001[Music] foreign [Music] we do as far as I can see on the screen have a quorum so this is the Greenfield Public Schools special school committee meeting it is Wednesday May 3rd 2023 6 p.m and we'll go right into a roll call and call to order secretary Eckstrom I am hoping that you are ready for that all right remember Denise here secretary X term yes Johnson massage absent this evening and gave us a heads up notice Vice chair martini I don't see her on yet oh there she is she's coming in now uh chair Peretti I'll come back after I'm here remember wall here mayor wedi Gardner I'm here Vice chair Martini welcome I see you're here okay I am here lovely thank you we are all well we're not all present but we do
002have a quorum excellent so I called the meeting to order it's 601 PM we have the primary item uh on the agenda tonight is a interview of our finals for the director of people Services uh position and I did very late in the day like after three o'clock send out to all the school committee members uh a list of questions for this evening I want to just take a moment and make sure everyone has the questions that I sent is there anyone who doesn't have them might be a better way to say it speak now everyone's been assigned a question as well I didn't realize that it's great I shared it with you mayor in yeah I have it up I have it up I just didn't see that I I didn't scroll far enough
003oh there you go there's one question basically for each of us so Dave for you there's one question for each of us there are six of us here this evening um and uh we can actually uh at this point go right into the questions and um I'm hoping you can start with telling us about what this job and working in Greenfield is of interest to you yeah so uh again I've spent uh nearly the entirety of my career uh supporting districts in Franklin County um I currently well done I'm sorry Amy maybe we should let David introduce himself since we haven't done that sure why don't you go ahead and start with introducing and then I can repeat the question if you need or you can go right in no no and it saves me
004if I'm going to weave it in tactfully right in terms of you know without beating around the bush with a question so I'm Dave messing um you know I currently am the director of student support services for Ralph Seymour Regional in Orange um which also supports Orange elementary schools um and then Robson Hall Regional supports kids from Peter Sam uh as well as uh Wendell and so when we think about uh serving kids in Franklin County um I've started as a teacher uh there and uh came out to Western Mass I'm from Eastern Mass originally uh Plymouth County and came out to UMass as an undergraduate um and haven't left and I fell in love with uh with the area so I'm a husband uh and a father of three I have three kids under
005under six so that keeps me on my toes um I you know I just fell in love with western Mass by myself you know spending the rest of my you know my time out here um uh I before this position I worked previously in Northampton as an associate director um for three years from 17 to 20 before that I was in a supervisor special ed position essentially consistent with like an ETL or a Consolidated team chair type position for a number of years and before that I was a special education teacher at the high school level at Mahar um for an alternative education program so um you know really I you know I'm my time at UMass I I originally I got my Master's in special education and I've spent the last essentially 10 years
006in a doctorate program for special ed leadership and administration um and have really been studying leadership as it's applied to schools um and uh you know you talk about what interests me in this position and uh and Greenfield specifically um as I said my experience in special education both from teaching and Administration has been in Franklin County I think Greenfield presents um some of the challenges that I'm familiar with in terms of the demographic uh the towns of orange some of the rural as well as some of the urban um and mixed demographics that's very consistent of my experience in Northampton more recently I think the the size of a district Greenfield size allows for the the type of educational reform and district and building level leadership um that I think is helpful I think
007it's big enough to have the resources to do the work that needs to be done without being so big that it's impersonal and you don't have the opportunity to serve families in a meaningful way um so in terms of you know what uh what interests me about working in Greenfield I'm really I'm about halfway through my career I'm looking to really find a home that I can spend the next you know 10 or more years doing this long-term uh ad reform work um you know I understand that Greenfield's currently in a place where not all that dissimilar to where Northampton was in terms of needing to bring together a handful of schools into a more cohesive District um certainly I have no Illusions about some of the challenges we face um you know I think
008there were some challenges in our area you know both in the field of public education in general but also certainly out here in western Mass we have some unique challenges um I think that post pandemic right we're navigating some of the challenges that are unique but I also think there's some opportunities right I think it um allows us an opportunity to make some changes in a way that we wouldn't have been able to as quickly or with as much clarity as we would have before having sex appearance of the pandemic I think coming out of that if there's any Silver Lining is that it made clear some of the work that needed to be done um I'm clear that you know there was uh folks in the administrative field and every conversation I have with
009the superintendent assistant superintendent uh encourages me more that there's good work being done um that people have a shared understanding of how to meet the needs of students um and really being a part of that so that you know I can um feel good about coming to work today and doing some heavy lifting uh in terms of that in terms of the job in general I think it's the intellectual stimulation I mean it's problem solving I often say that I'm grateful that I'm not in a cubicle selling car insurance right no disrespect to anybody that sells car insurance I just am grateful for the chance to solve new and interesting problems every day um and feel like I'm doing good work right I would rather have more to do every day and wonder where the
