Greenfield School Committee Meeting October 1, 2020

001[Music] remember remember karen vice pair extra here remember hollins she just she can't get in okay i will email her link secretary johnson i'm a yes chair priority here remember well here mayor wiedergardner here there are five of us so far we have a quorum wonderful thank you so i called the meeting to order at 601 pm i did neglect to ask if uh anyone is recording this meeting gctv is recording the meeting tonight are there any people on the line who are also recording okay hearing none we will move into approval of the minutes i believe we have one set of minutes to approve that being from the meeting uh on monday september 14th i take a motion to approve the minutes i moved to for the minutes from september 14th 2020. second it

002was member johnson moussad with a second from uh member extreme any discussion hearing none let's move to a roll call vote uh remember karen not here okay vice chair extreme oh yes i i i'm screwing around my computer sorry yes i'm good with them okay uh let's see remember hollins uh secretary johnson i'm a yes chair prairie eddie yes remember well yes mayor rita gardner yes okay and chair priority you asked me to remind you about um adopting the agenda with some uh revisions oh yes thank you um let's actually do that after public comment reports we'll do that after the um oh no we should do it now just before we get any further you're right um i would like uh we we are planning this evening so the public is aware as well

003uh to actually uh devote about 90 minutes to the agenda items under new business and the reports and public comment and then move into executive session at 7 30 and anything that remains uncovered from the new business at 7 30 we will attempt to move to the agenda for our regularly scheduled meeting on october 14th and in light of that and how our agenda is currently structured i would like a motion um to move new business items f and g to be covered first and then bump all the rest of the agenda items down if anyone would be so kind as to make that motion i moved to adopt the agenda with the change uh from the current agenda to have items f and g occur uh first in the order of business you know

004what hang on i am sorry let's try that again um it's actually items e and g and not f i'm sorry move items e and g to the top okay and item f will get to i item f is important we're we're going to get to that i think we'll get to all of it but just to be sure we really do need to cover e and g if you would be so kind as to try that motion again sure i move to adopt the agenda as with the exception of items e and g occurring first in the order of visitors is there a second to that motion second and can we uh any discussion wonderful let's just um go ahead and vote on that and make sure we can do it remember karen nice

005chair extra yes member hollins yes secretary johnson i'm a yes chair priority yes member wall yes mayor rita gardner yes the motion carries with six votes wonderful i appreciate that um it's just in the interest of being streamlined and what we're tackling tonight and now we will move into public comment so the way we have structured public comment in the past we will do the same tonight uh we ask that folks not use the chat function in the meeting other than to indicate they are interested they are on the line uh with us in the webex platform and are interested in making a public comment we will take those in the order that they're received if you're on the telephone and unable or for any other reason unable to actually type in the chat we

006will take a second round of public comments verbally after we finish the ones that come up in the chat so do we have any for a public comment and i would ask if member johnson usada member extreme if you would monitor the chat for us for any public comment not seeing any okay is there anyone on the line that would like to make a public comment this evening you can go ahead and express that verbally now i'd like to make a public comment i heard sophia i didn't catch your last name but please go ahead you'll have three minutes you'll be timed and let us know what town you live in as well as how to spell your name so i am a greenfield resident and my name is sophia s-o-p-h-i-a and my last name

007is past story p-a-s-p-o-r-e thank you go ahead thank you um so i am a parent of a kindergartner at federal street elementary school and a resident of greenfield as i said before and also a social worker in town who works with children and families and i wanted to first say i am incredibly impressed by the online school and my son is doing way better than i ever would have expected a kindergartener to do so i applaud everyone who had a role in that um my second piece is more so you know not in my role as a parent as much it's not my direct experience but as a community member and the social worker for sure i know that the sro the school resource officer was taken out of the budget and obviously no in-person

008school is happening this year so i know that the budget is tight but i understand that there was the funding earmarked for that position and that the portion that was paid by the public school may still be available and i would like to request that that funding be funneled towards racial equity and racial justice work in the high school where the sro was and that there are some programs in town like stand up and the star program through community action that are have been going on for years and that are very well positioned to do community work with families that are accessing remote school and are still experiencing racism even though there is no school happening in person at least right now and the second piece is that i would request again as a resident

009of a parent that [Music] people need to be on youtube okay i'll try it for that level go ahead i'm sorry go ahead thank you the last piece was a request that an ad-hoc committee be formed by the school committee to address issues of racial equity and racial justice in the schools not just for now obviously things are remote right now but ongoing into the future thank you thank you very much for your comments we'll take another public comment um uh is there any in the chat we'll go back to those we do have a request from the chat from jay fitzsim hi can you hear me we can hear you go ahead please tell us your full name and your town you live in and you have three minutes so my name is jill

010fitzsimmons and i live in greenfield um i have a kindergartner who is not currently in the greenfield public school system but i very much like to feel comfortable moving him there in the future um i am also like the previous commenter um requesting that the school committee reallocate funding that used to be for the sro and and put it towards racial justice um youth programs um i 20 years ago worked for community action although it wasn't community action yet in the youth programs and that was before there was an sro i think and there was so much energy in the groups that i worked with to make positive change and to be a part of that positive change actively um and i'm very disheartened um that it hasn't been the change that you know it's

011been 20 years that change has not really manifested um so i'm very hopeful that this is a point where we can make a decision to allocate funding on a consistent basis going into the future to sort of provide more traction to the energy that i know exists in the community and to give young people a platform to develop those skills and to make the changes that are really important for them and for kids in our district in the future um and i also agree with the previous uh commenter that we should establish an ad hoc committee to listen to and address um issues of racism in our schools and that's all thank you thank you for your comment i think uh jill may have forgotten to spell her um her name for the recording secretary

012you know what i'm just going to type it in the chat box because it's a bear but thank you for reminding me thank you certainly do we have anyone else we do for orgastic oh that must be susan orgastic is that you are you on the line susan you might have to take yourself off mute oh i did and i thought i did okay we can hear you now you have three minutes please um spell your name and indicate what town you live in sure my name is susan work after w-o-r jesus and george a jefferson frank t is in thomas ik and i live in greenfield i have spoken before this committee previously about the need for our racial equity education in the schools and i am supporting the previous two speakers i don't

013think i need to go through it again um but we do uh there is a a real interest in seeing the subcommittee formed to not just deal with issues of curriculum but also are we um are we somewhat segregating all of our kids of color because we have set up the uh the districts in a certain way i don't know and i think that's something that ought to be explored to make sure that that's not the case um i also believe that we ought ought to be be looking very carefully at the ability of individuals within our um our community to be able to learn about people who are not like them and that means having true uh racial equity education within the schools um the star program was mentioned uh the uh stand-up was

014mentioned there may be others but the idea is to have those programs um be a part of the regular school day even when we're in a pandemic and even when we're online and i thank you very much for the time thank you susan i don't see any others in the chat at the moment do you want to inquire again for people on the telephones thanks glenn yes uh someone else on the telephone who would like to make a public comment go ahead yeah you have three minutes state your name and the town you live in okay uh my name is louise amio a-m-y-o-t i live in greenfield go ahead louise i'm calling because i am concerned about racial equity in the schools i have grandchildren of color who live in vermont not in greenfield but

015their experience in the schools has been one of definite discrimination from such little things as being the only boy on the soccer team who does not have a complete uniform to play or as a graduating senior uh being the only student whose awards are not listed to the public during the ceremony all kinds of little things that happened over the years and i it even started with the the oldest of the children when she was in preschool her coming to me and asking me if i would love her more if she had white skin because in preschool she had already learned that being a person of color was not a good thing so i would really like to urge the school i'm sure that this happens in every school in every community i would like

