School Committee February 19, 2026

001We're still joined via here so that it will be able to actually do the recording, but I've joined here so that I can actually see people and note a call on them. Hopefully we will also be able to hear them, but if not, what I'll do is turn my volume up here and just put a mic real close. We'll hope that that works. All right. Can I get a little, can the folks on Zoom hear us? Yes, we can. Great. Yes. And you can see us. That's fantastic. So just for you all's edification, we didn't get the screen and John's on to work, but I can still see you because I've joined from my laptop and we are still going to be able to record everything as per normal. So we should be good proceeding,

002Leslie. Thank you for bearing with us. Thank you for your patience. All right. I'm going to pull up my agenda. And first begin by saying this meeting is being recorded by the Greenfield Community Television, GCTV. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify the chairperson at this time. I don't see anyone else recording. So I would like to call us to order at 6.43 p.m. on Thursday, February 19th, 2026. Member Webb, can you do a roll call of members? Member Deitman? Here. Member Goodwin? Here. Chair Sexton? Here. Member Webb? I am here. Vice Chair Childs? Here. Member Deneve? Here. Mayor Disarger? Here. All of us, we are all present with one member on Zoom. And so therefore we have a quorum. We will now open it up for public comment. Members

003of the public will have three minutes to speak. You'll have to say your name and your address. If you would like to get on stack or join the list, please put your name in the chat. If you're on Zoom, there's no members of the public in the room. So if you're on Zoom and you want to do public comment, now's the time. Seeing none, no public comment, then we're going to close that for now and move along to our next item, which is our open meeting law presentation given by Liz Lafon from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Liz, just remember to hold the microphone until the light turns green, please. Liz, can you hold the microphone until the light turns green? I'm not going to present this anywhere. Am I not going to present

004this anywhere? This isn't going to show up on the screen? I was just going to say, were you able to mail it to the other members, email it? These are the pitfalls of living in a house with a metal roof and metal siding. Sometimes the emails just don't go. Well, Stacy got it, right? There you go. Perfect. Thank you. So the reason I wanted you to have it like this is there are some links in here that as long as you have it, you can access some pretty good information pretty quickly. Thank you for having me friends in Greenfield. It's always nice to be back closer. I have a little microphone phobia, but that's okay. It's always nice to come back here. It's a nice drive a little bit further now that I'm no longer

005in Hatfield But always pleasant to be with you all so thanks And we're gonna talk about the open meeting law I know a lot of people are not fond of this but it is one of my favorite things Actually, because once you do understand it is very clear what you need to do and very clear what you cannot do I'm a fan of the rules. You have to know the ones you must follow and the ones you should challenge and the ones you can just completely disregard. Open meeting law is not one you ever want to completely disregard. So the purpose of the open meeting law is to provide transparency, balance between the need to get the work of the public done and transparency to members of the public who want to know, as you

006know from having the online audience that you do, what you're doing in these meetings. It provides for advance notice, posting of the full agenda with all topics anticipated to be discussed. And deliberations that happen in open session unless they fit one of the ten typically only nine reasons cover a school committee But one of the ten reasons listed in the executive session Purposes and as you all know public access must happen And that because you are doing it virtually, if your technology goes down like it did last week, you know, you should spend about 20 or 30 minutes trying to get it up and going. And if not, well, here we are the following week. So you followed that rule perfectly. I have been elected and appointed myself a few different times and we all

007go into the town town or city clerk we get sworn in we get some paperwork and we sign off on a sheet saying we received some open meeting law training documentation it's usually a sheet of paper that says go to this website Look at the training videos or training materials there. There's a handbook on the open meeting law there. And look up any open meeting law violations for your committee for the past five years. I would say probably 999 out of 1,000 people don't follow all those steps. And it's not surprising because it seems a bit overwhelming when you're first elected and you're trying to get up to speed on the work that your committee's doing, important work in the case of school committees, you know, around providing the best education possible and access to

008positive outcomes for the students in your communities. So I did provide a link at the bottom of that page that will bring you to the Attorney General's website and will show you if you're ever interested in looking at it again the certification that you signed and It also includes in that link which I just opened the open meeting log guide and educational materials very handy document I always have that right It's in my drive so I don't ever lose it. I have the most up-to-date also right on my desktop so I can access it if I don't have Wi-Fi access. Very handy documents on that page if you ever have a question. Again, you have, when you signed off on that sheet, you've said that you have looked at that training guide. Not unusual that

009people don't and that's why we're here. We're always happy to help. I did look at the open meeting law determinations for Greenfield and there have only been two with the last one in 2019. I remember those days pretty well actually. I think I spent a lot of time up here talking to the committee about various things. Well, it was good getting to know people. So you know your agenda is posted nicely. It certainly does meet with the requirements of the law with a full agenda. And you have access to the public both in person and online. And the minutes must be kept for all open meetings including subcommittees as you know and executive session. lots of violations over the past three to four years around minutes, which is why I wanted to bring that up.

010People forget about getting minutes in or getting minutes in in a timely way, and many committees were quite used to not creating subcommittee minutes. I know what you say. Hmm. Hmm. That's what I said. Well, how can any work get done if there's no subcommittee because the subcommittees are designed to have work sent to them by the full board to dive deeper and to bring recommendations back so how in the world the Recommendations come back without minutes, right? Hmm So the open meeting law is kind enough to include some definitions for us, and that is what a meeting is, a deliberation by a public body with respect to any matter within the body's jurisdiction. And that gets a little trickier because the deliberation is any oral, written, or electronic communications on the public business between

011or among a quorum of the public body. I think that there's likely not a committee out there that hasn't one time or another unintentionally reached a quorum of the committee. So what we try to do is really provide some caution. We all have someone on the committee that we trust or we want to talk to and we think we're gathering information and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know we've said, I'm definitely voting. X way on this particular topic. So you've shared your opinion on a matter before the board with one member. So far, you're okay. We would caution you to never share that opinion because here's where the unintentionality happens. You know, a couple weeks later, member A is talking to member C and expressing what member B told them.

012Now, if you're on a five-member committee, you've just reached a quorum of your full body, which is three, and you've unintentionally violated the open meeting law. It's always good to talk to your colleagues to gather information, gain perspectives, particularly if you're new, right? You want to know what's the history here, what are we looking at, and that's a good thing. Just really try to the other reason I guess I caution you on this particularly is As much as I knew about school committee work as a new school committee member There were a few times. I went into a meeting thinking I knew exactly how I'd vote on something Until I heard all of the information presented And I found that I had my mind changed for me by information I hadn't previously had. So just

013be wary of that. The open meeting law tells us there are some allowable exclusions to this deliberation. You can do housekeeping kinds of work via email around dates, scheduling, agenda items, so long as you are not providing your opinion on a particular item that's coming before the committee. Right that includes distribution of reports and documents to be discussed again. There's where the trick comes in Why are we doing this? I think we should just You know try to keep that out of it out of any communication and the best practice here is When even when doing housekeeping or scheduling matters if the chair sends something out or if your executive secretary the superintendent sends out it's always best to never reply all Sometimes we remember to put that on the bottom of an email because

014we understand there's something in there that can raise the desire of someone to express an opinion, something controversial or sensitive happening in the community. And sometimes we don't, but it's a good practice to be in. We know the public has a right to participate and to be present, whether we decide that it's only in person or whether we do it in a hybrid mode. And the reason that this has been extended to 2027 is because we're seeing participation from the public like we have never seen before. We also see members who have children or have elderly parents or who travel for work or a number of other things able to attend meetings when they would typically not be able to. So it's been a big bonus, I think, for public bodies. However you post it

015on your agenda, as you know again from your last meeting, is how you have to be available for the public to attend. So if you allow it virtually and in person at the same time and internet goes down or tech fails on you, you still have to reschedule the meeting. So thank you for having that right. While you likely, excuse me, offer, and you did tonight, public comment, it's not mandated that public comment be offered. It is a great idea that public comment be offered. Certainly people want to have the opportunity to express their opinions to their elected officials locally. But the public may not address the committee without the permission of the chair. I don't think I've ever seen here where people are just shouting out from the audience. They know the routine, they

016follow it, and it works well. As Stacey mentioned, when they open the meeting is if. Anyone else in the audience is recording, they should let the chair be aware of that so that other members of the public who may be in the audience, who have particular reasons for not wanting their identity shared on social media or anywhere else, have the opportunity to know that's happening and they can leave the room. Typically, if it's just the committee, recording the meeting then the cameras are focused on the committee and and the screen and whatever else is happening and people in the audience will feel generally fairly safe sitting there but may want to exclude themselves if there's someone in the audience taking a recording oh the public i want to say some more about the public that

017is not in here so we know from recent oml decisions and not so recent i guess the initially it goes back prior to 2010. We can set some rules, some reasonable rules around public participation or public comment, right? We can ask the public to keep their comments to items listed on the agenda. We can ask the public to keep their comments to items under the committee's purview. But at the end of the day, we cannot demand it. The public has a right to redress their grievances with their elected officials. And if a member of the public happens to be the kind of person that just wants to get up and play the trumpet for their three minutes, which was actually the... subject of the original OML determination that the person's rights had been violated, you

018have to allow them to have their three minutes. The only things that are out of bounds are someone who threatens violence or threatens to incite violence. We get very sensitive around members of the public, and I'm sure you've seen this happen because almost everybody has, who gets up and wants to mention another student's name. We have to caution that person that that student has the right to privacy under the student records law. It's always good to have a written ruling from your council as to whether you have to allow that to go on or not. I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to tell you what I think, but you must always caution the person that that student has the right to privacy. Likewise, if a parent wants to get up and identify their

019own child, it's still your responsibility to inform the parent that your child has a right to privacy. Now, under your rules... and you're allowed to do this, you've asked people to provide their name and address, and now they've said they have a second grader or a kindergartener and they live at, and these are kinds of things we really want to caution people against doing, because these meetings are then saved and their years are on YouTube. Yeah. And so almost anybody can access those meetings and it's really a matter of safety. And typically when people know that, they're more likely to comply. So executive session Never anybody's favorite place to be because we're usually in there Trying to do the best we can with what we have for our staff members through negotiations Sometimes we're in

020there as a search committee conducting a search for the next superintendent and the candidates at that Semi-finalist stage stage have the right to keep their names confidential You know, no one wants to be the candidate that doesn't get brought forward, right? Because it's clearly a person looking to further their work in the field of education, and you don't want to be known as the one who hasn't made it forward in the past three searches. Because while Liz Lafon might not be right for Greenfield, although I suspect I could work here, it doesn't mean I couldn't be right for South Hadley or for... I don't think I'd be right for Grammy, but maybe I would be. There's a lot of places I would be a good fit for, right? And so oftentimes it's a matter of

021fit when you come down to who the finalists are and not a matter of qualifications, right? I've provided a link there to the 10 exceptions, which brings you right to the MGL. And I've provided a link to exceptions with a quick motion guide. I get so many calls each week on, I'm just posting the agenda. Can you take a look and see if my motion is worded right? Sure I can, and that's a pretty easy thing to do. But if you have this reference guide, it's also very helpful going forward. You know that all executive sessions have to be opened in public session first. That's so the public can know who is present and the reason. including as much information as you can provide without giving away the reason for confidentiality that you are going

022into executive session. We know that minutes must still be taken. There must still be a summary of discussion, typically not as lengthy or as full-bodied as it would be for public, open, regular public meeting, but there still has to be a summary of the discussion. And all votes in executive session are by roll call. I think everybody's pretty familiar with that. I want to go back for a minute and talk about subcommittees again. I did hear you say you do subcommittee minutes, and thank you so much for that. But when I bring this up, when we do charting the course trainings or when I'm sitting with a committee and I talk about subcommittee meetings requiring minutes, I get so many blank stares back that it's all I can do not to kind of chuckle a

023little bit. Yes, you're still an elected public body, you're still conducting the business of the public, and you still must have meetings. And they still must be brought back to the committee in a timely manner. I've heard all sorts of configurations with approving subcommittee minutes from, oh, the subcommittee approves their own minutes, and then they go to full board. Oh, no, no, no, we just approve our own. No, because nothing you do takes place. THAT VACUUM, RIGHT? THE FULL BOARD HAS FINAL AUTHORITY OVER ALL TOPICS BEING DISCUSSED AT SUBCOMMITTEE. IT IS A SUBQUORUM IN A SUBCOMMITTEE AND IT IS ONLY THE QUORUM OF THE FULL BODY THAT CREATES OFFICIAL ACTION. DOES THIS MAKE SENSE? ANY QUESTIONS THERE? YES. SO CAN YOU JUST GO OVER ONE MORE TIME LIKE WHAT THE STANDARD PROCESS SHOULD BE? JUST

024TO KEEP IT REGULARLY CHURNING. WELL, I'LL GO A LITTLE BIT PAST WHAT IT SHOULD BE. AGAIN, I'VE HEARD A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS. THE SUBCOMMITTEES ARE CREATED BY THE FULL BOARD. YOU HAVE AN ESTABLISHED SET OF SUBCOMMITTEES. YOU PROBABLY HAVE A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THE WORK IS BEING DONE BY THAT PARTICULAR SUBCOMMITTEE. YES? You should have a standard description that can you're not alone this happens an awful lot a standard description of the work that happens there I would go another step further and say The reason you have a description of the work that gets there is because the work goes to subcommittees through the full board For example, if you have a finance and budget um subcommittee the budget always lives you know the budget always lives with that subcommittee but if there's a

025new financial matter that comes up like there's a concern about how we're going to fund the fix at the playground so we can get the nyack certification the subcommittee doesn't automatically say we're just going to discuss this that has to be sent through the full board right because it's a new matter before the committee So, policies. Policy lives with the full board. But if a new policy comes in, typically they come in through MASC. You get the updates. They come in. They come to the full board. The full board refers them to subcommittee. They then have to come back, right? And there's a lot of reasons for this. It's the way that the board understands that the work subcommittees are doing complies with the description that they're provided with that's been approved by the committee.

026It's a way to know that the committee's not off creating their own work in areas that might or may not fit under their purview. And it's a way that the committee knows that the subcommittees are not taking on brand new work that the school committee's not aware they're working on. Right? This happens a lot in places where subcommittees sort of take on their own work and committees realize the importance of having seen that work first and having made the determination. Like, could they have just made a determination first at a full board meeting to act on something? And then does it get delayed by going to subcommittee or do they really want it to go to subcommittee to have that deeper dive in a public setting? Anything else on subcommittees? Yes. Just this question. We're

027never wrong. We're training here. Maybe I'm wrong. So the way subcommittees took place in the past was the chair wrote the little description. You probably have a policy that says that, yeah. And then that went to the subcommittee for conversation and whether or not. agreed or disagreed oh so the subcommittee had an opportunity to perhaps widen the the depth of the okay and then that came back to the chair is that you know all right that's certainly a transparent way to do business I don't think there's anything wrong with it okay just asking yeah well subcommittee stuff You do important work in subcommittees and you're tasked to bring recommendations back to the full board. And don't ever have your feelings hurt if you spent two hours reviewing a topic and you bring back a recommendation

028and the full board is split on whether to move forward on it because that will eventually happen, right? We're all here as a reminder because I am often not on the winning side. We're all here to be reminded that we, you know, we take out papers, we hold signs, we talk to people at the local Democratic committee, whatever the process is, to get elected because this is really the good work of the district. I believe. You know, this is where the magic happens. Our work is completely focused. We're not worried about where the crosswalk goes in, what the lines look like, who needs a handicap sign. I know budget and other important stuff happens at city council meetings. But all of our work is focused on what is best for the students attending our school.

