001so welcome to the march 16 2021 joint concord carl isle regional and concord school committees meeting i'd like to call the region to order and have a roll call once court brings the concord meeting to order thank you very much and the concord public schools school committee meeting is called to order anderson present and booth present about presents is dead present really present wilson present and is there a motion to move to executive session i would move oh wait i have to pull it up i didn't print it today i will move that the concord school committee and concord carlisle regional school committee will enter into executive session under purpose two of the open meeting law to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract
002negotiations with non-union personnel and purpose three of the open meeting law to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and return to open session at 7 pm i'll second that boy you know i've gotten such a skill at reading this what am i going to do with that skill when i'm done with the school committee taking years of practice yeah we vote anderson i for both booth high for both about eye for both ms jack i feel both ready for both wilson i for region and we still don't have uh eva okay okay see it's seven o'clock welcome back to the open session of the joint school committees meeting on march 16th this meeting
003is being recorded um i did see linda here i didn't see amy but people are coming and actually since people are still coming in linda i i know sometimes we put you very early on is it okay if we we go through public comment just to make sure that everybody's here to hear you guys yeah that's fine i also want to say that amy does have um a prior family commitment tonight so she won't be able to make it thank you okay um so we'll we'll start with public comments because our agenda states um few reminders please use the raise hand button on the participant tab to let yourself be known if you need if you want to speak if you have trouble using the participant tab just turn on your video and hopefully we
004will see you and be able to recognize you so please let us know who you are your name and address when you begin speaking um new speakers and returning speakers speaking on a new topic have three minutes to speak i'll let you know when time is you can begin to conclude your remarks um if you are returning on the topic you're speaking on previously um you will have one minute to speak and as a reminder this is not a dialogue with school committee it's a chance to express your ideas your thoughts your questions concerns and we are listening but please don't expect an immediate answer or response so with that let's go to the participant list anybody who would like to speak in public comment i'm not seeing anybody sarah neither am i um okay
005i think then i'm going to conclude the public comment and um and welcome happily linda with the student update well hi everyone i hope you all had a great week i had just finished my march madness bracket prior to joining the zoom and march madness for me is something i believe was a big nationwide tradition that was first canceled due to covid so now that i get to do it now i get to make another bracket it is kind of exciting and another return to normalcy is i'm not sure if you all heard but mr michelle had planned something for us seniors to come in tomorrow and enjoy some hot chocolate and apple cider even if it's not our assigned cohort day and if it's so i believe tomorrow is a cohort b day and
006if you're in cohort a unfortunately you can't go into the classrooms but obviously there's a lot of places in the school whether it be the cafeteria or learning commons or maroon gym that you can join your zooms from and now that we're in the final stretch of our senior year it is starting to get very nostalgic thinking about where everyone's gonna go so i think seeing some people once again is gonna feel sort of normal i don't i'm hesitant on using that term of normal because the pandemic is still going on and just thinking about where we're all going i also want to recognize if you saw the principles blog a couple weeks ago um a senior in the class of 2021 at cchs is actually going to be on season 13 of america ninja
007warrior which is one of my favorite shows which is so exciting so congratulations to true becker um going into the whole topic of because i know this is a further discussion of reopening so seeing all our friends again which is something that we're all looking forward to because for me i know that i have some friends even some of my closest friends i haven't been able to see in person because their family someone in their family has underlying health conditions and they don't want to risk it which is obviously completely understandable given the situation that we're all in but if we all return to school especially with vaccination rates going up which is awesome there may be a slight adjustment period and i myself do have slight worries and i know others do too of
008jumping back into school and then getting hit with a huge amount of workload because there's no longer that asynchronous work option and i think there is just a little bit of there's going to definitely be an adjustment period and i think we have to remind ourselves that students kind of need that especially with the loss that not only like students have been hit academically because of cobit but also maybe what their families have experienced and then trying to like form that going back into what it was before the pandemic maybe a huge change and um i think a lot of us are very thankful for our teachers aside from the fact that obviously they're here to teach us and present us with information and material to help expand our knowledge i'm super thankful to say
009that i've had teachers who are more than that and that they've cared about my safety and my well-being and i've been able to reach out for them for help other than i need help with a homework assignment and the fact that they go to school every single day besides you know i'm when i was doing a hybrid model i was every other day and now that i'm full remote i'm at home all the time so they were already at risk more than i was and now they just got a lot of my teachers got vaccinated and i heard that there was a little bit of um [Music] like a post-sickness from the vaccination which obviously isn't pleasant but at least the worst is over and i've also noticed that the teachers who have always empathized
010with their students and have always been willing to say you know what we can release the gap we can release our foot off the gas and we can take a little bit of a break those are the teachers which i really just want to work hard for i want because i appreciate them so much and then there's some other teachers who kind of continue to pile on the workload and it gets kind of stressful and overwhelming and it's those teachers who are like you have to keep up with the work that i'm kind of a little bit like i don't really want to do your work anymore it's kind of like reverse psychology i haven't taken psych at the high school i haven't taken the psychology class ever so maybe reverse psychology isn't a thing