016greenfield to be prepared to deal with this and working on ensuring that staff faculty and children learn to love and respect everyone in the community thank you thank you louise do we have anyone else on the line interested in public comment yes hi go ahead state your name and uh your town sure this is rachel gordon g-o-r-d-o-n and i am a greenfield resident i don't have kids in the schools but i am here to to make the same requests as other commenters this evening i think in particular reallocating the funding from the sro position to directly support programming for youth of color and anti-racism programming in the schools would be a really meaningful action to support youth of color in our schools and a recognition of where that money belongs and the fact that it

017has done harm in the past two youth of color and it would this would be a step toward repairing that harm um and i think also establishing a committee to listen to and address issues of racism in the schools would be really concrete action that would be an important step toward repairing the heart that's been done to people of color and use of color in greenfield i would also echo the person that said you know we all know there are massive challenges with the schools and are facing right now in terms of funding and everything else and i don't envy you all the work that you've been having to do and i can't imagine how hard it's been these past six months for you all but you know addressing racism is not something that can

018or should be put off especially not in a pandemic whose impacts you know really illustrate uh the racism that that we see in every level in our community in our country and schools have been a particular site of harm for people of color we hear that over and over in our community and elsewhere so i ask this committee to use your power and take this opportunity to begin to repair that harm and thank you for your time thank you rachel anyone else interested in speaking for public comment going once hi this is catherine golub i spoke last time and i don't want to take up too much time right now but specifically echoing what folks have said echoing what i said last time very grateful for all of your work and we cannot continue to

019put this issue on the back burner um in june the committee voted unanimously to create an ad hoc committee to address these issues and no action has been taken school's up and running racism cannot continue to be put on the back burner so specifically requesting that this be put on the agenda next meeting so that members can make a motion on this issue so that this can move forward specifically the funding of the sro being reallocated to racial justice programming hopefully to a program such as stand up and creating the ad hoc committee so that we can put this on the agenda so that this issue doesn't continue to be put on the back burner and i and i don't want to have to keep giving public comment um but so please just put this

020on the agenda so that it it can be attended too thank you jeffrey what town do you live in please sure yeah i live in greenfield thank you and i have a 12 year old in the schools thank you for your thank you for your comment anyone else on the line for public comment please don't wait just go ahead and speak up going once okay hearing no other public comment we will move into committee reports um i will go ahead and go first in my my committee report is actually my chairperson's report it's going to be fairly quick tonight um so the first thing i want to address and i don't i i'm not going to assume that people saw the town hall event that i did earlier this week with the mayor um but

021one of the things that came up in that discussion uh that has become a reality now that we are all uh in in the covid normal if there is a covenormal is we really don't have the ability to interact one-on-one in person very often we don't have the ability to interact in groups in person really at all and we are kind of forced into this weird situation where social media threads and discussion has become really central to what people are looking when people are looking for support from others and obviously with the remote learning environment that has become a very integral part for many families parents caregivers seeking support in remote learning and one thing i want to address very clearly is i've heard a lot on social media in the past few weeks since

022we started on september 17th that was the first day of school that was not sure probably because we said we would evaluate re-evaluate where we were with remote plus and remote and in-person and hybrid learning every two weeks there appears to be an assumption out there that that meant two weeks after we started school we would start some sort of in-person program and i need folks to understand that that just isn't reality we will re-evaluate every two weeks but we cannot guarantee to folks that that um something is going to be on a set timeline uh particularly with this being only the second full week of school folks need to be patient need to make sure that they're reaching out to the appropriate people in the schools if they have questions or concerns or need

023additional support for their students so that we can we can get those things put those things in action but i just want to be very clear we will work towards and have intended since march to work towards going back to in-person learning for as many students as we can safely do but we in no way said two weeks after the school year began that meant we were moving to some sort of remote plus plan my second comment has to do with the my appreciation for folks who are continuing the discussion around anti-racism in our schools i think it's a critical discussion and um i the first piece that i i want to address is the assumption that nothing is happening in the schools related to anti-racism and i will not put superintendent harper on the

024spot but i will remind folks that we are always in our schools using curriculum and doing professional development and rolling out programs to students that address anti-racism address all kinds of isms that are out there and i know for certain that there were a number of initiatives that have happened uh with our student uh with our staff over the summer months that have begun an anti-racism curriculum the other piece i would say is the school's committee is 100 supportive of these things happening in our schools but the line between what happens at the purview of the superintendent and what happens under the purview of the school committee are very different things and for us to put a committee in place we will do something but for us to put a committee in place to address

025anti-racism is not nearly as effective as the schools prioritizing in their curriculum for students and in their training and professional development for their staff that anti-racism is is critically important and that is already happening and related to that i am very pleased that member gene wall has agreed to chair our committee that is redrawing the district map and i need you to understand as folks who are engaged in our schools that redrawing the district map is directly related to addressing isms in our schools the folks who talk to us about this regularly have an understanding of how our schools are currently structured and what we can do to improve upon that and it is all related to breaking down barriers and having students have um as much equality in our school district as we can

026so i want to be i want to recognize that member wall is um taking on a big project and she's been incredibly dedicated to this already even though it's just getting started and it's just one of a number of things that we're doing to address things um that uh institutionally and infrastructurally have been racist all along and we're gonna we're going to do our best within our power to fix those things um and i think that's the end of my report thank you uh i would take any questions from school committee members uh i have a question please remember johnson we saw um i guess i think i well i i wanted to speak to the racism question and and just kind of ask you to elucidate some things so what we voted on unanimously

027in june was about forming an ad hoc committee to work on a uh on a race anti-racism statement as a committee um so where do you and i the follow-up from that was that there was going to be a two-member group put together by you um so where do we stand on that and what do you expect what happened next i think i'll take uh catherine gollum's suggestion and put it on the next agenda how about that sounds great there we go and you know this is this is hard and and i will really admit i'm not very graceful about a lot of this right now um we there is so much to manage with the schools but that doesn't mean that i don't think that this is is not important it's critically important um

028and so our everything else that everything else that we're dealing right now is is critically important and should we should we be moving on this absolutely let's put it on the next agenda right as well thank you for the moment and you mean as do you mean both of the items that she requests to be on the agenda um the um the issue about the uh school resource officer funding as well you know i don't know i'll be honest about that one like i do i don't know we can talk about it as a committee we probably should put it on the agenda is it my favorite idea personally for that money no but does it mean we should not talk about it as a committee also no we should absolutely talk about it um

029so i will make a commitment to have both of those things on the agenda for for the october 14th meeting thank you and thank you for your willingness to take questions during your uh report of course any other questions for the truth i actually i actually just want to follow up on what you said about schools reopening yeah um so to be clear what we had said is that with the earliest possible date would be october 1st we didn't say it's it yeah with the earliest possible date the reality being i mean we may have even pushed it as far back as october 8th the reality being even if we were sitting here right now and said we wanted to open schools there would still be at least a week to two weeks before that

030would actually happen because of all the various pieces that need to be put into place to ensure that people can get to school that the needs are being met while they're there it isn't it isn't i want to be clear with everyone it isn't just okay we're open and everybody rolls back in it's there are a lot of moving pieces that have to be paid attention to um and i think that that a lot of people don't really think about that it isn't you know like with everything else if you decide to buy a house there's a process that you have to go through if you decide to i don't know anything you have to go through a process to get there and we want to do this well and we want to be thoughtful

031about it so it isn't okay well the school committee said we can go back to school then we start on monday it's the school committee has has said okay we're moving into the next phase and if it involves going back to school it's going to take more than just we're doing it tomorrow it's going to take a week to two weeks and and i hate to be the bearer of bad news guys it hurts me to say that as well but that's that's the reality of it we need to be thoughtful and careful about how we do this that's all thank you i appreciate that thank you the mayor is raising her hand i don't know if it out here a reminder a reminder to school committee members that we can't necessarily see you so