029How can we create an environment where they have the best possibility of outcomes, right? that affect them every day and well into the future. That's the magic, I think. Anyway, any more on subcommittees? I didn't want to take up too much of your time, so I did pare this down a bit. So please stop me with any questions, okay? Social media is a place that we have to be very careful. Now, I use these words, proceed with caution, because these are the words used in the training materials created by the Attorney General's office. People love social media. Some people love social media more than other people. And that's okay. We all have a right. I just want you to understand that there's a couple things. Generally with social media, you always have your First Amendment

030right to free speech, but I want you to be mindful that if a majority of school committees are like your page or follow you and you've expressed an opinion, You could saying you are but you could violate the open meeting law and when I say this There's a couple things that have to happen Liz Lafon on her Liz Lafon for school committee page says I can't believe And I'm gonna bring this up because we're gonna get around to discussing it We're thinking about sharing services, consolidating or regionalizing with some neighbor districts. I would never vote for this. This is wrong. We need our community. We need to keep funding our schools. If only we could. And I would never, I'm promising you now, I would never vote no. And whoever does, you know, I'll fight

031tooth and nail to the end. I've voiced my opinion. I've made a decision. If somebody knew that a quorum of the committee was following me and saw that, they could certainly file an open meeting law violation on me. And I would likely get a determination that even though no one liked or commented on it, that you all saw it. Similarly, people like to write opinions to the newspaper, letter to the editor. You have every right to do that. It's your First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Again, I would just caution you. that you sit at the table with a diverse group of people, people elected by citizens in the community for various reasons with their votes, which is serious business to me. If we all had the same thoughts and ideas, what a boring

032place the world would be. So we all bring a different perspective, a different skill set, and a different reason for sitting on the board. So the best thing you can do is live with your ears wide open. Listen to your fellow members. Take their concerns and their comments into thoughtful consideration. And if you find yourself on the losing end of a vote, I have more than once, remember that the body has made an official action through this vote. And as an elected member of this body, I don't have to like it. But I cannot try to undermine or be negative about it because, I mean, I could. I have freedom of expression. But I'm going to come back to this table with my committee members, and I'm going to come back with great ideas that

033I want my colleagues to support at some point in the future, right? How much support am I going to get? Probably not a lot if I don't play well in the sandbox, so to speak. I guess that's the politician part of local politics that we all have to work at. Yes. So jumping back a little bit. So letter to the editor op-ed is okay. Freedom of expression. Same content on Facebook or Twitter, questionable. Be cautious. So I guess my just need to complicate it question is, what if you write the letter to the editor and then tweet out just the link to that letter to the editor? I'm not on Twitter. I'm just obnoxious. I'm not. It's something else now, too. It's not Twitter anymore. It's X. You can tell I'm not on it either.

034There's a blue sky now, too. I have grandchildren. I'd rather spend time with them. The Attorney General's office tells us to proceed with caution. Yes, we never give up the right to free speech. We might want to be taught in and even if we're talking about it as Liz Lafon resident We're still seen first as the Liz Lafon member of the school committee And I know sometimes I've gotten upset annoyed, passionate about things. And I've gone home and taken a deep breath and I say, well, we're just going to have to come back to fight this another day. Do I want to spread it on social media? Not today, Liz. You know, post a picture of your grandchild or your dog. People will smile. That's my opinion. That's not everybody's opinion. I'm just trying to

035ask you to proceed with caution to keep yourself and others out of trouble. You know that the open meeting law says that. The complaint first comes to you. You create a resolution. Sometimes it's easy to create a resolution. You provide the resolution to the Attorney General's office. They agree with you, and they figure you've got a straight path to clarifying this. And they may say, yes, you did violate the open meeting law, but you've got a clear path to fixing it. Thank you. On the other hand, you may not have created a clear path to fix it, and then you get the other letter, which says, yes, you have violated, and here's what you must do to fix it, right? So to a point... Although I wouldn't want that spread in the newspaper about me,

036you get a pass from there until you continue to violate, right? Because they always say, here's what you have to do to fix the violation, and you have to get training. At a certain point, the Attorney General's Office has the ability to. Although it doesn't happen often, but if you knowingly violate the open meeting law there can be monetary consequences attached to that for an individual and for a committee I'd be more afraid of having my name in the paper multiple times, but not everybody is Anybody belong to the masc listserv you don't mind if I get my water so I belong to the masc school committee listserv And I belong to the MASC Executive Assistance List Serve. Tracy Enovick and I both monitor that. I will tell you that the Executive Assistance List Serve

037is such a helpful place. They're not elected officials. Therefore, they're not compelled to offer their opinions on anything. But they share such good advice with others. People who are new to the position, haven't done certain things, they help them to access Cori, SORI, fingerprinting, you name it. They provide policy advice, that kind of thing. If the Attorney General says, Open Meeting Law says, if you're on a listserv, And you would never know if a majority of your colleagues were on that because you don't maintain the listserv. So if you're on a listserv, you should be asking for advice, best practices, how did you manage to X, Y, Z. And you should not there express your opinion on a topic under your board's purview because you would never know if there was a quorum there or

038not. And if you did, the Attorney General's office says that would in fact be a violation of the open meeting law. They're more clear there than they are about social media, although social media is a place where they're getting to a point where they're going to be more clear, I think. I think. It looks like that's where it's going. I'm very happy to see no phones on the table. Not only are the public watching you. Well, your phone's there. You probably have someone at home you want to pay attention to, right? I mean, I have grandchildren. I used to have children. I still have children. But they used to be young, and I worried about them all the time. What are they up to now? Are they cooking? Have they forgot the stoves on? You

039know, things like that. When you're sitting in these meetings and folks are watching you online, they are watching you. They're watching if you're listening. They're watching if you're taking the information in or if you're sitting on your phone for three quarters of the meeting texting. One. Number two. Anyone who sees you texting during an open public meeting as a board member could request those text messages as public record. 2.1, the only text messages you would have to provide in such a request is text messages that happen to be on the topic you're discussing or any matter under your purview. So if you are texting your kids or your mom or your whomever you're texting, you would not have to provide that. But there have been a number of city officials in some of the big

040cities and some school committee members who have been really badly embarrassed by text messages they were sending to one another about other members, about other people present at the meeting. You probably all remember about four or five years ago there was a big... violation that occurred in the in Boston the Boston Public Schools when some folks were disparaging the name of their student representatives and those things all got published in the Boston Globe because that's the kind of thing that sells well newspapers or online clicks or whatever it is we're looking for so just be thoughtful please I know you're all thoughtful people and that's what I'm asking you to do also IT'S HAPPENED TO EVERYBODY. WE'RE SITTING IN A MEETING AND WE GET AN E-MAIL FROM SOMEONE AND WE SEE THE TAGLINE AND WE

041SAY, OH, I BETTER LOOK AT THIS. THIS IS ABOUT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. IT HAPPENS A LOT. IF THAT HAPPENS TO YOU, AND I ASKED THIS QUESTION AT AN IN-PERSON TRAINING I ATTENDED ABOUT FIVE OR SIX YEARS AGO. IF YOU GET INFORMATION ON A MATTER THAT THE BOARD IS CURRENTLY DISCUSSING, from someone who decided to be a good citizen and email it to you, the best thing you can do is share it with the rest of the committee if it's pertinent information. Otherwise, you do put yourself at greater risk for violating the open meeting law because you've had something shared with you that you're taking into consideration that the rest of the committee doesn't have. It's best practice and the best way to keep you out of trouble should anyone decide in the future to

042file some sort of an OML complaint about that kind of thing. Make sense? People always want to be so helpful to us. And we trust people, right? If people have our phone number, we must trust them. But sometimes they're not always accurate. And the things they sent us is all I can say. Share it with your members. Have that conversation. Talk about the pros and cons of it. And I've come to the end, but I'm here to answer any questions you have before you get into business. Yes. We had an OML violation in 2022. Okay. And the resolution that we came to was to have OML training. Yes. And now we finally have. Yes. It only took us. Four years to do it. May of 2022. So I'm just saying we've done it. We did

043it. And I've seen members at Charting the Course trainings where you've had the OML training. I also want to note that under the law, the only public elected public body in Massachusetts that's required to have training on their job, their roles and responsibilities are school committees. So just understand that all the other elected public boards in the community are operating without having ethics. Well, they probably take the ethics online every two years. But when you're taking that online training, you don't have the opportunity to stop and ask questions, you know, set up scenarios. They don't have OML training. They don't have training on their roles and responsibilities, collective bargaining. Any of those other good things superintendent evaluation we train you on it's a full day of training and you are the only elected body in

044the state of Massachusetts required to have that training in your first year. I have two questions about public comment. First one's the simpler one. When you caution someone about student privacy does the time you spend cautioning them need to be added back to their three minutes probably yes yeah because in Greenfield people need those three probably yes and the second one you made mention about how you usually tell people not to do the asking for someone's name and address is that something that you would recommend we look into changing so this is totally up to the committee there are some rules you may set asking a name and address is within your purview And I don't know if you want to do it or not, but you could ask for the name and the affiliation

045to the school district. Because it could be a parent of school choice. It could be a staff member that doesn't live in the district. It could be anything. But it's almost better to know their affiliation. Because if I came in from Granby and gave you my address in Granby, you couldn't say to me, well, you don't live here, you can't speak. But what's my affiliation? Sometimes better to know. It's really an individual decision made by local communities. The resolution from 2022, do we have to do anything with that? Do we have to say that we did it? I mean, is it the honor system that you do? It's the honor system. How do you like that? All right. You're done. Tell the district attorney that we did it. And listen, I'm. You have my email

046address now. You have my phone number because I sent the email and it's on there. If you ever have questions about open meeting law, ethics, almost anything school committee related, this is why we exist, right? So call me. If I can't answer your question because you've called me about something financial. Sorry. I am not a numbers person, and I do understand basic budgeting, and I do know the answers to a lot of those questions. But I often refer to my colleague, Tracy Novick, who is the expert, not only in school budgeting, but school finance and Chapter 70. She really has a great depth of knowledge. If I or one of my colleagues, you don't even have to call me. You want to call one of my colleagues? call one of them we're happy to give

047advice um that's why we exist to serve you no other reason i just want to check member dietman do you have any questions i want to make sure we're not forgetting about you uh i just wanted to clarify about um writing letters to the editor um basically you're saying that your advice is just not to undermine the work of the committee but um There's no clear... Is there an OML guideline regarding that particular type of public statement? I wish that there were. No, there is not. You have a constitutional right to freedom of expression, both federally and supported strongly in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I think your biggest risk is... undermining the work that you have to come back and do at the table with your colleagues. Because your First Amendment right would kick in

048at some point. Usually, usually, but not always, these opinions to the editor are sent after a decision is made and somebody's unhappy with it, right? Not always. I want you just to be thoughtful when you're writing. Yes, we have the right to freedom of expression. We do. And yes, we are passionate enough to take the time to run for and get elected to this public body because we understand the importance of the work, not only today, but into the future for our communities and for the families that live in these communities, right? Again, to me, it's significant work that I'm always quite proud to say I'm a school committee member. So just be thoughtful. Thank you. You're welcome. So I just started writing something for just about chapter 70 that, you know, Joe Comerford's like

049trying to get us all to write. So. Do I not do that? Well, you have no authority over Chapter 70. Okay, so I can still go like, you need to fix this? They need to fix it. Rural, suburban, and other districts that just don't have the ability to fund the schools the way some districts do, absolutely, we should be mad as hell. I'm there. I am too. And my kids are educated, you know, I have grandchildren. They'll also be educated, but not everybody has that luxury. And we owe it to the folks in our communities to stand up for them. Yes. Thank you. If you find those links helpful, and I'll tell you, I provided links that I use all the time. I also get the newsletter from the Attorney General's Office of Open Government,

050which comes out once a month and highlights some of the OML determinations. But you can go in and look at OML determinations on your own through the Attorney General's website at any time. And you can search by topic, by community. There's a lot of different ways you can search. You can see I'm a school committee geek. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. It's always a pleasure coming here Thank you. I'm gonna stop sharing my screen because it seems like we are approaching the end of this item. I think we are ready to continue on Our next item is report of student representatives. Our student representatives couldn't be here tonight. So my understanding is that superintendent Doyle will be giving their report in their stead. Yes, I ran through. I was fortunate enough

051to do some of it the last meeting just before we lost connectivity. And a few of the other things that are mentioned for our students are the Library Club is doing a book-to-movie event on Friday, February 27th after we return from our vacation next week. This is a co-hosting of a book-to-movie event with the Mosaic Club. The collaboration will honor both Black History Month and the upcoming Women's History Month by showing the film Hidden Figures. Doors open at 5.30 for pizza and popcorn, and the movie will start at 6 o'clock. This is a community event, and all are welcome. Also, with digital wellness that's working out in January, both the Health A and B classes at the high school visited the library for a week of lessons about digital citizenship. Among other topics the students

052learned about our digital footprints and who is looking at them and I think as we all know and we just heard some things sometimes delete is never deleted right in life and we all have to remember that and our trivia team also known as as schools match wits many of you may recall that from the states had just filmed their final episode, and that will be airing in mid to late April. We'll get you that date, and we can't tell you how they did. You have to watch to find out, as you know. So that's going on. And plans are coming up for a dodgeball tournament in April that has begun. Anybody who would like to participate can put together a team and do that. I don't know if I'm up for dodgeball. I think

053some of us probably don't want to relive our youth anymore. Well, we do, but sometimes we want to come to work the next day as well. So that completes some of the reports from our students. Thank you. I would ask for any questions, but I'm not sure if Roland would be able to answer them for us. Okay. Reports from the administration. I do not see... Our business manager online, and I believe that he was doing a school visit. Yes. Just being a changed meeting from last week. It is school vacation week, so our business manager and assistant superintendent are not with us tonight. I can briefly go over it. You have the business report that was submitted over a week ago. They're showing our local budget as the normal practice, how they charge it, the

054numbers in front of you. Things are comfortable the trends are still showing no cause for alarm And there is a recap on the back for how FY 25 ended folks focusing on the closeout and you have all that I would not be the best person tonight to answer a lot of your questions I could try but I would probably defer the majority of those We may want to hold or you can reach out. I know that Andy is always available via phone or Email and we'll get back to you pretty quickly Great. And then I will just also note for the record that members were forwarded from the city information about the school revolving accounts. And we do have Steve Demberkow online if you want to ask about that. I guess I should say he's

055here. He didn't agree to answer questions necessarily, but I'm kind of putting him on the spot a little bit. But just to note that we have that, I might recommend that you take some more time to look that over and gather your questions for the next meeting. Okay. Thanks, Steve, for being here. Okay. With that, we can move along to the assistant superintendent report. You have a written report in front of you. I will just briefly, I'm going to really skim over it. Professional learning, we just had our last full day professional development, January 30th. And educators participated in grade band and sessions aligned to their district priorities. And all educators also participated in restorative practice learning that day. There's a brief grants update there about the high dosage early learning tutor literacy turning tutoring