011but that's fine that's my interpretation of it all linda thank you for teaching us about motivation and i mean and you're very articulate but we have already recognized that in the past so thank you so much for giving us this update thank you and also linda really for sharing your thoughts on on the empathy that you're feeling and and how the teachers are supporting you because it means a lot to us too i mean you know we we have so much faith in the teachers in the school um and we also you know put lots of not that it's about the time but but we worked with them putting lots of time figuring out how this would all work and it's really nice to hear that it's been working well and obviously we've been saying
012this throughout but hearing your hearing your words means a lot so thank you for sharing that thank you and thank you linda i know we you know i mean we all have a great appreciation for all of the the flexibility that the teachers have brought to this year and the administration but we are also incredibly appreciative of the flexibility that you students in you to show and and uh thank you for highlighting the you know the um the challenges and uh that you guys are facing and and are considering as we're looking towards the end of the year um yeah i mean i guess i can just thank you all on behalf of the students this is obviously no easy job and i've learned that it's now my second year being a school committee representative
013and i mean no one really saw this coming so all we have to do is adapt and adjust the best we can and i'm just really thankful that you all are willing to work hard for us students and i really appreciated that and i'm sure that everyone else is too you make it all worthwhile remind us why we're here um so so thank you and um thank you for always being here it's meant a lot this year to us definitely um and so i think now um heather in court you have a middle school building update uh we do um court hugo you have more to update on than i do very quickly uh the uh design subcommittee met this morning and uh we learned that uh yes the the property can accommodate a larger
014gym that was our question uh we we could see a larger gym on that uh property but we were unable to come up uh through our architects with any economies elsewhere in the spacing and the sizing such that it would be just a direct add to the overall square footage we're going to bring that information to the full building committee on thursday they meet at 7 30 in the morning that's what i've got yep and on uh communications i will say although we haven't gotten this um officially announced yet and and word really spread it is on the calendar we have our next public forum planned so the next community forum on the middle school is going to be the evening of march 31st it's a wednesday night at 7 00 pm um just in
015case anybody's looking for a weekend we have heard some feedback that some people would like a weekend for them and we are working on that and trying to fit one in at some point um but this window would have had falling on easter weekend which we didn't think was a great idea so this is going to be wednesday the 31st um just on another note that's kind of fun in communications we're working on a new version of our website for the building project um and it's coming along uh and we can't wait to launch that because i think it'll make it easier to just find information and see things um and other stuff but those are the highlights some more fun to come thank you thank you eva sarah can i just make a quick
016comment is that a lot of new information presented at the design subcommittee meeting and those slides are up on the district website and those people who are interested in seeing that new information can view those slides and then maybe if they're interested attend the meeting on thursday morning concord carlisle adult community education uh will be meeting friday at 11 a.m on zone uh everyone is welcome uh the uh programming um uh the paper copy of the programming is everyone's mailbox so please take a look there's a lot of great offerings sign up um and such as their armchair travel uh to britain and belgium so a lot of great offerings and they're hoping that families will participate thank you that's it thanks um i attended the and i know that there were a few i
017know that that eva and and fatima and i think alexa were there and i'm sorry if other people were there and i didn't see you but we attended the metco and families organizing for racial justice panel discussion on segregation in suburban schools uh it's worth noting that that metco said it's their most rsvp to ever event with about 500 people rsvp and i think then they had something over 260 people who were also there so i didn't see your name because there were a lot of us um it was a great conversation about the strengths and challenges facing students in the matco program the program itself the panelists included um students a teacher who who advocated for i mean a parent who advocated the audit um in her district and um other stakeholders and i'm
018not going to be able to do justice to what everybody said but there is a link through metco to see the discussion um on youtube and so i recommend that any check that out and i mean um i think like the the biggest takeaway from it i think was that like they say that like what's what we see as normal right now is not normal and normal is not good and to generate change everybody really needs to be intentional insistent and inspirational um and that's i think they you know they really they walk the walk in that uh in this form so thank you and there's lots of if you there's an email they sent as a follow-up that was full of resources and information about upcoming events i'm happy to pass it along to
019anybody who's interested if you haven't already received it um and that goes to the greater community i don't know where we could put that information um if we have a way to put it somewhere but a lot of a lot of great things uh coming our way and it might be might be on the metco inc website as well which is probably an easy search for us yeah i tried to find it there i couldn't easily i mean the way it's done in the email that they sent is just really concise and really organized um so try to figure out a way maybe we can put it in our uh i i don't know i will talk about important you and i can talk about how we can share that we'll find we'll find a
020way to make it easy but anyone can email the school committee and i'll send it to you um are there any other updates or reports nope then we have correspondence um i had a letter inquiring about the high school's plan to return to full in person um which i know is something that dr hunter is speaking about tonight so and then also a letter about um the possibility of recognizing cchs brads who have died in military service um and dr hunter and i are looking into this right now and the concord public schools over the last week received 10 pieces of correspondence regarding the work underway on the position related to diversity and equity and inclusion some of those correspondents were representing a number of other people so actually the number of people involved was