010time goes than be looking for something to do and you know and feel like oh you know here we go again um so I really just have a a real uh interest in continuing the work of that leadership uh and learning about the good work that's already happening and contributing the work that will happen over the next you know you know next 10 years or so uh if not into the beyond that so um I'm really excited excellent thank you um we'll move on to the next question and I'm not gonna keep interrupting yeah that's it you guys can follow along and go ahead yeah thanks okay um how do you describe your leadership style and what qualities do you think strong leaders need to possess you know somewhere between uh servant leadership right in
011terms of meeting the needs of of the people under my care right I think um you know leadership Authority is earned right not given so in terms of taking care of the the Educators in your charge making sure you're fulfilling your responsibilities um that you're given you know with any position like this um certainly it's adaptive and by that I mean being able to be um flexible in your approaches to meet the needs you know the six buildings in in Greenfield are different even though they're in the same uh same building that requires somebody to to be flexible in their approach uh I think strong leaders have to have an understanding of leadership as a subject area right different leadership styles different leadership practices uh we're fortunate to have a tremendous amount of knowledge about
012what works in leadership specifically what works in educational leadership um you know we're better off than we ever have been in our field about good teaching and how to support teachers and doing that work um the research continues to move forward in terms of how to meet the needs of all kids uh whether it be those who are are neurodiverse right students with disabilities say or culturally and linguistically diverse right so things that we can do not to to fix things that might have gone sideways for students but things to plan and so that we can do things in a way that meets the needs of all kids I think that's really important for leaders to have an understanding I think leaders have to be clear about their expectations uh about what targets for Success
013criteria are right I think you have to be clear about where you're going if you want people to get on board uh and and go with you to get there I think it's important that leaderships have empathy right have some humanity and understand that whatever the challenge may be whatever people's presentation may be in a given moment whether that's a staff member whether that's a parent certainly if that's a student an understanding of what circumstances that individual might be navigating that you might not be familiar with and and being able to explore before you respond right like what is really going on what is the need um leadership you know is about communicating effectively right being clear with people about here's why we're doing what we're doing uh about being inclusive in terms of soliciting
014input from from all stakeholders about you know what's important what do you understand is important what are perspectives I think that's important to get to the best Solutions right if we're incorporating all input we might not necessarily move forward with the the choices that different folks may make but we hope that our decision making is better off because we've had all of those viewpoints demonstrated um and that's important certainly when we're meeting the needs of diverse groups within our district right making sure that we hear hey how is what's important to you related to what's important to other folks and then how does that fit into this bigger puzzle so we're moving everybody forward um you know talking about strong leaders you know need to be patient they need to be sensitive to the amount
015of time um that the work takes uh in in our field that has to do with organizational change theory right understanding about organizational learning how are we getting better as administrators every month every semester every year so that over the course of time we're better at doing some of the same things and we're building a better organization in terms of learning how to respond to similar challenges um as well as developing the capacity of others right like strong leaders are are defined by the leaders that they help develop um and I think nowhere is that better scene than talking about developing capacity of a teacher or a teaching group or uh you know sub sections of a professional Learning Community um but I think it has to do with a mixture of technical skill and
016then Humanity right I think a strong leader has to have a sense of humor certainly in this work if you're gonna you know none of us are making it out alive right so might as well uh uh be um uh have a have a sense of humor because they're asked the work you know is just it's just challenging at times so yeah I think those are are the qualities that I think are are most important in our work um especially in schools thank you for that thank you um all right so thank you really sorry my iPad now that I've located it anyway who are your mentors or role models and what did you learn from them and are able to apply to your work and yes I heard my accent Amy uh I would
017say there are two that that come to mind um one is uh Dr John Provost he's a current superintendent in Hampton Wilbraham former long time superintendent in Northampton and then before that long time a special ed director in Agawam uh uh from John I I learned the importance of humility and Leadership I learned the importance of um understanding the technical aspects of the work right so what needs to be done and how does what we know about the work that needs to be done compared to what we're seeing um as well as uh needing to be comfortable in a leadership role and that is to say not shying away from saying this is hard and this is challenging but you know if it is to be it is to be me right there has to
018be somebody who's willing to stand up and deliver uh when folks might have concerns about things of of different Natures so that mixture of technical skill and strength of conviction understanding that if I believe strongly enough in the the need to ensure that our public schools are supporting the needs of all Learners that I'm willing to put in the work roll up my sleeves and do the heavy lifting and not shy away from difficult conversations not be thrown off when going gets tough or when you know there are people who might not be thrilled about decisions when we understand that it's in the best interest of kids right being willing to Bear some of that discomfort for the kids and and families that we serve um you know similarly uh Dr Pam Plummer uh who
019was a former uh director of student Support Services in Northampton uh has since shifted to a leadership Consulting role with the Department of Ed uh from her I learned you know what it looks like uh to really maintain your Humanity while doing this work I watched Pam work tirelessly in settings that were often very tense um and responding to the needs of multiple stakeholders when we were in Northampton we had a school committee that was diverse and not always on the same page about what priorities were we had a teaching Association that was at times board around belligerent um and yet and we had a host of of the challenges of a urban Rural and diverse in terms of socioeconomic status District so from Pam I learned really what it looks like to keep one's