056Reading proficiency by grade 3 is a critical benchmark for our students high dosage early literacy tutoring focuses on strengthening foundational skills including Phonological awareness phonetics and decoding to help students become independent fluent readers in their early grades This is similar to the work that our teachers are already doing during core instruction and intervention block. So We're looking to having conversations and applying for that. We have also, and I did include a letter in one of our folders there, just received with Greenfield Community College, an early college. planning grant of $25,000. You'll see that letter in there and that is very nice. So we'll be able to begin collaborating with Greenfield Community College to assess our readiness, identify opportunities, and determine next steps for our students to attend advanced coursework there and also get students ready

057for college-level learning. So we're very excited about that. I'd like to thank everybody who helped with the Winter Carnival a few weeks ago. It was finally winter, right, for the Winter Carnival, which is actually a great thing. It might have been actually... A little too winterish that day. It was pretty cold that weekend. But one of the nice things that the schools did a lot of good things, but one of the things that we did sponsor was the Title I program sponsored the Mad Science Fire and Ice Show held on Saturday, February 7th at the Greenfield Middle School Auditorium. And there was a nice crowd there to see that. So we thank everybody who helped us out with that and all those who helped with the winter carnival that was put on by the Park

058and Rec Department there. And February Vacation Academy, we are in the middle of February vacation, right? It's not too often that we have a meeting during vacation in that sense. So here we are. And we had this up and running this week. We had nearly 40 students attend Discovery School, students from all schools going. And this was not just for remediation. This was for enrichment. And anybody could go. It was from 8 o'clock to 1 o'clock. It almost doubled our size from last year. One more day tomorrow. And I stopped over there. Mr. Sullivan's been there every day. I spent a little time over there going through all the classrooms. Everybody's having a great time. I know that some of our own school committee members have some of their children over there. So we thank

059all our teachers who are working over school vacation and everybody else who's involved with that. That is a nice opportunity for our students to continue enrichment and continue learning. So that is Assistant Superintendent Sullivan's report. I will roll briefly into a few things. I did attach our enrollment summary for the beginning of February. 1,343 students. That is minus two students from the last month. But students ebb and flow. People move and enroll and then we gain students, we lose students. So that is absolutely normal. We are fortunate to have a Last week, Greenfield Middle School had a rockin' read-a-thon where they set up a nice area in their front hallway, vestibule, rocking chairs, tables, and this was an honor collaborating for Black History Month with reading about black authors and books to sign up. I

060was fortunate enough, I signed up and had a time in the rocking chair there reading, and I read a small book. I'm going to tell you about Rosa Parks, and one thing I learned in that book is I never knew that she was a seamstress. Some of you may have known that, but I did not know that detail of it. So you learn something new every day, right, when you do that. So thank you to Kim Herlihy and all those at Greenfield Middle School who did that and kept students reading all week long, some with their teachers, some alone, in those rocking chairs to learn about Black History Month. And we were fortunate today, it may come up later, to do a school facilities tour throughout our six schools. We had school committee members, we

061had city council. City council orders there as well to took quite a chunk of our day to do that But to show people what was going on and answer any questions for anybody so there'll always be more on our facilities coming up Can you repeat the number of students enrolled currently? Yes 1343 1 3 4 3 Thank you for taking the time to give us the tour today and just a shout out to the custodians the buildings were SHARP. VERY SHARP. THANK YOU. I'LL PASS THAT ON THROUGH OUR DIRECTOR, MR. BOUDREAU. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? OKAY. SEEING NONE, WE'LL MOVE ALONG TO OUR CONSENT AGENDA. SO THERE ARE THREE ITEMS IN THE CONSENT AGENDA APPROVING THE MINUTES OF JANUARY 14TH AND FEBRUARY 11TH, MAYBE. DO WE ACTUALLY HAVE THOSE MINUTES? We do actually have those minutes.

062Fantastic. No, February 11th, not 14. We have February 11th. Okay. Well, then approving the minutes of February 11th, January 14th to be coming another time. Vote to approve the Greenfield High School Spanish class field trip to New York City on March 25th. And doing a first read of the revised policy IJNDB, Empowered Digital Use Policy. And the revisions, just to note for folks, are around AI. Members can ask for any of these items to be removed from the consent agenda. I see Member Deneve and then Member Childs. And is that the same one that you have? All right. So that is removed. We will discuss it separately. Otherwise, I would look for a motion to approve items A and B from the consent agenda. So moved. all right so we've got a motion from member

063deniv seconded so long as we're clear that we've struck january 14th from correct we have struck january 14th from item a of the consent agenda and so we have a second from member childs because we are we have a member who's online all of our votes need to be done by roll call so we'll just do that and you are ready you're good member dietman yes remember goodwin yes chair sexton yes Member Webb, I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor Disorder? Yes. All right. With the exception of the January 14th minutes has been approved. Okay. So now we can talk about item C for a minute. The first read of the reverse policy IJMDB. I look for a motion to approve to be able to bring it to the table for

064discussion. Okay, I'm going to motion to approve this item. And I'm looking for a second. Second. Okay, I've got a motion for a second from Mayor Besorger. Jeff, can you mute yourself for just a minute? Thank you. And now any discussion? All right, Member Childs. I would really prefer it if the policy subcommittee would look at this and have a hand in it so that it is indeed coming from the policymakers as elected. Also, I would change it personally, but we don't need my soapbox. I'm sorry, were you raising your hand? No, I didn't, but I feel the same as Anne. Great. Any other? All right. I withdraw my motion, and I make a new motion to refer this policy to the policy subcommittee. Second. Trying to get my Robert's Rules. Does my original seconder

065have to also be good with that? I'm pretty sure. I see you're not a Mayor Disorder, so you're good with that. With the withdrawal of the motion? With the withdrawal of the original. I'll withdraw the second. Great. Okay. So we've got the new motion to refer this policy to our policy subcommittee for review and recommendation has been, you made it, Member Childs? No, I made it. I made it and Member Childs seconded it. Seconded it. Any discussion on that? Seeing none, let's do a roll call vote. Member Deitman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yep. Member Webb, I'm going to abstain. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor DeSorger? Yes. Okay, so the motion passes with one abstention. Sorry, yes. And if I just may, depending on the member, the makeup of that subcommittee,

066this was your input you would want to gather from Assistant Superintendent Stephen Sullivan and Ian Edwards, our Director of IT, had input on this. So they could help you explain some of their thoughts. Great. Thank you for that. Okay. Moving on to school committee reports. starting with the chair's report just a lot of these items are more FYI's than actual discussion points so this first update on policies voted during the 2025 calendar year not reflected in the posted policy manual I'm thinking in particular the one about warrants which we'll be touching on later in this meeting our executive assistant Becky did do a full review just to see if there were any other policies that we sort of either had discussed in one way or another even if we hadn't voted on it or if

067we did vote on it making sure that that was getting reflected in the manual that lives online so that we're all operating from the same playbook to our knowledge Orens is the only one that actually we never really voted on it we discussed it came to a verbal agreement but because it wasn't a vote it never made it in so now we're going to rectify that tonight um but otherwise that that was the only one that we caught or that becky caught if in your own review you find something else please let us know and we'll make sure that gets updated asap um This other item actually is null and void now since those school tours did happen today. We did have four members of our school committee and three members of city council and

068a few kiddos join us on our building tours to look at a lot of... to look at a lot of stuff and to get some insights into some of our long-term planning. So we've got some items that aren't major issues right now, but if we don't make action on them in the next year or two, could become issues that will be more costly in the future, thinking in particular of some external window dressing that needs to get repainted because if it gets down to the bare wood, which it is in some places is already and will continue to be, then we run the risk of it getting rotted. So, it's just one of those things that we need to keep our eye on and make sure we're incorporating into our budget. The organizational chart that

069was listed in new member materials has been updated to reflect the most current version of what that org chart looks like. So, please, if you've been, if that is of interest to you, please go and look at it and see what has been updated. Next Monday, the Community Relations Subcommittee of the City Council will have an item related to creating internships for Greenfield Public School students. They haven't actually officially contacted us about this yet, but I wanted it to be on our radar because obviously anything that happens with our kids, we want to know about. And we want to be part of helping make sure that that experience is educationally sound and useful for us and for them. Massachusetts Association of School Committees Day on the Hill is happening Monday, March 30th. It is something

070that if you want to attend the breakfast, I think you have to register for it. We haven't discussed this in past years. It's happened in May, and I'm just really thankful that MASC actually listened to us and bumped the timeline up so it's happening before the budget actually is being wheeled down the hall printed. This is an item where we can choose to be there. If you'll remember from last week, we did, maybe it was, yeah, I think it was last week, we had a member of the public comment, how worth it is it to go to Boston versus making all the stops in Western Mass and going to people's legislative offices directly? So that's a question that we could have. There's no reason it says we couldn't do both. But the real question that

071I have for us that we might spend some time just doing some open discussion about is what are our key legislative priorities? If we had to ask for three things, what are our three things that we might ask of our legislators? All right. Got member Childs reopening the study into chapter 70 in order to revamp it so that it reflects reality Anybody else? I remember good one rural transportation costs Pay them. I'm a child again. Yeah the graduation Requirements making sure that Greenfield has a seat at the table and determining what they will be That reminds me didn't make it here. But there is there is an online that the More Healy's office is soliciting public comment on their proposal for the replacement for MCAS. So just so you know, if you have strong thoughts

072and opinions, which of course none of us do, please go online. They're looking for feedback. I could probably actually email that link out to folks tomorrow. No discussion. Just do your thing. Anything else? Member Deitman, I just want to... acknowledge make sure that if you have something oh i would um just concur that uh revisiting chapter 70. um great thank you um yeah logging that the msba pay a larger share of the franklin proposed tech school because that will have a an impact on on our schools as well and many students go there 50 Thank you. Member Goodwin. One of the things that different places are doing is really looking at salaries and besides as well as healthcare. Looking at those two things in the rural areas compared to the cities. Can I just get

073a sort of like informal poll sense right now of how many folks would want to go out to Boston to do some of this on the actual day of the Hill? So this is on Monday, March 30th. I'm trying to like make an effort to do that in the past. Member Deneve has been excellent in spearheading our efforts to go out with a bunch of other school committee members from across our region and sort of lobby collectively. Again, the other option is to do that, but here, kind of do a road show up and down the Connecticut River Valley. Yeah, no, you don't have to commit one way or the other right now, but I'm just trying to get a sense of what our efforts should look like, what folks are thinking. You're going unless

074it snows? Okay, out to the out east or? I'd really like scheduling Zooms and doing it from the comfort of my own house rather than driving and parking in Boston and being stressed out by the traffic there. It's kind of one of those things where if we're thinking that we would like to go and if we're thinking that we would like to have some more collective work, we're on a bit of a tight timeline to organize with the other school committees. However... we have what we at least would like to communicate and I know that a lot of these are shared across other school committees. So we can touch base on this all again on our next meeting March 11th because we'll still have a little bit of time. All right. And then the last

075thing that I've got in my own report. Thanks, Liz. Bye. in the chair report is we some of you may have received an email from Joe Comerford talking about a rural and declining enrollment schools week of action this week of action is slated to take place March 9th through 13th. A lot of this will be digital stuff, sending video snippets. The theme is SOS, Save Our Schools. They're asking for people to do kind of like media, but publicity stunts and things to draw attention to the issue and to create more of a groundswell of support. And so I would love to discuss what, if anything, we would like to do. here related to that. What kinds of activities could do we think we could undertake? I believe that there is a deadline to get any

076pictures or video snippets into Joe Comerford's team by March 3rd so that they can include it in all of their big media stuff that they've got going on. So we'd love to hear from folks. What are you thinking? What might you want to do? What's going on? Yeah. I reached out to some of the other people involved in this. and reached out to Joe Comerford. And so they're looking for visuals because they feel like they've done all the talking that they can. And so looking for strong visuals. So I was thinking of local photographers and, you know, empty chairs. spelling out SOS. I think every school district involved is using SOS. So they're looking for pictures, you know, that have that symbol. I really didn't want to use pictures of our children because that felt

077like, but empty chairs, everything from it could be hockey sticks or basketballs or teachers doing SOS. At the high school when we were walking around, there's a place where you can go up high to take a photograph from down. So that's the big thing they're looking for, and then they're going to take them and put them all together. So even if we all, as we're walking around, but they are due March 3rd. But I really like, I was trying to think like what a powerful picture that's sort of. I have a bunch of pennies. I saved them. I thought like sort of a representation you're only giving us pennies, not on an empty chair trying to make a point. So if anybody has great ideas. Mayor? How about some pictures of the empty Green River

078School? I think that would be great. So in order for us to do things, because as you know, as we just learned, we only act as a collective, we need to vote to like officially want to participate and then designate the work to happen in somewhere or by somebody. So I would entertain a motion from someone about that. Yep. Member Goodwin. I would move that you send it to the community engagement committee. I'LL SECOND THAT TO OPEN DISCUSSION BECAUSE TIMELINE IS MY CONCERN THERE. ALL RIGHT. SO WE HAD A MOTION FROM MEMBER GOODWIN TO REFER THIS MATTER TO THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SUBCOMMITTEE. WE HAD A SECOND FROM MEMBER CHILDS. ANY DISCUSSION, QUESTIONS? ALL RIGHT. I'VE GOT THE MAYOR AND THEN MEMBER CHILDS. I THINK THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. BUT WE JUST HEARD ABOUT THE SUBCOMMITTEE'S

079ROLE FROM LIZ. I THINK THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. If that goes to subcommittee, if we need to submit something by March 3rd, we wouldn't be weighing in on that. So if anybody has any thoughts on that. That was my question as well, whether or not it is possible with the timeline. With the timeline, they would also need to bring it back for approval before submitting it, like the subcommittee would? Or how would we handle that? I guess we're only talking about subcommittee right now. I'm just wondering how we'd handle that in general. Yeah, I get the sense that if we are following the exact sort of letter of the thing, then we send work to be done by a subcommittee. They do work or come up with a draft of something. They bring it back

080to us, and we either say, try again or good job, or don't try that again. One of those things. So it does seem like maybe, yeah, we are in a bit of a conundrum. Member Deneve and then the mayor. There's an easy way to solve this. What we have to do as a committee is we have to designate a representative to do this work, choose a person or have a person step forward who can do this work, and then we empower them, and then they go and they do it. We don't have to go through subcommittees to do this kind of thing. We just designate a representative and empower them. Thank you for that. That's very helpful. I concur. That's what I was bringing up. I was going to say the same thing as you.