021far far greater than the 10 communications that came our way and then we had two additional uh in regard to the efforts underway to expand in school time and then one that i'm thinking was a marketing outreach of no consequence your expiring warranty on your car one of those um and then so uh so dr hunter please on that uh that note right now can you bring us up to date on plans for the high school uh post april break i would be happy to i'm going to actually screen share an updated version of last week's document um we frankly we were we pulled this together a little faster than anticipated partly because there's a chicken in the egg factor that until we commit to a plan we don't have the data we need to
022do the next steps in the plan so so this is the official discussion and notification of our intent to return all of the high school students full time as of april 26th the kids will go to their regular classrooms so they will be in class as if well not quite pre-covered but closer than we've been in over a year um it's important to notice and i'll skip skip over a minute here that that will require some spaces to be at three foot distance we actually think we can do better than that in many classrooms not to six but not all the way down to three but we just want to be sure people all know what they're signing on for fully remote will remain an option for kids for the rest of the year so
023just like with the k-8 schools a survey is going to go out really quickly and ask for a commitment and we do need do need that to be a commitment so that whatever you do from april 26 to june 16th is the plan i think because of the high school fluidity and it's been a strength up until now with a space issue you know coming we really need to to slow down that flexibility and kids really need to come if they're in person and not do we've had a lot of ability for kids to pick their own days even pick their own parts of the day and we really need all of that tightened up so if it's a full-time in-person choice you make we do need you in school five days a week if
024you stay remote then you're home 100 of the time and a little more binary than we've been lunch will be six foot distance we will be outside unless that is not an option and we are already identifying common spaces in the building for hopefully very few inclement weather days tents are on the way we are working on wi-fi outside so we can have as much as many options as out there as possible the next big project here um which we are working on already at elementary this week uh you know this this task of transportation and how kids are getting to us and traffic flow and all of that is going to be quite massive so there will be a survey that goes out very quick very shortly probably next week asking if you aren't
025on a bus and you really would like to be we'll put you on this waiting list we're going with three foot distance saying on the buses so we we may have some space we first need to combine the two cohorts together see if we have space for the kids who've already been riding and then see what our capacity is beyond that uh mr missjulo's looking at parking um we expect not to make many changes which i understand for the seniors may mean they're not able to drive five days a week or well let's let's qualify that not able to park five days a week so we we've got details to sort through there that's that's a work in product progress and a discussion um some more to come on that a great note is the
026furniture situation we have desks throughout all the common spaces on the lower floors those are going to all go up to the classrooms over the april break jared's office is looking at what our options are for appropriately physically distanced furniture for the common spaces learning commons cafeteria probably the maroon gym um just making sure we've got all that adequate separation for especially lunch if we need to eat inside um staff has is being surveyed there's a student survey work being worked on to go out it's going to go out a little bit later because we shifted we made the plan so quickly we wanted to capture more of the fact that we are going back not whether you would like to but that we are an apparent survey is also on its way um you
027saw the and i know we talked a little bit about this last week mr ms julo referenced stem casts and ap testing mcas is a disruption um the weeks of may 5th and 19th the kids who are testing will be in and everyone else will be virtual just so we can manage it um aps right now are all virtual a little highlight that you know i think we've had a lot of interest in especially by the seniors and linda's so articulate we're working really hard to make plans for the senior class as i got ready to come on this meeting the student um senate sent us a student government sent us a proposal for a prom creative outside i won't get into all the details because i've hardly read the really detailed proposal so we'll
028we'll be reviewing all of all of the options and safety plans and trying to see how much we can come up with we understand how much kids need need to have some of these activities in safe ways so we will keep you posted on that so i th pretty um big endeavor ahead of us here but i think i think overall we're excited um you know i feel especially this week we've had seven cases in two day well three days now since sunday and so it's just really important to remember we're still in covid kovad's still spreading we've quarantined a lot of people in the last three days the closer we are together the more that's going to happen um and just really asking for a lot of cooperation and one last pitch for you
029know if if you're willing and interested to be in the asymptomatic testing it's just going to be more and more important as we we all come back to school it will will help us know what we need to know to to hopefully mitigate any spread so so we're off and running here okay everybody's back full time um by the the week after break and we will keep you posted on the planning as it progresses laurie two two questions if i might thank you for bringing us all uh up to date on this uh do you believe that the uh the cases that we're learning of uh represent a plateau in what was once a decline or uh are we already seeing an uptick yeah um i would give you both a state and local answer
030the the state answer is the decline has plateaued between you know somewhere 1000 to 1500 a day the local answer is we had a six day hiatus with no cases last week well this lulled us a little bit i'll be honest and the truth is we're not that far out of the out of it all um so i don't feel like it's the great uptick i feel like we kind of got back to what probably normal is going to be what we're really going to be watching for is in school transmission obviously so this is all many most of these cases are still exposed are all exposures outside of the home or outside of schools through the home or social events no school transmission at this point um so but three feet is going to
031mitigate that perhaps that that no school of transmission to date is a credit to everybody who's doing students and staff and faculty like doing uh the best they can your reference to transportation on a slide indicated that transportation is looking at maintaining uh service to those who have been using it and i'm left wondering does that mean there is or is not room for expanded uh bus transportation uh there definitely is at the elementaries which is what we're working on right now we're still they're still crunching the runs at middle and high school um as they combine the cohorts and see what that capacity is we actually had such generous outpouring of parent transportation um support that we actually think we will have some space will we have enough for everyone no um if everyone
