001[Music] foreign [Music] good evening this is the Greenfield Public School school committee meeting it's Wednesday March 8th 2023 6 p.m we're at the John son Community Center 35 Pleasant Street in Greenfield this meeting is being recorded by gctv and secretary ekstrom can I have a roll call please here Vice chair Martini here it's your priority here for wall here near Woody Gardner we are all here excuse me I apologize we are all here okay great we call the meeting to order at 6 pm and uh a couple of um I'd actually like a motion to give me one second here budget update is that supposed to be number two sorry for the confusion um uh I'd like to make a entertain a motion for a couple of changes to the order of the agenda um
002we can actually move I want to describe it first and then if someone could help me put a motion forward we'll do that I'd like to move the budget update to um underneath the reports of the administration that would be item five so combine items two and five and then have the rest three and four uh oh we have two fours three and four being public uh the approval of minutes and public comment come next the student representatives of the committee come after that followed then by items 11 and 12 which goes without saying are actually 12 and 13 because of the two number fours um and then have the rest of the meeting go as it is listed here um that is in the interest of what we are anticipating will be um the
003the bigger topics of the evening and that our brains will be fresher if we do the headier items first so would anyone like to attempt a motion to that regard so let's make a motion to do what you just said I moved do I have a second second and then we're gonna we're gonna wait for Susan Farber um because I can't remember the numbers that you said in the order and I understand yes but what you said sounds great can you sure we've already done number one we're going to move number two to become a part of one three four and then the second four four a and four B and then we're going to do items 11 and 12. and the rest of the agenda will proceed after that public comment is will happen
004before we do any of the changes correct where does number two Go number two is going to be a part of the reports of the administration the budget update we're going to move it there and um I know Susan Farber is doing double duty right now so we're gonna wait until she's ready for us the motion is to um uh proceed with the agenda through item four with the exception of the budget update which will become a part of item five please note there are two item fours on the agenda for a and for B and then item 11 and 12 both of those will go after the reports of the student representatives of the committee which I guess is 4B and then we will proceed with the rest of the agenda say it out
005loud you're good to go okay that is the motion did I have a second who I think it was member genev had the first and the second uh member extra or I'm sorry uh secretary extra and any discussion further discussion so let's vote are there any abstentions from this any no votes so that passes unanimously and we will move on to the approval of the minutes from the February 8th meeting that's in the materials for tonight's meeting do I have a motion to approve those minutes still moved was that member Denise yes and a second member wall thank you any discussion of the minutes I'm hearing no discussion any abstentions from voting I've got two the two absentees Vice or secretary X German and mayor wiedergartner are abstaining from voting and um everyone else is
006voting yes so that is two abstensions five yeses and we now are moving into public comment uh if you haven't already let um Susan Farber know that you plan to speak it is not too late you can also wait until other people have already signed up have gone and we will ask again we won't we won't make anyone skip public comment because they didn't sign up we'll give you plenty of opportunity who is first on the list Jesus come on up please just state your name and the town you live in before you start and you have three minutes hello Jesus Leyva 32 High Street um I thought this would get easier the more times I do it but it doesn't um I came here tonight to invite the members of the school committee as
007well as the people in the audience to a zoom Forum that is happening on Tuesday March 14th at 7 pm it's going to be about a local education funding and with a focus on the the state's role in that local education funding as some of you might know um from the state's commitment in the 90s to uh to local school aid funding from the 1993 Reform Act we've seen a decline in the funding that comes from the state to local schools and we're hoping to put information out there to get people to advocate for more state school funding we have a very hopeful message from the governor this year but it'll be up to the legislature to actually vote on that budget and Implement that and without advocacy it might not happen so I've got
008a couple of Flyers I'm gonna I think I've I've emailed everybody who's on the school committee so I'm not going to pass any to you but I'll pass some to the two of you and to the people in the back of the audience thank you thank you oh man this is kind of freaky okay uh my name is Alex Wenger I live in Greenfield on Homestead Ave I'm a father to a son in first grade at the discovery school as well as having worked and volunteered there as a parent I feel that many parents are going to be blindsided and frustrated if option one's chosen I do not think adequate communication has gone out or good effort has been made to engage with all caregivers or enough weight has been given to the implications of
009a redistricting effort the idea of children only having two years out of school before being uprooted and sent to a new building with new teachers principals playgrounds expectations seems like an anxiety-inducing scenario especially considering that the majority of the kids who are being uprooted and shifted around during this are the ones that went through covet during their earliest years of school this does not feel like the kind of stability and routine our children need right now I firmly support the reimagining of our district and support all kids of Greenfield having the same opportunities in school Greenfield like many other towns is a history of inequitable districting and I applaud our Town's efforts to address this but if this is the option taken then the parent should have clear messaging as to what our options are
010the opportunity to provide input and most importantly why this is the one we just was decided and how we arrived at the conclusion as a parent I knew of the Plant City District for a little while mostly through the superintendent emails discussing a task force to discuss the reimagining of the district however there were very few specifics if any about what the details of this plan would be and instead parents were invited to attend a meeting to voice input I assume that there would be clear communication and updates and opportunity for different types of input but those never happen I've read each district update email from superintendent to bars and I've been waiting awaiting updates of the progress of the redistricting plan I have not seen any updates of substance there may be resources available
011to find this information however without knowing the extent of what these changes would mean few parents would decide that it needed to be investigated extensively the kind of seismic shift in parents and children's lives should not have to be found investigated or inquired further but should be very visible to every person who has children in the school pursuing option one should be a change that deserved a heading at the top of an email or a letter sent home with the children well before the decision is made every parent should know why what are the plans to provide support for our children and our teachers during this transition who have had such a hard time in the last three years three years and need our support we need to know the timeline of the study period
012planning period and implementation period moreover there needs to be a visible and clear change management plan and both the teachers and parents have access to well ahead of time are there examples data and studies that show this is the valid choice the best option over others in which to pursue and what were the other options studied you have amazing teachers and children and I just want to say it's been a real blessing working with them and you're you know you've got a lot you've got a lot of really wonderful people here and I hope we do the best for all of them thanks foreign thank you I will be very brief I want to state your name and yourself Jackie Pinger and I live in Brattleboro Vermont thank you um this is my 14th year
013as an educator in Greenfield Public Schools and I wanted to thank all of you for not voting on redistricting options tonight it is my hope that more time and thought will go into this decision in my opinion option one is ill-advised at best so much will be missed with for with the Educators and children alike without the range of grade levels in one school I'm convinced that another plan other than the four presented is possible if we work together and include all stakeholders thank you thank you hi everybody Marguerite Rancourt I live in Greenfield Mass normally I like to talk out of my head but I feel pretty strongly about this so I'm going to read as I've already shared with you in a letter to my objections to restructuring option one I want to
014publicly Express I emphatically do not support this option please know I'm speaking tonight because I am passionate about education and Greenfield Public Schools the human factor was not included in the study about restructuring our schools I am looking at what is educationally and emotionally best for the students of Greenfield teachers voices were not heard or considered as part of the study so I'm going to share what I hope will help you to pause and consider before you proceed last spring I had a family come to me to express sorrow about me not teaching their youngest child this year because they were afraid to not get a choice seat out of district for fifth grade then in the summer I got a call from this family saying their child was adamant in her belief that I
015was a teacher for her and they wanted to know if I would still be here this year because they wanted to honor their child's clear and strong convictions about having me as a teacher relationships we Foster in our elementary schools are important and valuable and not should not be underestimated for the power they have to support and increase students learning and family engagement I'm going to read an essay the student wrote last week in our new Ela curriculum because it's amazing in response to the prompt this is a prompt think about whether another person's view of you hold you back or makes you want to work harder and do more Miss rancourt's view of me makes me feel safe to make mistakes I used to shrug my shoulders and not believe in myself but miss
016Rancourt made me realize mistakes are okay mistakes are here to help you learn I thought math was cursed so that I couldn't do it right but I figured out it's not that I'm bad at math it said I always thought I couldn't do it which is the reason I couldn't do it she makes me try so hard until they do it right and understand it and when I'm stuck she helps me but she doesn't give me all the answers she helps me so that I can do them by myself she is an awesome teacher and I'm so glad I got her I wanted her to be my teacher for so long and now that I have her when the time comes it will be so hard to leave her so please tonight hear our voices
017and consider how relationships we build in our elementary schools are special important how they Foster positive experience for even the most anxious of Learners and how they help to keep families from leaving our district our elementary schools are a vital part of our community thank you estate your name and you have three minutes hi I'm Michael mastertara I live in Greenfield I Billie Jean King once said if you're going to speak publicly publicly get comfortable with being uncomfortable so here I am um I coached baseball for several years in this school system and um I'm trying to wrap my head around why um homeschoolers were has been decided that homeschoolers are no longer allowed to participate in sports and um we have programs that are barely programs anymore the ice hockey team is uh only
018there because they've co-opted with eight other schools the last couple of years there's been no Middle School baseball program I don't know why kids aren't participating like they used to I have my own opinion I sent I think I sent I don't know if everybody got the email I sent so I'm not gonna like I just hope they reconsider this tonight I know that it's on the table um it's not only unfair to homeschoolers it's unfair that the kids that are in the buildings in the brick and mortar School if if there's not enough kids to feel the team and if there's two or three home schoolers that uh are not allowed to play it hurts everybody and I don't know if this applies to other extracurricular activities whether it's music or drama if you
019even have a drama program at the school anymore but um if that if that's the rationale if it's just for sports it should be across the board so if uh I don't think that this is the right decision I really hope you reconsider this tonight because it's it's just unfair I mean homeschool parents homeowners they pay taxes their taxes go towards the school department and people have their own reasons for a having their children homeschooled and it could be for several reasons it might be religious um I don't know but people have reasons and um I just I just hope you reconsider thank you hello uh my name's Luke Martin I live uh at 62 Haywood Street in Greenfield I have two children uh who attend Greenfield schools and I teach at the high school
020I'm here to speak about the restructuring of Greenfield schools I want to thank you firstly for hosting the parent forums I think that's an important part of the process I attended those parent forums at least one of them but my main question at the parent forums was What do teachers think is best for students I may be biased but I believe we have 100 over 100 experts in what works well with students day to day in classrooms some of these experts have taught for 20 25 30 years what do they think is the best option um the answer I got was that that step in the process is coming and that that information and feedback will be shared um at the last school committee meeting it was stated that those meetings with teachers had been
021held but I want to be clear about what those those meetings look like administrators came to a staff meeting one at the high school in the middle and I believe one for all the elementary schools it's over 50 staff members present we were presented with the four options it was very clear which option was preferred and we were asked if we had questions that's not soliciting meaningful feedback that is checking a box and at the high school meeting my colleague Judy Bennett who I think is actually here actually asked when can we provide meaningful feedback whether it's on a survey with data you could collect or written feedback to specific questions or small discussion groups and again the answer was that's coming so none of that has happened and it came as quite a surprise
022to to all of us teachers about a month ago when at your last meeting a decision has evidently already been put forward as we're doing option one or the next step had been made we were still waiting to be consulted so hypothetically of 90 of teachers said option one is highly problematic would you still Forge ahead with it how do you know that's not the case if you haven't asked it's easy to put out a survey we hold meaningful discussions at professional development and staff meetings all the time so at this point it's pretty hard for teachers to escape the conclusion that our feedback isn't really wanted but I'm now speaking as a parent not just as a teacher I want that feedback as a parent I want to know what K through five K
023through 8 teachers think is the best option what are the pros and cons Beyond just the little one page sheet that we saw that was not produced by teachers is option one a student-centered approach is it best for kids you're poised to make a decision that will impact thousands of kids for years to come and I'm wondering if you're really willing to do that without actually getting meaningful feedback from teachers that work in your District so I don't want to come off as just complaining I'll pose it as a question when do we get a chance to have our voices heard and to provide real feedback on the options um thank you I will also please say uh I would also allow homeschooled kids to play sports now more than ever we need kids engaged
024with their peers active with their peers and connected with their peers particularly in the last three years since coven so I just want to put in a a word for that as well thank you thank you just making can you hear me yes all right um I'm Paula Levine I live in Greenfield um first thing I would like to say I also agree that homeschool students should be able to play sports as people were saying you know over the years numbers are dwindling our football team our hockey team have the benefit of a co-op with surrounding schools to keep their teams going sorry sorry um again speaking is with kindergarten is okay um so I I encourage all students to be able to play sports and with the numbers seem to be declining every year