081I've seen it done on other committees. You just designate someone. Okay, then you all can choose to friendly amendment your motion if you'd like or rescind it and bring a new one. I withdraw my motion. All right, motion withdrawn. Do we have another motion to designate a representative? Oh, yeah. If she is willing, I would move to designate Member Goodwin to be our representative for SOS on the grounds of she's the one who came with all the ideas for it. Member Knightman, I see you came off mute. Did you have that? Yes, second. Okay, great. Any discussion? Take your time. The only thing I want to say is I really like the change or the pennies on a chair or like I don't know if you have availability to find some like desks to do

082something like that. But maybe with some old outdated curriculum there. I was looking around today on our tour. Okay. All right. So we have a motion on the table. Thank you for the discussion. Are we ready for a vote? Looks like yes. When you're ready, Member Webb, can you please call the roll? MEMBER DIPMAN. YES. MEMBER GOODWIN. YES. CHAIR SEXTON. YES. MEMBER WEBB. I'M YES. VICE CHAIR CHILDS. YES. MEMBER DENEVE. YES. MAYOR DISSORGER. YES. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, MEMBER GOODWIN. PLEASE GO FORTH. ALL RIGHT. NEXT ITEM, BUDGET AND FINANCE SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT. So we met on February 3rd. We received some preliminary figures for what we're projecting the level service cost for next year based on wage increases, what we're anticipating Chapter 70 amounts will be, choice charter spending. These are the projected, not hard and,

083you know, engraved in stone. This is a major plot twist, but we're expecting a rough financial year. I know no one saw that one coming. The biggest notable change was the budget development calendar because the calendar was built and approved on using the way the city does its budget. But there has been a change at the city level that came down from the state that bumped everything back by roughly a month, meaning we had this beautiful document that is completely out of date and it is not accurate. But thankfully, the school central administration has offered to update those dates so that we won't have this beautiful document that we can't do anything with, and instead we'll have a more realistic picture of, yes, this is when the budgets are now actually due, at this place

084and that place and the like. Thank you. Any questions for Budget and Finance? Yes, Member Deneve. Thank you for your report. I was curious, has the Budget and Finance Subcommittee set any goals yet? And where are you at with your future budget book that was discussed last year? We have an upcoming meeting. I've got to find the calendar. I've got too many tabs. So what happened was when we met this month, the department had requests that were still ongoing. We have another meeting very soon in March. March 3rd, so we're going to be getting more into the upcoming budget. As far as the goals, we did that, I think, was that at the December meeting? Does that sound right? Yes, because Kate was still here, and we went through that. We didn't go over the

085budget book this last meeting, but we did do that quite a bit on the December meeting. I'd have to pull up the minutes in order to see, because I don't want to misremember something. Yes. And what we went through, yeah, that was a really good meeting actually because that was the one where we went through and were talking about what all information we specifically wanted to see. And so something that thematically came up a lot was class size. And that also came up a lot at this most recent meeting. because we want to make sure that when we're presenting the data, we're tying it in specifically to how this is impacting the actual classroom, the class size, keeping that in mind. And of course, another one of our priorities is saving our people's jobs, because

086it's going to be a tough year. Did that get all of your questions? I'm just sort of mulling over a future new business item of... when the subcommittees meet and have set their goals that they submit them to the full committee, not necessarily for approval, but just so that we know. what the overarching plan is for the year so that when you finish your year and you post-mortem your goals and you find out if you achieved your plan or didn't or however that went, there will be a body of work that can be passed to the next chair of the subcommittee, even if it's not that same person, so that they can understand where the work has gone and where it is at. So that's why I'm kind of just starting to think about. how

087the sub if the subcommittees have set the goals and of course we have to untangle that but after we do all of that that's just a hope that i have in my heart for the future i think that's a great idea i can go back to uh the previous meeting to find what those goals were and put that on the agenda for the upcoming one that will touch on those and that way will be included in next month's report sound good excellent um It's not necessarily on here, but I might entertain a motion to approve your subcommittee meeting minutes that we did receive. I'll second it. Okay. Are they not in there? They were not included? Was it not written? No, it was separate. It was included in a different folder. Yeah, they're there. No,

088they're actual minutes, I thought. The minutes are there. Perfect. I appreciate you looking out for us though. All right. So we have a motion from Member Goodwin. We have a second from Member Childs. Any discussion before we approve these minutes? So the only discussion I'll have is that these are the minutes from the most recent meeting. The subcommittee has not actually voted yet. So these are the draft. So does the subcommittee need to vote on them? Should have asked Liz. Should have. Probably. Because the way that I understood what Liz was just saying is that most subcommittees don't vote on their own minutes. They come to us, we approve, and we say, good job, and now go make more minutes. Is that not how you all heard it? I think every subcommittee approves its own

089minutes and then they send the minutes to the full committee because that was something we discussed last year that came up in Hyannis where all the subcommittee meeting minutes have to come to the full committee for awareness, not to vote necessarily on. The subcommittee votes on their minutes. Okay. Yes, if I can I would concur with member Deneve on that bridge and we do have the So these would be draft minutes just so you would know and they don't get lost and I don't say they get lost They don't get lost but your knowledge doesn't get lost of what happened on February 3rd. We're gonna meet on March 3rd again But then those minutes won't get approved until March 3rd and then won't hit you until March 11th So the reason that came about last

090year was so everybody would have an idea right of what was going on in the meetings And we have those posted online in draft form as well, too Great and never mind Sorry, thanks for that Okay, all right now we are moved on to new business First on the table I would like to bring a motion for this group to pursue mediation for the school committee in an effort to increase productive collaboration and collegiality among members. The motion would authorize the district to enter into an agreement with a mediation service provider. I will share that this is a request that is both coming from me and other members of this committee. I don't want to... get too much into it because mediation is a confidential process and so I'm trying to strike the balance between

091adhering to the open meeting law which says that we do have to advertise that there might be if we do an executive session with mediation as the reason we have to talk a little bit at least about the reason and I don't want to violate the confidentiality of both mediation as a tool and executive session. So I'm not going to air all of the dirty laundry right here, right now. I'm just saying that right now. Don't ask. I won't tell you. But this is something that has been brought up, and I would encourage strongly, I cannot compel any of you, but I would encourage you strongly to participate in a process like this. But I am looking, yes, so I am bringing this motion. I'll second. All right. So we've got a motion from myself,

092a second from Member Childs. Any discussion on this? All right. I've got Member Goodwin. Is there a cost? Yes. Do we know what that is? We know that it would be for the provider that we've... briefly started talking to but I've not signed anything with, of course. They would offer us 150 an hour for actual like in session mediation and then any work that they do outside of that is 100 an hour. And you know, we are sort of free to set a cap on the cost like we can only do so many hours kind of a thing. But yes, mediation is not free. Just checking. Yeah, I appreciate that. That's an important question. Yes, Mayor DeSorger. What were you thinking on the timing of this? I don't mean when it would start. I mean

093when during the day. Would you be thinking this is going to happen when we have a meeting at night or on a different night that we would be asked to come? I just wanted to bring that up maybe from my own personal perspective because to try to find a night, a different night at this point is like an act of Congress, but I always like to be at things if they're happening. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, I think that that's something that we can come to sort of an agreement on as a group about how we feel. I do think that like the path of least resistance is adding on an executive session to whatever meeting we might have. That being said, we're going to be tired. It's going to be hanging over our

094heads during our whole public meeting. It doesn't necessarily create the best container for that kind of conversation. And still, if that is what gets most people to participate, that would be great for me. And also, I'm just going to throw this out there. This is not a one shot. So the way I understand it, the service would talk to each person who wanted to participate individually, and then we would have group sessions. That's my understanding right now of how this process would go. And so this is the kind of thing that is not a, we're not just doing this in March. This is going to be a month's sort of long endeavor, something that we actually do. I do think that it would be helpful. I have participated in other mediation processes, not with this

095group, but I have found them to be. REALLY PRODUCTIVE FOR HELPING FOLKS BE ABLE TO REALIGN, DO A LITTLE BIT OF RESET AND MOVE FORWARD IN A PRODUCTIVE AND COLLEGIAL FASHION. IT HELPS PEOPLE FEEL HEARD. IT DOES. ANY OTHER DISCUSSION, QUESTIONS? I THINK THAT PARTICIPATING IN THIS WOULD BE A GREAT STEP OF MATURITY CONSIDERING THAT WE HAVE A NEW SUPERINTENDENT READY TO COME ON BOARD. And I think that we should all have our very best foot forward if we want to have somebody here permanently, if that is our desire, then aligning our behaviors is the right step forward. And so I support mediation. Discussion or questions? All right. I think we're ready for a vote. Member Webber, will you call the roll, please? Sure. Member Deitman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yes. Member Webb,

096I'm abstaining. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor DeSarger? I believe that the motion passes with two abstentions. Thank you all. I really appreciate you entertaining this motion. Okay. Next, we have a motion to appoint a member from the Greenfield School Committee to be on the Business Manager Interview Committee. So moved. oh sorry we need i this is raising the thing we actually need a name we need a person oh well okay i'll make a motion to appoint myself because i did the last ones i did five of them i believe or four of them so uh i make a motion to appoint myself and then i'll talk about it in discussion if there's a second second all right um Oh, and this is fun. Okay, I just recently watched if there are motions

097for multiple different people, they come together and then we, it becomes like a this or that person. I actually just watched this in the last Collaborative for Educational Services executive director hiring meeting. So just to note that, but we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion? So when I did this last year, one of the things that I learned is that it's really important to... be really clear with the candidates about what you're looking for and the types of changes that you want to make and the candidates that I spoke with were all very willing to make the changes that we're seeking that we have talked about as a committee. Different types of budget presentations, different ways to digest the budget. They all felt like that was very easy. The part

098that we had diverging opinions on was not what I thought I was surprised but what it really comes down to is we have people in the central office that have to work with our business managers every day and so there's a lot of interpersonal relationships that we're not involved with we're just oversight so them finding the right person that fits them, that makes them feel comfortable and heard and work along the same lines as they do via software ideas. choices, educational experiences, all of that is really important and that's really where this lies. It's not so much us picking somebody for us, really picking somebody for the whole district. And there's a team of people that have to work with them and that is not something that I fully understood until I got into the

099interviews. So if I don't end up doing that work, that's fine. But whoever does do that work, I just hope that they keep that in mind because there are people that really NEED TO FEEL LIKE THEY'RE LETTING A NEW PERSON INTO THEIR LITTLE FAMILY AND THEY WANT TO FEEL AS COMFORTABLE AS POSSIBLE WORKING WITH THEM. THANK YOU FOR THAT REFLECTION. ANY OTHER DISCUSSION OR QUESTIONS? YES, MAYOR. I WAS THINKING IT MIGHT BE SOMEBODY FROM THE WAYS AND MEANS OR FINANCE COMMITTEE. THAT WAS WHERE MY HEAD WAS GOING WITH THAT. YES. MEMBER WEBB. I guess where my thoughts are going kind of are similar to Elizabeth's that I remember to leave is that It's not just us who works but also people in the off in the office but also members of the budget subcommittee and

100I was Thinking it might be beneficial to have someone from the Budget Committee Also part of the process Okay. Yes member Goodwin I think I was sort of in the same place. I truly appreciate your comment, Member Deneve, because I know that we lost a lot of people who were in our business office six years ago. And it does make a difference. I believe I heard, and I just wanted to confirm this, that... superintendent and new superintendents would be part of the process is that correct if if I was to leave this and I would think I would be leading it even though the purview the ultimate decision right comes down to school community but leading the process not the decision-making I would concur with member Deneve in that sense about having some people from

101the business department on that as well. Some others, maybe senior leadership in central office and not myself, but the incoming superintendent, because by the time this gets rolling, I will have hope to. And I do believe that the new superintendent would have probably signed a contract at that point and would be able to sit in and weigh in on some of that. I've got Member Deneve and then the mayor. WHEN I DID IT, THE PEOPLE THAT WERE PRESENT WAS THE SUPERINTENDENT, THE ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, THE DIRECTOR OF PUPIL SERVICES, TWO MEMBERS OF THE ACCOUNTING TEAM FROM CENTRAL OFFICE AND MYSELF. THOSE WERE THE PEOPLE THAT WERE PRESENT. AT THE TIME I WAS PART OF THE BUDGET AND PLANNED SUB COMMITTEE BEFORE I GAVE MY SEAT TO MEMBER GOODWIN. I don't think that it needs to be

102a member of the budget and finance because ideally we are all revolving through our subcommittee so that everybody learns what everybody does. No one person should be stuck in anyone's subcommittee for more than a year or two, really, truly. That's best practice. So I don't necessarily think that that's important, but of course it's all up to you. But those are the members of the interview team from last year. I'M NOT GOING TO SAY ANYTHING ELSE. THANK YOU. I WAS HOPING THIS COULD HAPPEN AS WE DEVELOP OUR BUDGET, THAT THIS COULD HAPPEN QUICKLY. I MEAN, IS IT FAIR TO ASK HOW MANY CANDIDATES WE HAVE RIGHT NOW? How many people have applied? That's not quite the topic of the motion at hand. I apologize. And it's not closed. We're not closed yet. Yeah, and we're not

103closed yet. So, yeah. Any other thing before we call the question? All right. Let's call the question. Will you please call the roll, Member Webb? And this, just so we're all clear, the motion is to appointment and leave to the business manager hiring interview committee. Member Dykeman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yes. Member Webb? I'm going to abstain. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Abstain. Mayor Disorder? Abstain. All right. I think it passes with three abstentions. Thank you all. Okay. Next motion. SETTING THEM UP, KNOCKING THEM DOWN. MOTION FROM MEMBER DENIEVE TO ADD A NON-VOTING STUDENT MEMBER TO THE GREENFIELD SCHOOL COMMITTEE. I WOULD LIKE TO OPEN THE FLOOR TO THE MEMBER BRINGING THE MOTION FOR A BIT OF AN EXPLANATION OR TO HELP SET IT UP. ALL RIGHT. SO THIS IS SOMETHING THAT

104DO YOU WANT ME TO MAKE THE MOTION FIRST AND THEN HAVE THE SECOND FOR DISCUSSION OR DO YOU WANT ME TO SET IT UP WITH THE RATIONALE? THIS IS THE RATIONALE PORTION. SO THROUGHOUT THE TRAINING WITH MASC, I KEPT RUNNING INTO SCHOOL COMMITTEES THAT HAD NONVOTING MEMBERS. AND THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS STARTING TO WEND THROUGH THE LEGISLATION. IN FACT, I ADDED IN MY RATIONALE THE BILL, THE HOUSE BILL 568. AND I PUT THE BILL TRACK THERE FOR YOU. BUT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT that being something that is going to happen fairly soon. So if we did it, we would be ahead of the curve, or we may just end up having to do it when it's finally passed, if it does pass. And the idea is that we would, and we'd have to figure this

105out as a group. I don't know how we would work the logistics, but the general best practice idea is that a student from the school council, they would choose whom. would come and sit with us and be part of the deliberations and the discussions, but they would not be a voting member. Now there's some things that go along with that as well. Some districts have found a way to give these high school students credits. and also civic leadership experience that they can use towards future college goals. So it would serve a purpose there as well. And hopefully if we wanted to do something like this, the school council would rotate somebody per year or even... I mean, it really would be up to them. It wouldn't necessarily be the same person and we wouldn't necessarily

106have a say in who it was or how often they changed, but that would empower our kiddos to be involved in these decisions that shape their lives and their achievement levels. So I'm hoping we can have a little bit of a discussion about that and see if it would even work for us. um but again they would just be part of the discussion they would ask questions they would give their opinions and their feedback they would not be voting members thanks do we have a second second all right do we have any discussion questions thoughts opinions yeah remember denise now that i'm speaking the words to you all about this i'm wondering if this is something that should we BE INTERESTED IN DOING IT, IT MIGHT BE SOMETHING TO SEND TO THE POLICY SUBCOMMITTEE TO

