other discussion before we move? Yeah, I just was looking up the email because I communicated with Attorney Cosgrove, and I know he said it in an email, both parties must agree, and then it's okay. I just wanted to put that out there on one of the emails back and forth just to answer your question, Jamie. But I think it's fine personally as long as, like Mr. Lamarche said, both parties agree. So

164yeah, everybody has the email I forwarded it out. Yeah, I sent it out. Any other discussion before we vote on the amendment? Okay, so I'll take a vote on the amendment. All in favor? Okay, it's unanimous. Now we'll go back to our motion that has been amended. The date has been amended. It is... By August you bet August 31st. Okay. So Do we have a second on? that Motion that was amended. Do we have a second? Now we need a second on because it went back to the original motion that's amended now we need a second and then we're going to get a discussion I thought the original motion was on the floor and we just we just approved the amendment yeah so then we just vote on the open motion we've got to discuss

165it but I thought that second was already there You know what I'm saying because the amendment passed so the motion took over. But the second, then you have to go back to the original motion and change the wording of the original motion. Motion. Oh, okay. I didn't think it was that process. So you need a second because it was second on the original, not the amendments. I think we have to have a motion to accept it. I didn't interpret it that way, but that's up to you. Who made the motion? I think we have to make a motion before you can get a second. Yeah, remember I told you that. You disagree. No, I said. She amended it. Kathy, you amended it, so the motion was on the floor. Now it's amended. We're going to

166vote for it. She can, if you want to withdraw the second and just throw that in. I'll withdraw it. Okay. But who seconded? I made the motion. You made the motion? Okay. You have to tell them by June 30th. If you don't change that date, that means you're not alive. We changed the date. No, you changed the date in an amendment. You need to go back and make a new motion to change the date. Because you've changed it within an amendment. But you know what? I'm right. It went back and it's amended now. And so you just need a second and the discussion and then vote for this because it's changed. The motion is changed. Just a point of issue. I'm just concerned about what we're actually voting on. Because are you voting on, like,

167we voted to... to extend it until the 30th, 31st of August, but your original motion is asking us to vote on whether we're giving him a contract. That's right. If you're going to vote, we would say the motion has been amended to say August 31st. Right. That's what we should say. That's what I'm saying, because if you do it this way, the original motion that was on the floor, it disappeared. You know what I'm saying? Because it's still sitting there, even though we're discussing an amendment. But now it's amended. Correct. We approve the amendment. Yeah. I'll look it up. Okay. No, no, no. Let me. Why don't we both withdraw first? Yeah. That's not what we're going to do. You withdraw and I withdraw. I'm going to use the exact same motion. Okay. You withdrew

168and you did the second. Okay. Oh, my God. Okay. I will entertain a motion that the school committee shall notify the superintendent Lamash in writing before August 30th. That was yours. August 31st, 2021 for the purpose of commencing negotiations for a successor agreement. I'll make that motion. Kathy made the motion. Second. Second. Any more discussion now on this? No, except just one. Catherine said she thought it was a good idea, Kathy. Anyone else? We just have to put it in writing after we're done tonight. Yeah, you have to put it in writing. Anyone else before we vote on it? Okay. I just want to make sure we put in that it's agreeable on both sides, so it's on record that it was agreedable. Agreed. it would be in the minutes too we should put in

169the minutes that it's agreeable on both sides in case there was ever a question because I think the letter just Pauline will write the letter right you know we're notifying you and yeah so any other questions before we take a vote okay I see no questions all in favor motion carries it's unanimous and I will get the letter to Mr. Lamache and I will look that up on because there's two votes there's a vote to vote for the amendment then it goes back now that original motion has been changed see what you did to us Kathy I solved the problem you solved it thank you very much that was good you solved it School committee summer meetings. Okay, we did say July 14th. Did everyone agree to July 14th? Okay, and there'll be one in

170August. So what's the committee's wishes? Look at it. Should we do the second Wednesday in August? Because that's our traditional. Can everybody make the second Wednesday in August? That's the 11th. No, Jean says no. Kathy you can't meet me do we do we want to do August oh August 4th the superintendent's not available correct okay I can't do the 18th we're not going on vacation together we are no we're not so 18th I can't do it doesn't have to be on a Wednesday no that's true We'd have to waive the policy. I'm happy to waive the policy. No, no, no. I think we'd have to waive it. I don't know if it says that in the summer. In the summer, I don't remember. I don't think it does. It doesn't matter. So we can do