025at Greenfield High School and I mean not just there but many surrounding schools um as you know many of our students are successful in school because they have Athletics they have to maintain a certain grade to be able to play a sport and for some kids that you know enables them to be able to graduate high school so if we have to have homeschool students be part of our you know Green Wave program to keep these programs going um I would you know I'm in support of it um and then the next thing I would like to comment on is the restructuring of our schools um as many people have already spoken option one is was not something I would recommend I think there's so much benefit to having a K-5 School the relationships you
026build with your students I currently have a group of fourth graders that come in every morning they're you know I know the reason why is they don't necessarily like going outside to recess um with that being said there are students that I had when they were in kindergarten they come in they clean my tables they put chairs down they're you know just we had conversations you know about what it was like when they were in kindergarten I happen to have a math test out they asked if they could do my kindergarten math test I said sure how about it so I just think it yes we need to restructure and make sure our schools are diverse but I just you know I feel it's important that you know we have these relationships and you know
027if they're having a bad day you know you can see them in the hall and they feel comfortable with you because they've known you and they see you yearly um so I would just encourage you to really think about what is best for all students and I know you do that and I we appreciate how hard you work um but we just want to do what's best thank you thank you hi my name is can you hear me um I'm a former student I live in I live down the street 162 Davis um I'm a former student of the Greenfield school system I graduated out of an image but I went through all the elementary and everything um I'm a current resident and I own Planet gas in Greenfield I think from the conversations that
028I've had at the counter from parents who come to get snacks for their kids before they're going off to school it's like you're kind of like a therapist behind the counter you hear like everything some spicy things some not um but you kind of hear everything and my relationships with the teachers here are very important to me I've like I'm still in contact with and sometimes I see my former Educators at the Y at the gas station um I think what's really important for us is to listen to them is to listen to the parents of the kids um as a person of color I think it's very important obviously to have diversity in schools all that stuff but um I think what we need to be thinking about when it comes to helping in
029terms of test scores in terms of the quality of education for students of color is the money not just switching people around not just okay why are these black and brown kids in one school well maybe they want to be there maybe they enjoy the community maybe that's social cohesion is conducive to a Better Learning environment for them and perhaps their low test scores are an indication of something else an indication of teachers that are burned out a disrupted social life at home so simply just moving students around I think I mean somebody one one educator who talked to me at the counter was like whoa they're going to say that it's racist I was like well actually don't you think it's racist to think that just because a white student is going to sit
030next to me my test scores are going to go up or my quality of life is gonna my quality of education is gonna get better why would that happen there there's no studies that suggest that in fact a few years ago the New York Times there was an article that said that predominantly black and brown schools um the students felt safer the there was a social connection there there were social systems in place in which they felt like they could be themselves they didn't they didn't feel constantly policed um and so I think maybe there's some other things at play maybe you know whatever the reasons are for why we want to go ahead with this but I think hiding behind diversity and you know all these things it just it does it doesn't make
031sense um so listen to your teachers listen to the parents um as a person of color I mean I've you know this town is beautiful but just look around there's not that many of us but um I'd say again just uh listen to your Educators please thank you thank you hi my name is Tara Cloutier I am um a Greenfield resident I live at 255 Colerain Road I am um a multi-generational family of athletes from Greenfield Greenfield Public Schools from my dad to everyone in my family pretty much and um my daughters are the most recent and they're seniors at ghs and I can't imagine why we would consider excluding any kids from Greenfield from participating in sports at this time um Sports have done so much for my children my family and um we
032can't field teams we are co-oping with all the communities we are allowing students from gill from Montague from Northfields from I could go on and on and how can we be saying no to any Greenfield kids I don't get it please include Greenfield students whether they're homeschooled or whatever their situation is we don't um have the right to judge how people are learning but I know what they can learn from Sports and we should be including all of them I would also like to address the greenfields redistricting and I would like to address this as the Gea vice president the teachers union vice president um and I would like to say that um the Gea does not endorse um Choice one option one and um we don't feel that our voices have been heard and
033teachers have been coming to us saying they were waiting for the survey or the there's some sort of thing to give our opinions we're told we would be given a voice in this process and we were presented with information and we're not given any chance to express our opinions and so we still wait for that to happen in this process so please consult teachers as Luke said there's a lot of experts in this town who have not been asked about what's best so thank you so much thank you hi my name is Michael Pierce I'm from Greenfield Massachusetts and I am a homeschooler foreign I've been playing baseball my whole life and I only have two more years left of high school baseball and I already had one year taken away from me because of
034covid and that would be three years of not playing for or not playing baseball for Greenfield and I was really hoping to play baseball in college for a good school and that would be extremely hard if I didn't have these two years so I don't really have much to say but I just wanted to say that thank you thank you Michael [Applause] who who are we waiting for Susan Farber did you say Sean Pierce if you're Sean you can come on up how you doing just make sure you state your name in your town and you have three minutes sure I need my glasses so um my name is Sean pierce my resident of Greenfield um good evening um I'm a resident of Greenfield and um I also own Pierce Brothers Coffee Roasters a business
035I've been in town for over 25 years um my son Michael Pierce you just heard speak is a homeschooler and has been playing baseball with Greenfield since he's about seventh seventh grade um baseball starts next week with the high school team and it pains me to think that he may not be able to play this season or at all I do appreciate everything you do it's tough being here each month um and I appreciate you hearing my comments um my son has grown up a lot through the years and is a fine young and caring man he's a fierce leader and always looks out for his teammates on and off the field I've personally witnessed him defend kids younger than him when they were mistreated he can't stand to see a kid mistreated especially if
036they are vulnerable he's got a huge heart he's a leader and a mentor and would benefit any Community or team that he's he's on I feel that by allowing home schools to participate in athletics or even grandfather them in would be sending a positive message to our community in our town again I want to thank you for hearing my comments and please vote to allow my son Michael to play these few remaining years or to continue to play athletics at Greenfield High School thank you thank you hi um I'm Luca sayano and I live on 107 Verde Drive I'm in ninth grade at Greenfield High School and I'm and I'm a member of the baseball team and I'm here to speak on my I think homeschoolers should play baseball or Sports um so more specifically
037Michael he's always been an excellent leader an excellent role model um and yeah our team really needs them we're short on guys he's a great baseball player thank you hi I'm Jackson Campbell I live in Greenfield and I'm a student at Greenfield High School I'm in 10th Grade and not only do I think homeschoolers should be able to play Greenfield sports but I have known Michael since I started playing Little League baseball and we've built a great friendship and I know like his family and everyone around us and to think that we would I'd play baseball without Michael is tough and the team and not only baseball but I actually had two teammates on the soccer team this year halfway through the season be told that they could not finish it so we went and
038played two games without them and it was a struggle because we've built a team chemistry around those people and just because they're homeschooled and don't go to Greenfield High School does not mean that they don't have impact on us so that's why I think homeschoolers should be able to play Greenfield's boats thank you I promise my children I'd have my cell phone by me at all times while I was at this meeting so that's why that is there um I am so proud to see the Youth of Greenfield coming out and speaking um that is oh oh okay Amy fine I am Rachel Sotter I live at 12 Long Avenue here in Greenfield um I this is very much stepping outside of my comfort zone but that's okay um I'm here to speak about the
039um strongly being opposed to option one um I am opposing it as a mother a Greenfield resident and as a third grade teacher at Four Corners um I think there's a lot of different directions that it can go with this but I chose to focus on the aspect of teaching that I love most which is the student teacher connection so I did some research and I just have some bullet points on what the strong teacher student relationship can do for a child increased engagement strengthens academic achievements reduces chronic absenteeism increased development of self-worth promote self-motivation improve student Mental Health strengthen self-regulation skills improves goal making skills stronger social emotional learning and students who have had a meaningful connection with a teacher are more likely to form stronger more meaningful connections as adults and that was
040a study that just came out in comparison to Stronger relationships that teens have with their peers uh and with their teachers that the teacher-student relationship led to a stronger adulthood than having peers who a strong relationship with their peers um so these new research that was just published by the American Psychological Psychological Association excuse me I am nervous um teens who have good supportive relationships with their teachers enjoy Better Health as adults I strongly oppose this option I would most likely be looking to leave the town of Greenfield as a resident and as a school teacher um because I I can see the future and it doesn't look good under this option um I ask that you really think about the mental health in particular of students in this post-pandemic world and the impact they
041can have of seeing the same familiar faces in the hallway I also speak about the idea of the students who I think would be impacted most which would be our low-income residents particularly students of color as well and I also just want to say that it was my child that rose that essay I moved to Greenfield school's teaching after being an Amherst for 16 years because I wanted to walk to school with my children and it's been a glorious run of about seven years and that's about to end um I had a very negative experience with my um now sixth grader as she transitioned Greenfield Middle Schools which caused us to pull out of the district and put her into Colerain now I have a student who is very excited to go to middle school
042and I'm supporting that but my daughter Esme who's in Marguerite's class really self-advocated and said that she was refusing to leave the district until she had Margaret Rancourt as a teacher that speaks a lot about Marguerite but we have many other wonderful teachers and I think we just need to pay attention to the fact that kids come in as kindergartners and they're looking around and they want to see representation but they also are looking to form really vital relationships that will will impact them their whole lives as they go on to um to build relationships of their own Post Elementary School so let's please consider other options than option one thank you thank you good evening I'm Rachel Mason I'm a Greenfield resident uh I believe any kid who wants to play sport should be
043allowed to play sports um but I'm here to talk about the uh restructuring of schools um I'm speaking tonight as the free adoptive foster parent of two children who would be entering kindergarten not this coming fall but the following one in other words the first year that a new system theoretically could go into effect uh and I'd like to say that even though pedagogically as a former educator myself I strongly support the idea of moving the fifth grade back to the elementary schools and moving eighth grade out of the high school I don't think that there has been enough Outreach to parents um sounds like there hasn't been enough uh Outreach to teachers as well and I want to specifically advocate for parents of the youngest children the ones who aren't in school right now
044I've had conversations recently with a number of other parents of preschool students who have no idea that this is under consideration and these are parents who feel like they they know what school their kid would be going to either this coming fall or the next year uh parents of current three and four-year-olds so they've been um missed somehow in this process um I learned about the meetings in the fall from Facebook but not everybody's on Facebook I attended one of the meetings in the fall I felt like a lot of information was missing from those meetings such as the how Transportation would work what the costs were going to be what the costs would be for the options that were ruled out supposedly because of costs that is to say that the options of opening
045up the another school or adding on to current schools I felt like those were just dismissed out of hand as oh that would be too expensive and we don't have the money to borrow right now or don't have the ability to borrow money right now feels a little short-sighted we might not have that ability right now but if it's what's in the best interest of our students in the long run that might be worth waiting for so I feel like the meetings in the fall were were not informative enough and I feel like there was at least one segment of the population of parents who were left out of the process I do have a suggestion for how to reach those parents which is to say that um somehow the town knows who who has
046these up and coming kids because I got a letter about registration for AEL uh however whatever list that was um send out a letter to all those parents and just inform them of hey this is under consideration and we would love more input thank you thank you uh hello I'm Anna McBain and I live at 46 Deerfield Street in Greenfield uh I am an alumni of Green River school so I actually wanted the option where uh Green River was going to be opened but I do understand that the boiler's been out forever so it's like 60 million or some ridiculous a huge number to actually get it up and running again but that would be my ideal uh but everybody's been talking about the continuity and I want to talk about that as well because
047at Green River we were our own mini microcosm because we were on a completely different curricula than the rest of the district used so we were a very tight-knit group and from the time that we were four and a half five years old and we were down and Miss kaminsky's room with the turtles to when you know we were already looking forward to when we'd be in fifth grade and we would get to do the bridge test and in fourth grade when we would get to do the medieval feast and in first grade when we'd get to do the Egyptian walk these are things that if you go to option one there's no opportunity for kids to see and say I want to learn start understanding this now so that then in the future I
048can use it that won't exist it will just be oh I gotta hop schools again and it's been proven that in developing psyches changing environments is just as traumatic as a death so why would we put extra trauma on our kids that we already live in a community with a very high trauma rate um I also uh from the side of uh I had a lot of homeschool friends I worked doing Behavioral Services for homeschool families uh and sports really are an integral part of their lives it's how they get their gym credits for the state it's uh without having to pay a lot of money to go to a program like the Y um it's also a big way that they are able to build peer relationships uh because yes you can find homeschooling