107CRAFT A POLICY OR BEGINNING POLICY GATHERING THE INFORMATION FROM THE DISTRICTS THAT HAVE DONE IT TO GET AN IDEA OF HOW IT WOULD FIT INTO OUR COMMITTEE BECAUSE WE WOULD BE ADDING ANOTHER BODY. WE WOULD WANT SOME RULES AND REGULATIONS AROUND THAT I WOULD THINK. Okay, so is that a slight amendment to the motion is to create this role and then refer? Yes. Okay, and that has been approved also by the seconder. Okay, hearing the motion as amended, any more thoughts, discussion? What do we think about this? Member Goodwin? I've just been a student council advisor for many years. There's also rules for student council. SO YOU MIGHT HAVE TO LOOK MORE AT HONOR SOCIETIES VERSUS STUDENT COUNCIL. THERE ARE GUIDELINES. THEY ACTUALLY HAVE THEIR OWN POLICY. BUT I AM CONCERNED, I'M NOT SURE WE'RE

108READY FOR ONE MORE PERSONALITY, ONE MORE VOICE AT THE TABLE YET. I MEAN, WE JUST TALKED ABOUT MEDIATION. SO ADDING ANOTHER PERSON. I'm strongly in favor of this. We have some really, really impressive kids at our high school who could probably walk onto a city council in a good chunk of cities in the state and country. So I think it will really enrich all of us to have their voice at the table. Member Webb? I think this would end up in the policy, but I know that we have a lot of meetings that run late. And I will say as a parent of a... I WOULD NOT WANT MY CHILD HERE LIKELY PAST 9 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT KNOWING THAT I WANT THEM TO HAVE THEIR BEST FOOT FORWARD THE NEXT SCHOOL DAY. SO I THINK

109IF IT DOES PASS WHAT GOES TO POLICY WE NEED TO HAVE GUIDELINES AROUND WHAT TIME THERE TO BE DONE. THANK YOU. YES, MEMBER DEMING. Sorry, the last thing I'd say is that the reason that I bring it up now is because I don't think that this would happen quickly. Like I'm guessing that this would take, like if we just decided today to like start exploring this, I can't imagine that we would be ready to implement it until like the beginning of the next school year, like September or even the following year after a break or something. I don't see this happening quickly. So I thought. If this is coming down the pipeline and if they're talking about this bill and if we want to do this, then we best start the process of learning how

110it would fit in because it's going to take some untangling and some thought and a lot of conversations with a lot of people that we maybe don't even have conversations with yet. Absolutely. Member Diamond. I think it's a great idea. I think that we need to hear more from students directly. And I also agree with those members who have pointed out that it might be something that needs to be phased in. Not immediately, but yeah, it does seem clear that it's going to take some time anyway. One question that I have is... What kind of complications could we expect with having a student representative sitting in on executive session? And it would be possible to, they would not be invited to executive session. Okay, that clarifies that for me. We're ready for a vote. We've

111heard from most folks. Member Webb, will you call the roll? And just remember, this is a motion to create this position and refer it to the policy subcommittee for further elucidation, and they'll bring that back to us. MEMBER DITEMAN? YES. MEMBER GOODWIN? YES. MEMBER GOODWIN? YES. MEMBER SEXTON? MEMBER SEXTON? YES. YES. MEMBER WEINER? MEMBER WEINER? MEMBER WEINER? I'M GOING TO ABSTAIN AS WELL. I'M GOING TO ABSTAIN AS WELL. I'M GOING TO ABSTAIN AS WELL. VICE CHAIR CHILDS? VICE CHAIR CHILDS? VICE CHAIR CHILDS? YES. YES. YES. MEMBER DENIEVE? MEMBER DENIEVE? MEMBER DENIEVE? YES. YES. MAYOR DESSAUREGER? MAYOR DESSAUREGER? MAYOR DESSAUREGER? ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. IT PASSES WITH TWO IT PASSES WITH TWO IT PASSES WITH TWO ABSTENTIONS. ABSTENTIONS. ABSTENTIONS. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. member goodwin reel it in um thank you all right so

112we return to new business our next motion this is item d in the list motion from member denise to have the school committee meet every other month with the student advisory council as per massachusetts general law member denny would you like to provide the rationale for this okay so this one is is it's a law WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS. NOT EVERYBODY DOES BUT MASC HAS SAID YOU SHOULD TRY. YOU SHOULD AT LEAST TRY. SEE IT BECAUSE NOT EVERYBODY HAS A VERY FUNCTIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL OR ARE IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING THEM FUNCTIONAL. AND I KNOW THAT WE HAVE A FUNCTIONING ONE NOW. SO WE SHOULD TRY. MAKE AN EFFORT TO DO THIS LAW. SO THE LAW SAYS AND I PUT IT HERE IN THE RATIONALE SO YOU CAN ALL READ IT. It says,

113school committees of cities, towns, and regional school districts shall meet at least once every other month during the month school is in session with a student advisory committee to consist of five members to be composed of students elected by the student body of the high school in each city, town, or regional school district. A school committee may designate a student outreach coordinator for the purpose of ensuring the establishment of a student advisory committee and regularly informing the advisory committee of the school committee's agenda. So basically, somebody needs to get appointed to be this outreach coordinator and go every other month and meet with them and hear what they have to say, let them know what the school committee is doing and what our year-long agenda is and where we are with that, and bring their

114desires back to us and our desires to them. So it's a bridge and it's required by law and we have not done it but maybe now we're in a position to do it It was my understanding that as part of the motion you were putting yourself forward for this representative role Yes, I'm willing to do it if anybody else has the desire great, okay, but I'm also now wondering if we maybe need to refer it to the policy subcommittee to create a policy around it now that I'm saying the words again But I would just say that whoever does it part of this would be to Make a calendar so that we know when you'll be meeting every other month and then bringing it back to us so that we know What is occurring and

115what we can expect, you know when we when we can expect reports is what I'm trying So we have the motion and do we have a second Second so we have a motion from member to need we have a second from member child's discussion time can contribute. I mean, I think in general, if it is my understanding that many school committees do not do this, whether they've tried and failed or not tried at all, I can't speak to that. But what I can speak to is that we get the choice to do what we want to do. And I have heard consistently over the years, even before I was a member of this committee, that student voice is an important. part of what we want to be hearing, that it matters to us that we

116care about hearing what our students want and what they need, more importantly, what they think, how they're thinking about things. And so I am inclined to support the motion. I maybe would amend it to refer it to policy to develop some more of this, like, how does this actually happen? Is that something that the seconder would also be amenable to? All right. Yes, Member Webb. When looking at the motion C that we did just pass and motion D, I'm just wondering if maybe the same student who was possibly on the advisory council would be a sitting member and they would be able to bring that back to us? Like using the student as a facilitator? I don't know if I'm making sense. Can I just ask for a clarification? Do you mean instead of us

117designating a representative, although it seems like we would still need to? Yes, because we would have the representative already as a sitting board school committee member from that student body. Member Deneve, do you have any thoughts on that as the bringer of these two motions and how you sort of envisioned them working together, if at all? Based on the training that I received from Liz LaFaude. who was just here, I wish she stayed because I was like, I have more questions for you about other things. I think it's supposed to be a school committee member. But then again, as she's told me many times, everybody needs to try. It's not necessarily going to work because it has to be our body's capable, their body is capable, and we make a bridge. Maybe they aren't. I

118don't know. But we have to try to walk across the bridge and see because maybe it's not for now. Maybe it's for later. But we don't know. So I guess I would say it should be a school committee member and maybe one of you want to do it. I don't know. But. You go and look and find out where they're at and how they feel and what they want and maybe maybe all you do is plant a seed about this law and tell them that there's a bridge opportunity and Then see what happens. It could be next year. It could be the year. I don't know but exploration onward So we have high school students coming to school committee and reporting to us maybe the first step is to talk to them about this and

119how it would fit, they think it would fit. They're here like almost every month with a report. I'm just thinking you need to do this slowly. So you've already got sort of a beginning bridge which is two children sometimes. one who sit here and tell us different things that are going on I Just think is how is that gonna be different? Are we doing both? I'm a chance. I think if we're going to them and talking to them on their home turf They will perhaps say different things maybe more things than they would up here on camera and on TV so I see it as a separate thing entirely and I, yeah, I'm in favor. Any more discussion, questions? Yes, Member Deneve. I think the loss sort of intends it as a listening session. Like

120it's, you're not going to go there and tell them what to think or do or anything. You're really not there to be involved. You're just there to listen and maybe take some notes and maybe you learn something that, you know, you might want to. Bring back and head off at the pass. I don't know or maybe you get some good ideas, but it's not it's not an interactive role is from is what I think and so just to clarify the motion that's on the table as amended is To say yes to this and to refer it back to policy To figure out how it would work and have policy subcommittee bring it back to us with a little bit more like This is this is what it is. This is the plan So that's what's

121on the table right now. How do folks feel about that? All right. Sorry, Mayor. I didn't want to do it, but I just thought it's going to go back to the whole idea of it's going to go back to the policy subcommittee, which I think is a great idea. I think maybe we designate a person when it comes back to us. Yeah, thanks for bringing that forward. Okay, at this time. Ready for a roll call vote. member of dietman yes remember goodwin yes chair sexton yes remember webb i'm a yes vice chair childs yes remember denise yes remember disorder yes remember goodwin yes passes unanimously okay Moving on, we are on item E, motion from member Deneve to have the Greenfield School Committee rescind the vote on subcommittee assignments from the January 14th, 2026 meeting.

122Member Deneve, would you like to provide the rationale at this time? I am thankful that Liz LaFond was here because she explained the rationale. So any subcommittee that anybody brings forward to chair or otherwise has to be voted on by the full committee. So if anybody decides one day that they think we should have a whatever committee, then we all have to vote on whether or not we want that work to be done. So we have some things on the list that, and this isn't personal to me. I'm just literally doing procedure. This is just procedure. We have to, the process is we have to rescind what we did just because it wasn't correct because we didn't vote on everything. If we want to add the handbook work to the policy subcommittee, we just have

123to vote on that. If we want that, discuss it. Same goes with the motion to add warrants to budget and finance. And that might also have to go. TO POLICY BECAUSE WARRANTS ARE A POLICY AND WE HAVE A POLICY IN PLACE SO IF WE'RE CHANGING THE POLICY WE HAVE TO CHANGE IT AND THEN ADD IT SO THAT'S SOMETHING WE HAVE TO DO. WE ALSO HAVE CHAIR SEXTON WANTED TO DO A FACILITIES USE SUBCOMMITTEE BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS SO WE HAVE TO HEAR THEIR RATIONALE AND WHAT THEY THINK THE CHARGES SHOULD BE FOR THAT SUBCOMMITTEE AND THEN WE NEED TO VOTE ON THAT. and discuss that. We also have to figure out if we want the redistricting ad hoc subcommittee to continue or not. That's also something we have to vote on. So

124in order to do all of these votes to make sure that everything is in line with our procedures, we have to rescind what we did the first time around. So we could do that and then get right into this. That's the point of me bringing it forward is because we all have to have our voices heard about all of this because this is the work that you do for the year so you should understand what your subcommittee's charge is what your subcommittee is about so that you can go forward and do this work with the full blessing of the committee does that make sense did i explain it well enough in our policy bd um sorry uh bde subcommittees of the school committee uh the motion has been made we need a second I'LL SECOND

125FOR DISCUSSION. ALL RIGHT. OPENING IT UP FOR DISCUSSION. YEAH, MAYOR. I'LL BE VOTING NO. JUST I THINK WE ALLOW SOME POWER TO THE CHAIR OF OUR COMMITTEE AND I THOUGHT THEY WERE DONE WELL. MEMBER CHARLES. What so a bunch of the motions that say need to happen are on the agenda and The part that trips me up is why does this need to happen for those motions to happen? Rather than just going straight to those motions because we never voted on whether or not we wanted those subcommittees in existence or whether we wanted to add those charges to the subcommittee if if we wanted to like bundle it together as a consent agenda i mean i don't know We have to discuss all of this. I mean, you can't, let me put it to you

126this way. You can't serve on a subcommittee that none of us have voted on for it to exist and say that you didn't violate your oath of office because you agreed to uphold the policies and procedures of the school committee and the charter of the city. So if you go and you serve on a subcommittee that nobody agreed to have in existence, that the body didn't agree on. then that's a violation and having all of these robert's rules of order and procedures in place it exists to protect the minority voices here so i have seen chairs do procedural shenanigans both maliciously and also just because they didn't know and so i know that it can happen and that's fine but there are ramifications down the road so i'm not I'm not saying that the outcome

127would be any different than what Chair Sexton has already outlined. The chips could fall the same way, fine. But it's the procedure to get there that needs to be handled. Why would you vote to be on a committee that you don't know what it does, that nobody has described to you? And why wouldn't you stand up to... to support your procedures. I mean, you can't do oversight on your, you can't refuse to do oversight in your procedures and then also stand up for the budget, for example. Like this is part of your charge as a school committee member. It's just part of what you do is to follow these policies. So it's kind of a no brainer. I mean, we have to do it if we want to be in line with our policies. And

128also, I'd love to know what, I mean, I'm on, apparently I'm on the Facilities and Youth Subcommittee. I don't know what that is. So I'd like to know what it is, you know, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't agree with it. I'm just saying, I don't know. So I can't agree with anything until I know, and until I know what you all think, and we have voted as a body. Even if I disagree, what Liz LaFond said, you disagree, but you commit. Because you're committing to the will of the body. But if the will of the body hasn't happened, then none of this exists. Does that make sense? I would like to add my two cents. I'm listening to what you're saying. It's kind of chicken and the egg. But everything I've read, the

129chair assigns subcommittees. And the subcommittees existed. Goals were given to us by a previous chair for those subcommittees So I'm just looking for clarification are you thinking each time there's a new chair we should recreate a revote or On subcommittees or I'm just thinking only if the subcommittees have changed So we don't have to revote on there being a policy subcommittee. We don't have to revote on there being budget and finance, ad hoc redistricting, community engagement. Those are our subcommittees. We've already established that they exist. We don't have to vote on them annually. But if we choose to add warrants to the budget and finance, we have to vote on that. If we choose to add handbook to policy and program, we have to vote on that. If we choose to create a new subcommittee

130called facilities and uses, we have to vote on that. The policy says the subcommittees will be established through action of the committee. Okay. Okay. The committee chair. can appoint the subcommittee chairs and its members, but none of us can create a new subcommittee without the vote of everyone. That's just how it is. Makes sense. So the only thing in place is the warrants. Do we want to add warrants to budget and finance? Do we want to add handbook to policy? What are we going to do with the redistricting ad hoc subcommittee, and what are we doing with policy? I mean, I don't know who's, I mean, there are positions on here that I haven't agreed to do, too. So, like, also, I'd like to know what the charges are of the work that we're supposed

131to be doing. So I tried to lay out all the motions in order. Stacy has the motions that they would want to make to make their work happen. So I tried to make it as easy as possible with the rationales. So I hope you all had a chance to look at them. So I'd like to weigh in. For at least one of these, specifically adding the handbook to the policy and program, that was actually done under the previous chair. That was part of the previous setup, so I didn't feel that that was me adding something new. If we feel like we never voted on it the first time that it happened, I'm so happy to vote on it now in this meeting. As for adding warrants to budget and finance and the facilities use subcommittee,

132I am wondering, does not taking the vote at the time that we put people in those committees and had those committees constitute an action of the body in order to say, we say that they exist because we voted that they exist and we voted the people into them. Now, what I can admit. to me having the mea culpa here is that I did not provide you, and I should have, with the written descriptions of what each of these committees do. I've done some due diligence after the fact. One, that Hasn't been past practice, but we can do better than what we've done in the past. Two, we should actually have, at least for the standing subcommittees, written into our policy manual, those descriptions should exist in sort of an evergreen. We shouldn't need to recreate

133them. And so, you know, I think that that's something that I have committed to drafting and having for you, for your eyeballs at the next meeting, is the descriptions of all of those. I don't believe that we actually do need to rescind the vote in order to make whole some of these other changes. I'm thinking about other times when we've amended policy. We don't have to rescind a policy in order to enact a new policy. We just update the policy. But it's not a policy, it's a vote. I see what you're saying. It's just sticky, icky language. Procedure that's what it is. But to your point about the ad hoc subcommittee I was the chair of the ad hoc subcommittee from Paula for a handbook that was separate so That was dissolved. So you're saying

134that I'm saying through its dissolution. We took a vote to add it to the policy I'm saying that when I looked at what Glenn presented at the beginning of 2025, that was the name of the committee that he had proposed at that time. And so I just copied that name. That's what I'm saying. And so I didn't feel like I was creating something new. I felt like I was continuing the subcommittee as it was laid out at the time. I am admitting that. But it wasn't because you and I and Kate were on it and Glenn wasn't on it. It was different than policy. That was not the paperwork that we had that I was going off of with the names and titles of how our committees are described. That could very well be it.