171that. So we'll go to Charlton on the 14th. We don't have to waive that. Oh, yeah. No, you're right. It says it just rotates back and forth between Dudley and Charlton. We'll do that November, December 2nd. Okay. August, let's figure it out. What's the committee's wishes? August 4th that's a Wednesday but is that too early oh no mr. Lamarche is not available I'm sorry you guys can meet without me what we talked about well this is an important meeting because that's what we're doing the evaluation right I have to be all here I would have given you all my stuff by then I'm the only one who can't make the 11th I could probably call in I mean it's gonna be spotty but I can call in The 11th, my family vacation doesn't end until

172that weekend, so school committee documents would not be available until the 9th at the earliest. So what about the 17th, the Tuesday? I'm not in that whole week. Oh, that whole week. I'm sorry. Oh, wait. No, maybe I can be. Yeah, what about the 25th? Yeah, I was just going to say the 25th. Works for me. 25th of August is fine for me. It's fine for me. Okay, so it'll be at Shepherd Hill, okay? The 25th. So we're all set. So the August meeting, Shepherd Hill, and July is here. Yeah. We're okay with the fact that the September meeting, the first meeting is at Shepherd Hill. Yeah, we go back to the routine. We go back to the routine. Okay, as long as there are reasons. It doesn't bother me. I don't know about you.

173No, we have Charlton, and we did in Dudley. Now we go back to our regular. Okay. everybody's got it down now I have another thing this is a point to the chair go ahead yes do we want to book a date for our summer workshop Oh yeah, seeing that you had brought that up, do you want to be in charge of the summer workshop? Oh I'm fine, it's up to the committee, I don't want to speak for the committee. Because you worked on it and so you... Okay, I mean... So I'll leave it up to you where you want it to go. But we have to post it, it's a regular meeting, so do you want to do a date tonight for that? What do you think? everybody want to do a date tonight for

174the summer yeah we should and we can meet you know at Sheppard Hill outside like it doesn't you know yeah well you figure that out but do we want to pick the date now and the time yeah I think so but it's a public meeting we can meet in a restaurant we met one year in a restaurant Oh, do a poll? A poll where we can just kind of check off all the dates and times. Oh, that way. Okay, that's fine. And we can decide, and I can work with the chair, and I can just tell her. Okay, fine. Okay. This was your idea. Well, I just figured it would be good for us. Yes. And it was a good idea. Yeah. So I wanted to carry it on. No, no. That's fine. We haven't

175done this in many years. Yes. Early night was Dr. Walter. Remember, Pauline? What? Dr. Walter. The Yankee drummer. Yes. I've seen him before. I assume that meeting I'm just throwing it out there daytime hours So you'll let us know? I mean just so you can think about it but that way it doesn't have to be at night is what I'm saying unless people I mean I can make it work but It depends on the day so we'll figure it out get back to them The doodle The doodle yeah okay Our next meeting date school committee meeting it says to be determined but we already determined that July 12th and July 14th Budget and Finance subcommittee that's to be determined Because we didn't know what the committee would be composed of. Do you have a date

176for that? Do you have a date for that? I'll send an email out to the subcommittee members if that's okay. We'll be shooting for some time in August, I think. Okay. Policy review, subcommittee, Friday, July 9th. And that will be at 9. Are these meetings now still zooming? Yeah, are we zooming these or meeting in person? Because if you want to have them during the day, like... I can't get back physically back here. That's fine. That's fine for me too. Can I get back to policy 7 and the 9th because I scheduled a whole bunch of appointments. You want to change that date? Yes. If I could. Can we change it to the 16th? We're meeting for safety on 16th. Yeah, 11th. It doesn't have to be on Friday if you want to make it

177like. We've typically met policy before safety As of now it's gonna be the 16th and is that 9 okay 9 a.m. and Curriculum subcommittee of teaching and learning to be determined. Okay. I'll send out a couple of options to our folks and let's see what we can do. Capital outlay safety committee subcommittee, Friday, July 16th at 11. Yep. Okay. Future agenda items, updates, specialized programming. Dudley Charlton Regional School District strategic plan progress report superintendent's evaluation school committee summer workshop approval of the Dudley Charlton Regional School District student handbooks in August okay second all in favor we're adjourned Jamie, you look sick. I know. I feel better. Is it allergies? Yeah. Doris.