032wants a seat that's not possible so we're trying to navigate a middle here for those that really need the help um good to know and warm weather is on the way thankfully yeah and we're gearing up for bikes to come back out we've got safe schools working on bike safety training with the k-8 kids um and really strategizing we know now that's going to be a primary mode as the weather improves you know versus the fall where it sort of just happened and we weren't as um expecting it so we're looking forward to that too good thank you and just to qualify you know we did have school transmission on alcott in december so i don't want to miss speak there we did um we contained it to two classrooms and didn't have any further
033so we're always watching um to hope that doesn't happen again regarding biking one of my car thoughts as i i thought maybe we should make the investment and invest for kids who are walking and biking it really makes a difference even during the day it it's overkill but for drivers just a little bit distracted that color yeah really makes it much safer so good thought i thought i just have one question about the parking our favorite topic um so you're not we're not confident there's enough space to have the seniors park on campus well so the the coveted miracle was that the juniors got spaces because they were sharing so the challenge is do we take those back or do we we don't have an answer here i'm just posing what the problems are but
034the juniors have been able to park for the first time in a long time and to to allow all the seniors to park we'd have to take those spots back from the juniors from april 26 until the seniors are done right i almost i don't even know if we have the manpower for that level of rearranging but we're talking about it for sure okay so that they should you know some you know some i don't know but you know i think we should air a little bit on that the other side i okay and then just uh sort of related i know that the tent is taking up some spaces are we is it really being used at this point outside in the parking lot yeah um it isn't being used because the town hasn't
035had vaccine access i know they had submitted a application to be part of a regional distribution center so i can check in on that and hear if they've gotten any feedback right um yeah so good good point good question yeah dr hunter do we have do do we know how many uh of our teachers were able to sign up for an appointment or uh we're able to at least get a first dose as of right now i know those things do we actually surveyed them today because we wanted to know and i've been pulling this up live and as of right now i have 237 staff responses that they've been at least either fully or partially vaccinated k-12 we can break that out once we get out of what glory is 700 ish staff 700
036yeah yeah yeah just to make everybody's life easier is definitely not appropriate for anybody to ask individual teachers about right yes because and and i'm going to qualify my my data there is voluntary disclosure so completely understand but it seems like the right thing to do but it's it's it's not yeah so we i mean that's in a week's time so that's encouraging for sure and um hopefully we'll just all continue to see progress there but we are growing confident that by the later part of april it seems we're going to be in really good shape as especially the middle and high school with the less distant plan and seeing the governor baker's announcing his plan tomorrow morning to vaccinate the great all the population that's eligible so we'll see yeah so thank you yeah
037so cdc is again reviewing the three and six feet because they have realized that the districts that that might have used less than six uh less than six feet uh distance might might not have been close to that three feet so um it sounds like uh we will be learning of any changes if anything as as we were going through the process of coming back yeah the good news is most spaces as we've been measuring look like we're closer to four or even five um it looks like it's not the norm that we're going to be all the way down to three so that's good news too [Music] but yeah we're going to kind of live the live this a little bit share data as we have it yeah thank you i mean it's amazing
038we were one of the first districts to get back into school um and definitely those saving those 10 days to to pepper through the year has has been a great help um and again i mean this is all about the flexibility right uh and what it takes and that's that's what it takes is a commitment to the flexibility um and the teamwork yeah and the teamwork i mean the the time the energy and commitment from from the administration from the ccta the teachers the the staff and the students of course and and and all the school committee members too um so thank you yeah for that definitely a team effort here and a team commitment to give this a try high schools are going to be the last you'll see go online in the other
039districts i know my colleagues are and some some of them are ready to move and others are just trying to figure it out we're kind of just diving in and decided we know how we we will figure it out making our way through it any other questions about that before we move on to old business no okay um so so lori you have some stuff to share with us about equity leadership structure before the budget um yeah and um i'm sure a few these are really basic slides but i think they capture yeah and i don't want to say thank you for you know for building this extra week of of thought and and time um looking into this i know we've heard some great feedback it's given us a chance to hear some great
040feedback from the community uh to have richer conversations um with with everybody um or at least not you know i'm probably not everybody but um with with various stakeholders um and i think that um it's just reaffirmed our commitment to this uh to the step forward yeah i would echo that it was time very well spent by this committee and and by the administration and i think we'll begin to see the the top level results of that right now yeah and this is very high level but i think it captures what we need to share out for our recommended plan um so you'll remember we've been talking about uh directors of equity and kind of working on the rest of the language so our recommendation tonight is director of equity and inclusion and by that
041we really mean all kids feeling welcome and included at school and we can talk more on the job description and the roles as we get further into it it's a definite district-wide position across all of the buildings all of the grade levels every aspect of what our schools do some highlights which i think you've seen in some of the other slides previously and this is not at all a full list this is just some selected highlights curriculum professional development hiring student engagement community relationships and i'm sure that list is much much longer and we can flesh that out as we move forward one thing lori if i might by student engagement i believe that committee and you would frame that as somebody who's going to really support that effort towards student engagement between faculty and