135Mayor? I think we just talked tonight about spending money on a mediator, and I just found that a very difficult one to read, to vote to rescind the committee appointments. I am I never wanted to be on the policy committee I don't like writing but I've read through them and I know that there are three subcommittees that were mentioned I believe to the best of my recollection and I I think there's a way to accomplish things in a congenial manner. I agree on the facilities one, which has been named a couple of times. And, you know, at another juncture make a motion that we, not tonight, because it wasn't on the agenda, to define that a little bit more. I THINK ANY ONE OF THOSE THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED IN A DIFFERENT

136WAY IF WE WERE SO FAR AWAY FROM FOLLOWING OUR OWN MANDATE. YES. SO I DID JUST GO TO THE WEBSITE TO PULL UP THE MEETING MATERIALS FROM JANUARY 2025 AND IT DOES SAY POLICY PROGRAM AND SCHOOL COMMITTEE HANDBOOK SUBCOMMITTEE. SO. That was just what I pulled up there. But I guess the question I have is what is the consequence of not rescinding and what is the consequence of rescinding? So what's obvious to me, consequence of rescinding is needing to go back and do everything again. And what does that mean for the subcommittees that are already in process working? And then I'd like to know more about the ramifications and consequences for not rescinding by just going by past precedent and making whole now. Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with rescinding anything. Committees do

137it all the time, especially to backtrack just to fix things. And I don't think there's any ramifications for that. And also, I wasn't saying that we're scrapping appointees, or that any of the work that the subcommittees are doing is moot. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that... We don't have them. We haven't voted on the things that we're supposed to be doing. So we should vote on them and we should know what we're doing. I guess that's where I'm a little confused because if we rescind the vote, that's the whole thing wiped. And so we'd have to revote on the slate, right? Well, what we'd have to do, I mean, the chair chooses who goes into the subcommittees. That's their purview. Okay, so the only thing that we'd be changing, I mean, I'm

138sure that if we vote on making sure that the subcommittees are whole and that their charge is correct and that we all agree on what we're doing, the chair will just slot everybody back in and that's fine. That's the will of the group because you all already said you were fine with your appointments But it's the question of the actual subcommittees. That's the problem. Where is the redistricting ad hoc subcommittee? Are we even doing that anymore? If we're not we should vote to have it Have it dissolved and when that came up last year we had issues with that and somebody had to bring up that motion and we defeated that so There's merit in talking about what we do with our subcommittees. So Also, what is facilities use? What is that? What are we

139doing? What is that about? We need to find out and talk about it. It's not about winning or losing or like getting what you want. It's not, this is not a personal thing. This is just about the procedure. That's all. It's just about knowing what's happening. I mean, if it says, so you pulled it up. So if we voted on having handbook into policy, great. Wonderful. Great. Okay. But now we've got to figure out what to do with warrants. And that has its own policy. So if we're putting that in budget and finance, guess what? We have to change what the policy is. Because the policy says one person can sign. I don't know what the vision is, what your motion is about having warrants in budget and finance. Do you want to change that?

140If you want to change that, then we have to send it back to policy. It's just like these steps that we have to do. And if we don't follow the steps, then later on things are going to suffer. So we just follow them. As boring as all of this is, it's just procedure. Because I look at the list and I'm like, I don't know what I'm serving on or what I'm doing. Theoretically, say we tabled this motion and went through the other motions that address most of your concerns. If we satisfied those, then would there be a need to rescind still if we just fixed those things first? That's what I'm saying because it's a what comes first and what needs to come first. So the part that I'm not... fully on board and convinced

141with is if we do need to rescind versus we need to fix the problems. Because you can't go back to a motion that everybody has voted on and change it. You have to rescind it and then make a new one. Like you can't like Robert's rules I believe does not allow you to be like oh remember that thing we voted on last week Well, we don't want to let's change something to what we voted on like once it's been voted on it's voted on You can recent there's no rescinding things isn't bad It's just you're saying like hey this thing that we did last week. It turns out we didn't do it, right? So we're just gonna like Wipe it clean and do it again and do it right. I mean That's what it's for

142I know we just had a conversation briefly about we were going to say the subcommittees were going to come back to the committee with their goals and expectations for the year and what they believe the committee would expect from them. So, I mean, when I go on to our district website, nowhere does it say what the goals of any. of the subcommittees are from previous years. I do think it's good practice to have that listed so people do know, but it is not there. I think it's, there's just some things that have been expected along with like policy and handbook, you know, it's kind of very to the point. So therefore it hasn't been there, but I just want to say, you know, I think it would be hard for chair Sexton to tell us

143what this policy is for. We're asking subcommittees to tell us what they think their expectations are and what they're tasked with. Unless I'm reading all that wrong. That's a separate issue, though. Yeah, so as far as charging and just making a description of this is the purview of this subcommittee, I've already, like, yeah, I should be the one as chair to be providing that to you all. And then you can choose to say yes. And this is sort of like, I think this is a thing that maybe only Greenfield does, where we allow the subcommittee to redefine itself within certain parameters if it chooses, but that's a discussion that then comes back to the full committee for a bigger discussion and then a full vote to charge that subcommittee with that item. And so at

144this moment... I think within some reasonable, I think like, you know, budget and finance sort of knows, generally speaking, what you're supposed to be doing because it's the same thing you've been doing every year, Pinky, trying to take over the school district. But I think you're right for like the facility, long-term facilities use. My intention was for that to be a successor to the ad hoc redistricting because it seems like we've now gotten... a ways away from the original data that we were using to make decisions. So that was my intention with that. But that should be written somewhere. You're right. Yeah, I'm not saying that I'm not going to be for all of the things that are coming up. Please don't look at me like I'm the devil here. I literally could be for

145all of this. But if we don't know and we don't vote on it, then it doesn't exist. It's just it's in our policy. That's just kind of how it is. I mean, and I bet you anything there's going to be stuff down the line that we're going to do like the same thing with and we're going to have to rescind it and figure it out. Like it's just life. It's just what happens on committee. We don't always do the right thing or like we might mess up and this is our way out to reset ourselves and It's not saying that you guys like didn't do subcommittee work or aren't gonna continue to do subcommittee work It's just now you're gonna get even more information and you're gonna feel more empowered by what you can do

146I guess like can I ask a very like a logistical example Let's say we do vote to rescind this and give me a month to bring at the next meeting all of these descriptions and we take votes on those then. What happens to the March 3rd Budget and Finance Subcommittee meeting? They still meet. That's why I wrote out all of these motions because we don't necessarily need the charges tonight. We can vote to like, we can vote to say we're interested in this and have you go off and craft the charge. We can say, oh, yeah, we're interested in having the warrants in budget and finance. You can bring your rationale, and we can second it and discuss it. You can say, hey, I want to bring forward a facilities use subcommittee. This is my

147dream. This is what I want. We can second it and discuss it. And then you can say, I'm going to bring forward the charges next month, and then we can read them and vote on them. It doesn't stop the subcommittee work. There's no stopping the subcommittee. But if we rescind the vote where we appointed subcommittees, doesn't that effectively dissolve them? No. I guess I'm genuinely curious about how this works. I don't think so. Because me, if we nullify the vote, then we nullify the action of the vote. And the action was to create and put people into those roles. So if we rescind the vote, then we don't have the people assigned to the role. But I think that your motion wasn't to create these subcommittees. You didn't make a motion to create these subcommittees.

148Your motion was to, your motion was, are you all comfortable with where you've been slatted? Like, it wasn't about the subcommittees. Like, no motion has been made. So maybe there isn't even a rescinding that needs to happen. Maybe first motions need to be made. Maybe we're working without motions. in the first place. Okay. This is all, this is where knots get tied. This is just how Robert's rules are. This is just how it is. Fun and games with Robert's rules. Yes, did I see hands over here? Mayor, do you have a hand? So I think you could get attorneys in here that could look at all of the things and how we voted on that and find people who had different opinions on it or different interpretations of everything that we had done. I am

149still where I am. I think that rescinding this is not what we need to do. I don't think it adds harmony to the group either. And what do we do about meetings that already happened and their work that was done a month ago or a few weeks ago that we, I think we move forward. There is some definition and that's all I'm done. Member Goodwin, and then I think we should move to a vote on this. Getting tired. I'm going to be voting no, and it's more about the fact that we've started. And I already feel like we're behind, especially with budget season coming up and everything. I think I understand where you're coming from, but maybe we can... address that by every subcommittee bringing forward we have what we were charged with by a

150chair and I remember we took a whole meeting with community engagement talking about what we were given by chair Johnson Mossad and kind of Getting the language the way we liked it and it coming back. Maybe that's the step that we need to do now. I know with budget and finance, Kate had all the goals. The last meeting we met was her. And there was actually a formal passing of electronics to, yeah. So I think there is stuff and maybe we're not publishing it, which is something we should do probably on our website. I agree. And warrants came about because you all went to a training and heard about warrants and I mean came back saying we were doing warrants wrong. So I still don't know where that ends up, but I do believe it

151is the role of the chair. And I feel that it was done with good intentions. Call a question on this and would love a roll call vote, please, Member Webb. Member Deitman? Abstain. Member Goodwin? No. Chair Sexton? Abstain. Myself, I'm going to pass. Vice Chair Childs? No. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor Disorger? No. I'm also a no. All right. The motion does not pass with one yes, two abstentions, and four no's. Thank you everyone for that back and forth discussion. I do think that it is good and important that we have discussions that get into things. So I really appreciate it. Moving on. Item F, motion from Chair Sexton to formally move the ad hoc handbook subcommittee work, which was dissolved, into the policy subcommittee. So basically this is formalizing a change that already occurred, but

152I don't think we actually voted on it. Second. All right. So I made the motion. Mayor DeSorger seconded it. Any discussion? Mayor DeSorger. I think it's wonderful when we combine things and we put an ad hoc in another committee so that there's, because there certainly are a lot, there's a lot of work to be done, but it's combining it and having one less evening for people, I think is a great idea. I won't take credit, but I think I would agree. Any other discussion? Member Webb, will you call the roll? member dietman yes remember goodwin yes chair sexton yep remember webb i'm yes vice chair childs yes remember deneve yes mayor disorder yeah motion passes unanimously unanimously amazing uh item g hold on take your time let me know when you're ready i'm good Okay.

153Item G, motion from Chair Sexton to have the Greenfield School Committee charge the Budget and Finance Subcommittee with the work involved with warrants, including signing them. And so this would maintain our, my rationale is this would move warrants, which it does involve financial matters, into the subcommittee that deals with our financial matters. It charges them with the work of reviewing the warrants. And I like having that to make sure that there's a consistent group of people looking at the warrants over time so that they can start to notice any patterns on our spending and making sure that they catch any items that we might want to ask more questions about, that sort of thing. And then having... one member of the three-member subcommittee. It can still, we're still following the procedure that we have about

154having a member, one signatory, but making it to be one of those three folks and then trusting them with that work, understanding that they will have done the work to really look at the warrants. That being said, I think that if there is ever a catastrophic situation where all three of those people are down for the count, I trust that they will, I know, I wouldn't, I don't want to think about it, but... Anything is possible that they will communicate their need to have somebody else fulfill that function So I I don't see it necessarily impeding the work of our lovely warrants person and other other finance officer Thanks for what is our deputy or? assistant business director Vera in the office I don't see this impeding her work as long as the budget and

155finance people can promise to answer her emails SECOND. I MADE THE MOTION. MAYOR DESORGERS SECONDED. DISCUSSION TIME. I WILL BE VOTING NO BECAUSE I THINK THAT THE WARRANTS NEED TO BE MORE WIDELY AVAILABLE THAN THEY ARE. I THINK MORE MEMBERS NEED TO BE LOOKING AT THEM THAN NOT LOOKING AT THEM. I AND FORMER CHAIR JOHNSON-MUSAWER THE ONLY ONES WHO SIGNED WARRANTS FOR A LONG TIME. We were the only ones and I would wait and I would wait and I would wait until Vera's like we need one more signature We need one more signature. And then finally I would just be like well if nobody else is gonna do I'll just do it So I want to encourage people to look at them like everybody needs to see them And in fact, I have a motion

156that I want to bring forward next month that warrants that there's a place for warrants on our Website so that the public can view it because this is public information and it shouldn't be confined into budget and finance. I understand the idea of regular people looking at it to see red flags, but those regular people should be all of you, I think, should be looking at them all the time. That's just what I think. That's also what I've learned from the training is that you need to encourage as many members as possible to look at it or have somebody go down to central office and actually physically look through them. Many districts do that where somebody has to go down and flip through the book and make sure they have eyes on them before they

157sign them. We do it by email. I do want to make a just like a clarification about this motion that this does not mean that warrants will only go like they will still be emailed to all of us so we still will all have the ability to look through these warrants I'm not restricting that in any sense but I am saying that we are dedicating people's eyeballs and brains with specifically getting in there and looking at them And that by definition will also mean that those will become part of your meeting records. They will become part of your meeting minutes. You'll report out about them to us, which is more than we have done to the past. So I totally agree. I think that they should be more transparent and accessible because they are part

158of. how taxpayer dollars are spent. So I just wanted to add that clarification in case that was like a question about the process, if that part of the process was being changed. It's not. Okay. I advise Chair Childs and then Member Goodwin. So procedure process question. Because we do have the policy in the handbook for how warrants are done now, do we need to rewrite a new policy in order for this change to be made? That's an excellent question. I'm looking for the once policy. I think we're making it now. That we already have. I don't see how this actually substantively changes the policy as currently outlined. It is still, yeah, please. Just your policies that may need consideration would be DGA. Is one DK is the other and then BBAA Yes. So I'm looking