049groups and homeschooling co-ops but a lot of those cost money and a lot of them are full because everybody's pulling their kids because the schools are crumbling uh so that's no longer as feasible an option as it once was to just use a homeschool Co-op so again I just I really think that we need to do a redistricting option where it's K through five six through eight nine through twelve thank you oh and homeschoolers need to pick Sports thank you coach I think you know what to do you have three months um Tom Cruise think born and raised in Greenfield [Music] uh resident of Greenfield I'm going to date myself here class of 1964. um I know I'm an old coot um this is my third time coming before you folks and I'm only here
050because I feel it's very important um that kids are allowed to participate in or whatever the extracurricular activity is that they want to um and [Music] down the road is really where I think kids that are involved in all these programs really benefit and grow I could put I could call kids up here for the last X number of years one behind the other a line would go to Main Street and they would tell you how these programs have impacted their lives and I'm not going to repeat a lot of what has been said because I think it's very important we recently just got a message from an ex-graduate who lives in Southwick and they went through exactly what we're going through right now and it took the community to convince the school committee that
051not allowing them to participate was wrong and they they reversed their decision one last thing a couple of three weeks ago I was watching world news as you know can be very depressing at times and during the program it says stay tuned for a program that's it's got some it's a moving program what it was was it was a varsity basketball High School program and there was a young man who was physically disabled to the point where he couldn't play the sport full time but he wanted to be the manager of the team so as a freshman he became the manager of the team this being his senior year um just before they went out to warm up coaches in the locker room talking to the team he calls this young man up and says
052I'm going to give you a uniform tonight and you're going to dress of which he did they went out it being senior night they announced all the seniors they announced him because standing ovation and it didn't even end there I thought that was the end of it next thing I know they show the game going on the last closing minutes this coach puts this kid in one of his teammates passes on the ball and he throws up this three-pointer and it goes in and the crowd went crazy the both teams surrounded the kid gave him a hug high fives all that stuff and I'm and I'm sitting there thinking what if this gentle little young man had been denied the opportunity of that experience in memory so please really consider your vote your vote thank
053you is this this is another public comment yeah but Mike's on and everything look at that your name and where you live and you have three minutes uh Melissa Webb I live at 44 Grove Street in Greenfield I have been part of the redistricting since 2020 February when it was first brought up pre-pandemic pre-covered that I then listened to it when redistricting was re-talked about in September of 2020 when we were all still remote I've been to every meeting I've been to every public meeting I've seen parent input I've talked to parents I will agree I've heard that the way it was handled at the high school middle school was not very effective but I will say I know as a person who has a child in fourth grade going to fifth grade I personally
054am not thrilled because she has not had any social interactions with any other fourth grade besides her school and that scares me because it's already a challenging time I do not love option one I don't hate option one because I know something needs to change and I know something drastic needs to change we've tried redistricting multiple times and it has never worked it always ends up the same way it is I know that the model for AEL the Pre-K all in one building does work as a parent I feel if we combined more resources my kindergarten or who is currently struggling with bullying might be able to be spread out a little bit further from his bully because there might be more class options you know that my daughter who you know struggles with reading
055maybe you know they'll be more fourth graders who are like her and will be able to help her my only suggestion is whichever option is chosen at the end of the day that everyone gets behind and supports these students then instead of making waves we come together as a community and figure out how to make the best out of whatever option or situation is chosen and that's my little Spiel so thank you for listening to me thank you for all you've done thank you for being hanging with me for the last several years of this uh roller coaster of a ride thank you state your name and where you live you have three minutes uh my name is Sarah Rashad I live in Greenfield Massachusetts um I'm here first off I would like to thank
056you all um I'm here to talk about the redistricting I also just want to say briefly um in a time where we're speaking about redistricting and increasing access and Equity it feels like it's contradictory why we are also excluding um members of our of our public in our community from participating in sports um that's strange to me foreign yeah on the issue of redistricting I too have been a part of it um since February 2020 I feel like option one there's a lot that we can pick apart with it it's not my favorite either but I feel like from the feedback we did get with parents and teachers and just statistically the longer we can keep our kids in elementary school the projection of them actually graduating much higher um yeah it's not the best
057option but I feel like from the feedback we did get it seems to be the most Equitable also I would like to speak to the funding currently we are seeing that the two schools that happen to be the most diverse and also the most economically challenged receive less funding than one of the schools that is not as diverse and um the the student body not as economically challenged um this would address that it would really help to keep the funding and also align the curriculum better I know that that's been something we've focused on as a community I don't see why we are still having inequities in terms of our funding and how we can have a stable curriculum across our education as it is right now in our elementary schools if there's a disparity
058in funding um I do want to commend you all I think that you guys did a really good job of trying to get these surveys out and trying to get public comments and communication from our community members and yeah maybe there were some hiccups and some stuff that could be reworked I also think that there's still time so I would like the community to know this is I don't think anybody's rushing to something and yeah okay thanks thank you is there anyone else for public comment okay going once going twice we're going to move on uh we will take at this time the report from our substitute student Representatives we have Tristan and Lillian here tonight what what is the big thing that has taken Nate and Shane away from us is it are they
059gone for the same reason do you know um yeah so actually I was going to go into it with our oh go ahead then I'll leave it to you both go ahead uh 12 members from our school our student council are currently on a big trip to Hyannis uh as a part to bond with other councils so that's where Shane and Nate went they went on that trip um we submitted applications for many awards hopefully we will be able to share the success we get at our next meeting um five of those students who went on that trip will be leading workshops at that trip so that's pretty cool um we are getting ready for bleacher Wars and spring conference our spring Olympics in the gym on March 24th we are also looking forward to
060our Regional Conference of the student council in April um the ghs Key Club is working to bring back oh is this on oh okay try just pulling it a little closer I would even go a little closer than what you're doing yeah don't be afraid of it Club is working to bring back the back the program to DHS during the month of March through awareness of activities in all school training students will be allowed to see oh students will learn how to see the warning signs when someone is at risk of harming themselves or others to act immediately and to see something and to say something if sorry to say something to a trusted adult the art of being helpful and taking care of each other um onto our Athletics winter sports have just been
061completed our ice hockey team won a western Mass Class C championship um and lost in the first round of the division five Mi double a state championship uh our boys basketball team made it to the sweet 16. it was a great season spring Sports start March 20th um get the schedules on arbiterlive.com and we hope to see you at a few of those events Go Green Wave drum is excited to be leading a workshop at the diversity equity and inclusion you've submit um at in GCC next at GCC next week about 10 students will be attending and sharing ideas resources ideas and resources with youth from around the region oh that's mine um the French Club continues to prepare for the 27th annual Taste of world cultures in conjunction with the Spanish club we are
062also excited for our trip to Quebec and Montreal which is about a month away the library has been busy with lots of learning including French Classes researching researching French speaking countries 8th graders learning about the Dewey Decimal System and the advanced European history class Enlightenment salon Library Club is also hosting our third annual Comic-Con next Tuesday March 14th from 2 15 to 5 15 pm this event empowers students to present to their peers about topics that interest them including croquette James Bond anime drawing and Dungeons and Dragons we will also be having a few faculty and guest presenters a cosplay fashion show and a fandom trivia contest Spanish club has been very busy preparing for our Taste of world cultures to be held on Wednesday March 29th and World Language month along with French Club
063we're also prepping for our trip to Puerto Rico that is right around the corner [Music] here's volunteering at the GMS stem next night stem night next week we have also created our relay for right life team and continue planning this event this week is Wellness week at ghs students have been participating in a passport to Wellness there are posters on the walls for students and staff to share healthy habits students can earn prizes at lunch by answering health related questions at lunch that is all thank you thank you do we have any questions from the school committee for our student reps thank you both for being here exceptional although I will say Tristan I'm a little disappointed you of pants and not shorts on we won't go any further I'm sorry to disappoint you okay
064so as we voted at the beginning of the meeting we'll move now into the discussion Around The Homeschool policy in the materials for tonight based on what we had seen from the public I did go ahead and include a draft of the revised homeschool policy um that the the lettering or the indexing of that policy is ihbjg so you may hear us refer to it that way um I would open the discussion at this point with a motion to amend the existing homeschool policy ihbg as presented in the provided draft policy to expressly allow for extracurricular participation from home school students do I have a motion to that effect so so much in a second and discussion can I offer a friendly Amendment just because um Susan Farber has asked that we kind of um
065make our motions about policies uh with kind of set language that we kind of have please go ahead so are we hoping to amend this on on an emergency basis or on a first reading I I think we should amend it uh as it I I mean I guess it's an emergency basis amended and we've already in terms of the project that the policy committee is undertaking with reviewing all of our policies I believe this section of the the manual has already been completed is that correct so yeah but every every policy that we approve has to go through first or a second reading unless we kind of choose to approve it on an emergency I see yes I would like to uh so I have the language if you wanted on an emergency I
066would like you to read the emergency basis language please thank you the motion would be on an emergency basis I move that we amend policy ihbg homeschooling as presented on our first reading thank you and Susan Farber do you have what you need there okay discussion please and thank you member Johnson we said oh we have to do uh who who made the motion member Denim and who seconded it and the mayor are you both okay with that friendly Amendment to the wording yes thank you thank you okay thank you yes thank you all discussion please mayor Rita Gardner and then member Denise on that on that um amendment that I presume is the language involved thank you yes that is correct it's the Bold italic language at the very end of the policy itself
067I believe of the page the second page for the benefit of people who may not I don't mind if you read it please go ahead sure so as a the amendment to the policy a student being educated in a home-based program within the district may have access for participation in extracurricular activities within parameters set by the superintendent so that is the amended language and then I have a question thank you and your question please what what is meant by that last phrase within parameters set by the superintendent so what is an example of a parameter I I will attempt it and then Christine will fill in the blanks okay so the policy is ours as a school committee how it's operationalized really belongs to the administration and so there may be a requirement that a
068family be go through a process to confirm that they live in Greenfield and there I'm sure there are other things and I'll let you color it however you would like that's primarily it to just ensure that the student is in fact a Greenfield resident as we do with any school you know registration enrollment there could be medical requirements for participation in athletics for example impact testing something things operational things in that regard so that's really what it refers to thank you remember Denise please uh yes thank you so I and Glenn and Amy are on the policy and program subcommittee and we did talk about this on September 8th of 2022 and I did go back and re-watch our entire meeting because they are archived and you can go and watch that and if you'd
069like to do that it's September 8th 2022 and it begins around the 12 minute Mark so if you'd like to return and see what the discussion was I think it might be fruitful if you're interested in this so in the discussion um there was some data that I never got answers to and since they were there were basic questions I had right off the bat how many students how many homeschool students are involved in the athletic program in the past and are projected to be involved in the future and also what was the financial cost to the district be and having them involved and also is there any liability issues that we should be aware of now were there any liability issues in the past these are just some basic data points that I feel
070like was needed at that September meeting in order to make the right decision I have not received answers to that so I'd like to see if we can get answers to that I am absolutely 100 for homeschoolers being allowed to not only participate in athletics but all of the extracurricular activities I don't need to go further into the discussion because I feel like I definitely pled my case back in September and I remember asking that we could have it Revisited at the policy and program subcommittee meeting I asked in October if we could revisit it and so I was expecting to revisit it at this next one so I don't need to go into my reasoning behind it but I'd like to definitely let you all know that my position hasn't changed and I'd like
071to get that data so that we can at least have some numbers to go on I will get what I can I don't know that in the past we would have tracked who was a homeschool athlete or not I'll have to find out what I can tell you in terms of costs the cost for a homeschooled student to participate in athletic opportunity is no different from a student who's attending for example if a student who's on the football team it costs the district money to recondition helmets that cost is the same regardless of where the student attends um so what I can share is that um we did I did check with the athletic director who said that we've not cut any athletes from any teams in about the last 15 years so that is
072a positive um I can certainly ask if we've tracked enrollment data in terms of our athletes regardless you know about whether they were homeschooled or not I don't know that's top of my head and in terms of future that would really depend on who expressed an interest in playing certainly looking at the current teams we could anticipate continued participation but future we'd have to wait until the the season were to come up so that they could register Okay the reason that I ask is because I think that this information is really important to have something that we should track and something that we should be able to access but also because in that conversation people were expressing things such as well if they're allowed to participate in sports what's to keep them from using the