042students that this is not somebody who's going to be student focused as a teacher might be correct yes thank you for clarifying and then uh we had a lot of talk about the way medco would be structured and essentially we've um left it fairly status quo in terms of leadership with a medco director is the recommendation and what we have uh proposed is more academic support liaison rolls full-time liaison roles at all three schools which right now as you know is alcott the middle school in high school and a combination of tutors and or part-time teachers um at each of the schools as well and actually that's a really that's an exciting balance to have the high level equity director role really focused on the the big picture work that we're all really so committed
043to while we have um maintain and support and even further academic and other supports to our um to the to our metco population and we're i think we found the balance that to your point i think these last few weeks have been very well spent so so that's very high level um but i think it's summarized which is where we are tonight and i think it captures much of the community sentiment that has come our way that i believe as the school committee is thinking on it right now not that uh that dialogue has uh concluded with this instead it's about to expand right uh we we hope that the community will find this does largely reflect what has come our way in addition to the uh the beliefs that are shared by this school
044committee on behalf of the the folks that we are serving and the money part we're going to get to when we get to the budget i just wanted to add that um uh the positions of the medical liaisons and using uh teachers and tutors medical teachers and tutors that um really reflects the commitment to listening to our students and their need to uh to have those uh opportunities to uh see people like them and uh to have those windows uh when they are in school um to have those role models so thank you um laura can i just point out foreign i think we're all on the same page we um love the title of diversity equity inclusion and just in the slide i think the diversity was what that it's a director of equity
045yeah thank you yeah direct correct diversity equity inclusion right which i know is what you meant but i wanted to point it out for anyone watching we've been really focused on the inclusion word right exactly yeah um so hold on just a second i think we want to stay on this topic for a moment yeah um and so in terms of in terms of filling this role you see posting internally for it or i do think that is my intent is to post internally um see if there's any internal applicants and then go from there but um i think i think that's our starting point for the diversity equity yeah and then for the um director the mecco director in no you're not yeah yeah i mean you know we're gonna have to let this
046all play out i think without trying to predict the bottom line future yeah so you know we're gonna look internally for the equity director um because we i do see benefits to someone who knows us very well and has trust and respect among the among the community um you know if there's a vacancy at the mecco director position then then we will no i met the tutor you know the um the high school the liaison the liaison yes yes so that brought around so many i know it's it's a that's something well liaison i assume we're gonna be able to to utilize those resources that medco has with all their their network of um and research of um prospective candidates definitely position yeah definitely i think this is such an important step forward uh there
047are many more steps to follow but this is this is heartening i think for for all of us and and we know how strongly you feel about it dr hunter yeah i think it's just exciting to have someone dedicated to the work that is off to such a you know really passionate start and um we've seen seen you know important progress and i think this is how we really capitalize on the progress to take take it to another level it's very exciting thank you for pulling this together it's fabulous now thank you so you know support from you in so many different ways it's been really invaluable great are there any other questions thoughts comments from committee members no okay now you can uh bring us to the budget that uh you could reference earlier
048and i just again like i feel like this is a night of a lot of acknowledgments i just want to say when we started this budget process uh well we it's been a very condensed budget process when we should have been starting it we were still working on the 21 budget and um and when you first started talking to us about the budget uh we thought we'd be looking at two budgets now i know and so i i just appreciate the the commitment to to even in this condensed environment i really appreciate the commitment to to diligence and thoroughness uh on behalf of everybody on the committee um and and on the part of you lori and and jared um and everyone who's supporting him yeah it's the entire team for sure and um i
049think that's why we're feeling good about the numbers we brought you because we were able to dig in despite the conditions we're doing it under so jared do you want to bring up where we kind of left off at a final discussion here last week so i think we need to pick it up where we left off and answer any other questions you have and see see how we go we do just one point of context the warrants are due in the 19th so we are now in the days of deadlines um so just we'll want to factor that in great so i'll just go over this slide if you remember at the end of the meeting last week um we were charged with the task of looking for reductions in software um so just
050go over this with you now and explain where we're at so currently the superintendent's recommended budget is thirty five million seven hundred and fifty nine thousand three hundred and seventy five four dollars the the software budget which is made up of the twelve departments below is 136 we were able to come up with a 10 reduction it should be thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty five dollars therefore the new software budget is 122 and if that holds the new budget uh would be thirty five million seven hundred forty five thousand seven hundred and forty nine dollars and uh i wanna note here this is instructional software not management software and departments impacted that means that these departments would uh be examining as we expect their use of software going forward knowing that there were some
051potentially radical changes this year uh i'm not hearing you say that students are going to be impacted um and we we trust that wouldn't be necessary um but i'm sure we'll get more information as as there's more assessment of what's going to get carried forward post coven what is going to be left behind great so these 12 departments we created 12 new lines um and here here are the the name actually of each line uh and i just want to remind everyone that while it looks like software is going up this 136 000. these were embedded in other lines um they were in soft they were in supply lines i wouldn't even be surprised if they sometimes were in a contracted services potentially so we going forward we're going to know exactly what we spend