159at DGA. Authority for the purchase of materials, equipment, supplies, and services is extended to the superintendent through the detailed listing of such items compiled as part of the budget-making process. The purchase of items and services on such lists requires no further committee approval except when by law or committee policy the purchase or services must be put to bid. So I don't see that changing. I don't see that designating looking at the warrants to our budget and finance changes that policy at all. And I am wondering, is there a particular policy that we do think will actually be substantively changed by putting, looking at warrants into the budget and finance subcommittee that will change? Yeah. I was told whoever signs them is signing for all of us. They represent all of us. I spent hours... at

160warrants every single time but didn't feel I had the right to sign them because I was told the chair was the person. Well, that's the way it was told to me. So I do see it as a role of budget and finance because as you're budgeting, you're going to want to look at the patterns, everything from how much we're spending on copiers every month to... I got the mayor and then member Deneve. I'll be voting yes on this, and I think it's a very good idea. Like you, I read the warrants. I have to sign them at the end as the mayor, but I would just say this. I've been on this committee for two years and two months, and when it gets to this full committee, we are not having discussions about things that

161are on the warrants, and I think that many of you may have questions. I've been on committees and subcommittees for like 25 years. The subcommittees are more relaxed. There's a little bit more discussion. And I think that you'll have three people together that are looking at them and they're able to talk about things that they have a question about. And I think that most of us are looking through them. But I would love to have that be done with three people looking at these on a regular basis. My very first day on school committee, like literally day one, I got an email from Vera asking for signatures for the warrants and I said, oh my God, what is a warrant? And I literally had to call MASC because I had no idea. And neither did

162Kate and both of us were like, what are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do? And then the chair, I heard that the chair said that we were too new and we weren't allowed to look at warrants and we shouldn't even open such things. At that time, it was a three signature requirement in 2021. That's what they needed, three signatures. And we would get these frantic emails saying, we need two more signatures. We need one more signature. And the problem was that nobody got around to doing it. That was really why it got changed is that they couldn't get three signatures. Not enough people looked through them. So it was changed to one signature purely for efficiency, I guess. but nobody really talked about who that person would be or what that

163person should look for. There was really nothing in the policies about that. And so I was really heartened to find a class that covered that in Hyannis last year and took it. Everybody does something different, but the most important thing is that it's as accessible and transparent as possible. So I didn't vote for the one-person signer. I thought that seemed a little wild. I definitely thought there should be more people. And I still think that there should be more people. I just don't necessarily think that it should have to be. budget and finance but i like the idea of budget and finance reporting back because the other piece of the picture for me is not this i don't really care so much about how many signers we have as much as i care about the

164process by which we ask about warrants because last year we brought that up and we were told that we should just ask our questions by email or phone and then if we don't get a response in a week we could ask again and not to bring up warrant questions in full committee so For me, my problem is how we talk about the warrants, not really who signs it. So I'm fine leaving it at one signature, but I don't think it should have to be budget and finance to do it. I'm glad that budget and finance will take it on, but what I'd really like to see is a more substantive discussion about the process of talking about the warrants. When do we bring warrant questions to the full committee? When do we have a group

165discussion about particular warrants? Because we've never done that. And the entire time I've been here, not one warrant amount has ever come up, ever. And I think that's the most egregious thing, to be honest with you. Yeah, and so just again to be clear this does not change the number of signatories required and my goal with this is to have more substantive discussion about warrants starting with our budget and finance subcommittee and for them to raise issues up the flagpole and if members if other members who are not part of that subcommittee have their own questions Send them to Anne Send them to Ann so that they can get asked and hopefully provided an answer and then also subsequently reported on in this full committee whatever Okay about other questions, okay? Okay Yes, yeah, just

166I'm trying to superintendent Understand the concept I get the concept of it just the timing would just do anything with the timing in terms of paying these warrants I wasn't sure if I was hearing, I thought I might have been hearing two different things. Yes, definitely people in budget and finance may be signing off and approving it. Do they have to wait for an official budget and finance subcommittee meeting to go through it and sign off, or can they do it in between? Because if that has to happen, we'd have to create a pretty good calendar of when we're going to be doing payroll, right, every two weeks. They have to meet on a certain day and then has to get submitted by Thursday blah blah blah all those types of dates because I'm Obviously

167open to it. I always tell everybody right and we're in public service as much as people think there are secrets There's no secrets here ask for it and we're gonna give it to you and we'll show you what everybody's getting paid Down to the penny right? So there's no secrets in that sense I just want to make sure that things are processed whether it's people's payroll obviously for their services and money for products that we bought, etc. from creditors, you know, people that were paying and not going over 30 days, 60 days incurring fines, those types of scenarios. So I just want to clarify the payroll warrants that is specifically reserved to the chair. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, not payroll warrants. Those are separate and those those have not historically I think ever come to

168the full committee. Yeah. So this is specifically just the warrants that we all already have access to. Clarification. Member Childs. So my interpretation on how things would work would be that a member of the subcommittee will sign it within the time requirements so that Vera doesn't come to our house. And that we would also in regular meetings of the subcommittee go over the warrants, raise questions, discuss them. So if there is something sketchy that comes up that we don't like because you've bought a gold-plated Ferrari for central offices, we'd... Yes, to deliver the mail. The bill would be paid so we don't go into collections, but we would give you a big no-no finger and tell you no more Ferraris. Any more discussion? Lots of questions. Member Deitman, you're good? Did we add anything to

169that motion? Or we let it stand how it stands? No, there was a part that we were adding. Okay. Now I'm trying to remember what the wording of that adding was. Anything warrant questions to the budget and finance? Yes. Yeah, so sending yes sending any questions that members who are not part of budget and finance have about warrants after reviewing them Will go to the chair of the budget and finance subcommittee, which is currently and child's yep member child's So my last question on this, I promise, because policy DK just says signed by minimum of one person, do we need to also update DK with these more restrictive laid out procedures or because these procedures do not contradict DK? It's, you know, this is the square rectangle question. So. The way that I would ask

170that you allow this to be handled is when I come next month with the fully described laid out charges for each of these subcommittees, it will include these detailed procedures that would become additive to our current policy manual. So we don't necessarily need to futz with that right now. Does that make sense? Especially because these would not be... We wouldn't have to strike any of the current policy outward. We're just making additions. I saw a face. I see several faces. Call a question. The question has been called. Discussion has ended. We are voting. Member Deitman. Epstein. Member Goodwin. Yes. Chair Sexton. Yes. Member Webb. I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs. Yes, member Deneve. Yes, mayor disorder. Yes passes. Did you abstain? Yeah passes with one abstention All right Moving on. Item H. So this is

171a motion from Chair Sexton to formalize the warrant's procedure to wait 24 hours between a request for signature and anyone signing the warrant. This comes from a discussion that we had as a committee last year where we saw that some people were signing like immediately, which we felt wasn't giving members enough time to look at them before they were being signed, especially since a signature does mean we're all liable for that. And so this is formalizing something that we had verbally agreed to but didn't actually take a vote or we could not find the record of a vote so we are taking the vote now to formalize the thing that we already do. Second. Okay. I made the motion. Member Webb seconded. Discussion? Yes, Member Deneve. My brain just collapsed on me and I had

172a really good question. I'm sorry, come back to me. I don't remember. Any other questions? I do have a question. I do have a question. Yes. And I don't think this pertains to it, but I'm going to ask anyways. Say, for example, the warrant has already been signed, okay? We can still ask questions about those warrants? Yep. Yes, we can. And we should. Okay. This should get loose. Okay. So should we take this formal item and put it in the policy handbook? for new members to understand that that is what they're supposed to do when they are looking at warrants. Okay, that was my question. Please. Yeah, add that to the motion so that it goes somewhere because I know you all are tired and I know you're all looking at me like, why, why,

173why, why, why? But it's good to have it. The mayor is nodding, but this is the thing. Past committees here didn't do this work and we have a mountain of debt to wipe clean and I'm sorry that it's late and that it comes up but I Can tell you that all these things should have been handled years ago and they just weren't and now to the credit of chair Sexton we can actually put things on the agenda and get them handled and so I'm sorry When they ask for new business, I have six things. I'm sorry, but this is just how it is It will be less and less as we improve. Yes, so it's a motion to formalize this warrants procedure for the 24 hour waiting period and also to refer that to policy

174for inclusion in our member handbook and formal inclusion in our policy manual. So it's two places. Get sent to policy because that's where the handbook lives. Also to add it into our actual policy manual. So there are two. I appreciate that. Member Deitman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yes. Member Webb? Yes. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor Disorder? Yes. Passes unanimously. Wonderful. Thank you. For item I, I actually will make a motion to table this or to postpone it until the next meeting, at which time I will have... A much clearer specific rationale. Second. Okay. Motion from me. Second from Webb. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's take a roll call vote. Member Deitman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yes. Member Webb, I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes.

175Mayor Disorger? Yes. All right. Passes unanimously. Next item. We are at our final item for new business. I'm so proud of us. Let me know when you're ready. It's all good. We've had longer meetings before, I promise. All right. Discussion and possible revision of policy IJOA field trips, specifically as it relates to out-of-state day trips for students and meeting school committee prior vote. Superintendent. Thank you. Do a second. Okay, and then I'll just this may be some foreshadowing or maybe after hearing a lot of the discussion that maybe it may need to go to a Subcommittee to then come back out but a little foreshadowing for you We just approved a trip tonight to New York City a day trip That will be happening for our students to go down there it which is a

176great opportunity right that I always find it awesome that Teachers want to actually take some of their time truly right in go on a bus with students and it's nerve-wracking at times, right, when you're responsible for 40 or 50 people in a big city and doing that. And sometimes I always say like many of us live, all of us, right, we live within three hours, plus or minus, of one of the biggest cities in the world, right? And how many times do we really go there or see it or do it? So as close as we live to a lot of these things, sometimes all of our students don't get these opportunities. Point of this being... that your policy IJOA, the last paragraph says all out of state or extended overnight field trips and excursions,

177blah, blah, blah, have to be approved by the school committee. My concern, Ian, I think is somewhat of a waste of your time and getting field trips off the ground is the wording out of state. I do agree with overnight. I do agree with international, et cetera. This would be something that obviously might have to get referred to. But for example. I did, as you know, I've spent the majority of my career in the Lower Pine Valley and the Springfield area. Students in the Springfield area crossed the state line to Connecticut, right, for many things. The Hartford Science Museum, Science Center, Native American museums down there, et cetera. Here you probably have opportunities to go to Vermont, New Hampshire, et cetera. Washington DC so overnight yes you would still take take votes but a day

178trip to I say cross the border to go pet a cow and see a barn in Vermont really is something I can handle like least I think the superintendent can handle so that may not be a tonight thing depending how we've gone with our procedures but I did want to put that in front of you so now it would be I guess where to go with it just to plot it along the proper lines I do think that if we're following procedure then it does have to get routed to policy. So I think the motion then becomes moving to send this policy for revision to the policy department. Member Goodwin? I know from my time in front of school committees about taking kids to Washington, D.C., that this was always had to be approved by

179the school committee, and it always had to do with insurance, like the buses and the, like if something happens when you're not in Massachusetts. That was always the South Hadley discussion. I mean, I just know it was in our policy as well. And so for 10 years, I went forward. But I remember I used to have to have an insurance something for the buses or whatever. Just I think that makes sense to ask the if we're going to refer this to policy to ask them to better understand like why this policy originated to begin with. And if there would be any ill effects of us removing the stipulation. Member Childs. I just think it's really funny that we'd have to jump through more hoops to go half an hour away to Brattleboro than an hour

180and a half, two hours to Boston. I just think it's funny. So, yeah, we should change the policy, make it humorless. Okay. Are we ready to take a vote to refer this to the Policy and Program Subcommittee? Great. Will you please call the roll, Member Webb? I just want to be clear, because it says discussion and possible review. There really wasn't a motion. but I have made a motion. Okay, second. Sorry, made a motion. I thought we made a motion to discuss it. Who made a motion? Chair Sexton made a motion? Then I second it. I don't, yeah, I'm not sure that I made a motion to discuss, but if I did, then we did that. Motion completed, I guess. And I'll make a new motion to refer this item, this policy, to the policy

181and program subcommittee. Second. This is what happens when it gets late. This is why procedure is so important. All right, so we've had a motion, we have a second. I think we're ready to vote. Will you please call the roll? Member Deitman? Yes. Member Goodwin? Yes. Chair Sexton? Yes. I'm going to abstain. Member, I'm abstain. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor Disorger? Yes. Before we move on, actually, no, I want to get this vote done, and then I will ask for items for next meeting. All right, old business. Item A, discussion and vote on the enrollment of Greenfield Public School students in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Virtual School and the district's option to restrict future Commonwealth of Massachusetts Virtual School enrollment. This is something that we talked about back in January, and I

182know that we'd received some subsequent information from the superintendent. So at this point, I would make a motion to... restrict Greenfield Public Schools students enrollment to the 1% cap. Second. Moving forward. All right. So I've got a motion. I've got a second from the mayor. Discussion? Mayor? So thank you very much, Superintendent, for sending us that information. Like 85% of the schools have 1% or less. And I think it's very important that we make wise decisions at this point. We're going to be on to budget discussions later. And I think it was very reasonable the way it's presented. There are 17 people right now. All of those 17 would be able to finish attending through the end of them graduating at the virtual school. at the end of this year we're going to have to

183make decisions on things like perhaps the number of custodians or a program. So I think we have to be wise now and I think that's a very good idea to make it 1%. Other discussion? Yes, Member Deneve. I'm a little... I personally disheartened that the public didn't come to discuss this because I received a number of emails and I had a number of discussions with constituents about this and I've been on this vote twice before and I would not like to restrict it because these are small numbers of kids. This isn't a large population that's going to this virtual school. And every parent that I've talked to said that their child needed that school for some particular extraneous reason. And that school was a stepping stone to them reentering public school and doing a better

184job because of it. What I've heard is that it is needed for whatever reason, and it's not taken lightly. People don't just do it because they feel like it. It's definitely a choice that people have made. I've never talked to anybody who's made the choice lightly. So if this was a large number of kids, I would feel differently, but it's always been small. It's always been small. It's always been, you know, under 20. I will not be voting to restrict it. I think it's a necessary and important thing. And I think that one thing that we really forget about when we talk about school choice is that those school choice parents are GPS parents. The parents at Four Rivers are GPS parents. Those families have multiple children who are in our elementary schools and also

185in our middle schools. Some of those siblings go to Four Rivers and some do not. Some go to the virtual school and some do not. So if we're thinking about how could these people take their kids somewhere else, which often kind of comes up. They're also using our schools. So this is just another pathway for them. And I think that we should always view it as innovation as a way to interact with these families and bring them back around and create programs where they will. come back to us and interact with us. So I'm going to say no restriction. All right. I've got member Goodwin and then member Childs. So I'm against restriction because I don't think we can restrict virtual school unless we can restrict every other choice. I think when choice came to

186Massachusetts, choice came and the virtual school is just another. Choice and really it's close to my heart because we gave birth to it and we made a lot of money off of it Oh, and I was here when that happened and I remember the children of Greenfield who? benefited from the virtual school And they really needed that kind of a opportunity And as somebody who's been looking at Chapter 70 and financing and everything else and choice and how it's sort of... financially becoming a problem for our state. I'm following Vermont, who is getting rid of choice and saying, it's fine wherever you want to go, but you're just going to have to pay for it. So I think there's a lot of conversation about choice going on across the states. So yes, we're going into

187budget season. And maybe that's another thing for Senator Comerford. BECAUSE IT'S COMING OUT OF THEIR OFFICES TOO AS WELL. AND I'M READING ABOUT THAT. AND VERMONT HAS JUST KIND OF SAID NO TO THIS CHOICE BECAUSE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE LOSING FINANCIAL IMPACT ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS IS DETRIMENTAL TO ALL CHILDREN. THAT IS WHERE THEY ARE AT. SO I WILL BE VOTING NOT TO CAP IT. I DON'T THINK WE CAN CAP ANYTHING. So I would like to take a moment. Something that makes me uncomfortable is that we don't have other schools that people choice out of Greenfield into that we are putting a cap on. And it just doesn't sit right with me that the school that accommodates people who have very specific needs for accommodation would be the one that we cap. I mean, I get it.