073chemistry lab for example um so remember genev I'm going to interrupt you because the policy previously did allow for inclusion into school Day activities and we've revised that piece and it's not included in the emergency motion that we have tonight we're only looking at extracurricular activities policy so I definitely to re-watch that um okay so we don't know how many students or how much it costs um I find it kind of concerning sometimes that we don't have this basic data about a lot of things when we get into discussions so I really would love to have some of this basic information so that we can make our best possible decision anything else not right this second okay and I wanted to see um if someone who was on the committee I think in I think
074this policy was originally changed in 2021 is that accurate because I yes I watched that I can give you a little bit of history and and remember Johnson moosad could perhaps fill in some of the details if I miss them um because I I don't think I've been on policy the whole time I think heard some folks wondering how the change came about in their first place yeah my I wasn't there so I don't know my understanding is that there was um concern about the use of the district's resources for homeschool students and this wasn't issue during the school day um and I think there's a differentiation that can be made there but I wondered if someone could just kind of give a nutshell how it came about sure so um secretary Eckstrom and I
075did go back after last month's regular meeting and the interest in making this change kind of came up again and looked at the the chronology of events and the first change or maybe it was the first to read did happen in October of 21 and that would have been just a couple of months after we hired a superintendent to March and also just a couple of months after our major transition of permanent superintendent and you may remember we had it interim superintendent for a period of months approximately February of 2021 to August of 2021 and that interim superintendent did an audit of our policies at that time to make sure that our policies included uh ones that were the expectation from uh the state as well as masc that we have on the books and
076a number of policies were updated at that time this change the way I would describe it with in and obviously it's colored with my my personal opinion and remembrance of how it happened was wrapped up in a number of changes it is highly highly unusual and problematic to have students coming in and out of the school day who are not actual students but are home school students and we had for example students participating in academic classes as well as elective classes during the school day with no tracking of that to remember Denise point on data and we made many many changes two policies in a volume that um is isn't advised when you make that many changes at once there are Ripple effects um I would describe this as and I've tried to use an
077analogy of like a mom who gives their kids a little bit of leeway and the next thing you know the kids are going haywire in the backyard and she says okay that's it everybody inside into your rooms and this was kind of a way of reigning in what was not working for the district and the district's resources at that time and since we've made the change permanently which happened it appears in March of 22 we've heard consistently at the policy and program subcommittee as well as here at the regular meeting of the school committee that The Homeschool piece for athletes specifically doesn't work for our community and that is the reason for bringing forward this change tonight hopefully that colors it and if anyone especially uh member Johnson we've solder secretary action if you'd want
078to add anything uh you're okay okay thank you um so I think it's also important to remember For Better or Worse we also had a pandemic going on and allowing people in and out of the schools was a matter of Health concern as well and um Amy and I have a number of anecdotal conversations and even and when she and I were looking at this we were both kind of like well that's just why would we do that that doesn't make any sense whatsoever there must be something more going on here that we're just not remembering and so we did go back and have to look through everything and and relive some less than fun times for teachers and school and students and parents and school committees and everyone else on the planet and so
079I I fully agree in that when we did this it was an attempt to try to put constraints around something that was foreign to everyone on planet and try to put some order and be conscious of the health of our students and um you know the the amount of contact that they would have with each other and things like that I don't I don't I can't I can't imagine even in my even just in my own conversations with my own health in my within my own head of no no we should not let people participate in sports that would be ridiculous that isn't how I work so I think that it was a culmination of a number of things The Perfect Storm and and unfortunately here we are today remember Johnson we said would you
080add anything yeah whatever you'd like to say not so much about the history of it but just my my own thoughts I think um I think that the most valuable thing I really heard today was that for the students at the Greenfield schools it's valuable to have the home school students there to contribute to the teams and I think that was something I wasn't aware of when we moved on this policy so I really appreciate the community's feedback on that um for folks who are do choose to homeschool I feel that there are pros and cons that you take when you make a choice not to be a part of the Greenfield Public Schools and not to come to not to come to school and so I I sort of feel like that is a
081little bit of a different issue I'm not sure that homeschool students should necessarily be be entitled to every you know be able to kind of pick and choose what they want from the Greenfield Public Schools and I think that was what we were trying to address as as you talked to about Amy that um that that it was causing a kind of an administrative burden and some concerns and and I I still am curious about how some of those things would be handled for example I don't know what happens in terms of if there's misbehavior on us on a school team and there's a mix of students who are homeschoolers and students who are our own what happens in terms of discipline or I that's a question that I have about this but um overall
082I I think I hear and understand now the benefit that having homeschoolers gives to the students at our actual schools and if these superintendent thinks that there are ways to accommodate that then I think that um I'm in support of it thank you mayor Rita Gardner please I'd like to follow on with that comment it it's good to have a long memory yay senior 64 Tom uh so I have gone back um in my mind as I have read through all of the emails that have come in to the time when I was on school committee before in the late 90s um and I my both of my children came up through the Greenfield schools my son graduated in 85. um homeschooling was I don't know if it was it was the time or what
083but it was very something very prevalent in the mid to late 90s so and we went through a lot of these same kinds of discussions and quite frankly I don't remember what happened precisely with extracurricular activities but I am particularly persuaded tonight by because it was such a an unusual thing back then I think it was looked upon as being quite different I do know that one particular athlete excelled Avi Kramer in basketball and he was there and he played in the Greenfield schools so um and he was a homeschool student I am particularly moved and persuaded by the number of parents and students thank you for being here this evening um who I wish you'd come more often to tell us what you're thinking but um I'm particularly persuaded by the number of people
084who are not homeschoolers who want these kids to be among their friends and be able to play sports play in band do whatever extracurricular so that is a very worthwhile and very valuable thing to see thank you thank you other comments remember Denise go ahead and remember wall member wall can go before me certainly I just wanted to say that I think it was ridiculous that you've had to go through this to be part of the sports teams in Greenfield when we have so few people who are participating and I I'm sorry you had to go through so much hoopla and so many letter writing campaigns to get your point across but I support you 100 in participating in extracurricular activities as a homeschool child thank you go ahead remember the name um thank you
085member wall That's you really nailed it and I'm so glad that you all came here I honestly was losing sleep after the September meeting I knew exactly in the September meeting that it was about Athletics I never thought it was about anything else we heard from the parents we heard from the coach we knew it was about Athletics so I'm I'm the one who voted for it I wanted you guys to be able to play athletics I knew it was specifically about Athletics and home schools coming together and I don't know what's made making people change their minds I'm assuming it's because you all came so kudos to you I don't know who organized you but good job it was wonderful to read the letters and to hear how you felt about it because I
086promised the students at the yel conference that I would bring this forward again and I promised parents to their faces that I'll bring this forward again so I'm glad that we're here today to hopefully make the right decision anyone else please remember routini I'm not going to drag it out more than 30 seconds I promise because I feel like we're all on the same page here but um I do I appreciate the original intent to um conserve the district's resources and protect this health and safety of students and if we were talking about the use of resources that would impact things like class sizes and things like safety in our buildings then I I would be worried about that but I think like I said before there's a differentiation that can be made there because
087we're only talking about extracurriculars at this point and I think it's actually beneficial to the district to have a greater pool of students available for our Athletics so that we can have more competitive teams which makes our schools more attractive for student enrollment so that's that's where I stand on that thank you um anyone else I just have a couple of things okay first thank you very much to the students specifically the young people specifically who came forward to speak with us on this issue over the past few months we appreciate you know we listen to your feedback probably above LL and we get so little of it at this level so thank you for being here um and I want to acknowledge that um dozens upon dozens of people contacted the school committee and
088probably members individually by email over the past few weeks to express almost unanimous support for including homeschool students in our extracurricular activities I do acknowledge the one family that was opposed that contacted me privately so it is not unanimous but it is very strongly in favor and I I also want to acknowledge that so often when an issue becomes big like this and big quickly like this that people have tempers and anger and I haven't seen that from this group it's been very collaborative and I want to remind everyone who's listening and watching that the school committee works for the community and when something that we are doing doesn't work we always want the feedback about why you think it doesn't work and we always are working to do the best we can for the
089greater good of the of the community when it comes to educating our students um and I think that's all I have and I would open up one last time to anything else from the committee okay so we will move to a vote I think we know what we're voting on um are there any abstentions is anyone opposed so that passes unanimously and thank you all and thank you to all from the public [Applause] I like to say I like to say there's no there's no clapping at boring meetings thank you all for thank you all for doing what you did to to make this work um and we'll um we'll move on to uh our follow-up discussion on the um redistricting and what we're calling the re-envisioning of the school facilities um I want I
090want to introduce a couple of of points uh that I hope will become clear as we move forward with this and the fir the first and the most important thing is that this is an ongoing process this is a major process not once in this entire discussion or the process that we've done so far have we put a timeline on any of this in terms of changes when changes were happened there was no timeline and I like to say about processes and systems that when you make change you have to start somewhere and we did we started somewhere we got a professional we got Consultants to come in I will say probably until the end of my time on the school committee that the seventeen thousand dollars we spent on the NASDAQ report on enrollment
091and Facilities is the best seventeen thousand dollars the school district has spent in a really long time we got a lot of bang for our buck those options that everyone has been talking about came from the recommendations of that report and that is where we started in terms of collecting feedback we heard from members of the subcommittee on redistricting and members of the school committee how important was not only to collect feedback from all of our stakeholders which we have thus far tried very hard to do but also to bring those meetings out into places rather than forcing people to come to us we did meetings at Greenfield Gardens we did meetings at Leiden woods and Oak courts we did someone from the subcommittee would have to remind me I think it was a half
092a dozen different meetings for the community on the topic and I I think that if I didn't make it clear last month that's uh definitely a function of we don't usually have or at least haven't under my experience as chair a big big project like this come from a subcommittee to the school committee very often and there were probably a few things that we could have discussed outward and openly a lot better when we first started talking about this as a full school committee last month because I want you to also understand that those redistricting meetings the full only the subcommittee so that is is it Elizabeth Glenn and Jean is that right those three members are the only ones that went to those meetings and that is an open meeting law requirement because they
093are the subcommittee if the whole school committee is there it then becomes a school committee meeting if even a fourth member is there it becomes a full school committee meeting and that isn't what we're advertising in the it's not how our structure is designed so last month is the first time that we ever saw it as and discussed it as a full school committee and we did talk about taking a vote on the different options last month and everyone at least verbally I don't think we took an official vote but we were like no no no no we're not voting on an actual option right now it's too soon we have barely even discussed this and we voted on I believe two things that were related to information gathering something about Transportation information gathering on
094transportation and we were directing the superintendent to do that and then some information gathering around Green River School is that okay those were the two things we voted on get us some information superintendent DeBarge on these two things because everything in the NASDAQ report everything that we know about in enrollment our enrollment says it's going to be really hard to justify at our current funding levels keeping Green River School as a school it just cannot justify it based on the numbers of students and transportation when you change the configuration of schools obviously Transportation needs and costs are going to change the incremental piece pieces of this work are the most important parts and we are not at any point um required to stick with one of the four options as is and go forward with
095that what we are trying to do is start somewhere and what I said is we may end up at the end of all of this having a combination of one or two or three options based on what we learn as we try to move forward and we try to look at implementing certain pieces of this just like our homeschool policy piece we want something that works for the community we want something that is driven by equity and access and I think we've talked about those pieces the most and that is the most important piece um and so that's my introduction I don't know superintendent DeBarge do you want to give us some information now about the process it what I can give you is what information we have to this point about the two pieces
096you asked me to gather information about so one on Green River the biggest question is we we know the quote for doing the HVAC system is approximately a million dollars like that's that's been something that was well established prior to me getting there other pieces that we do know for a fact is that a federally mandated telephone upgrade at Green River would cost just under twenty four thousand dollars we also would need to update all technology that's in that building those and if it's in elementary school we would need to redo the playground so those are minimum pieces of information about opening Green River if if the committee were to choose to go in that direction the converse is if the committee chooses to make a permanent decision about Green River the first question that