032you need to speak up mayor rita garner go ahead okay i i did i am on video but maybe you can't see me anyway that's all right i'm fine thank you i just wanted to state my agreement with the public that spoke i think it's very important that we at least talk about the reappropriation of the sro money towards other programs uh involving racial justice and i think it's very important that we form that ad hoc subcommittee so um just putting my voice to that as a school committee member and as a mayor for that matter and also i want to just simply say that when we do decide to make a decision to go back to in-person learning in one fashion or another either hybrid or all in whichever it may be or both

033as time moves on that we make those evaluations in the same way that the city does when we think about how we reopen things and that's evidence-based based on the evidence of our numbers um over time not just what happened this week but use perhaps a three reporting period look at the numbers where the trends are going and what the infection rate is because there are some very definite criteria that for a second mayor i just wanted to confirm where we are um chair priority you made your report as as committee chair and you're taking questions now that's where we are on the agenda okay i have a question that's all i well i wasn't quite finished but i'm fine with uh that's all that's really all i said had to say rather at the

034moment comment go ahead in in support of the agenda item next month us talking about uh the reallocation of funding could we include in that the cost center that we used to have at the high school for elective programs we had it was just the way we organized our budget but we have 250 000 for the high school principle to use for elective programs as the interests and needs change you know what remember holland i'm going to stop you right there because you can bring it up as a part of the agenda item we don't need to set up right now yes i just don't want it to not be able to be discussed that in library books part of the discussion it's part of the discussion for the topic so we'll bring it up

035to the next meeting thank you any other last questions for me i had no idea my report would be so controversial this is member karen good remember karen go ahead extremely breathe i think that as school committee members when we wear this hat we are thinking very logistically large money numbers and sometimes to our public and our parents and our community members they think we're not hearing them talk about how overwhelmed and hard and difficult this is and i just want to say we hear you and we are trying to get this going the best we can while keeping everybody safe a lot of us step forward home here it's it's not easy and i know that this is hard and i know that it's complicated and i know it's just out of the bounds

036of what any of us thought we would be doing in our lives um yes we are thinking about that yes we are thinking about keeping everyone safe yes we're trying to figure out how to make it work financially yes yes yes but also we are here and we are listening and we are trying very well said remember karen thank you i'm gonna move on to uh what is the next agenda item which i believe is the superintendent's report yes superintendent harper please go ahead so thank you chair and i want to welcome everybody that is listening in i think one of the best things that can happen in a democracy in a community is participation in public processes and particularly involvement and participation in a discussion about what's best for our children so for anybody

037that bothers to tune in to share feedback or to participate we know that your time is valuable and the fact that you're spending it here with us says an awful lot about what is wonderful about this community and how much you care about the future of our young people so i really want to thank people for spending your time in this way including committee members and the public as we near the end of our second week i do want to just note that we launched a survey for both families and staff and we have had a tremendous response with over 660 parent or family member responses and well over 100 teacher responses teachers and staff those are still open through tomorrow and so i really want to thank everybody it's tremendously helpful i also really

038just wanted to say this is such an extraordinary time everybody is doing something very new and sometimes very challenging and the amount of good um sort of graciousness that people are showing kindness and patience with themselves and others is remarkable um i really need to thank the community for the way that you're supporting each other and our students and being patient uh there are technology glitches and issues at every corner and people are working through them with such uh real impressive skill in patients i really want to thank you i will say that just as one highlight of our of our survey results so far um looking at this tiny little slice folks that participated in meetings with our teachers before school started the vast majority of respondents said it was the highest possible rating

039in terms of very helpful um and i think that speaks to even a little bit of in-person or human connection goes a long way at this time and i really want to tell the community we hear you we are working hard to get our kids back as soon as it is safe to do so i fully support that and we are in negotiation sometimes every single day and we're really um pleased that the results of our hvac assessments in our buildings are starting to come back that is a huge indicator of progress towards getting our building buildings ready for students to return i'm moving into the report and these comments and materials are all on the website if you're watching from home and you'd like to look as well as listen go to gpsk12.org on

040the right hand side click on school committee and you'll find all the materials in the drop down menu there so you can follow along i would like to thank baystate franklin we have had a tremendous donation um bay state franklin donated over 775 dollars of gift cards for the schools to use the principals are distributing these at each building some are using them for attendance awards and participation others are using them for needed initiatives and projects that the teachers are working on in remote learning and in addition they donated you can see a photo of it just an overwhelming amount of actual school supplies we knew in the spring that some students struggled in remote learning because they didn't have access to physical supplies and we can't thank bay state enough for stepping up and

041making sure our students are successful this fall i'd like to give you an update on the tents that folks have seen about town the tents themselves are a wonderful space they are being used they were used for in-person meetings before school started at many of our buildings and in addition they're an important part of our remote plus plan so that they have important uses as we phase back in um but with the help of g-set the city dpw our custodians the rec department um uh central maintenance these um tents now have picnic tables and wi-fi as outdoor access points and power to almost all of the tents i got an update today that the academy of early learnings 10 was in progress and that means every single tent is at least in progress some of

042our schools have more than one and this is taking advantage of outdoor spaces where we know that safety can be enhanced and trying to bring a little bit of the remote learning and the outdoor environment together so i want to thank our director of technology our tech department and the city does look like the superintendent's frozen we'll see if she comes back quickly i don't know about everyone else but remote learning was kind of a frozen back and forth all day today in this house looks like she's still not back with us um let's see if we can actually while we're waiting for her to come back are there any subcommittees that need to give a report this evening budget somebody is that susan extreme go ahead please uh yeah so we had a budget

043subcommittee meeting and in that meeting we discussed uh a number of things not least of which was um attend attendance enrollment in the schools um and if our staffing levels are appropriate for the enrollment in schools which is going to be discussed again later this evening on our agenda um we talked about some issues that were having with our various vans um and tried to get a sense of how we came into a position to currently be one less van um i said it out loud sorry that's okay uh and goodness what else did we discuss we talked about uh taking a look at the we wanna we wanna get a look at the 2020 budget and now that it's been closed where we ended up and then looking at the same thing with 2021

044the materials were unfortunately unable to be available for us so we spent some more time digging around um with enrollment and part of the question with that uh i will wait and we'll talk about it when items referred from the budget subcommittee but we did meet and we are planning to meet again some of which will come out of discussions we have tonight i suspect that it will be in the next couple of weeks anyone who's really excited stay tuned thank you any other subcommittees have a report do you want planning and construction did you have a meeting are they they're not so well yeah they're not a subcommittee they're not um you know let's put it as an agenda item for the 1014 meeting can we do that i'd feel a little more comfortable

045it's always been reported with subcommittees and assignments but whatever um so yes let's do it 10 14 and gene maybe you can come bring everyone up to date in the library as well i know you're not the person who's been identified as directly but i haven't been able to attend since all this crazy has started well and i i i don't mean to be cutting people off but you know we have a short time this is a specially scheduled meeting we're meeting every two weeks we have a short amount of time tonight and i want to be clear there are at least two folks who are part of the school committee that do not have child care this evening and that is going to be a problem with all of this and we're trying to

046work as best as we can with the time that we have so planning and construction we can put it as an agenda item and have as much time as we need to discuss it at the meeting on 10 14. any other um i the mayor is back and i believe that she would like to continue please go ahead well i think we were looking for jordana to continue i just was going to say that i i welcome in this meeting a comment from planning and construction planning and construction is an advisory committee to advise the mayor so i often don't get to attend their meetings so i will look forward to whatever they have to say in the future about it like at the future meeting the next one uh about um uh comments about