020Humanity as you respond to the almost endless demands on your time demands on your patients um I saw what it looked like to do good work and and really sacrifice for kids best interest and then be be shout at it for it and still you know own that and be okay with that because that's part of the work that we do uh I've learned how to have a sense of humor in the face of the the difficult work and to really be comfortable with knowing that when we know what the research tells us when we know what the people that were the teachers that are are doing the work are telling us and we're comfortable standing by it that we can uh persevere in the face of you know what might be political uh politically
021convenient for certain stakeholders at a time um so I would say you know between Dr Provost and Dr Plummer I had some great role models in what it means to conduct oneself in these settings um I think for me there's also been a blend I had the benefit of engaging with with John specifically uh 10 years ago at first when I was a younger professional and that also was helpful coming of age uh personally right so I really feel that we are fortunate in the work that we do in public Ed there's a connection between our professional development and these intimate connections with families and family story and our own Human Experience I firmly believe that my own personal experience is much richer because of my exposure to families and I think the exposure to
022Dr Provost and Dr Plummer has helped me sort of integrate those so we talk about work-life balance we talk about um how do you do this work really for me that the self-actualization right the the best I can hope for in terms of a life well lived is to develop the highest version Myself by developing myself in a an Endeavor like this during doing hard work coming home spent at the end of the day you know like the whole man in the arena speech right feeling like yeah we've done something worthwhile um and if we if we you know failed and we failed trying something that was challenging and got back up and did it again the next day so um in terms of how that applies to the work you know really it has
023to do with showing up every day and uh and bringing the technical skills and the human qualities to help bring out the best in others to get the work done I think that is is probably in a nutshell the the finest point I could put on thank you I appreciate your response yes thank you and I have a two-part question uh first could you talk about your strengths as an administrator and then second could you give us an example of a time when you work collaboratively with an administrator to improve a process or make a needed Improvement in a program thank you so I think my strengths as administrator are are twofold I think it has to do really with my uh experience and Technical Training I had the Good Fortune of of going through
024a master's program at UMass and a world-class special education Administration program at UMass uh under one of the former presidents of the council for exceptional children right um I I feel like I've been very well trained in terms of my understanding of current theory not only the policy of special education and practice but what it means to apply leadership skills to the administration special education um current trends previous Trends in the field um you know how we might use things that we've learned over the last 50 years in the last five years right the last three years to be able to carry the work forward I think my experiences both as a teacher as a Crisis Prevention and de-escalation trainer as a team chair you know I in in the span of several years I
025ran you know somewhere like 2 000 meetings right team meetings or just doing a lot of those repetitions and having those experiences and understanding where the the trouble spots are and how to get to the heart of it how to get to distill the the value of it um I think those experiences are tremendously helpful my experiences in Northampton supporting you know about a hundred English language Learners that was a learning experience for me I think that's helpful in understanding the things that are similar in their experience in terms of being in classrooms that aren't always necessarily designed to meet their needs and then things we can do to make those environments more inclusive for them and that has to do not only with the language barrier of stuff but also in top times culturally
026cultural sensitivity when we talk about different Learners I I also think my personal attributes and personal experience um lend uh themselves well to this job uh you know I grew up sort of firmly middle class to two professional parents um never I was always a fairly successful in school uh when I dropped out of high school I was in honors and AP classes you know for me it wasn't about being able to do the work right schools in you know back then in the late 90s were not interested in supporting me I understand that even as a kid with a tremendous amount of privilege that uh uh School wasn't designed for me and if I could make it happen with all the privilege that I had uh how as somebody without all of those uh
027strengths possibly gonna have a chance um but also I think just my character right my patience my humility um I think my sort of world view in terms of you know trying to be a decent citizen um really lend themselves well to coming in to to do work in school settings I think I'm a I'm a intellectual I'm interested um by you know subject matter I think education is important so I think schools are a great place for me to go and work I'm excited to work with folks and to you know I I say there are things about teaching I don't miss but I miss teaching every day right so anytime we can you know be in front of kids and our staff and teaching them I think that's important um so I think
028those are really my strengths as an administrator you know there's a couple of times when you talk about an example that I work collaboratively to improve a program uh when I got to Northampton at Northampton High their alternative program was in flux they had a couple of models anytime you're talking about alternative programs this one specifically was emotionally and behaviorally um disordered students so really potential for violence potential for significant language outbursts really that interfered with these students ability to participate in learning and certainly as people might understand difficulty participating in general education classes so the work that I did there was with the current principal current vice principal or vice principals at that time and the staff to understand what changes had been made what had been the impact of that so people who