052in software um and it's going to be highly vetted by mrs hurwitz department uh in in curriculum so i just want to point that out so we we did have savings in other lines that did offset this so this isn't all new money this is certainly phase one of more work to be done uh we need to we need to examine the innovation and the positives of what we've been doing we need to look at what's redundant what could be fiscally consolidated what just isn't um maybe of maximum benefit to teachers and kids and that's certainly the work that's coming next and you know we we need to land back at the balancing place postcovid um that balances technology as a really useful purposeful learning tool which i think i think we've done that this
053year it's just been forced to be that one of the primary modes and that's what we need to shift um so that we just get back to what it what it really is meant to be which is a an instructional tool um not the sole platform so that's going to take a little bit as we make our way through the unknowns of the spring and maybe even the fall but that's that's the work that's underway and we'll continue i would hope we can also capture whatever assessment was happening in the moment too because certainly teachers and department heads and certainly principals were aware of what was what was happening even if they didn't have time to do formal assessments so i trust some data has accumulated oh sure and you know i could even rattle
054off stories of some really amazing you know innovative assessment strategies using the technology instead of wrote tests that were you know started this year and some of that work with some of our long-term planning um in objectives over time so we don't want to lose that as we sort of vet through all this so a lot to capture so can i ask a question make a comment yeah um so my my initial reaction to the to the cutting software to be honest is not necessarily positive i i feel like we're still operating in pandemic mode to be cutting that number that line item just to cut it when we don't know yet exactly which ones we want to keep 100 and want to work with etcetera is i feel like that's not a great idea
055given all of the uncertainty that said we were just talking about a dei position and keeping a medco position as director um and i know you're i'm assuming you're about to tell us about the potential impact of that and so i'm kind of keeping an open mind on potentially needing to make these cuts to software if we need to support something else is that is that potentially the direction where this would go yeah i mean we can get to that part of this discussion if you want to skip the you know leave the technology for a minute and talk on the impact of the the director of equity and diversity i feel like the two tie together and so yeah i think and they could sure um jared do you have the numbers for the
056revised plan there that we just shared just for the region because we're talking high school right now so the so we have the um the the coordinator is uh 75 000 which we know is going to be a director jared at 90. at 90. and then the um the coordinator in the liaison the liaison was 60 000. and so some of that is budgeted for because we had proposed it last week when we were here so the delta is that 75 to 90 000 for the director to maintain a director position if things if that's the goal and so to me again not that the software and the dei would otherwise relate but to me if we suddenly have need 15 in order to support this director level role at metco which we all think
057is very important then it could be worth shaving that bit that 13 off of the software line and making it work in order to somehow support that director lever medical position just right and they literally they really have been two different conversations for the last week really just coming together tonight right and i'm saying make that support the other i know they're not exactly the same jared you just said 13 and we're talking 15 but i'm assuming that right somewhere we could find 2000 right yeah you make a good point the the two were not uh uh one conversation in fact it was a week ago that uh there was some uh some consensus that uh there was there was room in the software account so that was quite independent right i think i think
058both decisions stand on their own and and uh in the context of a 28 million dollar budget are not uh hugely significant right what what they do is significant but the money is something i think we this committee and you and jared have in hand quite nicely so if you were to to consider the savings and the technology as part of the differential for the mecco director i think you'd go back to last week's recommended go back to the original number right that's what i'm envisioning right thumbs up other other thoughts on that none other than i would totally be behind that all right anything else on the on the budget i actually have a question um so if the school committee does end up going back to that um to that recommended budget uh
059would you want the reductions to show up in the software alliance or you just because we will eventually have savings we know that in these lines that savings will be applied to a contingency and that contingency can then fund the delta in the mecca director's position instead of shaving off these lines all 12 of these lines um and so keep the line items as is or would you want to show that 10 reduction in these lines and moved into that good question you can pull us uh my answer is uh pull it out and put it back in again later if you have to because we decided it was a legitimate responsible move uh but the money's there if indeed students need it i i would agree that we pull it out and put it
060into the de i mean the metco director line because if that's what we're planning to do let's let's be clear now since we have the chance to change that and be clear about it now let's right it now i say that is that realistic jared for us to still all we're voting tonight is the overall number right yeah i just honestly i'm thinking ahead of the story for fy23 when i'm back here in front of him trying to just explain what happened so no i just wanted clarity um trying to remind you what we did well that's the beauty of zero that's the beauty of zero base it stands on its own legs every year yes it does yes yes excellent that makes sense if everyone's okay with that then um yeah that's easy to
061do great i'm just gonna we talked about this so much last week but i still think there's a lot of cuts we can make in software particularly it's not so much at the region but and i think we're gonna have a lot of additional abided money and i would ask that we push the software off to the buying money if at all possible and we have access we can return it to the towns it will just be very clear that it's you know it's it's that kind of a negotiation quite well taken especially in uh in times where we are expecting uh an infusion of money and the towns are getting much less money than the schools yeah and the town gave us money yeah exactly we're all in this together yes have a question