047what it relates to the schools yes thank you yes i was only going to talk about comments relating to the schools and like i said so in my time on the school committee we've never had planning and construction report out in subcommittees so what has been done in the past i'm not familiar with and we're going to move on i don't see that the superintendent is back with us uh superintendent harper are you on the line nope okay so what's the problem i'll just say if it if it has been the president's uh for the school committee to have that um report and if time is tight and we would like to request that to to happen during next week's committee reports committee and appointments reports i think that might be a better approach than

048creating a separate agenda item because i think we want to keep with the precedence of people being able to report from their committees during this time fair enough fair enough and i i mean yeah i don't want to make a big deal about it i just want to move through the stuff that we have and we've had a little bit more discussion than i expected already tonight and i want to be conscious of of our time um so don't the superintendent back on the line just else um okay so we will actually move into the new business and as we voted earlier uh we are going to take item e and item g first um district leadership staffing discussion i would like to just talk a little bit about the fact um and i i

049do wish the superintendent was on the line to hear this thankfully there are notes and a recording um so we uh have the full uh knowledge of uh the superintendent's intent to not seek a uh extension on her contract which ends on june 30th 2021. she informed us of that er in september and um at this point it is the plan of the school committee to actually um look to have a search firm which is fairly common um have a search firm be hired to help us with the process of searching for a superintendent um just give me one second here to get to the right page okay so what i think we should start with at this point knowing that we um intend to go this route or would like to try to go

050this route is to have a motion i'd like to have a motion from a school committee member to move to begin the process of hiring a search firm to manage the superintendent succession process so moved from member extreme in a second second i was remember wall let's have some discussion uh the mayor would like to speak my name sorry go ahead um i i do have some experience with this we have a school committee um always had a third party uh conduct the search that does not mean that on that um that there isn't a committee set up uh under the direction of whoever the third party is that um will have uh various types of relative members i don't mean that they are relatives i mean that they uh have a role on the

051committee um so i don't want people in the community to think that they're going to be left out there are certainly often um people from uh the public uh named to serve on the committee not large numbers because the committee can get pretty large when you're talking about who who has a say in this so um just wanted to give you a little background in history on that but the fact that there's a third party doing it is actually a preferable way and it might be important to at some point mention when we know who that third party is going to be just to note that chair priority had to step away from child care reasons so vice chair ekstrom is now the chair thank you glenn um i actually do have some comments i

052want to make about this but but it can wait if there are other committee members who would like to speak please do so seeing lots of no's heads being shaken no um i'm i do want to comment on this and and um part of the reason that or what my hope is with us using an organization to help us out with this is that they would sort of tease out from us things that we didn't realize that that we were interested in or not interested in and someone when we're looking for a new person but also i think we have a really interesting opportunity given that people are moving from big cities to capture some some different um interest i'm i'm i am sort of looking forward to see who it is that would apply

053because i i really think that we're going to have a really great opportunity to pull someone maybe who's got had experience in a larger district or has had other opportunities and i think this is really going to be something that's that will um make our thinking a little bit different still no one wants to say anything i can say i'm i'm not speaking because it seems pretty obvious i mean i'm i i don't think any of us are equipped to run a search for the exact position at this level so we need professionals it needs to be we need to get the best talent we possibly can and right so i worry that we just recycle people who are already in western mass and so this is an opportunity to not do that i mean

054just by virtue of where we are and things like that i it's i'm interested to see what will happen as i hope everyone else is not necessarily there i know but no one can hope they don't all come from western mass i see that superintendent harper is on she is so can we get a uh shall we do a roll call to see where we are with this absolutely can you hear me yes okay remember the motion again can susan read the motion again just for people we got a little off there on our discussion yes the motion is that the school committee begin the process of hiring a search firm to manage the superintendent succession process okay remember karen yes vice chair ekstrom yes member hollins yes secretary johnson i mean yes uh chair

055prietti not back yet member well yes mayor wiedergardner yes motion carries wonderful thank you um superintendent you have returned would you like to continue with your committee report lori i'm sorry your superintendent report excuse me sure i apologized my internet cut out it happened sometimes as i think i was saying right the important thing is continuing on um i did want to i think i had just spoken about the tense and given thanks to that collaboration i did want to note um i think some um recognition has deservedly gone to our food service team and we have uh reached that milestone of 200 000 meals served and you know when we think about needs in our community certainly at the base of all of them is food security and so i want to thank the

056community partners that are have been addressing this and the role of food services and to note that on september 15th senators comerford goby and lesser highlighted greenfield public schools in particular with the massachusetts food caucus and we had an opportunity to highlight the work of eliza calkins and our food service team and so there's some information provided on that in your report also in the packet are all of the newsletters we're really getting a lot of communication from the schools to parents and caregivers and really focusing on trying to be clear informative and timely with a lot of respondents on the surveys feeling uh clearly that they're getting enough communication from the school about what their students need so i did want to highlight that we're starting things like clubs and band at the middle

057school a social justice club at the middle school some opportunities for students to engage not just in the academics because we do have a more robust academic experience but also those ways that we know students need to connect socially with each other and extracurriculars and finally we have a youth soccer clinic um the dates are throughout october and into november these are following social distancing and health guidelines and we hope that folks that are interested in grades four through seven will reach out and sign up andy roop is offering that and we wanted to highlight some of the innovative ways that we're trying to get students physically moving connecting engaged in athletics and thanks to our athletic director and folks that are making that possible um and i don't have anything further in my report

058that i don't think will be addressed in other agenda items throughout the evening remember extra did you want to ask people if they have questions for the superintendent you're on mutant i said thank you superintendent and glenn kindly reminded me to say does anyone have questions for the superintendent and i talked away being on unmute so does anyone have questions for our superintendent i do go ahead um well superintendent harper because of some technology issues at the last meeting when it was announced that you were not seeking to uh to come you know to come back after june we didn't have a chance to just appreciate you for all your hard work and everything that you've done for the greenfield public schools and um i noticed i think i noticed correct me if i'm wrong

059but i don't think you included the very nice editorials that were written about you and the greenfield recorder uh in your um in your your packet so i would really like to see those included in our next packet even though i know it's probably embarrassing to put in the kudos from the community but people people see you and the role that you play and and appreciate you and i know we all appreciate the hard work you've done and the effort you've made on behalf of student success thank you for that thank you remember that i really appreciate that i forgot to kind of find a way to frame it as a question but i guess it would have been just a statement anyway i heard will you include the editorials yes thank you i'll help

060this is karen i would like to ask a question go ahead first i'll just you know join in on glenn's uh statement of i would have loved to see those in here i tried to read as many as i could um in the paper and i got to dig up the picture of the first time i met the superintendent in person radio station and listen to jackson talk about the buddy bench um so i'm really hopeful that we will have a wonderful candidate to replace you but i am also wishing you the very best in the future um my actual question is you mentioned that some of our hvac reports are coming in and that's really the next step in us moving forward do you have any i mean going with wide range estimates here

061on when the full reports will be in not when changes can be made because that's a whole other question do you have any thoughts about that or estimates or not a thing we can talk yeah put a lid on yet i don't know um so i can i can begin to address that we have a commissioning agent who is licensed to perform this type of work and those initial results have begun to come in and what we've done is we've prioritized the rooms that are in the next phase so rather than doing sort of soup to nuts every room and every building whether or not we'll use them in the next phase we've been very selective about saying give us next the next rooms that we need to use so that as soon as that

062information is ready we can begin using the areas that are slated next for use in order to speed up how we go about this so we have that um those initial results back they're very technical they're not uh necessarily narrative they're designed in terms of the engineering specifications of airflow exchanges and so forth um i know that the dpw and central maintenance have already begun working on making fine-tuning and adjustments from that i personally received some of this information today as i said earlier and then we're looking to sit down and discuss what does it mean for next steps i think into early next week certainly this is a huge area of focus for me so i'm interested in bringing this information when it is adjusted and completed to the full committee as soon as