029had been affiliated with the program we did a lot of work to try and do some um analyzing the causes of the difficulty they were having so we did some root cause analysis about wait a minute why are we having the experience we're having we talked about Staffing in terms of making sure that they were able to meet the needs of the students that we were claiming to be able to meet we talked about staff training you know where where is their capacity that we don't have and how can we get people the skills to solve these problems we talked about entrance criteria right are we clear about the needs that we're looking to support so that it's not just a Dumping Ground or a fishbowl for all these kids that aren't successful we were
030thoughtful about what we were doing with our time right how do we expect staff to be using their time how do we expect students to be using their time what are the policies of the high school in terms of student conduct that aren't really that important frankly you know in terms of not throwing up additional barriers so we were able to help kids get food in the classroom in the mornings right because it wasn't a big deal we were able to you know have those conversations we were able to budget for it effectively to make sure we were able to build capacity and get the materials that we needed to teach the classes we needed in that setting um another example while I was in Northampton I also supported the Middle School at that time
031this was 2017-2018 the Middle School the performance of English language Learners was in the first percentile for the state so literally the they couldn't have students in English language Learners couldn't have been learning any less at that time so we obviously had an urgency to that work I worked with the principal I worked with the English language educator at that time we worked with General Ed teachers at the middle school grade levels to find out what is going on some of that was the transients of those students for example hurricane Maria and the students joining us from Puerto Rico who were just trying to land just trying to get safety and get their basic needs met but similarly we talked about capacity we were able you know we were able to understand that we needed
032to group students differently if we were going to give them the skills that they needed so you're talking about the different language domains that English Learners need to look at so we added we budgeted for another position and then we also use time differently we used we were able to increase the amount of service that was provided in General Ed classrooms so students weren't missing access to their their General Ed teachers I love the idea of supporting kids in a small group I also want kids to have access to a certified English teacher a certified math teacher a certified science teacher we were able to take a look at what it was we were using for curriculum when we were in those small groups just doing that English language education work we incorporated with State
033stakeholders about hey how can we use turnaround grant money effectively and then braid it in to make sure that there wasn't a huge budget hit to the district and we were able to sort of ramp up and then ramp down that those expenses so those were two examples one of on the high school level working with some Administration and staff and then one at the middle school level supporting us Learners where I think we're able to look at the program as a whole look at what our desired outcomes were and then identify how what we were doing was different from what we needed to do to get to those outcomes as am I am I next I'm sorry okay hello David nice to meet you my name is Elizabeth my question is around inclusion what
034is your approach to developing and implementing diversity equity and inclusion initiatives within an educational setting and how would you ensure that these initiatives are effectively executed and sustained over time and what are the metrics by which you would gauge inclusivity and how does that relate to and directly affect special education interesting yeah I think uh at its face one of the things that I think it's important and I like the framing the question it's important to note the difference between inclusion isn't just special education right you talk about neurodiverse Learners um as well as the other ways that students might be different from each other uh when you think about um there goes anything about the Dei work right um it really is about how are our systems in these cases are our Public Schools
035serving the people they're intended to serve we tend to think that students but we forget that that's also families that's also Community stakeholders that's also staff that work in the organization right so thinking about how are we meeting the needs of everybody involved um one of the things that that we have to be thoughtful about when we're talking about metrics is um passive versus active approaches so I really appreciate you thinking about um the initiatives because it's what are we actively doing to increase the degree to which we're meeting the needs of everybody in a certain way so for example you know it's not just you know we think of inclusion uh specifically from special education we tend to think of as a place right the inclusion classroom or an inclusion model is the General
036Ed classroom with uh typical peers whatever typical peer looks like generally you know uh neurotypical or or age level grade level peers in a certain class but then we have to be Broad in that definition and that's why it's important to think about diversity and Equity as well to think about what are the outcomes and what are the experiences that different people are having um and I think and that has everything to do with you know various forms of culture when you talk about metrics right how well are students of any different subgroup identified and we want to be thoughtful about not only the metrics that the state sets up right because oftentimes they won't have a sufficient group the group won't be big enough for the state to even report that data right so
037if the N right or the sample size the population size is too small they won't actually give us any information so we have to do a good job about being thoughtful internally at the district level um depending on what it is so if we're talking about indicators we're talking about uh number of individuals served we're talking about spending in different ways how much are we spending on um students of a with a certain need we talk about metrics about for example disability category is there a difference in how we're identify buying students is there a difference in what students are getting individual um evaluations completed or not is there a difference in what students are getting in terms of frequency of service so all of those depending on what the initiative is it'll be I