062dr hunter i want to um wonder if you had any follow-up on terms of in terms of the controls on the hardwares on the computers that we are equipping our students um especially when they're taking them home and using them in the classroom so i think and i made this recommendation last week and i think i'll expand on it a little bit tonight um i would suggest that we bring a warren a foreign article an agenda item to one of our agendas in april um to start this conversation we'll have it start to put together the options um you know we we have really tight firewalls at school the ask that i hear is to understand what the options are for kids when they're home and restricting them and limiting their ability for some distraction
063and i think we need to vet that and really all come to what the committee is the goal is um hear what the options are and then you know use the spring as time to to talk all that through and give us direction i think it was mentioned last week which i think is accurate that the summer's the time to to really implement and set us up for whatever we're going to do um we are collecting all the laptops this summer and so they'll it's a perfect time for whatever reset we're going to do before they're distributed in the fall so that's my recommendation as we start that conversation in in april if that's the will of the committee i think the community will be delighted i think it'll be a useful agenda item for
064us certainly sure thank you was there any differentiation between the high school and the younger greats and i would think i would think so but we'll need to talk all that through for sure and i think you'll want to consider that the younger grades we're not going to be sending laptop any devices home k5 after april 5th so that might impact your conversation is this is a 6 12 conversation yes it is yes and this this conversation will not be tied into the review of strategically what is helpful to our students in terms of technology what has worked we stepped into that conversation early in the pandemic considering that um this will be our great uh experiment right um and we'll learn a lot coming out of the pandemic um right are we combining those
065two or i think they're separate buckets under the same umbrella like the umbrella is technology used but i feel like they're separate separate discussions that inform each other i would i'm certain but um probably are explored separately and dr hunter will there be any do you foresee any disruptions as you are going i i looked at the some of the cuts of on the software this special education software is on the uh is also listed um we know that pandemic was not easy for students um on iep plans um that they have regressed um will there be an an adaptation to uh a new way of learning changes are um they cause more disruption in in that population uh are you for seeing any any troubles i i personally um you know i understand that
066uh as a as a school committee and administration was looking at doing the cuts in this software my my concern is you know we're still in it so we want to cause any um you know any more pains and i think that's some of the work jared's still referencing that right now we're taking a 10 cut from yet to be identified spots so it's not a sure thing that'll be special education what i do know is that you know the technology is an incredible way for kids to access different different content different production tools it's really a great um equalizer in many ways you know text to speech and all those kinds of tools we don't want to throw the baby in the bathwater as we're having this conversation so that's the great point we
067want to make sure we're using all that it can offer us to benefit those with different needs and i also wanted to add that you know for students on ieps as a special education uh students uh you are allowing for a lot more inclusion when they have many ways and many forms of expressing their knowledge to the teacher sure it's it sounds like this was a great experiment to see what really works um in our school for that purpose that's what we're going to learn yeah and and multiple ways to express what you know and learn is good for everybody right so back to our inclusive conversation for sure if there are no other questions cynthia do you have nope um then i think we can move on to the vote to approve the budget
068i'm sorry so you are going to vote last week's number not this week so let me put it up for you and the agenda last yes but not last week's correct right not this week so i went to last week's agenda and pulled up the number you were looking at a week ago [Music] jared is that correct that's the number yeah it should be uh yeah it's linked no but the one linked from today was the lower number right so this is this is the number linked to the last no it's not the the link is the same yeah it's current oh really yeah the link is the same i i moved that the town raised and appropriate the sum of 35 million 759 374 dollars as the town's apportioned share of the concord carlisle
069regional school district budget for the fiscal year ending june 30th 2022 and that the same be expended only for such purposes and under the direction of the concord carlisle regional school committee a second uh and we'll note that there's an article that accompanies this and we will further note that this is representative of the number of last week and that there have been the line item adjustments uh underway that we have discussed further discussion uh yes i want to acknowledge the uh fincom's from both towns and the uh the attention they have given to this and the uh the genuine effort they have made to understand student needs and district needs once again and let's acknowledge jared and keeping up with all of our moving pieces that we throw at him all the work that
070went into this thank you jared and lori appreciate it you are welcome are you ready for me thank you um and with that i i will move to free sarah and eva and adjourn the regional meeting second right local anderson i moved out i where is that i mustafi randy i will say good night good night good night thanks everybody so the concord public school school committee will remain in session and uh will be moving to old business uh shortly uh dr hunter do you want to preempt it with any updates around uh reopening or anything else i'm not suggesting you should i think we've we're in pretty good shape there but just want to put it put it your way if you need to yeah i'll just stay at a high level of there's
071an awful lot of things a lot of work going on and a lot of planning and a lot of um regrouping and thank you to the parent community we're getting responses really quick when we need them and um really good so thank you it's a collaborative effort we'll look forward to keeping you posted wonderful thank you perfect i just i meant to ask it before are you seeing any kids returned from homeschooling yes mr cameron just emailed me his survey closed yesterday um he's cut his remote learning numbers in half um so there'll be about 45 kids learning remotely and i know at elementary through my office about five elementary families re-enrolled from homeschool so it's a moving target still but we are definitely seeing kids return yeah okay thanks yeah exciting yeah so we'll