063possible thank you any further questions for the superintendent i'm hearing crickets i'm not seeing any hands raising so i suspect that we're okay to move on thank you superintendent i appreciate it um glenn the next thing that we were going to discuss was the public vote on executive session item from 912 is that still our plan you're muted if you're here i am here um to be honest is it item e on our agenda because i think that's our next item is item e we already discussed that oh okay then item g is it item g i believe so okay okay so we're jumping and the minutes showed that g is the next voted item excellent thank you susan i appreciate it um so the school committee held an executive session on 9 12. um

064i we're going to have to say may culpa on a little bit of it the link that was posted for the public this was an emergency executive session emergency meeting um that went directly into an executive session the link to um for the public to attend the meeting where we said we're going into executive session was inaccurate um i we sort of were moving so quickly it didn't happen as it normally would or the process didn't take place as it norm normally would and so i'm going to sort of do a culpa on that one it was never anyone's intention to not be up front and direct and that we were going to be holding a meeting so so please just given our times and things like that if you would um forgive us yeah

065i just want to let you know that um i saw that immediately and i was about to say and i'm throwing this back to the chair yeah thank you um and thank you for taking over i think he's asleep we'll see um so did you already take the vote or is this just the intro okay um and the other thing i would would add is that we immediately reported ourselves for open meeting law violation the monday after the meeting um and what we were told to do is is bring the executive session vote to the public session which we are doing tonight and um i would actually ask that recording secretary susan farber can read for us the uh motion that we passed that evening so that we can vote again in public yes um

066there are two motions and the first one reads that the school committee appoint one or more attendance officers for a period not to exceed october 10th with the purpose to assist the superintendent with registration and attendance as school opens thank you and uh i would take a uh move yep and a second second that was holland member holland's a member extreme and we'll just go we've already discussed we can just go right to a vote remember johnson moussade um well i think that it may be useful to give the public some sense of for people to actually you want to have a discussion well yeah i think i think so yeah okay go ahead okay discussion i wasn't at the meeting i guess i was wondering if people who voted for it would speak for

067why they voted for it and sure okay what i recollect sure go ahead member collins please what i recollect was there was a pressing issue having to do with parents saying school opened in a few days and they couldn't register their children and um the issue was attendance assistance and registrar assistance and um after a discussion about what was probably needed to support the superintendent this motion was made there were some uh more specific detailed motions uh proposed before that uh maybe not finalized but the idea was to leave it flexible for the superintendent so in whatever way we could support getting the help needed to make sure all the children were registered as promptly as possible i think there were only three days till school opened and that's why it said up to and

068with an amount and it was left open for the superintendent to do what the superintendent thought was most useful thank you remember collins um further discussion or clarification what have you comments was there um the the meeting was scheduled on a friday it took place on a saturday were there actions that took place on monday and tuesday that could not have happened if the meeting was not scheduled uh on an emergency basis in other words if if a meeting had been posted for wednesday it would have been within the the regular the ordinary um order of business but or public meeting law kind of uh requirements so what happened on monday and tuesday that that could only happen because this meeting happened respond to that please i'm not sure who said that that was susan

069i didn't have any idea what the meeting was about till i got there but according to the attorney general uh guidance an emergency meeting is okay if there's something sudden and unexpected comes up that must be dealt with then school started on thursday i believe correct and and parents were contacting other people not i but other people that they couldn't register their children the phones weren't being answered there were only three days to school so i think everybody present had a sense that it was an appropriate emergency situation to get some action to support children registering for school i don't think i don't know what happened on monday tuesday or wednesday but i don't think meeting on wednesday about what to do about families that hadn't registered for thursday would have been adequate myself further

070discussion thank you member holmes further discussion anyone okay i'm sorry who is that is that uh superintendent harper i just wanted to note i don't care to um say much here i just i believe member holland said everybody present and i would just ask individual members to speak for themselves and perhaps let the record show that that's an individual comment from member hollins and not representative of everyone present i'm sorry i meant school committee members who were voting thank you thank you for the clarification other comments yes please is that remember extreme yep go ahead so the intention of the meeting originally had been to discuss a registrar and where we had been with hiring of that person um and it wasn't i had to go deal with my dog so if i'm repeating things

071that people have said let me know um and the intention was where are we with the status of that hire as we had the discussion we came to the realization that there were a number of students that had registered on paper but had not been registered within the computer system and so therefore part of our discussion because school was starting on thursday was that we need to make some sort of plan to make sure that these things happen as soon as they possibly can and so we discussed um is it that we hire temps to get the people into the system do we have some administrators to do this work and um unfortunately may have morphed into something that that was an open meeting law violation however we did check with the various organizations in

072the state as well as our attorney who said no indeed that that it was within purview to have that discussion so that is my recollection and i'm sure that we could find the minutes and prove me correct or incorrect and i'm okay with that as well um the intention had been wholly to make sure and ensure that these students were registered electronically so that they would receive or the as the discussion went on so that they were to receive updates from the schools or if they needed some sort of if they needed to to receive a chromebook that there was some electronic record that these students were enrolled and indeed indeed did need those materials i'm good thank you member extra other comments discussion from school committee members this is a member karen go ahead

073katie please um i just i i think um i was my understanding of meeting and the reason it had to be emergency was for the reason that susan spoke that it come to the attention in the very brief time before the meeting that many people on the committee had been contacted it certainly was not an intention of saying someone wasn't doing their job it certainly wasn't the intention to hide things from the public um it was you know parents had reached out to me i had helped them through the process and then it turned out that that had been happening to multiple people and so we realized we needed to meet quickly to give all of the support we possibly could before school started that's why it was an emergency not because we need yes

074we need to discuss hiring a registrar that is an important piece of that but that isn't an emergent thing where there wasn't going to be a thing we couldn't hire a registrar by monday so we needed to give emergency support and i think that that's an important part of this conversation just so that we are clear of why we called it as an emergency meeting and i mean i didn't call it because i'm not sure but um anyway yeah so i just think that for me the reason we called it was to make sure we could give support to the superintendent in a fast manner that could not have waited till wednesday um i guess that's all i have to say about that thank you member karen any further discussion okay so let's go ahead

075and take retake that vote remember johnson moussad would you do a roll call for us please yes vice chair extra yes member hollins yes secretary johnson i'm going to abstain chair priority yes remember well yes mayor wiedergardner if you're speaking i cannot hear you and maybe we've lost you all together it is uh mute and her camera is off as far as i can see okay so we have slipped away um i guess mayor wiedergardner is absent as well okay so the motion carries with five votes yep great thank you very much and thank you all for uh making sure we got that through um before we move into executive session at 7 30 i appreciate everyone uh talking about that so okay did you oh i'm sorry um thank you glenn uh susan farber

076would you read the second motion for us please yes to set the compensation for temporary attendance officer appointments at an amount not to exceed ten thousand dollars at the superintendent's discretion thank you so does someone want to move that now in public session can we motion to affirm the exact wording i'll do either one um you can say so moved that's fine motion to affirm is fine motion to affirm okay that was remember holland's in a second second i don't know who that was remember extra maybe yeah okay any discussion do you do you want me to try and explain what i recall whatever whatever i think it's useful to the public to have a sense not just of the votes but the conversation itself the conversation was was that this was temporary we were

077trying to get school open and what was an amount of money uh this is would be non-union personnel and uh we put an amount but didn't divide it up and i think some of the discussion was that there were different um it was the supernatural discretion but there were different rates already established in the district for different types of substitutes and tutors and part-time personnel that were non-union and so there were references and that we didn't know who the people would be or what their background was and we just put an amount of money i think it was through october 16th or something so it was a short time the idea was to leave it to the superintendent's discretion put a comment could i comment please on mute yes go ahead please comment so i