038give you more thoughtful and comprehensive answer about what those indicators would be but the metrics I would hope would be those consistent with the initiative laid out but it's going to have to be number of individuals served uh intensity right or frequency and duration or outcome right this specific thing we have a number of individuals meeting a certain level the number of paraprofessionals reaching a measure of capacity so for example passing the parapro assessment if we had individuals that didn't and then making sure that we were recruiting so that if we're talking about Staffing that we are looking for increasing the number of um diverse individuals in the workforce so that it's more representative of our community right we're not interested in in diversity and Equity just for the sake of being like hey look
039at us we're doing this di work it's about we want individuals to come to a school and be a part of an organization that is reflected of the community around them uh what we can't fail to see is that systems that are currently in place and the reason we're having this conversation is historically systems have not done that right systems have thrown out barriers that either conspicuously in some cases or in other cases a little bit more subtly right which is the Insidious thing um have kept that from being the case so that's why we need to be proactive and say is there a reason we're not seeing more individuals of a certain uh ethnic background of a certain gender in some cases of a certain um demographic in that way are there you know
040are we underserving individuals based on their socioeconomic status right as a in education one of the things we have to be very careful about is that a small group of affluent folks isn't able to get you know their needs met in a way that that uh individuals with less ability to advocate for themselves less ability to leverage the systems are there so we have to think about evening the playing field so um Equity isn't about everybody gets the same thing it's about everybody gets what they need to have a similar experience to reach a similar outcome you know we're talking about memes earlier you talk about that uh image with the fence and different step stools to have everybody there there's another one that I really like a lot that's an apple tree and it
041talks about you know everybody gets the same size ladder where everybody you know gets the tree bent you know uh so everybody has the same access to the same number of apples right so it really has to do with how are we Distributing resources so that they meet the needs of everybody we say we're attempting to meet and that that's representative of all of the folks we're we're designed to serve right so members of our community um depending on metrics you know it's going to have to do with resources it's going to have to do with the amount of money spent how much time are we spending on this how many positions are here um to what degree are our student you know student outcomes staff outcomes um so there's a lot of those things
042you know so again not to dodge that part of the question but to have a meaningful conversation about we want to know what an issue we're talking about and we could carry that forward um yeah but why is it important special education a number of wreaths right one it's a whole reason special education exists um really special education exists to protect families in some cases of the most vulnerable families from districts that historically didn't have an incentive to do right by them right we're talking about the horrors of 50 years ago and we've come a long way from there but we still have a long way to go in my view in terms of making sure that there's the shared understanding of why there are curb Cuts yes it's helpful for for individuals with wheelchairs
043it's also helpful for folks with strollers right it's also helpful for people on Rollerblades like if we do things in a way that are accessible to more people more people have positive outcomes in that way it's important that you know the Dei work is important in special education because if we care about the learning outcomes and keeping spending responsible for special education it doesn't start with special education it starts with our tier one General Ed program that meets the needs of more students right we don't have to come in over the top and fix learning gaps that have developed if we've created initial learning experiences from EI and Pre-K on that meet the needs of more Learners so that whether an individual has a disability or not whether they're learning English as a second or
044third language or not they're able to make gains right because special education isn't about having a disability it's about having a disability that has prevented you from deriving the benefit of the public education that you deserve so you know Dei work is important in special education because we need to make sure that we're not letting folks fall through the gaps we need to make sure that we're looking at how we do things and how does that make some kids more likely to learn how to read and write and do math than others and then we need to make sure that for those kids that are coming to us even from other communities or other states you know and they land here that we have the tools to be able to backfill those gaps in the
045time that we have with them so that they can do it and that you know again when you think about in any school district the the significance of the special ed budget as opposed to the size of the overall budget it's not just about you know managing that bottom line but it's ensuring that we are um educating all kids in a responsible way and you can't do that without being mindful about the diversity that we see um and the equity and then you know inclusion for us to be serious about educating folks in you know the an inclusive setting we have to have a range of programming for some kids the General Ed classroom is not the most inclusive setting because they don't have access to their peers they don't have access to curriculum that's
046that's meaningful for them so you talk about okay now we need different programs whether it be partial inclusion programs substantially separate programs that I'm I'm biased towards I believe that we need programs of that sort we need collaborative level programs and separate day school programs if we're serious about educating kids in their Community Schools and the more of of that Contin of services the more spread of those programs we have the bigger our capacity to meet the needs of different Learners in our community schools the better off we are on almost any metric you're talking about so um I think there's a a real integration of those Concepts um but I think the process of special education is a great lens through which to look at Dei is a broader sort of construct in public