097there was is do we have to pay back money that was taken as part of the msba loan to do the roof and the windows so today I got the 50 page original document that was signed by mayor Martin around getting those msba funds I haven't read all 50 pages yet so at this point we know there are some identified costs to open it and we know we have to figure out if there's a cost to close it so the other piece in terms of Transportation because that was a huge issue even for people who were who didn't hate option one there were still questions about what does transportation look like so the first piece is we worked with Jake who's our District transportation coordinator who ran some options for transportation and are scenarios for
098discussion are out to the bus company to get their review and their thoughts so there are a few things that we know for sure um what we know is that in all likelihood if we were to go to option one we would have to extend the drop-off time in the morning by about 10 minutes and then dismissal would take about 10 minutes longer because each bus would do a neighborhood potentially would do a neighborhood and then drop off at three schools so that would take some additional time especially if you're talking about our youngest students all getting on and off the same buses so that is one factor we believe that parents could travel that same route within the expanded drop-off time but again that's what we know based on the beginning review of Transportation
099factors there is potential that we would need to hire an additional crossing guard and potentially an additional bus monitor based on the current numbers of students that we have that would be routed onto particular buses so there is potentially some additional cost that seems likely we are waiting to get a review from kosmeskis before we go much further so theoretically it could be done it would have some impact on time we believe we would have to extend the work day for some people to supervise students during that extended drop-off and extended dismissal because they would be coming at a longer period of time so that there is some potential we discuss the potential in the morning of being able to utilize our morning before school care at all three elementaries but there likely would be
100some Financial impact for increased staff to supervise our students so that's the beginning of looking at the transportation we did discuss that it would be beneficial for this process for the committee to review the current Transportation policy to ensure that we want to stay with the walking versus bus pickup distance if I think that would be helpful for the subcommittee first to look at and then the full Committee just to review and make sure that that's something that is framed the way that you'd like it to be framed because if there are changes to that it could impact the transportation structure so we do bus some students that are less than what the distance is by policy but that's really around like um safe sidewalks from their residents to the schools so um you know
101it appears that if we were to do Transportation it would be feasible but with those impacts and again I expect to have additional information when kazmaskis is able to review that in more depth thank you um I'm not entirely sure how to organize this and I would ask that member wall as chair of the committee if you want to jump in at any point please please feel free um but I I'm looking for us to just have a discussion about the pieces of this and how we move forward that are top of mind for for any of you thank you and what I would suggest that we do going forward is work toward what would be involved if we did option one and welcome all of the staff to come to a meeting which we
102can schedule in the future and and talk with us we never meant to leave the staff out uh uh our goal is to not have four corners be the premier School in this city have the other two elementary schools be the children in all of the schools be getting the same education that four corners students are getting and this is the only way that we could figure out to make that happen so I I mean I'm just putting the dirty truth on the table right now because the Four Corners parents are the ones that are irate the children that are going to the other schools as you might have heard tonight their parents are thrilled to have an opportunity to maybe have an equal education so we all have to work together to make an
103unequitable education available to every child we do not have to make a decision tonight to choose an option but what we're working toward is making sure that one school is not better than the other two so we welcome feedback we can set up meetings we set up meetings with the schools and after the 15 minutes was up even though we were willing to stay all night as volunteers to hear your views the staff got up and walked out of the room so I'm I'm sorry I can't I I listen to you all through this process and I I now need you to listen to me I don't know why you couldn't stay and talk we would like to have a meeting where you can say everything you want to because we need to make sure
104every child is getting the same the same skill set from the staff that the students at Four Corners are getting so that's where we are right now I don't think we need a vote I don't I think we just need to continue we have a year another school year to work toward a solution and we all need to pull together as a community and as a school committee to solve this problem that is hanging over our heads and the most vital thing to me is getting the fifth grade back into the elementary school and getting the eighth grade out of the high school because that is the point where problems are arising if you have an idea on how to make it happen we're happy to listen to you this was what this the seventeen
105thousand dollar study came up with because we can't even get the million dollar heating system in in Green River you say we dismiss the cost but we've been trying for how many years at least at least four yeah at least four to get a million dollar heating system put in green Rivers so we could open it back up and have grades K through five and it's more complicated than even a million dollar heating system as you heard from the superintendent so I'm ready to get off my soapbox but that's where we are the superintendent has asked to make additional comments and then I'll open it back up to the school committee folks I said I think we need to do regarding any of these options which we haven't done yet so we don't even know
106if any of these options are viable in terms of space so we first had to look at transportation we're not asking for staff detailed input on option one because we don't know if it's even going to work yet there's not really much to say if we can't get the transportation arranged it comes off the table we don't have much to ask if we don't have enough rooms in a building for the actual kids that have to go to those buildings we haven't even had the opportunity to do any of that yet the first thing we need to know is from the school committee I need to know what do you think you want to pursue if school committee said to me we want to look at construction across all three schools then my tasks would
107be very different than what they are now I would have to look at engineering studies and and Loan options and all of that what they've asked me to do is start looking at feasibility of implementation of an option that's all we're doing I could have come back and said we need eight more buses for option one and that wouldn't work so right now we're just getting information I believe you mentioned early on at the beginning there wasn't much data you're right there wasn't because we hadn't done any of the detail work so that's the process we're doing now is literally the administrators are figuring out can we operationalize any of this and when we get to actual choices that could be operationalized then we'll need a lot of input about are we missing something does
108this work what does this time look like we'd have to meet with the Union can we address working hours to accommodate the drop off and pick up times so there's a lot of pieces that still need to be figured out and until then we have no idea what's optional so that's just what I want to share in terms of I I don't have a preference yet other than we need to figure out what works I will say what I don't think is feasible is moving a group of kids periodically based on School enrollment whatever option we go to needs to sort of stick because that to me is the most inequitable thing is to change students that live in particular neighborhoods based on varying enrollment so outside of that I think we have very open
109minds about what is optional and nothing's been decided yet thank you school committee mayor riedergarten go ahead around to see if anybody else actually you may say whatever you like of course I would hope that you might also comment on um the appetite for construction and or renovation at our elementary schools I was going to address that as well thank you so um probably the best thing I heard was we did not have to take a vote tonight because in my initial review and you can I've got it all tabbed here so I've looked at it over and over again oh from the time we received this to um to just this week so my initial statement would have been we simply don't have enough information to take any kind of vote tonight and and
110I wasn't at the last meeting because I had coveted so I was in isolation you wouldn't have wanted me here um but um of particular concern to me was every single one of these options that was put out that NASDAQ called out has a cost to it and a couple of them you know that they offered it wasn't really clear because they didn't offer it on each one was what it would cost you know that there would be a cost to adding on to a school if you could even do that that isn't even clear yet either so before we would need before we picked any option I think that's what I want to say before we picked any option there would be some basic level cost out that we would need to do of
111particular interest was in each one of them was just simply the internal cost of reconfiguring a building so I think we have to have a better idea we may have to narrow it down to one or three options and cast off the others um so the most significant cost would be to um add on to a building or or whatever we might end up doing including Green River School so the way it works is I think you would have to plan someone said this evening it might have been the young woman named Anna I can't remember a lot of people spoke just sitting right there she's still there um that this is something that that might have to play out over several years and the reason that that would have anything we would have to
112do for construction would have to play out over several years because it'd have to be added to the capital plan for the city um nothing says this the school committee can't also under the school system along with help I would hope from the school committee can't undertake yet another big chore just to come up with that five-year Capital plan so that it can be eased into the city's five-year Capital plan because you're you have a spot there you know you do and um for a variety of reasons in the last three or four years some things have fallen apart um and they're just now we're just now sort of getting in that flow of being able to look at the future and and try to put put the past aside so um I would encourage
113us to certainly also along with costing out transportation also cost out um what some of the significant costs both internally within each school that we might choose to be a part of the reorganization but as we look forward what do we need to do we've seen our enrollment go down considerably maybe we I and the numbers I look back at them in light of what we now know are the enrollment numbers for this year um there was no way to know when they did this to how accurate that would be but it you know those things ha fluctuate we might have a small Spike but we we do know that we'll take a few years just to get back the students that we've lost so um I I think that I don't have a particular
114preference for any one of these I haven't made up my mind yet probably because I don't have enough information but I am very committed to the fact that we do need to get the fifth grade back in elementary school and in the eighth grade um in middle school that I am so I think we would start with that parameter as well so I'm anxious to be a part of any discussions that go forward I'm sorry it wasn't at the last meeting um and I'd like to hear from the teachers I heard a lot about the option that you didn't want but do you have an option you do want oh okay well at least we're on the paint I assume that means about the fifth grade and the eighth grade yeah yeah so um I
115think most of us here probably feel that way um but so I'm I'm still all ears and I still want to see us work towards a solution but it doesn't have to be today or even tomorrow thank you other comments from a committee I still remember Denise first in the member Johnson I said I just like to say that I'd love if anybody if any staff or parent wants to send their feelings about it um if they feel like we didn't hear them at the six meetings please send in it like no one sent me an email about it I'd love to hear their thoughts and their feelings about it and if it's an issue of privacy or what have you you want to be anonymous that would be great I just love to hear
116from somebody I haven't received one email about it um other than yeah you did get an email from Marguerite Rancourt I did about option one but I I haven't heard any anybody talk to us about uh other option possibilities that's what I would like to hear about because people have said well then maybe there's other ideas maybe if we you know don't look at just option one through four maybe we can talk about other things multiple people have said that and I'm I'm sitting there thinking oh I hope somebody emails some other ideas so I guess what I'm saying is please bring those forward if you have them please don't please don't hold it close to your chest like I I Echo What gene says it would be lovely to hear that because we haven't
117heard anything alternative so we're just going with what we have in front of us I'm on the subcommittee but I feel like I need a refresher myself of what what we did because I feel like I was at a meeting with staff listening to people share their responses to our plan we we had a session like that right I feel like I heard a lot about about we did we did two staff meetings one at the elementary level and one at the for high school middle school and the um the staff we did it during a staff meeting time so it was it was dedicated time that the staff was already scheduled to be at work for a meeting um and and I do know that the committee members did share that they would stay
118past that but the staff the staff is able to leave at the end of their staff meeting time and I certainly know that our belief and Our intention was to get feedback but I think what I'm perceiving is that the staff would like to be able to give more detailed feedback which is certainly something that will happen we just don't have the options identified for you to give feedback on yet because if we went now and said give us feedback on options one two three four you would say well what does it cost for transportation how many classrooms are going to be moved what about the special ed programs and we don't have the answers to that yet so there's not anything new for you to share unless like Elizabeth said you have a different
119Choice besides one through four that that is definitely something but Glenn yes we did have a middle school high school and an Elementary staff meeting where all of the staff was supposed to be if they were at work that day yeah and I remember hearing some pretty robust feedback at the one I was able to attend and I did recall some staff staying after and talking to us and sharing feedback and I appreciated that and saw I see you I heard you um so I think that I mean I I guess I'm uh I'm also concerned about any time when we're doing something and it feels to people like check the box because that is something that's I mean real Community engagement is very difficult to do and it requires a lot of resources but
120I think we're committed to that but I think that essentially what we did with the staff meetings as well as with the community meetings was share these kind of broad brush outlines and kind of put our finger on the pulse of what we were hearing we were listening to people and now we uh know we're starting to get a better picture of what where we want um some more information um and um I feel like there was something I learned through the process too which is and I I apologize if I missed this mayor when you were talking about budget stuff but that essentially there's something about how much we are able to borrow as a city and we already have major several major construction things that we're borrowing from so the the options in
121terms of borrowing aren't even really there for us at this point and I think that it's conceivable that we could choose something and and go with it based on our available budget now but if money opened up for more construction at some point in the future we could we could change the model so do you want me to respond please okay so you're right um there's a debt level that we do not want to exceed um and that's has ramifica if we exceeded it has ramifications both for what we can afford but more importantly our overall Financial picture in the eyes of the state and the Department of Revenue and so forth so we never want to borrow more have debt that's more than we can pay for but as debt debt comes on and