188It's hard when we lose even one kid because that is so much money that walks out the door. But I think rather than cap it, I would rather try to talk to these families that are leaving for the virtual school and see, is there a way we can accommodate your family? Is there a way we can work with you? I would rather win people back that way rather than force them back with a cap. Yeah. I hear. hear these that you're saying. One, the students who are already enrolled, they're not being forced back. We can't force them back. They get to continue in their trajectory. And I would say that, like, really this doesn't have, I don't see that we've had a whole lot of clamoring. the enrollment that we've sent to the virtual school

189has actually decreased in recent years. I will say that of the seven past fiscal years, five of them we did send 20 or more students. So there is that. There have been more than 20 students on many occasions. I guess I'm also wondering, and I don't know, Roland, if you have this data broken out in this way, but one of the questions was, or one of the points raised was students using the virtual school for maybe a year or two and then re-enrolling in Greenfield. But I don't know if we have that information. Do we? No, these numbers just indicate the number who have attended that fiscal year. Yeah. So as you mentioned, any of those students who were there. Depending on which way you vote right would not be nobody would be kicked out

190of there are two virtual schools in the state So this is not just one this there are two This is the combination of all those students all of the students attending either one or the other in that sense in Obviously depending if you did vote to restrict 1% that number would be 12 just for your information So for example, if I'm making this up seven if ten kids graduated this year the number went to seven Five would still have an opportunity to go in up to that twelve, you know, and you know and the reason you mentioned we don't have Opportunity with school choice to limit because we don't because the state didn't give it to us But the state gave you is is giving to right here the opportunity to do that here Because

191they know that that they know that there's certain number of restrictions etc. And you saw the the numbers I sent you School choice when our money for our money follows right students to other districts. That's $5,000 per student for the virtual schools It's thirteen thousand three hundred and sixty six dollars per student. Sure So way back when the virtual school started in Greenfield we had I think of many of the students who accessed virtual school. We were struggling WITH THEM BEING WITHIN THE WALLS OF A SCHOOL. AND WITHOUT VIRTUAL SCHOOL WE WOULD HAVE ENDED UP PAYING MAYBE $100,000 FOR OUT OF DISTRICT PLACEMENT. WE WERE STRUGGLING WITH BEHAVIORS. WE WERE STRUGGLING WITH HOW TO REALLY WORK WITH THE CHILDREN AND THE FAMILIES. SO I THINK There is no one right school for a child whether

192it's virtual whether it's charter whether it's the center school or all we can do is make ourselves as flexible it does What bothered me about what happened is we lost the virtual school we created something and we created a charter within our public schools basically and You know We lost it because we did such a good job at it, and the state was ticked off that we did a good job at it. But I don't think, you know, if tomorrow the state said you could go ahead and create a charter school within your public schools, and we would be sitting down looking at technology again. But I don't think we can. Say no, we can't say no to wanting to go to whatever type of school anybody wants to go to the issue is that

193our public money follows them and I I just I really I'm I was a principal of choice and I would say right now choice Didn't do what it was supposed to do Which was to make things better through knowledge, innovation, competition. All it's done is leave the public schools hurting. I really feel that now. I mean, here I am 30 years later. But I don't think we should be capping this because, first of all, Greenfield Public Schools created it, and it benefited our students, and I still value what it brought to Greenfield. I was appalled when the state took it away from us because we were just getting rolling. But again, financially, that hurt us a lot to lose those funds, to lose those students. So we've lost ELT, we've lost a lot of funding

194for different reasons. So I think the state needs to consider that. So it's another picket sign thing. All right, I saw the mayor's hand. And then I also wanted to just acknowledge that the last time this was brought up, Member Deitman asked for some of the specific information. So I want to give you an opportunity if you had further questions or want to weigh in on the discussion as well. I just wanted to say when I asked about this early before I ever knew that we were going to have a vote on this, we talked like this is what I actually was thinking about was that the discussion was about that some people were doing this to accommodate sports schedule like to be on a ski team, et cetera. I'm as sympathetic as the next

195person is. If my child needed that, needed to be in a school because they were bullied at school, et cetera, et cetera. I'm delighted that there would be a place for them to be. But I did hear about people making a decision. I think that you had brought that up, superintendent. And I think we are gonna have choices to make. I would want everybody to have a school that was the best thing for their child. It seemed along the line of a recent vote that we've taken about doing the meals for the charter school. I think we have to educate, yes, we're obligated to educate everybody who's here, everybody that lives here in Greenfield, but maybe that was being looked at closely, the rationale for why those students were going, that's all. Member Deitman? Yeah,

196my question last time was really about the criteria for acceptance to the virtual school. And looking at the website, I'm sorry, I wasn't able to really find the information I was looking for on that. Was anybody else able to find that information or do we have any more information about, well, you know, what criteria does a student have to meet to be accepted to that school? information. Superintendent Joyal is shaking his head, so I don't think he has any additional information. My assumption is that they just apply, that it's not like a, it's not a school that you have to meet a certain threshold of need or that you have to have these specific accommodation requests to get the school. That's not what it's for. It's more like any, it's, it's again, just another school

197of choice that people can choose to enroll in if they'd like. assuming that their home district did not place a cap or they're below the threshold for the cap. Are we ready to vote on this? Just point of information. There is a cap though. There's a standard cap, right? Can you remind me what that cap is? Is it 2%? Yeah. And how many for us? So if 1% is 12, 2% is 24. So we could only enroll up to... Okay, 2% state. 2% statewide, but no, yeah. Savoy, which has like 36 kids. Savoy is 11%, right. Florida is 2.9, Provincetown 2. So there are many over 2. So it's a 2% statewide cap, not a 2% per district cap. AND ALSO JUST REMINDING THIS IS A VOTE THAT WE ARE REQUIRED TO TAKE ANNUALLY. WE'LL

198BE COMING BACK TO THIS. WHEN WE EXCEED A CERTAIN NUMBER WE'RE REQUIRED TO TAKE THAT VOTE. SOME YEARS YOU MAY NOT EXCEED THE NUMBER AND YOU MAY NOT VOTE BUT OTHER YEARS YOU HAVE TO VOTE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. YES. YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE 1% THRESHOLD THEREFORE YOU HAVE TO VOTE AND WE JUST HAVE TO LET THE STATE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO. AND WE DO HAVE TO VOTE TONIGHT BECAUSE THE DEADLINE IS PRIOR TO OUR NEXT MEETING. Any other pieces of information that you would like at this time or would like to ask about, Member Dimon? I would like to propose the idea of setting a cap that is not 1%. I would like to propose setting a cap that is approximately at the level that we are currently serving. SO IF

199WE CURRENTLY HAVE WHAT WAS IT 17 STUDENTS FROM GREENFIELD YOU KNOW WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THAT IS THAT OF OUR TOTAL YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT LIKE ONE AND A HALF OR ONE AND SOMETHING YEAH THEY HAVE IT I'M SORRY TO INTERRUPT YOU BUT IT'S IN THERE 1.32 YEAH Maybe set it at 1.5 so that there's some wiggle room, but we're still meeting the current need. Another percentage that folks would like to see some affirmative signs from the second from Meredith Sorger as well. I like Member Deitman's idea. I think that's reasonable. Okay. So new motion on the table is to restrict enrollment at 1.5%. I get the sense just based on some of the arguments that people were making that that won't change their vote. But Member Webb, do you have a comment? Yeah,

200I think for myself to change the vote, I'd want to make sure that there was wiggle room within that 1.5% that if we did have two or three students in Greenfield this year who wanted to join that it was accessible to them. Do we have an approximate, how many kids does that actually represent? 17 equals 1.32. And so if we add 1.5, is that another one kid, two kids? Who's our mathematician here? Because it would take, if you subtracted five students, right, you get to 12, you get to the one, right? So 12, so you're right, at about every six. You're at a half. You're under that threshold. The seventh pushes you over. Yeah. Okay. Was it, was it, wasn't this, were we talking, didn't this come up that some people were doing this to

201accommodate travel or being on a ski team? That was, I think, a hypothetical or a theoretical example. I'm not sure if we do know currently. I mean, I'm sure that some of us might know individually, but I don't know if we know as a group. who these kids are, why they are, etc., etc. I don't know if we have that data and we certainly don't have it right now, which is when we would need it to have it be part of this discussion. Are we, I get the sense, are we ready to call the question? Let's call the question. Okay, Member Webb, will you please call the vote? motion on enrollment of Greenfield public school students in the common wealth of Massachusetts Massachusetts virtual school and then proposed a 1.5 percent cap sorry before we

202vote can I clarify the numbers here because by my by my math if we have 20 students that would be an increase of 3 divided by 1 3 4 3 That would be under 1.5. 1,285? What lies? If we added three more. Say more about the denominator you're using. The number in the sheet I gave you, the numbers. Yeah. That would count as 1,285. 1,285 students. Oh. My understanding would be that I'm guessing that they generally don't count pre-K. I see. Okay. That's the number we need to work with. Thank you. Okay. So if we had 20 students and that would push you over 19 keeps you under yeah, so I I would be happy to cap it at 2% then you know, I I just think that there should be some limit considering what

203we're What we're facing Fiscally can can we amend the motion to to vote on it at 2% please? Technically we have called the question. That is like they're already giving a little grace for allowing this discussion. If we're being sticklers for Robert's rules about it. Me personally, like I still don't think just based on the way people were talking, I still don't think that's going to change how a lot of people are voting. But I am amenable to amending the motion to a 2%. We could. We could. um um all right we've called the question let's call the roll member dietman yes remember goodwin no chair sexton yes remember why i'm a no vice chair childs no member denise mayor disorder yes all right the motion fails with four no's three eyes so we will

204not be we will not be capping virtual school enrollment for this year Assuming that the numbers are similar next year, we'll be here again. May I just say one thing that perhaps we should be looking at that at another juncture because that was what swayed me to look at the criteria. If anybody needed to be there but it was a choice for travel or sports, I would feel different about that. I just would like to know if there was any criteria, if we could find that out maybe for next year. No, no, we'll never know that. Okay, fine. Great. Okay. At this time, I would like to call for items for next meeting. New business for the March meeting. I've got Member Deneve, Member Goodwin. I'm sorry, I cannot hear you. Sorry. It's very late.

205I forgot it was a month. So in terms of the school tours, some districts utilize the yellow bus to shuttle electeds around. Having it at the same time as a school committee meeting would probably work for a lot more people, maybe getting our food service involved. So I'll bring a motion for that. I also have... A motion that's going to have a resolution to support the Foundation Budget Review Commission. And Member Deitman is writing the resolution. So that will be the first resolution of the year. We also have a motion to adopt a resolution to support Bill H-4361, which is the teacher's retirement. I remember Dightman is writing the resolution for that. Those were both brought up by constituents who made public comment last month. And oh sorry last one. I would like to bring

206forward a motion to find a place on the website for the warrants to live so that the public can access them. And then because I'm being so very wordy and doing too much work, Ann's gonna take one. I'LL EMAIL THEM ALL TO YOU NEXT WEEK AS SOON AS MEMBER DYEITMAN HAS CRAFTED THE RESOLUTIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I APPRECIATE ALL THE WORK. MEMBER GOODWIN. I HAVE TWO. ONE, I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR OVER A YEAR. I ASKED REPEATEDLY MONTH AFTER MONTH, I WOULD LIKE A PRESENTATION ON READING. What is currently being used? What are the interventions being used? And the data of our students and when a child is below grade level, what those interventions are taking place and how they're judging whether they're failing or achieving. I'd like to know in depth about our reading

207program. And I've been asking for that for over a year. Second, and that wasn't you. Superintendent Rowland. Second, I would actually like the principals to come to school committee and tell us about their schools. Like, I met the preschool principal for the first time on a tour, which made me sad because this was the first time I met her and I've been on school committee. As a principal, I went to every school committee meeting. And so... I think I would like, especially budget season, like to hear what dreams they have for their school or a description of their school, like how many teachers they have, what's working well, what's not working. Sure. That's a great idea. And we can make that work. So how about we bring half in March and half in April? Not

208that I had that in the works or planned. No. So it will be some of the school improvement plan. We know we have some busy meetings coming up. We have a transportation presentation next month, but we'll have half the principals next month and half in April. Then we're going to have budget. So, I mean, yes, meetings do get lengthy, and I understand that. And I think I mentioned it to many of you last time that this body, you should be commended because you have great attendance at your school committee meetings, and I haven't seen that elsewhere. Almost as perfect as you are perfect attendance in that sense and I always would tell people listen I do understand that it is late but Personally, I would rather I say kill one night at a long time

209versus two two nights at 30 minutes each or something because many Many of your bigger school committees in your bigger cities do two plus meetings a month in that sense So thank you for hanging in there for the length of the meetings, but also for your attendance in that sense Great. And then just a note about the transportation presentation, just making sure that we can get whatever materials or presentation he's presenting well ahead of time. Thank you. Member Childs. I have two things. First is the stolen valor that I stole from Elizabeth. A motion, I'll work on the language for this, but the gist of it is to appoint someone to liaise and figure out what's going on with Yellow and the leadership conference at the high school and what kind of support, if any,

210they need from us given the current climate. And so there will, you know, with funding basically and organization. because it's a great conference and I hope to actually go to it at some point. Anyway, second one. This came out of Liz Lafon's presentation. I would like us to look at possibly changing the information we ask for people giving public comment so that we're no longer asking for people's addresses. Whether we're asking them for town or affiliation, I don't have a preference, but I like not asking addresses. So those are my two things. Anybody else? All right. Seeing none, you are still free to email me between now and the next meeting. Actually, let me rephrase. You are free to email me between now and a week prior to the next meeting if you would like

211an item to appear on that meeting. Otherwise, it will appear in April. So just note, now is not the only time. So thank you all. I appreciate those notes. I just like, we can do this. We can do work. That's what we're here to do, and we're doing it. So don't ever feel shy or bad about bringing so much stuff. We have the capacity. We can do work. We don't actually need to have an executive session. This was a placeholder just in case we had an update on the contract with our incoming superintendent. I will be meeting with her tomorrow morning. So I know that I will be having something for our March meeting for executive session there. So with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All right. We've

212got a motion from Member Childs, a second from Member Goodwin. Please call the roll when you're ready. Member Deitman. Yes. Member Goodwin? Chair Sexton? Yep. Member Webb? Yes. Vice Chair Childs? Yes. Member Deneve? Yes. Mayor Disarger? Meeting is adjourned. Meeting is adjourned at 1021 p.m. Thank you, everybody.