047Ed as well as you know Society larger people thank you so much that was very in-depth you're muted Roxanne that whoever that was so good evening David um this is Mayor wiedergartner and I am a member of the school committee and I also have a two-part question nope I lost my questions uh but I will get them back up very soon okay what does strong school-based leadership mean to you as an administrative issue and learning strategy that's number one and how do you work to balance school-based management and central office supervision so really school-based uh leadership you know really has to do with where the work is done if we're serious about a unit of analysis we're talking about a student then we're talking about a classroom and then depending on the situation we're talking
048about a hallway or grade level team grade level and then building so if we're talking about school-based leadership there can't be any success in a top-down situation because you're you're farthest away from the kids in the work you're trying to do if we understand that the work of teaching and learning happens between teachers and students and then all of the other related service providers para Educators and folks that are involved in that work again not to not to leave out any all the other staff that allow schools to work you can't have um any of that work move forward without strong school-based leadership so strong School based leadership isn't just an administrative position a principal a vice principal a Dean uh it really has to do with teacher leaders it really has to do with
049um informal leadership right this idea of schools are networks of people that are either advice seeking from one another or working together to get tasks done so you need school-based leadership to create and maintain conditions that allow for that right so thinking about a school-based leader whether they be a department chair like at a high school level whether they be a vice principal a principal or they just be a teacher leader right a veteran teacher that's beloved that everybody goes to because they know where to get things and where that cause it is on the floor that's hidden away with the books that you need right school-based leadership is is as close to where the action is and it is also the the point of contact right that cliche about like Robert hitting the road
050when we talk about leadership in general uh so when we talk about administrative issue nothing can happen that impacts teaching and learning quickly that isn't happening at the school level that isn't happening at the classroom level the grade level um subject matter level for example so there has to be okay right now I'm sorry nowhere so that so that's sort of the administrative issue piece is if you're serious like the work is done work of of school Improvement and educational reform is done with and through people and so that has to start at the school and it's not just people in formal positions of authority like I was saying but it's leadership in all in all places um it's a learning strategy both in terms of strategies for insurance students learn but also professional learning
051right or a learning organization if I'm interested in ensuring that teachers can learn how to use a particular curriculum or use a strategy uh help use some some teaching stress we know more about how what good teaching looks like than we ever have before so if I'm serious about building the average teacher or a new teacher who's you know wet behind the ears just came out of a practicum is trying to make sense of a scary world around them there's no better way to help arm them with that those tools show them how to do it give them the support that they need the coaching the experiences set clear expectations and cycles of feedback than at the school level so when you talk about it's not just an administrative issue but it's a learning strategy
052both to support learning of students and to create conditions where adults are learning as well right that's why I love the idea of principles as lead Learners right they're both leading the learning and they are also a learner themselves so uh school-based leadership creates and maintains conditions for um Improvement of everybody involved great when you talk about this connection between school-based and central office leadership you know it's helpful to one of the analogies you use is like the difference between the dance floor and the balcony right so if you think about being in a dance hall and you're looking at being on the floor doing the work that's great right you're doing dancing you're doing the day-to-day work rolling up your sleeves doing some of the things I just referenced in terms of implementing those
053initiatives and then checking on how they're working and then doing that over and over again until things are the way they're supposed to be but then you also have to be able to pull back so when you talk about central office supervision part of that is being pulling back from that and they'll talk about the balcony not in terms of a top-down flow chart in terms of the hierarchy right but in terms of being able to look at the dance floor and see how the pieces are moving in a different way and get a respect for an understanding of things that you don't see when you're dancing yourself right that you need that bird's eye view and then going back down to the dance floor with that information and helping understand moving with the dancer
054shifting where people are so that you're using the whole dance floor so that people aren't bumping into each other so that you protect somebody from dancing too close to the stairwell and having an accident right or knocking into a group of tables right so from a central office piece if we're doing our jobs we're creating conditions for principals to do their jobs and creating conditions for teachers to do their jobs so that everybody can create conditions for kids to do their jobs right like that really is the connection between school-based leadership and District leadership and then it's reciprocal because central office needs to be going to those folks not just people in formal positions of authority like principals but teachers teacher leaders and students to be able to understand what their experience is so that
055then we can get those same feedback loops for ourselves to do that work so this connection between school-based leadership and District leadership is uh you know is critical to be able to maintain and improve over time especially in a context like green fields right where you have a couple of schools and you can do this work in an intimate way um at scale um which I think is is really one of the things that's so encouraging about having all the raw materials for success in The District in a way that's the I hope everybody drives encouragement from thank you very much yes thank you Dave uh that is the end of our formal questions for you but certainly we want to give you an opportunity to ask any questions you might have for us no