072uh ask you to uh give us an update on the budget if you would dr hunter and mr stanton so the conversations similar only apply to cps and with a focus primarily on middle school as asked by the committee last week so jared i'll turn it over to you from there and then we can take questions great so very similar conversation um the recommended budget uh was 41 million 708 424 dollars the middle school software budget was sixty six thousand seven hundred and sixty four dollars this impacted ten departments there was ten new lines created at the middle school um so the ten percent reduction would be six thousand six hundred and seventy six dollars um new software budget will be just over sixty thousand therefore the new budget with the ten percent reduction will
073be forty one million seven hundred one thousand seven hundred and forty eight dollars and same thing that while this number does look like it is an increase they were offsets in other lines contract services suppliers materials curriculum textbooks and were we to align cps with the region we would consider restoring this as a potential offset to the k-8 contribution toward the new positions around diversity equity and inclusion am i correct correct okay so we can achieve those economies on the instructional software and consider it a a partial offset even though technically they're not related they happen to be discussed in the same meeting as we finalize the budget i'm in support of exactly what court said uh i i would note that as we said at the regional discussion i look forward to the scrutiny
074that our instructional practices and our technology hardware software [Applause] hold for both student benefit teacher use and costs and look forward to again those discussions around the district's analysis of same over the next several months just so we're very clear this is pre-k through eight i think we had some confusion in our what we were looking for in cuts last meeting so i guess we just need to be a little more clear about what the scope of i would i would support that an examination is an examination if we if we built this plane while we were flying it as we sometimes say uh we've we've got to now decide which which parts we maintain and why and which parts we discard and that would be pre-k to eight sure so just just for clarity
075on my intention of saying that last week we left ass we asked to look at middle school but between last week and this week's meeting but of course we're going to look at all of pre pre-k 8 as an overall part of the process yeah we let we let the k5 go simply because your early indication was that you didn't see a way yet um so uh we'd call it a post i'd call it a postponement not a not a uh a permanent deferral because there's a lot a lot we all want to learn you more than anybody i'm sure doctor hunter and when would our next update be in the fy 21 budget you knew that was coming right jared would it be at our next meeting whenever that is when yeah so probably
076two weeks time yeah i owe the um uh two variance reports and then the update on the cares act or whatever other money we have right yeah questions comments concerns about the the budget uh mr stanton you have uh made certain that the slides attached reference the original budget if i'm correct um that number of forty one million seven hundred eight thousand four hundred and twenty four that is correct oops so would somebody else uh care to commit us to this recommendation in the form of emotion heather absolutely i would love to i would like to move oh you're gonna put it in front of me i was gonna switch things thank you wow and does so this motion is actually what goes into the warrant but above that isn't there what i'm supposed to
077move first that's what there is tonight so i would move right that the conference school committee excuse me vote to approve the cps fy 2022 budget motion and article as presented and that the motion where the article will read as such and the motion will read that the town appropriates the sum of forty one million seven hundred eight thousand four hundred twenty four dollars for the necessary and expedient purposes of the public schools of the town for the fiscal year ending june 30th 2022 and that the same be expended only for such purposes and under the direction of the concord school committee second can we just vote yes last time we talked guys we did it we finally lost our budgets jared you're free of this discussion for a while now thank you guys so
078much for the next meeting uh right what time we failed to do this um when is our next meeting so uh we have one slated for next week the 23rd however because we added tonight's meeting uh it wasn't on the original calendar we may be able to forego it um uh sarah wilson and i will consult with uh dr hunter tomorrow okay and we'll have this decided by tomorrow because i do notice we have a then our next may be april 6 right yeah so i i misspoke when i said two weeks for jared it would indeed be what three weeks if we don't meet next week um then we have a big another big gap to april 27th so i'll leave it up to you and sarah to look forward to all the work
079we've yet to do this year it might not be terrible i promise you we'll take a careful look at that we're doing our best to avoid the the grueling meetings uh that frankly are just uh tough on everybody involved if we can keep our meetings to uh three or three and a half hours uh that's fine the five-hour marathons have been been rough although we've examined uh those meetings you know looked back on them and thought well we we just didn't want to uh shortchange any of the uh any of the discussion that all seemed good although uh uh challenging but uh you you can feel free to prompt us to move us all along uh more and more quickly if you wish [Music] and it's it's up to you and dr hunter do you
080know do we need a meeting before we reopen on the fifth or no maybe not i think we certainly need a meeting between now and april 6th so we're let's look at the calendar and see how it all falls i mean if there are two gaps of three weeks instead of plugging in two in the middle there and having three you know maybe you take the one off and you do every two weeks for the next six weeks i mean right so the takeaway for tonight is hold your tuesdays at least at least still tomorrow and hopefully three you have maybe one yeah i mean instead of waiting until that april you move it to the 20 whatever you know yeah we do have the april break so yes yes sort of 30th or something
081right wherever that is i mean if i if we left the 6th on the 6th and i brought you a you know how's it going for two days that's a pretty important report too so as we bring everybody in well jared express your thanks to everybody who contributed to uh the process that uh you and dr hunter brought to a close with us tonight you you've got our thanks what is your uh sort of soft deadline for the budget book uh april 30th okay april 30th okay any other comments you send a message out to all the principals and told them that we're now in fy 23 budget season another cheerer upper huh because you know they don't have anything else going [Laughter] all on we want to thank everybody who was in on the
082call tonight thank you for uh joining us and uh we look forward to gathering again in uh one or two weeks uh keep an eye on the district website if you'd be so kind uh is there a motion for adjournment please i moved fast tonight i couldn't beat her right with that roll call please good night you