078just want to note that there was some interest in ensuring that we had all students registered and in seats by october 1st which was as i understood at the purpose of the emergency financial reason today is october 1st i'm happy to report that the friday before the meeting we had offered a candidate for registrar the position they didn't accept it based on the salary we have another candidate who's quite experienced who we've offered the position to and we were continuing to interview and offer the position regardless of the committee's action in this regard we were moving through that because it is in fact an administrative not a school committee function to hire the registrar so that was ongoing independent of this however the urgency around registering for october 1st was addressed that same day we

079learned that the candidate it was offered to on the friday declined the former registrar who had retired in fact returned to work with the district and has capably and ably been serving the district since that time we're really glad and grateful for her assistance while we have continued our interviewing and all students are registered all students are in seats we have i believe it's 77 students that have choiced into greenfield um and that's impressive in light of the committee's decision to start in the remote only mode that says a lot about the quality of our remote learning program and i'm very pleased that all of the students have been able to be assisted and that at the schools there is outreach efforts going on to ensure that students are attending including our work to develop

080an attendance policy which we're currently negotiating about what counts as attendance following the department of education guidelines and working with this remote environment you have to create all new codes in powerschool and define what it looks like to attend which is very different when you're not physically attending so i do want to say that i appreciate the vote however the timing of it being on october 1st as opposed to prior in public does pose some timing intricacies as well you superintendent harper any further questions comments discussion okay so let's go ahead and do a roll call vote on this remember karen yes vice chair extra yes member hollins yes secretary johnson i'm going to abstain chair priority yes member wall yes mayor rita gardner yes the motion carries with six votes chair priority i have

081another motion on this item please i move that the school committee through the chair seek a written determination from council about any open meeting law violations related to the september 12 2020 meeting and recommend recommendation to address them and include all member and superintendent communications about the meeting in their review seconded who was that remember karen yes okay we have a motion and a second any discussion this is susan barber i did that went too fast i didn't get it remember johnson thank you i can't absolutely certainly i move that the school committee through the chair seek a written determination from council about any open meeting law violations related to the september 12 2020 meeting and recommendations to redress them and include all member and superintendent communications about the meeting in their review how was

082that how are you yes i do thank you um i can just speak to why i wanted to make this motion um which is just that i just think for the good of the order um i know that council has been consulted and some of the items on tonight's agenda are related to their recommendations however i just for the just for complete transparency i think it's important that the uh attorney who's reviewing it have access to all the communications about it and not just the kind of report on what happened from um from the chair or other other officers of the school committee and and that we get a written determination so that the public can see that the council's recommendations and determination comment please remember hollins go ahead well the the following day following

083monday i contacted the attorney general's office and had a discussion about the whole meeting the reason it was called i didn't know about the meeting before it was called um and i sent a report that same day to the chair and i don't think any and i understood that the chair also had guidance from the um from an attorney and in my report i talked about what the cure was if there had been but i don't think anybody can anyway i there are a lot of things we do i think need to be checked on like there was a comment tonight that if you take a motion a non-public session it it doesn't carry unless you make it again in the later sessions a lot of technical issues but i i think we checked on

084it right away and had feedback from both the attorney general's office so i don't see the need to do a big investigation we've explained the circumstance and the cure is to the cure if there was an infraction is to bring up the discussion again and vote again in public session and we've done that and i think people had a situation would i what i experienced is that it was an emergency situation how to call it it did involve some things that were confidential for union reasons and some things that weren't and it was just confusing we decided we would look it up afterwards so i don't see the need to pursue it personally looks like it was pursued and addressed any further discussion the mayor is raising her hand mayor partner you got to speak

085up yes i get it now i get it thank you third time's the charm um i um i just want to remind everybody it was an executive session so whatever it is that you want to release we need to make sure that we're in agreement on how we release it and that's probably what this vote is about but i just want to make sure that we're in agreement that everything that um member uh johnson mossad is asking for is uh releasable you're gonna follow up on that and say yes what the mayor is saying is true because anything that would be affected by that meeting has already taken place and therefore the minutes could be released which is something that we're actually working on this is member karen i have a question or a comment

086go ahead member karen please um i sort of i i view this motion um as just a clear outline it's not that i don't have trust in the conversations that were had with the lawyers i was not privy to them and they were in on a phone call so there's not really a way to like um you know have a transcript of them it would just make me feel more comfortable to have a written conversation with a lawyer that can be very transparent to the public but also to me because i am culpable for breaking open meeting law and i would like to know exactly with a written statement how to be sure i changed i stood up and did what needed to be done and i think that the record should hold that so

087that we are always proving publicly with written form something someone can look at read whatever not just say oh yeah no i talked to the lawyer and this is what he said to do and i'm not saying that that's was purposefully done or intentional to um it was just needs to be done quickly so we can make the next step and i respect that but i think that by going this level we're getting a very clear written plan of what we need to do and it may be hey you already did it good job but i just think that would be a really great way to completely have transparency with the public thank you member karen any other discussion i'll just add to clarify that in addition to the the notes from the meeting i'm

088also included in this is uh to include all member and superintendent communications about the meeting um because i think that's gonna that's gonna be an important piece and i just wanna make sure people when they're voting understand that the the request for the documentation and that's to go not to the public but to the council um for i mean the the public may request any of these items they they wish to because of uh you know public record requests and whatnot but but my my recommendation is that this information goes to council to have a full picture of the different perspectives and the different things that happened in the scheduling and discussion about the meeting before and after the meeting thank you other questions comments discussion [Music] okay hearing none we'll move to a vote

089remember karen yes vice chair ekstrom sure member hollins oh stan secretary johnson i'm a yes chair priority uh sure yes yes mayor rita gardner yes the motion carries with six votes thank you okay chairman this is good question regarding the agenda please i i believe this may be out of um robert's rules so please forgive me i'm noting that we have about six minutes before we move into executive session i just simply want to bring to the committee's attention that one of the items on the agenda tonight under the budget and finance recommendations is very time sensitive and there's action required by october 5th i don't know if that can occur tonight with the time we have but i am just wanting to bring to the committee's attention that if that vote does not occur

090tonight um we either may need to have an another meeting on short order there's just a time sensitive agenda item uh relative to the vans and chair it's entirely up to you i simply want to just note that given the short amount of time before we moved into executive session so i saw i i appreciate that and i saw the information in your superintendent's report um in is this should this have been listed as a separate item from referred from the budget subcommittee is that what you're saying um i believe that agenda item reads items referred from budget committee okay so and i didn't i didn't specifically increase information um came forward this evening from our business office i spoke to the business manager about it earlier this evening we did just receive a final

091number upon which the committee may take a vote again it doesn't have to happen tonight but there is a deadline of october 5th which is monday yeah i think it would be tomorrow and monday in terms of business days before that can be resolved um yeah i agree i think that would be something that is important for us to cover this evening so you all can do the moves that you need to do comment uh i'd like it if someone made a motion before we take any comments the motion would be to adopt in a revised agenda to put this item next i don't sit at a computer all day because i'm not working but the a long amount of information on this was sent out at 2 55 today it was attached to a

092very long superintendent report so if you didn't read through the entire superintendent report you wouldn't have seen it but it was all the history on this uh issue the discussion emails back and forth conversations with attorney i think personally unless people have read all of that it's complicated and we've only just had the information i mean i read it 10 minutes before the meeting started but it hasn't been it was only sent out at three o'clock today some of the just some of this is carried over from the budget committee there was a fairly substantial amount of discussion we had surrounding the vans um and so i don't think there's any reason that we couldn't share everything i know susan that you have questions and we should absolutely answer those which i think is part