056I mean really it has to do with you know like I I don't imagine there's always consensus about what the highest priorities are right uh questions I have really you know uh there's a lot of nuts and bolts questions I'm interested in that you know that are beyond the scope of tonight's conversation you know but really if you know if there was a thought the school committee's priority right in terms of the top couple of things when you think about of all the work to be done of all the important good work that we should feel like is necessary is there an understanding in terms of school committee about where to start right um how does that map with the community's piece so just you know if any is there any clarity about about District
057priorities from the school community's point of view I think I think that's a really really important question for the school committee um and I'll certainly open it up to other members to give their thoughts if they have them um I have had some conversations with uh the superintendent and been pretty vocal about needing to expand and our capacity in special ed we do spend a lot of funds sending students out of district for this to meet their special ed needs and if we have the ability and the Staffing the to build additional capacity within the district um I think we can improve not only the experience for our students so that they're staying in their home district and their families but also that we can improve the bottom line uh because there there is an
058a great deal of funding that does go to other educational facilities to to educate our students and I think we'd like to make some changes in that regard um and I would leave it at that because I'm not an expert on Special Ed but you know that's kind of where I see that we could really make some improvements and certainly if anyone else wanted to add anything they absolutely should I do um I there are I think that there are things that we could expand on just in how we um work with our students in special ed Beyond school um more and I don't mean um you know going into their homes or anything like that but there are things which may happen may not happen um there are things that some social pieces that
059I think we're missing and um I think that that would do a a great deal to assist our um Community with growth and I would like to see some of that that's always sort of been my big thing and and you know we have a unique situation is that in our school committee is that there are a number of members that have special needs kids and so we are living this day to day and have been for years and and have seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly um and that's how it is with all special ed programs but but there are there are some very you know personal um views that we all take and I and I also know that we work very hard to not try to blur those with our
060roles on school committee and with our role with being parents and and so just I guess that's my thoughts anyone else or any other questions for us I have a please I think that there is at least some basic consensus uh on this committee about um the need to prioritize student outcomes and in particular student outcomes for disabled students this is an area in which Greenfield struggles a lot and that of course is due to a myriad of different factors but I do think that we um at that basic level have identified that pretty consistently as um something that's important to the school I think importance and I don't think anybody would disagree with me but feel free to um is that I I'm thinking of three things uh one we tend to have uh
061silos um in Greenfield between General and special education a lot and um I have often said at our communities almost all the time um at least for part of their time if not most of it and remember um I think that integration really up quite a bit if you can hear me your audience breaking breaking up quite a bit I wonder if you should just turn your camera off and see if that will help with having it be a little yeah I'll try that yeah okay thank you let me let me know if it continues to be an issue if you could start with what you're going to say three things if you did start with your first thing again okay um I was talking about Greenfield having um some silos into which general and
062special education um seem to be separated and this being an issue for students because almost all um students in special education are also a general education students and they need more continuity um between the two and more communication and cooperation and so that I think is one of one of the main challenges uh Greenfield has also had some struggles with basic processes in special education and that's kind of the boring tedious side of the job but there needs to be a better handle on those processes so that um parents and caregivers are truly being given the opportunity to be equal members of the team which they're not able to do if they don't have um you know basic information and timelines and things like that that are followed diligently and the third thing I think
063which the district is um admirably tackling right now and is improving our capacity to deliver consistent evidence-based instruction um and that's um definitely taking place from the perspective that you talked about um in that it starts in tier one however that needs to be a comprehensive approach that goes all the way through um RTI levels and into special education so those I think are the three the three big things that come to mind for me as far as um well I what I hope to see happen um in terms of special education in the in the future in Greenfield thank you any other questions for us today no no I no uh there's so many but as I said as I said at my last interview you know not not that we have time for
064this evening I imagine for sure well we appreciate your time and we're gonna have to ask you to be a little bit patient we have one um short agenda item we're going to do publicly here and then for you as well as for folks that are on uh the call the meeting with us uh we are going to go into a separate uh Zoom session for uh an executive session um and then we're going to come back to this one um first uh some additional public votes on two items um and I'm gonna ask folks to uh right now take uh just a couple minutes we have two of our members um this is on the agenda is item number three uh two of our members are going tomorrow to the mass Association of school