122debt comes off and yeah we're in that sweet spot where we have the library we have we we are the High School's a little bit different because the city did vote for a debt exclusion but the fact of the matter is we still have Debt Service on it so and um so that's money we have to we have to pay out it's there for a few more years the fire station and the library won't hit that schedule for a couple more years too so um I mean this is a very rudimentary explanation of it but what I do want to remind you that you have that the fire station doesn't have and that the library did have is you have a funding source at the state so that is the school building funding whatever it's
123called I always Authority yes and that's why I'm encouraging us to look out into the future because you have to get on a list for that just like the library had to get on a list for this our new library it doesn't happen overnight so I think there's a way to plan out an option that might if if we decide that there's an option that needs to be um like an add-on to a school or whatever we need to do so or if we somehow rather have that discussion finally in its fullness on the Green River School and whether it is worth keeping as a school building or do we want to somehow do something else with it so um those are all the questions that need to be answered but the the situation is
124we can never it's not we can never fund additional School construction it's that it's just when and how do we go about understanding that and we can't do it unless we have some plan in place remember wall please yes what the ideal solution would be would be to build a new Elementary School for Greenfield I mean that would be my dream scenario and and you know all of you should go buy lottery tickets I guess so that we can have the money to buy it do it immediately but since we don't we have to do something to make the situation work today and we can just like the library did have a I think it's been a 10-year plan to uh get all of the information together to figure out where the new elementary school
125would go and who's going to design it and you know it's a long time right right and I have talked with former school committee members who said everybody wanted elementary schools in their neighborhood and they wouldn't even talk about it well now it's time to talk about it and you know in 10 years we could have a new elementary school but right now the children need help who are here and help us come up with a plan to make it work thank you we already have plans for the vegan Wilson's building is that right that's a joke people that is a joke there's a building at the corner of wells and name other comments from the school committee remember Martini go ahead I appreciate what you were just saying remember wall because um the uh
126idea of building one Elementary School for greenfields is something that has been um in my mind throughout this discussion I do think it's what needs to happen and there does need to be um something set on the horizon as a goal for that or it won't happen and I think that what we need to be taking on ourselves is concurrent planning um we need to be working towards the prize which is how I view that but we at the same time need to be dealing with the problems that we have at hand right now I do not want to lose sight of what is happening to our fifth graders when they are transitioning to the middle school there are multiple huge downsides and pitfalls to them and I think it's a significant issue impacting our
127enrollment um as a parent in the district uh with a kiddo in elementary right now it's a serious consideration for me as to whether I want to or um feel safe about sending my future 10 year olds into that um transition and environment uh I don't want this to go out indefinitely I know that we've said that there isn't a timeline which is good for the ability to continue to gather information and be do do a better job at um assigning importance to meaningful meaningful feedback that people obviously want to provide um but I kind of want to have a timeline because we can't just keep kicking this down the road I would like to have a better idea of when we will gather what types of information and when we will narrow down the
128options which I also think was a great suggestion I think the mayor said that uh so that we can have some kind of forward movement here and not just stagnate thank you um one one thing that we heard kind of continuously was um the interest in gathering additional feedback from staff in the interest from the staff and giving us more feedback could we have a motion to charge the redistricting committee with collecting additional feedback from staff if I have a second second thank you and would anyone like to discuss that particularly anyone on the committee I said the one thing one actionable thing that I heard it's okay um the one actionable thing I heard was that there's interest in in getting additional feedback from the staff and there was interest from the staff in
129giving additional feedback so could we charge the committee the redistricting committee with moving forward with that at this time and that was the motion and any discussion is welcome now secretary extra that would need to be collected in order to meet the questions that would be asked because I can think of a multitude of questions that would come up just from myself isn't information that you could that can be collected at this time I don't know that I don't know that having a meeting would be productive now for the long term I y'all are going to hit me on this one my suggestion would be to have periodic meetings of okay this is what we've done here and this is what we've come up with I think I think that's an excellent point as opposed
130to you know having meetings where everyone says I want this information I want this information and the response is we don't have that information we don't have that information we're not that far into it yet and then when the information is presented then okay well now that you got that what about this and and I think it might be counterproductive to not take it in in steps that's my only thought thank you I appreciate that any further discussion on that remember well and then remember Denise uh I think that right now our goal should be for the committee itself to discuss the options and that we still need to continue on with transportation in the Green River School as the big things right now to to solve and talk about and get input on uh
131instead of inviting the staff to come and tell us all the things that they want I mean I think that they want to hear these answers to and and you know we welcome your input always so it's and thank you for all you have sent us so far we're not trying to cram anything down your throats and we totally have no intention of implementing anything before the end of the next school year so we have lots of talking time if you'll just work with us remember do you go ahead and then remember Johnson we said about this um wonderful as it is to have lots of meetings and I hope to have lots more meetings about it um I am hoping that we can get together and vote to empower the superintendent to go on
132more exploratory missions about other options because one thing that I learned real quickly is that we had questions with no answers and getting the answers are not as easy as you might think it's not just you don't just ask Google what to do with the Green River School you have to email someone who then says no and then you email somebody else who then says no and they tell you to email somebody else and then eventually you email the right person and maybe you get a response and it's just the whole progression of difficulty so it's going to take us a while to gather all the information but eventually I feel like I can Envision us having in the future when we have information to impart and information together maybe having some small group discussion
133meetings as was mentioned in public comment maybe we could even do it on Zoom where we can talk specifically and in depth with Educators who have ideas about it when we have information to give but I do worry that if we have too many meetings too soon there might be some burnout and some difficulty maintaining some objectivity on what's in front of us so I am looking forward to more meetings for sure in the future Glenn go ahead I feel like one thing through this process I I kind of learned to accept was that it looks to me based on the information I've gotten to have by being on this committee that the the construction and the Green River options are really not options because of expense and budget but I feel like the public
134may need a presentation about exactly why that is um and I think that would be really useful for us to work on as a project to have at this school committee like if we're saying we don't think we can because budget and because of loans and things like that this is exactly why we think that is um and then and then I think we could as a committee just vote to take those off the list because if they're not possibilities they're not possibilities I I guess I think in terms of Gathering feedback from Educators I I think it might be useful for um I'm not sure exactly what needs to happen there but because it seemed to me that we we did have these forms and we did get feedback on what we have so
135far and kind of like what the superintendent was saying we don't have more detail but I I feel like there's something I'm missing from the Educators about what they are wanting from us at this phase and I'm not sure exactly how to gather that input from them um except to say if you're watching this meeting and you're an educator and there's something you specifically want from us please let us know um but I'm just not sure exactly what it is you're asking for at this point given the information that we have we we presented the information we had and we got your feedback and now we're Gathering more information so I guess I'm I'm on board with the folks who are saying let's not have more meetings where we're not sharing any new information and
136we don't have answers to questions that people are likely to ask yeah thank you uh further discussion on the motion so we're the motion was to charge the committee with additional discussions with the staff do people still want to go forward and vote on that I'm not getting a sense that you do I think the conversation during the discussion the timeline for that for a second I had to remember what the motion was in the first place yeah what are we talking about okay yeah I think and I think right now it's fine for us to have an open discussion I do also want to highlight um what both the mayor and member Martini stressed in their comments which is it is possible to make a plan for that brand new elementary school that we
137might want or we do want but we cannot uh wrap that up in the Dynamics of a district that needs certain things in the near future not 10 years from now um and so perhaps there's a role for planning and construction or another entity to to help with that process at this time of the concurrent Planet planning thing um who made the motion should we withdraw the motion what's the process for withdrawing emotion I made them no I didn't you made the motion in life I think you asked for the motion I think you I think yeah I I asked for it I don't generally make the motion unless I'm trying to be pettier to prove a point and I wasn't at that point at least um how do we withdraw emotion are we all
138good with just I think I would have to withdraw it but I I yeah uh I am really um concerned at the sense of being slighted or dismissed by some of our staff sure and I don't want to compound that by saying well we thought about asking for info from you but then we decided not to um we could also amend the motion friendly amendment to charge the redistrict committee with continuing their work based on the feedback that they've heard this evening next month are we thinking and you know what I mean can we get can we get an idea of when it would be feasible to have a presentation like member Johnson lassod was saying about the um the costs associated with the options involving Green River that was the NASDAQ presentation that's what's
139in the materials they provided us well but it was kind of study sure to tell us exactly how much that would cost but I think cost is something that's been brought up by several people and I and I think so this is sort of typical of a lot of public discussions about issues like this um you might have meetings for months and um be talking about it but then people kind of tune in when it's obviously getting closer to um to decision time this so I think folks didn't necessarily pick up on all of the things we've already talked about uh so can can we get an idea of what can we provide a presentation or a discussion or an agenda item or something at the next school committee meeting the one after that something
140like that because then we would have a timeline on when the subcommittee is going back to the staff okay so that's fine I saw secretary ekstrom I want to also interject because I held off from saying this one piece and I think it's important to put it out there when you work with Municipal projects with construction with capital planning regularly you know off of the top of your head that anytime you're going to undertake Renovations or construction it's like when you have the fancy old Saab that you need to take to the specialist car mechanic it's eight hundred dollars to just open the hood right when you're doing construction in a municipal environment it's twenty five thousand dollars average just to get an architectural engineering plan so just to have someone come in and say
141you want to do what okay we'll sketch it out for you this is what we think it would cost within the next 60 to 90 days right to start construction we who work with these projects all the time know that but I'm conscious that our our public who dips in and out of our discussions does not necessarily know that so when you're talking about the three occupied elementary schools around 75 000 just to talk details of construction and if you throw Green River into it I don't know that we could get a contractor to talk to us about it anymore we've stopped and started so many times they're not going to come back I'm joking of course but you're you potentially are looking at just another twenty five thousand dollars again on Green River so
142now we're at a hundred thousand dollars just to figure out what we would do for renovation and construction at each School um is that the type of thing you would want in a presentation like is that what you're getting at I you said I I would like to put out there that you said all that um previously so I called jctv I'm sorry um not at this time I think I said it to you I think it is part of why um the committee decided to ask for more information about option one um so but I don't think that that part uh aspect of the discussion got across to a lot of people so I given that there is now a high level of Interest I've seen I've gotten more correspondence about this issue in
143the last two weeks than in the entire time that this has been um evolving on the school committee so it seems like now would be a good time to um summarize the relevant information for people again and and make sure that this is um widely known and just am I making any kind of sense yes so that that makes perfect sense I don't think it gets us closer to an actionable item for your Mo our motion I don't want to put it on you hour motion um because we were going to withdraw and you wanted to kind of re rework it I don't mean to put you on the spot anyone collaboratively can help and I see member Johnson Russo perhaps willing to dip in trust us as a subcommittee having participated in this conversation
144and listened to the public to have a meeting and identify next steps in in a small group and bring them back here maybe that's a way to proceed yes um I I heard the superintendent say she thought that was a really good idea now I see uh secretary ekstrom perhaps wants to comment gesticulating wildly so I'm gonna dip into my admin past and superintendent you can feel free to dismiss or not hear anything that I say right now it's seems to me that part of what's going on is that the public wants to be wants to have more cognizant knowledge in front of them it also seems to me that when you're thinking about this you need to have a punch list like when you do when I have we're going on vacation I make
145a little punch list of this is what we have to do next then after that we got to do this and then after that we had to do this my question is timeline punch lists people want more public information perhaps it would be a good idea from a PR standpoint as well as ease of information sharing to just stick a tab on the website that has a running punch list of these are the things that need to be done and put a check mark I'm simplifying those dramatically all right I'm going to interrupt you in the interest of time and efficiency that's fine I think we we might want to Friendly amend the motion that's on the table to charge the redistricting committee with continued conversation around next steps with the redistricting process does that
146work and ID let me add one more thing charging the redistricting committee with continued continuing discussions around next steps to include a timeline attempt how about that for my timeline folks well I think you need to check with the person who made the motion I am she's not looking she's not making eye contact with me so I don't know what to do yeah I like the timeline tag on there I'm um timeline attempt seems kind of vague oh can we just say hi charger the timeline I'm fine with that yeah thank you yes and the second year was the member Denise I believe is that right or mayor Gardner I can't remember who it was yes and okay Susan Farber do you have what you need to uh continue continued conversations to it and to