093of this discussion just uh to be clear with the motion on the table is a motion to adopt an uh agenda to discuss this next right it's a two-thirds vote to to adopt an amended agenda so should we go ahead and have that vote now yes what would be the alternative if the vote wasn't positive and we had a deadline just so i know to amendment if the vote wasn't positive to amend the agenda yeah what would be an alternative to address this issue with the timeline i suspect we'd have to have an emergency meeting okay just for this to be yeah to be timely with this the the district and the superintendent and the business manager need need some movement made on this that that's what i would think i feel free to someone

094correct me okay so i will pick this up and i will make a motion to purchase a honda sorry sorry uh vice chair extra we haven't had a vote yet on the motion to adopt an amended agenda so that we can tell you that's now of course apologies are you ready for votes on that if you are i can't hear you go ahead sorry okay remember karen yes vice chair ekstrom remember hollins no secretary johnson yes chair priyetti yes remember well yes mayor rita gardner yes the motion carries with more than a two-thirds vote so we can amend the agenda okay so we will uh open discussion regarding the vans let's start with a let's start with the motion please i'd like to make a motion to purchase the recently repossessed van for the school

095district this would be a purchase outright do we have an amount yes i'm i'm pulling it up it's in the materials and i'll pull it up for you right now it's 29 282 dollars and 27 cents thank you andy candy susan farber do you have what you need including the amount i'd like could you take them out so i'm sure please sure 27 282.27 i'm all set thank you okay did i get a second yet on the motion no do i have a second we can do this just for chatting if that's what it means second was that that was remember karen yeah second for member karen and let's move to discussion okay i have a couple questions one is do we still need the van what's the what is the original purchase price of

096the van and how much have we paid toward it i figure we've paid about nine thousand dollars on a thirty two thousand dollar van but i'm not sure what the numbers are uh mayor wiedergartner here i would i would um echo susan's questions being answered uh before we take a vote do we absolutely i think we also need a little bit of background but annie can you provide that for us what is the amount that was has previously been paid this is a a long and involved story and i may leave that up to you yes i'm searching for that if you give me a second here i can start the story if you'd like while i find that amount sure go ahead so and it's it's really just going to be a recap of

097what the attachments were but the issue apparently started with prior to uh when mr number car was still here there was a payment that we submitted to this leasing company that was misapplied to a different account altogether and then what ended up happening is then we received bills uh subsequent to that from again mr nemerkov's time forward that uh ended up resulting in this missed payment still trying to be researched adding to this um confluence of events where the fact that ally was assessing late fees for that missed payment is in addition to other invoices and then uh so we don't pay late fees and so ultimately what ended up happening is that uh mr number cow felt the least evidence of the information that we received that uh ally was that's the name of

098the leasing company getting i'll say pushy for lack of a better phrase uh and therefore uh he referred the matter to legal counsel and then you start to see the in the attachments where uh for whatever reason the ally sent a letter to us in may that was then for received in august and the information was forwarded to peter smith attorney smith had reached out to allies at least two times trying to get information to try and resolve this and the numerous times that the business office reached out to the leasing company uh they we were told that they would not talk to us because uh the matter was referred to council so we were kind of for lack of a better phrase flying blind uh but we continued to make payments on our vans

099uh that we had received uh and so uh the issue is then that with this outstanding balance of the misapplied payment in addition to what they're claiming on the late fees uh they felt they being ally felt it was in their right to uh uh repossess the 2019 honda odyssey van we have made payments to date on that van i'd say remember hollins was very close to that it was about 9 000 and excuse me you know um eight thousand nine hundred seventy dollars and seventy eight cents thanks andy the other question is what's what's the purchase price of the van am i right it was around thirty thousand uh the amount uh that we have we would have to purchase it out right now is that the amount that i listed the twenty nine

100thousand right but but so it was like a 30 sorry no i just wondered the price of the van initially not with interest and everything uh i don't have that amount initially uh the initial price of the van i just have the amounts paid and then the amount of the balance would be due uh including obviously the interest on that i have not had access to mr number cows files so well the other piece i think to add that's important is that we added the district added thousands of dollars worth of equipment to this van after it was purchased about seven thousand dollars worth of equipment to the van after his purchase that is still in the van that obviously also correct yes i see can i ask some questions please go ahead remember so

101in the materials that were included with the superintendent's um distribution today there are two different vans that are discussed one is account number xxx last four being seven three seven eight and there's an identical letter for account number 7361 so that's two separate vans and i know that since we've sort of been working through this that kristen um our assistant business person i'm certain i have the wrong title um has been able to get through to them and cleared up that yes indeed the payments were applied incorrectly and having been applied correctly we are now up to date as much as we could be we're still waiting on some more information so my question is do we need to purchase this van outright since we've been making payments on it or is it that we

102can continue to make payments on it based on those based on ally acknowledging that they had made a mistake and went so far as to repossess one of our vans that we had been making payments on due to their mistake i guess and with the i'll say the the disclaimer that i'm not an attorney that's right that uh the fact that they've taken repossession of the van that the the way i read is with their notice of plan to sell the property that regardless of us um regardless of their admitting that they screwed up how they were allocating funds yes and also the fact that uh um their intent to sell so that since they're intending to sell that the recourse available to us is to purchase it outright um we so i guess that

103is the my i'd say when i read their notice of our plan to sell property taken and quite honestly i can say that uh with i just want to get out of doing business with this well yeah i just want to say that and regarding that regardless i'll say whichever uh avenue the committee chooses to do uh even for the remaining vans we have been working with both miss gilman and the procurement office regarding other leasing companies to potentially have them take over this lease for the remainder of the vehicles that we have under lease due to the issues we've been having uh there are better leasing companies out there so uh i i just would share with you that you know the action tonight from the committee if the recommendation to go forward and

104purchase this fan outright uh is the first step of uh what i would say is a two-step process of getting the van back and then getting a new leasing company to take over this lease and has anyone called peter at this point our attorney and said how is it that you got involved like what was the reason that this was referred to as far as his understanding um i guess i would say i don't know if anyone specifically asked him but since the fact that the communications referenced mr number cow referring the matter to peter smith i reached out to mr number and his explanation to me was that they were being i'll say bullies in the fact that he said that they were calling him at home they were calling his family regarding seeking

105payment since his name was on the lease even though as he signed it as a business manager so he deemed that it rose to the level of needing legal counsel um handling so that is my understanding based on the conversation that i had with him with mr denim cow or with our attorney number number okay could i ask you a question please mayor wiedergartner and then i see susan holland's hands up you can go after uh roxanne go ahead okay so i still haven't heard the answer to the question do we need this van uh because i know that we have in the interim purchased uh additional vans um not from this company which is probably a very good thing based on what i'm hearing here um so i think we need before we take

106a vote if i'm correct in what the motion was um before we take a vote i i think we need to ascertain the reality of whether we really need this ban and i recognize that um that we have already spent some money towards purchasing the van and apparently outfitting the van appropriately sometimes you have to know when to cut bait and run so mayor i can speak to that from my conversations with ed vudran our transportation coordinator i asked him that question that was one of my first questions and he said we absolutely need this vehicle we're using it on a day-to-day basis um the seven thousand dollars of equipment that's in the van would be immediately recouped if we were to get this van back um and you know there's really question about whether

107they provided adequate notice the letter was dated significantly before it was received in the business office [Music] i apologize that's right so that that is um the information i can share with you regarding the vehicle how are we using it how are we using it daily if it has been repossessed and who is being transported in this van and where are they going to expect that it's not currently in use on a day-to-day basis because it is not in our possession at the moment but it it it would be okay if it was up to me i would cut and run on the vans that have been recently recently purchased and not this honda any further questions or discussions yes i recognize that i recognize susan's statement but i think it's a separate issue from