065committees uh day on the hill this is an advocacy day with our legislators um and uh member Martini had asked me and I thought it was a really important idea if we could take just a few minutes now to um gather uh ideas topics um things to point out to legislators uh from us that uh we would want to be highlighted tomorrow um and so if any if any of you have so it's Elizabeth and uh Catherine uh that are going tomorrow um and so if you have items for them that you'd like to make sure they highlight from obviously a school committee perspective uh because I have ones from Community College I'm sure the mayor has some from the mayoral perspective but we're going to stick to school committees for this uh discussion but
066please and let's just do let's try to keep it brief so maybe five minutes I'll start that 14 BS of the increase in in uh special ed tuition that was neither discussed or done on an appropriate timeline for schools and districts to respond to um I'd like to know uh a little bit around uh how districts are going to be made made right around that because to increase it by 14 is just totally uncalled for completely uh uh disables Us in terms of planning um and any justification of course would be important to hear because I haven't heard any yet but anything around what they plan to do to help with funding uh would be awesome anyone else have anything please remember afternoon go ahead um I'm actually really interested to hear what happens with
067the Medicare piece I assume you guys are going to go um and those funds being returned to school districts directly um I know legally that doesn't have to happen right now but I'm interested to hear what happens so maybe you could poke someone specifically we have a meeting at 12 30 with rep play and at 1 30 with Comfort yep that's great I wish I was able to go I've just been MIA in my neighborhood for a couple weeks so I unfortunately can't but I'm thrilled you guys are going that's awesome anything else anyone would want to highlight superintendent please so I will be speaking next Monday I'm one of the superintendents asked to give some remarks to secretary dutchweiler who's the education secretary and the remarks I will be giving are related to the
068Staffing crisis and Preparatory programs for educational related staff so any opportunity you may have to weave in what lands the state is is creating how they plan to support um the pipeline through higher education through even high school prep programs and dual dual enrollment anything that they are trying to do to support the need because from a school committee that's affecting your budget it's affecting compliance it's affecting I mean you folks all heard staffing issues all for the past two years so I'm not sure it's a real stretch for you to think about the impact but I will be speaking to that to the secretary and then if you get an audience I would cheer you on with that conversation anything else anyone would want to add I apologize for the dog whining in the
069background if you can hear her this is her standard Zoom meeting Behavior foreign again I thank you both for uh attending tomorrow and representing us and we look forward to a report uh on that and at this time uh I would entertain a motion for uh executive session for exemption reason number two to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel as well as exemption reason eight to consider or interview applicants for employment or appointment by a preliminary screening committee if the chair declares and I do declare that an open meeting will have a detrimental effect in obtaining qualified applicants provided however that this Clause shall not apply to any meeting including meetings of a preliminary screening committee to consider an
070interview applicants who've passed the prior preliminary screening the committee will return to open session and can I get a motion please so moved and a second second so that was extra and Denise and we do for executive session need a roll call vote remember Denise yes secretary extra Miami uh slice chair Martini yes trip ready yes remember wall is there Woody Gardner we are we have are unanimous I didn't say understanding is the mayor is actually going to leave us and go to ways of means we do we do still have a forum without her so we thank you for joining us tonight and it was I just wanted to thank uh David for being here and for such thoughtful and really really eloquent uh answers to the question so very much appreciate that thank
071you all thank you mayor uh and I will leave this session open um and I would actually ask uh if let me I'm going to try to log us into the executive session but if someone else who has our login could start the zoom for the executive session that would be great either extreme or um the superintendent and once I see you all kind of disappear what's that executive session has started and I'm going to pause the recording if that's okay yep so glad you stayed with us as I said Amy I had to give a posting capabilities because we were all leaving well I stayed that's why I stayed and had a second thing set up well they've had all authority over our meeting while we were gone because I handed him the host
072hang hours perhaps you should be concerned with how quickly we were saying like yep you're in charge we're out what'd you get up to while we were gone yeah I I had one eye on it he didn't do anything and no funny business as far as I could tell um so we are back uh in public session the recording has been started uh we have two items to vote on uh the first being finding my oh yeah okay so uh I would like a motion uh first to uh accept the employment agreement from July 1 2023 to June 30 2026 for the director of people services for the Greenfield Public School District yes remember Denise and a second please second from uh secretary Eckstrom and uh we are in um a remote meeting so we
073do have to do a roll call vote yes [Music] yes remember wall yes unanimous yes and that passes unanimously uh Dave messing congratulations welcome uh to the Greenfield Public Schools we are very happy to have you um and looking forward to you being part of the team and we also have one quick other item to vote on um I would take a motion uh to approve the FY 23 contract addendum for the current director of pupil services there we go there we go and a roll call vote please remember to leave yes ready yes remember wall yes we are unanimous on that as well thank you thank you all um and I would of course take the final motion of the evening a motion to adjourn please and somewhere there was a second from ever
074wall and we of course have to still do a roll call vote remember Denise yes secretary extra we said yes oyster Martini yes it's terrified yes remember wall we are closed and unanimous about that and that is adjournment at 7 22 and again thank you all thank you Susan Farber thank you to the superintendent and to uh Vice chair for martini and of course welcome to Greenfield home school Steve we look forward to working with you is it Dave or David just so we all get it right Dave is great I'm a big fan of brevity [Music] foreign [Music] foreign