147include uh draft timeline no we just we we we yeah we friendly amended it to death it doesn't look like the original motion but it's still there uh any further discussion May read a Gartner please I want to remind everyone that this started as a motion to have the committee check in with the teaching staff so in that discussion about next steps I just want to make sure that that isn't lost and that you will have that Opera have that opportunity very good point whether it's you know just the committee meeting with staff or a more open meeting like we're having this evening your job from your lips to the chair of the subcommittee member walls ears how about that further discussion and let's move to a vote are there any abstentions any no votes
148so that passes unanimously okay we need to move on yes thank you all and thank you for tackling also those items out of order but I think originally when we started them we may have been at our freshest I'm not sure we're at our freshest anymore but we'll keep moving so we are on to item number five slash six reports of the administration beginning with askp please thank you uh quick and easy tonight so we'll get through this uh with professional development we hosted ckla amplifier Amplified trainers at each Elementary School in middle school last week the trainers stayed for the day through collaboration meetings in the faculty meeting and got to observe classrooms got to connect with teachers at collaboration and discuss the curriculum resource and then stayed through the faculty meeting to address
149any further questions that Steph had it was really a successful experiment we're hoping to continue that work in the coming months as well and have them revisit they gave a lot of good feedback on glows and grows and what's been going well and some areas for thought for all of our Educators and our principals so we appreciated their visit and look forward to continuing that PD um today we had another Desi high quality instructional material professional Learning Network on the high school math project the team has finished up illustrative maths field test this week they will start reveal math on Monday March 13th today we got to compile some teacher feedback and student feedback on illustrative math and we went through that with our deci partner and we're looking forward to finishing the reveal math
150field test before April break and then we will have a meeting with stakeholders to compare and contrast and see where our choices lie with regards to Grants Title One um just did another engagement opportunity for our all the schools K through 7 and literacy math challenges over February break the interventionists have been slowly providing me with feedback and our numbers have increased since December's challenge so we were really excited that more kids participated and took advantage of those opportunities over break our turnaround Grant we are now in the midst of deci ilts and we've been working with the Statewide system of support team we met Monday all day we toured the district we toured buildings with them three members were on site we met with each principal and collaborated on future instructional leadership team agendas
151and there are representatives from the staff on each of these teams two at AEL four at all of our other schools our work is to unify the district's goals to analyze our student data review instructional practice and ultimately improve student outcomes so it's really exciting to all be on the same page and have those conversations and lastly I had the great experience on Friday to participate with UMass they had an internship day at their Springfield campus downtown the principal of the high school middle school and a staff member of the high school came and we got to do mock interviews with 33 future Educators that are going to be part of the UMass program and it was really exciting to be re-energized by all of these young Educators who are excited to get into the
152field and excited to be part of our district and really want to come here and intern with our such highly qualified staff so we look forward to collaborating with UMass and seeing what candidates actually have um fulfilled their application to UMass and can come on board next year for 180 Day program it was a really great day and appreciate UMass thinking of us because they have really turned it into a Springfield 180 Day program but since Greenfield has been such great partners with them over the years they kept us included in this so that we could continue to house their interns so very exciting and that's it thank you thank you questions from the school committee for the assistant superintendent don't be shy remember Martini everyone looks at me right uh okay I only have
153like two because this is the point in the evening where I have lost my ability to string sentences um with regard to the math if I have asked you this before I apologize because I don't remember what you said uh if you have um if you anticipate a similar um project with regard to elementary and middle school math curriculum middle school already participated in it two years prior to my position so the year before this role they actually participated in the adopted illustrative math so they are in year two and then three years ago the elementary schools did it and adopted Eureka Math so that seems a little weird to me to um have invested in two different curricula which is yet another um new aspect that I hadn't thought about before about this very
154rough transition from elementary to Middle for our students so are you thinking about taking another look at that or or have we already sunk so much cost into those that that's not um palatable well I it's a difficult question to answer but we've had this conversation because ultimately the high school has chosen illustrative which could align with the middle school but if the high schools parameters and priorities really are a better fit with reveal and they choose reveal we will adopt reveal and when we were talking with our destiny Partners today it's not unusual for districts to have different programs when you go through this year-long process you really look at the student body in front of you and while it may be wonderful to have illustrative math K to 12. there are many schools
155that are on this professional Learning Network that are very different in choices at different grade levels so our next hope really is to move on to high school science because the next year's professional Learning Network will be around science and with the adoption of a new Ela curriculum k-7 this year to put an extra add-on lift for elementaries staff to have to adopt a new math program or to switch the Middle School to a different one is really food for thought that we need to have more conversations on right now though you know Desi's kind of advice to us is to see a program through three to five years and see the effect it's having on student outcomes and then start to think about if you really do want to shift and have a change
156okay um sorry sorry you look like you want to say I do yeah we're getting too good at this remember Martini um one thing I'd like to clarify is these are the resources we're always teaching to the standards so the use of the resource um you know it's it's teaching strategies but it we're really teaching to the standards so those won't vary you know the the fifth grade standards are the fifth grade standards and um when actually when I got here Karen and I had the exact conversation that you brought up like what why did we do this um it was done before us so um there are ways when we have the opportunity to do more in-depth curriculum writing and Alignment that we can ensure that there aren't gaps between what one resource may
157have included and what the next one includes so that we ensure that we we Bridge those between grade levels if there are any so we've we've had that explicit conversation great um I understand pretty well um The District's Choice um in ckla because of um how that curriculum aligns with strong evidence for how students learn to read and write I'm not sure I understand that as well with regards to um why the district is considering the two particular math resources that are at hand and um using as best we can evidence-based practices helps the most students including students who come in with a disadvantage whether that's socioeconomic or because of a learning disability or other issues so I'm wondering if we could have some more information about the evidence base for the two under consideration
158yes I can share the curate and Ed reports on both of them they're both rated green which is the highest rating you can get uh I think I included them a couple yeah a few months ago didn't we either started but I can re-share them um but they are vetted through curate and Ed reports and approved by Desi and rate green highly evidence-based curriculum I think I think that wasn't quite what I was what I was looking for um Ed reports um and resources like that are pretty Broad and I'm specifically interested in the potential impact on disadvantaged students so in particularly our disabled students so I would like to have some perspective on that is that something that you would be able to talk about next month foreign t y I would prefer that
159Vice chair Martini have a conversation one-on-one or two on one with the superintendent and the assistant superintendent about that I don't see that it falls within the parameters of the school committee if we had policy goals that we were trying to achieve related to that then we could address it that way but right now we don't have policy goals like that um I think it's it's unfair to ask that in this format right now it's a little bit outside of our Elena school committee members but I know they would take the time to talk to you about it and I also know that should we want to pursue policy goals related to things like disadvantaged students low-income students whatever the things were that you so importantly said we should work on that as well at
160the policy level I would be interested in the committee and considering some policy work around evidence-based instructional practices actually so that might be something for um for consideration for the subcommittee and thank you for that and uh just one other question I wondered how and when will the stakeholder meeting that you mentioned be announced for people so we did it through the school councils at each school so once the it'll probably be the May meetings only because they will not be finished with the field test until the April breaks so we can have principal Morrison and principal Fenimore make sure that sorry just principal Morrison Michelle doesn't need to be involved in this send out for the school council meeting so that everyone can attend that public meeting at the high school okay um I
161would just want to note that in the past school council meetings have not been disseminated very well I recall this um when stakeholder meetings were happening in regards to the ELA curriculum it was hard for me to find information about them on the school website I found conflicting information about them I would receive information in an email two hours before the meeting was to take place and things like that so I would just want to make sure that that meeting announcement is put out well in advance and make sure that the info is accurate and goes out in several ways thanks any I like to go after Vice chair Martini because she always asks the questions that I'm thinking but better so I'm just wanted to piggyback on what she said about the student council
162because when I was a parent the middle school I tried to get involved with at school student council meetings and literally could not get the information about them or attend them the link either didn't work or nobody knew about it when I called there was no information so I'm hoping in addition to what Vice chair Martini says maybe someone could go through and check all of that information on the website and make sure that it's accessible works on the calendar and such so I also had a similar issue I think you meant School counsel I'm sorry yes School counsel it's very late my brain is also not working any other school council comments from a school committee mayor are you okay um okay so thank you ASAP we'll move on to the report from the
163superintendent so the first thing I'm going to do is do an ad-lib for my report because we're in the process of reviewing all the information on the website that has already been happening it is um beyond the most tedious activity I could ever comprehend there are thousands of pieces of data that are on that are included that are years and years old and I am clicking every link to see if it is something we need to archive or keep because we will be updating the platform for our website in the next few months so it is in process but it is like watching grass grow just so you know the Herculean task I know personally and so I am so thankful that you're doing it but we're doing it amazing Caitlyn Von Schmidt's extreme sympathy
164having just done that yeah um yes but anyway so we are in process of that um the other thing I want to know I'll add that after so one thing I want to share is last month Glenn had asked about I believe you asked about getting student reports out or it has come up you're my context for that comment but um okay so we are going to do that um Derek and I are working on the best way to do that because teachers feed the information for the compilation of the student reports so we're working to either get it as part of the school committee materials which would be shared when they're shared out with you and or posted on the high school website after the meeting so but we are working actively to get
165their student report available to the public because there's a lot of information in it and um some things that people would want for reference so we're moving on that I'm going to do my celebration last so um the first section of my report is called celebrations I'm going to do that last I am very pleased to say that we've hired two new staff for the district we have an I.T director John Grimaldi has joined us and um he has Public School experiences and I.T director as well as corporate and he's he started on Monday so we're very pleased to have him he hit the ground running and Mike savinus who was our interim director is out exceptionally pleased that John is on board we also did hire a director of Early Childhood Meryl Miceli will
166be joining us after the April break so there will be a period of transition between Nancy Putnam our principal and Merrell but I think it's beneficial to have Meryl involved as we begin to prep for next year's preschool class so there will be a little bit of overlap but um we're very excited about both of those additions strategic planning the focus groups are in process of being announced the dates have been identified and Dr Houle has the names and contact information of everyone who included on their survey that they were interested in being part of it and Derek has been asked to have some students participate in the student focus groups that are scheduled at the high school so that information will be going out shortly the fy24 superintendent's budget will be presented on Friday
167the budget is going online if it's not there already for reference and Lauren is creating a section on the front page of the website where all the budget documents will get updated as we go through the process so after Friday my budget presentation will be added there if there are addendums or modifications to the superintendent's budget by the school committee that updated version will be added so all iterations will be updated as we go um I participated in a webinar or virtual meeting with the Massachusetts taxpayers Association today that's a private organization that does a lot of work analyzing school and Municipal funding but as part of today's presentation what they did was give an overview of the impact of the governor's proposed budget for education I included some bullets that are relevant I'll go
168through a couple the millionaires tax as it's referred to they refer to it as a surtax there was an agreement well that's a tax on something taxed well just for our um clarification so there was an agreement at the legislative level that there would be no expenditure of that Revenue in FY 23 and there's a cap on it of expending their budgeting no more than a billion dollars of that in fy24 of the billion 51 is allocated for Education 49 for transportation of the 51 percent one percent is budgeted for K-12 education yes just spend it all in one place I'm just reporting what was reported so what that does reflect is 10 million dollars it's no small change but it is one percent of a billion dollar Revenue anticipated Revenue Source um the governor's
169budget proposal does reflect the largest increase year over year in Chapter 70 which is a 9.8 percent but 56 percent of that increase is distributed to 23 of the state's highest highest need districts um the student Opportunity Act minimum pupil funding is an extra thirty dollars per pupil in a district that gets SOA funding last year it was budgeted at thirty dollars in the governor's budget and the legislature's legislators increased it to 60. so we'll see what happens there um the circuit breaker that's reimbursement for high cost special education needs but it's basically retroactive we're requesting reimbursement for expenses we've already paid is funded at 75 which is a slight increase over what it's funded at now with trans transportation out of District transportation claims budgeted to be funded at a hundred percent so I