108the one we're dealing with it is indeed yes we can move on uh i have a question remember johnson moussa please just following up with mayor rita gardner's question just waiting please just throw it out there just getting frustrated i can see her i'm frustrated i just thought i was going after them speaking yes um following up on mayor rita gardner's comments uh i think the other part of her question in in addition to it obviously it's not being used now because it's been repossessed but how was the van being used before it was repossessed so i i think and i i don't want to interrupt uh if superintendent harper wants to speak to it my understanding is that before the shutdown these vans were used on a daily basis for out of district transport

109they also are used to transport students from other districts to other things and they also are used for athletics and um in the current situation our drivers are still working um regularly they have a number of transportation projects that they are that they are doing for the district currently i don't have specific details on that but there is a meal delivery happening there are supplies deliveries happening and other items that i don't again i don't know what the superintendent has but that is stuff i've heard directly from advodrun thank you they've also been used for students in our district i know my daughter was picked up by one of them on a regular basis until not yeah um so member hollins remember holland go ahead yes thank you i don't know i only read all

110the emails and everything at all just before the meeting but this is my concern we voted on june 12 219 to purchase three vehicles and the discussion and the record says specifically not to lease but to purchase i don't even understand why we didn't purchase them and why we have some kind of arrangement is 7.99 when the city's rate is one or two percent so i just don't understand why we're in this situation to begin with when we voted to purchase vehicles we've purchased them and are making monthly payments on them they aren't being leased it's a yeah it's a vernacular thing if that's the right word to use we have asked the same question multiple times but it's a little ultimate and we're not was never my understanding voting for this that it was

111anything other than we're going to pay it out and we said so i don't understand why we're paying eight percent on a loan that's all so remember remember if i may remember holland's year uh you're absolutely right as far as the uh i say you're questioning and the answer we received when we because i was asked to research this with liz gilman and liz gilman's response to me was that it is a purchase but for what their financial disclosure requirements are it had to be structured as what she called underneath the municipal finance a capital lease which again back to the vernacular that is a purchase for what it is that was required by the city but it is something that we are paying unfortunately what for all intents and purposes is a lease and

112then also i will add to that that uh hence the exploration of other leasing companies at a much better rate as recommended and some admittedly i'll say some leasing companies that i've worked with and other clients that could get us at a much better rate than what we're currently doing now thank you andy for always answering the questions no problem he does do a good job at that he does other questions comments discussion i guess it's time to move to a vote can someone remind me what the motion is please maybe susan farber can you read us the motion again sure i can do that to purchase the recently pr read i'm sorry i'll start over to purchase the recently repossessed van for the school district as a purchase outright for 29 282 dollars and

11320 cents thank you and let's move to a vote remember johnson would you do a roll call please remember karen yes vice chair extra yes remember hollins yes secretary johnson yes chair proyetty yeah okay member wall ears thinking mayor rita gardner i abstain i wasn't here in 2019. i read the record but i really don't know i abstain is good thank you can we can we know where this is going to be paid from or have a motion about that i think that's a smart idea uh member johnson the motion passed correct the motion did pass yes i did have one more question please remember and then we'll talk about well is it related to where the money's coming from your question no go ahead it's extra and oh sorry susan tell your voices apart

114i know that's okay uh susan hollins asked about us knowing where the money came from um this doesn't have to be answered [Music] our initial vote on these vans that it wouldn't bump out money from our budget for students and it whatever we're paying was coming out of this revolving fund for transportation so i want to know where it's coming from this 29 000. it would be that transportation revolving account would be my recommendation could i make that motion please go ahead and i move that the 29 000 the exact amount that we voted tonight uh be paid from the transportation revolving fund second i think that was member extreme with the second yes discussion um remember we gardner please go ahead do we know that we have the adequate amount of money in the

115revolving account that's an important question yes we do in addition to the existing contracts that we have that we will be receiving payment for for this year so um i am comfortable with it being charged there thank you andy for answering the question further questions or discussion i still have a question but i don't know because i don't want to close out quite this van topic quite yet so again when i'm looking at these letters they're for two different vans looks like we're going to be purchasing 7378 so what's going on with seven three six one we don't have to have the answer now but i've asked a few times and i i haven't got one yet so let's see if we can try to get some more information on that for uh for the

116next meeting i'll put the vans on uh the meeting agenda for october 14th because i have additional questions that i don't feel are a timely piece for tonight and that are bigger than just this discussion with the vans but they're related to things we've uncovered as a part of the van i need to come up it's like van gate and then gate 2. um uh so further discussion related to the motion for uh the payment okay so let's move to a vote on that please remember johnson moussan boy okay i'm gonna put on my checklist unmute yourself okay remember karen yes vice chair extreme yes remember hollins yes secretary johnson i'm a yes chair priority yes never well yes mary wiedergardner yes the motion carries unanimously should we send our questions to you if this

117is going to come up on an agenda or just wait the agenda item will be called van vans or van discussion it will be that it will be that wide open um like i said we have uncovered layers of questions related to this and we need to keep it open-ended because we need to do it in a public session thank you thank you for the question okay we have uh basically shot to hack our timeline for the night but we tried and um i would entertain at this point a motion to put on the table until october 14th the remaining new business items under section 5 of the agenda so moved and a second second second and member wall first for the second any discussion of that hearing none let's do a roll call vote

118on that no actually i was speaking that i was on mute sorry go ahead please remember not to miss out thank you chair priority um i guess i i thought the item about the budget stuff that needed to be handled tonight was about the 112th it wasn't that is not a pressing agenda item oh okay great thank you thank you further discussion um is that remember karen um on i feel like we covered this in the superintendent's report but i don't have the agenda in front of me but i do believe one of the items was a discussion of the remote learning plan indeed okay i just wanna you know i'm totally fine with tabling the rest of the agenda but i just wanna put it out there that we did talk about it in

119the superintendent's report and that we always welcome emails and questions and comments however um um but i don't want people to think if they missed that part of it that we didn't talk about it at all correct thank you for that clarification that's an important one any other further discussion about tabling the new business items that are remaining okay hearing them let's do a roll call vote on that please remember karen yes vice chair ekstrom yes member hollins yes secretary johnson i'm a yes chair poi yeti yes remember well yes mayor wiedergardner yes motion carries unanimously okay so now we're into section six executive session may be called i'm gonna read it mass general law c30a 21 exemptions number two three and seven two is to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union

120personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel exemption 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have detrimental effects on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares and exemption to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or federal grant and aid requirements and the chair does declare if i have a motion to move into executive session remember johnson with the motion in a second that was mayor wiedegartner and any discussion of that only would you send a link uh i will resend it please thank you i will send i will resend the link for the executive session to the school committee members i'm i'm in a thought process now

121about whether or not um we will need to return and leave this session open do i have any guidance from anyone the superintendent or otherwise if we should leave open the public session to come back for a vote it doesn't seem required but maybe i'm one step behind um are you thinking of the minutes if if they're released i i don't believe there's anything that requires coming back that was public session that was the only thing thank you that was the one thing i was thinking about so okay we will not return to this meeting after our executive session so we will close this meeting um uh at this point uh so we've opened no we need to vote to open executive session and then we'll have to adjourn the public session is that the

122right order i believe it is okay remember johnson moussad would you do a roll call vote please on the on the motion to go into executive session remember karen yes vice chair extreme yes remember hollins yes secretary johnson i'm yes chair proyetty yes member wall yes mayor reader gardener yes hey the motion to go into executive session carries okay and then a motion to adjourn the public session so moved member johnson wassada in a second second i don't know who that was uh let's see what we'll call vote on that please remember karen yes nice chair extra yep remember hollins yes secretary johnson i'm a yes chair priority yes member wall yes mayor rita gardner yes washington carries all right i'm sending uh the school committee folks all a link right now to the executive

123session we'll see you there let's take a five-minute break and we'll see you there thank you to the public for being here tonight [Music] you