170just want to explain the circuit breaker to qualify for reimbursement under this program the expense for a particular student's needs has to hit a certain amount and then we get 72 percent of what's over that so if I'm making up numbers for an example if the minimum level is 50 000 and we spend 60 we get 72 percent of the 10 000. so but the threshold is much higher than 50 000 but that's easy math at this time so the funding has increased um a few percent the governor's budget also includes increased funds for Extraordinary relief extraordinary relief is districts can apply for additional money for special education costs that were unanticipated or exceptionally High one of the places that the extraordinary relief is being talked about is in regard to the 14 increase in
171out of District tuition costs so if a student needs to attend a An approved out of District program this for next year those programs were allowed to increase their tuition costs by 14 percent extraordinary relief would give districts some relief from those costs however we're being told that the circuit breaker threshold applies so it's not we're going to get all 14 back and for our district it's almost half a million dollars that 14 represents almost half a million dollars so just context funding for free School meals is being addressed apparently in a supplemental budget it's not in the fy24 um Statewide enrollment for the first time since FY 20 saw an increase but Statewide the increase was only about 1400 students so in FY 21 I believe it was about 40 000 students left the
172state now we've gained back 1400 the vast majority of the students that the state has lost are Elementary so and then according to the mass taxpayers presentation today they gave an expected timeline that would have the governor's budget or whoever's budget It Is by that point in conference committee in June with a potential signature on the budget by July so that's those are the highlights or low lights depending on your personality don't forget about your celebrations oh I won't okay I'm turning back the other piece was that on Friday um while Karen was at UMass I was able to attend the superintendent's meeting with all the legislators from the area so I was able to sit with other superintendents from this area with Joe comfort and we were able to talk primarily about the governor's
173budget and she has solicited specific questions from her superintendents that can be presented at the ways and means um committee meeting so we I certainly submitted some questions about the extraordinary relief cap and Andy had some had some questions that we forwarded to her so I that was a wonderful opportunity and I know I appreciated it and I think the other superintendents did as well so um okay again that's Mass taxpayers but it is in line with other information we've seen from the governor's budget okay the wonderful thing I want to share is I was at Federal Street not long ago and Kelly was exceptionally proud as she should be to have shared some data that came out where district-wide you may remember some of my goals which the administrators share as well around analyzing
174student data and making instructional change and there from what I saw they're doing an extraordinary job of that and Kelly has strips of colorful paper all over her walls that were generated by the staff during um a data review that happened during staff meetings and professional learning time and I wanted to share the summary of that it's attached um and I want you to you know when you have a minute look at the change you know we talked when we when I presented map and we talk about MCAS let's be honest that's all like ugly and gloom and doom but we also talked about the fact that it takes a while for the improved skills to show on high stakes test like that this is day to day in the classroom student performance and our
175students are making gain you can see that coming out of being in yellow is is not bad just so you know um being in red is more concerning yellow means moving toward your goals green and blue are where it's at um so um everything here shows Improvement all grade levels had areas of improvement each individual classroom not that they're identified on here but each individual classroom had areas of improvement so um this to me is worth celebrating and I did communicate with Kelly and hope she has shared it with her staff how this is just fantastic it's impressive I know it's not where the staff wants to get like they're you know Kelly is talking about all the next steps they're already talking about and the changes they're talking about making an instruction but this
176is this is where it's at so that's why I saved it for last thank you questions or comments from the school committee mayor Rita Gartner please I just wanted to thank you for that what's interesting to me about it just thinking about the strategic planning meetings that we had where we would see such dismal results yeah just to see this in that short period of time is great so yes and I'm realizing I'm sorry there are some um word there are some acronyms on here that you probably don't know um ORF is oral reading fluency so their ability to rapidly decode words um uh Dibbles is our test I'm looking at what else is here psf oh my goodness all of our elementary teachers are gone psf yeah segmentation yeah it's phonemic segmenting words chunks
177sorry that's all I've got for you tonight but phony yes phonings phoneme segmentation yes thank you sorry I just realized there were um there were initials on that page so other comments or questions from the committee uh secretary extra I don't want to bring the room down but I just want to revisit your third Bullet From the Massachusetts taxpayers Association oh that's less exciting than the federal streets absolutely and I by no means am I want to downplay this Federal Street because I was reading it and making me happy and almost getting me to forget this crap anyway uh this stuff of the 1 million 50 is allocated for Education with one percent of that used for K-12 education yes the one percent equates to approximately 10 million across the state yes yeah that's what
178I figured but I just wanted someone to say it out that's abysmal and appalling and I don't know why anyone would get it would be excited about having voted for something that would equate to 10 million dollars I that's what I'm saying other comments please remember Johnson we said well I just have a I don't know if they mentioned what where that money is going is it going to pre-k I mean so great a chunk is 14 is going to early childhood and the remainder is going to higher education the remainder of the 51 percent but I I do agree with you 14 of a billion to Early Childhood I mean that's you know that helps everybody in my opinion so yeah that's going to have impacts on our outcomes as well so it's not
179all Bleak but I guess I would just one maybe uh Senator come referred can share some more information with us about why it's um so much is needed in higher ed I think she's one of the chairs of the higher ed committee or something I can inquire please know there is much more information out of the mass taxpayers presentation but I I wanted to get bytes that I thought would be relevant but they are supposed to share the slides so I'd be happy to forward them that might provide more information but I also am happy to ask um I can get in touch with her and ask as well foreign [Music] on Friday what can them on a work day is there something that we can Implement so that that doesn't we try our best
180to schedule everything at times that are accessible this was an exception we were not on a timeline that had detail in the budget that we needed to post it appropriately when we wanted to I explained that to the city council I explained that to you privately today we've worked uh with the um City to make sure that we're doing our best to meet the mayor's timeline and also meet our obligations under the charter and the open meeting law we are doing business of the schools and the schools operate during the day and we're doing the best we can okay but this isn't a contentious question I'm asking what can we do in the future so that this doesn't occur again because in the past years it's always been at 6 PM so could we when
181we make our calendar could we perhaps Mark these benchmarks that need to be observed I hear a sigh did you want to chime in or I so we do our best we tried the original plan was to have it at 6 pm on I believe the ninth the second we did not meet that we do our best every time I think we have learned I think we have learned the public finds US accessible for issues that they want to address regardless of the time of the meeting okay no one's saying you're not you're not your best I'm because 11 30 is when people work that's all I'm bringing up I think it's a valid point um so since this is on Zoom the recording will be available later for for example I cannot go because
182I'm working so I will have to watch it later and then send my questions to you so but I feel that it's worthwhile to ask because um I only heard about the reason why by watching the city council meeting and it frustrates me that that's how I learned why this was happening the way that it did yes any other questions from for the superintendent remember Johnson we said I just wanted to appreciate member denim for asking those questions and I think it is something that we can look at for next year I mean just constructively what what were the things that have been positive about our budget process this year and what are the things that can be improved in the future and I hope we can do that maybe set a date now for
183when we hope to have it at least there's no reason why we the calendar is the same every year there's no reason not to pencil in a date to at least have as a goal any other questions or comments okay so we also agreed to have the budget update under the reports from the administration that is item number two from the agenda you have materials in the packet about the budget this is FY 23 budget update if anyone has questions or comments I have a few points to share so please go ahead just this from from Andy we're still generally on target with our spending plan for the remainder of the fiscal year the unallocated funds that were available at the last report that balance is down about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars because
184we have um we had unanticipated special ed contracted Services primarily that is um psychological evaluations that are needed so we're Contracting with school psychologists for that we are doing a purchase order review what that means is any funds that were expected to be expended we're now reviewing purchase order by purchase order and if those expenses will not be realized we'll be releasing those funds so hopefully that will offset some of those which I believe truthfully will continue to have to encumber funds for private school psychologists to continue to do evaluations so um and then any of the revolving accounts that you see such as preschool tuition and Athletics those are still anticipating fourth quarter Revenue so those are the thank you highlights questions or comments from the committee everyone's looking at me like they're done
185okay I'm not seeing any questions or comments so we'll move on I would like a motion to uh skip school committee reports in its entirety this uh this meeting so moved in a second I would like to make a motion that we only have a report from the budget subcommittee so moved and a second anyone opposed or abstaining okay so we will move forward with just a budget subcommittee report a quick one so we had a budget subcommittee meeting to review the superintendent's proposed budget prior to it coming to the full committee or prior to the presentation and we wholeheartedly supported it and requested no changes be made whatsoever and in fact made a motion as such that there will be no changes made to the superintendent's Budget prior to the presentation thank you any
186questions for the budget subcommittee okay thank you very much and we will move on to school choice seats for 23.24 and um I I neglected to get smarted up about this spreadsheet before the meeting so I'm going to turn it right over to Christine because I yeah okay so to synthesize the current school choice seats that are occupied are in the First Column under school choice by school the next column those are the ones I want to add for next year the third column still open from school year 22 23 this current school year is there are some seats available that were not filled that I would like to leave open so that's in the third column primarily those are at the high school and then total seats available for school year 23 24 is
187what the combination between the new and the still open would represent that is what I would like to have as our school choice available seats for next year thank you and it looks like you've provided a suggested motion at the bottom of this if my mom is right I would like a motion to add 33 Choice seats in addition to those still open from school year 2223 and those currently unfilled filled currently filled it's it's late currently filled sorry that was remember a while and a second from Vice chair Martini uh discussion please I'm not hearing any discussion uh ask a question just ask what principles if they would like to have school choice seats available and if so how many and at what grade level so this is completely based on their assessment of
188their enrollment thank you anything else and okay we'll move to a vote and is anyone abstaining from voting anyone voting no so that passes unanimously and we'll move on to our library book Surplus project and I would take a motion to address items eight and nine knowing they're not really items eight and nine at this point the GMS surplus of library books and the AEL surplus of library books as consent items can I get a motion to that some of and that was my second as well great we have lists of the weeding in the materials for tonight do we have any discussion seeing none we would move right to a vote oh the motion was made by Vice chair martini and seconded by member genev I believe if I heard it correctly that's great
189that's fine and any discussion okay we'll move to a vote anyone abstaining from voting on The Surplus anyone's voting no so that passes unanimously and our final item the aquarium Surplus aquarium equipment if you're familiar with the beautiful goldfish that was in the central office he's gone to a new good home because the aquarium needed four million dollars worth of um new new equipment and we we decided not to proceed with that purchase or the RFP associated with it and the guy who took care of the aquarium has taken on the fish gladly he brought it to an adoptive home there you go we had to make a decision I mean the alternative would have been to bring Morty to the committee to be declared Surplus and I felt that in an interest of life-saving
190measures we would just let him go with the fish man and be adopted can I get a motion to declare the aquarium equipment in central office as Surplus so moved in a second second any discussion and we'll move to a vote 40 for his service thank you Morty anyone abstaining from voting anyone voting no more days abstaining that passes unanimously and um we do have of course our request for new agenda items I would start with asking folks if they like Susan farber's idea of putting the heavy stuff at the beginning of the agenda and the business stuff further down and would we like to make that a a regular part of our template people are nodding we'll we'll try for next time we'll see how it goes um it seemed like it worked okay
191uh other requests for new agenda items I'll just add that bundling things under a single consent agenda item and the agenda would be great too I don't disagree I want to make sure the public isn't confused about what we're doing that's all so we can bundle my thought is always let's bundle them when we're here so people aren't confused about what's appearing on the agenda or not I can share a template that I I use in Wendell but we kind of have an item that says consent agenda and then it says approve the minutes approve the Surplus approve so it's all clear and and with consent agenda any any member can ask to have something taken out of it so it is pretty clear and it can make things uh go a little faster thank
192you any other requests I'm not hearing anything else I'm not seeing anything else so I would need a motion to open an executive session I will read the blurb the important pieces we will not return to open session after this and the executive session exemption reasons uh as pursuant to mgl c30a section 21A subsection 2 to conduct or exemption number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel exemption number three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares and I do declare and exemption 4 to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices
193or strategies with respect there too and finally exemption number seven which is really long and it's about approving minutes from the February meeting do I have a motion so moved in a second and we do need a roll call vote for going into executive session secretary extra employees yes yes chair Martini yes yes listen to adjourn yes as well as a motion to adjourn which closes the public session anyone I moved to adjourn in a second there we go uh we do and then we are adjourned at whatever time it is 9 10 p.m thank you all [Music] thank you [Music]